/lit/ - Literature

>>14445009
Just a very awkward prose style littered with unnecessary words and strange sentence structure. For the second the sentence, you don’t need the “indeed” unless it’s affirming a claim against a contrary. Further the second and third sentence should be conjoined in some way, such as via an em dash or semi-colon. Alone they are inconclusive and stilted. The fifth sentence is weirdly put and confused and doesn’t really connect to the last. Further, it is a virtue to be articulate and have at your disposal a large vocabulary, but words like “gesticulate” are just awkward and don’t bring any “umph” as a writer hopes they would. Just initial impressions.

>>14445076
This

>>14445009
Time passes and she's indeed at the earliest temporal part of that stage of education...

Time passes, and it was the beginning!

Trying to make friends on soc
Can't garner any interest
I feel at a loss.

Is it me who's out of touch
Or are all the girls
Empty headed bimbos, and such.

I've made plenty of contribution
Seems the only thing left to do is retribution.

Stacies beware, I'm coming for you
Think twice before rejecting me wont you?

>>14445275
Kinda looks like a female Elliot Rodger

>>14445286
NM, I see it is in fact a feminized Elliot Rodger pic, awesome.

>>14445009
Far too much exposition, i’d say. For this kind of passage to work, you need to lean into the irony or make the prose sing. Right now, neither happens.

Here’s my little jotting.

>>14445439

He, the anon, doesn't need to use this strange grammatical structure. It, the structure, doesn't add anything and is simply annoying.

Here is my garbage, please shit on it
I will come back to shit on others later

"Father, you called?"
The man did not lift his head from the ledgers as his son entered. Errantly, He motioned towards the chair that sat in front of his desk as he flipped through the pages. Though the youth was not of the highest intellegence, but he could understand the implications behind his father's movement and took his seat.
For a time the man simply did his work, marking things down with his little pencil, making noises that ranged from annoyed mutterings to light chuckles, reading all the reports and checking his maths three times over to ensure all was accurate. His son, who had been denied sleep at so late an hour by his call, grew restless: he stamped his feet and drumed his fingers on the desk to the beat of an old tavern tune, a jolly and simple one that any drunk could follow. The old man shot a withering gaze, the sort that showed deep experience in the act of dissaproval, as if he had sat in a mirror and practiced it for hours on end, knowing it would be a powerful and versatile weapon in his trade. The boy, a veteran in the face of his father's art, was only slighly cowed by this. He quit his drumming and slumbed back into his chair.

Tomorrow the year ends and a new one begins, pretending it's somehow different than the old one. It ain't. Same damp corridors, same prewar furniture filled with nicotine; the only new things are the faces, but they don't differ much from the last batch. All smug and deformed with overly elaborate hairstyles filled with lard. They sicken me, pathetic badgers clawing their way to the eternally elusive p-juice - soul meconium, but wrapped in a tit-shaped wrap. What a life, what a joke.

>>14445009
Before I was a whore, on tour
I was the child always running around
With his dick hanging out and his diapers pulled down
Showbiz was calling, I hit the stage
Worked out an act where I got raped in a cage
But my life was bullshit but I didn't care
Went to go bowling and I missed on my spare

>>14445814
>same prewar furniture filled with nicotine
The fuck does this mean

>>14445009
Very strange sentence structure. The exposition started to get insuffrable near the end
>>14445439
Reffering to him as "He, the boy" got old the first time. Didn't get any better
>>14445632
Don't hate it at least, just a bit too kafkaesque for my taste
>>14445806
This is mine and I'll refrain from judging it.
>>14445814
Strange terms and too much selfindulgence, but otherwise good

>>14445439
This on its own reads like crap. I'm hoping that the prose surrounding this excerpt frames it as some kind of recall of an absurd event out of place in its time, by a character who would like to say more but is intentionally saying less. And even then, it's still pretty bad. Good writing does not hinge on gimmicks.

>>14445009
Overall it felt like you ended up saying nothing. There are bits of detail that are remarkably specific yet somehow shed no light on who these people genuinely are. The axiom 'show don't tell' will help you improve. On the bright side, you have a good vocabulary, and are able to ground events and people in familiar realism.

>>14445806
I'd like more of this to form an opinion on it. It reads as though it comes from a prose-heavy piece and in spite of that this excerpt seems to be from a point in the story where the absolute least is occuring. However, that seeming to be the case it was still enjoyable to read.
> as if he had sat in a mirror and practiced it for hours on end, knowing it would be a powerful and versatile weapon in his trade
I have seen this kind of exposition before, but you make it feel as though it fits, and is unique enough to not appear as a trick.
Good job.

>>14445814
Poignant

>>14445920
at least try

Would you go watch this - feedback inc in an hour or so I need to nap


https://pastebin.com/xbc7bZm4

>>14446378
Yeah, sure. Better love story than twilight

>>14446330
But what else could I fucking do?
But play another song for you?

>>14446378
I perfer my satire with more subtlety. Nothing funny about beating your message into the audience's head, just comes across a blunt and cuntish.
Also threadly reminder to not interact with shitposters in crit threads.

>>14445814

Tomorrow this year ends and a new one begins, parading in on the promise of change. It's a fib. The same damp corridors and the same prewar furniture filled with nicotine; the only thing new are the faces, but the formulas still the same. The lot of 'em smug and deformed with convoluted hair-dos nearly rancid with lard. They sicken me, pathetic badgers clawing their way to the eternally elusive p-juice - soul meconium, but swaddled in a tit-shaped wrap. What a life, what a joke.

>>14446097
(: in communist countries public buildings were usually always filled with smoke, everyone smoked all the time, even in schools. Anyone working in those offices even now can smell the smoke, it's deeply embedded into the furniture, which didn't change for half a century. In some countries communism was ended by a war. It's just an excerpt of a story translated into english so it has a lot of strange terms probably if you never experienced that.

>>14446783
The smell is tobacco, not nicotine.

Not thrilled with how this turned out. I wanted to subtly show how the teenage son is just as materialistic as his mother, but it reads almost like he's the hero of the scene.
>>14446378
It's interesting but it has a lot of obvious mistakes, like "Calling for back up, we have some nudists being crazy." should be "we have some nudists acting crazy." It's so out of place I'm wondering if it's intentional. If it is it didn't accomplish whatever effect you're going for.
>>14445814
I like it a lot but a few phrases don't make sense. "same prewar furniture filled with nicotine," "elaborate hairstyles filled with lard," you need to clarify these a bit.
>>14445806
Good shit
>>14445632
Also good shit, I'd just change the hand line and get rid of the ellipses. Unless you're trying to make the character sound stupid in which case you need to do a much better job.

>>14446855
... did you really not get that? it sounded better this way, thought it was obvious since nicotine is usually only found in cigarettes

>>14446878
>I like it a lot but a few phrases don't make sense.
i explained what i meant about nicotine two posts above yours
overly elaborate hairstyles filled with lard = crazy, way too complex hairstyles (like undercuts and most of todays weird hairdos) with a lot of hair gel (i used lard because gel makes your hair greasy like it's been dipped in lard)

it may be due to english not being my native language, might be my shitty style :)

The cavern was lightless. Lloyd reached out to grab Henry’s shoulder; Henry offered him his hand instead. He led him into the forever black air, and Lloyd thought he'd never see light again. They walked a bit more and sat with their backs to a stalagmite. It was the coldest place he’d felt. Voices came from further in the darkness; they tumbled together and formed new words and old words but no words that he knew, and sighs in response to hisses in response to moans made it seem the speakers didn’t know either. A bony hand on his back, and another on his stomach, and another on his head, and another on his foot. He squeezed Henry’s hand, but Henry was completely relaxed, and Lloyd soon relaxed too.

“Who are they?” said Lloyd.

