/lit/ - Literature

If this thread gets replies, it'll be because of that picture.

>>3798991
>Cart stately headed by a mule made way through the unpaved road amidst the large, empty plain.

Right off the bat, this sentence is off. It took me three re-reads to get the gist of what you're saying, and I was still frustrated.

Just terrible, OP. There's nothing else to say. This shit is just awful.

>>3799010
How about if I rephrase it to:

>The cart, which was headed by a tired mule, made its way through the vast, empty plain through an unpaved road.

You actually quoted one of the sentences which I personally know is a bit off.

>>3799016
Not as terrible, but still bad.

>>3799015
I do not plan to submit it to Pultzer judges, I just strive to perfect my literary skills to a lever which is comprehensible and at the same time, complex.

>>3799016
Better. It at least makes sense now.

>>3799023
Well you're nowhere near either of those things.

> After nearly one and a half year of riding on the Turanian plains, she would still feel golden hair on her torso stand erect at the sight of elastic steppes, tall mountains afar, and ponds of fresh water at each corner and feverous musk of nature nuzzling her nose ― a scent which the most skilled apothecaries had yet to recreate.
What the fuck. THis is so bad, and I don't know which is sadder, the fact that you think you have any hopes of being a decent writer, or the fact that you obviously put a lot of effort into this.

>>3799022
>>3799024
Alright, which part is the worse?

>>3799027
I said I'm striving, fella. I did not claim it's good, I just said how I have performed.

>>3799032
I did not put any efforts and I do not wish to become a decent writer -overnight-.

>>3799032
You know, just saying stupid shit like that doesn't do anybody any good.
Give him some constructive criticism if anything. "You suck lol," is a waste of space.

It really isn't that bad. I think he's got a better shot at being a successful writer than you, considering you seem to believe the comma to be the only punctuation mark in the English language.

>>3799040
top lel

Pointing out he sucks gives me personal satisfaction, and I'm not really trying to do anyone else any good. Maybe I make him stop writing, in which case I've done the whole world a service.

I think whenever I try to describe things, it gets unbearably shitty and incomprehensible. This:

>Chatis was sobbing. Streams of tears cascaded down her cheek as she collapsed on Khan’s silky bed. Marku, bewildered, just stood there and watched. A loud thunder coarsely roared, followed by strobes of lightening flashing inside the white yurt, but it didn’t rain. Chatis ceased sobbing, and stood up, only to sit down again and cover her teary face with her hands. Marku never thought Chatis was comely, but her vulnerability at the time made her alluring to him. He sat next to her, trying to relieve her by physical touch, but she pushed him back and moved slightly away.

What do you think of it?

>>3799048
>.

Nice. I think you've got hope yet.

>>3799051
Stop samefagging, OP. You can't write for shit.

>>3799050
Try short sentences. Throw them in here and there. If every sentence you've got could be a paragraph of its own, the reader is going to get lost.

>>3799050
*I think whenever I write things

And yes, that does seem to be the case.

>>3799050
Way too much purple prose, man. Noone will actually feel sad for your characters if you keep your descriptions cheesy like this.

>>3799057
Would you say words such as 'strobe' and 'cascade' make purple prose?

>>3799050
>Streams of tears cascaded down her cheek as she collapsed on Khan’s silky bed.
You have, in one sentence, compared her tears to both a stream and the waterfall. Do one, or do the other, but not both.
>Marku, bewildered, just stood there and watched
Just is too informal.

>>3799062
It depends on the context. In your case they're clearly too much.

>>3799064
I'd say it's better to do neither. Both are ridicously clichéd metaphors.

>>3799050
>Chatis was sobbing. Tears cascaded down her cheeks as she collapsed on Khan’s silk adorned bead. Marku stood there and watched, nonplussed and silent. Outside the yurt thunder roared and lightening flashed, but the rain didn't fall. Chatis ceased sobbing, and stood up, only to sit down again and cover her face with her hands, hoping vainly to conceal the marks of sorrow that her tears had left there. Marku had never thought Chatis was comely, but at that moment she seemed to him the most alluring creature in the world. He sat next to her, placing his hand tentatively on her should, but she pushed him back and moved slightly away.

>>3799064
Okay, I rephrased the whole paragraph

>Suddenly, Chatis started crying. Her tears flooded down her cheeks, making her seem extraordinarily vulnerable for her personality. Marku was short of a reaction as she collapsed on Khan's silky bed. He sat next to her, trying to relieve her with but she pushed him back.

