/lit/ - Literature

>it's another book about a sad neet, but this time guys... guys listen, this time it's meta

I wrote out some nuanced critique but the posting fucked up. Basically it's good and I like it, but watch your comma-enclosed descriptors.
>welled up, suddenly, corrosively, dissolving
Like that. I think there might be too many.

>>12505224
needs more spirit
maybe live a little

>>12505257
>The notion of uselessness welled up, suddenly, corrosively, dissolving the productive thoughts into embarrassment.
yep, might even look better with a semicolon or emdash to break it up
>The notion of uselessness welled up, suddenly, corrosively -- productive thoughts dissolve into embarrassment.
not bad though op

I am no longer the sort of person another will mention in passing with description and caricature. No longer the sort of person who, if brought up in conversation by others, will be lauded with an ah and a yes. I knew him, he was like so, and did sorts of things like this, I enjoyed these qualities, were confused by some others, and disliked many more. I have passed from individual to statistic, to a person I knew or knew of who had and did die of cancer, which is met with a shake of a head, an apology, and another one, who this other knew who had died from another sort of cancer. I learned this without fanfare under long fluorescent bulbs above white linoleum, confused and naked beneath the slim blue gown the doctors had me draped. What nobody told me, how could they, is that the phrase "You have cancer," is avoided, replaced with "We found something," spoken in the voice of Hollywood Death, which is to say, soberly and without pause. They inform you of their suspicions, the data which is actually yourself, the next steps, before giving you a printout of the same, knowing well that you cannot possibly be listening with a stare that passes through them and instead toward something you cannot place or fathom but is nevertheless coming. If you do not kill yourself soon after this point you can never do it with grace nor confidence. Here onward is just a withering.

>>12505224
You gotta work on the theme.Stop writing unoriginal shit.
Write something new

>>12505682
Your piece is too joycean. Learn to use punctuation to allow the reader to see where the breaks belong. There are other issues that will be more readily discerned once Joyce is exorcised.

>>12505224


Not one callous in fifteen years. Not a one. Barely any scratches, scrapes, neither a scar nor a scab. The wrists are lanky, with slight veins. They are knobby and clumsy, about the width of a good baton twirler's though twirling or tumbling or really anything so over-energetic is needless and, in the intimate sense, embarrassing. The seasonal bracelet. That's more like it. A little few tinkling things, charms, nothing over-formal or over-adultlike aside from the occasional uninformed gift, worn obligingly, sometimes, when whomever is around to be obliged. Those uninformed and dissatisfying gifts, (not just of wrist jewelry but also of the hundred kinds of summery gowns, belle-hairbows, and shoes), are not returned to store but simply are left lying in the dark. In the closet, dresser, lockchest. They lie till they're outgrown (no longer happening) or till whomever is to be obliged dims into senility, fades from society, or dies in any other way. And a lot like death, the wrists are scented.

The wrists are scented unforgettably, like death, fragrances and lotions and soaps, the scents of these mixed into one as to haze over and to be shocked into the memory glands. And like death's scent is not solely the body's scent, the wrists' scent is not solely their skin's. The wrists' scent rises from the skin, who hazes, then up through the deathly moment (an obliging caress, for instance), who shocks. Like whoever dies. And like aching fright and like frightening ache. The wrists lead smooth into the palms.

And the palms are tender, smally folded, a bit lengthy. They tend to dampen during over-social, unintimate moments who keep them folded-up and shut. Dressy parties. And the dressy parties with friends. And the hot, dressy weddings. The hot, dressy, rained-out weddings with a hundred strangers with muddy shoes crowding in the hot draining-roof chapel. Stomping. Agitated as all Hell and eyeing everywhere. Not a week later and another of these dressy hot weddings. But the groom's mother asks too sweetly to possibly duck the hot blast of standing stiff as a post for a group marina photo with another hundred stiffs near the humid lake in the hot sun for half an hour. Not a one. But the closest the palms have come to callousing is the bicycle's handles. The backtrail. But the bicycle is long since housed, dusty: over-childlike and, alternately, over-stereotypical. Long since abandoned for Mom's car, for wishing for Mom's car, and the palms tensely steer its genuine leatherskin wheel. And it is not the regular paint-drying sensation of entitlement but it is living driving rushing excitement and reddened self-conscious eagerness with whom the palms are tense. Possibly becoming whom is decently become.

>>12505224


>Not one callous in fifteen years. Not a one. Barely any scratches, scrapes, neither a scar nor a scab. The wrists are lanky, with slight veins. They are knobby and clumsy, about the width of a good baton twirler's though twirling or tumbling or really anything so over-energetic is needless and, in the intimate sense, embarrassing. The seasonal bracelet. That's more like it. A little few tinkling things, charms, nothing over-formal or over-adultlike aside from the occasional uninformed gift, worn obligingly, sometimes, when whomever is around to be obliged. Those uninformed and dissatisfying gifts, (not just of wrist jewelry but also of the hundred kinds of summery gowns, belle-hairbows, and shoes), are not returned to store but simply are left lying in the dark. In the closet, dresser, lockchest. They lie till they're outgrown (no longer happening) or till whomever is to be obliged dims into senility, fades from society, or dies in any other way. And a lot like death, the wrists are scented.

>The wrists are scented unforgettably, like death, fragrances and lotions and soaps, the scents of these mixed into one as to haze over and to be shocked into the memory glands. And like death's scent is not solely the body's scent, the wrists' scent is not solely their skin's. The wrists' scent rises from the skin, who hazes, then up through the deathly moment (an obliging caress, for instance), who shocks. Like whoever dies. And like aching fright and like frightening ache. The wrists lead smooth into the palms.

>And the palms are tender, smally folded, a bit lengthy. They tend to dampen during over-social, unintimate moments who keep them folded-up and shut. Dressy parties. And the dressy parties with friends. And the hot, dressy weddings. The hot, dressy, rained-out weddings with a hundred strangers with muddy shoes crowding in the hot draining-roof chapel. Stomping. Agitated as all Hell and eyeing everywhere. Not a week later and another of these dressy hot weddings. But the groom's mother asks too sweetly to possibly duck the hot blast of standing stiff as a post for a group marina photo with another hundred stiffs near the humid lake in the hot sun for half an hour. Not a one. But the closest the palms have come to callousing is the bicycle's handles. The backtrail. But the bicycle is long since housed, dusty: over-childlike and, alternately, over-stereotypical. Long since abandoned for Mom's car, for wishing for Mom's car, and the palms tensely steer its genuine leatherskin wheel. And it is not the regular paint-drying sensation of entitlement but it is living driving rushing excitement and reddened self-conscious eagerness with whom the palms are tense. Possibly becoming whom is decently become.

>>12505224


>Not one callous in fifteen years. Not a one. Barely any scratches, scrapes, neither a scar nor a scab. The wrists are lanky, with slight veins. They are knobby and clumsy, about the width of a good baton twirler's though twirling or tumbling or really anything so over-energetic is needless and, in the intimate sense, embarrassing. The seasonal bracelet. That's more like it. A little few tinkling things, charms, nothing over-formal or over-adultlike aside from the occasional uninformed gift, worn obligingly, sometimes, when whomever is around to be obliged. Those uninformed and dissatisfying gifts, (not just of wrist jewelry but also of the hundred kinds of summery gowns, belle-hairbows, and shoes), are not returned to store but simply are left lying in the dark. In the closet, dresser, lockchest. They lie till they're outgrown (no longer happening) or till whomever is to be obliged dims into senility, fades from society, or dies in any other way. And a lot like death, the wrists are scented.

>The wrists are scented unforgettably, like death, fragrances and lotions and soaps, the scents of these mixed into one as to haze over and to be shocked into the memory glands. And like death's scent is not solely the body's scent, the wrists' scent is not solely their skin's. The wrists' scent rises from the skin, who hazes, then up through the deathly moment (an obliging caress, for instance), who shocks. Like whoever dies. And like aching fright and like frightening ache. The wrists lead smooth into the palms.

>And the palms are tender, smally folded, a bit lengthy. They tend to dampen during over-social, unintimate moments who keep them folded-up and shut. Dressy parties. And the dressy parties with friends. And the hot, dressy weddings. The hot, dressy, rained-out weddings with a hundred strangers with muddy shoes crowding in the hot draining-roof chapel. Stomping. Agitated as all Hell and eyeing everywhere. Not a week later and another of these dressy hot weddings. But the groom's mother asks too sweetly to possibly duck the hot blast of standing stiff as a post for a group marina photo with another hundred stiffs near the humid lake in the hot sun for half an hour. Not a one. But the closest the palms have come to callousing is the bicycle's handles. The backtrail. But the bicycle is long since housed, dusty: over-childlike and, alternately, over-stereotypical. Long since abandoned for Mom's car, for wishing for Mom's car, and the palms tensely steer its genuine leatherskin wheel. And it is not the regular paint-drying sensation of entitlement but it is living driving rushing excitement and reddened self-conscious eagerness with whom the palms are tense. Possibly becoming whom is decently become.

>>12505224
Completely devoid of meaning

>>12506310
based sex fiend schizoposter

>>12506321
There was a really abusive thread directed at the jannies last night. Tonight, this image stays on the board for 3.5 hours. Did the jannies have a meltdown?

>>12505224
Usually don't post in here but ding dong diddly OP that was based. I would read the shit out of it if its a full novel

>>12505224
pretty good but "behalves" - really? Your style needs some refining/modernization. I suggest reading more post-1995 fiction to freshen up
, personally

>>12505682
I second the Joyce comment. This needs reformatting and tightening up, significantly

how's mine?

>“Kevin, it’s too late for that now.” Lisa spoke over the sound of car horns in the distance. A streetcar hurdled past, raining sparks from the trolley wire overhead. “Too goddamn late.”
“Cabbie!” I shouted through the rain, waving a leather briefcase containing the last fifteen months’ bank statements, four years’ tax returns, and an affidavit for divorce. The taxi rolled ahead, its rooflight still shining. “Fuck’s sake.”
>Lisa’s scowl peered through the hood of her raincoat. “At this point, to hell with it, I’m getting on the next car.” Makeup streaked down her face, its application liberal, striping a thin, watery black from eyes to jaw. “The hell if I’m going down to the courthouse even one minute late thanks to you.”
>Another streetcar came, arriving like a time warp; it sped along the curb and came to a screaming standstill. We both boarded at the back without remembering to pay.
>“You couldn’t even call up Joe and ask him to watch over the kids, could you?”
>“Lis, keep your voice down,” I said with slow lips, big eyes.
>We clutched the straps hanging from the roof of the car; our bodies thrown at each start, our feet stumbling at every stop. Water sprayed from the tracks onto the curb, dousing busy feet, creating tiny pools on the sidewalk slabs in which the downtown shop lights glimmered.

>>12507815
>arriving like a time warp
What does this mean to you? It is indiscernible to me.

>>12505224

>Something just stirred inside me, in the empty darkness of that room, when I got the feeling my roommate had left for dinner and I was going to be alone again, this agitated me so. Not the thought of being alone by myself, but the future event of having to be hungry later on and going to the eatery by myself, it was this that disillusioned me and agitated me so. No longer fit to see life as a starless tedium, I sprung forth from the comfort of darkness that became overbearing and ran on his doors, like a young child who ran away. Please still be there, I want to eat.

>>12508362
Your punctuation is almost as bad as opie's.

>>12505224
I have snipped away most of what you wrote, because, well... it didn’t really say anything. Your attempt at constructing a creative flame was pitiful. I mean, really, stringing together a bunch of adjectives among a load of babbling was hardly effective... Maybe later in life, after you have learned to read, write, spell, and count, you will have more success. True, these are rudimentary skills that many of us ”normal” people take for granted that everyone has an easy time of mastering. But we sometimes forget that there are ”challenged” persons in this world who find these things more difficult. If I had known that this was your case then I would have never read your post. It just wouldn’t have been ”right”. Sort of like parking in a handicap space. I wish you the best of luck in the emotional, and social struggles that seem to be placing such a demand on you.

>>12508389
I didn't edit and wrote it as it came to my head.

How's the content tho?

>>12505224
>"poorly-lit"
>he hyphenates compound adverbs
Never gonna make it, bro.

>>12508420
0/10

>>12508443
Kk

>>12505224
Pop is tilling the fields: dirty hands leathered and browned and worked hard in the midday sun, the years passing over his straw-hatted head. Deep wrinkle lines and a shaggy silver beard betray his age; the sweat of his brow drip-drops down to water the crops. I watch in awe and rapture from warped window panes, carved portraits by his father in those days when the land was still wild and free, with my yet unblemished hands grasping tight on the sill’s edge in anticipation for the sun to bleed on a dusking Georgia sky.
Momma will tell all who listen that I am the curious child in a brood of six. She will tell them that I was born with a darker skin and lighter hair and that the Lord had put me a bit off so that I may guide the weird and wicked. That I, like most weird men, was destined to be a preacher of some sort, and, by her account, a damned good preacher. Pop would take us to the minister and, upon my baptism at nine, he would echo her sentiments. I was after that robed, cloth-bound in metaphor and sacremented in holy Southern river waters, but the ephemeral propositions of metaphysics always escaped my nature.
I watched my Pop work, now, and then, when I could manage a moment away from scripture. I watched him work in the kitchen with Momma, and the fields, and on that rust-red husk of a VW Bug he kept quarantined from daybreak. He was home and gone all at once, and remained at his duty with a perpetual disturbance behind glen-green and bloodshot eyes. I can remember with visceral distinction the rage he’d fly into when drunk off the unfairness of his childhood, whiskey on his breath, staring endlessly down a void of those apathetic spirits, whom we all saw but none spoke of. I kept to the Book, but I watched him. Momma calls and tells him that dinner has been set and that grace is glory and he need be there to give thanks for the food he eats.

>I feel like I have a solid foundation of both prose and direction, but the scattershot format of these paragraphs kinda leaves me at a loss. Where should I go from here, or what could I do to better tighten up the rythem I'm going for.

>>12508463
I also feel, reading over it again, that the first paragraph needs to be either revised or removed to better fit the flow, but I like it so much that I want to include it in some respect, even if that means gutting it for now and moving it to a move appropriate section after aforementioned rewrites. Thoughts on fixing that?

>>12508420
>How's the content tho?
I am the original critic of your punctuation. You need to fix that first, otherwise any criticism is mercurial. If I say that it's a good piece, yet you do not change it how I would imagine, then we have both wasted our time. Seriously, though, it is difficult to imagine the correct punctuation as I read it to properly understand it. You are going to get responses like the other anon gave you if you do not take the time to present a piece that can be critiqued with reasonable effort.

>>12508572

Noted, I fixed it up.

Something stirred inside me, from sitting there in the empty darkness of my room I got the feeling my roommate had left for dinner and I was going to be alone again, and this had agitated me so. Not the thought of being alone by myself, but the future event of having to be hungry later on and going to the eatery by myself. It was this that disillusioned me and agitated me so. No longer fit to idle life as a starless tedium, I sprung forth from the comfort of darkness that became overbearing and ran on his doors, like a young child who ran away. Please still be there, I want to eat, but not eat alone.

>>12505224
MORE COMMAS

>>12505224
good
and also this:
>>12505257

>>12505224
There’s wrong with prose other than the fact it’s fairly listless.

As>>12505234 implied though, the subject matter is honestly uninteresting and it doesn’t seem like you’re being anything new to the table on that subject.

>>12505234
total lack of imagination from them, along with narcissism. if your life is incredibly boring, and the tale has been told a thousand times, move beyond, create something new

>>12505224

>>12505224
pretentous

>Since I’ve dwelled with you in chambers lofty,
>That, in your absence, I tread softly,
>Harboured in my heart, I have, a love that grows forlorn.

>Of face, of eyes, of shape and form,
>Of lack of all, my love was born.

>To feel the flame, but see no light,
>To feed the Soul with touch, not sight.

>In blindness are we born, and in darkness find the truth:

>To be, upon your lips, the heat which brightly burns,
>The fragrance that, in absence, the heart for yearns,

>Is to, from ethereal notions tenderly educe,

>The eyes have sight, yet the soul has vision.

Needs some work here and there to be tightened up, but only took 20 minutes to come up with, so what the hell.

>>12505224
Stunning.
Subject though... >>12505234 Yeah...

>>12508217
You know how in sci-fi movies an object, usually a vehicle, will "warp" into the scene, as if it popped out thin, distorted air? That's the idea. The streetcar appeared out of nowhere, and seemed to warp into his view (according to the MC's account).

someone wanna critique my poem

two small tipsy toes
slipping, serpent, snake
waking and woke regrets afloat
poe has taught me great
yet I don’t even, care
inflates a vision of despair
don’t push it on for those to bear
and I bear, signs, of sept
unlike all of the old rest
and i just, need, to stare
headlights, deer, and death’s golden flair

>>12506059

>I do not read between the lines
>I follow them as written
>I tread the path set out for me
>And leave the grass to heal
>I do not know what horrors lurk
>Along the trees and rivers
>And what I find beside the path
>Is good enough for me

My favorite poem I've written in a while. what do you guys think?

>>12509856
I like it

>>12509856
Very nice, reminds me of a rhyme you might hear Tom Bombadil sing

>>12505224
This. Try,
>Feelings of inadequacy waxed over him, dissolving all productive thoughts into a disabling notion of embarrassment. Dejected, Arthur sighed deeply, standing up from his wobbling desk to glance over the work that he'd wrought over several hours. He shook his head as he dragged, deep and long, on his cigarette. His room was spartan, joyless; a decaying thing, the yellowed wallpaper peeled and cracking in many places. Though never churlish, Arthur was ever the misanthrope, never one to entertain guests or suffer the company of others. No, he was a guarded man, allowing no soul to enter his sanctum, err he be betrayed or worse: disappointed.
Etcetera.

>>12509647
There are more organic descriptive devices at your disposal; "warp" in this context is shop talk that even some sci-fi readers would be hard-pressed to comprehend. Seriously: manifest, materialize, instantiate (maybe), etc. will work just fine.

>>12510181
Whoops, by "This," I meant to quote
>>12505257
>>12505315
Also, pic very much related.

>Leather belt in my teeth, I press my pudenda against a whirring white wand's bulbous end, electrifying my body to the edges of my eye lids and toe tips. I feel it building inside me, the vibrations from the wand harmonizing with those of the vaginal and anal devices also purring within my caverns. It's building and it's starting to frighten me. I don't have a rubber liner over the mattress and one of my squirting bouts is sure to not only void the warranty but drench it's space-age foams and fabrics in my voluminous juices. A "Gräfenberg Spot Squirter," has made many a lady faint, right at the moment their powerful vaginal muscles and glandular sacks collaborate to eject a translucent fountain of feminine spunk in a magnificent spray. If you can remain standing during a Gräfenberg Spot Squirter, you can pull your pussy meat up and actually aim your squirt like men aim their piss. But for those poor delicate ladies who faint, they topple over like crashing rocketry, their noisy exhaust eerily continuing it's jettison even as they lay crumpled in am unconscious heap. The women who faint at an intense orgasm will never be able to handle the DMT dosage required to harness their orgasmic energies for astral travel.

I should keep my eyes down. But I feel so alive. I stare at people I pass by on my walks around campus. Most eyes have died. Glazed over, following their line — always on track, always going somewhere—moving in place—walking the same steps in the dark and deciding they’re inside when they hit a wall; but those eyes that meet mine, they have something else. Nothing can much the thrill of intensity in meeting their gaze. Too long and suddenly the bubble bursts. Are you a problem? Am I going to have to deal with you? Push the bubble without popping it. Pushing countless little bubbles, pulling back after little farther each time. Flames lick the tip of my penis, and it stiffens, roasting itself on an open fire; all it wants is warmth and pain, but I want to get hard again.

