/lit/ - Literature

Rate me.

>>12826552
7/10. I hate all sexuality. It disgusts me.

Someone rate me: https://pastebin.com/pMb0WKyk

>>12826552
Normally I hate when writers go on at length describing physical characteristics, but this is just deliciously grimy. Post more.

>>12826565
Get laid incel

>>12826514
>critique

>>12826581
I actually did recently, but it wasn't very enjoyable. Nothing can live up to my paraphilia at this point.

>>12826552
How is it possible that the more you describe something, the less I know what the fuck you are talking about?

>>12826552
>He believes he can see through clothes, given the proper vantage

Made me laugh

>>12826565
Femdom is the patrician taste

My day as stream of consciousness, sorry for the minutiae. Let me know if you enjoy any parts.

Is there any way to articulate the brief relief granted by a sigh? It’s a slight flirtation with the escape of sleep, whose sighs we call snoozes. Well, that was my best try. I don’t know, I’m sad. I don’t really dream about her- I mean, I just dreamt about her, but I don’t really *dream* about her anymore you know? It’s more of a nostalgic resurgence that lingers into the morning and washes onto shore. Washing up her shells and stones on the wet sand, idly by the children building a sandcastle. The same one I kick over every time I see her smile. They know they shouldn’t play by the tide.

Aside, Mom and Dad are getting older. It’s not romantic, it’s too is simply sad. Dad drops his e-cigarette every time he gets up from his spot on the couch. I think he is pre-dementia, I hope not, but I don’t rule out the possibility. Mom is still working out, not for health, but for her figure. You can see her simultaneously clinging on and letting go of youth.

I just got back from Peets. I ordered a french-pressed coffee, but I only went to see the girl who comped my tea when I was there with Felipe after Layla left him. Kayla. I wanted to ask for her number, but didn’t because I knew the last thing Felipe would want to see, is the beginning of a relationship. That’s why I didn’t ask for her number, honest, but that doesn’t explain me grinding with Cassidy two nights before. Funny how humans work, one moment out of compassion, the other out of selfish indulgence.

Anyway, Kayla was there, but she was studying. It seems likely that she would have noticed me, but there was no glances exchanged. I didn’t talk to her and instead waited quietly sitting for my coffee. I wished I just went and talked to her, but I didn’t feel the confidence so I didn’t. I even prepared by eating dark chocolate for the endorphins beforehand, at least expecting a placebo, but nothing. I walked in, noticed Kayla to my left. As I walked by her I gave her an immediate glance, but she never looked up. So I waited in line without looking her way. As I went up to the register I ordered my coffee paying special attention to each word and intonation that came out of my mouth, hoping Kayla would overhear my cool and respectful regard for her co-worker. Her co-worker, who I actually somewhat disliked. said it'll be five minutes. When the drink was ready, he actually walked it out to me, it made me dislike him even more..On the recent days I have been thinking about Sam and suicide. More often, suicide, but I sprinkle in Sam. I want her back, but conditionally. And that’s not fair to her, so I keep a cold distance so I don’t hurt her more, in a way, that is what I think hurt her most. I didn’t know, I thought it was best, but maybe I was subconsciously doing what was best for me. I am sorry Sam. I did not mean to.

>>12826552
Genuinely just made me uncomfortable. Cringe, perhaps. Something about your vocabulary choice just screams beta zoomer.

I was already told that it's shitty in another thread, but I'd appreciate more constructive criticism, e.g. why is it shitty. A few people said they liked it.

Under moonlight, murals are etched in sand
Marooned designs pour from unconscious mind's
Emotional affair with world at hand
Each night, the moon sets and rolls the tide

>>12826659
updated first paragraph

>>12826552
i like how some of the phrases are interesting/funny but i'm not really big on flowery description for the sake of description, mainly the last portion. i suppose it makes sense if the narrator is supposed to be obsessed with this lady.
>>12826659
had me until the second paragraph
>>12826667
this seems OK to me, not sure why you would go into weird satire for the rest of it

posting mine in a second

>>12826606
The sandcastle-smashing scene is great. Builds up a nostalgic metaphor only to tear it down. The stuff about Kayla is kind of weird though. Hope you're doing okay bud
I should clarify that I wrote that years ago. This project of documenting my return is a strange one, bringing up a lot of old memories and the little fictions of my childhood, many of them written down when I was younger, or at least recollected in the years that followed. I really wanted to get in touch with myself again. I know it’s a self-indulgent thing to say given the severity of our present situation, but after everything that happened with my da, so much was left unturned and the project gives me an opportunity to write some blissful white noise. I’m sure you understand why we’ve had to encrypt the brief to a prime order, can’t be too careful. As for the primary issue, Faslane is still in lockdown, and giving us total radio silence. The prime minister has suggested a chemical leak but the truth is we have no idea (nor a way of knowing) what’s going on in there. Doubt I’ll have many chances to reach it, though I’m not entirely sure I want to. The peace camp nearby has been successfully dispersed, but police are still scouting the woods for insurgent clowns from CIRCA. Their previous efforts to create a blockade didn’t last long, and I’m fairly certain is unrelated to whatever might be going on inside as of right now. My immediate interest is the strange communes that have have started popping up across the hebrides. There’s been talk amongst the locals of something going on at night, but none of their stories seem to corroborate– one unnamed witness claims there’s a geek show travelling island to island via the ferries, another seems to think there’s a hippie commune experimenting with drugs, music, orgies and/or satanic rituals (according to the overzealous [unmentionable]). One rumour circulating the taverns is that they've been cremating bodies. One bizarre encounter involved an individual quite wide-eyed with speed, suggesting the so-called 'cult' are actually a group of hackers who have been buying up shares in adverts on streaming sites in order to put subliminal messages in them. Apparently, he claims, they realised that people fall asleep in front of their laptops and phones all the time while leaving autoplay on, and that this vagrant band of entrepreneurs managed to corner the market in therapeutic marketing, so to speak, while at the same time burying their tendrils into our malleable brains while we sleep. If he hadn't plyed me with drinks I probably wouldn't have listened to so much of it.

>>12826846
it's not satire, mikkel is just an eccentric sort of charater

>>12826863
Thanks man, life is tragic. The Kayla stuff is weird because I think I'm slightly a narcissistic sociopath. So those may be the foreign inner monologues of that person. For example, I felt happiness when the barista told me that my drink would take a *litte* longer than expected because they had to prepare the beans. I only saw this as another opportunity to show Kayla how relaxed and cool I am, when in reality I was anxious. And with the world being so honest, that is probably what shone through.

Anyway,

I think yours is supposed to be surreal? Are you attempting to obscure the meaning? Because it seems as if you purposely deny the reader the *thing* to hold on to as they read, i.e. the purpose. I'm not sure how other writers such as Kafka perfected this, but I think it could be improved. These are just my thoughts as I'm reading though, perhaps I'm being overzealous of eager with my comment.

After finishing your passage I think it could be improved by starting/leading with the eye-witness accounts of the "circus" going camp to camp. Perhaps even throw in the word circus if you want to add color to the description, it's a cool word to add to any intended surrealism. But if I am getting anything wrong I'd be interested in knowing more/what I am getting wrong. Also maybe integrate the words/themes of hypnosis, or somnambulism.

Thanks OP, cool premise of the circus people. I'm assuming this is a war setting as well?

>>12826565
You're running in circles; these are simply lists of tautologies.
4.5/10 - You might as well have listed out your axioms and left it at that.

In the seas sourced by severe rivers,
Waters seeded forced by Mountains,
A rickety boat’s pilot shivers,
Never to float home, nor find them.

The pole’s what matters, the flag does not,
Towers, Giants are marked by spine,
Over dead mounds the battles are fought;
Dead mounds made from giants dying.

In this mast of his no banner flies,
Even past flags soiled wonting spine,
Break the tall backs, so finding the why,
Under, over the starry sky.

Ten days or ten years, he could not tell,
In his broken vessel drifting,
Colour wakes in his eyes, in which swells
An ocean, reflects stars shifting.

Now infinite sea and sky are one,
True messages are hidden by
Knowledge; overelaboration;
In that false enlightenment die.

Lost is the one who believes it so,
Lost is the one who finds oneself,
Make the climb and you’ll certainly know,
You will find up there nought but snow.

Snow melts into many glaciers,
Every trickle to river,
Life’s soil and dirt makes it heavier,
Filled with dense silt to revive her.

https://pastebin.com/U7nMWtfb

>>12826552
No discernible talent
>>12826565
No discernible talent
>>12826606
No discernible talent
>>12826659
No discernible talent
>>12826875
No discernible talent
>>12827290
No discernible talent

https://pastebin.com/pSpCfsjc

I know it's relatively long, but anything helps. Last thread wasn't very active, unfortunately.

