/lit/ - Literature

experimental poetry inspired by mallarme's use of blank space. i wrote this with ted hughes in mind

>>15822085
Alright, here's a very short short story about a fella going to the shops. It's my first go at trying to write something a bit stream of consciousness and that. Still not sure about how it's turned out, and I've not bothered with any editing other than going over spelling mistakes, but at least I'm trying to summat a bit different and what have you. Also all the elipses are just there because I could come up with a name of the fella in the story.

>>15822121
Personally the ellipses don't work for me. I think you really need to change it to something with the first letter of a name and an em dash, as in someone like Dostoevsky, e.g. "P——."

"all too soon" is redundant. Omit.

"ceramics" - why? is he surrounded by ceramic dishes? Then it wouldn't really mean the ceramics belong to the "bare, cold kitchen." Surely, they're owned the person who lives there. Change to something a little less awkward.

"i" is lower case. Change to upper case.

"Breathfulnessless" needs a full stop after it. Even if it is a neologism of the character, it's an awkward word that sounds too much like "breathlessness" for me to like it.

omit the exclamation mark in "charmed to meet ya!" sounds like someone yelling when it would be better without it

Last line reminds me of The Doors. Is that intentional?

Overall, it reminds me a lot of high modernism like Beckett. You have a great command of vernacular and poetic language, but sometimes it's like you're obsessed with the sounds of words rather than the meaning. That's okay, but it makes the narrator seem a little crazy and quirky (it is actually a symptom of personality disorders that people are obsessed with the bizarre association of words that are actually meaningless). It's also Joycean so that's a good compliment, but Joyce had a lot more to say than you do. You seem to just be riffing off of a style than giving us content.

>>15822164
ngl, pretty chuffed with that. Yeh I'll try and at least give him an initial instead of just three dots. The i and no full stop after breathfulnessless are just mistakes that obviously I missed.
>last line reminds me of The Doors. Is that intentional?
Yeh, I tried putting in a load of different references, like the fuckin charmed to meet ya bit is from a song from The Fall, and the word breathfulnessless and the sentence that comes before it is all stuff from the Jean-Luc Godard film Breathless. Again, I'm pretty fuckin happy that at least one person thinks it's not complete dreck, it's only something I did because I'm reading Ulysses and wanted to see if I could do something sort of similar, and only spent probably about half an hour on it in total, which probably explains some of the general awkwardness of the writing, and why it doesn't really have too much to say like you mentioned.

>>15822230
>not complete dreck
Of course it isn't! I think 4chan just has a lot of pseuds who like to shit up /crit/ threads since they usually have no actual experience reading or writing. If you aren't too bothered with dealing with normies or old farts, check out the writing groups in Litopia. It's a nice change of pace even if I find lots of the people there too obsessed with genre fiction and getting rich through pulpy, formulaic writing.

https://pastebin.com/3UDwrK5M
Hit me

>>15822256
Be a wee nicen bairn, finish your critique of others, then we moight get back to ye.

>>15822085
I am considering writing something based on the life of a common achaean soldier during the siege of Troy
Is there any merit to this, or is it necessarily a vulgar endeavor?
I foresee a minefield of cliches, and I don't know whether the production would be of any value if my time is spent entirely avoiding them

>>15822309
I was going to do the same in a speculative futuristic setting. Note that this has been done by Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos. It's not an original idea on my part.

I think it could be interesting, but I'm not sure what angle you're going to take. It would be very interesting to see the Iliad in a literary realist lens, as you say it would be a common soldier, who would see a lot of the actual toll of war, rather than the high and mighty poetry about gods intervening, etc. So I would say definitely focus on your own bent, not trying to push you in a corner, but I do think a realist Iliad would go a long way. Read a bunch of Chekhov and Mark Twain, get the sense of grittiness and the everyday.

>>15822247
>no posting outside groups
>immediately posts outside groups

Jfc you're retarded

>>15822629
I meant the discords and other such groups. Not a website. But I didn't clarify that, so here's a humble (you).

>>15822657
>he thinks he can enforce rules on an anonymous website
this isn't reddit you basedcuck faggot

https://discord.gg/xH7TPjC
/lit/ discord, all welcome
OP is a balding manlet

https://discord.gg/NR42fy

>>15822677
>he has a reaction folder with deftly-named images for responding to anons
Who's the real retard here?

