/lit/ - Literature

>>22859194
>hidden mysteries
You seem to be imitating blindly and you are using words you either do not actually know the meaning of or are ignoring the meaning of, is the body veiled or buried? Don't use adjectives because you think you should, use them because you have a use for them, he is in a cemetery so no need to inform us that the light is also in the cemetery everyone will as assume as much unless you give them reason not too. Learn structure, that is one paragraph, not two and you don't really stay on track, you tell us it is hard work digging up a corpse and then go on to tell us about dirt and not even autism about how soil taxonomy affects digging, just dirt. Decide what you want to convey in a paragraph, decide on the mood/tone for that paragraph, make sure every clause and every sentence contributes to what you want to convey and does it in the desired tone.

>>22859194
>Digging up a corpse is not easy.
Oh, he isn't using a contraction, so it'll be a funny black humor type st-
>The shovel met the compacted, worm-ridden earth
O-oh.
>releasing a satisfying crunch that ended in a soft thud
Oh no.
>—a sound laden with the promise of unearthed secrets.
oh god no.
>Victor Morrow, well-acquainted with the allure of hidden mysteries,
PLEASE, NO.
>felt the mud-veiled body practically imploring him for its recovery.
MAKE IT STOP

>>22859364
kek
Thanks for your useful criticism. Now post some of your prose

>>22859342
actually useful. Thanks.

>>22859375
Okay, I'll give actual feedback.
As I said in my post, your first sentence is tonally different from the rest of the work. It sounds like an introduction to a 1960s black comedy, not this neo-romantic simulacra that makes up the rest of the work.
>compacted, worm-ridden earth,
This both sounds clunky and shows you don't even know how dirt works. Worms inherently loosen soil when they work through it. They add less dense material as they go along. I would delete the word compacted.
>releasing a satisfying crunch that ended in a soft thud
How does a shovel release a sound? It causes a sound when it interacts with another object. The sound does not come from within the shovel. Who is denoting how satisfying the sound is? We do not know who is narrating and if this is even in first or third person yet. How is that value judgement appropriate? Most instances of the word 'that' are useless. This could be rephrased to 'ending' and it would flow better. if you need an adjective attached to the thud, and you are willing to use a word like thud, you should find a better word. Soft in this instance is out of place.

This is just a personal thing but I fucking hate em dashes. They are the sign of a lazy writer and an incompetent teacher.
>a sound laden with the promise of unearthed secrets.
This is more telling without showing, post em dash. Also, secrets? Don't we already know they digging up a body?
>hidden mysteries
Okay, you have to be actually goofin' at this point. This can't be real. This has to be a shitpost to make the tryhards come out of the woodwork. And I would give you the benefit of the doubt but it's like every single part of this is engineered to piss me off. Imploring? Did you read this out loud? Who the fuck did you just spend 2 hours reading and wanted to emulate so badly you decided to kill a thread for it? I'm not even going to finish the first sentence, let alone the second one. Anon, I suggest you try writing in a more modern style first and come to grips with the English language before trying to write your vaporwave-turner-diaries-romatic-era bullshit.

>>22859194
In the searing crucible of the summer of 1911, Cologne, Germany bore witness to the lively cadence of two Doberman siblings, Cassie and Walt. Anton, their breeder, a stoic custodian with an irascible affection for the mischievous duo, presided over their exploits. These were no mere dogs; their eyes shimmered with a latent intelligence, and an invisible tether bound them as kin.

The sprawling hinterlands served as their theatre of mayhem, a realm where boundaries dissolved, and adventures unfolded. Anton's vexation simmered as they vanished for days, leaving him to stew in their unpredictable absence. Unbeknownst to him, their escapades were preambles to an unforeseen destiny.

The die was cast in the fall of 1913, an afternoon drenched in destiny. German soldiers sought refuge in a nearby river, oblivious to the treacherous current. Walt, the embodiment of canine valor, plunged into the water, rescuing a floundering soldier. Cassie, the sagacious accomplice, raced back to the farm in a breathless sprint for aid.

>>22859414
Thanks, I will put some of your advice to work. Painful as it may be to hear harsh criticism, it's better than continuing in my bubble and then spending 4Xs the time trying to save it with rewrites.

>>22859414
>They are the sign of a lazy writer and an incompetent teacher.
That is moronic and the sign of a lazy thinker. Em-dash allows for representing more nuanced and complicated thoughts and an increased interaction between dialog and narrator which is anything but lazy, considerably more demanding on the writer. They are not a sign of a lazy writer or poor teacher unless their use is lazy or incorrect.

OPs use can not be judged on such limited context, I could make the case either way and at least it is not used as way to cram in more adjectives like his commas.

>>22859695
My fat cock—suck it.

>>22859194
And so, I placed my hand on his shoulder, eliciting what would have been a response had he, by spiritual definition, been alive. But long gone were the days in which I could coincide with him—of life and future, of family and friends. Though unimaginable, the now dead, lifeless husk requires a nurse, whom he, in his days of youth, would have scorned, to merely attend to his basic defecation needs. Saddening as it was, I was glad to see him gone, that shadow cast over mine, looking down, pity emanating from his ocean-blue eyes. He had taken everything from me, yet he had lost it all as quickly.

>>22859869

It's overwritten and a bit unclear. "basic defecation needs" for a dead man? Even if it made sense it's has a humorous tone which feels out of key with the rest.

Cut down the words by 40% and you would improve clarity and quality by 100%.

>>22859869
Your punctuation is confused, you use commas as a universal punctuation mark and as a pause except for the one em-dash which just confuses things since it suggests all those commas are simply marking of dependent from independent clauses. Be consistent and diagram your sentences until you figure things out, you need it.

>And so, I placed my hand on his shoulder to elicit what would have been a response had he—by spiritual definition—been alive; long gone were the days in which I could coincide with him in life and future, and of family and friends.

I couldn't bring myself to restructure the rest.
>>22859923
I would say it is over punctuated and under written, gives the same effect though.

>>22859923
nta, but 'spiritual definition'

>>22859448
Feels a bit overwritten, but good otherwise.

>>22859194
a trend quite patently clear in these prose threads is the adoption of an antiquated classical prose style with gratituous adverbs and latinate words- but more contrived in facile emulation; none of these samples match the density of classic prose in the canon, so why not adopt more modern prose?

>>22860074
It wasn't a conscious choice, I wrote it that way because I liked how it sounded while I was writing it, as embarrassing to admit as that is now that it's been picked to death. The story isn't a period piece. It's supposed to be modern. I think I naturally veered towards faux-classical writing because of the tone I was going for. Now that /lit/ tore me a new asshole, I definitely have a good idea how I should rewrite.

>>22859448
>lively cadence
"cadence" here seems to be inserted sort of arbitrarily, it produces no substantial effect or assistance in the first few lines when you employ "mischievous" afterwards. it feels didactic in delineating the dispositions of the dogs, particularly exacerbated when you say "these were no mere dogs. It seems tiringly established already through the haphazard descriptions, no need to continuously state their personalities.

>drenched in destiny
destiny is already mentioned in formerly; find a better way to expound

>canine valor, sagacious accomplice
there's a feel of didactic description in such liberal use of adverbs, describe how they effect these traits by not stating them so explicitly, it's almost patronizing

>>22860094
didn't intend to single you out particularly, but wouldn't have known it was supposed to be modern otherwise. there isn't anything inherently wrong with adopting such a prosaic style, however it's fairly precarious since it easily reveals itself to be affectatious when not done well. if you're going to do it, do it justice. if not, it sucks. not to single you out, this applies generally

>>22860127
>not to single you out
Oh, I'm not offended. I needed to hear honest opinions before I keep bashing my head against the keyboard. I've written and published non-fiction before, but this is my first fiction attempt, and it feels like I don't know anything about anything. It's refreshing, actually. There's such a skill gap here that I have room for a lot of improvement. I appreciate the critique.

>>22860143
That's a good outlook. Fiction is an entirely different ballpark, ostensibly ruled by creative anarchy but there are quite a few tacit ropes that determine cohesion in fiction and make a piece of work good. Keep at it.

It's not really possible to form a comprehensive review of someone's prose just from one paragraph
You need a few pages worth to get the feel of someone's control of words

>>22860225
And yet we can diagnose autism in a couple dozen words. Language is weird.

>>22859448
This could be quite good in the right context, has a few irksome things like "searing crucible," seating is redundant and adds nothing but another word.

>>22859194
Yeah fuck it I'll contribute. Probably sucks but I'd like to see what you all think:

"The remnants of a bloody scuffle were visibly apparent. Though Victoria was not as tidy as her parents liked her to be, she always took great care in arranging her domicile as she personally saw fit, showcased by way of a large number of trinkets and baubles lining her mounted shelves. Combined with a couple of paintings that lined her walls, Janet knew Victoria well enough that any miniscule error in her preferred organization would swiftly be corrected. Unfortunately, the gruesome scene currently present in the once pristine room wiped away all semblances of this fact. Large speckles of dried blood dotted the walls and floor, with a massive pool of the previously red liquid having occupied the space next to Victoria's four poster bed. Her wardrobe, previously placed near the door and known to Janet for being the prime hiding spot of Victoria's illicit material, was now lying on its backside. In addition, Janet spotted one of Victoria's several spellbooks placed near the blood pool, its pages near entirely stained crimson. Several of Victoria's trinkets had fallen to the floor, many having broken upon impact. Shockingly, the wall opposite the door had been caved in, giving the impression that someone, hopefully not Victoria, had been thrown into it."

>>22859608
>>22859342
>>22859375
>>22859414
This is the typical critique on /lit/ where it goes into super autistic detail in such a outraged way about the physics of dirt and how that specific word you used makes your passage completely unredeemable

No it doesnt need to be clear who is narrating or experiencing the sound when you describe it as 'satisfying' in the second line. Its the second fucking line

It has only been suggested we're in a cemetary by the 'tears of mourners', so its actually quite smart to slip that fact in for certain with the description of the light, given it could be literally anywhere a body is buried until that point

'Mud-veiled' is clearly supposed to be a sort of morbid metaphor. Dark veils are associated with mourning and funerals. I would ask you to think about the purpose of this: the body is already a corpse, buried in a cemetary, it may not need the added allusion to death. Ignore the first poster who literally asks 'Is it buried or veiled?!?!'. Never take writing advice from someone who cant comprehend the concept of a metaphor

That anon was right about the tone issue with the first sentence. I know its meant to be an attention-grabber but you should have some faith the reader will get through the first paragraph and be hooked, rather than rely on the slightly mismatched, and i would say transparent, first line. Overall i would agree with first poster that you should not be afraid to pad out a little more to establish tone. Establish tone in environment

I think also, like in the first line, you're a little insecure in your ability to hold the readers attention. This guying is digging up bodies at night, you dont need to drop 'hidden mysteries' and 'unearthed secrets' within the span of a sentence. Be more subtle

>>22861256
>visibly apparent
Redundant
>Victoria, Janet
I dont know if these characters have already been established, but if they haven't the second and third sentences are confusing as fuck. There is little that connects them to each other, let alone to the first sentence. Im guessing this is Janet walking into Victoria's room after some kind of 'bloody scuffle'? Establish that Janet is physically there looking at the room earlier on.

>>22861491
Thanks
>be more subtle
I didn't realize my insecurity was bleeding through. You're right that I'm desperately trying to hook the reader. Good points, overall.

>>22859448
High quality and in a unique style. You re-use destiny within a sentence-span. 'Accomplice' is related to criminal activity.

>>22861256
>lined her mounted shelves. Combined with a couple of paintings that lined her walls,
Maybe switch out one of the "lined" for variety's sake, but rereading now it seems to flow fine to me.
>Janet knew Victoria well enough that any miniscule error in her preferred organization
I might be tempted here to cut "Victoria", and then perhaps switch the pronoun to proper noun, but it depends on what exact meaning you'd like to convey I suppose.
>a massive pool of the previously red liquid having occupied the space next to Victoria's four poster bed. Her wardrobe, previously placed near the door
"massive pool of the previously red liquid having occupied the space" is a pretty clumsy, and makes it a little unclear whether it's still liquid or whether it's even still there with "having occupied". The use of "occupied" strikes me a little strangely. If you want to keep "massive pool" that works, but I'd try to find a replacement for that verb then (can't think of much myself). Could say "A dark mass of it, once red but now a muddy brown, pooled next to Victoria's four poster boy." It might be pedantic as well but the use of "previously" to me reads that the characters (or even the narrator) had themselves seen the blood before it had dried. It also reads redundantly with her wardrobe "previously placed", so I'd look to switch one of those uses out anyways.
>Her wardrobe, previously placed near the door and known to Janet for being the prime hiding spot of Victoria's illicit material
Since we leave off with "Janet knew" earlier (and we generally seem to follow Janet's perspective), you might want to switch who the pronoun is for. "The wardrobe... known to her for being..." Alternatively if you have "the gruesome scene currently present in her once pristine room", then you could say "known to Janet for being the prime hiding spot of her illicit material". I think generally the use of proper nouns and pronouns could be trimmed up a bit.
>In addition, Janet spotted one of Victoria's several spellbooks placed near the blood pool
"Placed" makes it sound deliberately put there, not just part of the disarray (where "fallen" or something like that, might indicate better that it was part of the chaos). Perfectly fine if that's the intention here. And going off of previous note, one of these names could more easily be a pronoun.
>giving the impression that someone, hopefully not Victoria, had been thrown into it.
The "hopefully not Victoria" almost reads a little comedic. If you want purer drama then having Janet's concerns about Victoria's safety follow in the sentence after, and just excising this bit, might help.

