/lit/ - Literature

>>3145544
A light rain fell from the grey clouds above. The breeze steered the drops of water through the sky in slanting patterns until they landed softly amoung the yellow and red leaves where they slowly trickled down into the olive grass and onto the white edges of the sidewak. The cool water pricked at his cheeks as he walked.
He was glad it was raining. The grey clouds and the water and the light breeze rustling through the tops of the bright colored trees made the Earth seem alive, and he was glad for its company.

He walked the winding path moving toward a weahtered, red brick building in the distance. He passed by long rows of windows, mostly darkened, and noticed the shadowed outlines of a few solom teachers preparing for their early classes. The morning air smelled good and it pleased him. He pressed the thick, hard spines of his books tightly to his body, inside the swaying edge of his coat, safely protected from the rain.

The weight of the books brought to his mind their precious contents, the hurriedly scribbled pencil notes lining the margins of every page and the underlined words and sentences that served for him as a glimpse into what was important to their previous owner. He thought of his voice and the fading memory of his face.

cont..

>>3145546

cont..

Everything had changed when Racheal died. The boy grew up fast and got cold. He wasn’t bitter, no, and he wasn’t mad, he was just cold. He had learned to be a man before he even had a chance to be a kid.

He remembered the quite pride on the boy’s face right before he went off to his first job. He loved me, he thought. He knew he could fill one of the holes she left, so he did it, and damn he did it well. Fourteen years old working sixty hours a week, I shouldn’t have let him do it. I knew I shouldn’t have let him do it, but he wouldn’t listen. There wasn’t nothing I could do, he wouldn’t listen. No, no he wouldn’t listen to me.

“Stop it”, he said in a wisper. The words came out as steam in the cool of the morning.
You got to stop dwelling, he told himself. There’s no use in dwelling on it, it don’t do no good.
These words had become a mantra for him over the past months. He repeated them under his breath as he walked along the path, moving closer and closer to the patchy, red brick building in the distance.

>>3145548

I wouldn't bring up Rachel dying so early. I would recommend instead demonstrating through an event how "cold" the main character is, and then provide the explanation after. For instance, SHOW the reader that the man is "cold" in the way you're using it, don't TELL the reader that he is cold.

>>3145546
Did you proofread this at all? I am two sentences in and already hit with a jarring run on.

The light turned on, but I had no want for it and kept my eyes shut, staring into lidded blackness. If I opened my eyes now I would be able to see my surroundings, something I had been able to avoid for the past six hours. Nothing could compare to the feeling of bliss right after you wake up in the morning. You forget momentarily who you are, or at least who you are shaped in waking life to be, and are caught briefly in the vestiges of the dream world. In the last dregs of bliss, I was struck with the thought that if I merely turned over I could meld into my surroundings, forgotten. Like an empty sack of ration cast aside, its contents ravaged, I could lie there and mold away. But such is exactly the stuff of dreams, insubstantialities that were all too quickly slipping away, replaced by cold, hard, reality. A reality in which I was reminded of a fatal flaw in being forgotten: I myself would not forget.

>>3145546
>The grey clouds and the water and the light breeze rustling through the tops of the bright colored trees made the Earth seem alive
Redundant. You just finished describing the setting, no need to reference back to it so quickly and with so much of the same imagery/words

>He walked the winding path moving toward a weahtered, red brick building in the distance.
You really need to proofread this. A typo? Really? How do you expect us to care about what you wrote if you don't? And weathered isn't pretty ambiguous, how is it weathered? More importantly, to imagine the building what is its size or shape? If you really want the reader to have a vivid image of a building don't be so vague.

>He passed by long rows of windows, mostly darkened, and noticed the shadowed outlines of a few solom teachers preparing for their early classes.
More typos? Also, what makes the teachers solemn? This is just lazy writing.

>The morning air smelled good and it pleased him. He pressed the thick, hard spines of his books tightly to his body, inside the swaying edge of his coat, safely protected from the rain.
What, now all of a sudden he has books? This is not the best way to introduce that he has books, it is very jarring. With the cadence you have set with your prose you can't just pop things into existence whenever you want. You need smoother transitions, especially if your writing is so heavily dependent on imagery.

>>3146533
That second sentence is long, but it's not a run on.

>>3145548
>The boy grew up fast and got cold
>got
Come one man.

>He wasn’t bitter, no, and he wasn’t mad, he was just cold.
This sentence is unnecessary. Your reader is not inclined to believe that cold means bitter or mad, you are projecting a needless thought process to pad out your writing. What is especially bad is the interjection "no". That shit is unconscionable.

>He remembered the quite pride on the boy’s face right before he went off to his first job.
More typos... Also, who is "the boy"? Undeclared pronouns are a clear sign of a desperate and shallow writer. It does not create interest or engagement with your story, it is frustrating and childish.

And then is everything after that supposed to mean that he is talking about himself? "Him" is his younger self? And what the fuck happened to "Rachael", why was she so important that he had to change his whole life around? Am I supposed to care enough about this boy and his life to invent a reason for myself?

Overall, it reads like a basic High School kid's angsty first fiction. That's okay, because at least they are earnest.

Next time, please proof read at least once before posting.

>>3146547
Not the guy you're responding to, but even if it isn't a run on you should change it. It's like you accidentally spilled some McCarthy in your writing.

>>3146544
>>3146564
The number of typos I made myself is amusing.

Judge me (paper I'm working on):
>Thanks anon
The sole reason I have this journal is so that I won't have to walk around the streets holding a tape recorder up to my face, like the pseudo-genius I believe myself to be (Dork). Anything I ever say will never be glorified. Everything I say or write should be misunderstood. The sun revolves around the world, life revolves around the world, and life revolves around me. You can quote me on that, it's a proven fact. With intellectuals being labeled "Professional wastes of time," my mind is in search of another. One can hope and one can bother. The genetic, apathetic existence of a better life. Billions blind of it. Millions see it. Thousands agree with it. Hundreds reach for it, but no one gets it. "A better future…" But when is the future ever here? Once a general consensus is reached, we can metaphorically pull that future back to us and make it our present. Metaphorically of course. It is always in metaphors. In the same sense, we should metaphorically bash and banish all the racists, misogynists, rapist, conformists, and contortionists, solely for the sake of a constant, of course. The bible-pushing, hatred preaching, money sucking, leeches are out to get us. sure, religion soothes us, "the opiate of the masses" has been stated. but the is no use for biblical lifestyles in a modern day setting. There is no need for women to honor, "Their man." No need for a weekly waste of an hour. Grow up people. Leave fiction for the kids. Guys will fuck, go cry about it. Blacks now vote, go cry about it. Women have power, go cry about it. Your mentality is outdated, go pray about it.

>>3146593
entirely self-serving babble

it is incoherent but completely transparent in its effort to hide how shallow your ideas really are

I can't criticize form, of course, because it is supposed to be unconventional or stream of consciousness, right?

>>3146602
Can you elaborate more? and also, have any tips on making it better?

And yeah, it's supposed to be a cynic's perspective on life but I can't seem to make it more interesting.

>>3146593
here's a piece that sets up a scene.

Golden light flooded across the diner floor. A tall man stepped through the door his upturned trench coat and hat obscured his face. He moved unnoticed to the bank of payphones. The clink of metal on cheap porcelain muted any sound he made. A peaceful smile crossed his lips as he looked over the diner.
A red haired mother leaned over her stroller to clean the child’s plump face. A giggle rose from him as she brushed his cheek, a soft smile turned her lips but her eyes still held sadness. She sat back down and thumbed her phone. A soft clink came from a man dressed in white all his focus drowned in the coffee. His gaze never left the cup and the spoon went around and around. Clink, he swore with his breath, but continued his task, around and around.
The bell chimed and the waitress stepped inside, too old to do anything new, she started to wipe down an empty booth. She brushed a stray hair from her eyes. For a moment she looked out the window with stars in her eyes. “More coffee miss” snapped from her daydream she hurried over to the short man. A briefcase lay beside him, his jacket and hat on the table’s far end.
Dmitri closed the door and like a golden tide the light rolled away leaving a few poor souls to wallow in the dark. He dialed a number and tapped his toe on the ground. The short man turned in his booth.

>>3146613
>I believe myself to be
>cynic

>>3146613
I can't help much outside of what I already said. It is hard to give good criticism of prose when they are written in such a freeform way, especially when I am only guessing at your intent.

The best I can do is say you need to develop central thesis to build around. A general "cynic's perspective on life" isn't enough to be engaging. Each of the little comments you include should add to the others and reinforce your central thought or theme.

Otherwise it is really just stream of consciousness garbble and stands only on the quality of your prose.

>>3146615
As a general criticism, your narrator reads closer to a screenplay than a novel.

You include a lot of irrelevant descriptions in the scene which you might think helps create flavor/atmosphere but the flat way you present each thing is confusing as a reader. I don't know where my focus should be.

Your prose aren't very clean either but if I started nitpicking every word it would take a very long time.

The grass, lit bright with the efflorescent beauty of the morning dew lit bright amongst the perplexing ocean of blooming flowers. The damp touch on the air shrivelled the lips of the lumberjack, who hard in his toil could not give a notice. This Eden of a landscape, blemished by destruction, with beauty still laying somewhere amongst the now deformed landscape, never the less looked solemn. Normally a treat for the eyes, the dew on the grass and leaves of marvellous colour and magnitude now resembled tears wept by the deformed.

>>3146637
but what if all the people are important in like a page or two?

>>3146638
Your first sentence isn't even a sentence. Please proof read and repost.

>>3146645
I can offer a quick tip.

The way you use articles is frustrating. I am not sure if you don't understand the impact of the word "the" vs "a" or just enjoy abusing them.

Stepping back onto Kiwi land wasn’t what I thought it would be. For a start, no one was there to greet us. Thousands of adoring admirers which populated my imagination were evidently absent, and had obviously not found the time to come and congratulate their “war heroes”. Something else also must have gotten lost in translation between my mind’s eye and reality. The New Zealand I remembered was glistening and flowing waters, set against a horizon of snow capped mountains, with the sun shining brightly accompanying a fresh breeze flowing through to keep the senses alive. Arriving at the Timaru port was a different story indeed. Choppy and murky waves pushed our boat onto the harbour, whereupon we disembarked. Low cloud was set over the small town, and driving rain was biting at my skin as I pushed ahead against the blustering gale. I spotted my wife standing alone. The horse drawn carriage was behind her. I walked past her without sparing a glance, and put my single suitcase in the luggage compartment, before climbing onto the seat. In the corner of my eye I spot my wife looking disapprovingly at me. Are you alright was all she could muster. I looked back and eyed the other men embracing their wives after 4 long years apart, holding each other tightly apparently oblivious to the hellish environment around them. I snap back around and without another word set the horses onto the road.

>>3146661
Off to the new farm. Some government act; returning soldiers are rewarded for their service to the ‘great’ war by a bit of land. Turns out ours was on the outskirts of Timaru. My wife’s request to get some around the Taumarunui back in King Country where our old place was got declined, and due to the high price we could get for our place due to wartime production needs back in 1916 she sold up and made the move. My face was numb from the seemingly sub zero temperatures while we meandered down the gravel road, and my emotions reflected that. I felt nothing. Nothing. Our correspondence was what kept me alive in the killing fields of Anzac Cove and abominable trenches of Passchendaele. Now, face to face with the woman I dreamed of for nights upon nights, I couldn’t be bothered to look at her when she spoke.