>>3799078
*Bed

>>3799080
I did it for you: >>3799078

It's not great, but I wasn't working with much.

>>3799078
>>3799085
Thanks, I took notes.

This is the whole manuscript if anyone wants to see the whole trainwreck. I'm starting a new one.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/57022032/Folklore%20Piece.docx

>at any second
>pitch black staircase
>it was cold, like winter

Drop 'em

>>3799098
>it was cold, like winter

I kind of like that one. It's funny.

>>3799098
>it was dark, like night
>it was wet, like water
>it was hot, like summer
>it was lukewarm, like spring

>It was dark, like closing your eyes

Alright, I started writing again.

>Small town of Karmania was built on a small piece of arable land in the vast desert of the Inner Kingdom. There was no source of freshwater near so the residents relied on their massive canals of Kariz for irrigation and consumption. Huge farms of wheat, barely, and millet provided them with commodities, and most people lived in gardens which provided them with nourishing fruits and vegetables. There existed a vital stronghold some parsangs south of them, and another garrison northwards of the town. Soldiers and curriers riding from one to another always stopped there to rest. Thus providing them with a solid commerce.

What do you think? Too informal? Too bare? Too incomprehensible?

>>3799146
Fuck I just realized I used small twice in one sentence.

Ignore that one.

>>3799146
>Small town of Karmania was built ...
Shouldn't it be "the small town"?

>There existed
Sounds too constructed.

>Thus providing them with a solid commerce.
I guess "them" refers to the stronghold and the garrison but in this context it sounds like you're still referring to the soldiers.

>>3799185
Noted, thanks. I actually meant townspeople by 'them'.

I'd be thankful if you take a look at this one too.

>Inner Kingdom was infamous for its prisons, one of which was built not far from Karmania. Naiband, it was called, and it housed not bandits, thieves, murderers or rapists, but those who were deemed treacherous to the empire, people whose scrutiny of the matters put welfare of kings and nobles in jeopardy. It has become an expression, in fact, to “take someone to Naiband”, when commoners and plebeians talked of wrongful accusations.

>>3799185
Also does "there stood" sound constructed too?



Okay, another paragraph. Guys, please? It don't assume it's asking much.

>On a tranquil Sunday afternoon, Marku Melani, a young man of twenty-six, stopped in Karmania on his way to Naiband. His horse, a fierce stallion, was having trouble with the unfriendly desert air, as blood was foaming at his mouth, and his body was wet with sweat. Marku himself wasn’t enduring the heat any better. Dust covered all his cloths, and the white turban he was wore around his head was drenched in sweat.

Literatefag here, I'd love to contribute to this role-playing-game of yours if you need a writer. I'm not the best, but I am decent at technical writing and am just now getting into creative fiction-writing in a strictly amateur way.

Email line is a real email. I gotta go, but send me some shit and I'll be more than happy to proofread for you free of charge, OP. English is a tricky language.

>>3799226
That doesn't sound like a particularly tranquil day.

>>3799229
Wrong board.

>>3799226
Clothes, instead of Cloths -- common mistake, no troubles. Comma not necessary in last sentence. "Foaming at the mouth" is more logical than "foaming at his mouth," since we can figure it's the horse's mouth from context.

Not a bad little paragraph. I'd alter the imagery a bit with sweat. "Drenched in sweat" and "wet with sweat" -- maybe try "his white linens and his turban clung to his skin, perspiring under the desert sun." Or something like that, I dunno.

>>3799229
Thanks I will, right away.

>>3799230
The day is tranquil, but the character is tired. Any problems with the prose?

>>3799234
Why is his horse foaming blood at the mouth?

>>3799236
Maybe he's bleeding internally.

>>3799242
But how? I thought it was a tranquil day, and that the only real issue was the heat? How would heat cause internal bleeding?

>>3799236
Because horses do that? At least according to the books I read. I never rode a horse.

>>3799246
The guy and his horse were riding on the desert, until they arrived at the city, in a tranquil afternoon.

>>3799248
Horses do not do that. They foam at the mouth sometimes, but they never foam at the mouth with blood unless they are dying horribly.

>>3799254
I did not know that. Thanks.

Unrelated question, do you think people are set off by genuine oriental settings? No the crappy Aladdinesque theme park version, real with all the factual history.

>>3799256

A heads up, do your research.

>>3799280

No, why would they be? Arabian Nights didn't become popular for no good reason.

>>3799288
Yeah, I stick with the 'Write what you know' discipline but sometimes I fuck up.