Just some scattered thoughts but overall I think if you can clean up the proper nouns and pronouns, make the perspective slightly clearer, then that will help a lot. Keep it up.

>>22861491
The reason I went into super autistic detail is because there were so many individual problems I could not conceptualize broader advice. It’s difficult to discuss direction, meaning, value, or prose style when it is such a clunky mess. Apologies.

Kinda feels like I'm all atmosphere and not much else

>>22861256
>Combined with a couple of paintings that lined her walls, Janet knew Victoria well enough

What are you trying to say here?

>>22859194
get off thesaurus.com and find your voice

>>22862490

>they moved so fast within the currents of the water,

Remove “of the water,” currents is sufficient. “Within” is unnecessary when “in” would suffice.

>almost bit her fingers off in an attempt to catch it she decided they didn't taste nice

Remove “in an attempt to catch,” it’s redundant since we already know she’s trying to catch fish based on previous description. Don’t ruin what you’ve already “shown” by “telling” when it’s unneeded.

> she would often see them scurrying around shooting off to all sorts of different sections of the cave running off into their hidey-holes,

“Shooting off” and “running off” is repetitive: I’d remove “running off”

> and she would sometimes play games with them chasing them down long passagways, while trying to corner them before snatching them up to devour them

Just by reading this out loud you should note that “them” appears too often: if this is a stylistic choice, I don’t think it adds anything and should still be rephrased.

I’m not doing to do the whole thing but consider that you want the reader to be focused on your vision, not be distracted by repetitive words or redundant phrases.

Overall I’m seeing a bit of McCarthy’s influence: what makes his prose work is that he’s very deliberate with when he chooses conciseness, and when he decides to be biblical and esoteric.

Don’t just mimic style for the sake of it: there needs to be intention behind every description, a stylistic drive behind every image. It’s not bad work at all, keep at it

>>22859869
Try again with 1/5th the commas.

>>22863193

Will take a note of your criticism and edit it over weekend. Thanks for your input.

>Mccarthy influence
You know I never thought of McCarthy while writing this I was trying to go for something more along the lines of Frankenstein meets Beowulf's Grendel or Gollum in mind since my character is someone cut off from the rest of humanity due to nuclear war after seeking shelter from a very young age in a large network of caves where they begin to blur line between monster and human a little after being in isolation for so long cut off from the rest of humanity.

Days passed slowly, each darker than the previous, the clouds clashing relentlessly on the firmament and clapping bolts of untapped rage. Several fires broke out over the period, only to be extinguished by the following rain that burst feverishly with ice the size of stones. The heaving wind disturbed the undulating meadows and luscious canopies that shed their many fruits prematurely, rendering them barren and useless for man or critter. In the wake of the storm was left a desert land colored grimly green and dotted with dead, leafless trees–monuments of springs past.

>>22860010
>>22860117
>>22860648
>>22861528
Thank you, anons.

Now this was a man who prided himself in being a Platonist—despite having never read Plato—and his convictions grew all the more certain as the years passed and he analyzed the world through the mirrored backseat of the two vacant eyes that he had been brought into this world with but which lost all weight after an impetuous meeting with Taoism and a short-lived, once-in-a-lifetime DMT trip in which he saw the infinite and dwelled on since. He was, and he would let you know, not in control.
Sometimes things were good. He took days-long, childish, alcohol-and-drug-fueled gooning breaks unreprimanded by the universe; made big winning bets out of intuition (and would quote some shitty book talking about men and games and God); spent months jobless but never without food or board. Fucked women who fell in love with him without real excuse and that needed no reason. These all reinforced his convictions. It was all about flow, according to him. Look at math. Paradoxes. The chaos inherent in the ways of living, unimaginable, unseeable through the naked eye, yet which takes form beyond its smallest structures. See Adam Smith—see his Invisible Hand now leading all of us wretched souls. See pure memes fighting for control in this postmodern (and would emphasize then, post-human) society. At least fucking read about poets, their lives and the lives they wrote about. Look at how I drink and smoke like a pregnant slav whore and still live!
But life was not more kind to him than anyone else. His parents were dying. He was disgustingly poor. He was growing old himself, and increasingly aware of the abyss outreaching beneath. But he didn't want to let go. He couldn't. What then, do the same as everything else? Spend a life dull-eyed controlled not by the mystical but the manlike? What's the fucking point, bending over to let the collective of every shitty fucking person and every retard to have ever lived fuck you raw? His suffering too, he assured, was part of a greater plan.
This was a worthless, shitty excuse of a man. He'd say this was a worthless, shitty excuse of a life.

>>22859194

That summer, he stood facing the ocean on an empty beach. Surfboard in hand, he rushed toward it, the chilling water greeting him. He paddled away from the beach toward the rising waves. Fleeing the shore, leaving behind the worries of his idle mind. Abandoning that world which he had graduated into. Too early or too late, but just not at the right time. He paddled onward into the sea instead.

Stirred, were the flesh mountains of his soft beam, ample and rotund in their given rise. How magnificent it blinded, devastatingly and detrimentally bright, asphyxiating, so terribly so, that one succumbed to as a recipient of aesthetic alms. A benevolent benefactor he hardly was and what once rose twice avalanched, plummeting in returned subastral set, portrayed with the artifice of a sickeningly twisted mien. A subjugator of unwitting partisans, wretched were they in this forsaken manumission, stuck and undone by the caprices of facial slight.

>>22864053
*sleight

What does prose mean? Im seriously stupid, not trolling.

>>22864477
bait

Describe yourself as Cormac McCarthy would
>See the man. He is thin, near on twenty six years but a face without a wisp of beard nor a hair to it. He sits closeleaning to a paling screen over which forum posts dance like pale fire. Hunched and drawn toward it in the manner of a pilgrim at an altar.

bump for critiques

>>22859194


Sing as though God is hearing it for the first time. Sing as if you have a gift to offer Him that is new and surprising. Sing with a mysterious sorrow. Sing as though you are at a distance. Sing an old tone in a new way. Sing in a different register. Sing a regretful goodbye to pain and tears and death and dying. Sing a path through the sea and place the audience on dry land. Give them a mission. Give them a dire need to go out and praise the Lord.
He said almost all of these things to you. The back half was said out of some kind of logical conclusion. This is the way that he spoke: like a train in a circle. At one point it made a cross. The tracks have been rusted and worn to the extent of complete loss of meaning. Every point made is predicated with the creeds to keep himself in line. I recognise this and many do not. I recognise the way that he looks at people. The pain in his eyes materializes as spite for children.
You want to tell him, Theo, that we cannot sing in any of the ways that he has requested. You want to say that there will never be a performance which sends this message to anyone other than perhaps him. Also, deep in the dark shadows of my bones, in between the ligaments and cartilaginous bits, you feel a creeping sense that no one ever could sing in such a manner. Such a thing is plainly ridiculous. It is a lie that is told collectively and never questioned. Music, the universal language, speaks to all in a way that transcends time and space, material and spiritual. It is a field which exists of its own volition and may choose to remove itself at any time. It is something given to us.
Of course you don’t want to doubt music. In fact, you believe in it very strongly. What you want in this moment, looking at the sour acne-scarred face of my teacher, is to occupy the character of someone who rejects music for a little while. You are willing to pay a little rent to inhabit that space, at least for the duration of this class. Were it all true, and music nothing but a vibration of air received by tiny drums on either side of your brain, you would be immediately drawn to suicide.

>>22868092
Fuck. I’ve changed the point of view on this piece of shit so many times it switched back and forth

His death didn’t begin or end anything. It started long before he died, and continued long after I found him naked in the trees on hard packed earth.
Beyond the town in every direction except to the sea are trees, a single dirt road cutting wide through. The night before I began at the docks, hands in pockets against the cold of the fog the town is never without, I walked the only road I could away from gaslamp haze and found him in a clearing, curled on himself like he was trying to keep warm, lit in the only moonlight that fell full through tangled branches above. The blood that crossed his skin was dried black. When I touched him he was the same cold as the air.

Dunno if this is any good

as a READER, i will probably never be impressed with, or appreciate your prose; but, i will easily be distracted if it's awkward.

>>22868171
I assume this is meant for me? >>22868162 this post that is?

>>22868179
no, sorry. it was just a thought after reading some examples.
your example is evocative but jumbled.

>>22868196
Okay, I can work with that. Thanks!

thread bump

>>22868171
what's your idea of consummate prose

>>22859194
Your prose is all over the place.
Like you're lost in your own river of ideas
with no greater view of the picture you're
trying to paint. So too does the reader
become mired in swirling eddies of
confused, disparate ideas.

>>22868171
When I tried Ray Bradbury's Zen writing style, I could barely keep up with the words flowing out through my hand. The writing itself seemed almost devoid of prose, yet not quite as soilless as a report

>>22868939
could you critique mine? >>22864053

Bump

bump

i haven't tried my hand at writing in a long time now but here's something from when I was 18 and living in the Gulf:

Sweat coagulates with seminal fluid in the oven of an apartment. Sun outside baking the world to dust. Sand swirls and drops to some unsung rhythm – heat pervades the world once, twice, thrice over. The meridian heat coincides with the Dhuhr prayer, announced by a reverbing hymn, at once the salvation and the condemnation of the men inside the apartment. Furrowed brows and hard cocks stand to attention as the men, each one, pauses briefly to consider the circumstances. Activities resume before the song is over, and the sweat and semen continue their coalescence. Brown bodies, some lithe and others muscled, coax one another into submission and obedience, and haired buttocks bob and bounce in time to their partner. Grunts and squeals of elation, catalyzed by the unconditioned heat of the Emirati’s home. All told there are ten men and six women, each bound to one another through a bond transcending blood or law – bodies seem themselves to transcend limitations of personhood as they blend into a single, raw collectivity. It is hot inside and out. Drops plummet from the man’s forehead into another’s open mouth; they grin at once, without skipping a beat. A woman in the corner, still green among the seasoned, plays with herself coyly as she watches the festivities unfold. With one hand she toys with her clitoris, and another wipes the sweat from her face, eyes intent on a trio, two men and a woman, who seem conjoined by the hips and arms. Ecstasy and blasphemy. Temptation and taboo. Abstractions, words, fall to pieces as fluid joins fluid, soft becoming hard meets hard becoming soft and inversing, wet on wet. The rhythm of the room quickens. No one holds back. The sun careens through the curtains. Outside, robed men and women, white and black in their coverings, quicken their pace, too, headed for salah. Inside, a woman unleashes a salvo of tongues and fingers on a rapidly expanding crevice. Eyes meet eyes meet feet meet lines traced from cleft to cleft. The line between man and woman blurs. The lines blur. It is only a blur as the rhythm picks up once more, cascading asymptotically towards some impossible catharsis. Moans intermingle with the smell of sex as all becomes one in jouissance and clarity. Hot breath on hot breath. A man stares deeply into the eyes of another, penetrated from behind. A woman, once alone, is drawn in to the fray by the beckoning of a person engaged by three. Explosive touches, thrusting, friction mirrored by equally violent uncontrolled sonorous expulsions. The room collapses seemingly at once into collective arms. The Orgasm of all Orgasms is attained, but it lasts so very shortly. Eternal, merciful, ineffable. But so very short. Sunlight cascades through open skies, the masjid empties, and the Ummah once again return to their human affairs. Inside, bliss settles into a solemn stupor.

bump

>>22868092
I dig it

bump

>>22859194
I feel like the word crunch doesn't fit there. It's alright.

>>22868196
How jumbled btw?

>>22864035
Similar to the way I write. It feels like a self insert, but I don't know why exactly. Not necessarily bad, I like it. But I'd love for someone more experienced to analyze your piece, for it'd help me too.