>>12510499
You should keep your face down before you make us all blind you fucking fat ogre.

>>12510526
Nice, that’s doing it for me

I love these cringe threads

The gay fetish erotica i whipped up in two hours in my second language has better prose than the pretentious "im writing" drivel in these threads. Its even more embarrassing whenever you realize these people carefully pick out the "best" paragraph of their drivel while acting like it somehow represents their skill level. Desperate wankery by wannabe "writers" trying to be based melville by writing sentences that they think look "written", endless commas and all. Dont forget the ye olden and laughably "artsy" sentence construction either that more often than not is just passive purple prose (prose in this case pronounced like a shart)

>>12510571
Post gay fetish erotica

>>12510588
theres a page

>>12509516
really nice, though the rhyme scheme falls apart in the last two lines (educe/vision)

>>12510617
I didn’t have to fight to read it. Nice!

>>12510571
how the fuck can I learn to stop trying?

>>12510672
By not being an embarrassment

Prioritize content over any perceived pseudointellectual sense of writing skill

Prose should prioritize clarity and functionality over everything else, trying to desperately write "good" prose that sounds complicated and wordy is completely irrelevant and if anything puts your writing into the negative in terms of quality. You can write pretty sentences once you have the actual functionality and message locked down

>>12510672
don't unironically post your writing, don't think about what someone would say if you did post it

>>12510571
>People having fun and engaging in writing for arts sake
>Enjoy expressing themselves within the constraints of their own experiences
>"Writer" who will never actually make it comes in
>No longer enjoys writing
>Tries to shit on others
>Can only frame his critique through projecting insecurities and fear of judgement

True cringe

>>12511143
The real cringe is the fact that you even take pride in that pathetic life of yours. Ha!

Her dyed hair was sticky with sweat, her face flushed and teary with panic. One knee had began to swell; the impact from her fall in her attempted escape had inflamed an adolescent injury.

A sharp ache lived in the rear of her skull.

She ran.

Moonlight fell in odd angles through the twists and turns of the laboratory's cooridors.

Had she already passed that bank of monitors before? Was the dim red light ahead an exit marker? She didn't know.

To the left above her she could see a slim opening with several feet of mud brown brick lining one side; a city-maintained street in the old part of downtown. Above it were windows of vibrant flashing lights. A nighttime studio, probably Ricardos or 7th Strife.

Maybe her girlfriends were there!

She veered to the right, away from the moonlight, into an angled hallway with several offices and a doorway at its end. Entering it she found herself in a server room with the only other door locked. She leaned against the case of a solid state tower, pondering if one of chairs in the perpendicular rooms was high enough for her to squeeze out onto the street. The cool surface felt nice on her back and numbed the knot on the back of her head.

If only she could rest.

Wait! She froze, remaining motionless. A click of a lock and the whining of old hinges. Maybe help had come! Peeking around the tower, struggling to make out the figure in the entrance, she was blinded by the sudden flooding of the lights overhead.

He'd found her!

Panic drove her heart against her breast bone in thundering strokes. She spun to escape but her bum leg betrayed her, her forehead smashing against the entryway's frame. The lacerations beget blood which stung her eyes.

For what felt like a hour, she laid there, willing to hips to turn over so she could run, or at least crawl, further into the darkness. But her youthful energy was gone. Something tore inside her, and her head lulled back to study the ceiling.

This was the same concrete that had surrounded her since birth. A few days ago she had jogged through here on her morning routine - just as seven years ago she'd interned here as a bright-eyed assistant and seven years before that, she'd eaten her breakfast cereal while listening to the foot traffic above. A concrete ceiling for every stage of her life. Now she was an adult and she hated it. It was featureless and dedicated to a sole purpose.

The figure moved calmly toward her, his shadow falling across her visage. She didn't look up. She stared at the ceiling, because her future and past were written there. All of her girlfriends and interests and hopes were nowhere to be seen.

Why had she believed she'd escape this lab? It was frowned upon. Stupid. Why hadn't she accepted her place in life?

Now the middle aged man stood above her, but she did not meet his eye. She did not whimper or beg, because showing such weakness meant loss.

>>12510617
you’re a halfwit and should be immolated for writing this

>>12511168
cont.

Instead, she remade the world.

She was not here, cast aside and condemned, shamed and terrified; she was in Ricardo's - on a couch with her best friends, sharing a drink and celebrating her youth - a world in which time did not exist.

Then why was she crying out now, pleading for forgiveness and promising to return to Academy?
Why the urgency to sell her life to those who wanted to waste it in a lab, forcing a life of mundanity? Why?

She felt the hands tighten around her throat.

The future!

She saw the eyes of the man who'd looked at her in disdain for the past few years.

The future!

She saw the pale, tight-set face of her assailant, and saw his eyes brighten with excitement, as his fingers squeezed ever tighter.

There was a small utterance of a word.

"Fa-"

And the girl fell silent.

>>12511155
Imagine being so dejected in your own failures you attack anyone who finds joy in the medium you once loved but has rejected you for your plethora of shortcomings.

>>12511143
Yikes, nice attempt but no cigar. Desperate projection and appeals to "muh art". Youre free to express yourself, that doesnt mean I cant cringe at your pathetic attempts to be the next picasso since youre confusing your incoherent and aimless crayon scribbles with abstract art

>>12509856
Is ok, desu. At first I thought you were greentext strawman shaming someone. Reads breddi gud for that too.

>>12509516
Slightly childish. I fucking love you bish and i feel sad imma find you suckin off another man one day in your chamber of commerce.

>>12511227
It’s about Psyche and Eros

The snow comes pawing campus earth
inhaling parking lots and diners,
students will complain but
i enjoy how that brings us together.

Martin joined a club because that's how people meet. Not in class, where all affections kept a tight root at the desk. He'd quickly noted how familiar faces froze and dodged his smile. And found it strange to laugh with someone who, in minutes, lost his name. But he accepted it, and adapted to the culture with cold grace. Indifference wedged itself between each student like metallic stakes. Although accustomed, Martin felt this distance become nauseating. His attempts at human bonding seemed like signals lost in space. And so the club would rearrange things, he would roost among like-minded folk, poets like himself, who, by compulsion, pinched the world with beauty. Moody intellectuals, introspective and sharp-witted, twenty-somethings who'd dissect postmodern angst with icy forks. He lusted at the thought along his walk to Bradley Hall, where, in room 41, he’d soon sink into his kind. The months of isolation would soon melt and vaporize.

You see, it wasn't just the cliques and coldness keeping him from others, it was a visceral mark of difference that had drooled atop his being. It would ooze about his aura. People looked at him as if they sensed his body were a mask, beneath which had hid some sniveling praying mantis. But a poetry club is home to trained eyes; eyes that feel, eyes like sponges which absorb a presence, wholly and precisely. So, Martin met the room with nervous zest. The door was open, he drew in like a falling leaf. The room became aware.

>>12511429
Boring. Yet another story about an anxious virgin. Grow up.

>>12511464
>Yet another
Has it been done well yet?

>>12511547
>>12511464

It's been done well a few times I think. I mean, I'm writing an offshoot of it now because I'm new to writing non horror stories and wanted to start simple. The story arc basically goes that he joins the club, gets excited because theyve had similar experiences with alienation, but when their poetic differences arise he becomes bitter and refuses to take their advice on his art, leading him to plunge deeper into self-pity and so-called difference. Other things in the story will encourage it as well but the main theme im trying to work with is the idea that the innate difference you feel keeping you from others is truly more or less just in your head and stubbornness obfuscates the fact.

>>12511589
I am not yet convinced of the worthiness of the work based on the small sample but I would like to see it finished if it were done well.

>>12511547
>what is notes from underground

>>12511701
Thanks. I'll give it a spin. I missed that one during my Russian phase.

>>12511709
No problem anon, hope it helps

>>12510571
>>12510617
>h-ha, yeah guys, I just whipped this up in an hour or two! it's t-totally better than anything you fags can do!
>*sloppy cock gurgling in the background*
I'm not saying this thread is filled with the greatest of our time, but I can point to at least two or three bits of prose actually worth a shit. And this pretentious facade of pseudo-troll garbage makes you seem like a massively insecure faggot.

>>12511785
>And this pretentious facade of pseudo-troll garbage makes you seem like a massively insecure faggot
I don't think he's even trying to conceal that fact.

>>12511785
>I just whipped this up in an hour or two!
I did, I would never post anything from my actual book here
>it's t-totally better than anything you fags can do!
correct, everyone half decent only comes to cringe at these threads

>but I can point to at least two or three bits of prose actually worth a shit.
yeah, my porno

>seem like a massively insecure faggot.
exact opposite since im not desperately posting excerpts of anything I actually put effort into in an attempt to get anonymous people to fellate my skills at emulating ye olden wordy men who end their sentences with "so" or "verily". Aka even the fucking gay porn I shat out and never edited or revised is of objectively higher quality than everything else in the thread and would get published over everything else in the thread

>>12511143
>>12511179

Sentimental, but ultimately I agree, in spite of how try-hard a lot of us are, we're really just trying to have fun, and there's nothing wrong with that.

>>12511180

Also valid. We can be sincere and artsy or whatever but that comes with the vulnerability of being made fun of for being pricks. Still, I take the side of just letting people have fun but I get wanting to be snide too.

>>12511808
(you)

Guys keep your potty mouths to yourself and help anons with ther prose

>>12505224
>Less indolent ego-stroking faggotry, more posting.

The thing is small and scared. Plump at the hindquarters, with drooping eye-stalks that almost scrape the yellow dirt. Mouth naturally unhinged, but teeth flat. Unnatural coloration, I note, with hues reminiscent of but not quite blue and pink. The curvature of its spine commands a particular interest, for no biological advantage could be made apparent by mere glance-- vertebrate misshapen, placed in stepladder diagonals; thick, hardened nubs of bone pierce outward from the oily skin.

It was not a damaged specimen. It waddled and skittered about on it's spider-like appendages, thinly stalked and bent and almost excited, and gave small, happy chirps. It eventually became used to my presence, even, and strayed closer. With some hesitance it nudged my calf, tentatively and then with courage, now expectant of reciprocation and filled with slimy content. I take a note-- "unusual demonstration of social behavior, especially upon first contact-- extends to entire ecosystem, or natural empathetic ability?”-- and with a hand gloved in polyethylene and underlaid lead pressed gently upon the space between its eyes. Pet with some hesitation. Scold myself for not checking to see if the oil was toxic, or could eat through the hard and heavy material of the hazmat suit. It does not, and I sit, and it sits along with me. Methane rain pools in clouds above me, and fragile life breathes beside me.

>>12511547
similar themes...

what is Catcher in the Rye
what is Young Werther
what is Candide
what is A Sentimental Education
what is Young Torless
what is Of human bondage
what is Perks of being a wallflower
what is Siddhartha
what is the art of the deal

and so on....

>>12511358
how does that make it better? it's still childish with instagram tier insight into love

>>12511824
>since im not desperately posting excerpts of anything
>Which is exactly what he did earlier with that page that was totally not a page from a larger work
>totally doesn't need validation despite attacking others and flaunting a dubiously inflated ego with little to show for it in a thread dedicated to amateur improvement
You got me, well baited. Have one more (You).

>>12511429
your prose could use some but I think you portrayed this phenomenon very well. I think a lot of young men, robots and normies alike, are experiencing this awful feeling in modern America

inb4 we live in a society

>>12513401
>since im not desperately posting excerpts of anything
you certainly posted the right picture there "friend", seeing as how youre a completely context illiterate braindead neckbeard

>totally doesn't need validation despite attacking others
correct, the only thing I give a fuck about is money which none of you anonymous clowns are going to give me here

>in a thread dedicated to amateur improvement
good thing my advice here>>12510698 is the only thing worth anything in this thread, then

rate mine, if you wanna.

I've spent my days earnestly as someone of my disposition may. I've spent weeks upon weeks sulking about, wasting my days as I await my end. It's an uncertain worry, you see. One moment you burst full of youth, full of enthusiasm, a fire roars deep in your being. At the very next, you decay to nothing but a husk, a hollow shell of your former self.

Long are the days of warm summers, days of which my youth would burn bright, days of which I could enjoy life. Days of which my joy would reverberate all through my ample body, and project out into the world. Days of which I can no longer enjoy.

Now are the days of the bitter winter. I can only see the snowflakes in front of my eyes, taunting me in their makeshift binding. I can only see the fire in my heart extinguish as the squall ushers in the ice. I can only see the shell of what I was.

>>12513814
*Long gone. My apologies

>>12513830
The last paragraph is leagues above the previous two, but that might be a personal preference thing. That being said, the final sentance is redundant.

>>12513887

I can see that. I felt iffy about it, but it seemed to be the only thing that could convey how i felt.

>>12513887
Thank you, though. I appreciate your critique.

>>12505224
I wanna write good, fellas. give me some tips for improvement
(also I know I start a lot of sentences with 'he' I just haven't named the protagonist yet)

He turned from his observatory, the purple-green imprint of jarred lightning burned upon his tired eyes and stole away back down the stairs, actively avoiding the onslaught of creaks and quavers in the floorboards beneath him. He returned to the front room, the black void in the wall glaring at him ceaselessly. He gathered the shabby floor rug from its place in the center of the room and folded it into his aching arms. He avoided looking into the dormant void. In the empty space where the the rug once lay was a pale rectangle, immaculate or at the very least immaculate relative to the rest of the room it occupied. He took the folded rug under an arm and returned to the upstairs and moved to a corner where the sun wouldn’t catch. He wrapped himself in it and lay down coiled against the wall. The days tended to be warm but the nights were always cold. He lay still, each exaggerated shift knocking particles loose from the rug and into the air surrounding. The late afternoon sun sank below the distant treeline and the grey clouds encircling it grew more and more intruding upon the sinking horizon and in the withering room he lay his head down upon his arms and sleep took him.

End.

In his sleep he dreamt in disorganized, hurried images of fleeting dominion. Of castles in the old world wrenching open at the seams and amorphous masses of human bodies, nude and emaciated, spilling out from the gaps. Those who spilled too far from the reach of the walls were scraped away and discarded by some invisible force, in the same fashion a stonemason would scrape excess mortar away with his trowel. They were flung from the very firmament on which these disintegrating castles did situate themselves and into the crawling void below. It rained hard through the night and did not yield until the morning sun had fully situated itself in the sky.

(1/2)

>>12513504
dude, you've been posting in this thread for hours, and if your response times are any indication, refreshing the page pretty consistently to catch any new (you)s

either you've baited yourself and wasted your time, or you're genuinely a no-skill retard desperately trying to salvage some pitiful sense of self worth. either way you've provided me with many a hearty kek tonight. and your gay porn is middling vanilla trash.

>>12514335
He belched hot molasses into the hazed air, the spice lingering in its wake as in itch grappling the back of his palette that would not disperse as he cleared his throat over and over. The lights were dim and the faint yellow glow of the streetlamps refracting through the translucent window well covers did little to aid his sight. His limp body did sink ever deeper into the recliner in the corner of the room. He watched the contorting lines of flame dart back and forth into view through the gap in the adjacent wood stove door, cracked ajar. Many human figures occupy the floors and furniture about him, moving very little. Their faces obscured by the heavy atmosphere and low light reduced them to faceless amalgams of flesh and cloth, identifiable only in their basic geometry and affected coloration. They sat on loveseats and footstools and woolen rugs with faces flushed hot and red, smoking rolled tobacco and passing drink about them. As they left and entered the room they did step over and around a sea of humans in the midst of various levels of inebriation and waning conscious. A young man entered the room and sat on the floor cross legged, watching the glow of the fire dance, leaving his view of the stove only partially obscured.

...

In the night he stumbles on, forced further and further away still from the certainty of his own tentative footfalls in his chemical malaise and whatever short-lived euphoria was to be yielded let itself back out into the cool night air as quickly as it had forced its way in. With each streetlight he came to pass he eclipsed from them his own distorting shadow. There was no wind and no sound save for the distant yowls of a dog several streets over, barking at nothing of notice that he could surmise.

(2/2)

>he deleted his post

>>12514335
>>12514353
You have a fairy decent structural base for the prose, which I feel is somewhat needlessly maximalist, and the command of language you demonstrate is above average in places. It does, however have an issue with flow and pacing and consistency in the quality of the writing. For example, your second paragraph is better structured than your first, which is better structured than your third. I would recommend rewriting to enhance the flow of the words (possibly adopting a more lyrical quality? I'm not sure on this one, take it lightly), and rework the transitions between paragraphs. I would also suggest you cut out the needless frivolity from some of these lines. Sparing that, even separating some of the longer sentences with periods might enhance what you're trying to do. Don't emulate Hemmingway with the short-hand, but don't be Wilde either-- both wrote to accommodate a niche field, and you are clearly not. Try to aim for a McCarthy middle-man, or, if you insist on long sentences, take some tips from DeLillo about pacing.

As for the story itself, if you were, in fact, writing this for the story, I see some wasps of an interesting concept here and there. The second paragraph in particular caught my interest; I'd suggest moving it to the first, if you find a way to make it flow.

>>12514485
Thanks very much for the thoughtful response. I've dropped my work in these threads a couple times before but never gotten a response before. You're dead on with the McCarthy thing, I definitely take a lot of cues from his more florid writings like Suttree. I try to create almost biblical writing that sort of blurs the line between prose and poetry, which creates a definite struggle in finding the line between cutting imagery and bloated thesaurus-core This is all first draft shit which I fully intend to rip to shreds once the whole thing has been slammed out, but nonetheless I really want to thank you for just taking the time to read it and get back to me.

>>12514485
I'm always happy to read the work on this board. Despite the droning autistic crusade some anons will go on to dissuade you otherwise, /lit/ does on whole have talent. It is a quiet talent, being interspersed among the shitposting, and often an untamed one, but it is talent none-the-less. I have very little doubt that many writers of the next great literary age will probably have congregated here in their youth. Your work is good, anon, and can be better if you hone yourself to that fine edge. Don't let anyone tell you different.

>>12514569
>>12514657
Sorry, meant this response for you.