>>3799291
Well Arabian Nights was written centuries before 9/11 and it's part of the whole stereotypical depiction of the orient within Western culture. I'm writing a fantasy based on Indo-European Iranic lore which is alien even to those people themselves. An Indo-European fantasy based on the Orient is something undone to this day.

>>3799298
Do you know anything about oriental history? Or is this just going to be a story based on mildly racist stereotypes and lazy pop-history?

>>3799312
Of course, you silly goose. I'm Iranian and an avid scholar on history of Indo-European people (my mom said so when she tucked me in last night). If anything, I'm afraid this brainchild of mine would be too abstract for other people for the exact same reason, stereotypes, racism and pop history.

>>3799323
Well at least you've got the basic knowledge, because you certainly don't have the writing ability.

>>3799332
As I said, I'm not aiming for a perfect or even a decent literary work, for even if I had the skills, no English publication would touch it, based on the unfortunate fact that first, they hate me because of my nationality and second, English is not my first language. I learned it a week ago.

My aim is to practice in creating fiction for other forms of media.

>>3799340
We've been over this at length, remember? You won't get published because you're a thoroughly unpleasant person. Don't use your nationality as an excuse.

>>3799340
>muh discrimination!

>>3799340
>I have nothing against Jews, I just hate how they hate us.
>I want war. It will cleanse the bad blood.
>Well, war is good. You can rape all the girls and burn the villages and stuff.
>I was raised reading tales of heroes. Real men rape and kill during the war. No matter whose side.
http://fuuka.warosu.org/lit/thread/S3771285#p3771778

>>3799342
>You won't get published because you're a thoroughly unpleasant person

And you deduce that by reading my posts on the internet?

>>3799343
It's not discrimination. They are right, my people are uneducated religious pissants who do not bother fixing the Orwellian shithole they crafted because of MUH RELIGION, otherwise I would not have been writing in English. They deserve the hate they get and I hope Americans lynch the entire population of Westwood, LA. Nevertheless, I'm neither religious, nor a common pissant and I do not like to be treated the same as them.

>>3799348
Hey, there's a person trying to learn from people on the internet! Let's smear him because of his personal opinions!

>>3799352
Which country are you from?

>>3799352
>Let's smear him because of his personal opinions!
Problem?

>>3799357
Read >>3799323

>>3799359
Oh lord, your country is a fucking cesspit. No wonder you're so illiterate and devoid of imagination.

>>3799358
Jean-Jacques Rousseau went around Paris leaving his bastard children on doorsteps. People do not care, they still read his works to this day.

>>3799363
Thank you, kind gentleman. Anymore comments on my country and me?

>>3799365
u is da master troll lelelelele

>>3799370
Alright, let's hate me because of what I am. There's no redemption, I was born to be resented. No friends, no girlfriends, sitting alone in my dismal room on a carpet reeking of semen, with no skills, no prospects, no expectations, destroying my young body with tobacco and drugs. For I was born with all limbs and a perfectly healthy brain, but I was born in a poor family, in a dimwitted country and surrounded by uncreative people. People don't need to meet me or know me to hate me, they just have to know where I'm from to resent me. What a deviant life, what a coarse fate.

>>3799365
I'm going to level with you. You are shit at writing, nothing you write will ever be published, and you are a terrible person. Your career will be as empty and shallow as you are.

>>3799387
>in a dimwitted country and surrounded by uncreative people
What makes you think you're any different.

>>3799399
>You are shit at writing

Yes, because everyone who has ever done something worthwhile started off as an expert, right?

Now that I compare my first works (I started two weeks ago) with what I'm writing today, I do not doubt for a second that I'm heading uphills.

This was some of the paragraphs I wrote a week ago:

>Clouds decided they are tired of staying there, so they moved and let the full moon shine on Sir Warren’s mansion and the nearby village. The mansion was modern, but the village had been there for centuries. Houses were built in front of a hill, row built upon row, in a manner that it resembled a staircase. Only one peasant could be spotted praying the Mohammadan way in front yard of his shack, which was in fact, rooftop of another house below, with a few dozen pitchers on its front yard, which in turn, was rooftop of yet another house below, with nothing to decorate the front yard-roof combination but an old rug.

I'm trying to perfect my work, and maybe I will. I'm a student of English literature for fuck's sake, and I'm an avid C# programmer. I can do shit, I don't need you belittling my ambitions because you 'think' I'm a terrible person.

Yes, what I write today, only after two weeks of trying and practicing, is shit. But that doesn't mean it won't improve over the course of time.