Why does most examples here feel like they are not writing, but trying to write? As if they are replicating what they've read. I'd really love to know

>>22861514
Yes, I have this weird issue with redundancy in my prose and I have no idea why or how to fix that. And this is just an excerpt from a completed chapter of mine, so the characters have been well established by this point.

>>22862173
You give great advice, anon, and thank you for the critique. I'll work on improving this passage.

>>22862860
Adding on to the previous sentence.

My older brother was also named Joseph Kent, but he died before I was born. There's a picture of him in my father's office with a grease-streaked face and a shell-shocked smile that my father would linger on with beaming eyes. I often wondered what I would have to do to make my father look at me in the same way; and it wasn't until I was sixteen, when my father employed me at the soap factory he owned, that I had my answer.
I spent my early days at Bunyan Suds over commercial mixers, adding buckets of floral oils to the slurries. Soon after, I was taught how to use the press where I lined slabs of uncut soap beneath criss-crossing blades. Months later, I worked my way to the packaging room where I counted off bars into flannel-patterned boxes and wrapped them in a staticky plastic and packaged them for shipping. Once my father was certain I could do those jobs without guidance, he introduced me to my brother's secret project.
In a side room on the factory floor, locked away from the rest of the staff, was a machine. It was an imposing steel cube the size of a large apartment with the words SOAP MAN stenciled above an opening on the side.
My father touted the gigantic metal block as my brother's masterwork: a machine that fed on itself. The more soap it made, the faster it worked until it chewed and spat bars at an exponential rate.
He claimed they got it to work once. It shook and churned for the most productive eight minutes in the company's life.
He provided me with a stack of my brother's notes and journals and instructed me to imagine the two of us, the SOAP MAN, and more money than either of us could spend in ten lifetimes, living the high life in Cashmere-in-the-Hills. All I had to do was finish my brother's masterpiece.

>>22870591
What a pretentious thing to say. I have no doubt you're a bore.

>>22870591
do you prefer people start from the abcs? 123s? you don't seem to understand writing is a process and at a rudimentary level it is derivative, skills of writing and rhetoric used to be taught through copywork so no shit replication is part of shedding training wheels. where are your credentials and what sort of sophistication are you acquainted with in writing? I'd be delighted to know as well

bump

>>22859194
When we sleep, we dream. I fly into the sky and go through the clouds; the stars are out and brighter than any diamond I’ve seen. It is peaceful, just the wind singing in my ears as I zip through the night. As I soar higher and higher into the dark atmosphere, the cold air rushes at my body, feeling everything from my head to my feet. RING, RING, RING, RING! My body stops in mid-air and falls, returning to Earth. RING, RING, RING, RING, the sound gets louder as I get closer to the ground.

>>22870591
Do you want to read an excerpt from my PhD dissertation, or my attempts at fiction?

To most new entries: first person narration bad.
>>22869743
This isn't terrible but it needs some serious whittling down. A lot of it is purple and not enough follows to really imagine a physical scene which is terrible if you're trying to paint heated sex and release.

>>22870923
do you mind looking over this revised portion? don't know if it's unrecyclable or reworkable

Stirred, were the flesh mounds of his soft beam, ample and rotund in given rise. They blinded terribly and detrimentally so, that one succumbed to as a recipient of aesthetic alms. He was hardly a benevolent benefactor and what once rose twice avalanched, plummeting in returned subastral set, due to the artifice of a sickeningly twisted mien. A subjugator of unwitting partisans, wretched were they in this forsaken manumission, caught and exhausted by the caprices of facial sleight.

>>22870923
Thank you, I expected much harsher. Maybe it’s worth going back on some of my old writing and looking if any is worth salvaging.

>>22870923
Mind looking over mine?
It's this: >>22868162
Previous commenter mentioned it was jumbled which is fair

>>22870766
>>22870883
>>22870915
It was not my intention to be rude. I apologize.

>>22871221
Apology accepted.

>>22871221
i respect you saying that. sorry as well for >>22870883. and to answer your question- writing starting out may come from a readers view, and in doing mimics the way writing would "read" and less so from technicality, as a writer would "write". mimicking is also a derivative process in learning so imitative paradigms tend to arise. replication while maladroit does hold the advantage of separating the kernel from chaff and provides some sort of base.

>>22871221
shouldn't have dunked on you hard as I did. apologies for that. writing ability develops with time, and often the first impulse is to write 'like' someone. that being said, it's impossible to eliminate yourself entirely, something will creep in. that's why it reads awkward, some have yet to be able to harness what they bring to the table effectively while trying to ape someone else, someone who likely is writing with much of their self in the picture.

bump

Bamp

>>22870591
>>22870766
No he's right.

>>22872347
how so?

>>22872560
The writing feels self conscious, as if the writer is grasping at turns of phrase, poetic devices, and faux-classical trappings in the hopes that their prose will be perceived as more legitimate. A writer with no qualms or insecurity about the legitimacy of their writing write with the aim of communicating what's in their head, in the simplest and most direct way they can manage.

>>22870897
meh

>>22870933
>Stirred was the flesh mound of his soft beam, ample and rotund and risen. Blinded terribly and distressed that one succumbed, a recipient of pitiable aesthetic alms. He was hardly a benevolent benefactor and what once rose twice avalanched, ...

Not that anon, but going for Surreal is a real bull riding of a task and requires surgical precision to have the desired effect not word salad, lyrical not run on sentence processions There are wrinkles in this that need tightening. Clarify and distill the image.

>>22873902
Thank you for the critique. I really appreciate it and the example you wrote of a better revision.

>>22873854
What writing do you suggest? Do you think modeling after simplistic prose like hemingway would better establish comprehension of writing, and then add the bells and whistles afterwards?

>>22874057
I'd say that flowery speech and emotionally wrought prose is perfectly appropriate IF it's necessary to communicate the vision that exists in your head. I think the main problem with amateur prose is that it can feel like the writer is basically just trying to fill space, as in - okay, I'm describing a fairly simple setting or action here, how do I spruce this up/beef this up by evoking a bunch of random concepts

>>22874377
This is very useful for me because I do this unintentionally. How does one overcome this urge? Cut on 1st revision?

>>22874384
I think the method is visualizing a scene you want to write, not in words at all, but trying to see it like a movie scene , so that you know every visual, every action, and more importantly the why for every action, then think about which parts of the scene are the most aesthetically or philosophically appealing to you, and then lavish your poetic devices on those points only, leaving the rest to simpler and easily understood laguage. The reader needs a bit of an ebb and flow between the highly-wrought, poetically described stuff and the more workmanlike this happened-then-that-happened stuff, because if it's all one or all the other it becomes unreadable.

I'm a different commenter but here I'll try to present:

An example from Ulysses

"Stephen Dedalus watched through the webbed window the lapidary’s fingers prove a timedulled chain. Dust webbed the window and the showtrays. Dust darkened the toiling fingers with their vulture nails. Dust slept on dull coils of bronze and silver, lozenges of cinnabar, on rubies, leprous and winedark stones. Born all in the dark wormy earth, cold specks of fire, evil, lights shining in the darkness. Where fallen archangels flung the stars of their brows. Muddy swinesnouts, hands, root and root, gripe and wrest them."

The technicality lies in the scarcity of adverbs, primarily employing verbs and very sparing adjectives. The adjectives herein act almost as verbs, less so in describing but rather enhancing a kinetic feeling woven throughout the excerpt's rhythm.

(Proper noun/Stephen)- (verb/watched)- (adjective/webbed)- (noun/lapidary)- (verb/prove)- (an almost verb like active adjective- a "time dulled" instead of "decrepit" or "weathered", in which the adjective of "dulled" acts more so a verb of "time". The use of "dulled" also pairs with the brief pacing of description, not sticking out oddly if one were to say "xyz prove a decrepitly, senescent tail of perforated iron rounds." )

>>22874455
*Sorry dulled is a verb.

>>22874384
NTA but you can save yourself a lot of time and energy if you simply don't write it in the first place. Just bulletpoint the action as a skeleton first, then flesh out when necessary. Imagine your reader to be encouraging, on your side, etc. but a little impatient. This is why most jokes work best when reduced to bare essentials.

>"A priest, a rabbi and Sasha Grey walk into a bar . . ."

Reading that right now, do you want me to go on a page-long rant describing the worn leatherbound bible the bespectacled vicar carries, his furrowed pate and the faint almost ghostly splashes of semen (ejaculated after mass that morning while rhapsodizing ecstatic upon visions of the choirboys in the second row) that mar his black trousers? Should I wax pornographic on Ms Grey's smirk and megacock stare? You want I should tell you about Hershel's teeth still packed with poppyseeds from his salmon bagel already? No; you/the reader can already see all that, or something better/different; what the reader wants is for the joke to develop and be told.

Just my two cents. Go with Dog, my son

>>22862267
>autistic detail
That anon is wrong. It's not autistic. Amateur writers struggle with writing something engaging, so they start grasping at cliches. The prose turns into a mess of random phrases and expressions. And because it's all imitation, they forget fully think through the "logistics" of things those phrases convey. You were correct in your critique.

>>22859194
As a kid, Albert had always been fascinated by professional wrestling. He sat on his room's carpet floor, criss-crossed, watching the wrestlers fight in the ring. He watched the smaller wrestler jump over the white ropes and crash into a devil-masked luchador. Scooting closer to the TV, his eyes sparkled with excitement when a "pretty boy" wrestler kicked the African giant in the face, dropping him flat on his back. Albert clapped his hands as the wrestler pinned the giant.

"One," Albert chanted. The referee slammed his hand for the second. The official raised his hand, lowered for the third until the giant kicked out.

Albert quickly got to his feet and placed his hands on his head. How did he get out of that? That was his finisher! He went on his knees and covered his mouth. The match was intense; the crowd on the screen screamed their lungs out.

He watched the handsome wrestler pick up the giant and put him over his back. He performed the Samoan drop as the referee watched in shock at his impressive strength. The wrestler climbed up to the top rope and jumped off. He soared high before splashing the behemoth with his body.

Here's about the shortest excerpt I could take out that I feel can be the most interesting to read without knowing the story. It's a little more than 1k words, sorry if that's long. Twenty-four hour expiration on it. Just seeing what kind of imput it generates. Thanks regardless.

https://pastebin.com/pPTWmpRt

>>22859194
I am open to any and all criticism. IRL writing groups are useless and filled with feminists who suggest I make my characters fit their perverted agendas.

>>22874639
First thing is to break up that massive block for the text.

>>22874651
This is not productive or helpful feedback. Try again, anon.

>>22874651
Thanks, but that's not very helpful feedback. You are more concerned with its visual appeal rather than the writing.

>>22874664
Nta. You really need a break in there anon. That's like two actual pages without a break.

>>22874639
>>22874664
>I am open to any and all criticism
Take the L, Anon. Visual appeal is important: A paragraph break (or lack thereof) alters how your reader perceives a passage. There are instances where a long passage with no break might be ideal, but this is not one of them. Besides that, you use too many commas. Some are just flatly incorrect, and others are unnecessary, disrupting the flow of their sentence. You use repetition far too often; I'm generally a fan of it when done well but you did not do it well (at the very least, vary the sentence structure more when you use the same words). You use adverbs very clumsily and it results in puerile sentences, i.e. instead of "He carefully walked in the darkness." you should write "He walked carefully in the darkness."

Many of the issues are hard to describe via heuristics or extremely case-specific and just amount to plain awkwardness. For instance:
>It was the only thing that could end the reign of terror that drove Arlandi and Bistula to the Torturer's tavern, located to the East of the Great Swamp, where the drunkard, awoken…[The remainder of the sentence is choppy and awkward, and I can't be arsed to transcribe it. If you want to write a long flowing sentence then don't fill it with commas]
Inserting "located to the East of the Great Swamp" in that otherwise grand and scary-sounding sentence is just silly. If you need to present that information then find some other way to do so that doesn't compromise another sentence.

It also lacks dialogue despite having several interactions and information exchanges between characters, and you make quite a few grammatical errors. In general it's just bad. I don't want to be overly critical, but you should read more and get a better sense for what good writing sounds like;

>>22874731
>There are instances where a long passage with no break might be ideal, but this is not one of them.
Notice that not a single reason is given. You're just repeating dogma. Paragraphs are unnecessary here. Breaking up the text into multiple paragraphs distracts the reader from reading, allowing him to take comfort in meta-level stylistic choices that remind him that he's only reading a book. This is undoubtedly a bad thing. And I'll also have a look at the commas. I lean towards using more commas, in general. I've found that commas help with reading. But that doesn't excuse actual errors. Repetitiveness is something I'll look into too, but I'm skeptical of your feedback because your criticism of my use of adverbs is asinine.
>Inserting "located to the East of the Great Swamp" in that otherwise grand and scary-sounding sentence is just silly. If you need to present that information then find some other way to do so that doesn't compromise another sentence.
I do not believe it is an issue. It is the swamp where the drunkard drowned and which made the torturer infamous. Not including this information would only negatively impact the story.
>It also lacks dialogue despite having several interactions and information exchanges between characters
Dialogue is problematic in a similar way and for the same reasons that paragraphs are.