>>3146665
My mind screamed of futility. I didn’t understand. I’m supposed to be a man. What’s the difference between slitting a sheep’s throat on a farm or a Turk’s throat on Hill 60. I was unable to put a finger on how exactly I had psychologically regressed due to the war on that carriage ride to my new life, but nevertheless my life was forever changed. Me, Shanks and Kev signed up on August 18th, 1914, the eve of my 31st birthday. They told us it would be the experience of a lifetime, and to get in quick before it was all over. How we had been lied to. Shanks got caught on a barbed wire fence at Somme and shot to bits, while Kev was pulverised by an artillery shell before my eyes in Messines. Those faceless ghosts with German uniforms brought into question my own masculinity, was I strong enough for this? Now, pulling up the driveway to the farmhouse, I think not.

>>3146654
ok I'll take a better look at it.

>>3146638
Eh... here I'll edit it for ya.
>The grass, brightly lit by the efflorescent beauty of the morning dew (that's all the brightly lit you ever fucking need, ALSO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT YOU ADD FAG).
>The damp air shrivelled the lips of the lumberjack, WHOM in his toil didn't bother to notice.
>This Eden, blemished by destruction, still withheld beauty, laying somewhere in the deformed landscape.
>Normally a delight for the eyes, the dew on the grass and the leaves of marvellous colour now resembled tears of the deformed.
>WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO THE LUMBERJACK

>>3146668
I staggered into the bitterly cold house for the first time, caring not to view my new home, read prison, and found the bedroom. I left my wife to haul in my huge suitcase while I slumped face down onto my bed, quivering. The tears that stained the pillow tasted of blood and dirt, smelled of rats and corpses, looked like artillery shells and bullets. I lay there for 4 hours, not sleeping, not dreaming, just contemplating my plan of action for the next 40 years in light of my recently discovered mindset. My wife called me into the kitchen for dinner, and I spent another pensive hour looking for answers in the swirling bowl of chicken soup, yet receiving no acknowledgement from the lukewarm broth.

>>3146674
Looking out the window into the flat perennial landscape scarcely populated by dead trees and overlooked by a sky of grey, I was unaware of the life that awaited me ahead, equally as grim as the outlook. Within three months my wife passed away due to the influenza virus. I wish it was me instead. The lack of fertile soil on the land drove me to sell it for next to nothing due to record low prices because to the actions of soldiers similar to me throughout the country. I wouldn’t find a job until 1922, putting together matchboxes in a factory in Oamaru. In two years time I was back in the killing business, slaughtering animals at the freezing works in Mataura. It was where I belonged. I couldn’t deal with the monotony of anything else, but my mind told me I must work, so I can only surmise some of my masculine instincts came through intact. Everything else that characterised me as a man had deserted me. Where once I lead hundreds of men to their inevitable death, I couldn’t instill one iota of motivation or confidence into Section D of the packing section at the Beehive factory. I didn’t feel any obligation to protect and care for my wife in her last days. The only place for me was one where I didn’t have to think, just act through a shiny blade. And I find myself here. My one bedroom house here in Mataura is the same one as when I first moved here. I’m 51 now. I see another war is here. I wish I could tell the boys what they’re in for, but they’re filled me with the same youthful enthusiasm that sent me running to the recruitment office in 1914. I’m filled with dread and despair.

>>3146645
Then you can do a better job separating them from the setpieces that aren't as important, unless for some reason that effect was deliberate.

I can't really judge what I haven't read so the context of my criticism is pretty limited. If you say you meant to write it this way because it is necessary later on I can't help effectively help you.

guys, if your story is really long, instead of spamming it in multiple posts just link to pastebin.

>>3146661
Sorry, I can't do a line-by-line, there is just too much.

Off the bat, way too many cliches and overused phrases.
>Something else also must have gotten lost in translation between my mind’s eye and reality.
Jesus fucking christ.

And first person? Unless you are using that as an excuse to write poorly (it isn't me, it's the character that THINKS in terrible writing) I'm not sure you have the skill to pull it off.

As a rule, if nothing is added to your story from a first person perspective, write in third person. Very little is worse than reading a novel with a boring first person voice.

>>3146541
anyone want to say something?

>>3146677
>In two years time I was back in the killing business, slaughtering animals at the freezing works in Mataura. It was where I belonged.
>I couldn’t instill one iota of motivation or confidence into Section D of the packing section at the Beehive factory.
Completely change jobs (WHY?)

>>3146541
This is actually a good piece of literary work, don't have any real criticism for that, well done.

>>3146541
All of my hangovers.

>>3146731
Try hard language.

>>3146541
:( i have a passage about this in my current story

it sucks so bad compared to this

>>3146541
>The light turned on, but I had no want for it and kept my eyes shut, staring into lidded blackness.
It isn't black behind eyelids if the light is on. Eyelids are not that thick.

>Nothing could compare to the feeling of bliss right after you wake up in the morning.
>If I opened my eyes now I would be able to see my surroundings, something I had been able to avoid for the past six hours.
I get what you are trying to say but the way you wrote it comes off as a contradiction. Clumsy writing, can be fixed.

>You forget momentarily who you are, or at least who you are shaped in waking life to be, and are caught briefly in the vestiges of the dream world.
Stop using "you". You are cramming a world view into your reader that he might not have.
>or at least who you are shaped in waking life to be
superfluous, feels like padding. Try instead:
>who you are shaping to be
Now it feels like a revelation of the narrator's character

>In the last dregs of bliss
You don't need this transition. We already know what you are talking about since that is all you have been talking about. Don't include phrases just because you like how they sound. Use something else that doesn't feel as redundant or just omit it.

>I was struck with the thought that if I merely turned over I could meld into my surroundings, forgotten. Like an empty sack of ration cast aside, its contents ravaged, I could lie there and mold away.
This can be one sentence and the analogy is very dated. This is a first person account so we are looking at how this person thinks. You can't just use words you like if it is out of place, he feels like he's from another century but speaks using modern linguistic conventions.

>last 2 sentences
Look this over and clean it up.

The only light allowed inside came from Its lighter. After the triggering click I see a flash of a face, a brief afterglow reminding me of what a face should look like, then the light collapses into a red hot star dangling in the black void. The windows had long ago been covered with the ripped pages of books or newspapers and the cracks beneath the doors stuffed with tattered shirts and trash, but the light sneaked inside anyway, with that lighter. Only the Other Voice ever stepped out into that convulsing lightshow on the other side of the door, whenever I slept, to refill my prescriptions and collect a little food. How it managed to do that, what kind of life it led away from all this, I never thought to ask. Its fingers had turned rougher than what they once were and on occasions my lips passed over a previously-absent cut or scrape, but I never thought to ask. Knowing would be to bring the outside in here, and who wanted that?

it's two paragraphs but whatever

>>3146760
Is this the first or the second paragraph?

Neon lights reflect themselves in the whites of my eyes as veins, popping bright red; straining to see my fortune flicker in front of me in one indiscernible blur, just out of reach... until I pull the lever... Maybe next time.

The flow annoys me, I really like this idea but I've been having trouble articulating it. I want it all to be very fluid, but if I take out the punctuation then it's hard to read.

>>3146770
First and second.

>>3146760
>The only light allowed inside came from Its lighter
>doors stuffed with tattered shirts and trash, but the light sneaked inside anyway
Contradiction in text easily avoidable in you proof read
>Other Voice
Out of place punctuation.

I don't like the general feel of this text. It seems way too unsure of itself somehow, but I can't put my finger on it. It's a good start perhaps if it's part of a larger piece of writing you are doing, but from an objective view I find it quite poor.

>>3146778
That's troubling, I only see one.

unless >it's two paragraphs but whatever is the second paragraph

You stare into the moon, the moon like a despondent eye after rivulets of tears. The moon is a Machiavellian vagabond suspended by tresses of silk. Allegro.
Capturing your lucent hair, a quelling zephyr. She called your eyes cracked crystals, ones that pluck at your heartstrings, idiosyncratic like a fanned inferno. Honey-rose cheeks like swelling hot sugar.
You are tired of the magnanimous moon greeting you brusquely. How you would love to live such a life. Septum and phlegm wavelets in your esophagus as you take ether anesthesia.
You can feel your aorta capillary as you thrust harder. “Goodnight moon,” you whisper as ambien slides down your gullet, down your fleshy tissue. Hasta la vista, baby.

tried to get crit a while ago but no one responded. help?

>>3146780
I deleted the space between them for some reason? Second starts at "Only"

hey i wrote a song for my gf the original is in spanish, please hate it

Walks away from me, she smiles and turns around
Leaving her footprints in the sand
Where time hides, eager to come out
Determined to create and change

The sun is blue, but still shines
Because he knows eventually
everything reaches silence
The sand at the distance confirms
All the rivers end up in the sea

Hard to believe, her eyes will stop shinning
That she has no wings, that she can't fly
that I have more love than life inside me
How cruel are the years, how bitter the end

Like a cloud i watch you from far away
Lucky cloud, ignores that my body fades
The sea will erase my footprints and yours
No before, no after, no words to be silenced

Sorry, I sometimes have this moments
When the glow of your skin, catches my eye
Is not a sobbing, is not a regret
Is that I love you, but how bitter is the end

>>3146790
post it in spanish, asi la critica sera mejor

>>3145546
>>3145548
All in all not bad, but...
>I find the first sentence very "heavy", maybe use fewer color descriptions. It feels quite forced and unnecessary for the part. The olive grass and white sidewalk don't really add a lot.
> You start many sentences with "He...", try to mix it up a little with stuff like "As he" "While he" or even start with the verb "Walking the winded path"
>As others said, showing the reader that the protagonist was cold might be better than just telling him.

>>3146760
>Its lighter
What? Who? Why capital?

>I see a flash of a face, a brief afterglow reminding me of what a face should look like, then the light collapses into a red hot star dangling in the black void
Is he alone? Is this a mirror? Does that even matter? Should I care?

Is this supposed to be a surreal account, fantastic, grounded or dreamy? You don't establish any sort of feel and wander between them. Your world is vague, no rules, so I can't expect anything and don't anticipate it.

I am not engaged.

>>3146785
This is just a bunch of words you shoved together.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_prose

>>3146785
what the hell is a machiavellian vagabond?

>>3146810
And don't say 'the moon'.

>>3146810
He is trying to say that the moon is a homeless, wandering politcal scientist.

>>3146785
This is a very solid piece of work as setting the scene and using complex language to set it, as for criticism
>The moon is a Machiavellian vagabond suspended by tresses of silk. Allegro.
I found this bit hard to read. Not in words and meaning but in the way it feels incredibly forced. Try using a more natural styling. As for the 'Hasta, la vista, baby.' Don't get me started.

>>3146795

de hecho que mejor seria un juzgamiento en español, el hecho de cambie algunos versos completamente y taje unas palabras. En español sera juzgado por menos personas pero quiza de mejor manera.

Se aleja de mí, me sonríe y da vuelta
Dejando sus huellas en la arena
Donde el tiempo se esconde y saldrá
Con sus ganas de crear y cambiar

El sol esta azul, alumbra con melancolía
Pues sabe que todo llegara al silencio
La arena a la distancia lo confirma
Todos los ríos terminan en el mar

Difícil de pensar, que sus ojos se apagaran
Que a su ser le faltan alas y que no pueda volar
Que tenga más amor que vida dentro mio
Que crueles son los años, que acido el final

Como una nube te contemplo desde lejos
Suertuda la nube, no sabe que mi cuerpo es un lamento
El mar borrara tus huellas y las mías
No habrá antes ni después ni palabras por callar

A veces me llegan estos momentos
Cuando el fulgor de tu piel me ilumina
No es un lamento, no es un sollozo
Te amo mi vida, pero que acido el final

>>3146818
>This is a very solid piece of work as setting the scene and using complex language to set it
I am calling you out on bullshit and criticizing your critique.