He hoped Henry could hear him through the cacophony of babble. Henry stayed quiet though, and he waited for the voices to fade. If the voices had stood still nearby, neither Henry nor Lloyd would know. When Lloyd was ready to ask Henry again, wet steps came before a basket was shoved into his lap.

“Why do you think you can do it? You think... y’know, you’re not the only one that wants to leave. You’re not the first one to think to go up there, not the fifth or the fiftieth, and you won’t be the last,” said Henry after a period of silence.

“I know. But I have to, I want to get back to my-”

“So it’s desire that sets you apart from me?” Henry dropped his hand.

“I don’t mean that, I-”

“You think every time I look up I don’t wish I was there with him? Or dead by his side? Now you’re lost with me, like them too, and like all the rest of us. Just because you have the thought to declare you don’t know where you are doesn’t mean you’re any closer to getting out.”

“I am lost, Henry. We are lost. What is there left to do but to find the way back? I’m not starting a new life here. Whether you help me or not that’s all I can do now.”

They were still. Echoing far away they could hear the voices again. Lloyd probed the inside of the basket. There were squishy umbrellas inside. Henry sat back down and held Lloyd’s hand again. They waited.

“One day after he was taken it just came out from nowhere. The hole in the ground. I heard them shuffling inside, so I went and found them. They’re good neighbors. I give them some extra meat sometimes, and they don’t make as much noise as they used to. Did they give you the basket?”

“Yes, I’ve got it.” Lloyd tried to put it in Henry’s lap, but he pushed it back.

“I never seen one of them. Tried to bring a torch down here once but they wouldn’t come. I think they’re me.” He tapped gently on the stalagmite. “They’re me if I stay in this city.”

>>14446890
I think nicotine sounds OK

>>14445009
If the indeed in the second sentence was intentional then I hate it

>>14445439
Apart from the annoying grammar, why did you say "A hug"?

>>14446878
Materialists like to make things about themselves when this is made clear to them, you understand this from the last line. If you want to make the son look as hollow, have him make some implication about something he can't have because of the '20 bucks a night'

>>14447071
>If the indeed in the second sentence was intentional then I hate it
It's because of something said in the previous paragraph

I’m trying to better this

>>14447402

>>14447412

>>14447402
>>14447412
>>14447419
Didn't critique others, not criticism for you

>>14447436
Which one are you?

>>14447450
>>14445814

>>14445632
Good but

>>14447517
But what?

>>14447073
Thanks, good advice. Any other general tips?

>>14445009
You can cut a lot of the conversational tone, it makes the general thing super clunky. Also, show, not tell.
>>14445439
Like everyone else said, weird mannerisms
>He, the boy
???
In fact they’re kinda superfluous since without introduction of gender for the lamb, you’d literally say
>it
You imply the gender of the lamb, I get it, but it just seems unnecessary.
>>14445632
The general conversation seems very apart from the protag thoughts. he sounds like he’s pretending to be something that even the writer doesn’t know
>>14445806
I liked this, good job.
>>14445814
Decent. I feel the beginning sentence should be disconnected from its conjunction though. Also “batch” seems harsh for the rest of the piece
>>14445920
First line probably indicative of your actual life rip
>>14446378
Uh, not really unless you spread out all of the conversation. I guess it would be more suited to a playwright but depends where you go with it
>>14447071
A cavern is assumed to be lightless. Caverns are, in essence, assume dark. honestly, I’m not a fan. I probably am not your target audience. The whole first paragraph just feels superfluous. You could literally have “There were moans in a cave” and it would have the same effect.
>>14447402
This is me :)

>>14447808
>tfw he critiques everyone in the thread except you

>writing novel, second draft since I fucked up the first one (couldn't end it in a good way without deus ex machina or killing the main character)
>look up how long I should expect it to be, since I never actually did this the first time
>50k-100k words on average, 150k for sci-fi
>250k-300k is getting to the point of "way too long"
>look at my first draft (which was never finished), 212k
>look at current draft, 46k
>mfw the main section of the plot is literally only starting now
So I guess I'm not asking for critique of my writing, but feedback on how long is too long for a novel? It's hard sci-fi from the perspective of a nonhuman character so there's a lot of writing done to establish the setting and society (also it's in first person). I'm not trying to stretch it out or anything, all the shit in there needs to be there to make the plot and setting coherent.
I'm generally tending towards just letting the autism flow through me and not giving a fuck but I guess if someone else agrees that this is a good idea I'll be more confident that I'm not wasting my time.

>>14447873
Length should not matter unless you're trying to appeal to the mainstream

>>14447869
Sorry, which are you?

>>14447873
Get an editor. They will tell you if it feels like it outstays it's welcome. Then get a second opinion editor. Repeat.

>>14447898
Yeah considering the content I'm probably not. I don't plan to sell this shit anyway, it's going into a free epub/pdf/whatever once it's done since I'm not a fag who thinks people should be forced to pay for art and I have an actual job that sucks but pays very well. Not like mainstream shitters would get the point of it anyway.
>>14447915
>Get an editor
I don't know man, I have a rather low opinion of editors from reading other shit and hearing how much was edited out, plus they'd have to do it for free. I mean what kind of fag would work for free?

>>14447922
>plus they'd have to do it for free
This is the flaw, you said it yourself, any editor worth their salt is paid for their time.

Say your work takes a good two, three days of reading, at 4 hours a time. That's 12 hours. A good wage where I live is 20 quid an hour -- an exceedingly good wage. 12 x 20 = 240. £240. You can't afford to spend £240 to make your work genuinely worth it's salt?

Good writers make good money. If your book isn't absolute crap that investment is minor compared to how much you will make.

>>14447922
I’ll do it if you credit me

>>14447906
here>>14446878

>>14447402
>>14447412
>>14447419
I like this a lot, my only suggestion would be remove the "bloody hell" phrase, it doesn't fit the tone. And cool it a bit with the exclamation points.

Why is everyone here so talentless? Seriously, most of you should never touch a pen for at least another decade of intensive reading.

>>14447927
I was kind of making a janny joke but yeah, that is a problem.
>You can't afford to spend £240 to make your work genuinely worth it's salt?
I could pay, it's not like it's out of my means, but I'm really more of a hobbyist rather than an aspiring professional. As retarded as it probably sounds I don't really believe in selling artistic works for money so the only thing I'd ever do is put up a tip jar.
>>14447928
Well if you see some fag looking for an editor for a book called "Nemiza" or something similar it's probably me. You won't until I finish the second draft though.

>>14447951
If you're not planning to turn it into a profession and just want to distribute your art then you have nothing to worry about. Wrap it up however you like and trust you write well enough for those who are interested to not have felt cheated of their time for reading it, and hope you write well enough that they enjoy it, and give you nice twitter comments.

I mean, you're not trying to sell it en masse, or even sell it at all. What do you have to lose?

I'm gonna improv some shit right now

What are the lengths that one should go to in order to experience what he truly believes to be the pinnacle of sexual freedom?

Meet Fernando. Fernando was a strange man. He was born in Ecuador but lives in New York City. He worked at a mundane office job for a rich man who works for a richer man. What made Fernando particularly notable was his love for printers. The feel of printers, the smell of printers; printers are what made Fernando feel at bliss. This love for printers made his office job much more tolerable. The constant sound of ink being blasted onto sheets to create a calligraphic amalgamation of tree and squid was something that he considered to be a beautiful advancement in technology. Fernando had a sexual fetish towards printers. One day, on a particularly long day at work, Fernando had the idea of having sex with one of the printers.

To start this endeavor, Fernando needed a plan. He scanned a picture of his penis and uploaded it to the office file server. The image was titled "I need relief." Soon, many employees started hearing grunts coming from Fernando's office. Complaints were starting to be had, but it was not until people started checking the file server that action started to take place. Upon the rich man walking into Fernando's office, he was greeted to the sight of a 5'9 Ecuadorian thrusting his penis into an ink slot of an expensive Hewlett-Packard
Deskjet 2652.
"What the fuck?"
Were the first words uttered.
"I'm trying to print."
Were the next.
Fernando sprinted out of the office and drove to the nearest airport. He planned this in advance. His ticket was already paid for, so he flew back to his home country, taking his boss' printer with him.