>>22859194
I suppose I'd like to present myself as myself. To hope for more is folly, one should think. Little remains of our love and still I stare sometimes and try to imagine her face, to see that beam of light in which I'd like to stand forever. But when I search for it there is nothing. That is what I tell myself sometimes at midnight in a foreign city with a coked-up teenage whore in my front seat. I'd say it to the girl as well were she to ask, though of course they never do. I think of very little when we fuck; if it is anything to me it is a moment of peace, a moment of occupation and purpose distilled from the night sky.

>>22874664
youarecorrectitisfoolishtobeconcernedwithvisualappealinsteadofengagingfullywiththetext

>>22874825
You jest... But go read through the feedback in this thread. There are only a few posts here that correctly focus on the text excerpts themselves. Midwits get filtered by aesthetics.

>>22874850
Considering you want your art to be viewed by others, you should respect their imput to a degree against your own... erm.. let's call them ideals.

>>22874797
>You're just repeating dogma
No I'm stating my honest opinions about your piece which is not informed by formal instruction. Paragraphs are a tool to structure a coherent idea; using them as intended is not a "meta-level" decision since it pertains primarily to the structure of a particular passage, except insofar as you might decide to use or not to use paragraphs over the course of a particular book (but in that sense then using coherent sentences is also a "meta-level" decision).
>that remind him that he's only reading a book. This is undoubtedly a bad thing
It's a bad thing when you're writing stream of consciousness or something which actually seeks to blur the lines between novel and individual. You are not writing that, and if you are trying to write that then you are failing miserably. Likewise, writing a book with incoherent sentences could result in genuinely effective prose—if the writer has the technical skill to pull it off.
>adverbs
Adverbs (followed by adjectives) are the laziest part of speech and are often made obsolete by better verb choice or adding more information into the sentence. The sentence I cited was the most blatant example of that; it sounded like something out of a low-level ESL exam.
>located to the East of the Great Swamp
It's not the information that's bad. It's the insertion of a geographical fact in the middle of what promises to be an interesting sentence, and you state it in the most bland and factual manner imaginable. Something like
>It was the only thing that could end the reign of terror that drove Arlandi and Bistula to the Torturer's tavern on the Great Swamp's eastern edge…
would be perfectly fine since it presents the information in an interesting manner. Likewise, if you matter-of-factly stated the tavern's location in a preceding sentence then there would be no issue since it wouldn't disrupt the more interesting sentence

>>22874506
Agreed, that initial critique stressed necessary points. It’s almost pedantic precision that distinguishes poor, mediocre, and good writing.

>>22874883
The idea of what writing is that was taught to you in school has stayed with you to this day and fully informs, like some sort of a mind virus, how you perceive writing in general. Despite being well taught, you do not seem to understand what "meta" means. Paragraphs are visual indicators of where ideas start and stop. They are a tool, sure, but they are a tool that wishes to be noticed. Paragraphs leave their mark on the text in the indents they carve out. And the reader clings to these arbitrary divisions to be guided through the work. The text is read from one paragraph to the next, devaluing the sentences "in between." I made the text flat by specifically avoiding paragraphs. Sentences, with their words and punctuation marks, still structure the text and orient the reader, but you will find yourself lost if you don't pay attention. This is undoubtedly true since this is precisely your criticism of it all. You are okay with stream of consciousness utilizing this type of formatting because it's something you have seen before. What that type of writing does well, I do too. I wanted a flat reading experience, and so I created a flat reading experience.

>>22875755
Nta, but there are problems you adamantly refuse to acknowledge in your "intentional" block text that utterly detract from the effect you are trying to create.

Paragraphs are not arbitrary divisions of an obsolete formal writing convention; paragraphs and text breaking is a fundamental writing tool for all grammatical customs- academic, fiction, what have you. They are as integral as punctation.
You appear to defend your text formatting in parallel to the stream of consciousness design. While stream of consciousness MAY utilize a monotheistic construction and flow, the components comprising it work with a metronomic precision, balancing all technical modules of proper nouns, nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, rhetorical devices, etc.
Conversely, your text though mimicking a similar format, holds to be devoid of all components constituting the material making up this format, leaving the this chosen "format" to be completely redundant and paramountly unappealing, unflattering, and a mammothic SLOG to read. Not only is it a "flat reading experience" it is damn near supine the way it drains one of any breath, vim, or compulsion to read it. Additionally, there is some grammatical flatulence I would like to attend to, but I'll get to that later since I have to force myself to examine your piece as it is that unenticing, but I will give you feedback after I take a break.

Now, I will provide credit where it is due, and you do not suffer as much from excessive adjectives germinating flowers and entire forests in your prose. You do however, keep inserting Proper nouns in surplus, referencing each character by their name sentence after sentence, as if the reader isn't literate enough to follow linearly. Another induction of visual epilepsy. It is clear enough, you do not need to incessantly reference them, all it does it interrupt the meat of the sentence and what it is expressing. The reader is forced to stop and recognize the name before registering what is even being communicated. Every time I see Arlandi and what not, I am compelled to replace each nominally with algebraic variables.

>>22875755
>you do not seem to understand what "meta" means
I already said that your decision as you describe it in this post would be a meta-level decision (at least in a broad sense of the term, one could argue that stylistic choices aren't meta). I also said that if that was your intention then you failed miserably because it doesn't have a positive effect on the piece. Conventions exist for a reason and to flout them you need a certain level of skill. (For what it's worth, I probably couldn't write a truly compelling piece without paragraph breaks either, unless employing some style which is traditionally associated with that format)
>I wanted a flat reading experience, and so I created a flat reading experience.
Yeah, that's kind of the problem. Some sentences deserve greater emphasis and a huge element of writing is emphasizing particular ideas via syntax, formatting, assonance, etc. Just to reiterate, and I say this with zero passion, you lack the skill to pull something like this off and have it benefit your writing.

Be as critical of my writing as you see fit.

>>22876357
Overall this seems more competent than most
>Some were white on the bind, while others were yellow-toothed with age
Definitely take out "while" and "were". 'Some were white on the bind, others yellow-toothed with age.' Keep an eye out for opportunities to streamline/sleek down your prose like this

>>22875956
Thank you for taking the time to read and honestly express your thoughts about the work. You have made me think about the rigor that a piece like this would require. I need to be more thoughtful in writing sentences, almost poetic. Thanks again.

>>22876357
You use "to be" far too often, even in sentences with another perfectly serviceable verb. It's particularly bad since you also overuse passive voice, but even in sentences which aren't easily modified it ends up making the passage very dull.
>More modern sheets were scattered and crumpled…
>instead: More modern sheets lay scattered and crumpled…
>It was an odd location for a power station, but budgets perhaps forced its existence. [this sentence makes little sense to me (is he speculating about the budget issue? how is the budget relevant? what is he basing this on?) and the second clause seems most naturally refer to the existence of the location, rather than the station]
>instead: An odd location for a power station, selected perhaps by budgetary necessity.
>I was too shaken, too weak-willed to even make it to my medicine cabinet…
>instead: Shaken and weak-willed, I failed even to reach my medicine cabinet…
[note: my sentences are okay at best and mainly illustrative of how easy it is to avoid "was" and "were"]

Otherwise, variate sentence structure more; in particular I would recommend using fewer parenthetical comma pairs—and for that matter fewer commas in general. That's especially true when you're using repetition: it becomes crucial to make everything about the adjacent sentences different except the repeated element. See >>22874455 for a good example of this
>Dust webbed the window and the showtrays. Dust darkened the toiling fingers with their vulture nails. Dust slept on dull coils of bronze and silver, lozenges of cinnabar, on rubies, leprous and winedark stones
Notice, for instance, how the first two sentences have entirely different sounding descriptions and movement qualities for their objects (window vs. toiling fingers)

Also there are a lot of unnecessary phrases:
>The officers quickly dropped the affair, seeing as the viewed me as…
>instead: The officers quickly dropped the affair, viewing me as…
>It didn't matter since those plans were tossed after the land was passed over for another stretch a few miles away, making it almost useless.
>instead: It didn't matter since those plans were tossed after the land was passed over for another stretch a few miles away.
>or: It didn't matter since they tossed those plans and selected another location a few miles down the road.

>>22876495
(2/2) to follow up on my promised feedback, i won't go through it all but the critique following applies in general-

>They had arrived at the tavern of Lyxnad the Torturer, who got his name a while back, when he was just a child, a little boy that sewed a litter of cats onto a drunkard's back and set them ablaze. They carefully dismounted their horses and looked around, keeping their hands on their blades, which poked slightly out under their capes.
[omit comma after while back, a little boy that had sewn...]
[In their careful dismount, hands stilled on blades slightly poked out under capes.]
a little streamlining, to make flow more efficient
>Arlandi carefully approached the door, opening it with his left hand, while keeping his right on the sheathed Sword of Light, which was given to him by his Grandmother, the protector of the Light Realm, when she appeared to him in a dream as a ghost, five years after being slain by the Dark Empress, who united with the Orc Warriors and the lesser races to overthrow the Light Realm, securing the crown and keys to the kingdom, and this sword was meant to kill her. (wasn't she already slain just before?)
Run on sentence, separate the clauses. Also carefully x2
[A slowly approached the door, opening it with his left hand keeping the right on the sheathed SofL. Bestowed by his Grandmother, protector of the LR, she had appeared five years past death by the DR, visiting his subconscious as a ghost. Conspiring to kill, the alliances of the Orc Ws and lesser races sought the crown, keys, and sword in the eclipse of the Light Realm's dawn.]
> (A) stumbled forward, gasping for breath. But he had forewarned (B) from engaging in combat. She was prohibited from interfering. (A) knew (B) fate had been sealed. (L) emerged from the depths of the darkness, grabbing (B) by the hair and pulling her towards him...... (L) eyes glowed with a malevolent intensity, and a twisted smile played on his lips. (L) dragged the woman into the basement where he chained her to a pillar with cursed chains.....(B) could make out the floor that was covered with blood and she saw women ranged against the walls, dead corpses rotting, dead from the beatings inflicted upon them for the (L)'s pleasure. These were all the woman that (L) had married and murdered, one after another. She screamed for (A) but (A) had already left. He ran out the dark tavern, .....which (B) had provided him, being taken captive by (L). He felt sad, as this was his first and only love, ...... he was destined for greatness and something more, and that (B) was not ultimately worth dying for, as only he possessed the key to this whole puzzle. Only he, (A), the inheritor of the Sword of Light could save this empire from crumbling, and it was fate who killed (B). Maybe, he thought to himself, riding his horse, (B) was just a distraction.

>>22876571
(3/3)
*disregard ellipses that are there to fit reply limit*

Note how its almost like connect the dots with the pronouns indicated by (). Everything could utilize streamlining and slight syntactical reordering; the passage reads very clumsily when faults could be eliminated simply in using "her, him" etc, this only being contingent on your sentence ordering so it follows. Also some declaring, not enough room for inferring e.g. He thought, she feared, they shivered...

>>22876571
Sorry, actually you could stick to the original

[They carefully dismounted their horses and glanced around, hands stilled on blades slightly poked out under capes.]

>>22876588
*the Proper nouns indicated

Apologies again for the typo

>>22876713
Carefully they dismounted is better word order

>>22876847
Agreed, thank you. My previous example was remiss.

A light tickle on the palm of his hand brings him back to awareness. He opens his eyes, focusing through blurred grogginess onto the itching hand that hangs in front his head while using its numbed arm as a cushion. A small brown dot shifts sporadically near the center of his palm, and upon greater focus he makes out individual legs. Then he glimpses a series of little black eyes, and a fuzzy mouth that resembles a bushy brown beard. It was a jumping spider, and a rather unremarkable one at that. Slowly, Satorae leans up as he reaches his other hand away, up, and then over his head to sneakily prepare a crushing blow on the creature. As he does this, the spider leans from scouring his hand to watching him--studying him--its little head tilting occasionally. The beady eyes are almost cute as they look towards him, and for a moment Satorae becomes hesitant of his killing intent. He could just as easily shoo the creature away.

