/lit/ - Literature

pic rel

I like it. The quality of writing on /lit/ has really gone up in the past few weeks.

You are a very talented writer, but this piece feels incredibly contrived and pretentious. It doesn't feel, authentic? Real? True?

You would've been better off spending that bike trip in a nursing home or hospice or on the streets if you wanted experiences to write about.

Keep writing, get out of your head and talk to people from all backgrounds, live and love a bit, take some risks and find something true.

>>20798339
I agree with the other anon that it does feel pretentious, and some of the descriptions are a little purple, but the overall writing quality is pretty good. With a little editing I think it could be solid. My main complaint would be that there's nothing in this first page that gives me any hint of a real story--and I think that'll be your biggest issue with selling the novel. A life changing bike trip is cool, but where's the conflict? Is this just a travel diary? There very well could be these things in the novel, but at first glance I get the impression that it's fairly mundane, with a lot of introspection

>>20798339
A bike trip you say?

>>20798542
Kek. I completely forgot about this one

I’m going to read this later because I live in MB. I’ll post again when I do, OP.

>>20798509
>>20798539
Not OP, but why is "pretentious" the go-to criticism for YA-arrested manchildren when they stumble across an actual piece of literature? Is it because it's an empty, vague term you can easily throw out without providing anything of substance, which would require you to actually know something about writing? Or do you just feel uncomfortable that OP put actual thought, effort, and soul into his prose instead of shitting out 5,000 braindead words an hour like the hack writers that you're used to?

Go ahead and quote something from that page you consider to be pretentious.

>On the driveway, we say goodbyes shorter than our hellos

Are you saying hello and goodbye at the same time? I'm confused. Coming or going?

>The heat, the dust, the direction of the winds, what we do when we’ve
got to shit and there’s nowhere around to shit.

This sentence I think needs to be an extension of the first, not a new sentence. Consider using an em dash, parentheses, or a semi-colon e.g.

>waiting for Gabby and Sam to arrive from wherever they were last night -- the heat, the dust, the direction of the winds, what we do when we’ve got to shit and there’s nowhere around to shit -- whatever comes up comes up.

Minor thing. I'm tired. I didn't read it all but it looks like it's pretty good.

>>20798648
>projecting this hard
I said that I liked his writing, anon. I can find a few things pretentious while still liking the overall quality of his writing.

>Ben and I are silent, immersed in the swift, fiery revolutions of our feet
Is something that reads as pretentious to me. Nobody thinks or talks like that. The narrator is overly affected. We're given a first person narrative of a dude on a biking trip, and you're telling me that I should be led to believe that he thinks about even the simplest things in overly abstract and profound definitions? I'm not buying it. It just distracts me from whatever the novel is even supposed to be about

>>20798750
>Ben and I are silent, immersed in the swift, fiery revolutions of our feet
I think this would be improved just by losing a few description words. Even cutting "swift" would improve it, I think. There's nothing fundamentally misconceived about the sentence.

>>20798339
>hollow
>like lead
>cannot remember how light

>>20798339
reads like female lit... got bored in the 2nd paragraph and quit. im sure it's alright though bud, just not fer me

>>20798750
>Nobody thinks or talks like that.
It's a novel, retard.
>The narrator
is a character in a novel, retard.
>We're given a first person narrative of a dude on a biking trip
in a novel, retard.
>and you're telling me that I should be led to believe that he thinks about even the simplest things in overly abstract and profound definitions?
It's a novel, retard.__________ _____________ __________ _______________________ _____ ___________ ______________

Seriously, please read a book. A real book. You don't seem to understand how they work.

>>20798339
it reads like you are on a tandem bicycle

>>20798818
>t.

>>20798339
I dont read fiction but from skimming the pic U sure like describing things. You better have the plot to back it up or else it would be a meandering and nauseating experience if it isnt already

>>20798846
>why does this fictional character in a stylized literary novel not talk like my dumbass friends do?
>why is a stylized literary novel about a quiet bike ride filled with lots of evocative imagery and inner musings?
Stick to YA, anon.

>>20798750
I actually think that line is fine. A bit too tryhard, but it's really not bad. Perhaps it'd be less jarring if the narration was in third person (which also would help with some clunky sentence starters; there are more than five sentences in that whole that start with "We").
"The heavens bleed purple" really doesn't get you in the right mood, however. It stands out. It's technically sound, with it being both brief and casting a proper image if a tad too vague, but in practice it just reads of someone trying a bit TOO hard to sound fancy. Like a Nabokov parody.

>>20798890
I think you're just a pseud, anon. You probably don't even read at all if you think this is how good literary fiction novels sound (hint: they don't).

>>20798439
Thanks, man

>>20798509
Thanks for this, too

>>20798539
Toning down the mundanity is certainly the priority for the second draft. Thanks

>>20798706
This was a bad quote to start on for the excerpt. This starts as we're leaving a host family, who took us in for a few days on our trip. I have a brief and emotionally difficult romantic connection with Gabby during that time

>>20798750
I agree that that line is pretty pretentious

>>20798799
fair game, thanks

>>20798876
yeah, working on that

Just post the whole MS so far, anon, I could definitely get into this.

>>20798339
>like snags in the stitching between the hilltops and sky.
This is nice if it genuinely isn't a pastiche of DFW's 'EKG of the dying day' line from Forever Overhead.
>questions of death and maybe even of life
I know everyone in this thread has already argued about it, but this comes off as rather pretentious. 'of death and of life' would suffice, and feels more naturalistic (assuming you're trying to stay at least somewhat grounded in this travelogue).
Your writing style overall is quite nice, though, as others have noted. Just try not to be so overtly poetic all the time; it's conspicuous, and if you can find a more delicate balance, I think you'll end up with something infinitely more readable.

>>20800392
I've never read Forever Overhead. And yeah, it is pretentious, and I'll clean it up in the next draft. Thanks

Where can I torrent it?

>>20801106
It's not complete yet. Hoping to have the first draft finished by Feb/March, then taking a year or two to edit and rewrite before shopping the MS. Really trying to play the long game with this one

>>20798542
>1488 words so far
nice touch

Post the rest of what you have, OP. I'm all about this style

>>20801167
mf post in sooner, we are going to have nuclear war soon

>>20798339
stopped reading at alberta.
you need to use more creative names for the places in your novel anon.