>>3799401
>What makes you think you're any different.

It's funny how people say "they hate you because you're a terrible person not because of your nationality" only for you to pop up and prove my suspicions of your racist, xenophobic culture.

>>3799415
Nobody mentioned anything about your culture, what are you talking about. I was just point out that you have special snowflake syndrome.

>>3799415
Most people who achieve great things started off with some degree of talent.

Spoonerised it may be, but your name is no misnomer: that writing really is criminal.

>>3799418
I am different from most my countrymen. I am an atheist which makes me superior to any person with religious beliefs, which are dime a dozen in my country. And I have ambitions beyond their limited spectrum of possibilities, I am different from those who pursue security lest scrutiny in matters of life and existence bewilders them, as such, they believe in a filthy Semitic Arabic camel-fucker god who created them and that's that, they open their mouths for the Orwellian semen for which they have been yanking cocks for years.

I feel superior to most people, in fact. To those pairs of testicles and sperm banks who walk outside, polluting the earth with their mere existence. I believe I can achieve things and I will.

>>3799423
You are a random person on the internet, you do not get to tell me if I do or do not have talent.

>>3799431
rekt

>>3799433
>I am an atheist which makes me superior to any person with religious beliefs
top lel

A lot of people with religious beliefs have been great writers, and you're certainly not better than them.

>I believe I can achieve things and I will
Oh god, this is just tragic.

>>3799431
I did not come here to be praised, I came here to be criticized, but that is not criticism, that is insult.

>>3799438
You deserve to be insulted.

>You a random person on the internet, you do not get to tell me if I do or do not have talent
I have a PhD and a number of books published, yes I do.

>>3799437
>A lot of people with religious beliefs have been great writers, and you're certainly not better than them.

I said, that is what makes me better than my countrymen.

>Oh god, this is just tragic.

You're just insulting me because you know any degree of criticism will improve my work, albeit not greatly.

>>3799440
Why?

>>3799443
And I'm a meth addict goldfish who lives in the Bronx.

tell you what: your prose is clumsy and overwritten, but the idea of a fantasy based in and around Iran is a great idea, and if you knopw a lot about the myth cycles and creatures you are in on the ground floor.

Pick a setting and some ideas that are universally known and then add in all the stuff we don't know. We know about Ghouls, and Djinni and magic carpets and Iblis and the tower of dust and the hand that bars the way theough the gate of bones. We know ali baba and stuff like that. Put some of that in and then add some more unusual stuff peculiar to your culture. It might help to have a european viewpoint character to lecture for the sake of exposition too.

>>3799451
It is tragic though. I'm not trying to insult you, I'm really not.

this is the definition of tragic.

Don't go throwing your enormous, lavender-scented credentials away to an obvious 'troll', Doc.

>>3799458

You're at least partially right. Do you think OP will have his anagnorisis once we've cleared him of his ghastly hubris, Aristotle?

>>3799455
I plan to, right after people stop insuling me and tell how I can perfect my work. This is hard for me, because as a non-native speaker, I have no perception of what makes a perfect prose. It's like a blind man weaving a carpet.

I wish I could collaborate with a native speaker who would give me some pointers. My main aim is perfecting my storytelling techniques, I do not wish to write a masterpiece.

And one other thing. What you're saying is actually Arab folklore (and not mythology. Semitic mythology is called theology), or in other words, Persian tales translated to Arabic and carried to Europe. I absolutely despise Arabs. I wish to write fiction based on Indo-European Iranic lore, asura, angra, diva, magis etc.

A little article could help clearing out your mind:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PersianMythology

>>3799459
You're right. I think he's shamelessly samefagging too.

>>3799479
>Tell me how I can perfect my work
There are stages to perfection, and the achievement of it is very similar to a ladder in structure. The first rung is working out what you want to do. The second run is getting the basics of writing down. The third is making your writing good. The fourth is making your writing excellent. The fifth, which is perfection, comes only after the previous rungs have been traversed.

You haven't even made it to rung three. You slipped on the second, and have yet to regain your grip. Maybe you never will.

>>3799479

>Accusing you of being a troll
>'You're right'

Boorman Nates.

>>3799489
More like Poorman's Yeats.

>>3799479
>>3799479
Your posts are actually pretty good prose is the weird thing. It's your story that doesn't work. Write your prose like you write your non-story posts.