Clap! His ambushing hand rapidly slaps the one which held the spider. With his disdain for Desmopidae still tender upon his mind, the small arachnid bares too much of a resemblance to escape his wrath. Slowly Satorae pulls his hands apart--nothing. Too fast for him to see the spider leapt to safety before his hands met. Only a small silken strand, stuck between his two palms, remained in its place. In an peculiar blend of disappointment and relief, Satorae returns his now fully awake attention again to the forest and his aimlessness within it. He descends from the tree, spends a few minutes stretching his numbed and sore limbs, and eventually embarks along the trodden path he was following the day before. After something of another hours travel, Satorae can make out a clearing in the woods ahead. A surge of newfound ambition floods him and a briskness takes over his stride as he approaches the clearing.

Satorae emerges from the woods high above ground at the top of a large hill. The somewhat lumpy land below, ahead, and all to his left is covered in dull green and tan wild grasses pocked by patches of deep evergreen trees with yellowing and reddening deciduous trees sparsly mixed in. Small, jagged grey-black stones cut out through the grasses along with occasional evergreen saplings or coniferous shrubbery. Some distance to his right, an ever deepening blanket of evergreen forest covers the land with fewer colored patches within the farther it goes. Several miles straight ahead, almost directly where the slithering green line of trees from out below his feet reaches, Satorae sees another large hill where at its crest appears to be an organized mass of stone structures. It is the last thing Satorae notices, yet without a doubt is the most noteworthy--the most civilized in appearance. The hill supporting the structures itself stands out against what Satorae realizes is the nearest edge of a large lake stretching out behind it, and he can tell the snaking river meets the water somewhere near its lower right side.

>>22876357

First two paragraphsa and last paragraph is okay. But in between you just have a confused mess. It falls apart quickly in paragraph three once you start talking about "elder text" and "white on the bind" and referring to he "horrible sensation that chills the soul and blood."

It gets more and more confusing after that, this navel gazing of "multiple failings of oneself" and "lamenting the unchanging indifference in thought"--all this stuff is not helping your writing, which started out sounding like a mystery, a detective story or some other type of genre fiction.

This kind of fiction has to be simple and to the point or you lose the reader.

So ask yourself what are you writing?

>>22877134

>He opens his eyes, focusing through blurred grogginess onto the itching hand that hangs in front his head while using its numbed arm as a cushion.
Unfocused sentence. There seems be two arms in this setting but your syntax makes it difficult to discern which. Grogginess is already a sense of daze and confusion, so blurred is unnecessary.
He opens his eyes, focusing through grogginess on the itching hand hanging at the fore of his head.

You could apply more refocusing and ensuring more attention to present participles and suffixes.

There is also some telling, not enough breadcrumbing for interpretation such as:
>In an peculiar blend of disappointment and relief, Satorae returns his now fully awake attention again to the forest and his aimlessness within it.
Fully awake attention? More redundancy. It is already implied he is awake by the attention.
(With a peculiar blend of disappointment and warmth, Satorae returns his attention to the forest and the vagueness pervading it.

>>22859194
Genuinely sucks

>>22859448
Not bad but overwritten

>>22859869
good

>>22861256
Medium

>>22862490
Good but story sounds gay

>>22864035
Some of the language is off putting

>>22864039
Decent

>>22864477
Word choice or style

>>22866522
McCarthy sucks

>>22868162
Good

>>22869743
Meh

>>22870591
Thought the same thing

>>22870611
Good

>>22874455
Meh

>>22874491
Good

>>22874491
>>22874513
Good but sort of 9th grade level

>>22874639
Break it up and rethink the character histories smashed in. Not bad though

>>22874639
>>22874797
Nobody wants to read a massive block of text with a 1000 ideas crammed into it. It’s just not going to happen.

>>22877134
Good

Some of you got it, a few might and most do not

>>22859194
Pavo swatted away the bush leaves like he was swatting flies just to get them out his way, gently as if he was afraid to touch the leaves too long lest there be some spell laid up on them, like they were fit to burst with an acid sap like a bloodied flattened fly. Swat, swat, every swat of his hand he'd clench shut his eyes and bring his neck in like a turtle, and each time he'd shrivel inward shrinking until his earlobes stopped up his hearing like his eyelids blocked out his seeing, so that all his brother's jeering fell dead on his back. "Just run in you pansy!", Betto yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth for a bigger sound. He broke his bullhorn hands free from each other and clapped them hard on Pavo's back, shouting "Pansy! Pansy!" He got to clapping harder and harder, so hard, until his claps came to pushing, and he was pushing and pushing, then suddenly he wasn't pushing at all, because Pavo was gone.

>>22877875
Prose is written text that isn't poetry or strict medium specific rules like verse. Word choice is called diction. Style is rhetorical devices, rhythm, flow, etc.

>>22870611
>There's a picture of him in my father's office with a grease-streaked face and a shell-shocked smile that my father would linger on with beaming eyes.

The concept of "lingering" is slow, almost maundering in its cadence. Why would a lingering of eyes be "beaming"? That is a rather active verb insinuating a gleam more suitable to a state of happiness, or greater stimulus. One who lingers on a photo of the dead would not do so with "beaming eyes". Is he some covert sociopath? This odd miscontruction subverts the entire character of the father and is simply off.

>>22877899
Blow it out your ass nerd

>>22877946
Your homunculus one word approvals mean less than an ant's ass. Fee fi fo fum, give a once over and some vague justification, and the approval is done. Lazy anon.

>>22877957
Read every shitty example here bitch, more time than you have given my work

>>22878006
I've read and commented you dunce, your "work" needs nothing less than a blink.

>>22878006
Which is yours? I'll have a look

>>22877946
U ain't Duke Nukem, pretty boy

general links for all

https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

https://timweed.net/essays-articles/on-the-writing-craft/125-2/

>>22877919
I was going for a mix of sadness and pride. But if that's not coming through, then I'm sure I can make my intention clearer. Thank you!

>>22859194
Fiction is so cringe bro. Two paragraphs to describe a shovel hitting dirt? People enjoy this shit?

>>22877875
i'm hurt more by the 'meh' than i imagine op is by hearing his writing genuinely sucks

>>22864053
I personally enjoy your style, especially beginning the sentence with an adjective. Your word choice can make the meaning of your sentences quite hard to decipher (for me at least) and in certain cases you maybe use too many words. For example, how much does "sickeningly" add to "twisted" ? Or "devastatingly and detrimentally bright" when you just said it blinds magnificently.
I also think some commas could go away, particularly the first one and the one after "so terribly so"

>>22882151
Thank you for the feedback, I really appreciate it. I also agree with you it is quite clunky; it is intended to describe the apples of one's cheeks falling in a deceitful smile, but it is not clear by my poor execution in jumbled prose.

She'd been a bit-part actress in a few hypernet dramas, and this had been her first starring role. Her big break. The movie was a small hit, and for a moment everyone thought she might be the next hot thing. But three weeks after the premier, she took one hundred and eighty milligrams of oxycontin and downed a bottle of vodka. No suicide note. No known motive or reason.

And that was that. A few months after she died, the War started, and no one who survived those days had any time for remembering some dead actress. Her existence faded from all memory, and the girl who had almost had it all was entirely forgotten, until ninety-years later, Fynn happened to stumble on a digital copy of her movie during one of his reconstructions.

There was an association there that did not escape Fynn. A connection between him and the beautiful, long-dead actress. Both of them had spent one brief moment at the top of the world, only to disappear into total obscurity. He was separated from her by an entire century, but they were still just two sides of the same coin.

Two lonely stars that had burned so brightly in the California skies, and then quietly fell into the darkness of the sea, and were extinguished forever.

>>22859448
it's a little too wordt for my tastes, but i'm a moron so do the opposite of what i think

>>22882190
few grammatical and syntactical idiosyncrasies; predominately sound, but it is just a bit trite

>Her existence faded from all memory, and the girl who had almost had it all was entirely forgotten, until ninety-years later, Fynn happened to stumble on a digital copy of her movie during one of his reconstructions.
Her existence had since departed from all memory, a brightening star dimmed till Fynn stumbled upon her movie from an age past.

>>22882190
>Two lonely stars that had burned so brightly in the California skies, and then quietly fell into the darkness of the sea, and were extinguished forever.
Two beacons illuminating the California skies; extinguished in their quietude amongst the folds of dark sea.

>>22882325
i dont have a big enough vocabulary to write something like that :(

>>22882400
I apologize, I did not mean to make you feel insufficient. You could also write it well with the terms you've already used, I'll try to revise it again. Vocabulary can also be built by reading widely if that is something you aspire to do.

Two symbols once gave light to the California skies; fallen to death amongst the laps of dark sea.

>>22882190
yeah buddy get a new hobby holy shit. did you just copy something down your teenage boy was handing in for class?

>>22882190
you strike me as someone who has never read literature

>>22882533
>>22882630
what is wrong with it? i think it communicates the message pretty clearly. is there a reason i should have used bigger words and obscured everything?

>>22877134
He woke up and saw a spider on his arm. He tried to smash it, but the spider got away. He stood up and walked through a forest until he came to some ruins by a lake.

>>22882690
kek

>>22882190
I like it.

The cosmic design has a significant role in the everyday life of a human being. The design itself has a fascinating history throughout the history of humanity and how it meddles with the actions of historical figures and ordinary citizens. The cosmogonic design means a complex equation that has spanned over millennia and gives answers on how to achieve a higher form within people. The grand layout has been spotted in the Cango Caves in Western Cape, South Africa. Because of how old the cosmic design is, its existence shows up in the time of the Neanderthals, medieval period, and modern times.

If people uncover the cosmic blueprint, they will tap into a higher stage of emotional prosperity. All human beings want to feel good about themselves and satisfied in their lifetimes. But what one should know about this matter is the design can very well help humanity’s mental state. According to Dr. Marvin Geerz, an anthropologist, he has stated, “Between two groups, Group one and two, one is not exposed to the intricate equation, and two is exposed. Over three days, the group — exposed to the grand structure are happier and more energetic than their counterpart” (Geerz, P. 13).

The inference from this is the cosmic structure can make a person’s well-being increase and lead to a more joyful and zestful life. There is no way one can get a hold of this equation, but if one has the technological means to retrieve such a plan, one needs to understand its sudden appearance in the southern region of Africa. Why Africa out of all places? Does its abrupt appearance in that place hold significance? Do the Afrikaners have easier access to this since it is in the caves? No. No, that should not make any sense. One should figure out why such an equation is at the caves and not — it does not matter. What should matter is if those Afrikaners — no, for the Bantu people to hold such forbidden knowledge to unlock the equation and give the answers to the mysteries of life, one must go there and obtain for oneself.

>>22882690
I'm the one who wrote that and even I can admit this is funny

Thanks for reading it at least!

>>22883756
good humoured anon

"In a introspection, in a calm inspection of his own many negatives, Mercurius found his taste for jests to be the one that stood out the most. Next came his needless verbosity. With his nature being that of an inconsiderate man, he was severely unequipped to speak the necessary words at the necessary time in the necessary amounts. He acknowlenged that fact. In fact, he was doing it right now. The meaning of the deluge of letters he had just spouted out forth could be easily boiled down to the simple and meager four word sentence of "I talk too much." He was a wordsmith that refined the complicated and reforged the straightforward. That is how he preferred to perceive and present his thoughts. It was small wonder those environing him would consider him vexing."

>>22883233
What the fuck?

pee
pee
poo
poo

sss
sss
plop
plop

>>22884287
If his nature is that of an.inconsiderate man is he not just an inconsiderate man?

>>22881438
Bad fiction is cringe. Good fiction maps clear images into your mind, that much like a flipbook, play out a story that you can feel and experience as if you were living it. In some sense you are.

Can you faggots review some of the passages contained in this thread >>22884332?

And the solid cubic structure of his face imposed itself into the world as if giving space itself a local shape where it once was formless. He advanced forward to meet the dawn; a new man, reborn at last. The golden rays reflected off his rectangular frame and out into nature. He began reflecting on his purpose, and felt inspired to finally finish the difficult task ahead, And it was difficult. His misgivings about it tapered off into insignificance as he increased his pace like a lonely vanishing tree disappearing into a point along the parallel grey lines of perspective. He had no choice but to meet the blunt edge of opposition with his triangular attack. The seemingly out of place member jutted out of his wiry frame and a smile formed on his square jaw as if welcoming the existence of curvature into his angular realm. He was finally going to burrow himself a cylinder beyond the walls of pleasure and into liberty, and there he would transition from pointlessness into formlessness finally experiencing the platonic ideals.

bump, have the editors gone to sleep?

>>22859194
I don't know much about dirt or worms, but wouldn't compacted soil not be loaded with worms?