>>12826552
It feels really over the top and cheesy, but in an ironic sort of way it's also brilliant. I feel like I need a bit more context to judge it one way or the other.

>>12826606
I, too, liked the imagery of the shore and the sandcastles. I'm more interested in your descriptions of your parents than the bit about Kayla if I'm being honest, I don't like when a whole lot of words are given to a woman the narrator hasn't actually been involved with yet.

>>12826863
I'm confused and yet extremely intrigued at the setting going on here. I'm guessing this isn't the beginning of the piece, but a snippet. It gets a bit overwhelming at times, but I feel like maybe that's what you were going for, and something about reading it is pretty hypnotic. Keep it up.

>>12826875
This made me smile, I miss my dogs. But importantly it also makes me wonder about Leo's relationship with Martha and his past, and why he now has a surplus of time, in a subtle way. Would keep reading.

>>12827315
Honestly, it could use a bit of work. Some parts come off as a bit tedious and clunky, like the whole bit about checking his mail shouldn't take four sentences to get through, but then there's noticeably less attention given to things that could potentially be more interesting descriptions, like the homeless men. And there's a decent bit of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes (also, au revoir*). The premise is funny enough, but it needs some polishing.

>>12827446
No discernible talent

>>12827446
>https://pastebin.com/pSpCfsjc
I've gotta say, anon, that was really well put-together. The contrast between the start ( "I couldn’t remember the last time I felt the warmth of the sun." )
and the end where that same warmth becomes something antagonistic and foreign is absolutely fantastic. I kind of wish there were more details about MC's past ventures (maybe small blurbs of detail after he mentions that he might have recorded thousands of towers) since the one we did get to experience was such an interesting shift that left me wanting more. And then there was the whole mystery of MC's first entry and why it was written in blue ink and honestly, I don't think any of it could be said better. It really captures the emotion of the mystery as well as an intriguing familiarity -- as well as disconnect -- with MC of the past and how MC of the present views that past. The entire portion with the statue, aside from a grammatical error or two, had me on the edge of my seat, and I think the only thing that really needs clarification is the term "circle" that you use when the setting is first introduced. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to envision a Colosseum, a plaza, or just a big red circle drawn with chalk.

Overall, fantastic story anon. I really hope I get to see more of your work in the future

>>12826514
the problem with these critique threads is that they're always filled with shitty writing.

so what we have here are a bunch of shitty writers telling other shitty writers that their work is or isn't shitty.

>>12827453
>>12827409
Contribute.

>>12827655
Such negativity?

>>12826875
I really like this. The pace is excellent and makes me want to continue reading to dig deeper into Wilson's past, as well as his relationship with the dog and their job. You put a lot of information and intrigue into 3 paragraphs and it's clear, concise, and interesting. 8/10 would read.

On that note here are a few of the opening paragraphs that also contain a dog. Looking for some critique on my style specifically.

https://pastebin.com/9xGSt51d

absolute noobie here, just started this today. pls be nice :^)

https://pastebin.com/H6MbsihZ

>>12827409
>No discernible life

>Go to creative writing class, get crit every week for the entire course.
>Hope to find some really helpful stuff for when I write a novel. Other students must surely be the best, most constructive, critics for me
>"Hmmm, you shouldn't use 'he said'. I heard it's bad
mfw

>>12829337
backstory?

Here's mine, it's a kind of sketch instead of being worked out so any tips on grammar, pacing, dialogue, etc., will be appreciated:

>"High tension rescue deliberation"
https://pastebin.com/jU4J9zuL


>>12829109
>damp canopy of deep, damp green
Using damp two times in succession feels to me kind of awkward.
>lolling
Odd word in my opinion, but seems to work.
>Caile commanded
Stood out to me due to the constant "just say said" talk.

The rest is very flowery, which isn't my cup of tea, but that depends on the reader, really. Very "poetic" also.
One other thing I noticed is the moderate amount of unneeded adverbs, like "quietly", "lazily", "gently", "loosely", "eagerly", "stubbornly", and "greedily".

>>12829337
>Using "said" instead of declared, bellowed, avowed, jeered, or ejaculated
Never gonna make it

>>12829337
Stuff like that is basically all you'll ever get from a lot of people. Just following contrived rules that they heard about once and just assume it must be right because it was in some internet article like "12 Most Important Tips for New Writers."

>>12829109
The way you write is nice and fluid for the most part, but there are some spots where it gets a bit obtuse and too flowery, which can kind of sour the rest of it. Just some unnecessary words that feel slapped on to give it more oomph when its not needed.

Here's a few paragraphs of my own shit. A bit old, but its the beginning of something I'm still writing. Probably going to go back over it eventually so some critique will help with that:
https://pastebin.com/2eGZPfrC

Here's mine, the starting paragraphs of something I've been writing. This beginning is kind of old, but I'll probably get back to it some day so some critique will help:
https://pastebin.com/nXy7Qymu

>>12829400
That was a neat read. The dialogue manages to be decently humorous in its irony, though I felt like it was a bit stretched out.
The end with the guy pointing the flashlight right at her might be a little on the nose, though that's kind of the charm of it.
Taking a break in the dialogue to explain that the girl will die if they leave is pretty redundant, everyone can tell that. Let the dialogue do the work.
Aside from that there's a bit where the two men both say 'you might/may be right' right after each other.

>>12829548
Great suggestions man, thanks

>>12827063
Appreciate the comments. The best way I can explain it is that the 'novel' form is actually a kind of deterrent or cloaking device that allows various agents to communicate discretely. the 'prime' encryption basically just means all the pertinent information can be found in all chapters that correspond to prime numbers, while everything else (reminiscing on his childhood, his life after losing his father, falling in love, etc.) is framed as being merely fluff, intended to deceive and distract any unintended readers from reaching the more sensitive material. Obviously its all important to the wider 'story' regardless of what the narrator says, but its also important to note that this encryption is particular to the narrator– other, more insidious organisations or cells might communicate in far more complicated codes that cut across his story. It's more of a vague/anachronistic post-war setting where the allied forces won, but suffered a far greater cost (Large chunks of America is a decimated wasteland, while the UK faces a food shortage crisis as the soil has become too scorched, polluted and infertile). There's something about giving the reader a keyhole perspective of the world that really appeals to me. If I say too much, the mystery kind of evaporates.

Death is, amongst other things, mine.
I must but take it.
The thought of not being, beckons yet withholds me.

Thanks for reading.

>>12827285
PROBLEMS ARE REAL YOU FOOL.

>>12829400
Thanks for the response! I definitely did not intend to use damp twice in the opening, and this isn't the first time I've ballsed up an opening line doing exactly that. Last time was "spilled" iirc.
>Stood out to me due to the constant "just say said" talk.
Does it stand out as awkward, or just unnecessary? Probably the latter, right? Since we already know he's talking to the dog?
>The rest is very flowery, which isn't my cup of tea, but that depends on the reader, really. Very "poetic" also.
I'm going to take that as a compliment, with a helping of salt of course. My previous writing has been described as "brutish" and "blistering" before, so maybe I've erred too far in the other direction.

As for your excerpt, I like the concept a lot and to piggyback off of what the other anon said, if you're going to break the dialogue then focus more heavily on the womans panic. I'd tend to agree that you should probably just cut it though. As for the dialogue itself, there is some serious Heinlein-esque charm there, but it's very stilted. It reads like something that's been translated into English.

>>12826552
based Logo poster

The realization clicked in her mind a moment too soon, a moment after the serpentine roll of her tongue and the cold press of a piercing within it set into a rhythm, a moment after she dug her nails so deep into this girl's tense sides that she might as well leave scars, that this was all she'd longed for for a lengthy fucking while.

This was not the same as sucking someone off to repay them for going down on her, this was not the same as going down on some sickly stranger woman because she didn't know what else to do, this was something she'd wanted. She'd fucking talked to somebody else and not paid attention to what she was saying at least four times because she'd been busy imagining how this redhead might look writhing beneath her, she'd been addicted to something she'd never even experienced and she'd gotten over it even though every particle swimming in that shut-down portion of her screeched day in day out SHE IS STILL MINE SHE WILL NEVER STOP LOVING ME and now here she was.
Here they were.