>>15822682
Ok tranny.

https://discord.gg/v28agM5

gg/GajAywT

real crit here
don't take advice from a low IQ simp who can't write for shit

>>15822704
How many published pieces you got again?

>>15822712
2 in lit quarterly, 5 total in other magazines.
Seethe more

>>15822716
>lit quarterly
LMAO
>magazines
Nice, did they pay you like $5? Also post them if you're not scared of letting people see your god awful prose.

>>15822722
the quarterly is better quality than most soiboy cuck magazines out there
showing urself as a redditor fr

>>15822725
>he thinks that the literary world is comprised just of "magazines" and a shitty quarterly with the same layout as every fucking other indie website with a masthead on submittable
ngmi

Is this the retard that posted 7 pages of cringe in the other thread again? Some people just have more ego than talent, sadly.

>>15822740
meaning you got rejected and are salty about it. got it

Oh great it's hapa wars 2: boogaloo
u people need to stop shitting up the board with ur gay love affair.

>>15822756
Nah, I respect myself enough not to jump on a shitty pet project. My literary aspirations are a little higher than yours, it seems.

>>15822751
If you're referring to that guy with the shitty formatting and who'd respond to any constructive feedback, no I'm not. I even write completely differently. You'd probably be able to pick up on the idiosyncrasies of people's writing if you read more.

>>15822772
It is you because only you showed this level of egomania and delusion. Nice try but it's obviously you.

>>15822786
You're the paranoid one projecting negative aspects onto me. Seeing all your enemies on the blue image board leap out at you anon? A little bit on edge, aren't we? Post a crit and a piece or fuck off.

>>15822800
You don't get to tell me what to do, baldie

>>15822814
Dedicated to (you) anon. Please leave a critique and post your piece from lit quarterly so we can examine it like good buds.

>>15822814
just ignore this retard
he thinks making a thread gives him reddit janny power lmao

>>15822831
pay for the quarterly or fuck off

For anon.

With love,
anon.


Poetry, blank space, Joyce in mind

>>15822840
No need to (you) yourself. I can see how many posters there are.

>>15822847
yeah too bad u cant count retard

satire, poetry, traditional, joycean

>>15822876
>daring to associate yourself with Joyce when this is the quality of your work
it's just embarrassing at this point

>>15822890
still been published in better places than lit quarterly, you're too scared to leave us a little tasty morsel of your writing, ain't ye?

>>15822897
>still been published in better places than lit quarterly

I bet 3 BTC this is a lie

>>15822924
>Journal that honours a writer on harold bloom's canon list
Yeah, I think that's better than some dude working out of his room with a fucking paper trimmer

>>15822944
>a journal that honors a guy who is a real writer
>therefore it's a good journal

lmfao the mental gymnastics

A good journal is one that publishes good writing. The quarterly does that.
The journal that published your dogshit obviously isn't. QED

flumpf

>>15822897
Prove it

>>15824426
what's your email

A roaring lion walketh about seekin whom he may devour

>>15824504
email is an outside group.and not allowed.
post it here coward
but you won't because you know it's shit.

>>15824504
I guess he can't post it here because it's been published, so it's not his work anymore. Just drop the whole stupid conversation.

>>15825039
Here's proof of acceptance.

>>15825569
He gets it. I also wouldn't give you a free copy if another person isn't going to post their piece from lit quarterly.

>>15825616
>a free copy
stop acting like your cringe writing has any value, it doesn't.

>>15825705
Were you the same idiot who told me to pay for lit quarterly to read your piece?

>>15825753
return to reddit

Good luck with the literary career anon! It really helps you personally identify with a digital backwater!

>>15822121
Is this by an AI trained on Ulysses?

>>15825868
Not not quite, by an imbecile autist reading Ulysses. Not a fan of it?

>>15825868
no not quite, by an imbecile autist reading Ulysses. Not a fan of it?

Once upon a night

In the frozen still of a black and white memory
a man began across a solid pond
leaking dreams from his ears
drunk on the night

tightrope stride cuts a line every inch
as the silhouette approached
like a pitch dark star careening
lonesome against the night

the figure becomes a blur
legs eaten by the earth
sinks from sight
and becomes the night

>>15826274
who are you?

Jacky jack hit a sack
hit a sack with a big ol bat

Jack jacky jack hit a sack
hit a sack with a cat in the sack

Jack jackety jacky jack hit a sack
hit a sack with a cat in the back of the sack

Jack jackety jack jack hit sack back cat sack hit stack whack.