>>14447962
>Wrap it up however you like and trust you write well enough
Oh my dude I wish I wasn't so self conscious so I could. Thanks for the encouragement though. Honestly it's nice to hear other people say this shit so I know I'm not totally mental for doing exactly what you're suggesting.
>What do you have to lose?
The illusion of potentially being good at creating media of a variety that I enjoy consuming. Basically pride.

>>14447973
>Oh my dude I wish I wasn't so self conscious so I could.
Yeah, every creator has this problem to some degree. You turn the volume down on that by sharing what you make with people you trust, then with people who have talent -- and the time and affinity toward you to give you an honest opinion.

>The illusion of potentially being good at creating media of a variety that I enjoy consuming. Basically pride.
Everyone was shit at whatever they practice when they started, whether it's a poor sketch of Dr. Seuss when they were four, or the worst alt-rock guitar composition when they turned twenty-four. You practice, you get better. Worst case scenario here you have worked too hard without self-analysis for too long. I mean, you've written over 300,000 words by this point, you must have some semblance of skill. Sure, you're probably not Phillip K. Dick or whoever you worship but again, you're trying to get better at your craft in your own way, so that doesn't matter.

Just keep putting pen to paper, or finger to keyboard and trying to be as honest as you can about the flaws in what you create.

>>14446878
The beginning
>in tune to
I would change to
>to the tune of
Unless the rain is anthropomorphised for a reason.
What’s the reason of Marley? Why is he important? If it’s just someone you think the character would be into then why is he relative to alcohol over someone like Amy Winehouse (different genres but still).

It’s modern, which is a plus, so good work. Guy feels like a caricature and vaguely reminds me of Marriage Story but more comical

1. Decide the importance of weather if any
2. Decide the importance of the music if any
3. Decide if you want people to hate the man immediately

>>14447986
Yeah I guess so. Fuck it, I'll just get this one to the halfway point and send it to a few friends or something after a quick look-over. I mean if it's shit I want to make it better, not chuck it, so I guess it's better to know.

>>14447997
'Atta boy.

>>14447997
Drop a pastebin asking for 4chan jannies and I’ll read it, edit it, and send back

>>14447993
Really appreciate it man, great feedback

Do we have a crit WhatsApp group? If not, it may good to start so people can help a lot more than here

>>14448066
>whatsapp
As much as I like some of you, I do not trust the majority of you with my phone number.

>>14448123
Or any other way. I just assumed it would be easiest

>>14448157
I'd start a discord but I shirk responsibility wherever I can.

>>14448167
I don’t have discord and I don’t want to make one.

>>14448173
Well, thankfully we have these threads.

>>14448174
I’ll make a discord tomorrow lol if I remember

>>14448183
Go on. Make it now. I probably won't be around tomorrow, I keep odd hours and don't come here to cry about how bad I am every day.

>>14448192
I’m in bed on my phone, fuck off

>>14448200

>>14448192
Yet you're crying here now, life must great anon, I'm proud of you

Whatcha think stream of consciousness stuff::

Hey so this fucking thing actually works? This is a pretty cool invention- this blue tooth keyboard thing.

If I set this new phone up like a computer, It can be Iike a tiny type writer, and I can use it to type journal notes on the go.

This lumpy bundle of oats next to me is trying to get me to watch some anime show. With him. Why would I want to do a thing like that?

My younger brother looked over my keyboard set up, and said “Ah yes, I to have achieved the liberal arts, ” Poking fun at me. ”Come on, type while watching ‘Psycho Pass’ if you claim you can type without looking at the keyboard.”

I looked at him intently and cross eyed, implying his honest attempts to share something he enjoys with me wern’t going to work. I kept making mistakes as I typed.

”Why not?” Peter pleaded. “I’ve shown you four shows and they’ve all been good, why would this one suddenly be bad?”

“Uh, except for the ones that are intentionally bad?” I said. ”Peter, when I watch tv, I watch it all in one sitting. The whole show, all at once to distract me from life and depression.”

He laughed.
“Oh come on it’s such a bingeable show!”

”Why would that be a good thing? Why would a shows ability for it to be watched with eyes glazed over be a sign that it is worth spending time on?”

I could’t find the words to communicate how it feels, to be stuck. To feel kidnapped by apathy and held hostage in bed all day. When I get away I don't want to choose to be bored again- not on purpose.

He read over what I had just typed out. My little brother did not approve.

”If I can write like that, shouldn't I spend my time doing it?”

”But- those are my words.” he laughed. “And it sucks.”

”That’s what journalism is! It's stealing words out of the air and using them, ” I said. ”Every good writer ever was a journalist”

“Ah yes, Shakespeare the journalist.”

He had a point

>>14448598
>>14448604
No crit no crit

>>14445009
Big words, wow

>>14448613
I agree with most of the criticism from other annons, but in general none of you use dialogue much. What quotations are there are not very eligible. Not a meaningful critique because it's all I used

>>14448831
Christ, believable*

>>14448831
This is a cop out answer and complete and utter bullshit for some. No one should crit either until they provide some decent feedback to at least 2 people

>>14448598
Subject is boring and characters unlikable but the prose is good

>>14448598
Disagree, it's all trash. Learn to write true, not like you're becoming a cuckhold

One two three four I cut up the garden hose with the pruning scissors! Where are my pruning scissors? Who cut up the garden hose? I saw the dog do it Mama.

>>14449241
Convince me that stream of consciousness is not just a shitty gimmick that hacks hide behind so they don't have to put actual effort into writting prose. You can't even give good criticism because if it's retarded they can hide behind the old "it's suppossed to be retarded" shield.

>>14449258
Based

>>14446878
Not bad, though I think you made the son a tad too sympathetic

>>14445009

>>14449754
no crit? no crit

>>14449754
I really liked it, though the second sentence seems strange

>>14449918
thanks :) I was trying be religious with it like the catholic church

For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp!
and surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

It was the new year. It was a new decade.
2020 turned over as if the world were reading a book on a summer’s evening. Fireworks lit the sky in the absence of stars or a moon: orange, red, and yellow turned into blue and green before the crowd stopped cheering.
At the strike of twelve, cars beeped, people sang, the sky erupted with light, and then there was quiet. The celebrations in Hong Kong are very different to those Alexander had experienced.
“3, 2, 1,” he said with the crowd, and he felt like he was among them. He wasn’t. He watched small glimpses of the people below; they were outside to witness the turn of the decade, he was not.
He remained at his window for a short while before laying back in his bed. Tomorrow, he thought, tomorrow will be the beginning. And he believed himself, so he closed his eyes to fantasise about what he would do tomorrow:

His room was clean. He hadn’t seen the floor since early on, first month of moving in; since then it had been littered with dirt and clothes.
He sat at his clean desk. Water, yes, he must not forget to drink water. That was at his desk too. His computer was open, a word processor on the screen.
Yes, he would write tomorrow, that was a good plan.

The voices from the streets pulled him from his dreams. They seemed very happy. They yelled and cheered still, how long since twelve struck? A mere half-an-hour.
He closed the window and laid back down. He needed to plan tomorrow right otherwise it would not happen. Darn those people, he thought, dragging them away from -
Quiet, he told himself, be positive. Yes, that was another thing. Write and be positive. Was there anything else? He couldn’t recall.
The toilet was broken. He cursed, it tore him from his stupor. He turned the water flow off. Better. Now where’s was he? Yes, writing and positivity. Good. That sounded good.
He decided it would be a good time to sleep. Sleep early and get ahead of the day, write a thousand words, maybe even two. That would be a good day. He went to sleep.