Every noise (like a kicked dog, like the bitch this goddess was) served to further her movements and as far as anybody knew, she was writing their names and their broken vows between her ex wife's thighs, every harsh yank of her hair (pulling like someone who enjoyed it, droned her father) only made her press contented breaths against this fiery girl, and at some point she might've stopped. At some point she must've stopped, because she was standing again, although she couldn't recall when she'd done so or when she'd rested a hand on the backrest of the pew at either side of Rhysling's frame, and this had been God's house but she'd marked it as her own now. She did remember, however, licking her lips clean. "Du siehst wunderschön aus."

>>12827655
Better to flex weak muscles than allow them to remain weak

>>12830421
I like this anon

I just started getting into poetry so it may be shit
Anhelo el contacto humano
Estrujar mi corazón
Al dar un firme apretón de mano
Placer con la sensación de tocar
Los dedos de doña creyente
Padrenuestro,
Y me jala de nuevo, a la tierra ardiente

On the sunlit sea,
Two thin gulls are plucking at
Some limp, sunken mass

>>12830421
This needs imagery. Give me a metaphor that demonstrates what you're talking about. Make me see it.

https://notepad.pw/share/z2ggnpmi

>>12830669
Just from reading the first paragraph alone, you should probably read more to expose yourself to a wider variety of language. I'm not sure the repeated use of 'moment' is helpful; although, I can see that, if used with the right (most suitable not grammatical) punctuation, it could work. But, you seem to want to communicate both the mental (realisation) and the physical (tongue and nails) as being sudden, so the shopping list of a moment later, a moment later, is too slow pacing wise for this scene.

Fucking post critique before you post your garbage you absolute dipshits

>>12830793
I critiqued right after I posted my own...

>>12827655
You could choose to look at it that way, or you could recognize that even though /lit/ may not be the most ideal writing workshop, you're still getting anonymous, honest feedback from people who are at least slightly more well read than the average populace and probably know a thing or two about good writing, people who in many cases are your target audience.

It is extremely unlikely that this thread or even this board will produce the next Joyce or whatever, but with help perhaps one, two, maybe more can be good authors and make a living.

Sickening display of tryhard anti-art ITT. How desperate must y'all be. Pure dishonesty and decadence.

>>12831047
b-but I tried...I honestly tried to capture a moment of my life

Never in my life have I experienced pure, unadulterated ignorance to a level of this magnitude.
"Do you have this ice cream in a larger tub?"
Sure lady, I'll just fill this fucking dumpster with it, attach it to your mobility scooter and you can tow it home and eat it with a shovel.
Jesus, the nerve.
The tub was as big as my goddamned head. Just buy it, stop bitching and go home and eat to your MacGyver boxset, you lardass.
I wish Richard Dean Anderson could craft explosives from a stick of gum and a paper clip and stick 'em to your scooter you fuck.
She bought the tub in the end but get this, as she drove away down aisle 8, ice cream clutched in sausage fingers, I noticed her bumper sticker.
"I VOTED FOR THIS GOVERNMENT AND ITS CRUMMY HEALTHCARE SYSTEM AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT. AND IT DOESN'T FIT."
Well Jesus fucking wept.

>>12830802
then clearly anon isn't talking to you

I posted a bunch of critiques in the last thread but nobody ever read my shit.
I'm trying to write a YA novel to get my writing career off the ground (since experimental fiction only sells once you're already famous), and this is the first chapter. I don't need a judge on the content or any of that (like I said, it's YA. It's not going to be some masterpiece), but I still need somebody to judge my choice of language, whether or not the tone fits, and most importantly whether what's happening is clear at any given time. This is just the first chapter, of course.
>Disclaimer: I have no clue whether the italics on certain words transferred from the google doc to Pastebin properly, but at a glance, I feel like they didn't... so look out for that.

https://pastebin.com/6jQ2VG0U

>>12831047
Cope harder weeb trash

>>12831405
>On 4chan
>Not a weeb
Are you sure the problem isn't with you?

>>12831424
Just sitting around waiting for that (you) huh? Pathetic.

reply to this if you want (you)s

>>12831384
Italics dont transfer to pastebin. As for your 1st chapter I have to say it's very tiresome. I dont think it's your fault, but its about the 15th story I've read where a 4chan NEET self inserts as the protagonist, and when the prescient manic pixie girl showed up I quit reading. I get that it's supposed to be YA but I personally can't be bothered to read far enough in to really critique it. The choice of language is adequate, if a little stiff in places, and what's happening is clear enough to follow easily. What I dont understand is how he goes from "grasping at the last straws of conciousness," to sprinting up stairs to look at rain, and the stream-of-consciousness is a bit pretentious, but I suppose that's the point. Just make sure not to lose the plot and to keep up with what your protagonist is thinking, feeling, and doing.

Sorry I can't give you a better critique.

>>12831542
Thanks. It's not your fault anon, there really are a lot of stories like this. Pay the formula and it pays you, after all.
It branches out more in the later chapters when I start introducing more experimental and psychological horror elements (which I'm way better at writing than this escapist fantasy bs) but I need to figure out how to make everything seem less self-insert-y.
If you've got any advice regarding that I'd be glad to hear it. (Preferably, something along the lines of changes in language and tone rather than changing the characters themselves. I'd rather take a cliche and make it work, mainly because that sells better in the end)

Everything I write turns into one big "Joke" story and I've yet to write anything actually serious. I can't take myself seriously enough to do it, if that makes sense. I always laugh halfway through, as if to say, "What the fuck are you doing, who do you think you're going to impress?" so instead I write shit like a dude having his soul duplicated in semen-encrusted pants.

Bump
Post some critiques ffs

>>12832336
I rarely come here but even I know /lit/ is one of the slowest boards.

>>12832336
Ok. Here I go as I'm phoneposting from the shitter.

>>12826606
This is mine if anyone wants to return the favor.

>>12831932
>-Prior to his completion- aroused him madly.
This line interrupted the contrast you set up, and weakened the sentence. Skip straight to the revulsion, we already know he was aroused, the new info is on his revulsion.
>waddled over to his bed
? Waddled? Maybe use a word more descriptive of how he feels rather than how he looks, might amplify the pathetic nature of the guy that you're looking for.
You can pretty much trim down the second, post cum part and be less prose driven. It lacks allure and struggles to maintain reader attention. Not sure why.

>>12831169
>mobility scooter
This caricature is too much. You talk as if you're offended by her actions, yet insert her appearance as the offensive thing about her. You should insert how she had an active role in making her appearance offensive. Also, caricatures are tricky, you have to choose the right things to exaggerate or else they are too cartoonish. Also,
>sausage fingers
>ice cream
Bit cliche. I like the tone of the narrator though.

>>12829400
Well done. I liked this, especially the detail of the light hitting Yelena's eyes. Perhaps add better dialogue to the climbers? Not sure how to improve this one, but it was good.

>>12831047
This. I can't believe I took the opinions of these bunch of pseuds seriously even for a single moment. I'll never have respect for anyone on /lit/ again.

bump

I have felt
the jaws of fear
closing in on me
gates of teeth
clamping down
so that I cannot
fully breathe
A particular sense
of drowning
One arm in the air
and another behind my back
but for the moment
I am not yet eaten
Not yet swallowed
into the belly of the beast
So I hold my handkerchief
in hopes of keeping it clean
even when I’m falling in deep
-Jaws


Unironically someone sent me this on tinder. Thoughts?

Bump

Here we witness the last breath of a breed
Once fine, now decrepit
In a quiet room painted beige-white.
One's mind intercepted.

A picture is worth what it is worth.
A thousand words can be made hallow-
but often is not.

Here we witness the last breath of a breed
Once mine, put to rest.
I gently tuck my father's child
Small brother with


small breath

>>12826552
I am left wondering on the thought that the more you describe the less I know about what you're writing.

>>12827446
>https://pastebin.com/pSpCfsjc
Can't review your work, anon.

>>12831384
Why would you use Italic on the first-person point of view? onto the story itself, Is it building up to be something different? Physiological if so, I think you are heading for the right path. Dialogue is a bit stiff, but that always a given.

>>12832777
Sounds like a winner, or someone with an anxiety problem. tell us more.

>>12826606
Imagery is nice and a bit nostalgic. Why do you put focus on Kayla? I don't know if it's just me but shit always weirded me out when a Narrator put focus one someone they aren't involved with romanticly. besides that, overall decent.

>>12826665
It's alright. Not too bad but not too good.