>>12512907
I’m not entirely sure what you mean. What’s childish about it?

i get so restless at 3am. 3am is not an hour for sleeping unless one has spent the night out drinking. i become at 3am the most ruthless of romantics i want to take the world and fuck it take life and squeeze it for everything it ever had i want to reduce the world and everybody in it to swirling void and chaos and i want to claw my way up out of it and plant my flag deep inside mother victory i want the whole world to be showered in my cum i want my cock ripped off at the stem i want my guts ripped out through the whole and i want to be strangled by them, i want to be beheaded standing upright by a blunt force trauma to the spine, i want the whole world split open like a watermelon and i want a great army of apes to trample its corpse and have it anyways persist in some mad conscious lust sprung forth from its mutilated remains to refigure birth in sporadic bursts of inspiration to weave together the constellations of life to sprout to evolve to grow a trillion years to propel me forth up the skirts of one trillion young women — i want to seed and seed and seed the world of women i want to cum inside them so hard my seed comes out their screaming mouths i want the angels of the earth to squeeze their pussies tight around me and cut my cock off forth their own i want to crawl up inside them and fuck their inner organs i want to do a hundred thousand cartwheels and a hundred thousand backflips fucking myself in the ass and i want do it live on satellite TV and i want the whole world with gaping eyes to see and be inspired and throw off the chains of destiny and throw off all sense and reason to pass through the purifying flames of light and come to fuck in the street with me and live like lowest dogs in highest heaven i want ascension by which i mean transgression of every earthly godly law i want to overturn it all and fling myself beyond the moon beyond all gods all primal-physical forces and rend myself open by force of sheer momentum and spatter my insides across the cosmos and die a thousand violent deaths and be reborn again and scream with certainty WE WILL LIVE FOREVER
then comes 8am or 9 and i am an empty drone. i move from bed through my routine. i drink coffee, a laugh, calmly, without sacrificing composure, about some silly thing. i see things in perspective. i think before i act. i think and then i don’t act. i read throughout the day, i ponder. i avoid confrontation. i am diligent at work. i am considerate. i doze. i close my eyes and see nothing. i let my mind wander towards nothing. i make a big deal out of what i’m going to eat. i spend most of my day thinking about what i’m going to eat. i take pleasure in eating. i wonder how my friends are doing. i thumb a newspaper, no, i read the news on my iphone. i am a conscious person. i have opinions on the news, but also i am conflicted. there is much evil in this world. i walk home with my head down. i sigh a relief and sit on the couch. i sit and wait for something to happen.

i get so restless at 3am. i become the most ruthless of romantics and i want at once to take the world and fuck it to take take life and wring and squeeze it i want to return the world to the swirling howling void and i claw my way up out of it and leap into the arms of mother victory and have the entire world showered in my cum and my cock ripped off at the stem and my guts ripped out through the hole its left them and i want to be strangled with my intestine and hung by the neck with an erection to shoot my bloody cum across the cosmos right through space and time to land of all places dear reader, right atop your head, like the shit of some intrusive seagull — i want to be beheaded upright by blunt force trauma to the spine i want my entire world split open like a watermelon and trampled by a great army of apes and have it anyways spring forth in life and refigure from its mutilation some new and shining world of constellations to evolve and grow a trillion years and propel me forth into re-being and up the skirts a trillion young earth women — and i want to seed and seed and seed them until my balls up and turn inside out and outside in and inside out again and i want to drive so deep up in these girls a copy cock stays always lodged inside them and i want my cock cut off by pussy lips and i want to crawl on up inside and fuck all their inner organs — i want the entire world crammed up in my asshole i want my eyes blown from their sockets and i want god to suck me off and apologize to me — i want to do a hundred thousand cartwheels and a hundred thousand backflips with my cock up in my ass and i want do it live on pay-per-view TV and i want the whole world to see and be inspired and throw off the chains of structure and will and destiny and throw off all sense of reason and shit in the cup of life and drink from the cup of death without flinching and come and fuck in the street with me like dogs because i want for us ascension by which i mean transgression of every earthly godly law and we will become in this divine and flung far beyond all stars all gods all primal-physical laws and have our stomachs ripped right open and our guts strewn and spattered across space and time and we will live a million lives and die a million deaths and we will run a half marathon and then just up and run another half marathon and we will be reborn in our own light and scream with certainty WE WILL LOVE FOREVER— WE WILL NEVER DIE

>>12514336
How fucking new are you? With 4chan X i dont even need to keep the tab open to know when theres a new reply. I know you writerlets are in a completely other dimension with this and obviously dont realize it yet, but I WORK on my pc. A pile of tabs sit pretty comfortably on the other monitor

>>12516041
i like the 1st sentence but it quickly falls apart

>>12515953
OK so maybe i am wrong but this is what i get from your poem. I've replace the stanzas with my childish interpretations.


>Since i've met you i miss you
>I miss your eyes and your face and your entire body actually
>...
>...
>...
>i want to kiss you
>i miss your smell
>...
>...

Plus such platitudes belong on greeting cards.
>In blindness are we born, and in darkness find the truth:

>>12511358
lol personality disorder
>>12511547
hahaha

>>12505224
>...uselessness welled up, suddenly, corrosively, dissolving the productive thoughts...
>...room was decayed, cluttered, poorly-lit, not the room of...
>...countless other decayed, cluttered, and poorly-lit men...
>And, as had become necessary, he had convinced himself...

The habit of turning everything into a list is one that you need to break. Not every adjective needs to be followed by several more. It also looks like you, in order to avoid making a sentence with a list more awkward, started a sentence with "And". It makes the sentence less cluttered visually, but when actually reading it still comes across as being beat over the head with another unnecessary listing.

>>12514335
I enjoyed this, especially the second paragraph, but the other anon is right that your pacing is off and subtracts from the cohesion of your prose a bit. I would condense everything, don't be afraid of short, simple sentences.
>>12513814
You have potential but your metaphors are all too abstract to be presented out of context. Needs more diegesis.
>>12512776
I'm not a SciFi guy at all, but your prose really sticks out to me. Keep up the good work!

Looking for some feedback on an excerpt from a short story I wrote some time ago. It's not intended to be erotica, but I'm quite satisfied with how this sex scene turned out:

The nameless arms dealer has also gone silent. He’s mindlessly compliant as Dubheasa places his hands on her breasts and continues to gyrate on his lap. Her eyes do not leave his as she lets out a series of moans, each one carefully weighed out so as to evoke maximum arousal. It’s been at least a decade since any woman has been this interested in him, so he doesn’t care or even connect the dots to notice that her enthusiasm is entirely make-believe. This goes on for no longer than four minutes before she slips between his legs, maximizing contact between her chest and his crotch in the process. She takes his cock out and vehemently surrounds it with her mouth, keeping one hand on his sternum, under his shirt. Any lingering awareness of Tim’s eyes only persists to confirm a witness to the ultimate instance of sexual imperialism: that of suckering an almost-stranger into a business deal, or getting a blowjob when you sincerely weren’t even trying. Dubheasa knows she has both of these men hypnotized, now she’s going to secure her supremacy and guarantee she’ll be home in half an hour all in one fell swoop. She produces a condom (from her bra? Or does that dress have pockets?), unwraps it, and orally places it around his cock all without breaking the phase of her bobbing head. Her dress rises to let her panties drop as she reprises her previous straddle, but this time his submissive cock is imprisoned within her imperious womanhood. She doesn’t moan this time, she doesn’t need to. She silently stares him down and rides him right into the sunset, left hand on the back of the couch, right hand still pushing on his sternum. Once it’s obvious that he’s come, she very quickly gets up and puts on her underwear.

>>12516096
wew boy, guess i struck a nerve. also
>shit he called me out now im gonna wait eight hours to post just to prove him wrong. look how intelligent i'll seem!
and
>haha you dont even use this esoteric cambodian scrimshaw extension that i have therefore youre a writerlet n e w f a g
big ups on committing to being retarded homie, keep it coming

>>12517901
>shit he called me out now im gonna reply when I wake up
You really have zero capacity for any kind of abstract thinking or logic puzzles do you?

>haha you dont even use this esoteric cambodian scrimshaw extension
wow, you really are fucking retardedly new if youre using the native extension. /r/goodreads might be more your speed

>>12510571
>It's another 'insecure guy mocks people with safe, hive-mind approved buzzwords because they stepped out of their comfort zone in a way he can't force himself to' episode.

>>12510617
It's not terrible. The narrator's annotations break the flow quite a bit, but other than that it's just boring.
>And then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, it felt so good, and then this happened, and then this happened, god this must be what pussy feels like, and then this happened.
It reads like fan fiction, which it might be.

I posted a draft of this earlier in the thread but decided to rework it:

snow comes pawing campus earth
inhaling parking lots and diners
from the high rise window i
watch jabs of wind sting brittle faces.
mint tea bags would wane
this mood of needles flicked
among the pellets which
slice by my fragile vision and
abduct my pulse of stillness.

>>12517760
Not exactly correct, I'll try to explain it line by line.

>Since I’ve dwelled with you in chambers lofty,
Psyche is transported to Eros' palace by Zephyr at the beginning of the myth, and lives there with him.
>That, in your absence, I tread softly,
Eros is often away, and only visits Psyche at night. During the day, she wanders the halls alone, apprehensively.
>Harboured in my heart, I have, a love that grows forlorn.
The longer she stays in Eros' palace, the more her initial love is replaced with a longing to see Eros (which Eros will not allow).
>Of face, of eyes, of shape and form,
>Of lack of all, my love was born.
Psyche has fallen in love with Eros, despite never actually seeing him.
>To feel the flame, but see no light,
>To feed the Soul with touch, not sight.
She feels his love, and feels loved, but yet wishes to affirm her love by actually catching sight of Eros - so that her love may be justified and empirically 'proven' rather than remain a mere feeling.
>In blindness are we born, and in darkness find the truth:
This line and the lines following are Eros speaking.
>To be, upon your lips, the heat which brightly burns,
>The fragrance that, in absence, the heart for yearns,
>Is to, from ethereal notions tenderly educe,
>The eyes have sight, yet the soul has vision.
This last stanza is intended to be Eros comforting Psyche, telling her that love will always only ever be a feeling, and that even if she were to glimpse him it would do nothing to assuage the idea that her love isn't quite 'real'. True love is something that can only ever be felt through memory and sensation - the heat of a particular kiss, the smell of another person - and to look for that love as if attempting to 'prove' its existence is the same as trying to prove the existence of God. It's something found within, not without.

>>12518010
Nice

>>12505224
The shelter is fucked. Don’t ask me why the builders designed it this way. Don’t ask me why the builders designed the ceilings so low. Don’t ask me why I have to crouch and crawl around the shelter when the ceilings are obviously low. They were designed that way, the ceilings, but don’t ask me why. The builders know. Why not ask the builders? Why not go visit the builders and ask them why the shelter is so fucked and why the ceilings are so low as to force a normal sized adult to crouch or crawl from section to section? The sections are dark. The whole fucking shelter is dark. Don’t ask my why. They want it that fucking way. The builders want the sections and the corridors and the ceilings low and dark. Children can get through walking. Some children, the younger ones. The ones who haven’t hit a growth spurt yet. But those are rare. Because no one fucks down here. Don’t ask me the last time I got pussy. Don’t ask me how I’ve survived without pussy. Don’t ask me the things I’ve resorted to in place of pussy. Why not ask the fucking builders that? Why not ask the builders why the shelter is designed that way? Why not ask them why young children are allowed to walk freely through the corridors and sections while us adults are forced to crouch and crawl from place to place? My knees are fucking bad now. Don’t ask me about my eyesight. Most of the time it’s dark so I don't need it. The only light comes from the big candle in the big section. That’s how the builders designed it. They wanted one big candle and one big section but they still wanted the ceilings fucking low in the big section. The other smaller sections radiate out from the big candle so that light from the big candle reaches most places, but the farther you crawl away the darker things get, and in some places it’s totally black.

>>12518086
very good, spooky, is there more of this?? I want to read it.

>>12518166
That’s where I spend most of my time. In the sections that are totally black. The way the builders designed the big section is that there’s limited space. There are people who spend their whole lives in the big section huddled around the big lantern. Those people are the lucky ones. I was born in the big section, which is how I can read and write. Most people born in the smaller sections are fucking retarded and can barely speak. Some are alright, but most are hopeless. Don’t ask me if I’m hopeless. Why not ask the builders that? I’m sure they already know. I’m sure the builders know that I can fucking read and write. I can read and write, which puts me a big step above the people I interact with on a daily basis. I’m sure that’s how the builders wanted it. The builders wanted the people in the smaller sections to be fucking retarded. The builders wanted it so that whenever someone who’s born in the big section around the big lantern gets banished to the dark they feel much, much worse for it. That’s what fucking happened to me. Don’t ask me why the builders designed it that way. Don’t ask me why the people in the big section are assholes. Why not go visit the big section and ask them in person? Why not ask them why they banished me? They won’t have a straight fucking answer for that. They won’t say why they banished me to the smaller sections. I didn’t break their law. Why not ask to read their law? It’s written just like this. It’s written in normal words that even a few of my neighbors could understand. The builders designed it that way. The builders wanted the people in the big section to think they wrote their own law. The truth is that the builders fucking wrote it for them. The law says that people who sleep too often are guilty of theft. The law says that people who kill are guilty of theft. The law says that people who tell lies are guilty of theft. There is only one crime and that is theft. Don’t ask me why the only crime is theft. Don’t ask me who the people are stealing from. The people in the big section think it’s fair, but really the builders designed it that way.

>>12518462

>>12518010
Nice. Just write prose. You'd be good at it. All the best.

>>12518462
>>12518086
Have you read Barthelme? Read The Guard.

>>12518827
Thanks anon, all the best.

>>12518834
Thanks for the recommendation. I just looked it up, and I'm glad I'm already better than him.

DECISION

An attendant came to fix the bathroom light but Shearer sent him away to fetch a bottle of brandy from the hotel bar instead. When the straight back bellhop served him what he’d asked for, he shoved a fold of bills into the young man’s breastpocket and asked him to tell the desk he’d like to not be disturbed.

Then he pushed him out and undressed in preparation to sit in the bathtub. Against his plans, once the bathroom door was shut, he simply plopped down on the bathroom floor. His muscles all seemed to give up in unison. He had been an actor with the investors and with DeMarne. Now the commitment to the role was finished. He was happy to sit and let his eyeballs go slack. Slugging straight from the bottle, it felt for a moment like he had plotted an optimal course. Then the hours slid by.

In college, he wrote a paper on the students of Pythagoras. There is a legend that they were instructed to stare into the dark of a cave for days in order to achieve enlightenment. Motionless and seated on the cold stone, they gibbered in the dark about the endless transformations of a dodecahedron. Dehydrated and delirious, some even took to worshipping it. Their world changed as they found the perfection of mathematics. They believed all things in life could eventually be described as the interaction between two numbers. Shearer thought about that world as fabulously simple as he read about it in high school. That they didn’t understand dehydration could be damned:

Just two numbers. Imagine that. In a world of endless complexities, everything was really, secretly, just two numbers. If that wasn’t the most achingly beautiful idea he had ever heard...

Now he's found a more perfect version of their cave. With the door closed, the bathroom is just as dark, but the stonefeel floor is warmed by a system of interchanges beneath. And so one’s feet, warm from the shower- or in this case, Shearer’s naked ass- need not adjust to the cold of real life, real stone.

Of course, the Greeks could not know what was happening was that the part of their brain responsible for making sense of things was injecting meaning into nothingness. But Shearer does. How unfortunate. The dark is comforting when you don't know you you're in it. Shearer knows this too. But he also knows it's better for your ass to be warm than freezing.

So what Shearer sees where the sink would be, if he reached out to touch it, is a blooming procession of triangles and neon irises. This may have been some kind of religious experience to somebody long ago. To him, it's just a well-documented phenomenon: The prisoner's cinema.

It’s not like he’s hoping to find some kind of ultimate truth. The hours have left him no closer to an understanding of anything at all than he was when he entered. What is nice to think about, what’s keeping him here, is the uncertainty that lies on the other side of the door.

>>12519044
kek

>>12517878
Pls respond

>>12517878
your piece doesn't evoke any passion or emotion of any kind in me -- not fear, curiosity, nothing.

evocation can be accomplished with nuance. hide things from the reader and let them imagine for themselves -- that's what separate writing from film and makes it worthwhile.

i have faith you'll improve with a lot of reading -- good and bad, old and new, fiction and non-fiction -- and a lot of practice.

I wake to a slam and get up. Home from the ward, Dad’s steps echo out in the hallway. I take after him, past the striking clock on the whiskey shelf. It looks down on us as we enter the kitchen.

That thing’s so old.

Pa told me, breath boozy, that a convict had smuggled and left it to his son, and him to his, so on — that it struck dead every one. Pa told me, in the ward, that he was next. ‘And then my son.’

‘Dad, let’s leave.’

‘And his.’

‘Soon, Ben.’

‘Tick tock.’

Pa lost the plot and died there. Dad sold Pa’s house, where Dad grew up. He kept the relic and put it on the shelf, a memento of Pa. Dust has crept in. It strikes, only at deranged intervals.

Like now.

Dad picks up a knife.

I clear my throat. ‘Good morning.’

He glances at me. ‘Oh. Morning.’

‘You okay? Coffee?’

‘Fine.’

While the kettle boils, I walk in the pantry. I can see out past him, turning the knife in his hands, all the way to my room. He barges in some mornings, sent mad by nights in the crisis unit.

It’s an open house.

>>12521987
This is very snappy, curt. Quite fond of this so far, I'd be interested to read a longer snippet.

>>12522078

Hey, thanks. I'm in the process of rewriting the first draft, and so far that's all she rewrote. But here's what immediately follows in the original. It's in a different tense, mind you

--

He ran the sink, poured detergent and dipped the knife. I noticed a dark stain on his collar.

‘Lobotomy?’ I laughed.

He glared at me and wiped my smile away. Steam rose from the water. In the dim haze, I lost sight of him for the specter of some hostile old man. After a deep breath, I reached over and found his hot wet fist in a death grip around the handle.

‘Leave it to me. You need to sleep.’

He trembled. ‘Dishes from your room.’

I let go. ‘Oh. Sorry—’

The kettle wailed. ‘Now!’

I held my own hand and scurried away. He stomped after me and in my room I held my head as he pulled it apart with his free hand. For the first time, I felt glad I’d locked her portrait away.

‘Dad, please.’

‘Fed up with you.’

‘That fork, that plate, that’s it—’

He turned on me and raised the knife. ‘The point is, never do it again.’ It shook and flicked soapy water around. I wiped my face and backed up to the wall. ‘I give you food and shelter and you treat me like a dump for your filth.’ He was too smart, too fast for me to hurry past and pick up the fork by my pillow. ‘You ungrateful little shit.’ I shrunk to the cold hard ground. ‘I’ll clean you up!’

>>12522106

(and to be rewritten in the present)

>>12521987
>>12522106
this was too snappy imo. i think having a few "anchor" sentences (slower, longer) or even whole paragraphs would help it a lot.

>>12505224
I wrote a short story today in like two hours. I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. Any feedback would be appreciated to let me know if the idea is worth anything before I fix and edit it.
https://pastebin.com/3aWGEyLY

>>12505224
Overall, I think this is solid. There's too many adjectives and be careful with all the description inside the commas. It can be tiring to read, but I would read on.

>>12523465
>It wasn’t what I expected. Not at all. I suppose I had romantic notions about it all – the deep blue sea, warm breeze and soothing chirping of birds. All that sort of nonsense. When I got there, I found the people to be rude, not that I was much better. And it was too hot. I got sunburned almost instantly. The streets were just like anywhere else, stinking and strewn with trash. In fact, it was worse than anywhere else. But all this didn’t bother me. It was amusing to see my ridiculous notions destroyed by reality. I saw all the usual sites people visit on these kinds of trips but none of it really mattered. And it disgusted me to be seen as a tourist, to be huddled into some little group to be guided around. It felt like I was insulting the native people somehow, but I knew by their lazy looks that they didn’t really care either way. And I actually felt I would’ve been better off looking at all these sites and historical objects from home. Why did I need to come all the way here for this? Maybe the fact that I was dying affected me more than I thought.

This paragraph is excellent. I don't personally care for the resignation and listlessness, but that can be pulled off with a lot of skill, which you seem to be building.

>Or maybe I was just running, trying to find escape as if I could escape this.

And you immediately follow a good paragraph with a jarring sentence. (Which I guess was a casualty of the quick write-up or whatever.)

And
>It was easier to die alone. I never knew what all the fuss was about dying by yourself, it is what I would most like to do. How selfish it is to burden another with the sight of my pitiful face on my deathbed.

It takes Godly skill to write well on this beaten-down subject. Your sentence measure is good. Your word choice is good and simple. You can make it. Just keep practicing.

>>12517991
i dont get it. the first line confused me and so i stopped there

>>12523439

Fair crit. Cheers

The rain hammered down on the streets of Altdorf. The cobbles were slick, slippery, shifty and shirking the footsteps of anyone who dared the night. There were still a few who did, though. The streets were quiet, as shrouded hammers struck out ten chimes from the temple bells, but not completely empty. The city's business didn't stop for darkness, nor for rain nor storm, not so long as there was coin to be had. Hooded figures picked their way through the swelling pools of water marshalling in the uneven roads. As the gutters began to back up under the torrent, polluted, refuse-ridden puddles began to mire the already mud-caked streets and alleys. Men pulled their oiled-leather cloaks tight about them and wove their way around the worst of it. With the weather like this, you had to watch your step in Altdorf.