He woke later than he expected. No problem. He got up almost immediately and sat down at his computer, opened up the word processor and yawned. He had all day, he could write later. He opened his video game folder. Yes, he’d wake up with some video games and write later.

>>14448604
What does this mean

>>14445920
>>14448940
Ok, then this sucks, and this later post is just a short passage about gatekeeping, in itself a cop out not a criticism. come on Tell me how you feel, don't argue the reasons why you can’t

>>14450146
I like this, the writing style is compelling. I wish the subject was more meaningful, ending with video games seems so boring or mundane or something. The sentences don’t really fit with the graph before hand in tone or structure, idk

bare feeling<Its idea<the movement from feeling to idea<the process<the intellectual<the false self as “an intellectual”<the true self awakened by the Holy Spirit<Absolute Presence<unconditional love and peace<the entire movement as a route<sprinting in heaven

>>14450498
its the opening of a short story

>>14449754
>My sin of gluttony
being unnecessarily clunky and poorly worded, the sentence needs a rewrite: Gluttony and uncleanliness, my beloved sins—I have indulged in them like a rancid pest for the past few months.
or something idk
>A rat, has found
remove comma. rewrite the sentence. maybe separate the ideas a bit, so as to continue the ideas of the last sentence. I offer my attempt in synthesis with yours: Remains of meals and candies pollute my warm abode, making a feast for a rat that has found its way in from the cold outside.
but perhaps that draws away from the rat as the primary subject. as is, the sentence is just as clunky as the second.
>This has gone on for far too many nights, some
replace comma with semicolon or period. those are independent clauses.
>I plot my revenge on the beast.
same thing goes for this comma.
>that I would not dare to destroy with my tool
remove "to".
>I sit and wait
I suggest a transition here. it's clunky otherwise: So I sit and wait
remember the commas before but too.
>I breathe
the jump to present tense is awkward and doesn't seem justifiably intentional.
Besides all that, I like the subject. Everything needs work, but the tone and some sentences work quite well. A simple rewrite could perhaps be of great benefit, as there is more to be explored here. Another diary entry could inform the first as well.

my poem

another new years eve alone
this time in the cold
cold comes the night
to the man who's made solitude his home

>>14447964
>gonna improv
try harder. the time of nonchalance is over

My first attempt at poetry that I cahnged a little bit.
Guarding the golden gates of generosity,
I witnessed through withering winds animosity.
Bright light eternally fading
betrayed loyal suffering pilgrims
pleading and begging for salvation.
Their only certainty in their quest;
relentless demons of doubt and question

>>14449898
Okay I will
>>14449754
Those first few sentences are kinda a mess. A little too wordy. How does an adjective utilize a verb? Doesn't flow too well.

Things sound really passive as well. Even in a recollection you should describe events as if they are happening. Gets the reader more involved.


Also
"God only knows how many other pests are infecting my room at this moment, but only this one has given prolonged annoyance."

Try something like.

"God only knows how many other pests have burrowed themselves amongst my garbage, but this is the only one that has made itself known. Having the courage to emerge in plain sight."

I think overall improving your prose will have a great effect on the writing. The subject matter is whatever, but the way it is delivered is lacking.

I poemed, please, your thoughts.

Vital she flows
Mystic yet grounded like cockatrice
Blindling the throes
Trilliant and founded in painful price
Weak, strong, blinded, so vain
An art that's own nature questions the frame
Promiscuous leanings,
Presumptuous meaning
Unsure whether gold was worth all of the rice
I swear to you child,
When you put down your book of the men and the mice
And if for the thought you posess the tithe
Few things ever are absolute in this time
But you and I will surely agree
Our lies only ever vindicated by blood sacrifice

I'll agonise over it more again soon, try to tighten up the rhyming verse. In my humblest opinion, poems are best when spoken. This is largely why I do not experiment with overtly complicated meter

My first attempt at writing, being all by myself and drunk this new year's night. I can't critique anyone else right now because I am too emotional and drunk to do it critically. I will for sure do it next day.

You aren't true,
But you are wonderful.
Wonderful enough to
Fill my unruly self.
Make me comprehensible,
Make me obedient.

Make me do something
something incomplete -
If you have lost anything
I will kiss every foot
of every emperor
to later kiss yours.

My brush and my lust
pleads for colours;
make me a rain,
and a bow and
myself, out of bound.

My Muse, my life -
I don't deserve nor want
any of you.
Please let me be
Alone.

>>14452408
You gotta read more poetry. I can already tell you don't read enough. Also, learn to spell possess

>>14452421
Damn right I do. Thanks.

I wrote this for a creative writing class. I’m a beginner.
>>14452425
Read Emily Dickinson. I like the one about the fly and the old lady dying.

>>14452453
>I hear a fly buzz
Brilliant poem. I actually read that in primary school. Not trying to flex, I do not consistently read poetry at all, but funny you should mention something I am very acquainted with.

>>14452078
You're not alone anon, I read your poem in my solitude.

Thinking way too much I parked and walked in and forgot to remember that other
thing. I didn't realize till later but I don't think it was the end of the
world.

What I was doing was arbitrary and I had no real goal and limited
purpose. Despite, I continued doing my best, as always. But there was nothing neither here nor there so I walked and walked.

Exercise, I considered it. Not
nearly enough for a body such as the one I am caught in! Why, that may be the only thing I have!

To only have leisure on the mind would be something,
something indeed. I can only fantasize. An odd welcoming, greeted by an Arab
for Christmas. To sell me something of course. I waste mine and theirs.

Continuing on a spark gapped the electrodes and had renewed hope. At the end of
the emporium I decided this certain brand may in fact please her, not that I
cared to. Has somebody ever told you they love you but you couldn't say the
same to them?

A precarious situation always follows. Loud voices screaming and crying. At the
end nothing is accomplished. Accomplishments are subjective and my mind makes it
impossible. I had a good conversation today though and that and Bourbon warm my
heart.

>>14450549
Its about addiction

>>14447402
Really like the language and imagery here, but I'm confused by the tone. It reads like a cross between a poem and a children's story. I don't mean that in a bad way because I like the child like qualities of it, but I don't know what your intention with it is yet. I think you need to make your intentions clearer to the reader. I'm okay with the exclamation points, but I agree with the use of "bloody hell," it seems jarring and doesn't flow with the rest of the piece. Would be interested in reading more if you have.

>>14445009
It's like you're trying to meet a word count

I wrote this after my ex left me a few weeks ago while plastered. I'd post the rest of the chapter, but it descends into what is basically autobiographical porn pretty quickly.

>>14452782
Hey man, I know it’s rough, but you’ll be ok. You’ll find someone better eventually. Till then continue writing.

>>14452782
This reeks of revenge. That’s not a terrible thing. You need to decide whether you want it to or not.
I feel this would belong in a budget movie and have some relative success.

The ways of the world are unknown to me but for one aspect, it’s mystic cruelty. The world has a way of making us feel empty, lost, tortured. No matter what anyone does, there will be a deep pain to it eventually. If not now later, it is utterly unavoidable. This isn't to say the world is nothing but pain or that we are in a pointless void of hurt but that we will never be satisfied, for that we will always despair.

IS IT CRINGE?

>>14452419
loved it, but it got pretty hazy near the end there. Although keep in mind I'm a pleb so it might have been just as good as the beginning.

>>14452782
honestly, I don't recall making it this horny

>>14453215

>>14452782
>>14453215
>>14453221
>ex
would have read if you weren't a normalfag

>>14453548
someone gets cuck'd in it and there's some poly shit too, if that does anything for you?