That poem was horse shit. It is not solid and the language is not complex. It is obscured through disparate metaphor, sure, but calling that complex language is laughable.

>>3146828
You have to be a pleb to not understand how some of it was very solid in setting the scene, I agree that all together it's a fucking unholy mash up of phrases and words that shouldn't ever be written but it IS complex language and structure.

>>3146842
Just because you write a fragment instead of a complete sentence does not mean your writing is complex, sorry.

It usually means you're just an asshat.

>>3146785
if this is not trolling, I may say. Form takes the place when the spirit is gone.

>>3146842
Explain.

>>3146853
He's retarded.

>>3146848
>Septum and phlegm wavelets in your esophagus as you take ether anesthesia.
You can feel your aorta capillary as you thrust harder. “Goodnight moon,” you whisper as ambien slides down your gullet, down your fleshy tissue.
Albeit with some spelling mistakes, you cannot deny that it is a complex sentence structure.

How about before critiquing a critique you actually have a basic idea of what you are actually talking about otherwise you just look foolish.

>>3146866
That is is called a fragment.

>>3146593

You deserve to die. Cry about it.

>>3146866
tThat's not an explanation.

So are there any good writers on /lit/?

>>3146876
Yes, but they wouldn't need to come here for critique. I wouldn't like it if they posted anyway, circlejerking isn't very fun.

Instead of posting whole blocks of sloppy text, can we focus on sentence level writing?

Post one sentence. Let's start with the basics.

>>3146890
do me!

>My first priority whenever I'm sucking on a lollipop is to flatten that protuberant band that runs along it until I have a reasonable sphere.

>>3146890
It is assumed you know how to properly construct a sentence before you start writing anything substantial.

You can't really critique a sentence out of context anyway.

>>3146894
>'flattening' something to make a sphere

>>3146890
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

>>3146901
10/10, would read again.

>>3146901
>(for it is in London that our scene lies)

I know it's irrelevant for our purposes but the setting is actually kind of important in a story and probably not something you should reveal as a casual aside in brackets. It's annoyingly flippant and detracts from the flow of the rest of the sentence.

>>3146913
nigga you just don't get it
2deep4u

>>3146920
He's totally right broski. Utterly kills the flow of the sentence (especially right before a comma), and makes it drag on too far when otherwise it'd be totally fine.

Instead, you could go
>It was a dark and stormy London night.
Establishes the setting and gives the cliche a small twist.

>>3146970
What's the matter, meta-awareness in your literary text too post modern for you?

>>3146993
You can have all the fourth wall jokes you want, just don't shit up an otherwise good sentence with them.

I was heading to the conservatory then on a Thursday afternoon. Though I was not on a rush, I am a fast walker; the sun was high and it is not fun to sweat when you just took a shower.
Always looking where I put my foot, the sidewalk is quite a mess, but the traffic was worse. I don’t mind walking, but waiting just gets on my nerves. It’s a short distance from my home so, easily doable by foot and in my sedentary lifestyle this counts as exercise.

A few blocks away I step in front of big office which is close to a restaurant. It’s quite a chic, expensive restaurant were all the nice girls go to grab a bite in the break. I always walk in front, incredible women in uniforms eating exquisite dishes. All of them smiling, talking with their friends. With little blue skirts, I wish one day I could get what inside of those for lunch.

They were mere spectators, for all what matters. I always walked across this little man.
I don’t tend to judge people based on the looks. But this man was almost certainly a failure. Everything about him was painful. Short, balding, huge glasses, funny walking, fat man. It would be laughable, cartoony if it wasn’t for the look of his face. The eyebrows always inclined in a sad permanent expression. He maybe was a good fella, but life fucked him up really well.
Occasionally I saw him on my route, always with a pitiful displacement. He worked in the office which was close to the restaurant. I never saw him eating there. Maybe it was only supermodel portions for secretaries who have to fuck their bosses to get a check.
His uniform barely suited him, grey pants, a white shirt and a golden tie with red stripes. He was coughing. First it was really low, he was adjusting his tie to let to the air circulate. Then I realized he was pulling his tie strongly with one hand, but it wouldn’t come off. He tried to undo it, but the tie was stuck in. The coughing became louder as I realize the tie was acting by itself. It was killing him. Choking him to death. That damned tie. I rushed to rescued him, his eyes were red, his skin was blue and then pale. I try to take off the tie. But I couldn’t, it was too strong.
Golden and red stripes, wanted dead or alive. What kind of sick joke was this? . I was looking desperately for a medic. I turned around and the tie was gone, crawled or flew away, take your guess. Maybe someone else now has that tie, maybe is killing someone right now. It could not be the tie, could be just your life.

>>3147040
>>3147042
Did you proof read this yourself? Did you look it over at all?

Is English not your first language?

>>3147077
nope it isn't my first language, i wrote really fast like 10 minutes. it's sucks doesn't it?

>>3147091
I didn't read past the third sentence, it's policy on stuff written with such obvious grammatic mistakes.

>>3147095
oh yeah now I realize. I don't usually suck so much. But it's really late now.

>>3147104
no need to make excuses, I don't even know you

Beach houses on the edge of the ocean
the beginning of land
dirty sand gets in orifices of
those who fuck on it
the horizon extends on
so empty it seems
but under the waves,
life blooms madly
And the animals who fuck there—
it’s quite different from ours.
I’ve never seen a fish with a cock
I’ve seen a bloodthirsty meat loving
feasting man at KFC
have plenty of cocks, most dead,
one with blood engorging it immensely
ah but so is life,
america’s boners fill with blood
at the thought, or even better,
action, of bloodshed

>>3147115
poetry doesn't exempt you from the proper use of punctuation

Landover spent the night in a guest room inside the temple. The room was barebones, painted the same black as the rest of structure, with only a bed and a chair for furnishings. A single fluorescent lamp was bolted to the ceiling, which Landover had shut off. He had neatly piled his clothes on the floor beside the bed and resolved to get as much sleep as possible. Extorris was not a planet one wanted to remain awake on for too long.
The walls of the temple dulled the lamenting winds. Pebbles kicked up by the gusts pattered against the steel modules, the equivalent of raindrops on a world like this. Landover shut his eyes harder, trying to make the wind and clatter of the rocks a soothing noise. Old men like him were supposed to be narcoleptic, weren’t they? Why couldn’t he fall asleep?
The answer came to him when he opened his eyes sometime in the middle of the night and noticed the figure sitting on the chair in the corner. The figure’s head was bowed, and he or she was quite obviously wearing an officer’s bridge coat. Landover could see the person was wearing a scarf, but he couldn’t make out the colour in the darkness.
The intruder raised their head, revealing an ivory-white mask. Thin slits were cut into it for eye-holes, with blue lines running down from the edges of the slits to the bottom of the mask, as if the mask was crying. Another slit was cut for the mouth, curving upwards in a slight smile. Landover immediately threw off the bed’s covers and hopped off, tensely moving into the opposite corner of the room. The masked figure’s head turned slowly to follow him.
“How long?” Landover breathed.
“Long enough to kill you, if I wanted to.” The figure spoke quietly in a man’s voice, in near-monotone. "But that is not my purpose."

Can you tell I've posted excerpts of this story in several of these threads?

It's a bit long, will appreciate any and all criticisms.

http://pastebin.com/k8P0m4y4

>>3146913
>>3146970
Okay, I don't know if you guys are serious or if I'm being reverse-trolled here, but he posted the actual original version of the "dark and stormy" night line from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Clifford

I sit surrounded by the terminally pretentious. These people were "hipsters" before that was even a thing. Not one can open his mouth without emitting something "sophisticated" - their travel plans to places you're only supposed to know enough about to recognize that the locales are as chic and atypical as their facial hair. Pontificating is the watchword of the day, and as the man at the podium drones on about New Orleans and Brooklyn, I consider spending another four dollars on a tolerable pint, the outrageous expense small price to pay if it makes enduring this reading more bearable

>>3147119
If you have you should have started with this.

This is very effective writing you have here. Good style, language isn't overbearing, and I can tell you are trying to tell a story instead of just masturbating in front of an audience.

There are a few things I might change but overall very nice.

I would certainly read your genre fiction (sci-fi or fantasy?).

>Dialogue snippet I'm currently working on right now:
"No, it's not. What the hell were you even doing up here in the first place?" Freddie was finally able to turn away from the researcher's corpse and return his focus to Che. "The locational data I provided you was meant for defensive measures, not so you could go out and hunt these people down!"

Che began to rub his temples in frustration.

Freddie continued, "I mean, this was a human being. A man for chrissakes! You murdered him in cold blood, and now you sit there as if he was nothing but another Mark. How?"

"This!" Che moved forward and aggresively pointed his right index and forefinger at the lifeless sharpshooter behind Freddie. "This is an enemy Freddie. A researcher like us sure, but one contracted to the same assignment as the two of us. Meaning, that if the tables were turned and we had the lead on them, they'd come for us just as ferociously as I've come for them."

Freddie squinted his eyes in disgust.

"Like it or not kid, this is the situation we've found ourselves in. It's not what either of us expected or desired, but it's where we're at, and this..." Che spread his arms out and upward as if presenting the room around himself to Freddie, "...is how we deal with it. And you can blame your goddamn 'Sons of Bastille' for that." Che's arms fell to his sides and waited for Freddie to respond.

Eyebrows furrowed and fists still clenched, the young analyst stared at the ground in front of him for a few moments, contemplating Che's argument. His mind returned to the events surrounding Duski and the underground TECAP facility.

"We need to go back to the Plates."

>>3147125
Being hipster before it was a thing is not really an example of being pretentious.

Also, massive projection of insecurities.

Overall, I see no value at all in what you have written.

>>3147121
I liked it. Although I can't say the writing style's revolutionary, I glanced at the paragraph describing the guy dying on the pavement and it spurned me on to read the whole thing. So, good work, I suppose.
I'd pirate your book if that's what it's going to be.

Oh yeah
>Or was I living a failed purpose.
That should have a question mark.

>Also, here's some flash fiction I wrote up while I was dealing with writer's block with my novel:
“You look desperate for change.”

“What?”

“I said, ‘it’s like your tiny, miniscule, pointless world is crumbling around you, and because your mind holds such a small and simple amount of real experiences, you simply don’t know how to combat it.’”

“Uhm… What?”

“Your mind is bruised black and blue with the repetitious nature of this small enclosed desert, and you’re hitting a breaking point.”

“Have we met?”

“Depends on how you define ‘met.’”

“Have we ever conducted a conversation with each other before, or is this our first interaction?”

“That’s not specific enough.”

I let out a long, tired, frustrated sigh which retained a special emphasis on frustrated as I attempted to openly convey my irritation with the person sitting on the other side of the eggshell-white table I had situated myself at, alone, in the corner of the In-N-Out Burger. My new conversation partner seemed completely unabated by my rudeness and continued to stare at me, waiting for a response. I furrowed my eyebrows and spoke.

“What’s your name?”

“David.”

“That’s… a man’s name.”

“Fine, Daisy then. Yours?”

“David”, I replied plainly. “Are you sure we haven’t met?”

>>3147151
>(cont.)
‘Meeting’ a new person is a curious experience. It’s also one that’s difficult to put value on during the instant in which it’s occurring. In the first few seconds during which you begin communicating with this new being, you don’t calculate and decipher whether this entity that has entered your life is important or will further whatever set of goals you have deemed as important in your overarching lifelong development. No. Instead, in these first few seconds, you’re simply looking at another human, engaging them at a very base level. Many times you don’t move past this base level, Eg. You enter a bank on a blistering summer’s day to make a deposit of a check that you have received from your place of work. Upon entering the bank you quickly notice a substantial line of twelve or so people all just as sweaty and wet and tired and disgusting as you are. You take your place in line and in a few moments another sweaty man walks into the bank and takes his place behind you. You notice the massive sweat-spots that have formulated themselves(and are now running rampant) upon his baggy cotton heather-gray tee, origin points of which are located at his sternum, belly-button, and both of his deep armpits. Making eye-contact with the sweaty man, you state, “too damn hot out, isn’t it?” To which he vehemently concurs, ecstatic to have found someone empathetic to his temperturatic dilemma. For the remainder of the time both you spend in the bank, and for no discernible reason, neither of you make the attempt to speak to the other again.