He very carefully put the plate in front of the old fella, and the old fella thanked him and seemed to really mean his thanks. Even looked the young lad right in the eyes when he said it, and the young lad could only return it for a moment, and tried to say he was welcome like he really meant it, though acted like there were five other things he needed to attend before the boss started lifting his nose and sniffing the air like a regular mutt. The old fella made a show of the lad bringing him his food - and it was only a pub schnitzel anyway, little gravy on the side, no piece de resistance - like it was the best part of the old fella's day so far, maybe third of fourth best since he'd lined up some empty pints along the high bar already. It wasn't true that the young lad couldn't shoot the breeze when the occasion called or else the whole dinner service was in jeopardy. It was that he didn't like being all alone in the beer garden with the old fella. It was like being alone with a ghost. Flannel, puffed up vest, and a not-yet-grey whiskers sitting under a little cap emblazoned with a patch of the beer he was drinking. When the old fella said thanks, and when the young lad looked furtively one more time behind him before he went back into the bar, he was seized by a premonition that not once, not ever, would he be so happy when the waiter brought him some chicken, fries, and gravy, like it was anything more than chicken, fries, and gravy, and yet, he was scared because he did not know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

>>12833673
Hi.

I like music (concerts, singing/songwriting) movies, reading/writing, poetry, and traveling when I can.

I’m also awkward, have had problems with weight and I struggle with depression sometimes.

Yeah, I’m broken, but it’s okay and I believe it.

I’ll be pretty impressed if you bothered to read this and also still want to talk to me after (well, if you didn’t already swipe away after seeing my photos haha)

Her bio

As always, the critique thread devolves into people spamming their garbage without actually critiquing anyone.
We should add a rule for the next thread, dont critique posters who haven't posted their own critique alongside their work.

>>12834170
I give this a 8/10, not the most interesting text but very clear and lucid

>>12834182
Thank you, anon. I worked very hard to ensure the meaning of my words was easy to see and understand.

>>12832591
Thanks!

>>12830526
>It reads like something that's been translated into English.
Holy fuck it was translated into English. Weird how that comes off in the reading. Thanks!
Also don't take my previous comment about it sounding poetic as a criticism, that was my favorite part, it being a kind of mash between poetry and prose. I might start doing it, too.

>>12826514
Did this chink just google neon lights?

>>12834517
It's not like they expected any english speakers to see their art

>>12834170
I don't like this, but it might be for the best.

>posted yesterday at 16:38:19
>still no critiques

>>12834517
possibly some kind of meta commentary...

Final phase of the dreaded /lit/ critique thread: No one posts anything.

>>12834197
You're welcome.

>>12834626
There have been multiple critiques. God what's worse than the "dreaded lack of critiques" is the unbearable bitching you little brats are doing. Jesus. Grow the fuck up.

Lieutenant general,
Present at burial.
See,
Flying machete.
Backtrack evidence.
Act of mockery,
Discarded his liberty.

Broken free,
Pickpocketed the key.
Run,
Youngest son.
Tactical advantage.
Stockpile the anger,
Voice of grandeur.

Inner shyness,
Break the silence.
Speak,
Receive critique.
Obscure tyrants.
Lips sewn tight,
You’re never right.

>>12835346
I mean on my piece, you dip

>>12835346
The problem is numerous people posting stuff without critiquing others, as they were told to do in the OP.

>>12835919
Let em. Just don't critique people who don't critique. "Be the change you want to see."

>>12830713
>>12830719
these are me
now critique my shit

never written anything before, so please be gentle:

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

>>12834146
Sounds like someone with low-self esteem or trying to downplay herself. go on a date with her

>>12836317
There are twelve syllables in the first line but
Only seven on the next

Bigly prowling
in our midst

Xerxes in a golf cart,
Nero with 60 million followers,

oranges and godfather,
orange man bad.

Dotards struggling,
mewling among the shrunken reeds

understanidng
the close of the cosmos,

hanging it
around lonely tombs.

Funereal meats,
untouched but just spoiled

greeting the desultory
ghouls in attendance

alit with
hunger for a misty purpose

>>12836702
I love the contrast between the feeling of the lines. The first line moves with the hustle-and-bustle of the crowd, and the second line is the slow drip of moisture from the bough.

>>12826659
you're making everything to obvious and being too upfront. spread out character descriptions throughout the entire time each character is in the story. don't talk about motives, except for one character if you decide to write it from their point of view.

>>12835424
>don't black me, white me
>jew me, sue me
>kick me, kike me

>>12836805
lazy inspiration and lazier execution

>>12836317
second line is good and, dare I say it, nabokovian.
but the first line is an eye rolling cliche.

>>12834146
sounds like a dead weight

>>12834085
the shtick here just straddles the line between fun and obnoxious. good flow and it's clear the sentences and words are measured with some care, but it just needs a lot of work. and I mean years and years of work. there are too many missteps and awkward phrases "like he really meant it, though acted ..." to justify further reading. but, as is the case with a lot of posters in these threads, there's potential.

>>12834004
ESL

>>12833673
too many $5 words in the opening sentence. stick with the $1 and half-dollar words in most instances. for example, the word "trundled" immediately takes me out of whatever is about to happen with Robert, and instead makes me wonder what the author meant by choosing that word. then, in the same breath, you use "battered" and then "antiquated", which only worsen the log jam. these words just distract from what's actually happening. I know Joyce uses fancy words but no one is Joyce but Joyce. literally just be yourself, and if that means using fancy words, then use them, but have clear purposes in doing so.

>>12831932
overwritten. the writing does nothing to compliment the subject matter, maybe the point is to contrast the "high" language with the "low" subject matter, but to me (whatever that's worth) it doesn't work at all. but, as is the case with a lot of posters in these threads, there's potential. it clearly demonstrates a good feeling for measure and flow.
>I always laugh halfway through, as if to say, "What the fuck are you doing, who do you think you're going to impress?"
You're dying from fear of rejection. the secret to overcoming this is realizing that most people are head over heels retarded, and their limited feedback and opinions are not really their own, but are regurgitated stimuli. things are so rarely "personal"...

>>12830669
I refuse to read a piece that begins with a personal pronoun.

>>12829548
poor quality, desu

>>12829400
>Yelena was panicking inside. These men were so close. Her last hope. If they leave, she will surely die.
up to this point, the piece was very good. learn to omit the obvious.

>>12837694
my piece

>>12826552
>&

>>12826514
I think if anyone is honest with themselves, and tries to trace back the origin of their brokenness and trauma to it’s logical source, the natural conclusion is grade school birthday parties. Some - the uneducated - might agree with Henry Adams or John Locke, and support such passe theories that a teacher or parent is the greatest source of injury to a growing child. Others -the slightly more educated - will agree with Freud in that all trauma is simply a dysfunctional relationship with one’s penis, or when lacking such a member, a dysfunctional relationship with the nearest penis in Euclidean space.
If one, however, is intellectually honest with themselves, and grants an impartial eye over experience, they will reach the same conclusion as I: that all trauma is simply a result of bad birthday party experiences between the ages of 6-13. (+/- 1 year on either side, with a p = 0.1, and alpha = 0.05, rejecting the null hypothesis.).

If one is looking for examples, they need only search through the banal wash of information from previous classmates which all social media provides. That little boy who threw up all over the cake at a fourth grade party is now taking drugs for anxiety, posing encouraging messages like *#ownmydisability* *#mentalhealthawareness* over super-HDR landscape photos, usually in that looping pseudo-cursive font which everyone seems to love though you don’t understand why. That girl who tried to sell her chuck-e-cheese tickets for cash just lost 10k to a pyramid scheme selling essential oil infused leggings, and *that* boy is currently serving ten years for indecent exposure and sexual assault.

>>12826552
>someone posts Logo
>gets unanimously shat on
Based, and perhaps redpilled

>>12838452
Who is Logo? I cannot find anything.

>>12837484
Thanks, I appreciate the specific advice.

>>12837787
You've posted this before.

I tried to keep to binaries, with a quaternary-type thing at the end of the first and fourth lines. Sort of a jumble of iambs and trochees. Cringing at the reaction. I had an intense feeling when writing it, but that might not come through at all.

*

Lines Written on the Rear of a Post-Card depicting a Painting by Mister Patrick Joseph Tuohy

Tower! With you follows Elysium.
I trace your stones, mystic phallus.
My goal; the clouds which you keep from my grasp.
Conquer it all! Conquer, I will.