>>14453561
>poly shit
jesus christ normalfags really are degenerate

>>14453590
because literature generally does not contain sex. thanks for the input christfag

>>14453669
His is a comment on vulgarity. Your writing isn’t particularly experimental nor is it written well enough to keep the interest of like-minded readers. While autobiographical does divulge more sensitive topics, what is vulgar remains in your immature notions.

>>14453685
look mate, I know it's not good, but I was looking for some proper take-downs here, not your tepid shit.

>>14451151
this is just schizophrenic babbling

The wide, round rump straining against the purple Lycra pants of the white woman in front of him in line at the corner shop stirred in D'Quan dim, dreamlike memories of the Serengeti buried in his blood, setting his heart pounding like a jungle drum and his long coal-black pestle nudging the fabric of his basketball shorts.
“Muh dick,” he mumbled wonderingly to himself. “Muh dick...muhfugga.”

>>14450146
Any more feedback would be wonderful

If poetry is meant to communicate the secret words of life, the unnameable, the anatomy of angels. Then it has failed in its first line. There are feelings that live and die in brains that summon souls in grape stemmed neurons and these things are beyond the works of any genius. These are read from a piece of paper split lengthwise to subatoms.
This prayer of death is the guttural cry of an infant and life is its eloquent amen.

https://discord.gg/BuWAFr

Here, I made one

Small piece I wrote


A well-dressed man touched my shoulder, his smile stretched the skin on his cheeks. As soon as I removed my headphones, he asked, “Good evening, Sir, you’re of course looking for a suit, correct?”
I was not. I told him so. His smile faltered ever so slightly and then he lowered his tone, “You’re young; you’re looking for something special, right?”
I told him I wasn’t gay but thanked him for the offer, I was flattered really. He laughed, “Weed, I mean, cocaine.”
I told him I still wasn’t interested. He said partying was better with it. I told him I didn’t party. He laughed and walked away.

>>14454112
Is this legit

I'm tempted to post this poem about a foreign japanese girl i liked its very bad

I am tempted to post a piece of writing about a foreign japanese girl i liked a few years ago. Its very pathetic

>>14454916
Do it honestly, that raw pathetic emotion honestly might make it good

>>14445806
I rewrote it abot and expanded on it. I wanted to practice dialogue and characterization, so please tell me if I suceeded
"You called?"
The man did not lift his head from the ledgers as his son entered. Errantly, He motioned towards the chair that sat in front of his desk as he flipped through the pages. The youth was not of the highest intellegence, but he could understand the implications behind his father's movement and took his seat.

For a time the man simply did his work, marking things down with his little pencil, making noises that ranged from annoyed mutterings to light chuckles, reading all the reports and checking his maths three times over to ensure all was accurate. His son, who had been denied sleep at so late an hour by his call, grew restless: he stamped his feet and drumed his fingers on the desk to the beat of an old tavern tune, a jolly and simple one that any drunk could follow. The old man shot a withering gaze, the sort that showed deep experience in the act of dissaproval, as if he had sat in a mirror and practiced it for hours on end, knowing it would be a powerful and versatile weapon in his trade. The boy, a veteran in the face of his father's art, was only slighly cowed by this. He quit his drumming and slumbed back into his chair.

The old man went back to his work with a huff and a shake of his head, slowing his pace to test his son's patience. Soon enough he took notice of his father; and seeing that he was only a third of the way through his papers, stood to leave. Hearing the scraping of the chair, the old man looked up to see his son making way to the door, and said his first words in this two hour long appointment
"Tell me, where are you going?"
"Home, where else?"
"Who said you could leave?"
"I'm sure some may find the sight of an old man neuroticly pouring over numbers in the dead of night a source endless entertainment; perhaps that's how you wooed my mother: but I digress, I've had a rather long day and will have a longer one tomorrow, there's just simply no time for me to endure your seductions. I ensure you that if I had been a women, you'd find yourself with a warmer bed this night; but, as you see by the thickness of my beard and the deepness of my voice, I am a man: one who must get his sleep at night so he can look his best in the day."
He couldn't help but snort at his son's excuses. He may have failed at teaching him numbers and cultivating his virtues, but his son had a natural wit to him. There was hope for him yet.
"Tell me, how old are you?"
"Need to be reminded of your own son's age?"
"That's not an answer."
"23 next week."
"23 years on this soil-- and what have you done with them?"
"Again? Father, if you wished to nag me like a fish hag, you could've waited for the morning."
He chuckled and laid down the papers.
"Sit down, sit down: there's much to talk about; you won't be disappointed, I promise."

>>14452782
So much bitterness and resentment

>>14453915
Derivative

He opened a wooden box with a freshly killed snake in it and bit the wine cork out of the bottle douse the tough skin in some marinade. Garlic, oyster sauce, spinach, watercress, pepper and the numbing, tingling Sichuan peppercorn. He carefully sliced off the venom glands and the eyes, washed the head and prepared it to be dried as a talisman. Then he cut the body lengthwise and poured the rest of the marinade into the crevice of the gutmeat. He let it sit, wound up a timer for four hours and struck a match to light a cigarette, tangerine and clove flavored. I washed my hands with him under an outdoor spigot that sprayed cool water all over my trousers and knees and we sat in rotten, moldy camping chairs under a tree. "You work? School?" "Work. I'm a systems analyst for Cathay Bank in Hong Kong." He dragged the cigarette and pulled it out with a suction cup popping sound and said "I know when I saw. Your hands -- they look stringy, like they couldn't hold a baby. You look like a weak man. Not very strong ah?" I said nothing. I just smiled. I didn't have a response. I slumped my shoulders over. I could feel my collarbone and ribcage. There wasn't anything good about this. He's asking about things I thought I could keep to myself. Why is he asking me about this shit? I didn't have anything prepared for this.
I tried to chuckle, to smirk on some redeeming inoculation against further attacks on my character, I mean I'm trying to fuck his daughter after all.

>>14455050
You need to sound out the things you write to yourself. It practically hurts to say something like "ensure all was accurate".
Try something like:
"..reading each of his reports and checking his math three times to make sure he got it all right."

Seized. Ceased. Hell broke loose. A minute passed. Felt like eternity. Nothing. Quiet. Listen. Incoming. Madness. Horror. Pig. Flesh. Flesh. Undone. Left. Where? Here. There. Above. Behind. Instance. Insistence. Flower. Flowers. Blooming. Blooming. Withering. Dying. What once was is nothing.

>>14455343
Yeah, I wasn't in a great place when I started on it. I haven't been able to touch it for a month though, so I think I'll probably just let it die at this point. Doubt I'd be able to re-capture that spark of resentment anyway.

>>14452782
Get over yourself, asshole.

>>14452408
>like cockatrice
Put the indefinite article there; otherwise, pluralize it.
>blindling
blinding
>trilliant
This is a noun (and an obscure one, at that), not an adjective.
>An art that's
I'm stopping here, by the way. Whose: it's whose.

>>14452419
Get over yourself.

>>14452453
You repeat the phrase "at least" twice. Use that two times less.

>>14452529
>despite
This needs some demonstrative article "this" or that." You choose.
>nothing neither here nor there
No: do you not see the double negative there?
The rest of the poem suffers from being so direct as to leave out any mystery. What makes your experience different from that of any other?

>>14453186
>it's mystic cruelty
>it's
BACK TO BASICS.

>>14455605
>I mean I'm trying to fuck his daughter after all
Ham-fisted and boring. Ho-hum. Make the writing more interesting to warrant the abrupt twist (you introduce it after a comma splice for fuck's sake) or just remove it altogether.

>>14455666
>Make the writing more interesting
Hm, alright. But do you mean the set up or should I expandit to include him talking about how bad he wants to screw this girl?

>>14455678
Better yet, put that last sentence at the very beginning. Rework it, obviously, but I'd like it if you led in with that and *then* gave us the background, the descriptions, and the details. Hook us in with that plot point rather than reveal it toward the end.