>>3147153
>(cont. 2)
This ‘meeting’, and in extension, your relationship with this man does not develop any further. Aside from concluding that he was a particularly sweaty person, you in the end pass no real judgement on he who stood behind you and the twelve or so other sweaty and annoyed individuals in the bank which you bi-weekly frequent. You don’t view him as someone to manipulate, as someone who might be useful to you, or as someone you need devote your brain’s limbic system to. He’s just someone you met, and as such he quickly falls into the dark recesses of your subconscious.

By these standards, David… I would say yes, we have met.

This is, roughly, what was explained to me by the Daisy character sitting across from me in the corner of the In-N-Out Burger with an eggshell-white table innocently separating the two of us.

>>3147129
Very pulp and cliche but that's fine. Conventions are used for a reason.

One thing though, it may be because I am not familiar with the characters' names and the context but it was a bit hard to keep straight who was saying what, due to the way you formatted cutting in and out of dialogue. It is probably just familiarity with the names, though.

Also, they talk the same. Each character, ideally, should sound distinct and while these guys are saying different things and clearly have different sets of beliefs they still sound like the same person.

>>3147150
oops fuck. Appreciate it man! :D Thank you for taking the time to read it.

>>3147160
>Also, they talk the same. Each character, ideally, should sound distinct and while these guys are saying different things and clearly have different sets of beliefs they still sound like the same person.

Greatly appreciate the input. Discerning two individuals via their dialogue is something I often struggle with and definitely need to work on. Any suggestions or practices you might be able to impart?

>>3147151
>>3147153
>>3147155
I couldn't read this. Opening with dialogue is not a good idea. Opening with this much dialogue is just stupid, especially if it is as overbearing and decontextualized as this.

It sounds like the part of a one man show where he breaks the fourth wall by winking at the audience as he goes off on some long, preachy monologue. Unbearable.

>>3147127
This is a pretty huge compliment, considering it's 4chan. Thanks a lot, man. Anything in particular you would change? It is sci-fi, by the way.

>>3147177
Just write the character, even if it feels forced or cartoonish you have to exaggerate. Chances are it only seems that way to you and it's always easier to tone down character than to build it up.

Every character you write should have some drive in the story, something they want and that motivates them. Use that as the basis of how they carry themselves both in action and dialogue. Whenever you write that character remember what their central drive is to keep you focused.

Ms. Swithensby arrived in a huff, her hair askew, her best Sunday dress looking more like a dust cloud if anything else. He look sat upon her face was one of sheer rage. Mr. Dibbles-Contworth, rather ruffled by the unexpected appearance of his lady-friend tried to contain his laughter but was unable to hold it for more than three seconds. Ms. Swithensby gave him one look and upon seeing him now possessed with what could only be described as the spirit of Gelos himself, felt the anger drift out of her body. Approaching him, she uttered only three sentences.

"Damn I hate a shy bitch. Don't you hate a shy bitch? Yeah I ate a shy bitch."

>>3147190
>Just write the character, even if it feels forced or cartoonish you have to exaggerate
That was a bit mangled.

I meant to say something more like, "Just exaggerate the character, even if it feels forced or cartoonish"

>>3147190
I get you.
I'll throw this into my 'writing practices' folder on my phone. Thanks a lot man, I appreciate it.

>>3147197
>Yeah I ate a shy bitch.
11/10

>>3147121
Why is it that the worst writers are always so attracted to first person?

Scrap this, keep reading and keep practicing but please, no more first person narrators. No one is interested in your super unique perspective on the world. Focus on telling a compelling story, the rest will certainly come later.

>>3147197
>He look sat upon her face was one of sheer rage
huh

>>3147217
It's not mine personally, I tried to build it for the character, that way the reader would always have a slight inkling as to why he does the things that he does, that way in certain scenes instead of describing the why I can focus on the how. But I respect your opinion and thank you for taking the time to read it.

>>3147178
Yeah, I it all just comes from a really personal place, and that's the issue. I never expect anyone to relate to this kind of stuff. Just wanted to throw it out there and get a response.

I get very hot and cold critiques on that piece.

Wrote a sonnet about a king's assassination in my junior year of high school. Always liked it, never showed it to anyone. What do you think?
To drink the wealth of ochre grape and wine

A hark, amber laughs in the face of fates.

He mocks the masks of earthly, lone divine,

A jade of trumps, a golden glaze of high gates.

His doom designed in pulpit eyes of grief.

A shade bears fruit, dark daggers in the night

Plunged into flourished flesh. He sighs relief

While the world drifts off, a rancid respite.

His throne, sand and sulfur in semblances,

Horses and legions in marauding mists.

Scrolls of empty cloaks and remembrances,

His life is ashes, a kingdom desists.

Though time embers slates of these bloodless things,

Thus is music marking the death of kings.

>>3147225
If first person is the only way you know how to show a character's motivations you are not ready to be taken seriously.

Describe "how" and "what" well enough and ideally "why" should become implicit. There is intrigue in "why", intent is often where a story finds a good deal of depth.

If you are saying you wrote like garbage deliberately it does not save you from the fact that what you wrote is still garbage.

>>3147254
To be clear, I am not attacking you. I just don't like it when a person hides behind excuses and calls it an explanation.

>>3147254
First person only really works when you're using an unreliable-narrator.
EG: Fight Club.

>>3147270
>fight club
ha

>>3147274
Don't tell me /lit/ is like the rest of 4chan that hates anything that's remotely popular.

>>3147280
who gives a shit if it's popular

palahniuk is a hack

>>3147245
Work on your rhythm, son!

>>3147265
No, totally understood, it was just an attempt, now I know what to steer clear of. :D

>>3147316
>:D
no, please.

Small poem I'm working on. I need some honest feedback.

While traveling a road during one deep night,
one thousand little fires bloomed on the trees around me.
I watched them ignite slowly from embers to candle flame.
Like small paper laterns.


These one thousand lights surrounded me,
and reflected in my eyes the pattern of the stars that I seek.

This orchard is ablaze with life and a beauty that dances into the night.
The sentinels guard the entrance.
They can see the truth.

I have such a long way to go
before I can enter there,
and so I continue on my path.

here

Im tired of hiding the person ive become,
tired of shunning the things that i have done.
you opened the window, so i took the door.
i took no mercy, i showed know shame,
i played right into your twisted little game
yet im to blame, and your so sane.
you've twisted your thoughts to suit your brain
your conscious has fought you but yet you remain, constantly fighting constantly insane.
you lack pity
but your all the same constantly stabbing my wounds grow deeper
shredding my flesh the knife deeper, all i wanted was to keep her.
yet you defeat her, now i m left to seek her.
my blood has thickened its running short
my days are numbered im in a distort.
You left me broken , im losing all hope.
If it weren't for the thought i wouldn't cope.
But i wont be left broken so sick and ashamed
ill rise to the challenge, Defeating your game.
Ill drill a spike through the part of your that thinks your sane
and ill tattoo you the place of the blame
right on the source
right on your mane.

Gonna post some commentary + a poem of my own to enliven this thread a tad.
First, my majigger:

1/10th

Done
do I turn back to marked lines crossed with
Ache

from ankles that grind
against what pivot turns

provide; with calves
that bear no more tense shifts and

sharp stabs; thighs
clumped on marrow cease sure a drive.

Yet
in this pen, I realize my time lies
Ten a
head.

So winds
my count again.

Comments in the next post, since dumbass /lit/ thinks this is too long.

>>3147245

The rhythm's off, that kinda dilutes things. Otherwise I dunno what to say about this one. Nothing stands out but nothing's really terrible either. It's written well, but I'm not sure its well written. Fix the rhythm and you'll probably clear up a lot of those issues.

>>3147404

This starts off okay, although hackneyed. Everybody and their momma's done a firefly/flame/star comparison and extolling the beauty of nature like that doesn't bring anything original to the table. Then you digress into these sentinels and I'm not entirely sure who you're referring to - the fire lights? Why are they guarding the orchard? What is the truth they see? It's vague. Give the reader at least an indication of what you're referring to. I may be missing something, I dunno, because all I'm seeing is a noncommittal "i'm searching for some form of meaning/purpose/purity that I don't yet have" message that doesn't devote much to either an original way of attaining one or more of those things or an original meaning/purpose/purity/whatever. Elaborate on either aspect and rephrase some of the cliche sayings.

>>3147475

You're telling to us as opposed to showing and you're not using rhyme and rhythm to accentuate the point of your poem. Big fuccin problems bruv. Another big one is that you're discussing relationship issues in such a god damn cliched way it borders on being absolutely awful. The appropriations of language aren't skillfully used either - a distort? defeat your game? How do you "defeat" a system that's designed around play? No offense but you should probably read some more poetry or at least study the mechanics of some before you try again, it's not just prose with line breaks.

I posted this on /lit/ the other day, but I've changed it a lot. This is a synopsis for a story I'm going to write. I'm still working on it, just thought I'd share it here if it piques anyone's interest.

Brian Kaustinen is living in the year 2240, where technology has evolved greatly, but morality and ethics have devolved abhorrently. In 2240, Government has been abolished, and Ostcrest (the country in which most of the Earth’s population resides) is controlled by the Corporation (A-pex incorporated). Within Ostcrest, it is mandated that when a baby is birthed, specialists are to replace their eyes, ears, tongue, and nose with versions of these bodily parts that have been wired to allow the Corporation to control these senses with the push of a button, leaving the citizens of Ostcrest blissfully ignorant of the wrongdoings happening within the sectors of the Corporation. There is a small quantity of specialists employed due to the Corporation’s wariness of the citizens that apply for the position, and because of this, the work is not done as precisely as it should be done. There are babies whose senses have not been replaced properly, and Brian is one of them. Brian’s tongue and nose were replaced, but his eyes and ears seem to have been forgotten about by the specialists.
Over the years, Brian has been exposed to the dishonesty and deceit of the Corporation. He’s fully aware of the lies that are being fed to the citizens of Ostcrest, but knows he cannot do anything about it, so every day he continues to work his job the Corporation has chosen for him (packing meat), and chooses to abide by societal and Corporate norms, because he knows that to deviate would be suicide.

1/2 because too long

>>3147647
It is on the third of January that Brian runs into someone like himself. Her name is Roslyn Revel, and she, too, has had her senses not properly operated on when she was birthed. Though both of their cases are similar, there are some differences. She had the correct number of senses replaced, but they were replaced very carelessly and ineptly. Her nose is significantly malformed, as well as her eyes. The specialists didn’t think that the deformation of these features inhibited the functioning of them, so they never repaired her nose and eyes. Despite what the specialists concluded, her deformed features operate just as well as they look. Because these features do not perform like the Corporation wants them to perform, the corruption of the Corporation has been unveiled to her over the span of her entire life (19 years).
Since most facial features are replaced at birth, Ostcrest’s population is of proper facial symmetry. Due to exterior beauty being common, Roslyn has been alienated from society for not exhibiting the standards of beauty that are present in 2240.
When Brian first runs into Roslyn, he takes note of her unconventional countenance. He becomes intrigued with her, as he’s never seen someone like her before. He’s become accustomed to the typical petite nose and large (though unexpressive) brown eyes which are contemporary in 2240, and to see a woman whose attributes depart from that standardized idea of beauty was, well, fascinating to him. Brian wanted to discover more about her. After his shift, he approached Roslyn. Initially, Roslyn was very apprehensive about Brian’s slight gestures of friendship. Others initiating friendly conversations with her did not happen often, and when it did, it was usually a joke. But after a while, she started to ease up and relax. After speaking for quite some time, they both went home.