>>22888237
>And his face imposed itself into the world, giving a shape where space once was formless. He met the dawn a new man. Reborn at last. The rays reflected off his frame and out into nature. He thought on his purpose and felt inspired to finish the difficult task ahead. His misgivings tapered off as he walked. He had no choice but to meet the edge with his triangular attack. His member jutted out and he smiled. He was going to dig a cylinder beyond the walls of pleasure and into liberty, and there he would transition from pointlessness into formlessness, finally experiencing the platonic.

Ununfuckable garbage. Your mommy just couldn't stay off them rollercoasters?

>>22888237

horribly compounded clauses, seismic equivocation of ideas enabling these compounded clauses, trim this entire creature like spring shrubbery, i can't inspect it anymore for i'll lose multiple diopters per eye

>>22888042
the prose there is embryonic, read more literature is what all you need- including this thread

>>22884287
>In a calm inspection of his own negatives, Mercurius found his taste for jests to be the one that stood out. Next came his verbosity. Naturally inconsiderate, he was unable to speak the right words at the right time in the right amounts. He knew this. He was doing it right now. The meaning of the letters he had just said could be boiled down to the simple sentence "I talk too much." He was a retard. That is how he perceived and presented his thoughts. No one thought otherwise.

This is as bad as:
>>22888237
So probably the same anon. If not, then there is a virus around here of shit writing.

I'll help keep this alive.

Next three anons to reply to this comment with legitimate attempts at, or excerpts of, their prose (no more than 1.5k words) will get a fair read and critique of each.

Just an FYI: my critique, unless yours truly needs it, tends to avoid nitpick-edits of grammar (let's be real, you're likely not going to publish what you post here) in favor of suggesting how to structure your form or conceptualize your ideas in a coherent or necessary way.

And if I were to give advice to future replies: don't think you need to hit me with fifteen-hundred word flash fiction to sell me on a 'woah so deep/meta/interesting' idea. Idgaf about your idea. Hit me with me a real presentation; something that shows that you can make even a shit or boring concept or story worth a shot at reading.

Otherwise, you already likely have your critique.

>>22891706

https://write.as/jiz4a24a1c78y.md

>>22891706
>with legitimate attempts at, or excerpts of, their prose
I doubt you'd be able to tell the difference. Also, commas aren't pause markers, retard.

>Just an FYI
Just an for your information. Again, bad writing.

>tends to avoid nitpick-edits of grammar
No one would trust you to be able to do this.

>you're likely not going to publish
Anon... no. You're not likely going to publish... Getchoo head out yo ass.

>how to structure your form
>conceptualize your ideas in a coherent or necessary way
Hahahahahahaha-hahaha-ha

>And if I were to give advice to future replies
Not only unsolicited advice, but advice no one would even ask for in a thread like this.

>Idgaf about your idea
What a strange thing to say.

>something that shows that you can make even a shit or boring concept or story worth a shot at reading
Ah okay so you're in the class of people who have no imagination beyond: it's going to be X... but uh like written really well!

>I'll help keep this alive.
Pass.

>>22891825

Everything ok at home champ?

>>22891748
I have you in the queue anon. It likely won't be 'soon' for the crit--I was just setting the bait out for now. But you'll have it within 24 hours, regardless of if I get three replies or not. And I'll attempt to make it clear it's me giving you the crit for if or when you get other crits before me.

Until then, if you'd like, you may give a very short, 100 word or less, synopsis of your story or excerpt if you feel it would help in any way. Otherwise I'm looking forward to giving it a read!

>>22891825
Are you the greentext anon who has been giving out crits in this thread? Good work on the whole, but it's only 4chan anon. I'm simply presenting myself for aid. I'm sure any of the three potential takers will take my imput with a grain of salt as I'm obviously not some vastly gifted writer. But nearly all your bullets are, I guess, shots at vanity at best. I type here like I'm talking, so commas do occur when I'm emphasizing or pausing when I naturally would when speaking for clarity (if you feel you must analyze my posts as prose).

I'm not really going to address anything else you said because it's seagulls on the beach at worst. Have a good night/day anon.

>>22891825
I love WLIIA but that quote is utter fucking nonsense even in regards to freeform

>>22891825
>eph

>>22891869
nta, there were several different anons who provided decent green text critiques throughout the thread, most of them likely left

>>22891844
>Until then, if you'd like, you may give a very short, 100 word or less, synopsis of your story or excerpt

Atmosphere vanishes without explanation, only survivors are within airtight containers. Protag is in the hospital locked in a hyperbaric chamber, trying to decide what to do with their remaining time

>>22892033
You're probably right. The last few I read seemed consistent enough in, I guess, syntax to postulate a single recurring poster.

Thats the downside of anonymity I suppose.

>>22892077
This is for the >>22891748 reply, correct?

>>22892085
the syntax may have been similar but there were some rhetorical inflections that differentiated them (that's how i distinguished at least)

>>22890723
>>22890749
What if this passage was taken out of context. Assuming there is another paragraph before it that explains what he is going to do. What is wrong with the paragraph?

>>22892124
Then I admit i was wrong to assume, since I definitely didn't read all of them. I just deduced from roughly the last half of the thread. Fuckin anyone can greentext though, so I suppose it's my own fault for trying to generalize whats likely only a majority for an entirety!

>>22892210
Reply to >>22891706 with all the context you absolutely--necessarily--need (with very close to 1500 words for analysis and very close to 100 words for the context) and I'll read and critique your post.

Though to be fair, I'm giving you a chance to finalize. If you feel there's anything you need to change in your initial post, or if your short context can really salvage that post, then post it and reply to the first reply I noted. I'll give you a reply within 24 hours.

>>22890723
>seismic equivocation of ideas enabling these compounded clauses
What do you mean by this though? How does including an and lead to seismic equivocation as you put it?

>>22891706

Fernie was half-leaning, half-sitting on the boat railing. In his hands was a cold, opened package of rehydrated peas with rainwater.
“How do they taste?” Jimmy asked, sit-leaning next to him with an unopened package.
“Beats starving.” He popped a handful more into his mouth.
“I’m sure the cooks back home can think up a few ways to cook these.” He popped it open and gaped the mouth, catching rainwater falling in, drop by drop. “How long did it take you to get the water in?”
“For this?” He raised the package. “I used the water down there.”
“You what?” He looked over the railing. “Dude, that shit’s dirty.”
“It tastes fine!” He popped more in his mouth and with it still full, said. “I mean, it’s fresh running water ain't it?”
“Dude, look at the water. It’s not clear; it's gray for God's sake! All sorts of asphalt or animal and bird shit and piss in there.”
“Well, boosts the immune system then.” He put the package up to his mouth and shook it, getting the last of the food. “Y’know, it’s really not that bad for filling you up.”
“You’re gonna get sick, man.”
“Maybe, maybe…”
Jimmy shook his head. “Gross, dude.”
They continued on. They turned and twisted, and they hit the freeway and followed it to a less dense area. The rowers got back to work, and Jimmy and Fernie helped them out too to go faster. It was then that they realized that the oars were made of scrap plastics. Melted-down Tupperware, the warped ounce markings of a water bottle wrapped around a big stick. A candy wrapper, its texture still crinkly. The materials grew more formidable the further down the oar one looked. Perhaps by design, perhaps by the cantankerous waves stripping the weaker materials away. Natural selection.
Rowing the oars was harder than it looked. The fins at the end seemed to be heavier than the rest, and trying to lift something heavy using a 10-foot light stick required the use of one’s whole body. With two rowers, four hands, they had to stand and use their legs, back, and arms to lift and push back against the water. Striking and going through the water was the hardest thing, especially since the current went against them. Within ten minutes, Jimmy and Fernie were gasping for air and sweating hard. The more experienced rowers seemed not to mind. Within thirty minutes, the rain and cold could not contain their hot rolling sweat.
Jimmy took a pause and looked around them. The flooded freeway was truly in the wilds now; he visualized the wet fields and the old barbecue place that was surely underwater now. He had never tried that place, on account of his parents never going of their own accord and him rationalizing that there would always be next time. Well, there was no next time. Just water, and peas, and the struggle to reestablish normalcy in Haven High. And after that, maybe he could go back to a scheduled life indoors. Yes, that would be nice.

>>22892287
I'll copy and add breaks for legibility, but otherwise have you at slot two in the queue.

>>22892091

Ye

>>22891835
Just critiquing that brain damaged anon's writing sample =)

>>22891869
>not some vastly gifted writer
We know.

>>22891963
>things that will always start a fight
>>that quote is utter fucking nonsense
lol+lmao

>>22892401
>lol bait

>>22888237
>experiencing the platonic ideals
change it to euclidian

>>22885709
No. One can go against his nature.

What if I said that one's entire life had been decided by fate? That every single one of your actions, from the minute to the monumental, stemmed not from your own choices, but had already been decided upon? That life being a journey of limitless possibilities was but an illusion, and no matter how fiercely man struggled, he stood at the mercy of a long-established path? The wealthy shall know their riches. The needy shall starve on the streets. The wicked shall be wicked, the righteous just. The beautiful, the hideous, the strong, the frail, the fortunate, the miserable... and finally, the victors and the defeated. What if I said that all such things had been carved into stone eons ago, allowing for no divergence? If so, sinners have nothing to answer for, nor do saints have any true virtue to their name. What if I said that not a single action is carried out of one's own volition, but had been decided long ago? That we are merely adrift in the current of time? Tell me, would you feel content with such a world? A world in which power is merely given, not earned - would you accept knees bent to a throne build upon such falsities? A universe where the sinless have-nots are oppressed and downtrodden - would you allow such a world to exist?
Never, I say. Never.
Those in possession of such knowledge who can still laugh joyfully, oblivious to what it means to be truly alive, are but slaves, the lowest of the low, hardly deserving to be called human beings. Nothing dampens the spirit like the stale wine of an unearned victory. Nothing is more unbearable than bitter defeat against the chains of destiny. Should ceaselessly repeating this farce - this slander of the highest order - be the fate of mankind, then I will struggle against those chains with all my might. I shall walk this road to its utmost conclusion, and, at the distant place I can call my finale, compose an opera that belongs only to me.

>>22859194
Whence occurred the LeaveOff? -— the TakeOnAgain? It has seemed that the Intent behind 'Phonic Music was something more than Contrapuntal manipulation Of Form-Means for Vocal ends; since this sung Polyphony alone so finely imboded the (necessarily) nicK-Spacing of early Art, so patricianly embrood-spawned itself as Potential for later pan-Emotional glint-runny fluidity. Certainly we have Music (all will agree on the up-AND-into-Mozart) fulfilling the rigorous Induce-exactions of a Behaviorism — to what Purpose?? — May we say, to have self-structed platform-layout for all future intrinsic-to-Tradition Musication? BUT, what happens???!!! — This: after Beethoven's forge-poundings had intoned a new Amaze-World of FORM-livable musical experience, the Romantic (i.e., Individualisti-Lyrismic) enjoy-possibilities of such were all that spine-intrenched Parloritis cared to remember; that is, Beethoven's process of arriving-into-LyriAbsolutism was something too retchy for the now-eager-to-gidflut Listeners — "Give us them Sawngs, sweetly — warmly! — VYVASHUSSLY!!" (one almost hears the for-Us cream-sweat-ooze of their Soul's Romantickley petule-plea). SIC, the rudimentarising of Creative attention away from Thought-as-Form, because no encouragement of Form-as-Thought (no applause from the mystified Saloners for any such) — a Farewell-Fanfare, then, for the Musical Toreadors!!

bump

>>22859194
>All throughout the street lay the bodies of men. Each where he'd fallen, their strewn forms in their great number nearly choking the thoroughfare. The way was twisting and hemmed either side in broken walls, and against these walls and in alcoves the dead had built up like detritus cast about in tides or currents. A few low fires burned untended where they'd sprung up, in spite of the rain, and in the ripple of red light the massed corpses likened to something monstrous, a rat king, an undifferentiated chaos of linked limbs and arched spines, flanks slicked in rain and fresh clay, catching the light as sharply as a fresh and glistening catch netted and hauled in at sea. In a night, the streets had changed, become a nascent gehenna of an entirely fresh and unfamiliar terrain. The earth, torn and overturned in the fighting, now pooled rainwater and wore smooth in the downpour, having been so disturbed as to become something like a primordial riverbed where rivulets and channels carried silt to lower ground, crossing and recrossing, preserved against erosion only where the tangled corpses shored the earth the way entwining tree-roots might maintain a riverbank. The street rippled, rose and fell and buckled at the verges and what was high ground was no ground at all but bodies.