>>14455638
>reading each of his reports and checking his math three times to make sure he got it all right.
Thing is that's just about the opposite feel I'm going for. Prose like that is too casual and modern, I'm trying to do something formal and archaic with just a touch of modernity mixed in. I was half tempted to write the dialogue in elizabethian, still debating over it really

>>14455700
Not him, but if you're going to argue with people over their critiques, why even come here? His criticism on that line is perfectly valid: it's awkward, regardless of the style for which you're going. Besides that, the passage you've served to us is littered with grammatical errors ("intellegence," "drumed," "slumbed," "neuroticly").

>>14455700
There's verbosity and there's choking on your own diction. If you want something more lavish, maybe try:

Cautiously mulling over each of his reports, down to the last period, comma, hyphen, semicolon, the dots of the i's and the bars of the t's, triple-checking the math again and again to make he got it absolutely correct, examining the base arithmetic up to the more complex formulae of calculus, an interdisciplinary rumination on the certitude of his work.

>>14455769
See, this is good: aside from the fact that you left us hanging on a participial clause with subjacent participial phrases, this works. If you're going to be a dick and go archaic and pretentious, then do it mockingly so, like this anon. Only, make sure you write an independent clause.

>>14445632
i want more bro
ofc its not groundbreaking but its very readable

>>14455724
I'm him, and it's perfectly appropriate to contest my criticism of his style. I'm a strict disciple of strunk and white so I understand his desire for a more archaic style. Though it's common for writers going after that style to plug fancy words that just don't work and end up with a garbled mess.

For the writer, I recommend reading even just a few pages of Dickens or Thackeray out loud to yourself. Listen to the way that every successive word, no matter how erudite, easily rolls off the tongue. You've got the vocabulary, but you lack the form.

>>14447964
the simplicity makes this alot better than much of the rest of the thread
nice
write something longer

>>14455724
>Not him, but if you're going to argue with people over their critiques, why even come here?
It was kess of an issue with the criticism(the line is rather awkward) and more of an issue with the purposed fix(for reason I've already stated). Besides, discourse on the subject will help almost always help

>>14455799
>and it's perfectly appropriate to contest my criticism of his style
>>14455805
>Besides, discourse on the subject will help almost always help
Fair enough. I will concede to that point.

>>14455799
>You've got the vocabulary, but you lack the form
And this is something I wanted to talk about, as well, because you've hit the nail on the head. A lot of what I see in here has the potential to be really good, but much of it suffers under the weight of its erudition and pretentiousness. Think of diction as a weapon at the shooting range that must be practiced with first: you may have the most powerful firearm in the room, but if you're shooting it at walls rather than at the prescribed target, you're metaphorically, and literally, missing the mark. The gift of a lexicon should not be squandered by misplacing words or leaving them out: the best writers know when, and what, to use, the knowledge of which comes from reading and practicing. More than that, though, you've got to have the cadence for the words: imagine having the most beautifully-trained violinists, pianists, and trombonists all gathered together in an ensemble and the director decides to have them play random notes without any sense of melody, purpose, or direction: that's your awful writing. There's a difference between being purposively purposeless (which requires just as much skill) and being accidentally stupid. Learn the difference.

>>14453221
about as readable as houllebecq's stuff, albeit on a lower level theoretically.
not that you don''t have space to improve it from there

>>14455825
Yup. Couldn't agree more. Though it's a predictable mistake from beginners. Too much of the passive voice, unnecessarily pretty language, being so obsessed with one beautiful word that you use it like that one porn clip you always cum to. The first step to being a good writer as a 4channer should be to realize that H.P. Lovecraft was a bad one.

>>14445806
>Though the youth was not of the highest intellegence, but he could understand the implications behind his father's movement and took his seat

>though
>but
>not knowing how to use subordinating and coordinating conjunctions
>intellegence

What is this, anon? Why are you doing this?

Walking around the straight, narrow road
Up, down, underground
Fall off the edge, feels like a marry-go-round
Spin, spin, shake you down
Anxiety beyond what anxiety means
Laugh, laugh, then cry some more

There's a whole lot I can tell about you
The way you lust, the way you yearn
The way your world turns
The cycle spins and it grinds and it chews
And the blues for you are not blue
They're green and you don't have a clue

Craven, confusion colossal
Peer through the crack
You manage to pull the curtains back
It's a great big smoke show
Breathe it in
It takes you to heaven, it blows you away

Swimming through your dreams tells you a lot about me
"Who, why, do you have to lie?"
The truth is fleeting it's hard to chew
"Where did you go? What do you know?"
Life, it passes you by in the blink of an eye
Sink, sink, I tried to fly

Asked you a question some time ago
How low was too low
Here, down below
There's a light on the shore
There's a starling in a cage
Shining the way
Seeing, but never flying away.

Rise and shine, rise and shine
Same old joke you can always jump high
Same old joke you can never really fly
Same old joke makes you laugh till you cry
Same old joke makes you never wanna try

>>14455911
Are these song lyrics? Why for the love of God are you rhyming--and in couplets no less.

>>14455917
it's like a song/poem, like beasley street by john cooper clark

>>14455917
What kind of rhyming schemes generally work for making songs? What should be the main focus when writing lyrics for a song?

too many words

>>14455956
Gotcha. Thank you for the clarification.

>>14456016
If we're talking about songs, then even couplets will work: but you've got to be a good enough songwriter to warrant the rhyming. The problem that many poems with some kind of rhyme scheme generally face is the issue of letting the rhyme LEAD the discussion or the direction of the poem. The poem that I was earlier critiquing, if I may, is obviously having to hinge on the rhymes rather than being able to direct the rhymes where the poem wants to go. I hate it, and absolutely hate it, to see a good pair of words wasted out of arbitrariness and exigency. If you're stuck on trying to find a word with which to rhyme, step away from that conundrum and face the meaning of your poem square in its face again: THAT should be the problem, not the oh so momentous difficulty in finding a word to rhyme with "beneath."

>>14456128
Haha, yeah, you're right on the money. I'm really new to songwriting, started maybe a week ago, and even though I manage to escape rhyming words for the sake of rhyming words when writing poetry without music, as soon as I introduce music I go back to 4th-grade poetry. But yeah, the first stanza is completely driven by the rhyme, as is the second one, however, line 5 and 6 is where the actual poetry starts, even though those two lines seem the most awkward and rhyme-driven. Everything past those lines are poetic as well, and probably why the rhyming scheme starts to break down.

>>14456060
AAND I CAN HEEEAAARR EMMMMMMMM

>>14453915
>I will strangle the retarded pagan god of water that slobbers over this city
Got a laugh out of me

>>14453915
>second-person
>a comma splice
You tried.

>>14451151
Boring psychobabble. Maybe therapy would be a better use of your time: I've seen shitposts better than this.

>>14456391
I have been fighting my tendency to use comma splices for years. Whenever I'm not conscientiously avoiding them they end up saturating my writing. I wrote that while drunk, and I've just spent two minutes trying to fix it.
>>14456381
thanks

>>14456469
This is better. I like it. My only suggestion would be to replace that period after "human flesh" with a comma, as the succeeding phrase is, from what I can tell, also apposite to "it" or to "Bardamu's Rancy." Having a period there disconnects that phrase too strongly for me.

But again, good stuff. You write better drunk than some people write in total sobriety. I'll be keeping an eye out for more stuff.

>>14456494
thank you. I also missed a couple bits of second person in there as well.

>>14456469
I think you should totally scrap "the rain is omnipresent", and instead, join it with the next sentence and write it as, "the rain washes down day after day until it batters your soul into paste". Even something like, "the rain is forever" works better, because omnipresent, in my opinion, really sticks out like a sore thumb in what is a very palpably gritty, no-bullshit paragraph.