2/2

They say you are what you eat, and I wanted so badly to be human.

There was a period of time in my life during which everyone kept pestering me with redundant questions. What made me do it? And the way they treated me- like I was some sort of monster. They kept telling me that I was the crazy one, that I was the one who couldn’t understand. What audacity this cruel world has to empower the psychiatrists and judges and mindless bureaucrats while the innocent and sane are subject to the injustice of this oh so free nation of ours. Have I not helped your glittery world of butterflies and cupcakes and bubble-blowing, frolicking through endless meadows of sweet-scented daisies? Is this not what you wanted? Is this not what everyone wanted?

--------an oversized white iphone hovers above the algebra classroom, revolving slowly in place. children seated in rows underneath bask in the warmth of its glow. grid lights in the roof reflect off its sleek steel back as it begins to face us. at this angle a hidden crack is revealed, spread vertically across the surface of glass. it splits the obsidian screen, shattering the illusion.

--------a cold washes over the room as the students one by one realize there is no teacher at the board. they begin an absent minded chatter that rises to a roar, as the temperature steadily drops. jake is the first to break from his chair and he stands on his desk, fists bundled and angry. the class jumps out of their seats, tear textbooks from the shelves and hurl calculators across the room. michael is ripping posters from the wall and sarah has stolen teacher's red rolling chair. chris is emptying backpacks onto the floor and jared has vomited into the carpet. mary with pigtails crouches in a corner holding her bag tight. the iphone crashes.

--------pumpkin spice latte is pouring in from all four walls and a large group gathers to smash the fallen smart phone. they take turns kicking the black face in until its left a fleshy pulp, stamped all over with a waffle sole pattern. the leak has flooded the room multiple inches (up to their ankles) the students jump to their desks to escape. they stand scared on top of their assigned seats as the latte quickly reaches up to their necks and drowns the classroom.

>>3146758

Funny when the criticism this guy gives is better than all of the writing in this thread.

>>3147647

Feels all wrong, especially the narrator's perspective. You're telling us way to much, when you need to show us through this world to engage us. Have you read 1984? If not, I suggest you do that, and use it as a learning guide on the proper way to take the reader through a dystopian world.

Trying to experiment with non-rhyming stuff.

starved of beauty
hunger for change
a lonely feast
of fears for one

indulgence gone
rituals wrought
from pieces of
prior failures

broken mirrors
still reflect a
kaleidoscope
of culled anger

youth and a head
full of snowflakes
with a mouth full
of spiderwebs

old curmudgeon
speaks 'bout a past
gone mundane and
rivers run dry

First paragraph of the novel I'm working on:

I stood on the edge a cliff overlooking a barren plain scorched with the markings of war. Skeletons of tanks, transport vehicles and a few soldiers were scattered across in random configurations and carried with them various levels of decay and rust. I wondered which corpse belonged to which country. They each held with them traces of life; ripped clothes and small trinkets. A light rain fell from a cold and lifeless sky. It smelt faintly of metal and traces of Iodine. It made the harsh landscape soft and almost calm, or maybe even pleasant if you didn’t think too much. In the distance to the west I could see the faint outline of the glow of explosions through the fog. There was a thick fog that had come with the rain. I thought, if I listened close enough, I could even hear the sounds of the bombs, but it might have just been the wind. There was wind too, soft and calm just like the rain. Over in that direction there was once a mighty city, but in a few hours there would be nothing but ruble and living ghosts that would wander the blackened streets covered in ash for a little while before they would vanish along with the city. There would be a deep crater. I wondered if it would fill with rainwater, and maybe even become a pond at some point. That would be nice, I thought to myself as the rain continued to fall around me. I may have even said it out loud.

Here's some shitty poetry. Also poetry is gay and I hate it.


Beauty: A fleeting affair.

Two silhouettes walk,
sun beats softly on their shoulders.
Who knows their troubles?
Be them pebbles or boulders.

Together they trek,
unknown the role they play.
Sounds of machines,
a cacophony of metallic dismay.

—
The senses are drowned,
witness to this living art.
—

Heart is warm,
their ignorance is my bliss.
Smile on my face,
an exhalation of exuberance.

I love that they love
and I feel that they’d feel,
with just a bit more knowledge,
this moving craft they wouldn’t conceal.

—
The senses are drowned,
witness to this living art.
—

The moment has passed,
the picture is gone
I must say farewell,
to the man and his blonde.

The beauty was so fleeting,
but the colors were there
along the mountain’s lines
and within their unkept hair

The tone has been set,
this painting shan’t be forgot,
and the senses are drowned,
witness to this living art.

>>3147647
>>3147653
You want a critique on a synopsis?

What's wrong with you?

>>3147786
>I stood on the edge a cliff
I don't even know why I still bother responding.

Please, at least proof read what you have written one time before giving it to others to look over.

>>3147809
He came up with it while tripping and thinks the only way to work on it is to trip again, lol.

>>3147702
>in my life during which everyone kept pestering me with redundant questions.

Your use of redundant is redundant, lol.

>>3147786
Accidentally deleted my post.


Please proofread your writing before posting it.

Thanks.

>>3147819
Not really.

They could be pestering him with questions that are not redundant, he chose to make that distinction.

>>3147819
>>3147826
>There was a period of time in my life during which everyone kept pestering me with one question.

I think this might be an improvement.

I wouldn't use pestering, though, among other things.

>>3147702
Not really worth critiquing.

Scrap this one, move on, keep practicing.

The weather on that day in that town had been overcast since the sun rose in the morning, beginning its journey across the sky. Now, with the heavenly body a little more than halfway through its trek, it began to rain. Jay ducked into an alcove, seeking respite from the deluge. Thunder rumbled nearby. Jay’s eyes wandered to a hanging sign above the doorway he was standing in. The sign proclaimed “BAR” to those who would read it. His curiosity piqued, Jay entered.
It was a simple affair, a thin room with a lone chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The place must have been swanky in its heyday, but its wood panelled walls were beginning to peel and the chandelier was much too dim to inspire any dreams of high society. Photographs of cities much more prosperous than this one were framed on the walls, wooden chairs and tables lining the sides of the room. A radio somewhere played a slow piece of jazz, sounding tinny compared to the thunder outside. At the end of the room were the bar and its bartender, an Asiatic woman dressed in blue jeans and a white sleeveless shirt, black hair falling down behind her shoulders. She was polishing a glass that had definitely seen better days. Jay moved forward and sat at the bar.

>>3147826
Well, it's not completely redundant, but you already described the questions as annoying, it's half-implied. Just looking at that, it's arguably acceptable but in the context of the whole excerpt, it simply doesn't work. Right after that sentence, you ask a single question. Right after describing the questions as "pestering", "redundant" and plural.

I'm not sure if you were trying to give an example of the questions asked (which is stupid) or just asking a rhetorical question totally irrelevant to the opening sentence of the paragraph discussing questions, because you said 'me'. Which is even more stupid.
I stopped there when I made that post. Now I've read through the whole thing, right after that second sentence, you begin with an And. I don't care about it being grammatically incorrect, because it's clearly informal but why would he need to catch a breath on the third fucking sentence?

It continues, the whole thing is amateur, bad writing. What sucks is that not only is the story told like crap, what you're struggling to get through is so overdone and you've so, so little to say about it.

B+, keep your head up.

>>3147603 here, just commenting on some more stuff. (Reference is to contextualize my critique given the quality of my content which is up 4 u 2 decide dawg)

>>3147738

Seems kinda gay tbh. Bereft of substantive content bar that bullshit commentary on commercialism that doesn't provide a solution. Will probably get you far as hell in the alt lit. world though if you make your style a bit more esoteric. I'd say keep it up if you want.

>>3147781
I like the dandruff metaphor. Reads like something about the boomers and what they failed to do as a generation. Not sure what the 4 syllable, 4 line rhyme scheme does for you though, unless its meant to reflect the boxing-in of the boomers by the system they once looked to undermine. p. good IMO, thought it was shit at first read.

>>3147803

The rhythm is this is weird but there's definitely potential in what you're saying about the process of creating art. The repetition of "the senses are drowned" doesn't do much for me before the end stanza really. What does "Sounds of machines,/a cacophony of metallic dismay" refer to? Not sure how that relates. Make the syllable count read naturally and you'll get your point across a lot better since the poem will read more easily.

>>3147851
I find your patronizing tone amusing, especially considering I was not the person that wrote that.

And isn't a B+ quite generous? How do you feel about Kafka, would you give him an A or would he be closer to an A+?

>>3147867
It doesn't matter if you were the author, I'm assuming he's monitoring for responses to what he posted, what I said might be directed at you but no less open to him.

Kafka is a flat D. Lacking in a variety of literary devices, illegible handwriting, inappropriate language and content, clear misunderstanding of the semicolon and blatant refusal to follow the prompt.

>>3147860
>Bereft of substantive content bar that bullshit commentary on commercialism that doesn't provide a solution.
Is not providing a solution a problem? I was just making humor, it's more on media stereotypes and social trends than commercialism, in my opinion. I think it's more of a silly undermining than any sort of commentary.

>Will probably get you far as hell in the alt lit. world though if you make your style a bit more esoteric.
That's what I was told last time I posted something here, but most of the alt lit stuff I dig up seems like Sincere, emotional poetry. Which is the opposite of diluted, culture based stereotypes. He told me to read Blake Butler's the Disappeared, which I guess shared some similarities in the abstract world but it was written much better than me and actually tried and accomplishing having substance.

>I'd say keep it up if you want.
What do you think of my writing? I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just trying to make it flow, and not repeat words.

>>3147892
Makes sense that you were the one that wrote that.

The more I gaze into this reflection, the more I find myself blinded by it. Yet I cannot look away.
If I am to avoid this flowery fate, it is not enough to attempt placing my focus on the flora while these locomotives scream down the rails to meet each other with momentous finality.
Extreme action has to take place.
Removal of the means, in which the continuation of this solitary game of blind man's bluff are enabled, must occur or death will precociously be met. No patricide required, these eyes shall be gouged out. I will crush the mirror to dust within my palm but I will fear naught, as a man is unable to find anything in that which he cannot observe. An astronomer gazing into the heavens no longer. My path through the halls of this cavernous labyrinth will be found by hand and foot, not by waiting for the stars to align.

This is something I wrote the other day when I first woke up. May turn the imagery into a poem. There may be grammar mistakes?

>>3147897
Yeah, probably.

What do you think of my writing?

>>3147245
>>3147404
>>3147475
As I read these I thought "stop putting periods an commas at the end of every line." let it flow more and use some enjambment to keep it from getting to sing-songy.
>>3147781
I hate you

>>3147910
Why?

>>3147908
Self serving wankery.

Your ego is unbearable, as is your cowardice.

>>3147892

I think your writing's technically good but I didn't really see the humor in just having lol randumb xD situations happen when those situations aren't happening in a way that's innovative. Whoo, lattes drown the class room, whoo, without caretakers kids are shitbag savages, whoo the iPhone's ~got defects~. I dunno, that doesn't work for me. That's not to say what you're putting out is bad or not relevant, it's just not in my vein.