>>22859448
This is the bones of a story.
>The sprawling hinterlands served as their theatre of mayhem, a realm where boundaries dissolved, and adventures unfolded.
What happens on their adventures? Say they go adventuring across these sprawling hinterlands but get lost, or meet another dog who barks at them - what would they do?
>The die was cast in the fall of 1913, an afternoon drenched in destiny. German soldiers sought refuge in a nearby river, oblivious to the treacherous current. Walt, the embodiment of canine valor, plunged into the water, rescuing a floundering soldier. Cassie, the sagacious accomplice, raced back to the farm in a breathless sprint for aid.
This seems smart… but who seeks refuge *in* a river? How did the river’s trepidity elude the soldiers? How did Walt notice them? Was it on one of his and Cassie’s adventures? Was it close to or far from their Anton and their homestead? How would he help? How would *Walt* help? Does he bite them then drag them in his mouth ashore? Is he capable of such strong swimming? How would he react if one of the soldiers, drowning, pushed him under the surface, as those drowning are known to do?

There’s a lot to work with here. Zoom in for us; or don’t. I don’t give a fuck what you do.

>>22895339
>Along this way there came a man, and not only a man but a leader of men, for he walked this path laid in lost lives trailing a number of soldiers in a loose chain some distance behind in the dark. Were these soldiers absent and he upon the path alone he'd yet hardly be mistaken for anything less than a leader. Though he tread the way with eyes downturned and spine slightly bowed, he'd have stood head and shoulders above the tallest among his men. His hair, dark and colorless and shot through with grey, was cropped close and swept forward in a way peculiarly boyish - tousled and unkempt for all it was kept short. Here, any impression of youth surely ceased, for his features seemed scoured, dealt with too harshly by forces of heat and cold, of wind and sand. Crisp etchings radiated beneath eyes so deep set in their sockets that they appeared as little more than glints of light. His irises, lucent, grey and liquid-clear, were all that were fresh and bright about him, set as they were in flesh that seemed sandstone. His wine-dark cloak, darker still in the heavy rain, cascaded over his back and hung heavily from square shoulders such that, face-on, he appeared a monolithic presence, a standing, straight-edged slab. Its lower hem trailed and clung, conformed to grim profiles as it was drawn over human forms seized in scenes of their dying. Stalking ahead he cast about, his gaze crossing and recrossing the slain in his path, eyes leading, neck and shoulders following through. With a wide stance and measured pace he found secure footing among the flowing earth and islands formed of the dead.

>>22859414
Jesus Christ, this is so pedantic that it reeks of autism. It's not that serious, dude.

>>22859194
Silently, she sat on the corner of their marital bed looking herself in the mirror. The silk dusty rose nightown in it's pale glory washed out her skin and gave her complexion a yellowish tone that highlighted seemingly countless blemishes on the corners of her mouth. Nothing was to her liking. Not the skin or the pudgy arms and the beige carpet with random red lines scattered had well known stains that were visible despite how many timew it was cleaned. Bought many years ago, when money has still an issue they found the rug at a discounted furniture store having a liquidation sale that seemed to never end. It's modern, I like the red, we even have a similar pattern on our coffee mugs! Well, she replied, she didn't, but for the price it would do temporarily. It wasn't really modern, just a watered down design replicating something perceived as modern in the collective conscience. Just a few lines, yet how can a few lines look so ugly? And there were a few hairs on it too, not mine, Anne though as she compulsively inspected the carpet looking for other things to pick up. Then there was the chair leaning against the wall with wax splatters of unknow origin, the dust on top of the closet that she wasn't able to see from the bed but she knew it was there regardless, the dresser where random clothes and things she didn't have time to put away accumulated over the years, clothes that needed mending, the sofa covers that needed to be washed, fabric for the curtains she wanted to make, the wedding favors from his cousins' wedding they had attended the previous year... If they only knew how quickly framed pictures atract dust. Sleep wasn't coming, as it usually didn't. I have work to do anyways, I wish I had a job where I wouldn't take home work. I did once, but that was another lifetime. They said this would be easier and I had no reason to believe otherwise. I have no reason to believe otherwise now either. She glanced at the dossiérs slowly falling off the bed as she pushed the cover towards her. Anne got up and rushed to grab them. Among the exams she had yet to grade there was a one of her son's school tests. Almost full marks and I never see him study, if I was his age maybe I would envy him but soon he will learn too that good things don't come easy. She separated the test from the others and placed the dossiér on top of the secretary already full with papers. Sleep didn't came that time either, so she gave up on it and went to scroll facebook.

I'm the anon who promised three good crits. Probably won't get to them tonight people, sorry. Having a good new years with little time to put that work in. I should be able to get to you guys when I get up after tonight.

bump

>>22895707

It's fine. I just don't like the mention of facebook. Why is it necessary?

>>22895707
How is she talking without any quotes, isn't it confusing and distracting?

>>22890723
Can you give me a sentence in that paragraph showing the seismic equivocation and compounded classes? Please I need this.

>>22895707
dogshit punctuation, not reading all that. Auitomatically garbage

>>22897692
To give the impression of mental exhaustion, no energy, doomscrolling when you should be sleeping which aggravates not being able to sleep. Like her problems snowball thanks to taking the easier route, accumulating things, choosing the easier job, same idea with her son soon learning the same thing. >>22897723
Saramago style, the way it's written is meant to describe thoughts flying over one's head, one after the other, sometimes confusing.
>>22897760
Very fair, thank you

>>22859414
I'm going to critique this critique.

>This both sounds clunky and shows you don't even know how dirt works. Worms inherently loosen soil when they work through it. They add less dense material as they go along. I would delete the word compacted.

It's a bit clunky, especially the comma before worm-ridden. I'll give you that the sentence might be mildly contradictory but I seriously doubt whether a reader will notice or consider that.

>How does a shovel release a sound? It causes a sound when it interacts with another object.

I agree release is a strange choice of words. "creating" or "with a satisfying crunch" would probably be more natural. It could also help fix the sentence a bit. "The shovel met the earth with a satisfying crunch that ended in a soft thud."

>Who is denoting how satisfying the sound is? We do not know who is narrating and if this is even in first or third person yet. How is that value judgement appropriate?

Pure autism. This kind of subjective value judgment is used a lot even in third person omniscient. By this logic you couldn't even call something "horrifying" or "ugly" or anything really. In fact using the word satisfying used in this way is so common it borders on cliche but it's really more of a staple of fiction writing.

>Most instances of the word 'that' are useless. This could be rephrased to 'ending' and it would flow better. if you need an adjective attached to the thud, and you are willing to use a word like thud, you should find a better word. Soft in this instance is out of place.

More autism.

>This is just a personal thing but I fucking hate em dashes. They are the sign of a lazy writer and an incompetent teacher.

More autism.

>This is more telling without showing, post em dash. Also, secrets? Don't we already know they digging up a body?

Valid. The "unearthed secrets" and the "well-acquainted with the allure of hidden mysteries" shit should be cut.

>Okay, you have to be actually goofin' at this point. This can't be real. This has to be a shitpost to make the tryhards come out of the woodwork. And I would give you the benefit of the doubt but it's like every single part of this is engineered to piss me off. Imploring? Did you read this out loud? Who the fuck did you just spend 2 hours reading and wanted to emulate so badly you decided to kill a thread for it? I'm not even going to finish the first sentence, let alone the second one. Anon, I suggest you try writing in a more modern style first and come to grips with the English language before trying to write your vaporwave-turner-diaries-romatic-era bullshit.

Needlessly harsh and autistic.

>>22897732
Fine. I deign to respond but i will for your ignorance's sake.

horribly compounded clauses, clause= subject + verb fragment
>And the solid cubic structure of his face imposed itself into the world as if giving space itself a local shape where it once was formless.
What are you intending to say here? Why are you obfuscating it to pretend some plausible pretense of something substantively arcane? If you are attempting to effect a sense of elusivity, it is nothing but nascently affectatious and jejune. You have not even established yet a fundamental understanding of syntax, and here your shitty equivocations of ideas, whatever you're trying to express only serves to exacerbate it.

clause 1: solid cubic structure of his face imposed itself
clause 2: giving space itself a local shape

It could be simply condensed to: The cubic contours of his face, in their silent imposition, afforded form to shape.

Why don't you implement clarity? You are not dexterous enough to employ any advanced rhetorical effects and you absolutely pervert the literary conceit (not that you wrote anything remotely close to it). The entire sham feels like some polyester imitation coalescing cheap philosophical abstractions in attempt to lend substance to your otherwise, completely devoid ideas and prose. What's with all the fractured advances of "form, formlessness, shape" and whatever else hackneyed dung? You don't even seem to comprehend what you're attempting to expound. Like did you just pick up basic philosophy and try to barbarically infuse it into your writing via a bargain frankenstein fashion? Get clear and get sharp.

>>22898654
Also I meant deign more so in the reluctant sense, not condescending sense. I deigned because the errors are so flagrant, that they don't need explanation to see.

>>22898654
Also meant deign more so in the reluctant sense, not condescending sense. I deigned because the errors are so flagrant, they don't need explanation to see.

Water drips from the corner of a depressing mouldy ceiling rhymthically onto the soggy carpet with a plop. It stinks; the room and it has stank for a long time, maybe since the beginning of epoch before the very foundations (of concrete, of civilization) were even laid. Darkness pervades every corner, every cranny
suffocating any artificial glare not strong enough to break through the noxious cloud of half light. The room in itself is it's own ecosystem, teeming with all sorts of fungal, bacterial, parasitical and mammalian life. Sound has no medium for travel yet even the smallest of squeaks will echo louder than volcano, the floor
resembling that of grave dirt pushed into an old rug grips under foot sure enough not to let go, until the deception breaks and it morphs into black ice.

The sun breaks through the curtains, bathing everything in its bright radiant glory. Flowers feeding, time receding and life blooming once again as the dawn smiles upon its child of dirt. Time has finally regained it's old familar stride, thriving as it will, devouring seconds and minutes and digesting them into hours, without
any dismay excreted. Life, as it is and as it should be, perfect.

Just typed this up at work, please be gentle.

Waldo clung to the chain-link fence and wept as Jupiter’s Rocket crossed the finish line dead last. “It’s over,” he thought, as his mind raced, playing out dozens of overlapping scenarios, desperately searching for some golden path to redemption. His eyes flicked frantically and sightlessly over the racetrack as his mind made an impotent attempt at organizing the chaos of his situation. Waldo’s life was constantly in chaos, but he always felt himself to be on the precipice of a solution, he just needed two or three successive victories and he would be able return home, triumphant, a conqueror. This race was as close to being a sure thing as Waldo thought these kinds of things could be. With this win, he would have been able to set in motion the chain of events that would save him. He had already been in freefall, and this race was his parachute; now his whole body was tensing for the punch of the ground.
The dust that had been kicked up from the race lingered in the air and stuck to Waldo’s perpetually wet, gleaming skin. He was now out of money, out of favors, running out of time, and running low on hope. Waldo was a loser, and always was one. He liked to think that luck is a finite resource; that everyone is born with X amount of luck, and that over one’s life it gets used up little by little, until the inevitable happens. And despite nearly four decades of contrary evidence, Waldo sensed that he sat above a vast reservoir of luck. Little did he know, his constant sweating, persistent cough, and general lethargy, were, in fact, a malignant cancer eating at his bone marrow.

>>22898876
less commas will make it smoother

>>22898876
>Little did he know, his constant sweating, persistent cough, and general lethargy, were, in fact, a malignant cancer eating at his bone marrow.
less commas will make it smoother

>>22898876
I don't think you should tell us whether waldo is a loser, maybe show it to us and how he has always been one, unless of course this is a narration by a characte in the story and not some 3rd person perspective.

>>22899575
thanks, good idea.

‘KHGIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLL MIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRR’, Edward gurgled through mouthfuls, hot, bitter, blood. Yet all Edward heard in response to his pitiful demand was taunting laughter. That, and the foreboding rumble of a large iron cage being wheeled into the dining room; its entry into the dining room christened with the banging of drums, the trump of bugles, and the unfurling of claret-coloured battle-standards.

‘Do not cry little lad,’ the Emperor said coolly, dropping his oversized backside onto the throne set up on the balcony. The Emperor then held out his emptied wine-glass impatiently for a moment. Roused to action by his master’s irritated expression, a guard by the Emperor’s side pulled the champagne bottle he had been drinking from his lips, and poured a stream of the bubbling amaroidal fluid down the nude buttocks of a wincing collared woman who had been freshly dragged onto the balcony. The stream of alcohol slithered languidly down the folds of the woman’s exposed lady-parts and anal sphincter, before finally coming to rest– much spent– in the glass of the Emperor, who sniffed at the cup intently, before throwing it all back in a single almighty swig. ‘After all’, the Emperor continued over the rancorous din of the dining room, ‘Yours is a glorious fate! Your visage shall be an historic one! Yes, never to be forgotten! Yours is a visage that shall rouse men to kill, and shall rouse men to die!’ As Edward was hauled off the dining table, and tossed into the iron cage prepared for him, the Emperor raised his glass. ‘Three hurrahs for civilisation’, he thundered inbetwixt an ugly wet burp.