But then, you always did.

Steel capped boots beat down upon the cobblestone with purpose. A man slipped through the streets, moving close under the eaves. To anyone else walking through the city he was barely more than a coarser patch of darkness, a shade cut from a slightly darker shadow. He didn't move with the caution of a man trying to remain hidden, though, just with the ease of someone accustomed to the night. In his hooded cloak he was indistinguishable from any other man passing through Altdorf's rain-lashed streets, except for one detail: everyone else walked with their heads down and their hoods pulled tight over them, bowing to the deluge. This man... this man kept his head up, as if he was watching every crack and corner of the dark, dilapidated streets he passed through.

He turned a corner, into a narrow alley where the top floors of the rickety buildings were almost leaning into each other. It seemed deserted, but soft light coming through a small glass window gave a meagre glow to the murk. Next to the window, a thick oak door; it looked sturdier than a lot of the walls thereabouts. The man stopped, a little way along from it. He turned his head, left and right, as if listening for something, but there was nothing to be heard except for the washing, whispering rain, and the patter of an overflowing gutter above the window.

The gutter was sending a thick, staccato stream dropping to the muddy stone. The wind gusted, and for a moment the rapping drumbeat was interrupted as a hinged wooden board swung into the flow. Even in the dark you might have been able to tell from the chipped edges and the creak of the hinge that the signboard had seen better days, but you'd have needed elf-eyes to see the words still proudly displayed in flaking, faded paint: the Grisly Griffon.

Yeah, it's Warhammer fanfiction. So sue me.

would appreciate a little feedback on my short story opening, fellas:

Amber eyes, refracting light in a night black and thick as tar, like pools of starlight congealing in hollow pits of a panther’s skull.

Much like the two tiny ears tuned into twilight’s white noise cacophony, any soul listening would have heard the distinct tap of prowling padded feet – across the convenient carpet of matted tin rooftops which crowned the South Bronx shantytown – be adjoined by the echoing of identical sounds, building two-by-two, until an entire army slow-marched across the slum’s upper echelons.

But not a soul was listening.

None save the two tiny ears tuned into twilight’s building white noise cacophony.

It had just begun to rain.

Something I've been working on:

>Antion,

>With blessings, salutations and all the rest:

>When I saw you on the mainland, Antion, I was fearful of approaching, for the sake of your pretended brethren. They were lounging on the steps of the theater, which I would avoid, and seemed inapprehensible to me. Had I not seen them, but only seen you, I would have come, but my weakness wilted me, and now you’re still adrift.

>My Antion – who told you what was under the veil, and why should it repulse you? I thought your core was comprised of better metals than these, which your stomach acids have so easily melted. After all you have seen and done, how can your nerve go missing now – yours, which knows thoroughly how contemptible the body is, in all its fetid mechanics? We’re all of us devoured, by time if not a boar or the sea – why blush, then, at that final expression of the worthlessness of this world and the denial of its trappings, that would make you perfect? I fear that in your youth and haste, you have become something that you ought not have, ill-formed, having found but not attained the end. You shamble about on in-between limbs, and try to remingle your purity with what is contemptible. You understand that you will fail.

>It would have been better if you had not known. To remain an ass in human shape is a better fate, than to grow a soul and toss it. The ass makes mulch in the ground, and new matter crawls out of its carcass to pump the millstones again, world without end: that is how it will be for your new friends. But who knows, once life’s bonds are off, where a man might go? You think you’ve seen horrors in this world, but you are mistaken. Since you are awake, the scent of Man is in the air, and that is a meaty smell that They will follow on. I would like to help you, Antion, and mask your newfound treasure with a perfume that blinds hostile noses for escape, but I cannot without your consent. Return to Zephyria and quit the carousal, or the lions and other liars may drag you to a place that I cannot reach.

>The rites do not leave anyone. When your senses are back with you, I and all of us will be waiting, to aid you in your realignment.

>Burn this, and on your soul show it to no one, I your brother in truth,

>Dionysius

Gonna read through the other stuff in this thread in a bit.

>This was the usual routine. There was comfort, to them, in the system they'd set up since getting well enough acquainted to sell and buy, >anyway. Somehow. Franco would phone her to see if she was holding anything, they'd agree on a time and they'd always end up meeting >about halfway. She told him she met up with him like that because she liked walks. Late walks, mainly. She said she liked the cool air, >when the sun didn't beat the back of her neck and her scalp didn't bake under her hair. When the guys with the wagon wheels and >chicharrones had called it quits for the night and walking the street was a different world. Her words, not mine, Franco thought.

>“You're so bohemian, Franco.” Mona Lisa said after scrutinizing him.

>“What's that supposed to mean?”

>Their footsteps became ambient white noise as life melted away for a conversation's time.

>“With your coat and beat-ass boots. You look like a free-loader coffee-shop-goer type.”

>“Isn't that a dated version of metro or something? These boots are beat cuz my grandma found them a second hand shop and gave them to me.”

>“That makes you more bohemian!”

>He could tell by the way her laugh pulled her lips up past her gums and her small face, cleft chin and amber eyes lit up warm
>like filament that she thought she'd in some way won.

>“I can't tell if you're fucking around. How is being bohemian a bad thing?” Uttering the word felt odd to him and he choked it out mockingly.

>“I didn't say it was. Are you getting frustrated?”

>The filament warmth was less apparent on her moon-tinged face.

>“No. I just don't get it.”

>Franco'd quiet down. Retreat a bit in the nighttime strife. It was hard to know when someone was interrogating you or gutting you open on >the city street, quick reaction, or slow response, knife fight on a keystone arch.

>“Come on, don't be so sensitive. You look good, anyway, even if bohemian.”

>Mona Lisa cracked her shoebox apartment door open.

A scene between two characters in a story i'm working on... how can i get interactions to read less juvenile? this shit reads (to me) like some melodramatic-teenage-angst rather than two adults talking, razzing each other.

inb4 angsty virgin story:
it isn't one, this excerpt isn't reflective of the story as a whole, i'm just struggling with the character interaction. Franco is much more emotional than the other characters where as Mona Lisa is very intense. headstrong. convicted in her beliefs and rigid in her routines.

>>12525806
i fucked up the greentexting and also the tense in the third to last sentence, whoops.

We clutched the plastic straps hung from the ceiling of the streetcar; our bodies thrown at each start, our feet stumbling at every stop. Rainwater sprayed from the tracks onto the curb, dousing busy feet, pooling in tiny puddles on the sidewalk slabs in which the downtown shop lights glimmered.
I looked back at my wife staring whitely out the window, lined on both sides by seated passengers. Every couple of blocks a wet autumn wind rushed through the car as the doors swung open and closed, open and closed. On the eleventh stop we disembarked for a new car, rode another four stops, and then arrived two blocks from the courthouse at four fifty-seven.
The lobby was brightly lit, populated equally by both suits and vagrants lined up in two queues in front of a desk. Lisa snuck ahead and joined one of them, standing behind a man a foot taller than her, wearing a ponytail and a pair of cheetah print tights.
“Are we, you know, supposed to go in separate lines?”
Lisa looked back at me, her eyebrows raised and eyes aflutter. To this, I felt the quiet victory of having won a smile from her, however small, in this final hour. I queued up behind her and waited, step by step, as we approached the desk.
It wasn’t until we were next in line when Lisa peeled back the sleeves of her jacket to check the time. She looked up at the towering porcelain ceiling, blinked, and grinned. These little moments proved she knew a little something about life and death that I didn’t, and that she might have seen farther into the future than I ever could.

>The start of something I've been writing recently.

Like the painted edge of an abstract cranium, the river bent. Dotted now, among white brush strokes, by a yellow raft.
The music of the wash played while Hussain orchestrated. The film of his life played in rapid motion.
The souls of those who drowned rose from the ashes to greet him, or was it to cheer him on?
In any case, Hussain wished he could still see his dad, surfing the swell of the tubular river.
Or could his dad see him? spying now, an invasion of privacy. Keeping an eye on his son as he beat the soil of green-blue algae.
Yes, he had vision, even underwater, through a mist of salted sea, one can see the manta ray above me, its tail trailing behind, a wake of life, celebration of death, dead and left behind.

Dry now, Hussain stomped through the shrubbery, dragging the raft behind him.
A thorn here, a prickle there. Bleeding from the piercing blades of Mother Nature.

The sun set.

>>12525966

nevermind - i feel embarrassed after reading this back for the first time. this is mostly trash

>>12526095
i liked the ending about his trek through the shrubbery. write in this style more than the socratic questioning style you open with. unless there's already a bond between reader and the protagonist, the questioning just feels trite and meaningless. first, give us a reason to care, or at least make it entertaining

>>12526095
>Like the painted edge of an abstract cranium, the river bent.
I'm not getting this simile. This opening is explicitly visual & painterly, but this provides no clear visual information.

>tubular river.
This adjective is inappropriate to describe a river, unless this is a sci-fi scenario and you're literally introducing your reader to the idea of a river enclosed by some kind of tube. The rest of the passage tells against that, so it's confusing.

>Yes, he had vision, even underwater, through a mist of salted sea, one can see the manta ray above me, its tail trailing behind, a wake of life, celebration of death, dead and left behind.
I'm assuming this is the dad now, looking up from a watery grave?

>>12526095
Referring back to this one, I was going for a "post-modern" style, which I interpreted as being rather abstract.

>>12526171
>i liked the ending about his trek through the shrubbery. write in this style more than the socratic questioning style you open with. unless there's already a bond between reader and the protagonist, the questioning just feels trite and meaningless. first, give us a reason to care, or at least make it entertaining
Thanks.

>>12526172
>This adjective is inappropriate to describe a river, unless this is a sci-fi scenario and you're literally introducing your reader to the idea of a river enclosed by some kind of tube. The rest of the passage tells against that, so it's confusing.
I was trying to draw comparison to surfing. I should probably just use the word 'surf.'

>I'm assuming this is the dad now, looking up from a watery grave?
Yeah, there's an unexpected change in perspective mid-sentence.

How do you guys write first person or third person without feeling shame?

>>12526603
What the fuck do you write in?

>>12526603
Because if I write in second person, I feel like, on some level, I'm subconsciously imitating Homestuck.

I am differentiated between the populace and caesar. I rely upon substance to keep me sane. Sanity is your device, it is contrary to my existence. So, I drink. One is born between the drink and the swallow. The absence of life leaves immortality.

>>12526895
Fourth person.

>>12527310
Post sample

>>12526895
Write in the imperative mood

>>12527325
Someone told me that someone told him that it was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

Sun was already set as Mr X hastened his steps towards his home. It was a long day today and still he could not finish all of his work.

He lived alone. He promised that he would continue with the work at home when he left the office but couldn't muster up any drive to continue after eating dinner. Work will have to wait till tomorrow.

Mr X has a very disciplined schedule. Everyday he wakes up and goes to work and when the time comes he pays his taxes. He is a law abiding citizen, a priest of the democratic temple.

When he as much as glanced at his bed he knew that he can't do any work and that there are no concerns that he doesn't want to work at home. He needs rest and the society understands that. He has earned his right to benefit from the advantages of living in a society and he is doing his part in making sure that these pros are enjoyed by everyone else too.

Mr X is a lawyer and his current case has already made the news. Last week his mother was worried if it was safe to take a case of a man with such an illrepute. Although he dismissed her claims, he was worried.

When the senior partner at the firm asked him to take the case, he knew it was too good an opportunity to pass. He must move up in his career and he would be a fool to say no to such a case. Lawyers aren't judged and they are important for upholding justice in the country.

If he didn't take it then someone else would have taken it. A rich man with resources has no scarcity of lawyers. It was work and it needed to be done. Would a doctor say no to treating a murderer if it came to his clinic asking for treatment and if a doctor can say no to a patient then he could deny any patient he wants. A religious doctor might not want to treat a homosexual.

Mr X firmly believes that it should be mandated by law that a lawyer and a doctor can never say no to a client if they have time.

Government should take responsibility of all the morally ambiguous choices and create laws around them.

The common man if left alone with such choices will make mistakes and these mistakes will destroy the civilization built so carefully and with effort of our forefathers. All the good things which made the human life better, which changed the definition of how a man is supposed to live, will all cease to exist and for what.

His client told him that he did all the heinous things the system charged him with and that he is not hoping to avoid jail but only the death. Mr X is against death penalty and agreed with his client. Yes, his client made mistakes but human life is paramount. What gives the government right to take what the god gave?

Should you take life if you can't give one and if there is no crime greater than taking a fellow human's life then what should be the punishment of the people who put this power in the hands of representatives who followed them.

Sun was already set as Mr X hastened his steps towards his home. It was a long day today and still he could not finish all of his work.

He lived alone. He promised that he would continue with the work at home when he left the office but couldn't muster up any drive to continue after eating dinner. Work will have to wait till tomorrow.

Mr X has a very disciplined schedule. Everyday he wakes up and goes to work and when the time comes he pays his taxes. He is a law abiding citizen, a priest of the democratic temple.

When he as much as glanced at his bed he knew that he can't do any work and that there are no concerns that he doesn't want to work at home. He needs rest and the society understands that. He has earned his right to benefit from the advantages of living in a society and he is doing his part in making sure that these pros are enjoyed by everyone else too.

Mr X is a lawyer and his current case has already made the news. Last week his mother was worried if it was safe to take a case of a man with such an illrepute. Although he dismissed her claims, he was worried.

When the senior partner at the firm asked him to take the case, he knew it was too good an opportunity to pass. He must move up in his career and he would be a fool to say no to such a case. Lawyers aren't judged and they are important for upholding justice in the country.

If he didn't take it then someone else would have taken it. A rich man with resources has no scarcity of lawyers. It was work and it needed to be done. Would a doctor say no to treating a murderer if it came to his clinic asking for treatment and if a doctor can say no to a patient then he could deny any patient he wants. A religious doctor might not want to treat a homosexual.

Mr X firmly believes that it should be mandated by law that a lawyer and a doctor can never say no to a client if they have time.

Government should take responsibility of all the morally ambiguous choices and create laws around them.

The common man if left alone with such choices will make mistakes and these mistakes will destroy the civilization built so carefully and with effort of our forefathers. All the good things which made the human life better, which changed the definition of how a man is supposed to live, will all cease to exist and for what.

His client told him that he did all the heinous things the system charged him with and that he is not hoping to avoid jail but only the death. Mr X is against death penalty and agreed with his client. Yes, his client made mistakes but human life is paramount. What gives the government right to take what the god gave?

Should you take life if you can't give one and if there is no crime greater than taking a fellow human's life then what should be the punishment of the people who put this power in the hands of representatives who followed them.

>>12505224
test

>To Dante:
If only you had lived as long
As to see the namesakes of your song:
These dueling brothers of jestful brawls,
Their outrageous feats and heroic falls.
Yes, it might be far from what you conceived
But, by God, it’s Gospel I’ll ne’er disbelieve.

>On Life:
Why must I repeat this daily strain,
Of love, then loss, then love again?

Why must I fail to learn the truth,
That I am one, that one shant love?

Why such a coward, that can’t commit,
To end it all, to cease the pain?

>>12528861
I liked the first one a lot more, although the second was very interesting technically (the last line rhyme with the first two, etc.). This was mainly just the content and voice, since the latter seems more whiny than poetic.

>>12528205
That’s first person

>>12505224
test

You guys do realise that this only works if someone actually offers a critique, right? We can't just dump our writing here and expect someone else to take care of the hard part.

>>12528375
The combination of tense and sentence pattern makes this feel oddly stilted. If you were trying to convey the impression of an awkward, oddly robotic character then you succeeded. However, it would be exhausting to read an entire novel like this.

>>12527352
>Despite the bang, there was no noise he could make out indicating where the crash was.
This feels like you wrote 'bang' three times, realised that was stupid, but instead of redoing the sentence you replaced 'bang' with 'noise' and 'crash'. You could have said something like:
>There was a bang, but nothing to indicate where it had come from. Not at least as far as he could make out.

A little further on from that you've got the alliteration of 'blinds, blankets, and black outs' then 'people peeking'. What does this convey? It seems like you put in some alliteration just because you could without asking what this does to the rhythm or meaning of the sentence.

>>12525966
It's not terrible. It's not great either. I was willing to give you a pass until
> These little moments proved she knew a little something about life and death that I didn’t, and that she might have seen farther into the future than I ever could.
because honestly, who writes that?

>>12528899
I quite like this sonnet

>>12505224
test

>>12531398
Thanks, I've got some practicing to do though. What did you like about it?

>>12532296
The general tone. What I didn't like about it was that your rhyming is pretty basic. You clearly started with the sentence:
>Suffocated by some naive teen boy
And then asked yourself: 'what rhymes with boy?' Instead you should start with a pair of words that have potential and see if you can work them into the theme.

>>12529992
I wrote the Mr X piece. Its not going to be a novel but a short story about a middle class man and his choices at morality. Thanks for the feedback

>>12532581
I just downloaded Shakespeare's sonnets so hopefully I can improve in that field.

As the brush glanced the canvas, my fingers weaved in the gentle ripples at the water’s edge. I paused to glance at them, momentarily dripping paint on my thigh. Should've used a darker palette for the sea really, the sky appears to be invading through the horizon. Maybe just a few touches of foam to patch it up? A little white, a little blended grey in the shade of the arches... And there, a great surging way out at the fringe of the bay. Not exactly what I had in mind, but I suppose storms are rarely intentional. This one at least is a safe distance away– so why am I hearing so much thunder?

No, wait– it's just Papa's careless footsteps climbing the spiral staircase. There's no question that he drank himself into a raging tempest last night. Missed the real violence of the bay for his own, though hopefully his mind is foggier than all this brightness we have today. Mornings are rarely his strong suit (or at least one of his less turbulent moments) and I know how guilty he gets seeing the bruises. His conscience pushes him even further into the bottle and then he forgets why he ever felt bad in the first place. Best to keep out of his w–

“Addy, if you'd care to take a pause from all this serene contemplation”, his arm arcing in mock veneration at the surface of the water beyond the window, “It wouldn't be too much trouble for you to wander into town for breakfast?”
I paused as the momentum of his trailing hand caught the door and clouted it against the steel bookshelf, dislodging a worn volume of poetry onto its spine with a sharp thud. You could hear the echo spiralling to the bottom of the stairs, tumbling and splintering under the weight of its own intrusiveness, step by rusted step.
“But it's the middle of the day.”
“Precisely, and seeing as our fast has remained unbroken since last night it would be an appropriate time for feasting, no?”
“Where do I have to go?”
“Where are we going, my dear boy: the walk and fresh air will do me good”, winking through a bloodshot eye as he began drawing tobacco and rolling papers from his breast pocket. He span round sharply with the careless vigour of a younger man, grazing his shoulder against the doorframe as he left. “We leave in five minutes, and I expect no tardiness!”. Papa isn't usually so erratic at this time, and he certainly isn't one for spontaneous gestures. I slipped my toes into a brown pair of weathered boots, and dared to linger a gaze through the window on a fishing boat, until it passed over the horizon and disappeared out of reach.