I'm not even a shoe-in for "sincerity", whatever that means, I'm just not drawn to somethin' if it doesn't have a point or if it isn't presented newly. Honesty to oneself comes out through what you put down, so acting as if "sincere" won't be the base state for most writers' works (whether that sincerity is obfuscated or not) seems kinda silly to me. In your piece I'm not seeing much originality in idea or presentation, just a lot of polish. Which is damn good, certainly, but again, not my cup of tea on its own.

Maybe it's because I don't find what you wrote humorous b/c I'm sick of seeing that topic touched upon in a manner that just recognizes its dominance in the mainstream...and then lets it stick around, without making it feel uncomfortable. I'd say a hell of a lot of media stereotypes and social trends are defined by consumerist behavior, though - what marks that hipster shithead who fucked your bitch? Skinny jeans, or black-rimmed glasses, or [insert whatever product you associate with people you dislike here]. not his/her skin color or ethnic identification.

I'd like to know what you thought of my poem if you read it, honestly, it's this one here >>3147603

since i've talked about a lot of other ppls stuff i'd like to here some comments about my stuff back plz ;__;

>>3147916

holy fuck, *hear some comments

it's 1 in the morning forgive my grammatical transgressions

http://pastebin.com/NGL8siVK

I am not a native English speaker and translated it by myself, so don't go too much into the grammar errors if possible.
I would love to hear some stuff about the style of my writing and why it sucks. Thanks!

>>3147915
Okay. How do you figure cowardice? What about the actual writing, like the words and grammar?

>>3147916
Sincerity was just alluding to the "New Sincerity" movement or philosophy or whatever. I was reading an article about it earlier, this isn't it but it seems about right:
http://htmlgiant.com/haut-or-not/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-the-new-sincerity/

I'm not really sure what I meant to do with it, I guess.
I dunno if I was mocking the idea of mocking iphones and starbucks or just playing along. If you read it as a simple attack on pop culture and not as a satire of itself, I must've fucked up on my part, if that's what I was going for but honestly I'm not sure. I need to have a better idea what I'm trying to do with it. I think I might have something similar written pulpier, that gets the humor across better.

I liked your poem. I skimmed through the thread, it was the only one I read that didn't jump out at me as awkward crap (also that one pastebin link). The 1/10th Done confused me, I think because of the picture fucking up the layout, I still don't understand the first stanza. The rhythm and flow is solid, the breaks work. "sure a drive" feels a little awkward, I think because it mentally sounds close to "provide", which makes a very off beat rhyme.

I didn't understand the end starting with "Ten a head."
I didn't get the beginning or end. What I could gather, I thought was very solid. Well, I didn't really understand the middle either, "calves that bear no more tense shifts" or "thighs clumped on marrow cease sure a drive."

No, I couldn't find the point at all, but I enjoyed it. The word choice is sharp and the flow is, well, very poetic. Substance was lost on me.

>>3147942
>(also that one pastebin link).
Not you,
>>3147923

If it's not cheating, if you don't mind, here's a couple other quick things I've shat out:

----TJ bursts through the door onto the family finishing dinner and falls to the floor, sobbing, and throws up all over the burgundy carpet. Dad reaches for the telephone but Ginger stops him by the wrist. Their eyes meet. "Not yet," she whispers. Mother stands up, and kneels next to poor, dry-heaving TJ. There, there. She reaches into the pile of black sludge and pulls out a Verizon RAZR. There, there.

----A dinner knife swings down into Marianne's back, through the flowerprint dress, with perfect poise. "Ah!" she lets out, dropping the white plates. They fall to the floor with a "crash!", ceramic shards sent everywhere. The hooded figure throws up his head and laughs ("ha! ha!"). He exits out the flyscreened back door.
----Working class Bobby returns to find his blonde counterpart face down on their newly tiled kitchen floor, a layer of velvet blood surrounding her. He drops his briefcase with a "huh?!" It hits the floor sending papers everywhere, covering sweet Marianne in a blanket of stained taxed reports.

Do you think your take on the iphone thing changes with this stronger context? Or is it still so transparent? Don't try to force your interpretation into what I want, I'm interested to know how it's received coming from other perspectives. My take on my own stuff is mostly in hindsight, as well.

Posted in another thread but I wouldn't mind a little extra "exposure".

http://thestoneycreekpapers.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/getting-carried-away-little-bits-of-all-of-us-g
o-just-a-little-crazy-sometimes/

It's kind of weird due to its being a product of alcohol induced stream of consciousness. Praise, constructive criticism, and suggestions will be appreciated in that order.

>>3148048
lol 4chan fucked up the link

>I’m standing on the edge, watching my feet so I don’t go over, when suddenly I realize that this is the only way all of this could have ended.

the suddenly is a terrible start.

Shouldve gotten more drunk, this "stream of consciousness" feels very forced and tryhard, like you were as self-aware of its 'weirdness' writing it as you are now.

Tryhard attempts at larger ideas:
>I would rather be cool and nauseous than square.
>The cities burn and I stand there on the edge and watch.
>Somehow it just feels right. Like when you’ve been away for a long time and you finally get home.
>Maybe it’s still sad, but only if I’m looking out from my own eyes.
>They’re about the only eyes I can look out from these days,

Woops I just pasted most of your opening 2 paragraphs. I didn't read past that. It's not a problem of just jumping from idea to idea, the problem is you've no insight at all to any of these boring ideas, it's not even exploring cliches, you're simply describing them.

It's terrible. Keep trying.

>>3148066
Point taken on the clichedom. Winging it never yields anything at first. Will attempt to refine my abilities.

I wish you had at least made it to the bit about glory holes, if only to brashly compare me to an even worse Chuck Palahniuk and post a gif of somebody looking unimpressed.

>>3147942

1/10th is the title, Done is where it starts. I probably should've specified that when posting it, my b bout that. I tried in that poem to compare running a distance to serving out a prison sentence and in some sense to writing, since "pen" in that context can be inferred as either pen the writing tool or pen as in prison. I don't know if I need a word related to track activities to kind of tie that together, though - "marked lines" is kind of vague, although I like the double entendre it puts out.

Yeah the cease sure a drive part is funky, when I first wrote it I didn't like it, although I'm not sure what exactly to replace it with, since that tells ppl that the speaker's desire to push ahead is kinda nonexistent. Ten a/head is meant to imply the speaker's in there for multiple murders and realizes he's obligated to go the distance, regardless of the current suffering he feels from "running" through the prison life

Would a different title help? I put 1/10th because at my college there's an indoor track I run that's 1/10th of a mile and I was gonna try and reference that, but it didn't exactly pan out.

Thanks for reading, appreciate honest critique.

Even if your piece is a satire of itself, so what? I mean, that's kinda cute I guess, but it sounds masturbatory to create something just to take shots at what its portraying within the work itself that you just created. You know what I'm saying? But that's just me, and I dunno, I'm not the best at analysis.

Continued below, field too long.

>>3148770

>>3147949

These here are weird because to me they read like excerpts from larger pieces as opposed to your first one, which is kinda a story in itself. I like the 2nd one, feels like a 50s-ication of a murder and its discovery. Velvet blood, with perfect poise, blanket of stained tax reports: all stood out as good lines. I like how she's killed by a dinner knife and how the killer gives a jovial chuckle before running off, like a reverse "honey, I'm home" type of encounter.

1st one is weird. I dunno if I can say much about it. Again, it's written well, but you haven't answered why they aren't calling whoever they're calling just yet or why he's got a god damn Verizon RAZR in his black puke, and I don't know if that's supposed to be surrealistic symbolism given that I don't know the context of this sentence in a piece since its by itself.

I dunno if my interpretation of the iPhone thing changes unless these are all supposed to be related somehow. You're going for different points with each piece, so I dunno how exposure to another one would alter my view on the first unless it related to that writing.

>>3147140

What that sounds like to me is "I'm one of those people you were mocking, and am a poor sport."

I have one line that I am kind of attached to, but how do I develop it into a story?

"Henry does not yet know that he is the type of person who vomits when presented with a corpse"

go on then
“I don’t get it,” she said. “Why would you want to take a holiday in a shitty little cottage in the middle of nowhere? Look sweetie, why can’t you just go to Spain like a normal person?”
“It’s an experience, isn’t it?”
*
Friday.
In the back of a sleek black car sits Philip White, sipping whiskey. To his left, the world drops away from the road’s tarmac streak, stretching out into tessellating fields that meet the blue sky at the distant horizon; perfectly flat. Not that he sees it, staring as he is at the glass in his hand; at the way the grooves carved into it with crystal refract light through the liquid. From there, his gaze meanders to the fingers that balance the vessel in their delicate grip. They are long, slender and smooth; they sway slightly when the car teeters, and they are his. And then to the two cuffs that loop around his thin, bald, wrist: black and white, one inside the other, his shirt and jacket. Really, he’s laughably over-dressed. As soon as he gets there he’ll change.

this is the start of a story i was writing, but i've probably given up on it

Clouds formed above the Crystal City and the silence that had remained unbroken throughout the day was now shattered by the sound of heavy raining crashing down on the black iron streets of the 'Artificial City'. Milton looked at his watch, it was just around 12 noon, he sighed deeply, realizing just how long he'd been at this bar. As he rose from his ivory barstool, he tossed the Bartender a 20 and nodded a silent goodbye. A large creaking sound rang out through the bar as he thrust the door open and stepped out into the street, it was almost time for his next job and Milton couldn't be more pleased. The cold wind whipped at his back as he trudged down alleyway after alleyway till he reached Victorious Square, the site of the final battle of the Rosary wars. The square was mostly empty with the exception of a short, nasty looking man peering into some windows, casing the houses around the areas. This man was scum, he was the embodiment of the very things this new government wanted to remove. Milton's work....was about to begin.

Sorry if my punctuation isn't great, I've never been great at it.

He was tugging on the line, alright. I was prostrated on the grass, focused on the thin bit of line connected to my fishing rod that now offered up exciting and captivating tremors, delicious signs of life, to my eyes. I sat there tensed up as though I was a puppet whose strings were firmly and tightly wound to the line, which still remained calm enough to elicit little movement. There was something paralysing about the movement that stressed the line, although I think now that it may have been mostly the relief from the boredom I had endured, slouched in my tent chair for the past hour waiting for a bite. When the moment came I was assailed by doubts over its reality and, in the interim of my catching sight of it and finally yanking the rod and tugging it over my shoulder, all I wanted was for the chewing and movement of the trout on the end to continue. But I went for it, as I said. I came out of my reverie and stumbled forward and awkwardly clasped the rod between my hands, and swung it back with a great heave like one of those axe-hefting, barrel-chested woodsmen. To my glee the line offered up ample resistance, and although I wanted more than anything to pull as hard as I could on the rod to pluck the fish from the river wholesale, and I deftly left the pressure get away from me in order to let the trout struggle a bit, feel him out before I reeled him in. The hook had certainly taken, and the fish began to slip away as one might after an embarrassing little tumble in the street, the dipping line a clear testament to his mistake. I grinned and slowly, methodically started reeling, and I could feel the strength of the line hold as I slowly dragged him back through the dark water to the reedy riverbank. I could feel the jerking and tensing of the line, like the rippling of a straining muscle in the arm.

1/2

I'd have to be careful not to get the little fellow trapped in the mass of reeds before I pulled him out. I'd had intensely irritating occasions where I managed to latch the trout onto big leafy river reeds before, especially when the hook protruded through the curvy, dumbfounded lips of the fish. Solving such a nuisance involved either tugging violently at the line to free it, no doubt an act of unmistakeable cruelty in the pain it would inflict on the poor bugger, or clambering to edge trying to pull in the reed with the attached fish. This clownish scene would have me flat on the messy grass straining to grope out the reeds, and I'd had unfortunate occasions before when I had either tumbled head-first into the muddy slop of water in the bank, or, more horrifically, freed the line only to have the free-flying the hook swing unstoppably in my helpless direction, with it snagging on my person. I'd had a single traumatic incident before in which the hook, fish and all, had swung back in my face and bitten into the chin. I'd yammered away to my friend for help as the slimy fish wriggled against my neck slapping it with his fin and suckling hopelessly on my chin. With these painful memories still fresh, I tried hard to keep the line out of the reeds.

