/lit/ - Literature

ok I guess

>>3865038
Thanks. Any particular issues?

gentle bump.

>>3865035
>leader of the pack
ruined the flow for me

otherwise its nothing revolutionary

>>3865070
>ruined the flow for me

What is wrong with that semantics?

And also, what sort of English literature do you find 'revolutionary'?

>>3865079
I mean, it reads well but nothing that would make me buy it, so far.

Im still waiting for flowery minimal style

>>3865084
'Buy it'? Could you please elaborate?

My native tongue is not English, it's like composing music when you're deaf. I need to know how it hears, not how it buys.

Also I don't think it could get any more minimal than that.

>>3865092

>My native tongue is not English
>it's like composing music when you're deaf

What you're not fluent? Fluent English by non native speakers is arguably beautiful, carrying their own anomalies from their native tongue.

>>3865092
it definitely could get more minimal

>>3865104
Who are good minimal authors? I ve been meaning to read some. I hear beckett is, well mainly cause his taste is suited for plays

>>3865099
Anomalies of non-native English speakers is called Fabricated Chunk, and using them without quotes in appropriate context is wrong.

>>3865104
You mean like using "past the..." instead of "transcended"?

>>3865107
his trilogy is his best work imo

>>3865114
All literature is fabricated, chunk or not. Have you read Nabokov? Talk about chunks.

>The Gang was the only people to be sighted there

>>3865119
I dunno, man. I was urged to stay away from my native language to learn English, and that I did --- I can't even speak it properly anymore, and I think in English much as I can.

>>3865139
What's the problem with this clause?

>>3865035
What the fuck am I reading?

>>3865145
What do you mean by that? Is the prose incomprehensible or you can't understand the context? If latter is your intention, well you should not. I just whipped up something.

>>3865141
Its superfluous. Hence it needs more minimal. We need a minimal prose.

>>3865154
Sure, I don't know the context. That's a given.

But what I'm reading is some mashing together of words that make the author sound pretentious, along with grammatical goofs that make the author seem unable to hold such pretentions, for example: "The Gang was the only people to be sighted there."

I can't tell if you're serious, joking, or a foreigner trying very hard to seem like a native English speaker.

>>3865166
Noted.

>>3865169
I just said that English is not my native language. And I know I should have wrote "...only people who could be sighted" but that's probably the only grammatical mistake I've made in that entire paragraph which I wrote in under two minutes.

>>3865178
Your correction is still not preferable. You still have a singular verb for a plural subject, and it's still passive.
>Probably the only grammatical mistake

And it's not that it's wrong, it's just awkward. Everything is awkward in that paragraph. You need to tone back the tryhard until you know for certain how the language works to native speakers.

>>3865193
The native speakers, arguably, don't know shit about rigid syntax rules, but only developped an ear to the tongue, and depending on your local accent, it varies.

and no there's nothing wrong with using the passive voice.

>>3865199
>The native speakers, arguably, don't know shit about rigid syntax rules, but only developped an ear to the tongue, and depending on your local accent, it varies.

And therefore, something written using only rigid syntax rules with no ear for the tongue will always ring wrong with any audience.

>and no there's nothing wrong with using the passive voice.
Similar situation. There's nothing technically wrong with it, but most often it's kind of an awkward thing to be read.

>>3865193
Okay, let's see. How's this one:

"In three-thirty past noon, a pedestrian who happened to pass by the vacant, circular block of buildings in Velcov Street could only see five people there, sitting atop chimney roofs, smoking near the momentum, or drinking inside one of the gloomy apartments. This group of three girls and two boys had a certain matriarchal posse, which corresponded with already-frivolous decay of gender roles in their society".

No passive sentences, no big words.

>>3865209
>momentum

I meat monument.

>>3865214
You meat monument?

I vegetable monument.

>>3865221
I fruit monument.

Nice to meet you monuments.

I sugar and fats monument.

>>3865221
>>3865227
>>3865234
Okay guys be serious pls.

>>3865227
I sometimes monument four launch, but dads eat

>>3865250
lelel xD le elaborate ruse!

>>3865240
I serious monument, what seems to be the problem?

Stop being so fucking infatuated with using "unusual" or "intelligent" words. God damn that was irritating to read. Style is a million times more important than vocabulary. You are obviously overcompensating for a lack of ideas.