>>15826375
?

>>15826485
You have to point out who you have critiqued if you want to get critiqued

>>15826406
>no hacky sack
>no yackety sax

>>15822110
interesting but i dont like the fuck it at the end. seems out of place and a complete shift in tone.

Saltwater rolled in, let out a foamy sigh, and was pulled back out to the sea. All around in empty stretches of sapphire, struggles were raging: nature vs itself. Kinetic energy drove little waves vagabond to the shore, weaker and weaker, until all that touched the land were little, wet kisses. Watchers with their ankles in the sand could gaze out for miles into the curling atmosphere and see nothing but stillness, the pendulum of tides only an echo of the distant conflict, churning alone, for no reason at all.
those are the opening lines to my novel; how quickly do you throw it out the fucking window?
I'll critique on another post

>>15822121
I feels like you just read Ulysses. sorry to be blunt, but there are just too many obvious signs that the stately plump line got an eye-roll from me.
if you want to improve this, I'd go over the purely stream-of-conciousness portions and try to figure a new way of reaching the transition from observation to thought, because rn i feel like i can just "see the gears" if you know what i mean.

>>15827752
Rly not bad tea bee aitch. I could feel the motion of the waves. It’s good.

>>15822085
Set in the early 60s

corny short story i wrote awhile back https://pastebin.com/Bz1Yd1GB

i will read some posts in these threads and comment on them

>>15826274
i don't read much poetry but i do think this was nice to read. the title doesn't really match it though, in my opinion.
>>15827752
i don't think this is bad. some good imagery. in the first sentence i would suggest making the tenses consistent. e.g. instead of "was pulled back out to the sea", something like "withdrew" or "receded" or whatever describes the emotion you want to invoke, to make the sentence stronger.
it sounds like you want to emphasize there's a sort of invisible force driving the waves, but your phrase about people only seeing "an echo of distant conflict" as they look out into the sea makes this confusing, because it almost sounds like you are referring to a physical storm. but if it's a physical storm then your earlier phrase "All around..." doesn't make sense. maybe i am just a brainlet and don't get what you mean. i would just make that distinction clearer.
>>15828609
this sounds well-written to me. the setting and amount of detail reminds me of nabakov, not sure if that was intentional. in particular i really like the word-play. i don't like footnotes in fiction, but that's just personal taste.

>>15828609
I like the dialogue and characterization of Beigler. My only gripe is that the switch of perspective to the worker and the footnote are a bit jarring from the first part. Might work as a comedy or it could just be too different from what I'm used to. I got a 50s/60s vibe from the setting even without mentioning Vietnam.

doing a crit for a crit. 3k words, part 1 to a series. Lemme know what you think!

Doing a crit for a crit. 3k words, part 1 of a series of short stories I'm doing. Let me know what you think!
https://pastebin.com/ZKZmRJLs

>>15830313
>The first sentence is awkward. Omit "and" as well as the comma, then start a new sentence with "Even" since this is a connective. Doubling down on a connective seems a bit redundant to me.
>"their rosary" is singular in your own words, when it should be a plural, e.g. "their rosaries" - but if you want to keep it singular say "many clasped a rosary"
>"I know I did, anyway" is also redundant because you said everyone crossed themselves.
>"spooky as shit" rolled my eyes, get something better
>How is there light reflecting off the clouds if the entire sky is obscured by clouds? There's lights on the artillery guns? If so, why? It sounds like the sun is making the guns shiny, but you say the clouds are in the way
>You keep adding another clause to the sentence like "..., and..." it looks really lazy and irks me because you use it so much. I know other people with this habit and they aren't good writers, actually all of them are STEM.
>"Much to the mirth of my comrades" should be "which created much mirth among my comrades" or something similar
>Cultists .... okay was already sounding like Warhammer and now it is just Warhammer 40k.... Do you want to submit this to black library or something, or is this a derivative?
>There's a lot going on in the paragraph where he's remembering home as he's grabbing his rifle, wading through trees, etc. I think the action needs to calm down here, or at least he shouldn't be reminiscing during an operation like this.
>"laugh, and laugh" omit the comma, it's useless. Remember that commas are there for breath, not for preceding connectives like you keep doing
>"I felt inside, with the hands that were not hanging limply at my sides." - what is this sentence trying to convey? It's very confusing.
>"Fusillade of vitriol" pick one of these words to describe his ire, together they are too much.
>"Come, and see" - is this a reference to the Bible?
>"fits of silence, interspersed with bouts of nervous laughter" - this is a contradiction, change to something else
>Running out of space here so I will leave it at that and give general opinions.Overall, you seem to have an issue with perspective and tense, but that is to be expected when you jump from memories to the present, then back again, as well as jumping from an omniscient to a personal voice in the same sentence or paragraph. Clean it up by making it either completely disembodied or entirely personal and particular to the protagonist who is the narrator. I think you're better at the latter of these.