2/2

>>3148770
Hmm, even with you explaining, I don't really see it. Especially not the prison. Like, "marked lines", "grind", "pen" do give me that image, but not very strongly. It doesn't feel like you're talking about a prison at all, and only barely about track. I'd say the literal meaning is hidden too deep, but the level of obfuscation understandable is a standard totally relevant to each individual, someone with a stronger eye for this style might be able to make clear sense of it with no trouble. Because if you can, that means there's a line drawn somewhere. I don't think I'm in the right position for my opinion to hold any weight.

>>3148774
Yeah, I originally developed a voice on twitter, some examples:

>In a wet cave, the next clue leads to Porky's inner stomach. The gang had already come this far... Mickey spits, and whips out his Swiss.
>"Excuse me?" Jack shouts one last time before his sedan sinks fully below water.
>A few minutes into the quiz, Jacob sees his chance: he slips the calculator under the desk, and carefully into his fleshy stomach orifice.

So everything was a quick contextless "excerpt", and I'd have to use something as small as a name to create an image of entire characters. Those little shorts aren't actually excerpts, they start and end there. I didn't want to answer any of it, and I didn't mean to make you ask any questions, just absorb it for what it is.

continued

The "RAZR" is a flip phone, you know, they were heavily marketed on release, something a middle school/high school student would desperately want. So the mom pulling it out could either be her bringing it out of the void as the necessary thing to comfort her son, or as her son taking it "too far" with the phone.
The name TJ was meant to imply being a juvenile, I don't know about you, but I immediately imagine a backwards hat, broad football body with an immature, upsettable personality, so the phone fits the "character". The phone call could've been to the police, or some special doctor, etc. Maybe the Dad wasn't "in" on it. Overall, I just wanted to explore the idea of a family dinner getting barged in on by some situation similar to someone vomiting on the floor, maybe a head explosion or a face melting.

I just thought seeing the other stuff might give a better idea of the overall style and where I'm coming from. I'm still not sure what to make of the anonymous responses. I've been told it's unoriginal a few times, but at the same time, they don't seem to get it and I've never found any similar writing, I dunno if it's just the things I'm making fun of are unoriginal.

1/2
The medicine cabinet above the bathroom sink had two compartments, both of which were filled with various pills and personal hygiene products. The compartments had mirrors on hinges that opened inward for doors,
and in between the two compartments was a stationary mirror of equivalent size. If the doors were both opened to their full extent it would form a triangle of infinite regress. As a little boy ---- would climb onto the counter
and stand in the center of the three mirrors, entranced by the countless reflections of himself looking back at him. When he became a teenager he would return from a bad day of school after an intense marijuana smoking session
and repeat the insults he had been pelted with earlier to himself, maybe with a new one or two he had thought up on the way home, in this pitiful prism of self loathing. This continued on until he hit senior year.
He decided that instead of putting his head in his self-titled "faggot funhouse", that he would put it in the oven.

>>3151497
Unfortunately his parents had switched to electric before he was even born, rendering this poetic method of
self-termination impossible. Luckily his father had a .22 revolver that he left in his joint office and workroom, which was left unlocked due to a lack of perception into the boy's mental state. ---- picked up the pistol,
placed it in his mouth, pulled back the hammer, and stopped - he couldn't do it. Not here, not without an audience. As he walked up the stairs on his way to the bathroom, euphoria washed over him with such strength he almost
lost his balance and he felt a sudden sense of terror. He smiled, how humorous it was that his fear of heights still held such power over him. For the last time ---- entered the bathroom and stuck his head in the center
of his hateful triumverate. As he had been leaning back against the counter with his head pressed up against the center mirror, the contents of his mind had made an angry red kaleidoscope within. ---- had finally broken free
of his torment, and he had inadvertently started our story.


I feel like I may have traveled through cliché city and grammar mistake town with this, criticism would be very appreciated.

>>3151500
Also name suggestions would be appreciated. Finding it hard to name a character when he's loosely based on myself.

>>3149067
Sounds like the beginning of a mystery thriller with an unlikely protagonist.

>>3151503
John

>>3152260
Already considered that name, but it is far too similar to my own.

>>3152468
Tom

>>3151500
>I feel like I may have traveled through cliché city and grammar mistake town with this
Yes.

>If the doors were both opened to their full extent it would form a triangle of infinite regress.
Just the main topic of your story stood out to me immediately as a hamfisted cliche.
>after an intense marijuana smoking session
lol
>in this pitiful prism of self loathing.
lol, this reads like satire
>that he would put it in the oven.
>rendering this poetic method of
self-termination impossible.
You're even making fun of yourself here for your lack of creativity or imagination.
> which was left unlocked due to a lack of perception into the boy's mental state.
lol
>He smiled, how humorous it was that his fear of heights still held such power over him
lol
> his hateful triumverate
hahaha
>and he had inadvertently started our story.
oh god

Man, you can't even come up with a name that isn't yours to represent you. I think the problem is you've probably a very stifled intake of culture, read more/better books, watch more/better movies, listen to more/better music, dig into history and go to some galleries/museums (I'd suggest starting with photography, it's a lot easier to brush up on context than say, painting).
And not your highschool reading, not Fight Club and Kubrick, not hardcore or alternative rock or black metal. Some people you can actually learn from. You're not going to be able to make anything good unless actually have an eye for what's good.

For names, watch the credits of a movie, there are a lot of good names in there.

>>3152520
I was trying to make the situation seem a little ridiculous, but it looks like I failed as it just reads as shit-writing.

I'm surprised at the lack of creativity comment though, I thought the mirror idea was interesting although it may have been poorly executed.

I know the lines you pointed out aren't great but could you be more specific as to why they are so laughable? Would be appreciated so I could learn from my mistakes.

>>3151503
Jangendorfus
Heinrich
Xeretos

>>3151500
>I feel like I may have traveled through cliché city and grammar mistake town with this, criticism would be very appreciated.
That's the only good part about your post.

>>3151503
Abe

>>3152578
>I know the lines you pointed out aren't great but could you be more specific as to why they are so laughable?

> which was left unlocked due to a lack of perception into the boy's mental state.
This line is particularly convoluted. 'Perception' is not a very appropriate noun to use there, something like 'insight' would fit better.

>He smiled, how humorous it was that his fear of heights still held such power over him
I don't find this line very believable considering you preceded it by saying the boy felt a sudden sense of terror. So you are putting the reader in a position where he has to make sense of this total shift in feeling and I don't think you've done it adequately enough for the reader to make that jump on his own. Even a 'in spite of this [...] he smiled' might make the shift a little more believable. It's not a major thing altogether, so I suspect the big reason why this line is being laughed at is that the rest of the standard of the writing isn't strong enough to adequately bear the use of this technique (sorry).

I think you're a little too eager to impose your ideas and your voice on the story, and this is typically detrimental if you can't present a story that can stand well enough by itself already.

>>3152610
Glad I can always count on /lit/ for a good ego-squashing.

>>3152635
Keep writing, you'll get better. It was absolute shit. Nobody writes well for a while.

The winter sun sets for fun.

That's my opening. I'm working on the rest.

>>3152633
It wasn't well thought out, this was a stream of consciousness write after I got home from the gym brought on by the medicine cabinet at my parent's house popping into my head. The method of the character's suicide could definitely use more work.

That quick shift of mood is too rapid, thanks for pointing that out.

My thought pattern was that this would be an introduction to a story in which the suicide didn't have large impact, and would only be casually referenced once the story progressed.

>>3152662
>this was a stream of consciousness write
You're using that term incorrectly.

Together we entwined, sat, on a bench, her head on my shoulder. We were linked. Her stockinged leg (she was one of those classy girls) rubbed mine, coiling around my leg, as if she were trying to light it; a bottle rocket headed to the moon. Her hand snaked into mine under that overcast August sky, her perfume gently, carefully swimming with mine. The bench was green, Hunters or fir, (she would know the difference) and slick from last night's rain. Maia was embracing my frail body, holding me still, keeping me in check. She gripped a Thin Finger and blew a shale smoke ring like Mae West, sat across from a private investigator.
"Aromatic," she always said, "Like smoking a stick of cinnamon."

My hands running through her hair. And she was draped onto me. For that minuscule moment, drawn out forever there was beauty. Before this, I was just another confused kid, trying to plant my flower, guard it, let it bloom on a cliff face. But then Maia tumbled into my life and everything didn't change. That is, until now.

A segregated copse of green-blue held at the valley's deepest trough the circumference of a rippled pool, who's perfect aspect echoed that glory that hung above it.
A pillared council there remained in continuous congregation, constant chatter with birds for mouths.

It's a wee bit rough, but I kinda like it so far.
I feel it's a bit clumsy perhaps.

>>3153019
I understand what you are trying to convey, but it is hard to understand. As an author, your job is to convey a story. I just see a poorly written landscape there.
Clarity, clarity, clarity. You can keep your pretty words if you can make the sentance clear.
Unless you are Joyce from beyond the grave, you can't be Joyce.
In other words, yes, very clumsy. Go back and clean it.

>>3153027
Aye, It's utter shite thus far. I wasn't trying to emulate anyone, if I'm honest I'm not well read enough to do so.

So basically cut to the chase without pussyfooting about with the pretty words?

>>3153034
Well, pussyfoot your way to hell for all I care; just pussyfoot clearly.
For instance:

At the middle of a valley, like a stabwound across the land, there was a limpid pool, whose water was sweet and fresh. Leaves floated on the surface from the tree nearby.

>>3153045
meh... I prefer the other guys original sentence.
but then again I'm a sucker for pretentious, pretty words.

>>3153054
then, fair trip, you won't like mine, which is here:
>>3153007

>>3153054
Neither of them are in the least elegant.

>>3153059
Well, most things in this thread need work.

Some people start off clumsy with all the nice words and have to make it elegant, others start off with stuff nicely laid out but it being a bit plain.

>>3153071
Plain is always better. Short sentences are always better. "Creative" writing on /lit/ always is garbage.

“What is it?”
Lieutenant-Captain Murovyov stumbled into the captain's quarters. His irises were shrunken, his face the personification of total despair.
“They’re dead, Captain.”
Stefan stood up from his desk.
“Who’s dead? What are you talking about?”
“Everyone, Captain. Everyone is dead.”

Before Michael's wall was the grimy brick one behind Woolworths there had been four of them, whitewashed, inside a modern family home. His bed there had been queen-sized, like now, although not torn or piss-stained. Those were two things he missed: feeling secure and clean. But that was pretty much it. No longer did he live with people he for the most part detested and, although he was, Michael no longer felt alone.

>>3153094

>short sentence are always better

lol

Spanish.
-Qué bien se siente el agua en los pies – Piensa Emiliano, con una sonrisa en la cara – Esta playa es casi perfecta: está vacía, no hay arena molesta, solo un piso de piedra en todo el lago-. Emiliano está sentado en una roca y puede sentir el piso ligeramente resbaloso. Puede hacer patinar cada uno de sus dedos por el suelo casi fangoso por las algas. El agua le llega hasta un poco más abajo de la rodilla. Más allá, Emiliano puede ver a Paula, un perro se había acercado nadando a ella y ahora están jugando de lo más tranquilos, el perro chapotea y salta sobre ella que ríe muchísimo. Más allá del lago está la cordillera, grandes montañas con muchísimos árboles que escalan en posición vertical intentando llegar a la majestuosa punta, solo para verse bloqueados por la nieve que corona la montaña. El cielo está despejadísimo, unas cuantas nubes sin forma pasan por arriba. Está despejado, pero hay justo la cantidad suficiente de nubes para convertir esto en un paisaje despejado perfecto. Si estuviera todo el cielo claro, estaría lleno de cielo.