>>3865299
he is overcompensating for using a foreign language, it's a common thing among those that want to prove their intelligence. just curious, when you said lack of ideas did you meat moument?

>>3865310
Well, yeah. My bad.

I meant monument.

I grains monument.

>>3865310
I've already refurnished my prose and asked you guys to comment, but instead, you are making fun a pivotal spelling mishap.

>>3865353
It's still the same bag, dude. It's just different words.

I recommend you go chat with some people who speak English. Get a feel for using the language realistically.

>>3865375


Okay, okay.

"Three hundred yards down the Volkov Street, stood a vacant commie-block which no soul gathered to enter, save for children seeking refuge from judgmental eyes of their parents. Whereupon them, was a staple of five, three girls and two boys, still far away from youth, but also distant from their innocent childhood. They were led by Dasha, who was not older than them, but she had a leader's spirit attached to her effervescent manners. Boys did not protest Dasha taking it upon herself as head of their small posse, as I believe mankind never grows into patriarchy until a late age".

How's it now?

Pay attention to the rhythms, make it sound good to you. Sounding native isn't important.

>>3865398
I write in a manner which I desire to write, but people seem to hate it.

There are many books written in my language by foreigners, and they were written long time ago when you had to travel by caravans to get to China. They sound fine to me, I don't understand why so many English-speakers detest literature written by non-natives.

>>3865387
It just seems flowery, and the sentences are kind of overlong.
Try seperating it more like this:
"Three hundred yards down Volkov Street stood a vacant commie-block. Nobody ever entered it, except for children seeking to escape their parents' judement."

>>3865411
>flowery
You mean like too young-adulty?

>sentences are kind of overlong.
Noted.

>>3865408
Everybody loves Nabokov, and he was Russian. I don't think there's much of a stigma with non-native writing. If I were you I'd just stay away from words like "whereupon," because they sound pretentious. I would try using more basic or primal words. Which country are you from?

>>3865408
It's not that it's "non-native written" which makes it disagreeable.

It's that it sounds bad and reads like an instruction manual at the IKEA-Ritz-Carlton

>>3865420
I said where I'm from in my last thread and you all assumed I speak Arabic so I won't tell. Fucking hell man can Arabs even think about writing books in English? All they do is fucking camels.

>>3865416
Too many big words. Using the entirety of your vocabulary doesn't make a piece better; you're burying it under the weight of trying to sound intelligent. "...which transcended the already-frivolous gender roles of the society" is a good example. You could just as easily say that along the lines of 'whatever the rest of the city was like, the girls were equals here' and it'd work better.

>>3865427
To be honest, I suspect you're from the United States and just pretending.

>>3865426
That's what I'm trying to avoid. Give me pointers instead of antagonizing me.

That being said, I, beside having a thespian mind, can't actually write books. I'm mostly doing this to get my storytelling on. I plan on making movies and games and shit.

>>3865429
But 'whatever' is an informal word. Don't you think a very basic and minimalist prose tends to sound like a Twilight fanfiction?

>>3865431
Yes, I would definitely troll people by asking them how they perceive my writing skills.

>>3865433
I've already given you suggestions.
Learn the speaking-language of native speakers of English, and stop trying so hard to be so unique or whatever it is you're shooting for.

That will at least give you a base from which to launch something. You don't have to write entirely colloquially, but you need to at least understand your audience's grasp of the language if you ever expect them to follow you.

>>3865443
Are you saying English-speaking audience cannot grasp generic formal words or does that repulse them? I've read Ulysses, it's full of big words but it's extremely popular.

>>3865451
No, I'm not saying that they can't grasp any given word or whatever. I'm saying that nobody wants to watch an author bathe in his own pretension.

>>3865441
Here's a quote from Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon:
"“This seemed to be happening more and more lately out in Greater Los Angeles, among gatherings of carefree youth and happy dopers, where Doc had begun to notice older men, there and not there, rigid, unsmiling, that he knew he'd seen before, not the faces necessarily but a defiant posture, an unwillingness to blur out, like everyone else at the psychedelic events of those days, beyond official envelopes of skin. Like the operatives who'd dragged away Coy Harlingen the other night at that rally at the Century Plaza. Doc Knew these people, he'd seen enough of them in the course of business. They went out to collect cash debts, they broke rib cages, they got people fired, they kept an unforgiving eye on anything that might become a threat. If everything in this dream of prerevolution was in fact doomed to end and the faithless money-driven world to reassert its control over all the lives it felt entitled to touch, fondle, and molest, it would be agents like these, dutiful and silent, out doing the shitwork, who'd make it happen."
A lot of the best authors don't differentiate much between formal and informal prose. One of the most effective things about this piece of prose is that Pynchon uses casual or informal words to get his feelings across. One of the disadvantages of writing passages like " "...which transcended the already-frivolous gender roles of the society" is that there is no emotional resonance in it.