A quick poem I wrote recently, I'm new to this:

If moths had eyes, would they be happier?
How do they know they are not dead
Cavemen hunting for food, but not before they style the hair on their head
What would last longer in dinosaur times?
A blind man wouldn't stand a chance
Not with all them rocks about
I'd rather be a blind moth

You're 47, sitting by your father's deathbed; you're 81, lying in your own; you're 30, you're 15, feeling Stacy Pravenzano's left breast in the backseat of her father's Grand Caravan under a high moon; you're 11, you're 32, airlocking your son's baptismal gown with an infomercial device; you're 66, driving home from a retirement party; you're 53, in a dentist's waiting room; you're an infant, you're infinite, you are here, now.

>>14456773
Moths do have eyes

>>14457057
Gay

first two pages of a short story i drew up a few months ago and then dropped. still rough. about an on again off again drug dealer selling to a buddy of his basically.

>>14457094
not blind moths

In the town everything seemed solid and straight, for things to be smooth and flat is for them to be tame and modern, his rough hewn wooden floors and walls could rip flesh from bone if adequate force slid an arm or foot along them. There is an exception to this, objects that have been used for countless years, if not generations, have a distict smoothness and pleasureful feel that can only come from the wear of human hands. Axe handles, once sanded down coursely, have become the most polished items in existence. Sometimes this refinement is faked, but people can tell, the shiny cane, glazed with polish, can't compare to the walking stick found as a boy, and carried into old age.

>>14457279
Blind moths generally have eyes.

>>14456773
>A quick poem I wrote recently, I'm new to this
All of those things show. It's bad, keep trying.

>>14456773
I'm also pretty new.

I know this is 4chan so I'm gonna get shit on but any critique is appreciated

I don't like jellyfish, they’re not a fish, they're just a blob
They don’t have eyes, fins or scales like a cod
They float about blind, stinging people in the seas
And no one eats jellyfish with chips and mushy peas
Get rid of 'em

>>14456773
Was this a five-minute warm-up or something? I could write something ten times the quality of this poem drunk and half-asleep.

>>14457397
Posts like these are just getting the thread further and further to its bump limit. Sincerely, fuck you.

>>14457293
>comma splices everywhere
It's unreadable. It really is. Fix it. Fix all of it.

>>14457397
Personally, when I said this outloud,
>float around blind
Sounded better than
>Float about blind
Just seemed more pleasant on my tongue

>>14457415
>Sincerely, fuck you.
Is it that bad??

>>14457419
Thanks, this is actual critique that I can implement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJeWySiuq1I

THIS MEANS NOTHING TO MEEEEEEE

>>14457423
Are you really asking me that? Read over what you've just written again, if it's sincerely not a shitpost, and write back to me what the significance of it is. Why should anyone waste any of the limited time they have to read your poem? What lesson about life will they have learned by the time they read the last word of it?

>>14447873
kill the main character

>>14447873
>look at current draft, 46k
>>mfw the main section of the plot is literally only starting now
you don't need 46 thousand words of bullshit, if you're going to write a story then write it
don't waste time

>>14457450
Didn't know there had to be a lesson learned in every poem. Just a fun little rhyme. I don't like fancy artsy poems.

>>14447873
I wish I was as prolific as you. I have about 10k words, maybe half of which is usable. However I'm in the same boat that the main plot for the most part has not been written. I seem to have inspiration for the minutia rather than the important parts. I spend most of my writing time writing intricate prose for specific scenes and editing what I've already written.

Conveniently, many of the patrons appeared to be Jewish, which is no surprise due to the coffee shop’s proximity to the local campus. Such homogeneity is uncanny in our current society, and this sight was pleasing to the eyes, like a river carrying a robust amount of water. Imagine them walking, voices aside (voice is but birds chirping or leaves crinkling under a healthy boy’s shoes). One muscular Jew nigh 6 feet. With his family: daughter, wife, son. A stereotypical son, an unhealthy obsession with the self and a cackling voice fluctuating in pitch, bushy black hair, a large nose, slightly effeminate from the voice and some other inherent setbacks, all the while posturing at medium height. The daughter, unduly arrogant, overly sensational—flawed, homely, and insouciant. Both son and daughter caricatures of the father and mother. A happy family. Yet the same law applies: one day dead and another forgotten. This thought vexed Tim, and he didn’t know how to fully articulate the sensations he felt, yet it’s fair to say he felt a sense of uneasiness around this family, but his mind felt guilty. He was certain they would be rude to him if they deigned to speak to him. He remembered a Jewish woman that he met several years ago: very attractive and erudite, but off-putting. Black hair, ageless skin, adorned in the finest cloth, and she sat soliloquizing about an Emerson essay she recommended: Nature. As if she could ever live like such. It’s something that the intellectual fails to see. Everything is a theory to them, which is why workers and farmers seldom support socialist candidates in America. Plus, the tepid shells of candidates caving to the booster’s demands doesn’t appeal to any truly thinking person. One-minute anti-immigration, the next open borders for all. However, “Stupid and Propagated, the workers are.” Of course, voting only serves to reinforce the system and give the illusion of change.

>>14454270
Bump

>>14457397

My dude
I love all the people actually trying to critique Karl

Bump

still it manifests precisely with fire
though too long oppressed by digital realms,
i always enter these bizarre tempers
where water pits in myriad spells.

>>14458405
Good

1

2

>>14453928
No one critiqued mine...

>>14458861
Same>>14454270

>>14458861
>>14458918
my only criticism was "caverns are assumed to be dark" kek >>14447808

>>14458918
>>14458861
Same>>14457494

I will begin by saying I'm >>14456469 and >>14453915 (and drunk again). You're free to decide whether I'm qualified to offer advice based on that excerpt.
>>14453928
Nit pick: the more contemporary spelling is "unnamable" Otherwise, punctuation is very awkward, especially between first and second sentence. Otherwise I found the imagery very good (I may be biased as the son of a neuroscientist) and the poetry of the language was excellent
>>14454270
Maybe too short to make a full assessment. I'll say I was a bit confused trying to imagine the context, since an older man approaching a younger and asking if he's looking for a suit- it's impossible to see anything other than a department store. I'm assuming that was sort of your point, but I don't understand why a man would open with that question at a party. Besides that it was well written.
>>14457494
Not sure if I understood the opening metaphor of a homogeneous crowd resembling a flowing river. Punctuation between "6 feet nigh" and "with his family" definitely needs revising. May be an unreasonable criticism but I don't know how Tim is able to tell the son has an unhealthy obsession with himself. "The finest cloth" is quite an archaic way of speaking, but nigh 6 foot is as well, so I'm assuming it's intentional. I'm assuming the rest of the piece explains the why the second half of your passage is so political. I liked it.

>>14459213
Oh, this is really common in Hong Kong, Rando Indians will walk up to you and offer you everything under the sun

>>14459296
Indains approach you randomly in Hong Kong and offer criticism for you writing?

>>14459359
Lmao, I was referring to suits/drugs etc

>>14459373
Just a joke, anon.

>>14445009
A prayer I wrote to the wilderness I love, that which is lost in trees but found in rocks

Out there in red expanses I beheld the seam between worlds
In seas of stone and thorn and cliff you grew more present in my mind
Before the west I did not know you, all buried under trees where I was born
You’ve never known the need to raise your voice, I understood you were alive
A great and beautiful serpent, a creature I may never touch, a border I will never meet
Angry in jagged mountains, calm in lonesome basins, you are livid in geographic emotion
You fly the high plateaus adorned in heated scales, which shimmer in the midday sun
Coiling, settling, calming in later hours, your oscillations soothed by gradients at dusk
Only when the moon goes down and the very last star rests it’s pattering feet, do you finally sleep
And so do I, my eyes heavy with the travels of the days across your back
On open stone, upon your scales, I fall asleep knowing with comfort that you are there
That in the morning I will see you again, how in our travels we will dance once more, changing in all our wild energies
You my friend, who grants me my freedom and expands my lungs, you embolden my heart, and my spirit to press on
I carry your story
I hear your voice
I know your name
Horizon

>>14445009
Ignore the haters, I thought it was pretty good. The only valid critique I've heard is that the "indeed" isn't necessary. But other then that, the story does its job and your words guide it perfectly fine.