Rocks crumbled in the driveway as they pulled in. The house had been striking from afar. Three stories hidden among dying trees and poorly kept paddocks. Glare from the sun had shone off the white terraced roofing at that distance, almost as bright as the arriving van, hiding the sliding tiles that gathered in bent gutters. Up close the repair work was clear, both that done and that which was needed. Paint hung in dusted navy chunks from all visible walls. Planknails jutted from the sprawling porch. Nick made notes in his pad while Patrick parked the van, yawning. The drive had exhausted them. They left their hometown on the coast almost six hours earlier, and chattered constantly until the dividing range. After that, the headaches and dehydration from the night started troubling them. Through hay country they mused about the job ahead, then to the trip's end they played the radio loud just to stay awake. Both were eager to stretch their tired limbs at last, smoking cigarettes and drinking lukewarm coffee from the nearest service station, on the wild and unkept lawn. They stood back to look better at their host in detail. Patrick whistled and Nick spat in the grass. The house was clearly beautiful once. In parts it still was. They walked up wooden steps to the nutmeg doubledoors slowly, as much as to avoid them breaking as to admire the carved rails at their sides. Varnish had faded on the doors, but as Patrick knocked he felt heavy, sturdy work over the face, on ornate carvings of the fleur-de-lis. Like those in the rails, and in the beams overhead. As he waited for an answer he looked sideways to the bay windows, bulging onto the deck. Dusted and strangely tinted, and difficult to see through. Nick furrowed his brow and Patrick checked his phone. The reception had not been great on the way, and it had not improved.

"What are you doing down there?"
Natalie didn't answer from where she lay on her bedroom carpet. Donald stood in the hallway where he had emerged from his bedroom with designs to head downstairs and fix up a full English breakfast. His gaze searched the carpet around her for the usual empty bottles of vodka or whatever new cocktail she made to drink herself into oblivion. There were none. Not even an empty glass. Donald could see the parting strip in her dyed black hair. Her face lay tucked behind her outstretched left arm. Dnonald moved forward robotically.

He came to a squat and reached out so slowly he felt like he was watching someone else's fingers pinch her rolled up shirt sleeve. His daughter's head lulled back. Her eyes were bulging. Some of her hair obscured her face in wet clumps. Her mouth was bleeding. The inside of her left arm was stained with water colour red blood. Donald held the nape of her neck and helped her upright like he had many times before when she was sick.

He wasn't prepared for the sheer volume of blood which flooded out of her mouth on the carpet. He held her this way until the flow of blood became a dripping without rhythm.

It was still early. Donald carried his daughter out of the house and into the backseat of his car. Once in the drivers seat he glanced back to the house and saw he had left the front door open. He put the car in first. After a few moments he changed his mind and stopped car whiched caused Natalie to tumble off the backseats.

The sound her body made when she struck the floor made his skin crawl. Donald ran out of the car leaving it idling in the road with the driver door open. His trembling hand patted his front door before he slammed it into the doorframe with such force a spider-web pattern formed in the misty glass.

(1/2)

>>12533772
On his way back to the car Donald considered leaping over the front garden wall. He almost went through with it. How much precious time had been wasted already? Donald wanted to be off but he couldn't leave his daughter faced down and bleeding between the seats.

She lay limp and exposed having slept in an unbuttoned checkered shirt and nothing else. Still more time mercilessly ticked by as he opened the rear door and hoisted his daughter up again.

Donald gripped a seatbelt with the intent to fasten it around Natalie before he let it go as if it were red hot. There was no time.

He drove to the hospital with the reckless speed of a ninteen-seventies TV detective. Traffic lights were merely suggestions. He brought the car to a screeching stop outside the hospital entrance. Once out of the car the molasses feeling of time inertia returned. The rear door handle gave with a click. Natalie was down between the seats again. Donald carried Natalie into the hospital. He stood holding his daughter round her waist as if he were a ventriloquist and she were his life-sized blood belching dummy.

A doctor flanked by two nurses were with him in less than a minute. By some miracle they must have been in discussion just down the corridoor. A stretcher was brought from behind reception. Donald helped them hoist Natalie onto it. The nurse politely urge him aside as the doctor examined his daughter. The doctor looked Natalie over for just a moment before meeting Donald's gaze.

She was dead. Of course she was dead. Donald knew that the moment he saw her asphyxiated face and her lifeless eyes. He just needed somebody else, somebody significant to see.

(2/2)

One day I realized I kinda sucked at living. Tried to take my own life, but guess I suck at everything. They all say I'm smart, but I can't seem to figure out. I guess I suck at living, but even more at dying. So I just gotta keep on going, right? Since I'm so smart, why can't I fucking figure out? I guess I suck at living, but even more at dying, so I just kept on going. Round and round and round we go, in the prison cell I turned my brain into. I hate people and I hate to alone, even in the crowd I'm on my own. But I'm smart right? Still can't figure it out. Incoherent thoughts stumbling everywhere. Doesn't make sense. It never does. I could use some savant words, twist them a certain way so they appear more just somehow, but what's the point? Not like anyone's going to understand better, people already understand, don't fool yourself. You're not special for feeling like shit, you're not alone in your loneliness. But it doesn't matter. It's not about being understood, is it? It's not about being loved, because you'll never allowed this to happen. Not really. You closed yourself because somehow, it hurts less.

>>12505224
I like your prose OP. Nothing wrong with it. A good snippet. Keep it up.

This Romely Day of all days built twice what insight could in twenty-thousand years! In a quiet cave. In a quiet season. Our surrounds are but the extroversion of our quietest place. If it is a scream! Why, then we must train our pipes for song. For as we fall shaken kneed into the season of creatures there shall door knock our epiglottis a hum of every beauty that victorious managed passed unearthed and stored, forgotten, safe, in the deepest warmest database, and then shall it rise, and either rattle and gasp shall I, or sing - and I have been a miser of my beauty for so long! Oh, but the melody of this Romely Day!

Rupert designed his sandwich in the kitchen and it was a tidy masterpiece, Rupert - the bread too fluffy, the butter too hard, Rupert, insightful, churned the butter, but it wasn't enough, wasn't enough, it would take too long to soften, and he would not tear the slice with a spread, not today, not on this Romely, Romely Day. Rupert LEFT THE BUTTER OUT ON THE COUNTERTOP for later, and opted for mayonnaise instead. Here me, flow of the day, and let all hiccoughs and divets fear my onward confidence, for I do not tense as the shoddy vessels do when bounced, but bounce, and flop, adjusting! Within his sandwich, three meats he chose, rolled, and folded, arranged, neatly, in chicken then ham then beef, then topped of with a dollop of mustard (but not before the pepper). A tomato was had in messy dices. One slice of onion, ringlets left alone but popped free, laid on top of the meat.

It was time for breakfast.

>>12534012
I chuckled, which I guess is the point of comic writing so good job anon.

Maybe you rely on repetition too much to generate a sense of rhythm. Perhaps try writing without repetition sometimes to improve.

are there any german writers on here?
would love to critique and maybe also share something but I've never seen german prose in these threads.
maybe it just needs some spark, so hands up if you write in german!

>>12518010
I quite like it. Good job and hopefully you keep it up,

Four Ways

The devil got up from the bed and said, “Thank you.” He gave me a red hug and I was on my way – walked right out onto the city streets. A lot of people believe The Devil is from the city, but He doesn’t really stick around one place. He is around.

As I walked I thought about God and how Luke from Gonzaga had once told me that He is everything. That made me cry. Why had God the shrimp pinched my toes in Blue Lake? Why would God do that to me? If God is everything why did he make me laugh when grandpa died? If God is everything I can’t know him – I can’t know those big ugly fish at the bottom of the ocean or the babies born in Japan. I can’t even begin to.

In sudden liberation from my thoughts, I tripped on the curb. Falling to my knees I stumbled into a Roswell Grey. Its abdomen was plump grape on legs slender and weak. With knees bent he dawdled backwards, then caught himself against a brick wall. Its tremendous head rose upward and his vast black eyes met mine. I felt his consciousness swim into me. He wrapped around ideas, emotions, memories. We both stood there and my mouth felt useless as he puttered around in my fishbowl.

He asked me “Want to take a ride in my space-car?”

“No.” That must’ve worked on other humans in the past. “Does 2+2=4?”

“No. 2+2=4 is useless, just the same as saying a ____ beats a ____ in a fight because ___ has ____.”

“But _____ doesn't exist.”

“MATH IS MADE UP IN YOUR HEAD, 2 DOESN’T EXIST EITHER.”

“But math is always true!”

“SHOW ME 2! IS IT YOUR PARENTS? ARE THEY 2? ARE THEY THE SAME OR ARE THEY DIFFERENT? IS THAT WHY THEY’RE GETTING DIVORCED? MAYBE IF THEY WERE THE SAME THEY NEVER WOULD’VE GOTTEN TOGETHER AT ALL BECAUSE THEY BOTH SEEM TO FUCKING HATE THEMSELVES. SHOW ME 2, SHOW ME 1 - YOU CAN’T SHOW ME ANYTHING.”

The alien, becoming more obtuse than round, turned and walked straight into the brick building behind him. His huge grey head bounced, then he fell backwards onto the pavement with a deflating “Vleeaahh…” His eyes stared up into the sky, searching space for someone who has a mind worth swimming in. I guess understanding everyone can drive you insane.

I flung my suit coat off, folded it into the neatest triangle and sat criss-cross-applesauced above the head of the alien. Wriggling my fingers under the head I could feel that The Grey’s hide was loose on his skull, and it flowed around my fingers and into the pores of the cement. It was cool and thick like a quality magazine. Sliding the suit jacket underneath his tremendous head, I gently lowered the Grey onto the soft wool.

I opened my checkered tie, buttoned down a white dress shirt, kicked off black leather shoes, emptied my black socks and my matching suit pants too, letting them all fall down. But it began to snow; my boxer briefs could stay on. Every American man is afraid of smallness.

>>12535157
Standing up shoeless I noticed that the pavement under my bare feet was inhuman and cold. It scared me with the words it said: “SNIP-SNIP, CRACK-CRACK.” I looked at the signs to see if the street might be kinder than the sidewalk. The signs said Broadway and 1st Ave, but the way wasn’t any more broad and this wasn’t the first street I’d been down — whatever. I took a step toward the road, but paused, pressing the curb’s edge into the arch of my foot.

“Snip-Snap.” my toes flicked against each other, mimicking the street. My brain echoed back, “Snip-Snap.” I kicked a stone off the sidewalk into the middle of the road. “Snip-Snip,” it said. “Snap-Snap.”

From where I stood there were four different ways. In front of me I could see the sun, shining on the beaches of the coast where my brothers marvel shadows in the cave. To the left I could see my home, where the devil had found his bed. Behind me was University; cold, unfriendly and full of God. When I began to look at what was right, I collapsed – my eyes rolled back, my chin hit my chest, my torso twisted up around my head, and my knees broke backwards – legs whipping around it all, contorting my figure into a circle.

“Snip-Snip,” the ground said, “Snap-Snap.”

>>12535157
>>12535168
This feels like you're trying way too hard.

Is it bad that I don't like anything that's been posted?

>>12518010
>he has to explain his jokes

>>12505224
Your writing is wonderful OP

No here's mine:

On days like these Nero wasn’t so fond of his telepathy, even though he thought he should have been. "if stick and stones can break my bones, and words will never hurt me, then thoughts should mean absolutely nothing." He thought.

But Nero found that living in the heads of others to be a far more intimate experience than a mere exchange of words. After all, telepathy is the act of traveling to someone else’s world. Thus the constant waves of opinions, moods, and tragic secrets eroded our young boy’s soul.

>>12505224
Arthur is a terrible name. Name him pepe no that would be meta

My hands penetrate the chair's arms with salt. I don't look, but my knuckles are white. Fluorescent lamps' light reflects even more strongly off my forehead. The whore I checked in with keeps finding something near me to glance at. Stop fucking looking at me, dyke. There is no way of knowing if I just audibly whimpered in fear. I am the only one in the waiting room, at least. I sit in restless patience still. Did I wipe enough? I feel a bead form and roll down my left temple. Am I early?-- I am interrupted:
"Tariq?"
"Y-yes, me."
"Come on back." She politely smiles. I look down fast. I stand, trying not to notice a damp shadow left on the chair.
The walk to the ominous looking room in the far right corner is not unlike the few steps taken before having your head shoved through an appropriately-sized knotted loop.

Dr. Gupta barely looks up from the clipboard, thankfully. I'm sure he's got the transition down like it's nothing. My anxiety only consumes me more. He scribbles on his clipboard one final time.
"Alright"

Just testing this as a proof of concept

In an interstice, an internecine altercation alters agents at the altar engaged by an agony, now known as the "aegean agon against the asians". Unallied and unalloyed against a game of flagrant gallantry, the gentry's entry entails that any entreaty be treated by betrayal. To rail but royally tomorrow on hoards of moors; us organized in rows and thrown into the throes of a war all aware of our weariness and armoured by amorous rustics with caustic prepossessions and propositions to dispossess us of our disparate dispositions and posit a position of procrustean standing in our miens. Menial men only matter en mass and a mantle amasses as missives addressed to mistresses are missed and misgivings are stressed by a fomentation of fiction of our figures forgetting

>>12518462
I would love to read more of this

>>12537918
gave me a headache

>>12537391
y so mean fren

>>12533772
Competent prose and I don't see anything fundamentally wrong to your writing aside from the multiple spelling mistakes. But I'll say a couple of things that stood out to me.
The first two sentences after the question both use the "where X was". I don't know if this is an excerpt halfway in or the opening passage but it feels off. Specifically, it feels like you're attempting to quickly establish the placement of your characters and the setting after the question. There's no need to rush. The 'finding your daughter dead' bit hasn't happened yet. "Natalie didn't answer." works better for me. Maybe establish the placement of Natalie after Donald enters since this 3rd-perspective seems to be based on him. Also, "Donald stood in the hallway after he had emerged" seems to flow better. You've already established the location for Donald, i.e. 'hallway' so the whole emerging from the bedroom fits better by connecting it to time, by using 'after', instead of a currently fixed placement, which is what 'where' does.

>He came to a squat
Sounds a bit strange but nothing wrong. A simple "He squatted" could fit better. The previous sentence already set up that Donald (spelling mistake) was moving forward. The "He came" kind of unnecessarily stretches out Donald's approaching Natalie.

>whiched

Also, it's interesting that the first physical reaction from Donald you put in comes only when her body falls off the backseats. It may undercut the gravity of the situation by putting in such a mild reaction too late. Either keep it completely sparse on the emotional/physical reactions until you reveal Donald's real reaction to his daughter's death, i.e. 'I want somebody significant with me to see my dead daughter" or build up his thought process towards that statement.


>>12537581
You should probably post at least a paragraph or two for people to get a proper feel of your writing. Not a fan of the first sentence as I think it works better as just "on days like these,,,telepathy.'. The 'on days like these' and 'even though he/she should have been' are pretty cliche. They tend to be used cheaply but at least one cliche is better than two. Think of possibly rewriting that entire sentence.
First two sentences of the second line work well together as there is a nice string of logical thoughts but you ended it prematurely with a sentence that left me confused on the time/place and it was abrupt when you moved past Nero's reasoning.

These anons still haven't received any comment on what they posted. Maybe before you add your own work to the thread, take a look at one or two of these.

>>12506059

>>12508463

>>12509807

>>12511168
>>12511174

>>12511423

>>12519181

>>12525398

>>12525540

>>12525753
>>12525806

>>12532620

>>12533407

>>12533921

>>12537729

And obviously there are others who would appreciate more critique.

>>12540261
I'd argue that the fact they've been passed over means they're probably not very good. Having skimmed a few of these I can testify to that.

>>12540288
>I'd argue that the fact they've been passed over means they're probably not very good.
And? We're here to critique people's work - if someone's writing is bad, you should tell them. And preferably tell them why.

Anyway, I'd argue that the number of replies something gets has nothing to do with how good it is. People reply to the last few things that were posted, and if someone doesn't get a reply before the next person dumps their work then it just slips out of view.

>>12537918
What's the concept? Seeing how many words you don't know you can use wrong in the smallest amount of time?

Best not to preface this, I feel:

February 5th, 2019
Not my usual diary entry. It’s dark in my apartment, the sun is shining through blinds and windows but it’s still the cool color of dawn, the steel wrapped around blue. I wanted to write something pretty. I needed to center myself.
The blood is still on my palms.
My head is thrumming like a songbird that swallowed a chainsaw. How do I paint this picture? The blood is still on my fucking palms. I used cold water like King always said and it’s still there, like creosote. I check my keyboard and it’s fine… the stuff is ingrained in my pores.
She ran so gracefully today. Prettier than before, even. Maybe… maybe it was just my knowledge, my perspective, knowing what I had planned to do, knowing I finally had found the conviction. It goes without my saying why I had to do it. You know and I know, dearest.
AHHH. The interjection by the author of pure energy. The kia, the modern “yeet.” That’s truly the best picture I can draw for you… that feeling of releasing the energy that had built up for so long.

No, this isn't my diary

>>12540490
using Samuel Johnson as your reaction image makes this even better kek

>>12540490
No! In case you couldn't tell, the guiding principle was to have the text slowly transform with respect to the phonemes being used. However I wish my vocabulary was maxed out so I could make a more convincing show of it, however I really don't believe I misused ANY words. I also found it annoying that I had to provide some sort of narrative but admittedly it would be kind of pointless otherwise. The whole thing started with "In an interstice, an internecine altercation alters", which was a thought I had in the bathtub. By far its the nicest verse in the whole thing.

I'm really just an ideas man. Like for instance I had an idea for a method of music composition based on cubism wherein "input chords" serve multiple and varied harmonic functions at once. I just don't have the raw talent to realize these things.

>>12537581
There's a misplaced "that" in the first sentence of the second paragraph. Otherwise this is very readable, although for me, opening with "on days like these" feels kinda gimmicky, like it's too obviously a hook. Unless this is an excerpt? It's fine if there's more that came before this passage.

>>12537918
>>12540807

I liked it

My life is tragedy plus time. No wonder everyone's always laughing at me. My parents died before they could teach me how to knot a tie, or fill out a form, or feel without my face breaking apart. The first two are old favourites in my routine; potential employers, potential girlfriends, and my teachers - at the very least my pratfalls get a smile, if not a chuckle. When it comes to tears it apparently takes the punchline a while to land, but I've seen some reassuring groups chats and facebook messages. Trust me, they laugh later. Like I said, all it takes is time.

Should I be reading those group chats? Call it market research. Before Sarah got cancer at the same time as her sister I was far and away the best comedian I knew, but now she's through it and in remission I know it's only a matter of time before she's serious competition. Thank goodness her sister is still alive. But I've got to know what the reviews on my act are.

I'm still too young, that's the problem. Not enough time has passed to get a real belly laugh out of the welts from my foster-father's walking stick. But I'm getting further and further away from that all the time, so that's something at least.

I don't know what I'd do without my act. A man's got to make a living, after all. No one really chooses to go into comedy, it's generally something that finds you. But when you've got it... well, I you do what you are and you are what you do.

>>12540261
What if I give shit critique and that influences how people react to my shit?

>>12540261
Well, I guess I should put my money where my mouth is.

>>12506059
You need to exercise some self-restraint. A sentence like
>Not a one. Barely any scratches, scrapes, neither a scar nor a scab.
is okay once every few paragraphs, but your writing is littered with sentences with more commas than they should have and alliteration just for the sake of it.

>>12508463
This feels overly folksy to me. If you want to sound like a rural southerner, sprinkle your work with southern-isms, don't marinade it. Southerners are people too, and for the most part they sound just like you or me. A little flavour is alright, but you'll lose your audience really quickly if you try to craft /every/ sentence rather than just writing them.
>Momma will tell all who listen that I am the curious child in a brood of six.
Would she? Does anyone ever tell people that they have a 'brood' of six? Maybe rather:
>Momma has six children, and she always says that I'm the curious one.

>>12541237
... then don't tell people which piece of writing's yours when you critique someone?