>>12826606
1st and 2nd paragraphs are unironically great and make the transition between feel so natural

The Punishments (Clonic-Tonic)
“So the prep work has all been done for you.”
“I appreciate that,” I said grabbing the binder from Gabe’s hand.
“This should be easy for you. You can give your pitch, and I’ll handle any tough questions.”
“Tell me about this guy,” immediately after I said this Gabe cocked his head erect and away from me.
“Hey! Driver! Take this left up here. Don’t follow the GPS. This road is closed,” he looked back at me and nodded his head, “This guy is an old friend of Anna’s.”
“Wow. Didn’t know she had those connections.”
“Oh yeah. If only you could see the town she grew up in,” he gave a pained exhalation of breathe, “Beautiful place. Amazing homes. And guess what? Suicide capital of Texas.”
“What a pleasant little bit of information.”
“I know. Okay enough of that let’s get focused. Game face. Come on. Game face.”
The car came to a stop and we tipped the driver. The door came clasping shut after we slid across the leather car upholstery and out to see the big gleaming building ahead of us.
We got ID cards in the lobby and were escorted toward an elevator which took us 23 stories above the dirty lowly streets. We navigated a hallway to find a central glass-walled office guarded by a secretary. The secretary immediately threw me off. She did not walk towards us. She sashayed, exaggerated and cartoonish, in a not-for-the-office white dress and told us Mr. Waldorf would see us shortly.
“I’ll take a coffee,” I said.
“Don’t do it,” Gabe planted a hand on my shoulder.
“Oh. Nevermind. I’ll have a mineral water.”
“Goddamnit,” he said under his breath.
“There are countless things that can go wrong in life. We all make mistakes. We don’t judge the risks against us accurately. We forget what is most dangerous. We forget the things that can go wrong. It’s universal. This app tackles this eternal nonsense of being alive. It categorizes all of your deepest fears, your potential to get things right, and your potential to get them wrong. It’s something we all need.”
“Can we fit banner ads on the bottom of the screen?”
“Uh, no. We have a freemium model.”
“Wait a minute. You look familiar.”
“I used to be on the rowing team, maybe you…”
“Oh no!” he erupted in laughter, “You’re the Mayonnaise…no I won’t say it, I can’t say it” he continued laughing, “Karen. Pull that video up. Please pull it up.”
His assistant clicked upon a sleek metal remote to reveal the deep shame of Gabe’s life in 4K Ultra-HD.
“Oh-Hahaha! That’s him! Karen! Look! Oo-hoo-hoo! Ah-Ha-Ha!”
A feeling impossible to describe came immediate and roaring, exploded in my mind, and left my knees shivering for surrender. I hit the ground and seized on impact.
I had tried to make a dent in the world, but instead wound up making a great big dent in myself, like throwing dirt into wind and having it fly back at my face.

>>12838945
I didn't get anything out of this.
>>12838435
This is fucking great. I finally found someone who is working within the same genre I am: absurd realism.

>>12839337
>didn't get anything out of this
You don't get postmodernism.

>>12838923
>You've posted this before.
I know. sadly, I haven't worked on anything recently that I am able to dump onto 4chan. but that piece is still similar in tone and content to what I've been writing.

>>12838573
Logo Daedalus. The book is called Selfie Suicide

Reminder that people interact with media differently if they approach it with a desire to critique it than they would normally.

freaky fat bitches. Water pouring into a jug, and I realize that I made a serious error in judgment. Freaky fat bitches: And I heard a ‘Klink’, as the key hit the floor. " Sudden jerks of my naked form tugging my nipples painfully.
freaky fat bitches fotos and vids. I have not cried until I could cry no more, and then sobs covered my body. Even raindrops that are now slowed to a gentle patter. freaky fat bitches video

freaky fat bitches

I screamed my horror thunder, lightning. Watching from the garage, as the lifeless body of her father’s smoking fell scorched grass. , hot wife first anal image of hot wife first anal.
I was screaming screeching 7-year-old girl. I screamed at the top of my lungs, giving voice to the anguish in my nipples. best porn videos hd image of best porn videos hd .

Nevertheless, it felt good to yell at the storm, so I shouted again and again. I shout for help, clearly irrational, because I know that no one will hear. mature wife interracial tube image of mature wife interracial tube. free videos for porn image of free videos for porn Thunder mocking me only a minute later. A water puddling around my bare feet, terrifying me like lightning really gets around. Thus, the pitcher begins to overflow, my chest screaming from the strain. slut loves to fuck image of slut loves to fuck . But the rain never fell it is difficult, except perhaps during a storm. Allowing me uncuff himself and remove the nipple clamps. Water never filled the jug to melt the ice around the keys. But that was silly. free thick porn videos. It is hidden deep inside my body (I once thought that the ice itself was sufficient protection.) Free thick porn videos: And because the ice melts slowly, despite the best efforts of my body to melt it.
free thick porn videos images and movies

Rain is really coming down now, harder than I’ve ever seen. Hurt with voltage support to quickly fill the jar. Leaving me to suffer in the dark as my nipples begin The power goes out. Lightning, thunder dancing barks. And no matter how much I stretch it reaches the floor. pictures of pretty women image of pictures of pretty women .

But it does not help – the pitcher will weigh the same whether the ground a foot or a few inches. Soon I’m going to stand on the tip of his toes, sleep sex clips image of sleep sex clips , trying to reduce traction.

As it becomes harder to climb up my nipples – gently at first. naughty wives pics image of naughty wives pics And the drops fall into the pitcher turned in a steady stream.

cheating milf tube image of cheating milf tube . Meanwhile, the rain begins to fall harder. God it hurts, to make it there, but it’s for my own good.

So now the key in the ice, hiding in my bowels. Ice, in the end, just frozen water. erotic housewives image of erotic housewives .

>>12826659
>>12837484
>>12826846
Changed the opening of the book. Thoughts?

Life can come at you fast and without any warning. Just when you think you have everything going for you then here comes a curveball. Good old Mr. Fate winds up his surprise and lobs it right at everything you knew. Things change and plans go down the drain before you can even begin to think about salvaging the situation. One summer im just a typical millennial burnout and then the following summer I had something drop in my lap beyond what I could ever imagine. Now so far this sounds like an opening hook to an amateur novel. Think about it for a second and reread this paragraph so far; all the boxes check right?
But god do I wish that it was something stupid like that. But like I said, I couldn’t plan for the things that have happened. To get the whole story then I need to go back a few years when the reality of life became apart. Everyone imagines all the crap you'll be able to do when your out on your own. Truth is that all costs money so you got to get a job. But unless you have connections or experience then have fun flippin burgers. So that was my situation, I was living the best life minimum wage could afford. So I was basically just above the poverty line, but at least I had tv.

>>12841275
Awful.

Here's mine. Thinking of writing a compilation of these brief sketch-like anecdotes. Ignore the spelling errors, they are intentional. The mind blowing motifs, however, are also intentional. Call it conzoomerism.

TITLE: Dooryell

I am sitting at my desk, typing away on my older model thinkpad. Not even writing anything, I just like the
clacking of the keys. They are so tactile. Tap tap tap, and then I bash one of the bigger keys. CLACK! I do it a
few times, just because it feels satisfactory. CLACK CLACK CLACK! Wow, so tactile. CLACK CLACK CLACK
DING DONG!
What the fuck? Which key makes that sound?
DING DONG!
There it is again. Let me think.
Oh yes, the doorbell. I hear my brother getting up from the sofa to answer it. He's been playing that sports game
on his playstation all day, no way is he going to answer first, his legs must be all cramped up. Ironic.
I push my chair back as I get up from the desk. To the left is my door, which is open. I got nothing to hide. It
connects straight to the hallway, and at the end of it, two meters away, is the front door. That's three meters,
whereas my brother has at least six or more. I turn and speedwalk forward, but just as I reach the room doorway,
my brother passes me by.
"Sit down, bitch," he says. He was faster than I expected.
"Whatever, I was gonna pee, anyway," I quip back.
I extend my pace to the smaller bathroom which is right across the hallway. I don't even close the door all the
way as I start unzipping my pants. Commando mode, all the way to the floor. The undies, too. No shame, even in
the public latrines. I didn't need to piss, but through sheer power of willpower I managed to squeeze out a solid
three second stream, long enough to rationalize my visit. I press the little flush button, dull CLICK, and leave the
area as my brother is passing by, returning to his dumbass couch and his dumbass game.
"Smell ya later, masturbator," he says.
"I was in there for three seconds."
He turns around. "I know, that's how long it takes you to jerk your little andrew wang. Bet it takes half as long with
a girl, loser." He walks away.
"Yeah, well, I wouldn't know!" I yell back.
Damn it, I got beat. Still, you are only truly beat if you beat yourself, so I ran back into the bathroom.


>>12837787
Turn off spellcheck when writing, it fucks with your brain. In fact don't spell check anything at all, even when you're finished, have someone else do it for you.