>>14454270
I'd only change
>gay
to
>homosexual
or
>faggot
(if you are wanting to show bias)
otherwise, excellently written and depicts a lot in a short amount

bump from the brink

>>14447964
dude I thought for sure this was gonna be like Crash for printers lmao. overall, this is good shit, only minor thing is I feel the intro and outro are a bit rushed, but whatever. keep it up mang

>>14457450
Can this fucking dipshit retard be permanently banned from 4chan? I swear its this same insufferable little cunt who comes in to these threads, makes 40 bitchy replies to everyone degrading their work, with no actual knowledge of what he is talking about, then leaves. Fucking stop. Since when did a fucking POEM have to have some kind of philosophical message? Poetry is founded on the aesthetic qualities of written language. It can just be pleasing to read you fucking ass. Guarantee all the unnecessarily rude replies in this thread are this same cunt.

>>14445009
Is this comprehensible at all? I feel like I'm writing the most incoherent sentences ever made by going through as much as possible in as few words as I can.

>>14461650
>my attention spam

>>14460328
Thanks a lot, I did I edit it though

>>14461662
Whoopsie :3

starting from bottom until I get bored

>>14461650
I'm not really sure what the purpose of this is -- it would fit well in a 'write what's on your mind' thread I guess?

>>14458678
this prose is effective, I like it. consistent character voice and it flows well. nice work anon

>>14457494
the prose is fine, but I'd tone down the wordiness about 20%. subject matter is a bit boring.

>>14457293
what >>14457415 said

>>14457230
what's with the formatting? new speech sections and descriptions of actions following speech should start a new paragraph. hard to keep track of who's speaking. its ok otherwise, a decent start.

>>14457057
eh, heard it before. nice images though.

>>14456469
good imagery, but
> a turgid and dreary suburb rotting with putrid human flesh
is like .. extremely campy. dunno if that's your intention.

>>14455605
very good prose, but I find myself disliking the main character -- another piece of writing about a nihilistic young man with a wry personality? ok

>>14447949

Mr. Givens slammed his fist against the cabinet.

'Why is everyone here so fucking talentless?' He glared around the room, daring any one of the now-fearful, agitated faces to answer back. Sanders, already a wreck over his first date tonight with Anna, slouched forward and folded his hands between his knees, hoping to go unnoticed by the chief editor. He silently counted out the seconds on the clock—'quatro, cinco, seis...'—as they ticked by, getting just past trece when Mr. Givens hissed another 'f' under his breath. 'Seriously, most of you should never touch a goddamn pen for at least another decade of intensive reading.'

Uno. Dos. A chair seat squeaked, a keyboard clicked, and the room sidled its way back to life. Sanders' puffed his cheeks, letting the air out slowly as he turned to his workstation. He reached for his mouse—what search was that? bracelet? book? maybe wait to see how things go with Anna first—when a half-rolled manilla folder rapped his shoulder. The one Mr. Givens had been clenching during his tirade. Sanders bit his lower lip.

'FINISH this before end of day,' Mr. Givens said, his voice still hoarse from yelling. He tossed the folder onto Sander's desk. Sanders turned to his editor as if he'd just been slapped.

'But sir...'

'One more word.'

'I--'

Hands on his thighs, the editor brought his nose in closer to Sanders'. 'What did I. Just. Say?' Usually a salmon pink on the best of days, the vein at the editor's temple darkened to a sour burgundy. Sanders' eyes darted back and forth between the vein and the stare his boss gave him. Sanders could feel the blood in his own face swelling, not least because an absurd image of Austin Powers diddling THE MOLE flashed before him, followed by an image of Dr. Evil doing the same, both of which nearly caused Sanders to burst out laughing despite the rising anger and frustration he also tried concealing.

He'd hesitated too long. Sensing the moment lost, Sanders closed his mouth, let his shoulders fall.

'Good.' Mr. Givens straightened, visibly pleased with himself. He re-tucked the back of his shirt. 'Peterson,' he barked, then straightened his fitbit. 'Anyone see Peterson? Tell him to come to my office. Pronto-mundo.'

When at last he heard the click of the chief editor's door, Sanders pushed aside manilla folder and with a flick of the mouse roused his screen...

>>14445632
I like it. The dialogue feels believable and I'm left wanting to read/ find out more.

>>14456469
final

>>14458678
>>14458683
kino!
makes me crack a smile

>>14462135
>"Sir, this is a Wendy's"
please, for the love of god, don't say this. it is an absolute reddit statement that is nowhere near funny. if ur gonna publish this, do not for the love of god say this.

I have to say tho, seeing as im throwing my 2 cents in, i most liked your first version, even with the comma splices, so i wouldve left it at that but u do u

>>14461650
i want to read more bro. who cares if its not some short story, you haven't 100% generalised yourself and it's still interesting

>>14462135
>>14462183
I don't mind the reddit finisher, it's a good contrast to the overwrought style above.

>>14462183
>>14462203
I may have a line that similarly diffuses the rant but the reddit was just a gag I threw in since it was my third time posting an excerpt that was silly to begin with

A chorus for a song:
Still I'm haunted by this circumstance
I watched the sand slip through my hands
Letting my guard down in advance

Time, always running out of time
Not that it was ever mine
One day this bell will cease to chime

Oh Spring, with Spring will come back the eternal bloom
They're always coming down in twos
Reminds one of his fading youth

>>14461896
>>14462176
Thanks guys

Do you think saying stuff like "lost my jungle wife to napalm" is too un-PC to be shown outside of 4chan? I think old people just have some latent racism that's normal to include

Crit, please...

Today was not very bad, despite expectations. The kids were only chatty, though they’ve been like giant squids convulsing, surprisingly their yap was tame. It’s fortunate that I had time to pray, it’s like my incubator. Many teachers exhaust themselves I believe partially due to poor spiritual health, but I will be very tired too someday.

ITT: people who don't read enough/don't learn from reading

>>14463345
OP here, I'm probably more well-read than most published authors and am still not where I'd like to be in terms of writing. You are right though, I would especially benefit from reading Faulkner, Zarathustra, Ulysses, and Hunger and am working on it, but you could only read so much in one day. My goal for this year is 1-2 books a week.

I'll throw my lot in. Why not? This is a rough draft. In the 6th book out of I dont know how many.

So far everything I have is written. How long is too long before I put everything onto a computer? I'm currently on page 197 of the 6th 200 page notebook (page 1197 to be exact)

>>14464195
That's embarrassing.

>>14464195
Holy shit. I wish I wrote as much as you. And you're going to have to flip the picture and post it again. couldn't be fucked to flip it myself

>>14464195
Intriguing, and it reads very fluid i like it!

https://pastebin.com/1iiB7fsC

I'm drunk and had an idea for a story, I'll post some critiques when I sober up. My idea for this one is that he'll rail against his nature but succumb in the end and rat again. Probably gonna kill him off too. Does this kind of writing interest anyone or I am going too lowbrow?

>>14464208
Why? And what about it?

>>14464225
Here it is flipped. I could have posted this last night too, but I really just wanted sleep.

>>14464588
Wow, thanks. I wasn't expecting any sort of compliment.

>>14465458
God dammit it still didn't flip. I'll have to just get it right the next time, I won't flood the thread with my story. 3 times, at that.

>>14465458
Think he meant cus you posted it upside down.

I deepthroated my gf's sweaty feet. It felt very good and fulfilling. Her ruddy blonde cutie piggies tickled my throat.

>>14466504
Wow, what a prose. Tell me more.