>>15822110
>>15822876
I'm these poems if you need to crit someone else

>>15830840
>commas are for breath

retard alert

>>15830875
They're used for lots of things, including pauses.

>>15830840
>can't even greentext
>>>/r/lit/

>>15830945
You seem to know a whole lot more about reddit than I do. Maybe you should return.

>>15830840
Do you really not know how to greentext

>>15831121
I was concerned about space so I tried to keep one ">" per idea. There aren't any real rules to greentexting, people use it to denote action or ideas, rather than actual quoting

>>15831151
>I was concerned about space
Do you really not know how 4chan's character limit works

>>15831151
>here aren't any real rules to greentexting
Jesus Christ go back already

>>15831151
>people use it to denote action or ideas, rather than actual quoting

>>15831171
Yeah but I never reach it because I don't need to leave like 2000+ characters ever. Do you?

>>15831186
Why don't you fuck off?

>>15831171
Yeah but I never reach it unless it's a copypasta, I thought I was reaching it because it felt like a lot of words.

>>15831186
Why don't you lead the way?

>>15831230
>>15831234
Your "critique" is a complete mess and says nothing, and you can't even follow basic etiquette. Lurk moar and stop talking.

>>15831243
Lol is the retard who wrote a terrible cliffhanger black library fan fiction mad at me for not sucking his dick?

>>15831234
>Yeah but I never reach it unless it's a copypasta, I thought I was reaching it because it felt like a lot of words.
So you don't know how the character limit works. Got it. The amount of line breaks you do is irrelevant. Lurk until you learn how to greentext.

>>15831251
Nice projection. It doesn't even have anything to do with 40k you retard. Your critique said nothing of value and was just a bunch of vague nonsense. I can only imagine how bad your writing is.

>>15831275
>Nice projection
Do you even know what that means?

>vague nonsense
I told you to stop MIXING TENSES and PERSPECTIVE, and to OMIT UNNECESSARY WORDS. It's not vague. It's very direct and basic creative writing advice, the sort you might see in a workshop.

I literally left you two poems to crit, idiot.

>>15831299
>gives 0 examples
you don't even know what you're talking about, you're just say a bunch of random things you heard on a youtube video

>a cringe poetry poster
terrible. Opinion discarded.

>>15831325
Good luck getting published retard. You can't even use GRAMMAR PROPERLY. Read a fucking short story that is 3000 words and come back realising how fucking shit and meandering your story is. It's going through like several recollections at once, and then ends with a cackling warrior in a cave. Where'd you get that imagery? Joaquin Phoenix?

>youtube
See, this is what projection is. It's when someone gives their own negative aspects to another person. I'm a fucking postgraduate English student with published work. I think I know more than you do, you fucking halfwit.

>>15831348
If you know more then why can't you even critique a simple passage properly apart from throw out a bunch of buzzwords in a rambling wall of text without giving specifics?

You're a fucking poster boy for Dunning-Kruger.

>>15831348
Didn't I tell you to lurk until you learn how to greentext? Ey. Are you deaf?

>>15831364
Here is a line from your story. I will outline how it is wrong, very slowly for you because it seemed to go over your head.
>much to the mirth of my comrades
This is terrible wording. You're implying a possessive sounds like the protagonist's actions belongs to the laughter. You have such a loose grasp of English you think that laughter can own things. It should be changed to the following
>which created much mirth among my comrades

>>15831397
Not anon, but mirth isn't laughter, it's amusement or gaiety. "Much to the amusement of my friends." Nothing wrong with that.
Your replacement is overly wordy and sounds amateur.

>>15831411
>googles mirth
>amusement, especially as expressed in laughter.

>>15831415
So you can't read either? Cool.