>>3865455
Alright then, avoid pretentious words.

>>3865459
You are right, but as I understand, that books takes place in America and is intended for contemporary readers.

How about fantasy books? They happen in a different world (the one I'm intending to write happens in a high-fantasy setting) so I obviously can't use informal words there.

>>3865470
Describe your world, and I'll help you fit the prose style to it.

>>3865470
>so I obviously can't use informal words there.

Is the narrator some forced-to-formal fantasy royalty or something? If not, I don't see why you must restrict yourself to speaking as you are.

>>3865473
It's a world shaped like a flower (ignore the picture, I'm avoiding any allegories). This flower-shaped world revolves like a motor, and the sky is parted in two, one night, one daylight, it takes each bud a week and faces seven stars each day, and seven moons each night.

I haven't decided anything about the cultures yet. It's vast, and I've decided to take a 'Stranger in the New World' approach.

Nothing else I know right now. Mostly been thinking about the gameplay mechanics.

>>3865478
Because people criticize GRR Martin for doing that.

>>3865490
People criticize Martin for being a bad writer.
Check out how Philip Pullman wrote the Golden Compass is my main suggestion, writing too formally is worse than too informally. Being entertaining is important.

>>3865490
>Because people criticize GRR Martin for doing that.

People criticize GRR Martin for not running to a thesaurus or dictionary for every third word he says?

I don't even know who this guy is, but I'm pretty sure that's not the same problem.

Sounds like the inane babble of a Muslim trying to write in english.

>>3865490
protip : think up a story before you think up a world. People won't care for your flower shaped world if you don't have a story. But who am i kidding, you're probably not gonna write any more than 2 lousy chapters of this shit anyway.

>>3865493
Isn't Golden Compass a children's book, though? I gave up reading ASoIaF after his lengthy descriptions and useless fillers, but I see people criticizing his usage of informal words too often.

>>3865495
Nah actually I think ASoIaF would be better if he had actually run it through a thesaurus.

>>3865499
Get the fuck back /int/ faggot.

>>3865503
Golden Compass is a good example for how high fantasy should be written, just check out Philip Pullman's writing style. He's a master of entertaining prose.

>>3865503
>Get the fuck back /int/ faggot.
Never been there before, if you hadn't polluted this board with your hilarious insecurities I never would have said that.

>>3865500
B-but it's for a videogame mainly, people care about the setting and gameplay more than they care about the story. Besides, I already know the story, one guy is washed off the shore, with no memories, tries to make his way back home.

>>3865509
>generic lazy unpublished neckbeardia plot #1234567

>>3865507
>saging a thread on a slow-moving board

top lel

>>3865513
I said it's going to be a game.

Threads like these are the very reason I hate /lit/. You should write something because you feel like telling your story, not to test whether or not you can write prose.
There can never be good prose before you know the meaning of it and the feelings it's supposed to emanate.

>>3865516
>Not knowing the purpose of sage
>Thinking I would want to bump the thread of a moronic Muslim
Choo choo! The lel train is pulling in to the station kids!

>>3865387
I happen to like this. I think you'd like Mishima. His prose translated to English is immaculate.

>>3865517
As I said I have a thespian mind, what I lack is feeling and having English as my native tongue. So I have to check often.

>>3865517
That's also the reason writing workshops/ creative writing classes are the worst thing ever created.

>>3865519
Alright. I'm currently reading Dear Enemy by Jane Webster. I liked the translation better for some reason, this is why I try to ask people if I'm doing things right. It's as if I'm blind.

>>3865516
>I said it's going to be a game.
doesn't need to be lazy. there are far too many games with lazy plots out there. why do you even care about the style of the writing if you don't care about the story you're telling

>>3865520

>thespian mind

No, what you need is a lobotomy and to return to /v/ or from whatever hellhole it is you crawled out of with your shitty writing, generic ideas, and eighteen-year-old asshole choice of words.