>>3153179

>michael's bedroom wall

>>3153151

"What about the Purser?"
"Hes dead, Captain".
"And the First Mate?"
"He is, regrettably, also dead, Captain".
"The Quartermaster, and the Captain of Marines?"
"Dead, sir"
"What about Cookie, and The Chief? Mickey and Beetle and what about the Gunnery Officer of the Day?"
"THEY'RE ALL FUCKING DEAD, SIR! HOW ARE YOU NOT UNDERSTANDING THIS?"

>>3153186
>implying Proust wouldn't be 100x better if he'd written sentences like:
It is hard to get to sleep sometimes.
The church was big and pretty.
Albertine seems nice.

>>3153195
Reference secured.

Junior Weapons Operator Harry Tambe didn’t take up the Captain’s offer of a free hotel room. He owned an apartment on the outskirts of New Pallas City and was determined to get his money’s worth out of it. The apartment wasn’t anything special, two rooms, with a kitchen, bath, and bedroom, but he bought it on the cheap and all things concerned it was comfortable. The sixth floor balcony gave Harry a great view of the ravine and forest behind the building. Every morning he would wake up, slip on his slippers, and head out to the balcony, watching the sun rise.

Today was a particularly beautiful day. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, illuminating the legions of trees and painting the sky in a magnificent pinkish hue. The few clouds in the sky were thin and wispy, high in the atmosphere. He could see the glistening of dew drops on the grass below him. The air – he breathed in – crisp and fresh. And he had a whole month to himself… although now it had whittled down to three weeks.

Far off, a highway snaked through the forest, cars moving along in both directions like ants scurrying one after the other. Harry leaned forward on the balcony, taking in the relaxing scene.
Something metal creaked, then groaned. Too late Harry realized it was the balcony itself.
The added weight on the railing caused it snap and give forward, loose screws and rivets rattling all around. Harry, off balance, flew down after it.

Meh.

This land is beautiful. But it is beyond me. The trees, the dirt, the earth. The overpowering height of the cotton trees. The shimmering, pure rocks which fuel the war in this country. Many of my friends claim that we should fight for our country, for our land. But this earth has existed before us, and it will exist after us, even if it no longer has our bodies to fertilize it. I have seen ancient ruins of the great, powerful civilizations of old, of Ghana, of Mali, kingdoms of the most wealthy men this world has ever seen. I have seen the ruins of a village burned down, with corpses strewn across the dirt, with body parts laying shriveled up, miles away from their owner. What is the difference? Our corpses and our stones merely become the ashes which become the dirt. I have never known my father, and my mother died yesterday. My brother, who is only 15, three years older than myself, urges me to hurry across the field. The R.U.F are coming, he says.

PROLOGUE PART 1
“I'VE ALWAYS FELT THAT THE BEST PLACE TO HIDE A BODY IS IN THE TRUNK OF A COP CAR, WITH A NOTE AFFIXED TO THE BODY THAT READS "I'M SORRY"-JAROD KINTZ”

Lights flicker repeatedly, to the point of experiencing convulsion. They light only a small circle of the room, while the rest is an ebony blanket of umbrage and scratching noises. Dust traveled along the airways and matted itself up against my nostrils, forcing a blast of phlegm and whatever remained of the coke that was in my nose out into the open. I was sitting on a highly unstable chair of wood that had been battered from previous victims before it. I was tied to the chair with substantial amounts of burly, heavy rope. My face was a cocktail of blood, bruises, cuts and scrapes; a concoction created from the beatings it had took to get me here in the first place. I assumed I was in a basement of some sort as there were crates of unopened memorabilia and cobwebs scrunched up in the parts that I could see. Did you know we have a natural affinity to see in the dark? Our eyes adapt constantly to the types of environments we go to in order to render visibility so that we can provide ourselves with the comfort of knowing what is coming, and I could see what was coming for me. A big, greasy slab of a man with knuckledusters wrapped tight around his fists and a baseball bat being slung lazily at his side, dragging across the ground and making a shrilling noise with it.

posting some dialogue, please critique and offer improvements:
"How could this happen to me?"
"Hard times, man."
"Don't give me that shit. She should've told me."
"Told you what? That she has a horrible fuckin' tumor and that you're going to break up with her because of it?"
"I wasn't going-I wasn't going to even try that"
"Don't even try that. You know you were."
"Don't condescend me. You wouldn't have done it?"
"Not saying that. I'm saying that your curiosity to her problem piqued because she didn't tell you, and if she did tell you, you'd be a scumbag and dump her."
"And you wouldn't?"
"Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't. Depends on the given situation."
"like what?"
"like if she has a horrible tumor, then no, I wouldn't. But then I'd look at the variables. Was she a bitch to me? Did we have a mutual thing going on? How many times did we fuck? Then I'd decide from there."
"Sex is the deciding factor?"
"It's part of it. If a woman isn't putting out, then it's time to leave. I don't care how much she promises to. If it ain't happenin', it ain't happenin'. She glorifies the pussy but never gives. Fuckin' cocktease man I tell ya."

>>3153337
It's pretty good, IMO you need to make the characters stronger, even when i know who is who it's like they mix too much on their way to be. They change roles pretty hard. (If you don't get my point fuck off, i don't care to explain)

"I'm hungry"
"Nice observation, idiot"
"ok"
Now what to write, what to write? Oh that's it, I'll write about how I was talking to myself for a brief moment and the fact that I decided to write it down. But where do I
go from there? Do I worry myself with the prospects of thought-vocalization? I am already subvocalizing all of my thoughts, essentially talking to myself all day, so what
would be concerning about it? The fact that I did it without intending to? Does this mean I am losing control of my mind? Have I ever really had control? Am I not just a
product of my mind and stimuli? Is it beginning to become annoying that nearly every sentence I have typed is a question? Yes it is. So I must diverge and journey on with another topic.

1/2

>>3153348
Thanks, and yeah I do get your point. I think i need to differentiate the characters a little more and keep them in separate roles. It's for a comedy I'm writing

>>3153353
Instead of asking myself what the next topic should be, I will simply state it: the advantage of the computer literate writer being able to look up any word instantaneously via the internet. This can be a great asset as it saves one the work of opening a dictionary and scanning through it. However, it may be inhibitive to the actual learning of a word as the individual can just look it up and keep going without having to put much thought into the multitude of uses for the word or it's spelling.
This problem may be abstracted from the topic of words to general fact acquisition. If I want to, I can access an immense amount of information within a matter of seconds, but I don't have to remember it as it will be just as readily available in the future. For a day I could be an expert on a wide variety of subjects, but quickly forget all I had learned as I wouldn't have the need to truly know it.

2/2

Just spewed this out of my brain, going to go make some dinner.

>>3153358
Your wordplay is excellent but you kind of get indulgent with the 5 dollar words and it feels really detrimental to the inner monologue.

Hey /lit/

In the opening scene to this short story, a guy wakes up on beach.
Does "He awoke to the coming and going of the surf."
or "He woke to the coming and going of the surf." Sound better as an opening line? Or is there some other combination? "The coming and going of the surf woke him up."? What's the best way to phrase this?

>>3153388

I like the "he woke" one better, it's got a better rhythm and parallelism in syllables

The first Sloth'jari burst through the portal in a shower of seminal fluids, his matted haunchs rank with sweat. A novice guardsmen thrust a spear at him, stumbled, and fell headless at the bellowing beast's three-toed feet. The other guardsmen quailed and ran.

"Magurai!" grated Lord Baroster. Liquid flamed jetted past him in almost indecent spurts, the hairs on his bull-neck sizzling as he watched the Sloth'jari's death-throes with pitiless eyes.

"Magurai!" screamed Lord Baroster.

Someone write a funky psychedelic excerpt for the love of god!

It should have humor, wit, rhythm, and solid characters.

>>3153390
Yeah, you're right, I see that now. Thanks man.

>>3153399
What's up with that repitition? Seminal fluids?

>>3153399

The repetition was a mistake, sorry!

What's up with seminal fluids?

>>3153358
only part I like is last line but it's not bad.

>>3153411
I'm just confused as to why a creature would burst through a portal covered in semen. Maybe it's because the scene is out of context, though.

>>3153456
maybe the portal is like a big semen waterfall and the demon has to burst through it.

>>3153474
Shit son, I dunno, maybe? If the author had made that clear I wouldn't have been confused about it. The passage was out of context.

http://pastebin.com/iB5AxT48

Pastebin'd because field too long. A group of soldiers defend a police station. Generic sci-fi scene.

>>3153399
For some reason gay Warhammer: 40K fanfic is what comes to mind after reading this. What's with the seminal fluid?

But Jack Dinnith was here on serious business, and serious he was as he took his place near the microphone. It was a very important day for that microphone, the sort of day that can make or break and entire career. That microphone was about to carry Jack Dinnith’s speech through the entire conference hall and his voice was a heavy burden for anyone to bear. It could not give out any feedback during the speech, and heaven forbid if it was staticky when Jack Dinnith began to speak as happened with many other microphones during the most important of times such as when the front man of a garage rock band awkwardly says “Hello” to the crowd on their first concert. All this pressure made the microphone very nervous.

This is my first ever piece of writing.

"The date is 19th of January 2012. Geoff Hudson arrives and the house of Dr Anthony Goodfig for the third time this week.
"How is the sleep getting along, Geoff?" Said Dr Goodfig, in a calm and easing manner.
"Not so great, Doc." Geoff replied.
You could see quite clearly that Geoff had not been sleeping, he had dark bags that hung around his eyes, that didn't look like eyes, just glazed windows of someone who has not slept in days. Even with the light seeping in from the crack in the blinds, a line of sunlight trails across the floor, up his shoulder and on to his left eye, his skin looked lifeless and grey from locking himself inside his house twenty two hours a day. He would maybe see a second of sunlight when he would open the front door to collect the milk that was left there by the milk man, or when he would travel on the 243 bus route to see Dr Goodwin for his daily session. He doesn't remember the feeling of the warmth of the sun caressing his skin and uplifting his spirits.

...Cont

>>3154066

"Dr Goodfig leaned back slowly on his chair to get more comfortable, "..and how are the dreams, Geoff?"
Geoff's hands started to tremble and little specks of sweat proceeded to appear on his brow.
"N..not so great, Doc." Replied Geoff.
You could see that Geoff tried his best not to think about the dreams, his eyes explored the room whilst he fidgeted with his clammy and sweaty hands. It was a nice and comfortable room to be in, the walls had a latte brown colour and the floor was darkly varnished wooden floorboards. The Miltonia orchid always had so much life sat there next to the window, it is what stood out most in the room. "

I'm planning to write book. Will begin any time soon.

I'm walking home, deep in my thoughts. Why did Viktor ask me have I found my magic yet? He looked so emotionless, I couldn't give any answer.
I do want to be his friend... I haven't had friend in ages, I just have no idea what to reply most of the time.
What would Annabelle think of me? She would yell at me if I didn't listen to her teaching. It made me feel like I'm hated.
Still, her presence makes me feel calm and I would never yell at her or say something bad about her. My role model... one day she will return and my life will be complete again. I
've never met people my age, and she never told me how to make friends. What would her advice be if I asked her now?