>sudden flashbacks to gradeschool where students would say too many commas/not enough commas like they were talking baout poppy seeds on a bagel, and these were the remarks which the teacher advised (BA in education probably/some manner of babysitting degree)

>>15828994
I heard dripping water and not the beeps of a heartrate monitor. Also:

>signal visualizer
Is this not a heartrate monitor? I can't tell if you just forgot the word of if you chose something different deliberately.

>For the past month, his sole means of communication was that which was possible through the DSN antenna and its terribly far-sighted probe.
Unnecessarily wordy; cut "that which was possible through" and how does the line change? I really just don't like the double "was," and the word "possible" makes this no longer sound restraining the way the word "sole" originally makes it

>damage from a certain, unprecedented solar flare
>He knew the solar flare had been an orchestrated event,
>unprecedented solar flare
>orchestrated solar flare
too close to contradictory

>, he supposed,
I get why you have this but there are other ways to accomplish what it does. You could just say "it seemed" at the start of the line, to not draw me back to the character.

>Given the lack of social interaction,
Cut. It sounds like you're saying the aforementioned beings are the ones not interacting, but the cooperation is an interaction of a kind. I can also tell this is going back to "is total isolation from humanity was the desired outcome," but if that was desired, why does the lacking mentioned in this line sound bad, like he's resenting?

>and thus began their speed-of-light defying conversation
How would this be speed of light defying? Everything you've said thus far speaks to the contrary.

>ayylmaos ask a bunch of potentially interesting questions:
>"Kip was not good with words,"
Seriously? It's like you're making fun of yourself in a way. You have an opportunity to develop your character but you pass it up to downplay what is by proxy your own writing.

>Hence the month-long interview concluded with an ultimatum: If
This is an ultimatum? A conditional statement? Wasn't this what was on the line the whole time? It doesn't feel like you've changed anything.

I don't really get the ending. I'm essentially just told that he succeeds and dies. I can deduce he probably used self sacrifice to make a point, but with no characterization, it's not super moving. Even Christ had doubts when crucified. I'm not religious but Winter Light is definitely worth watching.

>>15831415
learn to greentext newfag

>>15831447
Did anyone in school correct your spelling as well?

>>15831484
phoneposting

>>15831484
Do you seriously think anon believes "about" is spelled first with a B?

>>15831538
I also wrote

>of if you chose
or if you chose

I wish this 'college degree' nigger would stop shitting up every thread. Every /crit/ thread since he appeared has been total cancer.
Nobody gives a shit about your degree, you're still fucking cringe and nobody wants you here.

>>15828328
>>15829121
thanks guys

>>15831577

>>15831651
>tumblr image of a ten year old meme
You don't belong here.

>>15831665

>>15827752
>sigh
I feel biased against this word but it's working here.

>and was pulled
then was pulled

>the sea.
cutting "the" would probably be fine

>vs
versus, or perhaps cut this part of the line; "nature versus itself" feels implied since you haven't provided anything else for it to fight

>little
>little,
I didn't like this repetition and don't feel it's necessary in the second case

>ankles in the sand
Like buried ankle deep? You meant ankles in the tide, right? And you don't want to put it that way because you use "tide" later in the line I'm guessing, but despite the prior repetition bothering me, I think this one would be fine. You're describing it as a pendulum and this isn't just some throwaway adjective you're repeating. But maybe you just meant ankles in the sand, and I'm wrong, but for some reason burying the character deeper makes me look farther up into the sky.

This is breddy gud.

>>15831682
thanks man I appreciate it, and, while this might not change the advice, the ankles in the sand is intentional as it's a referring to the phenomenon in this video: (https://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-14504824-legs-sink-sand-beach-water-splashing-low)) whereby, if one is standing in the tide, as you mentioned, their feet will begin to sink ankle deep into the actual sand-- I'm kind of trying to imply the idea of someone taking their time and 'staring into the abyss' as it were.
but I'm still getting everything out there, nothing is etched in stone at this point.

>>15831742
Oh. Well, it does make me look up further, instead of over the ocean. If the point is to eliminate vision and focus on the sounds, that's fine.

>>15831742
>>15831779
Oh, and there's also the option to describe it as something occurring as the result of time. "now ankles deep in the sand" might be more clear, but I wouldn't put it in exactly that way.

>>15822110
>>15830840

Nod bad, but does the moon do anything else but hover?

>>15833107
>Oh how she marveled, wondered and amazed
"Oh how she amazed"?
>She dazzles
Suddenly switching to present tense?
Tenses are all wrong from there. Stopped reading.