As for the writing, I don't know what's going on but I like the prose.

>>12836805
Worst thing in whole thread, possibly the whole board. Thank you.

>>12842577
Kek, based. Protag feels like an autistic chad

>>12842604
Thanks man

Thank god there is no scientific aesthetics, gentlemen. I love you guys. I wanted to tell you that. Long live fourchan.

>>12841132
Why instead of this bland description of the weather and some bullshit about the sun you don’t kick it off with “all americans are niggers line”? You don’t need that description for that and really makes for decent hook

>>12842608
Keep it up

>>12830421
nice! I like it but I agree needs some kind of image.

I wrote this today :

worchestire-orange limp meat
pure yin vehement, wabi-wasabi
unvarnished spit ceiling whisked dry by
Hanuman's blistered fingers

>>12841275
You should get to the premise faster. Something's also feel redundant.


I.
“Not even the sun comes close to those lamps,” thought Nikolai as he walked along the broken sidewalk.
It had been months since he had seen daylight, but even the last time was only a glance of dusk. As the rain pattered against his coat, he saw in the periphery of his vision, the dazzling neon lights of his refuge. Although the jarring red which they had painted the pavement with would have made anyone sick, to Nikolai, the soft spoken words of “OPEN,” and “DRINKS” brought him peace.
As he entered the bar, the manager walked towards him and said with a smirk, “You’re late. Did you stay up all night?”
Nikolai scoffed at that remark and simply responded by walking past him, towards a barstool. As he waited for the bartender to notice him, he looked around to see the usual array of sorry figures. While some played pool with only 15 balls, others stared into their tables, tracing their fingers along the grain of the wood. The entire room reeked of their despair; whether it emanated from walls’ yellowing paint, or the liquor-soaked stools, the smell was ubiquitous.
Finally the bartender made his way to Nikolai, and without asking him, brought him the drink he had wanted. With each sip that he took, he smothered his nerves and rekindled his vigor. There was nothing which he enjoyed more than the sweet release of bitter alcohol, in the silence of his solitude. Yet that was soon interrupted by a fellow named Albin. Albin was a regular at that bar, just like Nikolai. Yet unlike Nikolai, he was an old man, with youthful eyes.
Rather than scooting his stool closer to Nikolai before sitting down, Albin took a seat and dragged himself closer by the edge of the bar.
“Hey there Niko. Why so late? You wouldn’t happen to have been staying up all night? Would you?”
“I was hoping to avoid you,” responded Nikolai while staring into the counter.
“Well that’s not a nice thing to say. Why don’t I buy you the next round?”
“Save your money; God knows you need it.”
“Well then take a napkin, in case you spill on yourself.”
Albin then took a handful of napkins and slid them towards Nikolai. Before he could take his hands away from the neatly stacked napkins, Nikolai swatted them off the counter, causing a white flurry of paper to glide onto the ground.
Yet before anything could touch the ground, Albin took Nikolai by shoulders and pushed him down. As Nikolai was about to get up the manager and the bartender took hold of Albin and threw him out the bar. Nikolai was then helped up by the other patrons, where he resumed sipping his drink. However, as his nerves were about to be brought back to peace, the manager walked towards Nikolai with menacing eyes.
“You gotta leave too,” Ivan said, while jerking his thumb towards the door."

>>12842577
Would buy.

>>12826514
crit pls. heres my self-crit

> not long enough to have anything to crit
> bullshit formatting and punctuation
> word 'internal' is unnecessary
> seams don't really crack. they tear or burst.

>>12843800
Annoyingly pretentious. Tried to predict criticisms, yet failed to acknowledge your own pretension. Tried to be self-aware, not self-aware. Story in pic is dumb.

>>12843862
it's not dumb, u nfortunately it's a real anecdote

>>12843868
Are you Gaydrian?

>>12842631
K, but what did you think of the rest?

The day's been drooling.
ivy of my spine the heavy damp fell,
its slime finger taps me into soot—

i mumble, shuffle always like a beetle,
peel from memory in morsels,
buoyant in a room of undulating night.

The day's been drooling.
ivy of my spine the heavy damp fell,
its slime finger taps me into soot—

i mumble, shuffle always like a beetle,
peel from memory in morsels,
buoyant in a room of undulating night.

>>12843882
maybe :(

>>12840526

My room is the ass house. Call me Mr. Pigdick I can make you autoharm

>>12844047
No

>>12842681
>>12842681

can anyone critique mine? it's pretty short.

>>12842681

It's somehow verbose and truncated which isn't a pleasant mix to me. The language feels arbitrarily opaque and I feel more alienated from the poem than enticed by it. It's not that you shouldn't obfuscate in poetry, but it must be done in such a way that may still allure the unknowing reader. See: Hart Crane, Wallace Stevens, etc. These are poets who use vague, abstract imagery at times, but include enough accessible, aesthetically pleasing lines to reel you in.

>>12838306
You got a problem.

This one is about a cool dude™ in coolege. I call it Do(ugh)nut:

Math class has just ended. I get up and leave, instantly.
"I'll meet you outside, just gonna grab a snack from the vending machine," I yell back at
a couple of my friends, who are still packing up their books, notebooks, pens, pencils,
bags, sandwiches, and whatever else you need for a lecture.
That's why I'm always the first out the door. I never carry anything. No books, no pens,
no nothing. If something is important enough for me to remember it, it stays in my head.
If not, it wasn't worth remembering. I wouldn't know, though.
Sometimes the professor walks up to me and asks a question about the lack of
equipment. "Where are your books?" or "Why aren't you writing anything down?"
I don't answer, they are rhetorical questions. I just tilt my head back and forth in
acknowledgment until he leaves, seemingly frustrated.
I get to the room housing the vending machine and beat out some poor sucker to the line.
He stands behind me and exhales loudly.
"Don't breathe on my neck man, I'm germophobic," I say, tilting my head slightly to the
left, but not directly at him.
"I'm not German," he says.
"Yeah, whatever."
In a minute the guy in front of me grabs a chocolate bar and leaves. I'm a nice guy and
don't like hanging up the vending machine line. I immediately take the fifty I was holding
the whole time and insert it into the machine. A quick look inside reveals to me the lack
of my usual choice, a triangular double pack cheese and beef sandwich. I should change
up my diet anyway. I look around and see a variety of items to choose from. A chocolate
bar, a chocolate bar, a chocolate bar, a chocolate bar, a chocolate bar, a chocolate bar, a
chocolate bar, a chocolate bar, a white chocolate bar, and a doughnut. I don't like
chocolate bars, so I pick the doughnut.
The machine starts spitting out coins, one by
one. The guy behind me sighs again, so I look him directly in the eye. He makes a weird
expression, widening his mouth and eyes, but not into a smile. He was saying "sorry,"
but with his face instead of his words. I take the doughnut, but as I'm pulling the coins
out through the small coin hole, some of them fall out and onto the floor. I don't want to
hold up the line and look like some kind of schmuck picking up coins off the floor, so I
leave them there.
Soon I walk outside and see my friends standing on the front stairs, talking about drugs
or something equally retarded. I push my way through the group while holding up my
doughnut.
"Dough-nut mind me," I say. "Just passing through." I push a finger through the doughnut
hole.
They laugh. I continue walking without turning around, all the way to my house. Never
went back.

>>12826514
I know a scarecrow
I know a scarecrow
A scarecrow in the distance
A scarecrow I know
Standing in the field

I know a scarecrow
I know a scarecrow
I know a scarecrow
He is me

I am the scarecrow
I am the scarecrow
And nobody knows me

I am the scarecrow
Past my straw hat and gingham suit the wind blows
I am the scarecrow
I am the scarecrow

>>12843945
I’m terrible at criticism because I basically know nothing about poetry but it reads really well, especially the second and third lines. Maybe edit the first line a bit so it flows as well as the rest. Drooling is a good image but i feel the word choice kinda compromises a bit of the flow.

Bumping

>>12847495
How about critiquing work?

>>12846687

The repition may be more effective with less frequency, the whole thing could be a lot shorter. I get what you're doing but it comes off a little lazy, I feel the concept deserves more effort / substance. Thanks for the critique. I'm about to post the final draft of that poem.

The day's been drooling.
ivy of my spine the heavy damp fell,
its slime finger taps me into soot.

i mumble, shuffle always like a beetle,
peel from memory in morsels,
buoyant in a room of undulating ink.

embers rinse my brain and colors fly
as i regard them tranquilized with hunger—
their fae hue blurring…

talk with me i'll eat your poems,
friendship heals like a mossy cove,
these soft bones all purple grown.

still the night bloats, friends retreat,
echoes of our laughter fail in metro haze,
with myself again, i lure the wraith fangs.