>>3865525
Because I want some people to actually read the book.

>>3865526
Dude I haven't played a game since Bioshock Infinite. I'm way past the 'gamer' life, I strive to be a producer now.

>>3865527
>Dude I haven't played a game since Bioshock Infinite. I'm way past the 'gamer' life, I strive to be a producer now.
That game came out like two months ago.

>>3865527

You definitely haven't played enough games given the shit you're trying to 'produce'.

>>3865527
>Because I want some people to actually read the book.
why do you want people to read a book with a plot you admit is too lazy even for a videogame? I don't understand the reasoning

>>3865529
Four months ago.

>>3865530
I've played many games, I know how to make one. Thank you.

>>3865531
Because that's not the plot yet. I might come up with another one, only for the book. The game is going to have a generic plot because who gives a shit about the story? All games are like that, because there can't be anything else.

>>3865533
>Four months ago.
Release date(s) WW March 26, 2013
Under three months.

>>3865533

You know how to come up with a bad one, I'll give you that. Not sure what kind of moronic tastes you've gained over the years in order to think any of this is in any way creative or worthwhile.

>I'm going to make a RPG
>it starts off with a nameless hero waking up without any memories

Not only has that been done a thousand times to the point of suicide tier ennui, but it's reached its zenith with PS:T.

The very fact that you're on here right now instead of actually doing any of this just proves how little vision and passion you have.

Instead of writing in English why not write in your native tongue? Just curious.

>>3865533
>All games are like that, because there can't be anything else.
jesus christ, you can't be fucking serious....
>I've played many games, I know how to make one
oh god you must be one, you MUST be
>Dude I haven't played a game since Bioshock Infinite. I'm way past the 'gamer' life, I strive to be a producer now.
>Four months ago.
yup... you're a troll

>hey guys check out my writing
>'it's bad'
>well, it's a book for a game, so it's okay if it's bad or not really thought-out...
>'so you want to make a shitty game?'
>no, i'm going to make a great rpg
>'all of this is generic as fuck and has been done before'
>well, i'm mostly focusing on world-building, the rest is just filler
>'your ideas are shit, you should go back to /v/'
>i don't even play video games b-baka

mfw

>being this beta

>>3865542
Alright, I'll make a deeper plot. But name one game with good story that isn't weeaboo shit.

>>3865544
Because I want people to read my book.

>>3865547
>I don't agree with his opinions so he must be at troll!

>>3865552
rather
>He sounds so retarded that I seriously hope he's a troll
You're right though, it's only wishful thinking

>>3865552
Dark Souls.

>>3865552

>I know a lot about video games
>I'm not even aware of the Western pantheon of good vidya stories
>implying anything from Japan has rich storytelling or good plots that don't rely on cheap tricks or powerlevels

You are, almost on all accounts, an nonredeemable little poofter. Regardless, if this horrifying event of you creating anything must take place, let God not judge me for not helping you out.

Games:
>Planescape : Torment
>Baldur's Gate 2
>KotOR 2
>Legacy of Kain series
>Vampire : The Masquerade - Bloodlines
>Diablo II (for anyone who's judging me for this, eat shit - the game had marvelous writing and quite possibly the best intro of all time)

There are many more but these are probably the best starting point. Every single one of them except Legacy of Kain should be played. LoK has dreadful gameplay. Luckily for you, all of it is available online for your viewing pleasure, including minor bits the characters say as the game progresses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmCihkGvpC0

>>3865552
What's your native tongue? You write like it's Arabic.

It's awful, no emotion or rhythm. Just 'thesaurus' words thrown together for the sake of sounding intelligent. You need more passion, more feeling and the words have to flow and have a rhythm otherwise it reads like a high school essay run through a thesaurus.

>>3865564

>dark souls
>story

Reading bits of - primarily shitty and underwhelming, mind you - lore scattered through the land, does not count as a fucking story. Do not give him bad advice.
And stop playing bad games.>opinions.

>>3865567
It's funny how you list all the CRPGs wherein the protagonist is a nameless nobody (I haven't played PS: T though I know it's not true about it. Before bashing me for not playing this game, I should tell you I'm not into games which are only five years younger than me).

That's how RGPs work buddy. It's called role-playing, not putting-the-player-in-an-already-established role.

If an RPG character actually has character, it would be a JRPG or shitty le mass effect.