‘THREE CHEERS FOR CIVILISATION!,’ came the deafening reply. ‘HIP-HIP, HOORAY! HIP-HIP, HOORAY! HIP-HIP *HIC*… HOORAY!’

>>22863559
Feels like you start writing sentences with no clue how they're going to end.

>>22868162
>Beyond the town in every direction except to the sea are trees, a single dirt road cutting wide through.
Better if you ended it wo the addition.
>Beyond the town, in every direction except to the sea, are trees.
It's nice.

Could use a little streamlining here and there to sound better.
>against the cold of the fog
>against the cold fog
>lit in the only moonlight that fell full through
>lit by the [adj] moonlight falling through

>>22882400
>i dont have a big enough vocabulary to write something like that :(
Never read a thesaurus. Your normal voice is fine.

>>22892287
>the boat railing.
It's called a gunwale. English is autistic for ship parts.

I like stage business, but you're overdoing it in the first lines of dialog.

>The fins at the end
Blades. See above.

>>22899868
could be I should shorten my sentences

>>22859194
I'll give it a try:
>There I beheld the creature before me. It was dead, I knew that. Its lifeless body, floating in a pool of its own black blood, laid sprawled out and bare, and its eyes—portals into an all-encompassing and unknowing void—gazed back at me. It was dead, I knew that.
>And yet, it moved. It changed. It never stopped changing. With every second that passed like an eon, the creature's form warped and shifted before my very eyes, changing into every shape and thing I could possibly conceive of, as well as things I couldn't. Gnashing maws. Grasping claws. Colors that were not colors. Shapes that were beyond this world, this universe, and beyond. Even without blinking, I could barely hold onto the creature's anatomy for more than a second before it shifted and melted into some other form I couldn't comprehend.
>But it was dead, I knew that.

Two people were fucking on the roof of the house opposite mine, on the cold tiles, forming a single mass of pale cellulite that writhed, pink in the chilly open air, a defiant statement of enduring, desperate love, shutting out the world but making it watch.

And I looked at them under the blossom sky, wrapped in my thick, torn coat, dew in my gloves, and watched them. Better, I guessed, than looting or turning into a splatter on the pavement or joining some violent street vigil. But seeing them stung like salt in my eyes. A slash of longing.

Because I was stood outside my own house; what was left of it, black skeleton, no roof, walls scorched to obsidian pebbles, stink of smoke like a blanket against the wind on that chilly day in the basin. Down the road, neighbourhood houses had been scorched at random, like rotting cavities. For fun. Bad luck. I pulled off my gloves and picked at the soot on the fencepost.

I didn't dare step up the path.

I might have caught a glimpse of her bones.

She might have woken to the sound of the Molotov through the window, or the letterbomb thudding onto the sanded floorboards, but she would’ve died lungs-first - wasn’t that the way? Curtains and upholstery and wallpaper turning black and taking to the air and gently into her lungs, guiding her away to rest, fade to grey. Whatever happened after was cremation.

It had been three days since I rushed back home in the dark, saw the blaze at the end of the road, front door handle hissing like a hot iron, falling away in charred chunks in my hand, dazzling golden wall of rising light behind, impossible heat like a star. Then three days of passing through hell like Dante; time stretched out, turning you into something you’re not; something rabid. And what a time to be rabid, right when the streets are pink with flare smoke and slippery with smashed glass.

>>22900809
Here

Doing my bit with some reviews.
>>22900795
I like this, it has nice rhythm and the gothic tone feels appropriately sombre. A couple of clunky spots you'd probably notice yourself with fresh eyes:

>the creature's form warped and shifted before my very eyes
You can drop the "before my very eyes" here imo - it's filtering language and a bit clicheed.

>second before it shifted and melted into some other form I couldn't comprehend.
You can cut the "I couldn't comprehend" bit here - you've already touched on incomprehensible forms in the sentence before, so it's kind of dead weight, killing your rhythm.

Genuinely nice tho :)

>>22899790
I don't like this one as much. It's anachronistic but in all the wrong ways - I thought part of the point of writing in the third person was that it frees you not to be such a character, so you can write with more clarity.
Sentences like:
>Roused to action by his master’s irritated expression
>before throwing it all back in a single almighty swig
feel weirdly contrived and clunky, and they're so wordy they feel off rhythm. They don't cut like they should. Just needs cleaning up and swapping every other anachronistic word for a cleaner more intelligible one imo.

>>22898754
>stank
I think the imperfect tense is "it had stunk"!
But it's nice! I think in context you'd need to move on quite quickly from a static description like this to some kind of action, because it lags a little by the end. Also some other things:
> the floor resembling that of grave dirt
Can just be "the floor resembling grave dirt", there is no extra noun you're referring to here.

You mistakenly put an apostrophe in "its" twice.

>yet
Swap for "but" and you'll immediately sound less pretentious

A sad music echoed as the northern bellowed through the rusting wheel of fortune. Its cars swayed with the wind as their gears screeched into the emptiness. Banners rustled. Dust spiraled. And a door flapped about its hinge, back and forth and back and forth, adding a measured beat to this orchestra of amnesia. The ruins lay forgotten between the rolling hills of the Hill Country, and the wind blew through them like an out-of-tune instrument, beckoning the world with its siren song.

>>22900877
>I like this, it has nice rhythm and the gothic tone feels appropriately sombre.

Thank you.

I do have another example of a short writing piece, but it's kind of long for this thread (about 2 pages-worth of text), and I'm uncertain if people want to go through what is essentially a short scene.

The evening that day Matti paddled his canoe to a certain beach and dragged it ashore. The place was pine forest, and on the beach was sand and long grass. Matti decided to settle here for a certain time. Then he went scavenge for tree’s branches and started to light a fire. All had gone well; he hadn’t met anyone. Here he could live for a certain time, until he needs to go to a store. When it was becoming dark, he sat around the fire, Alli sitting beside him, eating bread and thinking.
“Now are we here, in the neighboring country. What if I meet somebody, I must then surely speak Russian. Da, da, tavari. Ha, ha. Here doesn’t surely visit anyone ever, I don’t think I’ll meet anybody. Here I can live in my tent, in my own peace, fishing and hunting for living. And I have Alli. This will become fun, truly an adventure, he, he. Well, I’ll tomorrow start with making firewood and doing other work. Oh, here in the eye of nature, in peace! This is awesome.”

Minister Fernando looked across the bay and took a moment to admire his Fatherland. It was scarcely six in the morning, and a gorgeous golden sunrise illuminated the beach upon which he stood. Indeed, his party no doubt looked rather odd. Soldiers, an officer and the Minister of Economy all standing in full regalia, out on a beach which– had it not been cordoned off– would be awash with tourists, and holidaying natives. The sea was mild that morning, and the plump green leaves of the acacia simplex that flanked the inlet swayed cheerfully in the soft morning breeze, as if in dance.

Fernando’s attention was torn from the gorgeous vista by momentary irritation, as he sensed that his dress shoes were now utterly coated in damp sand. ‘If these Krauts don’t show, I swear…’, he thought to himself, an irritated scowl creeping– unbeknownst to him– across his otherwise handsome, angular features. Fernando’s brooding was cut short however, as he spied a small black speck emerge from up under the waves approximately a mile from the mouth of the beach. Fernando thought the strange little ship looked a lot like an overgrown ebony toothpick. To think, such machines gave so much grief to the British and the Americans. A wave of excited murmurs overtook the party, as soldiers began trading stories about the origins and talents of the crew slowly creeping towards their country.

>>22859194
When Ezekiel was in the eighth grade, he was considered a freak. It wasn’t because of what he’d worn, his personality, or the fact that he was tall for his age. It was because Ezekiel had no superpowers. His teacher had told the class about how they needed to think about their future and all, but he knew the teacher wasn’t interested in that crap. One of his classmates — not naming them, got up from her seat and had a shit-eating grin. He knew who she was; it was the girl that gave him hell from the start of kindergarten. Grumbling to himself, Ezekiel rested his head on his desk, praying that he didn’t have to hear her nonsense.

“Sorry, but I don’t want to be lumped with all these has-beens!” rebuked she.

Ezekiel figured this girl was nuts; he wondered if she was being an asshole for not having a boyfriend, but he had no clue. His classmates roared — he guessed they didn’t like how she put them down. If Ezekiel raised his head right now, he could see it all. She probably had her hands on her hips, looking proud like some smug bitch. Not wanting to hear any more of her bullshit, he slept.

>>22859194
You do sound well but relax on the descriptors. You don't need to adjective every noun.

[context: the protagonist has just shot a man in self-defense and is at the end of her resulting mandatory leave from police work]

When she woke up she was warm enough. Her right arm, under Lucas’s neck, was tingling at the wrist, and she knew that soon she would have to pull it out carefully, and get out of bed and put on her clothes and her watch and go to the kitchen to make her breakfast, and take her keys from the hook, pour iced tea into her thermos, go down the stairs and walkway and stairs of the apartment to the car, and drive to work. She turned that knowledge though her mind until it had mapped out her whole life and she was certain of the feeling she would have when carrying a gun again. She put her left hand on Steven’s back and watched the blue-grey stripes on his pajamas in between her thumb and her forefinger. Her breath came even and slow, as if she was still asleep.

Looking out the window over coffee, she found she could think only that were one hundred thousand murderers in her country, and that each of them was going through the old plastic boxes piled in his garage, looking for a fillet knife and a string of wire.

>>22903665
Beautiful but the inclusion of many 'ands' in the first sentence is a little problematic. Maybe talk about how she thought that instead of already knowing, or explain why she would be thinking about that instead of being in shock; you could even improve on it by showing how she wished her thoughts would be that simple. Her reactions seem too nonchalant and unbelievable, but the way you have connect them is beautiful.

>At night, the sea calls out to me. Its deep rumble lures me in; all I want is to feel that infinite darkness with every nerve in my body. It would wash up on the shore the next day for no one to find just yet: it’s a grey Sunday in January, and you’re still warm under your duvet. During that precious blip in time, before the image of my bloated corpse etches itself forever onto the mind of some unfortunate passerby, it’s as if I haven’t really died. At ten in the morning your eyelashes flutter awake, and there you are, alive and breathing and beautiful, the whole universe contained in you.

Something feels off about this thing I just wrote, especially the first few lines, but I can't figure out exactly why. Any tips?

2024 is the year of writing on lit. wagmi

>>22901455
Not him but I also liked what you wrote and would be happy to read another piece from you.

>>22859194
The water lapped a shoal of kin, bootlaces, blood and everything. Sanguine seafoam rushed the sand and over broken things it ran. The ones called men, died as kids, tendered lives for dreams abridged. But those of whom who had deceased, shivered not in ranks decreased.

>>22905187
Thank you.
If you're up for it, I've placed the scene in a png file for you to read.
It's based on the Apple TV "Harriet the Spy" show, which in itself is based on the novel of the same name by Louise Fitzhugh.

Stooped over the table was an image out of any mother's nightmare. It was a man, dressed in a black leather trench coat. His stunted head was topped with a greasy, short-cut block of hair. His hairline was a disaster. A narrow, pockmarked face glared at an picture laid flat on the table through a pair of dirty, square lenses. Its subject was a robustly built black man, bald and shining, who wore only a speedo. The dysgenic man scowled and shuttered his close-set eyes. A blue vein throbbed massively on his pale temple. The edges of the picture curled and blackened. There was neither heat nor any hints of flame on the paper. Then the picture lost its glossiness, and grew dark, before it crumpled into ash. His dark eyes opened, and with a nasty smirk, he stood up to his fully, lanky height of six and a half feet. Around his right arm looped a sagging red armband, and his shirt was red and held the jagged caricature of a black sun. Striped boxers hung loosely from a slight paunch.

"Finally, I will have my vengeance. Tyrese shall rue the day he dared to proposition me!" he said. Then the man threw back his head and laughed heartily. Much like his dignity, his laughter died in his throat. His shoulders slouched. He pinched his nose between his forefinger and thumb, and blew two thin strands of snot onto the moldy carpet, and wiped his fingers on a greasy sleeve.

"With these psychic abilities excavated from the depths of my Aryan blood, there is no nigger on earth who can stop me, no one who can stop Doctor Chud!"


As you can probably tell, I've read too many pulps from the 1920's-30's, and have likely failed to capture any mote of what made them good.

>>22905854
I am not one to offer any criticism as I am an amateur myself, but to me it was friendly, well paced and well written. Keep it up anon