And the more obscure the better. just make sure you anchor your stories to well-known events, locations and people. this is not the sort of thing that lends iteslf to sudden immersion. and the follore you use needs to be exciting and universal. not too involved or specific. Everybody understands war and kidnapping and romance, not everybody gets enlightenment, slavation or understanding.

>>3799492

Mine was better.

>>3799488
Can you suggest some 'good' written books and some 'excellent' written books, and some 'perfect' written books and in contrast, horribly written books?

>>3798991
Moltar?

>>3799497
Use your fucking brain.

Good - Huckleberry Finn
Excellent - Lord Jim
Perfect - Revolutionary Road

Richard Yates might not be the 'best' writer, critically speaking, but I've never come across a writer with a more strikingly (and consistently) positive effect on bad writers.

So go read all his novels, OP.

>>3799494
>>3799500
Writing comprehensibly and using my brains is exactly what I'm trying to do. In fact, this thread made me realize I should strip my works off from the slightest purplism, avoid metaphors, use short descriptions, and set the atmosphere with interactions and events instead of indulging in use of thesaurus.

Thus, I started working on this story on a different angle. This is what I have written so far, what do you think?

"The small town of Karmania was built on a sizable piece of arable land in the vast desert of the Inner Kingdom. There was no source of freshwater near so the residents relied on their massive canals of Kariz for irrigation and consumption. Huge farms of wheat, barely, and millet provided them with commodities, and most people lived in gardens which provided them with nourishing fruits and vegetables. There stood a vital stronghold some parsangs south of them, and another garrison northwards of the town. Soldiers and curriers riding from one to another always stopped there to rest, thus providing townspeople with a solid commerce.

Inner Kingdom was infamous for its prisons, one of which was built not far from Karmania. Naiband, it was called, and it housed not bandits, thieves, murderers or rapists, but those who were deemed treacherous to the empire, people whose scrutiny of the matters put welfare of kings and nobles in jeopardy. It has become an expression, in fact, to “take someone to Naiband”, when commoners and plebeians talked about wrongful accusations.

On a hot Sunday afternoon, Marku Melani, a young man of twenty-six, stopped in Karmania on his way to Naiband prison. He tied his exhausted stallion in front of a crowded tavern, and changed from his dusty linen attire which clung to his body perspiring to the long ride under the desert sun. Two boys, playing with marbles before his arrival, approached him, and offered to take care of his horse. Marku gave them a handful of brass coins and stepped inside the tavern.

>>3799503
Thanks, I'll analyze the shit out of them now. This is the first time I have been determined to do something in my long span of life, and three months ago, when I turned twenty, I realized I have achieved absolutely nothing. I will fucking write this book and I will make it into an RPG.

I don't care if a bunch of trolls on 4chan insult me.

>>3799512

Good for you. Go do it.

>>3799512
ur trippin me out man ur trolling me so hard but i still believe

>>3799507
I've been one of the main people telling you to kill yourself in this thread, because your writing really sucked. But this little excerpt, while not perfect, is a massive improvement.

I think you should keep it up, and I apologise somewhat for being overly harsh.

>>3799507
perfect. read some max brand. this is basically his prose style.

>>3799433
>you do not get to tell me if I do or do not have talent.

If he's read your work, and he has, then he does get to tell you whether he thinks you have talent.

And by the way, you really fucking suck. Seriously. I'm glad of it, too, since your personality is so rotten.

>2013
>Still getting trolled by butthurt, misogynistic arabs
I mean Persians.

>>3799048
If he stopped writing over a faggot talking shit like you, I doubt that he had any prospects to begin with.

>>3799194
"There stood" is good, but not always appropriate. It's storybook-like, it sounds vaguely like something being narrated rather than a neutral phrase. Think "there stood a gingerbread house, and inside lived a witch". It's dependent on what comes after it to sound natural. That said, if you can pull it off, it's infinitely better than "there existed", which is a very neutral word being used in a not-so neutral phrase. In your case, "there stood" may not be good either because it comes before you establish the location, some parsangs south, the "there" of the sentence. "A vital stronghold stood some parsangs south" may be more appropriate for that structure.

Lit is full of self-important douchebags. If you were real scholars, you wouldn't be on 4chan claiming to be scholars. If you knew what you were talking about, or had a literary mind, you would not be spending your days putting down anyone who claims to appreciate literature in a way different than you do. If you had the appreciation for philosophy you say you do, you wouldn't wield schools of thoughts like blunt instruments to bludgeon dissenters with, then leave them at a moment's notice whenever it becomes inconvenient.

A writer writes. Go back to writing, /lit/, you're all clearly wasted as critics.