>What if I give shit critique
then maybe someone will critique your critique.

>list out my protagonists
>bird boy slaver who drafts all of his slaves after his drug orchards are repossessed
>druggie slave owner who globetrots to find a new supply
>arrogant bird boy who wasted his inheritance and is getting sent to the jungle to die
>human slave who was sold into slavery because he was so incredibly unlikable
>human undertaker who steals from dead bodies
>slappy whale boy drone supervisor who was bullied so hard he became infertile
>they're all irredeemable pieces of shit
Maybe I should make at least one who is likable.

>tfw posted my poetry on r/ocpoetry thinking it'd be less autistic than /lit/ but in fact, ended up getting removed because the Mod didn't like my feedback on other poem's
>mfw the only valuable feedback I've ever gotten on my poetry was on /lit/ and some anon even narrated it on vocaloid

Today is the fiftieth day without Sun. I woke up, still breezing from sleeping on the uncomfortable concrete that made up our home. I was the first one to do so, this time beating Sophie. As I tried to take a peak from the barricaded window I prayed that the snow had stopped for now.

And of course it hadn't.

I had my doubts whether today would be the day we'd need to move from the apartment complex we'd take refuge to into the hostile unknown. I checked my bag to make sure and my two remaining loaves of mold confirmed that for me.

It almost seemed like too much of a shame. The howling sound of the cold northern wind echoing across the hallways, the squeaking heard from inside the walls, the two meters of snow painting everything white. Even in the dullest of moments you could squeeze out a tiny bit of lovable irony. But on the other hand, I wouldn't want to waste the last days of my 20 year long life searching every frozen corner in hopes of spotting a starving roach in order for me to devour it.

This wouldn't be the first time we'd have to move, either. Every time we did, I'd comfort myself with the fact that we'd be one step closer to Johnsville, a safe haven Sophie promised us that'd house us for the indefinite future.

Truth be told, I am not sure the place even exists anymore. Just like religion, I took solace to the thought that an almighty God was somehow responsible for our fates, regardless of how hard it was for me to believe that at times.

An old, secret and decrepit corn silo would be our next destination. Of course, it couldn't have been well hidden for us (or more like, Sophie) to be aware of its mere existence.

Angie and Mullins were sent out to scout the area days ago, and should have reported back already. Their supposed fate has been making everyone uneasy as of lately. The thought of them being buried by the white cloak or having been spotted by the vultures doesn't bond well with the folk around here. As for me? I think it's more likely they scoured every last supply they could find, leaving behind only death and empty stomachs for us. It'd certainly seem like the smarter of choices. Sometimes I secretly hope they did, so I could redirect my rage and desperation to them two, as I lately have the tendency to do so.

>>12542285
lmao they actually banned me because I called them "condescending, stereotypical power-tripping Reddit mods"

>while permitting an overdrawn sigh
don't like it. too much.
oh unless the protagonist is a teathrical gay man, in which case it would really fit.

>>12542039
Have the unlikeable slave guy as the comic relief/banter character

this is some light prose about monogamy that came to me in a dream. Enjoy.
(1/2)

“HI!” She says effervescently as she comes around the corner into the room. I'm at my laptop being useless. She looks sharp and energetic. She's got a big smile on. I stare at her for a moment, eyebrows lightly raised in amusement, before realizing she's actually waiting for a response.
“What can I do ya for” I say in a gruff voice, trying to show her what she already knows, that my mood in no way resembles hers.
She steps closer now in almost comically large strides, with her hands behind her back, “I'm so glad you asked! ” She sits next to me. God, I love her presence. We've been living together for years, and still being near to her feels so electric. She smells wonderful. She then rattles off a list of chores for me to do, and just as I'm stating to look puzzled, she concludes promptly with “And then you can fuck me!”
I stare blankly. I think we had sex the night before last. None of this is normal behavior from her, but I know that stupid face that she's making. This is a game. She seems really proud with her idea, and really committed to it. “okay” I say meekly. I agree to play along, causing her smile to widen further. Then her face turns maternal, she touches my face sweetly and gives me a little closed-mouth kiss. A 'bubble kiss', we call it. “That's my good boy”. At this she also plays with my hair, and even lingers for a moment, before leaving the room without looking back.
I sit for a while contemplating the hole she left behind in the atmosphere. It's quite a few chores. It's gonna take most of the afternoon. None of this seems to me like a problem, which indicates how well her technique has worked on me.
I go and get changed. I wash my face in the sink. It's already past eleven, but there's a couple of items on the list I can get done before lunch. She catches me doing them, but gives me almost no approval with her face: She's not in the least surprised that this is working. Or that's what she's trying to project.
“how about Cuban for lunch?”
“oh, sounds good!”
“yea, right? Could you go pick it up for us?” She delivers this line with so much precision I'm actually proud of her. The convincing pretense that Cuban food sounding good today is an external phenomenon to us both, and not just a coincidence. How casual she is about adding yet another item to my list.
“Sure!” I say emphatically. I am playing this game to win.
After lunch I play the ideal husband-man. The boyfriend she actually wants, which I feel so comfortable playing, and yet almost never do. I try to turn her on with the way I carry our big ice box and she undercuts the moment by slapping my ass playfully, joking around like I'm a stripper.

>>12542696
(2/2)

By 6PM I am done with the list. Some of the items need to be concluded tomorrow, and I'll get the dishes after dinner too, but for now I am done. She is now the one sitting at her laptop in the home office, and I'm the one entering the room with a big stupid smile on my face. She turns from the screen, and smiles with the corner of her mouth. In a low tone she finally asks: “you done?”. I nod like a puppy.
She makes a few final clicks, closes the laptop, places her reading classes on top of it. She walks to me with kindness on her face, takes me by the hand, and walks me to our room. We sit on the edge of the bed. She touches the hair around my ear.
Eventually she says “Go on”, like you say to a child when you notice it doesn't know it has permission to do something. So I go. She plays it very passive. I'm her dog and I devour her like a dog treat. I think above all she's relived that her gambit worked so well, It could have easily resulted in a fight. I manage to make her scream a little in the end, which takes care of my ego for the rest of the week.
By 8PM we're still cuddling, we get to talking about dinner.
“I...” as I hesitate her face changes, she already knows I'm talking about today. “I really like this game.” I had to get the word game out in the open. She nods. “But... But I'm afraid that... I'm afraid of what it means for us. In the long term.” She's serious now, but still caressing the back of my head. “I know you want me to take more responsibility. But a game like this wouldn't be fun if I wasn't an actual slob.” I give her a pause to cut me off, but she doesn't. “I don't know how long I have before this isn't an issue you can address with playfulness anymore.” I rest my head on her belly.
“I don't know either.”
After dinner she brings her laptop into the kitchen to be with me as I'm doing the dishes. She kisses the back of my neck each time she gets up to get a glass of water. That night we talk about how much we love one another and fall asleep clutching each other very tightly.

* * *

Thanks for reading. I just wanna say, this is not my diary desu. I don't even have a woman right now. Also, I'm not serious about writing, so I'm not asking for anything too in depth, but I would like to hear some thoughts.

>>12542314
This is keen in places and dull in others. Your language is kinda... messy. Is English your first language? I'd recommend cutting away unnecessary words which muck up your prose. I feel like given the setting of your world something leaner and simpler is best, for instance
>Of course, it couldn't have been well-hidden for us (or more like, Sophie) to be aware of its mere existence

can be written more like

>Of course, it couldn't have been well-hidden if we--or namely, Sophie--had found it.

Think about the voice of your narrator, his level of intellect and observation, and try to make the language sound more natural. This is a pseudo diary entry so make it something that wouldn't befuddle even him upon a reread.

>>12542696
>>12542709
This was actually fairly effective. I like how sensitive you seem to be to the minute workings of a relationship. It comes across a little fantasist, because I doubt you'd actually feel this insecure so long as you were with her... I don't know, the fear of losing her feels a little rarefied, I guess? This seems to be almost like a parable or something, it's like an extreme example of insecurity in a relationship. Interesting stuff, actually. Dream stories always tend to have an incisiveness to them that's hard to capture when awake.

>>12542822
hey thanks.
It is definitely kind of a fantasy.
About all the insecurity, I suppose I was trying to hint that this is an ongoing issue in that relationship. On that they they dealt with it in that way, but maybe there's been arguments before, stuff like that. It's definitely not coming out of nowhere for them. But it's cool to know that didn't really come through. Thanks again!

"Alright my life is all fucked up" a man thought. "What I need is a unilateral transfiguration of all my ideals, I needn't even accept it on good faith. I need to find a new outlook immediately and I'll be damned if I let even another 45 minutes of vacillation slip by." His left hand, now impelled by its master's non-negotiable timetable journeyed out into the pitch. Intrepid and resolute, the factotum passed into the even darker black occupying the space under the bedside table, tethered only to a sinewy arm. It gracefully landed upon its target before being unceremoniously reeled in by the impatient god. "Ah here we go" a thunder sounded and the hand was tasked to flick on the lamp, an action, which had it been performed beforehand would have surely made the former sound all the less perilous. Was it a test? No matter. Having now recovered a book, he glanced at the cover "Kurt VONNEGUT, TIMEQUAKE". "Fucking Kurt Vonnegut Again." he exclaimed at the top of his voice as he taciturned the pages of his first Kurt Vonnegut novel in outraged reflection. Another matter that made things worse perhaps was that the right hand had been granted the honor of holding the book for reading, while the left had been quite deliberately tucked into the waist of his pants and also his crotch. Oh well, righty had always been a favorite. No matter. "I fucking hate Kurt Vonnegut" he thought, because he wasn't really quite certain as his prepossessions about the writer had largely been informed by internet invective. That said, he was aware that Vonnegut and Kilgore Trout were one and the same and therefore he actually had all the information he needed to make an informed decision.

>>12543106
Uncanny representation of your average /lit/ poster.

Unironically speaking, I love the descriptions of the "impatient god" and his power over his domain and more specifically, his limbs. This could be an entertaining portrait if expanded upon.

>>12543106
Well it certainly reads like Vonnegut; a maximalist style that goes madly off in all directions without properly developing any of the ideas to any satisfactory degree. Find better authors to imitate. I'll say in favor of it, its at least creative.

hey guys I never come here but I can't think of another website that has people on it so could you help me with this
What's the word that's usually used in law where you have something and you give it to someone so they give it back to you when you pay them a loan?
Like, a person has a kid but the kid is [this word] because the person is trying to run and holding the kid makes them tired.
Or you want to rent a car so you give the lady your insurance stuff. Your insurance is [this word] in case you crash your car.
It's like the word hindrance but it's not because it's a word that means either it isn't a hindrance but it could be.
I can't explain it any better than this.

>>12543206
arbitration?

>>12543206
Give a bit of legalese that omits the word, if you can. I need better context clues.

>>12509856
I literally wrote a poem of the same metaphor a few months ago. It's okay, but I can't say mine is better.

>>12543230
>>12543232
No, that's not it. I'll write the sentence it's supposed to be in context with (btw it's a summary of characters so it's not part of the actual writing so don't insult my prose because it's just notes)

Paul's alien family were very lenient in comparison, allowing him to live on Earth even though he was considered a [?] by the alien overlords.

Like a weakest link or something but when I google "weak link" the thesaurus site doesn't have the right word. Like, the legal word for a downpayment on your car so they make sure you pay your car. I guess like collateral but bad collateral.
Like, I feel this word. It's in my brain but I can't see the word in my brain but I feel it.

>>12543276
Ward?

>>12543276
Liability?

>>12543294
YES. This is it. Thank you.

>>12543308
ur welks

>>12543308
"Liability" isn't a word anyone (at least on this board) should have to inquire about here.

Just a guess, but maybe lay off the porn?

>>12543325
I have a concussion.

>>12543325
Holy shit, good job outing your own retardation while trying to attack someone who was just requesting information. What does porn have to do with intelligence? T. retard

>>12543181
Yeah, I was trying to make a parody of Vonnegut because I really don't like him either (though I do wonder to what extent that is just me allowing you guys to tell me what to think) but even then its kind of fucked by the random Joycean wordplay. You're absolutely right, I'm in ADHD mode here, I lack focus.

>>12543337
It has nothing to do with intelligence but it does tend to make your memory foggy. I wasn't even projecting and I'm absolutely speaking from experience. A lot of the time it would take me a whole day to remember even a simple word like this. Since I started doing nofap I'm a lot less slow.

>>12543338
I'm sorry anon

>>12543353
>He took the nofap pill

Fapping or no fapping is of no substance. It's like Ken Erdedy observing the fly in Infinite Jest, it goes in the hole, it goes out of the hole, but neither action is of any importance. Just do what you want with your junk.

>>12543236
...okay?

>>12543364
overindulging in base pleasures of any kind is going to make you feel profoundly uncomfortable and will set your brain in a very unfocused state.

'Peas'


Mara lifted Jessie onto a stool and served her a plate of vegetables. 'Eat up now, sweetie.'

Jessie crossed her arms. 'It's icky.'

'Jessica.'

'Okay, mummy.' She lifted a spoonful. A few peas spilled.

Mara sighed. 'Duffer. It's okay, just eat the rest.'

George watched from the head of the table. 'Jessica.'

Jessie looked at him.

'Clean up your mess, then eat.'

She looked at her mum, who looked at George, who stared back.

Mara’s eyes fell. 'Listen to daddy, Jess.'

She gasped. Peas spilled everywhere.

Mara covered her mouth. 'Oh, honey. I'm so sorry. I meant to say George.'

'Mummy.' Jessie started to cry.

Mara glared at George and carried her out of the room.

George finished his meal and poured a glass of wine. He listened to Mara soothe Jessie. They spoke in hushed voices.

Mara returned. 'You need to leave.'

'Fine.' He left the bottle half empty on the table.

Mara rushed back to Jessie. 'He's gone.'

She sniffed. 'I don’t like these men. I want daddy.'

‘Me too.’ Mara tucked her in, turned out the light and went to the bathroom. She looked in the mirror for a long time. Then she finished the wine. There was another bottle in her room.

*

Jessie found her mum on the floor, among the peas. Mara snored and let the empty bottle roll from her hand. Jessie toddled over, knelt down and poked her on the nose.

Mara snorted.

Jessie giggled.

Mara slit her eyes. ‘Mummy’s sleeping.’

‘School.’

‘It’s Sunday.’ She shut them.

‘It’s Monday, silly.’

She sat up. ‘Shit.’

‘Rude.’

She looked up to her daughter. ‘Ready?’

‘I am.’

‘Point taken.’ She stood up. ‘I need a drink.’

‘You have to drive.’

‘Water.’ She staggered away. The back of her dress was stained green with squished peas. She looked like the Loch Ness Monster. Jessie squealed, fell to the floor and rolled around until she too was green. Mara laughed. Where would she be without Jessie? Would she have got up?

Mara lifted Jessie onto a stool and served her a plate of vegetables. 'Eat up now, sweetie.'

Jessie crossed her arms. 'It's icky.'

'Jessica.'

'Okay, mummy.' She lifted a spoonful. A few peas spilled.

Mara sighed. 'Duffer. It's okay, just eat the rest.'

George watched from the head of the table. 'Jessica.'

Jessie looked at him.

'Clean up your mess, then eat.'

She looked at her mum, who looked at George, who stared back.

Mara’s eyes fell. 'Listen to daddy, Jess.'

She gasped. Peas spilled everywhere.

Mara covered her mouth. 'Oh, honey. I'm so sorry. I meant to say George.'

'Mummy.' Jessie started to cry.

Mara glared at George and carried her out of the room.

George finished his meal and poured a glass of wine. He listened to Mara soothe Jessie. They spoke in hushed voices.

Mara returned. 'You need to leave.'

'Fine.' He left the bottle half empty on the table.

Mara rushed back to Jessie. 'He's gone.'

She sniffed. 'I don’t like these men. I want daddy.'

‘Me too.’ Mara tucked her in, turned out the light and went to the bathroom. She looked in the mirror for a long time. Then she finished the wine. There was another bottle in her room.

*

Jessie found her mum on the floor, among the peas. Mara snored and let the empty bottle roll from her hand. Jessie toddled over, knelt down and poked her on the nose.

Mara snorted.

Jessie giggled.

Mara slit her eyes. ‘Mummy’s sleeping.’

‘School.’

‘It’s Sunday.’ She shut them.

‘It’s Monday, silly.’

She sat up. ‘Shit.’

‘Rude.’

She looked up to her daughter. ‘Ready?’

‘I am.’

‘Point taken.’ She stood up. ‘I need a drink.’

‘You have to drive.’

‘Water.’ She staggered away. The back of her dress was stained green with squished peas. She looked like the Loch Ness Monster. Jessie squealed, fell to the floor and rolled around until she too was green. Nursing a glass of water, Mara looked at her and smiled. Where would she be without Jessie? Would she have got up?

'Peas'


Mara lifted Jessie onto a stool and served her a plate of vegetables. 'Eat up now, sweetie.'

Jessie crossed her arms. 'It's icky.'

'Jessica.'

'Okay, mummy.' She lifted a spoonful. A few peas spilled.

Mara sighed. 'Duffer. It's okay, just eat the rest.'

George watched from the head of the table. 'Jessica.'

Jessie looked at him.

'Clean up your mess, then eat.'

She looked at her mum, who looked at George, who stared back.

Mara’s eyes fell. 'Listen to daddy, Jess.'

She gasped. Peas spilled everywhere.

Mara covered her mouth. 'Oh, honey. I'm so sorry. I meant to say George.'

'Mummy.' Jessie started to cry.

Mara glared at George and carried her out of the room.

George finished his meal and poured a glass of wine. He listened to Mara soothe Jessie. They spoke in hushed voices.

Mara returned. 'You need to leave.'

'Fine.' He left the bottle half empty on the table.

Mara rushed back to Jessie. 'He's gone.'

She sniffed. 'I don’t like these men. I want daddy.'

‘Me too.’ Mara tucked her in, turned out the light and went to the bathroom. She looked in the mirror for a long time. Then she finished the wine. There was another bottle in her room.

*

Jessie found her mum on the floor, among the peas. Mara snored and let the empty bottle roll from her hand. Jessie toddled over, knelt down and poked her on the nose.

Mara snorted.

Jessie giggled.

Mara slit her eyes. ‘Mummy’s sleeping.’

‘School.’

‘It’s Sunday.’ She shut them.

‘It’s Monday, silly.’

She sat up. ‘Shit.’

‘Rude.’

She looked up to her daughter. ‘Ready?’

‘I am.’

‘Point taken.’ She stood up. ‘I need a drink.’

‘You have to drive.’

‘Water.’ She staggered away. The back of her dress was stained green with squished peas. She looked like the Loch Ness Monster. Jessie squealed, fell to the floor and rolled around. Soon she was green. Nursing a glass of water, Mara looked at her and smiled. Where would she be without Jessie? Would she have got up?

>>12543671
The formatting is obnoxious, maybe you only meant it for the sake of the post though. Also, you need better descriptive prose for the sake of who's talking. Not better description overall, though, that's not so bad. Seriously if you just put this in a few single-spaced paragraphs I wouldn't be turning my nose up at it so hard right now. It's lean and fairly effective, although I think the "daddy/George" thing is way too on-the-nose for me. You have style but perhaps you need to work on the substance.