>>3865568
Your mother is an Arab you fuck.

>>3865567

I would also recommend that you actually try to rewrite very powerful scenes, particularly the type featured in cinematics/cutscenes. You already know the context and the feelings it's supposed to convey.

A good series that has a lot of well-written moody shit is Thief. Point in case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGlCjLfpugY

"In the breaking remnants of the last-but-fifty pile of ruined rooms and flattened flats that was the weeping edge of the damnation of communistic pragmatism-as-architecture, Dasha was the queen.

Of course there was no royalty, no grey dukes and sneering barons. There was the queen though: Dasha the queen , the mother-bee of the rabbelous stilyagi crew, that knelt and dealt upon the chimney pots, flashing cards and blades as bright as sunset and whipcrack swift as they showered fag-ends and vomit down off the tiles of the Worker's Paradox. Thus did they worship her."

>>3865580
No matter how hard I try, I can't possibly make an RGP game where the character has personality. I hate most JRPGs for this exact reason.

>>3865583
Huh, that's better honestly. Dickensian.

Alright I'm going to hit le sack bye for now.

>>3865574

You're an ignorant little retard. You aren't a nameless nobody in BG 2 or KotOR 2, quite the contrary.
Literally the only game on that list in which you're a nameless nobody for the entire duration of the game is Bloodlines, which is only there for the world-building and the dialogue, not the character driven narrative, as is Diablo II for that matter.

>I should tell you I'm not into games which are only five years younger than me

So you're a nitpicky little philistine with no appreciation for quality? Evidently.

>That's how RGPs work buddy. It's called role-playing, not putting-the-player-in-an-already-established role.

I take it you've never played a table-top in your entire life? Or somehow you think playing a well-define character is in any way, shape or form less of a roleplaying experience?

>If an RPG character actually has character, it would be a JRPG or shitty le mass effect.

>le
>implying mass effect is bad
>hasn't played the witcher and a fucking tens of hundreds of other games where you play a character whose backstory has been defined by the game. Highlight on BACKSTORY.

You are truly cancer of the worst kind.

>>3865584

You're a bad writer.
Incidentally, so are the Japanese.
Also, an on-rails turned-based game has nothing to do with a character being pre-defined you dumb-shit.

>>3865583

How dreadfully boring.

>>3865586
thank god. change "now" for "ever", please

>>3865583

>fancy words
>abundance of unnecessary information
>author somehow can't piece together the horrible repetition in 'There was the queen though: Dasha the queen'
>terrible syntax everywhere

Did you even read this out loud?

>>3865610
Good, I mean.

It's nice. You (certainly) overuse (certain) words, like certain. I like certain matriarchy more than certain taciturnity; the latter is a generally clunky word that doesn't fit all that well anywhere. "Entire" is superfluous, probably nix it, and if you wanna keep taciturn, I think some alliteration would be nice. "Put" is overused and doesn't have much going for it, lyrically or otherwise--probably could use a stronger verb. You don't need to say "present" if you're talking about the matriarchy *in* their staple of five people. Their staple is an odd phrasing, but not awful. "Leader of the pack" is trite, "strong" is redundant, again, when power's already in the word. Your prose shows promise but has the effect of coming off as a deformed Hemingway evolution, wanting to jazz things up but instead falling into the trap of latching onto the first less-common word available. Anyway, that's just my input, but I do very much like the first two sentences, especially the first half of the opener and "It was three, or three-and-a-half past noon" is wonderful in its simplicity and what it implies--you don't need to do windy Byzantine business for your writing to be could.

>>3865595
"How dreadfully boring." someone says, "how dolefully mundane, predictably pedestrian."

The sunset riots on the horizon, drawing all the color out of the world and throwing back red, red, bloodlike edges to the day. Here is the racing terminator, there the eclipse of evening.
And three girls and two boys slide down the tiles and catch onto the balustrades. watching for the thin man, The Man Who Is In Love. In love with the queen, enough in love to risk the dogs in the airport, to risk the lank men with the knives and the satchels, to risk even the pale montenegrin who walks the alleys with his stick and may perhaps be friends with the Owners.
The Man who loves Dasha,. The man who brings the drug.

>>3865615

>how dolefully mundane, predictably pedestrian.

Congratulations, you've converted my words to what they would be like if they came from the mouth of an elitist piece of shit.