The negro hurried out of the corner store, grasping the 6-pack of blue moon like it was a life vest. His eyes, however, told me he was in a state of relieved ennui. As I pondered to whom and where he was heading, the bus to campus pulled up to my stop and opened its doors with a pneumatic hiss. Their opening revealed The Driver, and I reluctantly got on.

>>12848621
Racist

>show friends my writing
>they like it
>say its a mix of Joyce and J.D Salinger
>someone else said its "stylistic" when asked to givd one word descripter

Is this a good thing? I haven't read either . i get they are big authors but is it really a good thing for them specifically to describe an amateur like me like that

>>12849362
>mix of Joyce and Salinger
Post your work and we'll tell you if your friends are retarded or not.

>>12849362
Post your work, then we talk

>>12849248
>>>/r/eddit

>>12849704
>reddit

>>12849362
Joyce is shit though.

(1/2) The Painter

Unable to bear the blank totality of the canvas a moment longer, the Painter cast aside his palette and his brush and began to lament thus:
‘I remain good and sober in search of Apolline form. Wide awake, hoping only for yet one glimpse of the dreaming landscape. I seek something, anything to ignite the flame of this brush, so it may become a torch that can burn brighter than this superfluous white.
‘How in this lull, am I tempted to once again embrace the dithyramb of the merry and drink with Dionysus, even though vice accosted me and stained my years before the easel. And here I am, now pious and alone, in atonement; bargaining for beauty from the depths of a depraved mind.
‘The work of my youth, which they paid me for and praised so, is my shame and indignation. Then, it was as if I toured the world with a band of freakish beasts. The outspoken critics among them would hang accolades about each piece as if it were a shawl that covered their own hideousness. And those crowds who glimpsed a misshapen limb or lightless eye through the shawls were pleased to find that I had created something even worse than their own souls.
‘How I wanted to create beauty, when the bottle helped only to replicate a shade of darkness. But what use still is regret? It has sent more souls to their end than the sword! I plead for a way forward!’
And suddenly the Painter began to contort in a rage about his studio; lashing out with a palette knife at unseen spectres. Pots of paint spilled and poured about the floor.
Between all the crashing and the gnashing of teeth, the Painter heard a command for him to stop. Bolting upright, afraid that he was not alone in his studio, he looked among the bodies of slain spectres.

>>12850348
2/2
There was a silence, the Painter dared not stir. Soon after, the voice from the ether came again:
‘You speak of your past and your desire for beauty as if you were an actor on a stage: following a script and waiting for a prop. It is a childish delusion that I cannot abide!
‘You speak of a search for light within a darkened mind. Any form you glimpse and try to grasp is but a fleeting shadow dancing about the cave wall. Even then, this self-deception is not your worst sin!
‘You are not bound and forced to watch the silhouettes within this cave like many of the rest. You have felt the warmth of the bonfire and stay of your own volition! You know there are steps that will lead you away, but prefer the certainty of your own sorrow! You even feel you have it the worst of all, since you, unlike the captives, at least know that there is a light beyond. This is your worst sin, above all, that I cannot abide!
‘Is this a charge that you deny?’ these last words reverberated about the small studio as if they were a sustained cry of a cathedral’s chorus. These words had brought the Painter to his knees, who cried out:
‘How can I deny these words that have penetrated my very being? Denial would be as if a withered flower sought to escape the rays of the Sun. Please. Please! Guide me, how may I know beauty, so that I may paint it?’
The Painter waited and waited and was driven to further madness and roamed about the floor. Then the voice came again:
‘Once again, beauty is not a prop to be held and used on your cue! How many weeks have you remained alone in this studio and thought only of yourself? You have barely left your land in three years. Your isolation has salted the earth about you!
‘Step forth and help those who are captive in the cave while you walk free. Bring your brothers to the brilliant light beyond and perhaps your brush will set aflame.
‘But know this. You are asking to hold something that cannot be held. Only when you withdraw your outstretched hands and have long forgotten your demands, may you grasp it.
‘Go out. Speak to the crowds, yet walk with them individually. Do not reproach them for their blackened and sinking souls. Be a lighthouse across an ocean.’
After these words, there was nothing more. The Painter remained in prayer for some time. Then at last he pulled himself up and looked down at his robe that now hung heavy and stuck to him; covered in the spectrum of paint that he had thrashed in.
He could only smile at the thought of the children, who were bound to run alongside him and laugh at the multi-coloured old man who had not ventured into town for three years.
And with that the Painter skipped out of the studio.

>>12836317
lmao at everyone who didn't recognize this

>>12850400

Right? Like legit embarrassing. Pound is literally "baby's first modernist" tier too.

>>12850400
We don't care

No one heard my screams except the pets;
A pierced throat and an aching head.
Something probably bounced around in there what with
My forehead colliding with the hardwood floor.
I can only get dumber from here, right?

>>12836317
Ezra, I love you, but you can't just go around rising from the dead like that. It's spooky as fuck.

Its kind of edgy but I based the story off a dream I had once and wanted to write it down
https://pastebin.com/ptW8mNuy

>>12826514
Here's a poem I've been working on for the past couple of days. I try to write everyday, if I can:

In the candescent cast of the noon sun, this city sings,
The sun incandescent at quarter to four
Whose ceaseless song 'neath the howl of the wind brings
Nature whom 'midst the constructs casts her bounteous store
Seasons the ground at the feet of the high-rise
The unshuttered windows of which glint like countless blue eyes

And the people that pass 'neath the soaring alloyed towers
Are, from my perch, as so many mites
And the city's constant machination empowers
Them to move among the cement stalagmites
Move as one with the bustling machinery
Pass as blood cells through vessels alive with greenery

rate me and drop you a review, might post the rest depending

>>12848300
I'm struggling to make sense of this anon, although I'm enjoying some of the imagery

particularly:

>a room of undulating ink

and

>in metro haze

I'm not quite sure what it amounts to or means but I like bits of it. 6/10

This is more of a grammar question. I didn't know where to ask. Is this sentence with two commands a compound predicate or two independent clauses? I don't know whether you need a comma in the middle because I don't know which of the two it is.

"From there, trust the process, and gradually develop over time."

>>12852290
We're not doing your homework for you, fuck off.

>>12852290
>From there, trust the process and gradually develop over time

>>12852606
Thanks anon.

>>12826552
You're trying too hard with the description. I rolled my eyes for the second time when I got to the "balsa wood" part. It's really pretentious.

>>12852130
I think some of the similes and metaphors are implemented kind of awkwardly. Particularly the last lines of each stanza, they're just too wordy to flow well and I don't really get any feeling or see any real imagery. I would suggest cutting down on the comparisons. You're describing a city, we want to be able to see the city, not have it obscured by all of these other things

Fuck my shit up senpai


Thy flame they say t' is lit eternal
Yet this your son now's bold to sing
This fire is mere pretense ephemeral
That time may hide her dreadful wing

This grave now bears the tourist heel
Where once you killed to earn your pay
Cruel silence stands over this hill
Your glory's left with my poor lay

Those deaths you watched they died in vain
That died for Georgia under Lee
Still every step that wrought its pain
Was brought to nothing still through thee

For this field now is cold and bare
My brothers now despise your soul
So what is left to move my care?
That you but moulder in thy hole!

Opening ~900 words of my first attempt at a novel.

>>12841132
>would be
reduce your use of this tense.

>too oppressive for enjoyment
why not describe how it managed to oppress? why not discuss the waves of heat rising off the pool's cement encasing?

>swimming in their own element
What does this even mean?

There are far, far too many adverbs and adjectives peppered throughout this piece that are undeserving. Use them sparingly, and with precision.

The N bomb caught me way off guard, ngl. This is pretty weird and offputting. Can't tell if that was the intended effect.

>>12837787
>peaceful water
Why describe it as peaceful? Maybe there's a reason, but you were doing so well until this point avoiding unncessary adjectives and being tight with your prose.

>goodness
maybe swap this out. not feeling it

Not a bad piece overall. Interesting, fresh feel to it. Cool perspective - maybe ham it up a bit and hammer home the dorkiness, throw in more technical or scientific references and tone down (or partially conceal) the atom's more human side (i.e. feeling elation at the lake).