Rate my opening line:

In America there are no castles but everyone wants to be a king

>>15833130
learn the rules of punctuation then try again

>>15833107
its ass but its cute

>>15833125
The period after "amazed" should be a comma

>>15833125
>>15833799
>>15833822
Thanks for all the feedback, you're right about the tenses that poem needs some serious editing. I usually write most of them quickly and tend not to look back/edit. I know they're nothing too special but I enjoy it and the ladies don't mind them either

>>15833967
>I usually write most of them quickly and tend not to look back/edit.
Then why post? To get pats?

>>15833982
I still think of them as mostly done, yeah I need to edit, but the core ideas and phrasing is there

>>15834038
I ask again. Why do you post if you feel they're done and don't plan on using the advice we give you?

>>15834051
I agreed the advice was correct and plan on changing the poem based on that advice. I said that the critique was right and admitted my fault, don't know what else ya want from me

I'm on the verge of writing a sci-fi short story about the role of faith in society and mankind's continued survival but I'm stuck on whether to narrate it in the third person or the first person.

The reason I'm conflicted is that it's going to be one piece of a larger novel that is interrupted at key points in the narrative by ~5 chapters that work as stand-alone stories but also, on a higher level, describe the emotional and spiritual journey of the protagonist-narrator of the larger work. The novel narrated in the first person by a drug addict in a realistic present-day setting, investigating the disappearance of an old friend, and basically at each point in the story that he indulges, the interludes occur, mostly science fiction allegories. The other interludes have naturally lent themselves towards using third person, but the final and largest one would work best if it was also in first person, as the premise of the story is a world in which malfunctioning optical implants have left most of society experiencing hallucinations, and I think it'll be hard to sell the 'world' of the story to the reader, especially such intensely subjective and visual experiences, if it is narrated from a detached perspective. The characters in the interlude are visited by a being from an unspecified 'outside' civilisation (aliens/dimensional travellers) and they persuade it to act as an arbitrator of truth and then it turns into a The Man Who Fell To Earth sort of deal, and is also heavily inspired by PKD, particularly Radio Free Albemuth. Another aspect of these interludes is that they're meant to sound like the sort of stories a druggie would come up with, hence the typical motifs of madness, altered realities and whatnot. But I'm worried that if this interlude is written in the first person, it will clash with the first-person narration of the rest of the story 'proper'. Doing it first person would also allow me to structure it a bit like Radio Free Albemuth with the story split into a series of segments from different characters' points of view as the emphasis of the plot shifts to them, furthering the identity instability inherent to the premise. But I still feel like continuing in first person will muck up the flow of the larger work given that, so late in the novel, the reader will have become attuned to "I" being the words of the junkie protagonist. Changing format so late in the game feels like it'll end up sitting awkwardly in the rest of the text. Feels like a double-bind. Any advice on how to proceed? I'll try to critique some other posts when I get out the shower, look for the other overly long post.

>>15822121
Way too much description and adverbs.

>>15834141
You could just use Third Person limited, then you retain all the benefits of third person but allows you to stay in one head at a time.

Also your idea sounds vaguely similar to Cities of the Red Night by Burroughs.

>>15834510
Haven't read that specific trilogy so I don't know how it compared to his earlier work, I'm hoping to keep the incomprehensible post-modern gibberish to a minimum, 'cause it gets on my pip when writers try to obscure what it is they're writing about without a decent reason to, but structurally I know what you mean. In my case I'm planning for a structure that is more or less linear in thematic terms, just with a great deal of protracted circumstantiality that both gives space to explore the deeper themes of the story and also feeds into the plot directly, as the protagonist procrastinates and deviates to avoid facing what he believes to be the likely grim truth behind his friend's disappearance.

Third person limited is something I considered but the synopsis of this interlude as it stands necessitates the character who is in focus for the first and latter thirds of it being mostly absent from the middle third for reasons pertinent to the thematics, which is why I thought a gimmick like R. F. A. might work in my favour. Perhaps I can ditch that if I can re-work the synopsis for the interlude to make the character present during the whole story, but it's going to take some significant trouble; one major element of the story is the being that visits them being taken in and isolated by the authorities for a time to be commandeered for government interests, and what happens to it/him during that experience.

>>15834774
btw: it was pathetically predictable that you wouldn't critic anyone upon your return