>>12543738

Thanks for the feedback, genuinely helpful. You addressed some things that were concerning me. The formatting is like that due to the fact it's mostly dialogue, and as far as I'm aware that makes it appropriate. Plus, I thought it served to clearly indicate each speaker and complimented the minimalist style. I have an unhealthy obsession with cutting my prose down to the bones and often end up butchering it in the process. But I understand what you're saying, and now that you mention it I see several lines that could be compacted into paragraphs. Will work on the step daddy dynamic too. Cheers

>>12543794
I respect the heavy dialogue strings but maybe it's the lack of having prose for context here that makes it obnoxious. It becomes quickly exhausting without interspersed blocks of prose. Like, my opinion (and I would take it as just that, because maybe this is just a matter of taste) is that really long strings of nothing but dialogue should convey something like tension, whether it be sexual, dangerous, etc. etc. What you depict here is just regular dialogue, very everyday stuff, and so it doesn't really benefit it.

For some reason, the Cuaron film Roma comes to mind. That movie is very dull in a sense, it's very focused on the "everyday" of drama, but what makes it compelling is the visual style and the understated way it draws you into the world. I think you're right about "butchering" here, you've starved it to a point where it's not even attractive. Think of the descriptive prose as being that compelling visual element in this analogy.

>>12505224
>was writing on the behalves of the countless
Should read
was writing on behalf of the countless
Behalves is not a word.
>corrosively, dissolving the productive thoughts into embarrassment.
I would change embarrassment to disarray.

>>12541147
Yea it's just an excerpt.

>>12505224
It's a bit on-the-nose, >>12505234 pretty much nailed it as FPBP. You want your protagonist to be compelling, not a carbon copy of you. Make something about him interesting, give him a skill or talent that will make me want to know his story and where he's going in life. Make some shit up.

>>12533921
This reads more than the writing in a schizophrenic's diary or some rap lyrics than a story.

>>12533921
No one wants to read the literary equivalent of you licking your wounds while you try to write

>>12544202
Shut the fuck up but yeah I agree.

>>12505224
You're not really thinking about how what you're writing all works together. Welling up, corrosion, and dissolution aren't 'sudden'. Why did you say it is a 'notion' of uselessness e.g. what about it specifically and categorically deserves the use of the word notion? Uselessness and embarrassment are two feelings that require more than the loss of productive thoughts in order to tie them together. If you believe they are intrinsically linked, show this in your wording. Write within your limits and extend them, don't just write "like a writer writes" by using obscure words and trying to aim at 'beauty'. That's not the point. The point is to make unambiguous sense.

>>12533921
>Incoherent thoughts stumbling everywhere. Doesn't make sense. It never does.
Why has the narrator decided to narrate or write if he believes he sucks? If it doesn't make sense to him he wouldn't put them into coherent sentences yes?

>>12544240
Seconded. Believing in yourself is so crucial to the creative process, there's nothing more transparent or sad than reading something that is insecure.

>>12505224
I mean. It does sound beautiful. But so do most pieces of purple prose. Try and aim for clarity in your writing, don't just embellish it with a formal/traditional tone and big words. It just makes it a slog to read and understand what the point of the text is.

>>12505224
I like this man the writing is very well but I would recommend breaking your sentences so they flow better. You got a good thing going with the commas but maybe make some sentences after a long wordy comma full one a short burst. So it flows more rhythmically. Otherwise it's good mate keep writing.

>>12512776
Good, but you contradict yourself. Is it scared or happy? You sort of hint at a transition but to me it reads as an incosistency.

>>12519181
Interesting. I like it.

Is there more?

and neon red was shining through the curtains onto a cracked cream hostel wall, the only light within the room; the lightbulb was missing from the sky, stolen. The newest tenant perched a bowl of cool water on the dirty bed linen and shaved the prickling hairs growing awkwardly on her legs under the crimson glow in the infancy of the long night. The task, as any man or woman who has had to shave before can attest, was laborious, and despite her years of experience, the blunt razor still caused blood to appear which she wiped away with the fraying hem of the quilt and it was soon like it never happened.
“...and like I said before, they're just stories.”
“Just stories? They're people's lives.”
“Lives, stories, it's all the same in the end.”
There was a slam on the door followed by one of the men outside apologising. The woman had finished shaving and spilled the bowl of water over her sheets, she cursed. “What I'm saying is: we all need to eat, and I don't know them.”
“That doesn't make it right.”
“No, no, that's true but sometimes it's something you have to do.”
She opened the door, and a man in a red sweater fell on top of her and who then turned the same hue as what he was wearing. “Could you please go to whatever room you're supposed to?”


This is the beginning to a story about a hooker's night. Be brutal about it please, I want to improve and stuff

>>12532620
I like it, but Dad's dialogue is too wordy. I don't know anyone who talks that way, let alone abusive alcoholics.

>>12519181
The first two sentences are fine but they refer to events that don't really sit with eachother chronologically. Something happened, then something else happened, and by their proximity and reference to the same people I am to assume that they follow on from each other. The sentences themselves don't actually suggest that continuity.

The third sentence something similar happens where two events occupy the same sentence in a way that suggests a confused sentence rather than style. The first main problem with word choice occurs in the fourth: to whom do the muscles 'seem' to give up in unison? If they actually did give up in unison, he wouldn't 'simply plop'. If they only 'seemed' to, it would hardly be something worth noting in the text because likely he wouldn't be so far removed from collapsing at that very point in time that he would note they all seemed to him to collapse in unison. Also if he collapses 'once' the bathroom door is shut he would still be in a position of closing the door and his collapse would be a little more directed than 'simply plopping', e.g. he may collapse against the door (why is he closing the door?), or the door has somehow closed itself while he is standing still and free enough to collapse to the ground 'simply'.

Also I hate that time 'slides' by. Someone posted an excerpt from Infinite Jest describing it that way once and I just don't think it works. If there's nothing about the metaphysical notion of time that suggests sliding or nothing particular about the character that suggests they would experience it as sliding then there's no place for it to sit in the sentence.

>>12544368
please don't start anything with "and"
it's tired and ugly. if there's something before "and neon red was shining through..." then you should've included it!
aside from that, i like some of your imagery. you should expand on this sequence a bit. using red the way you have (blood, red shining into the room, red sweater) is pretty fun and can lead to some contrast or connection later on. hard to see it utilized interestingly in this small excerpt though.

>>12544368
If you plan on opening your story with a lowercase "and", I'd definitely reconsider, it's just a little cheesy and gimmicky. The main body is pretty decent, though I think there's some imagery that tries too hard to sound pretty and doesn't really establish a picture in my mind:
>the lightbulb was missing from the sky, stolen
The dialogue is pretty cryptic, but seems sort of natural. I think when the woman spills water on her sheets your writing starts to feel a little bit rushed and weak, like a list of events.

>And the turned the same hue he was wearing
I get what you're attempting here, but it's a little clumsy all jammed into one sentence. Give the color of his sweater in one sentence, let the woman speak or react in a second sentence, and in a third, let the man "turn redder than his sweater" or however else you'd like to say it. Space is really important in prose; readers need time to breath and process your story beats, especially character introductions.

>>12544368
I'll give you my honest opinion but I'm not the best writer and I'm also not pretentious so please be gentle.
Replace that first comma with a period and continue the 2nd half of the sentence as its own. The semicolon is misused and "the lightbulb" should be in-between commas. "sky, stolen," sounds awkward and I would revise it (the lightbulb is obviously stolen since it's missing so it's redundant.)
The 2nd sentence suffers for something I just personally hate but I don't think most people have an issue with this which is "the adjective noun adjective verb adverb the adjective noun" throughout the sentence; too many adjectives. I know this is a non-issue with most people so take this one with a grain of salt but it just tires my brain seeing so many adjectives, some redundant (such as "crimson glow" when it was already established there was a "neon red... shine") but whatever. As for another nitpick, I read once it's not a very good idea to consistently start your sentences off with the same word (in this case, the word "the" makes it very noticeable because it's such a bland word). Also, the 3rd sentence is a run-on.
Colons aren't used that way (also capitalize "she"). You have to have an independent cause before the colon before you use it. This colon is not necessary.
The last sentence is also a run-on. Maybe make "She... door" its own sentence. Also, maybe don't use the hue of someone's clothing as an indicator of anything. I'm saying this only because I don't know the context from this excerpt so I don't know what color that is. Also, it's a bit stilted saying that. There's actually tumblr graphs that poke fun at fanfic writers for comparisons to random objects than simply saying the color.
But take my words with a grain of salt I'm not a professional in any way I just like reading some books sorry if I sounded mean I'm not trying to be okkk

is it fun?

His cards are in outer space. You can see them when you look up at 2:30 AM in Casper, Wyoming. You see them as he does — him in his curly chair rocked back. A pair of threes and a six. He fingers them around the moon's eyelids. He's taunting us. Look hard enough and you'll see a smile behind the focused frown. He asks the moon, “How long’s it gonna be guy?” The sky cracks, and the parking lot grass island is shone over with black and red light. The clouds are censors; God knows threes can do a bunch.
I raise from my grass bed. To know the meaning of this, we travel into the Laramie Mountains and get an angle on the clouds that obfuscate the match. We get a car. The one there: the truck, crimson capped silver and shining alone under the lurid light. I stick you in the back with a shovel and a gun, pursuit ready — it’s in your eyes. Wood debris revolves about the windshield as we drive through buttery kitchens, flowers and wallpaper; fathers jump from second story windows and somersault onto their lawns. The hills come fast, and we get sick air. Nasty air. The silver cap weighs us down so good that we veer back until our tires skate against the clouds. We’re heading the wrong way, so I cut a u-turn that whips your head against the back window, breaking it. You stare up at the golden hills that come sitting down like butts. Your neck bleeds. Popping open the cap divider, I don’t apologize, and say, “Something aint it? To sip the honey, to bleed it back like mouthwash, and the land rises up a bit. I think so anyway. Not trying to scare you or nothing, but I don’t see too good. I drive alright, but I need your eyes ok?”

>>12544403
>>12544412
>>12544434
Thanks for all the advice! I'll edit it now. This was just something I threw together based on the first line of a poem I wrote so appreciate all the criticism! I admit I'm a lazy writer so will work at it :)

>>12544468
It's perfect.

>>12544468
Not too keen on 'obfuscates' but otherwise good

Continuing >>12540261 >>12541769

>>12509807
Is this deep, or just gibberish? After giving it some thought, I'm pretty sure it's gibberish. Also, too many rhymes for 'care'. On the plus side the rhythm is nice.

>>12511168
>>12511174
Not bad. For the most part your prose it tight, unencumbered by unnecessary, overly baroque phases. For the most part. There are a few lines that could have been better.
>the impact from her fall in her attempted escape had inflamed an adolescent injury.
You're in the middle of a chase so you should be trying to keep your prose snappy; this drags down the rhythm. Maybe change it to something like
> she had an old injury there, from back in her childhood, and it had taken the brunt of her fall.

>The lacerations beget blood which stung her eyes.
Why are you using 'beget' here? What does it convey that made you choose it over another, less archaic word? Don't use "sophisticated" words just for the sake of it.

These lines are a little inelegant
>It was featureless and dedicated to a sole purpose.
>But her youthful energy was gone.

>>12511423
Not really much one can say about four lines, but it's okay.

>>12519181
Your writing is fine, but I'm not sure I really care about what you're writing about. Maybe that's my problem, maybe not. Also, I feel like this line:
>Of course, the Greeks could not know what was happening was that the part of their brain responsible for making sense of things was injecting meaning into nothingness.
could be rearranged to make it flow better.

>>12544389
He’s supposed to be something of a contradiction, a sophist who hides his violent temper behind ridiculous pretensions, like he’s overcompensating for his past behaviour.

February 5th, 2019
Not my usual diary entry. It’s dark in my apartment, the sun is shining through blinds and windows but it’s still the cool color of dawn, the steel wrapped around blue. I wanted to write something pretty. I needed to center myself.
The blood is still on my palms.
My head is thrumming like a songbird that swallowed a chainsaw. How do I paint this picture? The blood is still on my fucking palms. I used cold water like King always said and it’s still there, like creosote. I check my keyboard and it’s fine… the stuff is ingrained in my pores.
She ran so gracefully today. Prettier than before, even. Maybe… maybe it was just my knowledge, my perspective, knowing what I had planned to do, knowing I finally had found the conviction. It goes without my saying why I had to do it. You know and I know, dearest.
AHHH. The interjection by the author of pure energy. The kia, the modern “yeet.” That’s truly the best picture I can draw for you… that feeling of releasing the energy that had built up for so long.
February 6th, 2019
Wednesday. Winds of change. Barely falling asleep now, had to open this up and release a little more. It’s not all gone… that pressure. It’s changed, somehow, too. They say the first is the hardest to get over, cuts the deepest, whatever. I don’t deserve this feeling but I suppose it’s only natural. She’s gone now. I miss our runs. I miss her hair swinging back and forth in that rhythmic, precise way it had, the way her shoulders sloped back ever so slightly like she was slowly ascending into the sun. Maybe she’s there now.
It’s cold in the apartment. People are moving around in the building, waking up. These “villas” are full of the violence of human activity and I can’t stand it. I just want a quiet place to record my thoughts and enrich my intellect. I haven’t been able to read lately and when I looked at my books today I felt a strange nausea I’ve never felt before. It’s like I’m changing, too. Growing up, perhaps.
Lots of condolences today. People are comforting me because they knew I knew her. They’ll never really appreciate how much. I posted my own thoughts and feelings too. 9 likes, and one of those terribly feverish frowns. Ricardo. It had to be him. He’s never liked me. Always said I kept too much to myself… oh, what does he call it? A “creep.” He never understood me like Bunny did. He never will. He was always jealous of our closeness, I could tell. He’d try to get her somewhere he could put the poison pill in her ear. Well, she blocked you months ago, my fine-feathered friend. You’ll never fix that now, will you?
Nodding off.

Posted the first part of this before but it got bypassed so now I'm adding the next one. NOT MY DIARY, by the way, more like placeholders of time (the dates don't really matter, what does matter is that it's a diary)

Continuing >>12540261 >>12541769 >>12545242

>>12525540
You might be able to get away with this in poetry, but not in prose. And even then, it wouldn't be particularly good poetry.
>Amber eyes, refracting light
>matted tin rooftops
These lines don't even make sense. You're trying too hard, you're tripping yourself up. And worst of all, your opening paragraphs don't give me any real idea of what your story is about.

>>12525753
You take a lot of words to say not very much. At least you can use your vocabulary properly without mismatching your clauses and stretching your metaphors. But just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

>>12525806
it's not juvenile, but it doesn't sound quite natural either. I'm not really sure how you could fix it; I guess just play around with it until you find something that works. If it's any consolation, the general tone and grammar is okay.

>>12532620
Seconding >>12544389. Even if he's a cut above your average drunk, you should at least have him slur a word or two, or mis-say something, just to show that behind the mask of sophistication there's something broken.

Also, abusive alcoholic fathers are to literature what mid-thirties white men with brown hair, brown eyes, a chiselled jaw and a firearm are to video games. If that's what really comes from your soul, well then you do you. Just be aware that your crossing ground that's so well-trodden at this point it's practically a canyon.

>>12533407
Way too long for a single paragraph. I don't think describing every minute details really adds anything. Also, and I don't usually have to say this, but you could use some longer sentences. Just one or two, to vary the rhythm

>>12546275

>>12533921
This is decent writing that could have been better spent on not whining like an angsty teenager.

>>12537729
There's not really much to say about this, which under the circumstances is a good thing. It's too short to really give a good idea of what your writing is like, but there's nothing majorly wrong with it.

>>12534012
because this thread is still going I thought I'd post what comes after.

Rupert's hands were blazing laid out either side of the plate. Hard he looked upon it. His face red, red hands, red face, he touched his face, bumpy hot, identified the old stress rash rising from the fertile land of his skin where all blood flushed, confused, at the swirl of some inorganic mind; there is artifice in doubt. Images of conjectures are clouds made shapely, true, but the data is pure and responsible, data, say, it is the evaporation, no - the doors of my recognisers, my eyes, my nose, my ears, are that. The evaporating factor, the living-sight itself, the data, pond, and the nimbus formed by foreseeing are my pictures and they are scattered pellets of clouds whose airs are buffer random. There is nothing in a truth responsible for a rash. Nothing in a moment independent of a truth. Where then has your mind wandered, rashy one? But it has been a doubtful day! It has been a difficult day! And I haven't even started breakfast.

Rupert couldn't start his breakfast. Rupert stood and circulated himself around the bottom floor of his house. His movement narrowed, and he became involved in a back and forth from kitchen to table, from kitchen, to table. Then he paused for a long half-minute by the sink, and said: I am the emperor of your wise conceit. Distracted you must subvert the smoothing order. Rouse the plane to rash with your irritable wander. You interior insect, look out for the way, and eat the house, chew the house. Imbibe the rawer order. Look for the way out. Look without. There has to be a way out. He didn't say it out loud and he wasn't sure how it was said. Rupert decided not to move for another three minutes, inhaling deeply through his nose, trying not to be sick.

Rupert was ready for breakfast. Rupert sat down at the table. Three and one half bites per half did Rupert bite, and the chewing might well have been as concise. His juice, he drank half of between halves. He drank a third of the half. He finished his juice, it churned with the milk. True, water would've leant a better settling, but Rupert must put on weight, he must do that already, and as for the containers, well, for them he had designs. But it would be a seemly thing to drink some some water! Of those bottles, too, did he have use. So, Rupert fetched a bottle from the kitchen cupboard, and a brown banana for goodness, and while he was up, he urinated into the pit of his living room, and full well decided that was where he might conduct all his heathen business from now on. The battles of the bottom floor shall be a tactical and sensory assault.

>>12545640
>NOT MY DIARY, by the way, more like placeholders of time (the dates don't really matter, what does matter is that it's a diary)

I just want to clarify, because that sentence confused me a bit, but this is a work of fiction in diary format whose dates are unimportant?

>>12544368
I'm going to give you positive feedback on this. Although other people have commented you not to start the story with 'and', personally, I enjoy it. I think it fits with the tone of the story. I see that it mirrors the opening dialogue:
"... and like I said before, they're just stories."
Straight away, it feels like there has been so much space outside of the story we've missed out on.Yes, I like this opening quite a lot. That said, it might be worthwhile heeding other criticism, and not do it at the start of every other chapter.

There are only two very minor this I'd change. In this sentence:

>The newest tenant perched a bowl of cool water on the dirty bed linen and shaved the prickling hairs growing awkwardly on her legs under the crimson glow in the infancy of the long night.

If you got rid of 'awkwardly' and 'crimson', that sentence would be spot on.

>and a man in a red sweater fell on top of her and who then turned the same hue as what he was wearing.

I would instead say: and a man in a red sweater fell on top of her turning the same hue of his garment.

Hope this was helpful.

Six Feet Under. That was the bar's name. It was in a basement off 24th street, and the half a dozen storeys of sixties brutalism on top of it made for a poor headstone. The neighbourhood isn't much in the daytime; mostly cheap office space and a bit of light industrial. I got there around 1am, and it was the kind of deserted that makes you see switchblades behind every blocky, concrete pillar. The streetlights were all out, and the only light was the purple and pink neon sign of an all-night internet cafe. I knew there was a junker's on top packed to the ceiling with old towers and fragmented circuit boards, so I suspected that they did a lot more than provide porn to the homeless. But that wasn't my business.

There are a lot of things that aren't my business these days. Time was, I'd have half a dozen projects on the go and people coming to me from across the city with their hands out. Time was I could put my hand in a dumpster full of trash and pull out a diamond ring, and then make a profit on both. Well, there's no sense dwelling on the past - I had a deal to make.

I rushed past the sixties office block and down the steps into the 21st century. Six Feet Under doesn't have a doorman, but it does have a camera. It edged around a little, tracking me as I came up to the door. It let me in without a problem, but as the joke went the real difficulty was in getting out again.