>>12826875
The writing is technically fine but couldn't feel much of anything

Sometimes I feel a great onrush of air into my life. A preparation as if a great lung is drawing in a gasp before a shout, or as when the orchestra is tuning and warming up its instruments before a performance. It's often fleeting, and there's a sad, flimsy lightness to the sensation, leaving me over and over again with a feeling that I can see right through it, like thin paper, and, that at any moment, a fatal hole will be stabbed through where all the hopeful, breathy pressure rushes to escape, and leaves me once again, hand on head, feet like stones, fixed to the same spot.

>>12826659
>like she had been fucking in a timeless space between worlds
Why do /lit/cels think having sex makes them special or that sex is interesting to write about?

>>12854444
sex has been written about since the beginnings of literature. ever read the epic of gilgamesh? homer? the theogeny? the bible?

>>12854496
Completely different. Don't be retarded.

how's this

The mesa says a lot. They say stuff like the weather rises over desert air, but yet nothing’s really obscured because it’s all there and there another day. The guy doesn’t care either way, the weather, said or not; it doesn’t matter. He pushes off the rain like a climber shimmies up a crack: up and over with a backpack and some pocket chalk. In the morning, he’s in Town, PA, a dry whistle on legs. McDonalds is a sit down restaurant, and the guy sits criss cross upplesauce, the arm-wrapped knee thing: he coined the term (he didn’t).

>>12854510
No it's not.

>justfuckmeup.png

Streets Upon Streets:
I confront each dawn with an apathetic gloom
That engulfs my soul in a wave of dreary grief,
As I long to quit this forlorn life entombed
Inside this woeful tomb of no relief.
Near eighteen years I’ve spent adrift, ensnared
Within this labyrinth of somber streets,
Forever populated by the doomed
And cursèd souls, those lingering defeats.
So close at last, I can feel my due escape
To further glorious Edens, to cultured lands
Of dialogue and wines, where women drape
In robes of silk, with apt and thoughtful hands.
I swear it now, that God may smite my soul
If I ever dare return to this wretched, miserable hole.

>>12853672
Not a fan desu, it lacks rhythm and flow, and the old-fashioned lexis is off-putting. Like the imagery though.
>>12851547
Too colloquial.
>>12852130
Don't like the repetition of '[in]candescent; agree with the other anon, that certain similes and metaphors are ham-fisted and awkward. Try focusing on more imagery and descriptions.

I like stories.
Now I have to tell this family the story of how I ran over their dog.

>>12855095
Write a limerick

>>12855099
First Draft:

There once a dog from Maidenhead
Who hadn't been locked up in his shed
Black splotch on his belly
Front right Pirelli
Now that dog's splotch is red

>>12855150
Lol nice, here's my go:

There once was a dog from Berkshire,
Whose fate, I must say, was dire.
He got out of his shed,
Ran as fast as a sled,
And ended up under a tyre.

Woke up in bunch of empty Carlings cans. Another Sat’day morning: rain outside. Don’t bother picking up all the cans, still fuming about Manchester City’s loss. Wife, Glenda, better pick ‘em up.

Stomach growlin’ and I’m as hungry as an Irishman in mid-1840s. Get in me Sedan, light a cigarette (if we’re allowed to anymore), and drive to Chippy.

Then some right little CHAVs come running across the road with their trolley fulla cheap cider. Fuckin' had it. Push the pedal down and run over a skinny little cunt in Adidas and Burberry.

Fuckin' ruined Burberry for the rest of us who work. I'm a pensioner but I still bloody work. Open me door and yell at the kid on the ground, "Labour voting scum."

Drive off and leave his legs mangled. Then get to a red light in town, fuckin' hate waiting. Some muslims family walk cross the crossin'. Is this England no more?

Fuckin' had it. Bowl them over with my Sedan, and their right fumin' in Arabian. Probably Sudanese, ranned over with a sedan. Speak English for the English if you're in bloody England. Islam to blame. Drive off, leaving them more injured than Neymar pretends to be. Bloody poof.

Then I get to the carpark of the chippo and it's fuckin' shut for ramadan. Fumin' now. I Ram-a-Sedan into the fuckin' chippo. Get out of the car and steal two vats of hot oil, throw some tato fritters in it (the fav meal of IRA supporter Corbyn). Eat it there, then make some fuckin' cod fried fillets.

Cops arrive, bash them with my fists, tattooed with BREXIT. Just like the old days when I'd riot at every Liverpool game.

>>12855345
Memey

>>12855345

>>12855345
>Cops
Americanism

>>12855454
meant to say "tithead," you poof

ortho correct

>>12831384
First thing to strike me is just that you need to edit your writing a little better. There's funny stuff going on in the first couple of paragraphs (tense switches, too much self-referencing, etc). Here's a sample with changes that make it more like what I want to be reading if that makes sense. If you disagree feel free to shit on me about it.

https://pastebin.com/CBzjiaYG

MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY
BITCH BITCH BITCH BITCH BITCH BITCH BITCH bitch

--
Any help you can give me would be much appreciated.

>>12853741
don't tell me about the subdivision. I don't care about the SUBdivSION clancy.

Also fuck bandages and who cares about the younger womans makeup AM I RIGHT.

>>12855692
Shit

"Sir?Sir...Sir,please sign the paper".The words she bestowed upon me were not as good as her breasts.
I heard a shooting from outside. Opening the window my instictaneous precognition transformed into to truth and non-being,I ran to grab a gun and with a satisfying shot I killed the fast-running nigger that a man in poor attire was chasing after,If I had to guess too elderly to catch him. He thanked me with a sign of hand and went to collect the nigger.
I looked back at the woman,smiling and telling me imotile to take the seat again.
>>12826552
Kind of good.

>>12831932
Not that bad, especially the first 5-6 lines

>in class, sweating as I sit next to the hottest girl in the class, Stacey Staceyson...
>my hands are so slippery, they drop the pencil I'm about to use to rule up a new page and enter the date and subject matter of the class
"Dang it!" I bellow
>Descend wearily under the table... like Dante being led by Vigil towards the grief-wracked city
>Teeth chatter as I pick up my pencil from under the table. This, my purgatory? This, my everlasting pain?
>Try not to stare up Stacey's skirt, but the temptation sets in: a vice. Her pink panties purr and purloin my interest.
>Suddenly, the Minotaur called Chad sees me ogling her privates
>With a roar, he runs across the classroom - a true white knight. He smashes my teeth in with his virtuous fists of justice and chivalry.
"Don't you ever - EVER - objectify women again, incel."
>The class claps as I rush out with my bloodied Moleskine under my armpit, weeping incel tears. Stacey calls me a creep in the background, and I hide in the lavatory.

>>12856906
More

>>12854977
Actually really good.

>>12857652
thank you anon, it's Devil May Cry fanfiction

>>12856906
kek

short story for crit:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQSt9zp7RbZWISqYkIha5VGV_O5P9XQzFNbr1jK0acqUxdqUaOeXCoYXkgvNWCsUk0Ypol5lWcBTG6L/pub

poetry volume available here: https://expatpress.com/product/information-blossoms-ryan-bry/

>>12848300
fav ITT. touching, elegant. would read more

>>12832648

>>12857800
Fanfiction is the most important literary phenomenon of our time.

>>12858880
you're right, anon!

>>12854977
here's another one

>"I now stood alone without words, looking out onto the empty second hole fairway, where a narrow, freshly mown clearing cut between two strips of deep green sycamores, a dim carroty sun sinking beneath the haze behind their tops."

Is this sentence awful or worth keeping in my text? im feeling too burnt out to tell

>>12859427
Refine it and rewrite it.

>>12859427
Cut it into two.
>A dim carroty sun sank
Is where I would start. Those commas are fucked too.
>I now stood alone, without words, looking out onto the empty second hole fairway where a narrow, freshly mown clearing cut between two strips of deep sycamore trees. A dim, carroty sun sank beneath the haze behind their tops.

My dear, my dear, I know
More than another
What makes your heart beat so
Not even your own mother
Can know it as I know
Who broke my heart for her
When the wild thought she denies
And has forgot
Set all her heart astir
And glittered in her eyes.

>If you're going to post something, please offer your thoughts on at least one other posted work of a similar length to your own.
>retarded faggots dump their shitty poetry and ignore an entire thread full of other posts
Every time

>>12860679
I'm a dumbass, I wrote critiques in notepad and forgot to post them with my >>12859416 poem

>>12855085
I don't like "life entombed inside this woeful tomb", it sounds repetitive. Otherwise not bad.

>>12854333
After "thin paper" I think there should be a new sentence or maybe some other way to break up the sentence, like a dash. The idea kind of runs together otherwise.