For all the individuality of its client base, the bar itself is so stereotypical it's hard not to wonder if the decor is ironic. A couple of barstools, a couple of booths, a counter. Stainless steel and polymers rather than wood; cosmopolitan, not comfy. But still, the only thing remarkable about it was the mix of suited men and pierced... women? And the fact that they were all here at 1am on a Wednesday.

I knew the booth from memory, although it was a long time since I'd seen him. I had a smile ready when I sat down.

"Hey, good to see you man. Long time, no see. It's really good... I'm really glad we're doing this. It's a great opportunity." My mouth was running on autopilot. I'd meant to make a quip about his hair, and the $200 a month he spent to make it look like that; needle him a little to show him I wasn't desperate. But... well, the hair was still the same, but there were other differences.

Black eyes and skin you could practically see through. I hadn't realised how deep in he'd got himself - I just assumed he'd stayed a middle man. He smiled, showing pointed teeth, knowing I was staring. And now I was starting to wonder how deep I was right now. Maybe a lot more six feet.

"Hello Grant. Long time indeed. Drinks are coming, I took the freedom of ordering for you." He paused, and his jet black eyes flickered for a moment. Maybe he wasn't sure about this either. Then, casually, he said: "Silk lives as long as you keep it dancing - it takes the shape of the body underneath it. So, can you keep it dancing?"

The worst thing was, I knew what he meant.

help, I have to write a short story for my CW class and i'm all out of ideas. is this going anywhere, or just painful to read?

>“Shot of Espresso?” asked the whore behind the counter. I refused to call her by her name, nor the title unbefitting her position. She provided a service of pleasure, offering a rush of the senses in exchange for cash. It did not matter how this was achieved, through sexual contact or the mixing of a particularly caffeinated beverage, the premise was the same. It was the principle that mattered, not the context. I’d tried explaining this to my friend once, to which his only response was “dude, it’s just coffee. Drink it.” eloquent response as always, some people have no appreciation for the fundamental structure of society nor the grace to wrestle with such philosophical concepts.
“Yes, that would be lovely.” my response was curt, yet polite. It was always a good idea to make the unenlightened class believe you had some modicum of respect for them. It generally improved their mood for the day and prevented them from doing something unpleasant to your coffee while you weren’t looking.

>>12547546
This is great. It kind of reads like a film noir. Flows well. I'd be honestly interested in reading more. Parts I liked particularly:
>and the half a dozen storeys of sixties brutalism on top of it made for a poor headstone
Yep, good work.
>Time was I could put my hand in a dumpster full of trash and pull out a diamond ring, and then make a profit on both.
Good, like it.
> but it does have a camera. It edged around a little, tracking me as I came up to the door. It let me in without a problem, but as the joke went the real difficulty was in getting out again.
Yep, I like that too, and then it goes straight into:
>the bar itself is so stereotypical it's hard not to wonder if the decor is ironic.
Which I approve of. I like this character, I like his observations, I want to see what he gets himself out of. This story is building momentum. Except this:
>jet black eyes flickered for a moment
This is literally the only thing that doesn't work for me. 'Jet black', 'eyes flickered', 'for a moment', you've got the whole trifecta there. Snip it, and you're good.

I’ve never been me.
There's an apple at the top of a tree —
but a dirty dog
is eating rot off the floor of the tree!

Oh, happy dog
eating gift apples free!
Beg not for food; please
join again at the foot of the apple tree.

>>12547694
The narrator is a bit of a wanker, maybe a bit too over the top at some points. It depends what you want to do with him. Just because the narrator is painful to read, that doesn't mean the writing is bad.
>“Shot of Espresso?” asked the whore behind the counter.
That's a strong enough opening. I like it, I'm in.
>She provided a service of pleasure, offering a rush of the senses in exchange for cash.
I think is stronger as:
>She provided a service of pleasure. It did not matter how this was achieved, through sexual contact or the mixing of a particularly caffeinated beverage, the premise was the same.
> “dude, it’s just coffee. Drink it.” eloquent response as always, some people have no appreciation for the fundamental structure of society nor the grace to wrestle with such philosophical concepts.
I personally think this is stronger:
> “dude, it’s just coffee. Drink it.” I did not agree.
And this:
>It was always a good idea to make the unenlightened class believe you had some modicum of respect for them. It generally improved their mood for the day and prevented them from doing something unpleasant to your coffee while you weren’t looking.
Yeah, this definitely makes the narrator read like a wanker, but if that's his character, then that's his character. It doesn't have to go, but it will be what the reader is thinking. Personally, I think if there was some way of letting your audience know that you yourself knew he was a wanker, they'd know that's what he was supposed to be. So... perhaps an interaction with somebody that says what the audience is thinking? Or... you could just have the character retreat to his own sad little bubble, introduce us to that bubble, and make us feel sorry for him. The friend could actually be revealed to actually be averse to this character, and more of an 'acquaintance', to which the character is socially oblivious. There's a lot of places it could go.

>>12547748
I cannot critique poetry because I don't know anything about form, but I can tell you that I like your poem, anon, for some reason that I'm not sure of.

>>12544351

Thank you. Yes, I'm about 80 pages into the story which is more or less the "first act". I plan to do a little revising, a little retouching and go from there. I'm following a basic three act structure. I hope to finish in a month. At a hundred or so pages, I might drop what I have into a dropbox file and let the board have at it, if for no other reason than to gauge the interest of a community.

>>12544395
Thank you for the comprehensive feedback. This level of engagement and scrutiny is what drives me back to /lit/ /crit/ threads. Your criticism has caused me to return to the section I posted and revise it so that it reads more coherently and more linear. I disagree with you, however, on the metaphysical notion of time "sliding" by. It has nothing to do with the writing, of course. The concept is apparent to me as a person who abuses alcohol and who has observed other people in the state of alcohol abuse. Again, I deeply appreciate your observations and will work to make my writing clearer and sharper.

>>12545242

Thank you very much for the feedback. I'm trying to become one of those people who can live the whole "You can't please everybody all the time" mantra instead of just repeating it. I hope that through my revisions, you and others who share your sensibilities will enjoy my writing.

The sentence you point out is indeed unfocused. I feel that I construct sentences this way when I'm more concerned with what I'm saying than how I'm saying it. Good writing has to do both well and I'm going to keep working toward this end.

>>12547710
Hey man, thanks for reading it; I'm glad you liked it. It's the third thing I've posted in this thread and the first one that got a response.

>I'd be honestly interested in reading more.
I'm going to level with you: I have no idea where it goes from here. I wrote it solely to see what I could write in half an hour, and the reason it gets a little sloppy at the end is because it took me 40 minutes and my dinner needed cooking. You're right, 'Jet black' is lazy writing.

>>12547546
Way too heavy on helping verbs and passive voice.

This is from an already published short story but here's a sample of my prose stylings:

I walked Mary home that evening, passing through the south tunnel and out to the street that, if you followed it east, led right to our apartment complex, which was brick like the factory courtyard building and cracked all over. We climbed the grey stone steps to its entrance, then turned around and headed back down the street to the plants. This gave us more time to talk and since Mary had a story to tell that night it only made sense that I walk her home twice. Mary cocked her head to the side and spoke about some workplace mishap. She looked straight ahead and I was watching her face, its profile blurred by the dim streetlights framed behind her. I watched the mouth dance and the cheeks bunch up when she smiled. An automobile passed by and we stepped off the road. The soft dirt lurched up around our feet as we walked. A young couple passed us with their hands in each other’s coat pockets and their bodies pressed tight together. Breezes came in odd intervals, the air bitter and cool, and Mary swayed like a dancer because she felt happy that night. She didn’t say it but her swaying did. She twirled about and bumped my shoulder and laughed with her head thrown back so that her chin greeted the sky. To our left lay a railway, and Mary stepped onto its rusted iron tracks, balancing herself with arms thrust up into the night. Her overcoat was blue and her teeth were white and from the dark the vibrating click-clack of a running train whispered out to us.

>>12548238

Who in the literal fuck decided to publish this?

>>12548261
A reputable short fiction and poetry journal did, just last year. I guess they like Hemingway inspired prose, bc that's who I drew from while drafting. It was awarded top prize in the edition, btw. Please post some of your prose to compare. (I consider my own style to be merely adequate, just so you know. But I'm 21 and have plenty of time to develop.)

And here is another snippet from the same piece:

She gave this prayer in a tiny voice. The voice cracked a few times as she spoke, but there was something in it that I could feel all through my body as I knelt on the hard wooden floor. I thought I must have loved her, and if she had tied me to the bed, doused me with oil, and burnt me alive right then I’d have welcomed it. I reached out and pushed her hair back behind her ear with my fingers, but she pulled away. On the table, the light from the lamp was dying, causing Mary’s face to darken. Then the flame went, and the room went black with it, and the faint lines of her profile vanished. I leaned in close to see her holding the necklace with both hands, mouthing something inaudible. Behind her was the window. A thin shaft of moonlight had filled the space between our building and the neighboring one. It gave off a soft glow, so that Mary’s cross gleamed a little and her face reemerged from the darkness.

>>12548327

You are so full of shit it hurts.

Please tell me the editor of which "reputable short fiction and poetry journal" you worked with who allowed the printing of a sentence like

>The soft dirt lurched up around our feet as we walked.

>>12548392
>he doesn't use language based on audiovisual relevancy to a given sentence
Lurch works perfectly there. Stay mad that I get paid to write and you don't. Still waiting on your prose sample btw. Here is one more passage from my (published) piece:

I lay in bed a while, watching the flame flicker on the nightstand, and thought of Mary. I wondered if she might be sick and in bed as I was, by candlelight. But this, I felt, was wrong. So I wondered about where she had gone and if she would ever come back. And I knew she would not. Above me the ceiling shimmered yellow-orange, like you were looking at the sands of a beach through a glass of water. Outside the room, beyond the reach of my candle’s flame, was all black. No light, not even moonlight, leaked in from the window. I noticed a dull ache in my stomach, a remnant from earlier, and turned on my side away from the candle. Its light threw my shadow onto the wall before me, a lumpy, ugly shape and nothing like Mary’s. I watched it bend and shift with my movements. After some time spent lying there, a breeze from the still-cracked window blew out the candle and I fell, slowly, into a deep sleep.
The textile manufacturing plant went up in flames the next morning and in its burning filled the air with thick, acrid smoke. The workers evacuated the complex and watched from across the road as the fire raged. Not everyone had gotten out, they whispered, people were still inside. I moved through the crowd. Young women still inside, they murmured as I passed. The smoke would spread for miles and miles, they said. And it did. And the sky became as black as Mary’s hair had been, when I saw her last, not long ago.

>>12548327
No offense, I don't want to sound rude in any way, but it reads like something for first or second graders.
>the flame went
>the room went black with it
Not only does a lot of it not sound as though it was written by a human, it's incredibly stiff. There is no prose to this. It feels like it was written by an AI. I don't feel a soul or a personality to any of it.

>>12548400

Still waiting on the name of the editor you worked with.

>>12548407
What would fit better there given my style is purposefully terse, elliptical, and visual? Went clearly suggest "went away," and is a less banal way of saying: the flame went out, or snapped, or whatever cliche. You need to read more modern writing if you think that's for first or second graders.

Again, I'll ask: what would make those lines soulful? What would serve their purpose (expressing the immediate absence of light) better? Write a better sentence without using adverbs, helping verbs, or cliches.
>>12548420
Gregg Frazer. Email him and convince him that your opinion means more than his. Still waiting on a sample of your prose, btw, preferably something published for pay.

>>12548407
Never read Hemingway?

>>12548454
Why would I want to read trash?

>>12548481
Post an example of your prose and we'll compare it to Hemingway's.

>>12548327

yo stop making fun of this kid. He probably fell for a vanity press or a ponzi scheme

>>12548496
It was published through a university and I got paid for it. :)

>>12548506

Okay so I want to buy this magazine, where can I buy it?

>>12548520
>zine
Not telling anyways :) You'll just have to take my word for it!

>>12548527

>I'm a respected, published author inspired by Hemingway. Take my word for it.

The internet, ladies and gentleman.

The black tin train he’d spent the last two years of his life on carved its way through a ravine swollen with mist. He sat resting on a thin white cot, his back straight-angled against the wall, and ran his thumb along the bottom of his lip. The tracks outside were misaligned somewhat—being laid more hastily than other sections of the World Rail, he guessed—and his right boot shook back and forth with the rhythmic jolting of the train, rapping the wall with the toe box and going thud thud. An intercom speaker on the wall just above his head began to hum, crackling to life with static, then words: “Thirty minutes until arrival at King Pea station, please pack your belongings and be ready with your bags to disembark.” The young man shifted his weight a little, swung his legs off the side of the cot and stood, placing a hand on the ceiling for balance. Two years of life onboard had taught him to stand on a train like it was set and solid ground, but the jolting caused by the roughshod lay of the tracks drew his hand, against his will, to the nearest stable matter. He wobbled a bit, feeling embarrassed for having succumbed to the force of movement. The bags he’d packed up some four hours prior lay in a corner by the sink, and he was just leaning to straighten them when a short bulbous man with a wide bulbous face slid open the cabin door, waddled in, then pulled it shut without turning to glance back. This man was called Sanso and he leered about the cabin, his gleaming black knee-high boots stuck to the floor as if glued—he did not place a hand on the ceiling, which he couldn’t reach, nor anywhere else, but gripped both lapels of his dark seersucker suit and remained perfectly still, the jolting of the train car unreal to him somehow. He hadn’t made eye contact with the young man to whom the cabin belonged since entering, but the young man felt he had been looking at and through him all the same.
“How may I be of service, sir--” the young man started to address this Sanso, this severe little steward on whom so much responsibility for the train’s service apparatus rested, but Sanso cut him short, calling him an unctuous snot-nosed needle-necked porter with less brains than even the most witless coal trimmer, and a few other things besides. The words ran over the young man like the waters of Siloam, their cruel intentions so cushioned by Sanso’s bored, recitational delivery. And he had grown some way or other in the past two years to even like these outbursts of Sanso’s, who finishing his tirade at last made eye contact with the object of his visit. Sanso’s eyes sat two dim amber rings in his much too shallow sockets. They bulged wildly at all times, but the rest of the face they jutted out from showed so little strain that to own such labored eyes made it a countenance of paradox, an unnatural sort of mien that simply didn’t add up no matter how long you stared. And you had better not stare long.

>>12548534
Hey now--I never said respected, only published. And I've only published two short stories, with a third in progress. The other two read nothing like Hemingway.

>>12505224
How do I even write? Whenever I try I barely get further than a sentence before realizing my prose is just garbage

>>12548583
Read a book, replace its plot and characters with your plot and characters, sell the book and make mad dosh.

>>12548448

>Gregg Frazer

Professor at "The Master's University"

>The Master's University

"The university has been accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges since 1975.[9] In July 2018, it was placed on probation.[10] WASC found the institution in violation of multiple standards of accreditation, including competing loyalties among its board of directors, a lack of operational integrity, and a pattern of unethical treatment among faculty and staff. The visiting accreditation team observed – and received reports of – a climate of fear, intimidation, bullying, and uncertainty among significant numbers of faculty and staff.[10] WASC stated its "extreme concern" that the university might be in violation of required reporting responsibilities under the Clery Act, the Violence Against Women Act, and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.[11] The university has less than two years to remedy the perceived problems and avoid withdrawal of its accreditation;[11] it has said that it is working to correct them.[12][13]"

>It was published through a university and I got paid for it. :)

I'm sorry you got taken for a ride, anon.

>>12548546
Intersting, could use some work in trimming the descriptive 'fat', for instance;
>placing a hand on the ceiling for balance
Unnecessary.
> He hadn’t made eye contact
Shorten or remove.

>>12548608
You might have known that the Gregg Frazer who teaches Polsci is not the professor I referred to as editor of my creative writing journal. Fucking idiot. I have never heard of a Master's University in my life. And I was lying about his name anyhow, though what I said is close. All I'm trying to show you is that maybe the kind of writing you think is bad isn't so bad. It sure felt good to get paid and published. Disbelieve me if you want :)

>>12548638
Thank you

>>12548640

I hope you find the psychological help you need.

>>12548673
Maybe it is you who needs the help. Why does it matter to you so much if this guy got published one time? Even if his work sucks mad dick (it doesn't) there is plenty of shitty art that gets paid for. Suck it up and don't be envious. There are bigger fish to fry.

>>12548673
I'm just joshing with you bro. I never should have mentioned that mine was a published piece. But it is and I thought folks might want to know what sort of riff-raff gets bought and sold. I already told you that I think my prose is only adequate and needs work. I'm still waiting to see your style.
>>12548687
Thanks, friend. I think my work is average but solid for my age, and I see much worse even in lauded novels. Writing is terribly hard to do well.

>>12546540
Yes, that's correct.

>>12543206
Collateral

>>12505224
I enjoy the subject of your prose, yet there are too many adjectives. Use adjectives sparingly, otherwise they'll lose their meaningfulness. Too many adjectives can also clutter the paragraph, making the piece sound choppy.

Nonetheless, I like the subject; all it needs is revision. Keep up the good work friend...

>>12548863
I'd have to agree, keep it up, you'll get there.

From a book I want to write called the Skinned Lizards:

The hallways of stone they'd bored through back in the day had been blown up by the retreating Australian Army and had effectively closed off the Freeway, and one of the boys who used to make the back and forth from Gossie to Sydney when he was a kid choked up and said "Aw, fuck me..." when he saw the rubble. All of them from the Cennie Coast agreed it was a fucken shame, but advised him not to get too worked up about it. Chappo at that point completed his climb up the ridge and saw the mess and did sympathise with the Coasties, and explained to the Perthoes and the Wog Squad who thought the tears were a bit much that this was as close to churches as things got around here, or as close to anything made out of stone at least, and the view from out the window on the way down to Sydney was as much as anything else was anything, you know?
"Imagine if they tore down Uluru," explained Chappo.
"They'd already put a fucken highway through it."
"Yeah, but imagine if you'd gone up and down it heaps of times."
And they said that was fair enough, and they said sorry that his road had got blown up, but the poor kid felt like an idiot, and wiped his face, and said "Fuckin nah, don't worry, I'm over it, hey."

They climbed the highest point of the rubble and saw not one sign of the Indonegroes, not a smell, not a sound. Chappo was in deep conversation with a Perthie about the docility of the common shark when it was decided that the road was safe enough, for now, and to report back to Mitch. They stepped cautiously down the ridge in the dusk so as not to lose their footing. Without the burden of a rifle Chappo went ahead, and deliberately tottered and slipped in the leaves to speed things up for himself, slapping his fat hands on the gums to stop himself when need be. A few of the boys were pissed at him for the noise but Chappo in is own mind thought he'd draw fire if they came across trouble. Soon enough they could hear him and not see him, and then it got dark. They found him at the camp half an hour later talking to another man about the sharks.

>>12546275
>abusive alcoholic fathers are to literature what mid-thirties white men with brown hair, brown eyes, a chiselled jaw and a firearm are to video games.
The violence of the father is a small precursive part of the story proper when the child is grown and revisiting the site of his childhood, would've preferred comments on my language but I see your point.

>>12548932
We need a concrete perspective, I'd feel as if this would be more coherant if it were from a character's view.

>>12532620
bad. Read Faulkner if you want to read what a good drunk father reads like.

Slime Palace High Command here, dropping by to say that the Slime Palace zine is now accepting all those depraved auto-erotic fictions you would write if it didn't mean abandoning all other criteria of aesthetic value and public intelligibility >>12548971

>>12548990
I've never thought of this as anything other than 3rd person, so my mind is kind of blown, but really I like your suggestion. The main character is Mitch, so the narrator would be some random orbiting the destiny of someone greater. I'll give it a whirl and see how I go, thanks

>>12546540
Any feedback? Samefagging the replies