>>3865621
"the words of an elitist piece of shit fell upon deaf shingles, as the words of an egalitarian piece of shit, an oligarchic piece of pickled bacon and an absurdist piece of disinclination rolled past the sesquipedalian lethargy of they dying twilight."

"I may be overthinking this". says Vaclav. "I don't really know someone is elitist just from an affected prose style. He might be a lunatic, or on drugs. He might even be a rank-sundering socialist. I'm guessing."

"The piece of shit part's dead on though." answers Sasha. "Can't argue that somebody isn't a piece of shit, no matter how polite and deferential-like. Shit speaks its name."

>>3865630

You must think yourself so clever.

>>3865633
"You must think yourself so clever. You're wasting your time, you know. wasting whatever dollop of talent or skill you've managed to scavenge back from the ratgnawed ravages of that drug-raddled tatterdemalion you call an intellect. It's all lies: you're broken; scattered like the last bright shatters of the last magnum of the wedding party champagne. You're done."

And here my conscious grows silent. It's piece said , it lingers to see how I'll take it. But it hasn't called for an action, merely spoken a flat set and run down. Not even a "fuck yourself" by way of intitiating action.

Up beisde the weather cock, frail sasha spots a tug crossing a river like a sluggish trough of congealing gore. The city is an abbatoir, now, for a few moments until the sun hides. The weathercock has rusted into place: everything blows from the west now, eternally.

>>3865630
now there's both a sasha and a dasha in the group. Russian lolis first lesbic philosophical pondering. I like where this is going

>>3865648
Someone had sewn a quilt top of frayed american blue jeans. Leather tags and copper rivets, verdigrised and faded. The rain fell down as the moon rose and a cold wind blew in from some direction that the weathercock chose not to acknowledge. Nicolai and Sergai wandered down to the alley to smoke and joke with the boys at the burn barrel. Little Avy was asleep in a pile of potato sacks and shock haired dolls. The moon watched through cracked casements the first sapphic fumblings of the naked and freezing girls, rib-razor thin and so white the moon must have envied. The blush of copper hair and the pale icefields of Dasha's eyes. The sandy tawn of sashas scrub of mane. Fingers seeking, and lips and tongues; and mouths opening, eyes full of moonlight and each other.

Just like that it was morning.

>>3865667
>Little Avy was asleep in a pile of potato sacks and shock haired dolls. The moon watched through cracked casements the first sapphic fumblings of the naked and freezing girls
hnnnnng
>The sandy tawn of sashas scrub of mane. Fingers seeking, and lips and tongues; and mouths opening, eyes full of moonlight and each other.
double hnnnnnng
can you include a man in hiding, masturbating while he watches the show?

>>3865667
Then Sergei brought up a bucket of hot water and left it ouside the door, and there was enough for a wash and tea, steeped in a can from black darjeeling bundled in a coffee filter bag hung with dental floss. they drank it with a straw passed between them, and saved some for Avy. In the night The Man had come. and not finding Dasha had gone away. She would find him later, in the city, hiding behind his newspapers and new-minted name plaque. But for now the bundle lay beside the umbrellas, taped with blue tape across every inch. Now there would be work, and money, and despearte shufflings and pleas and stony denails and the safe scent of the money, and Nicolai would show his gun perhaps, or not, and tonight there would be wine and chinese food and sterno for the little cooker, when they filled their own syringes and forgot everything else for awhile.

Assalamalakum, OP

Your prose just shows that Arabs can't write well in English.

>>3865748
I thought he was Persian or something?

it's poorly written. verbosity for the sake of verbosity.

>>3868167
what is? All of them?

>>3868176
i just read the OP

I think you're using "taciturnity" wrong, and also, you might want to change "sighted" to "seen". The matirarchy line is clumsy and I thonk the last sentence may be a tad over-written. Also, the sudden appearance of the first person personal pronoun is a bit jarring.

"They breakfasted on apples and stale english muffins crusted in honey and dipped in more tea. Avy had a fat chinese dumpling toasted over the sterno flame in a sardine tin and consciensciously offered some to each doll in the potato sack nest.

Dasha had the tight black sheath and the red vinyl jaclet. She would find The Man today, and give him his cut, and his reward for the risk. Sasha would cook a big meal for them all, and only the girls would eat. The boys would be dreamy eyed up on the roof ridges riding their horse till sunrise woke them.
When dasha was gone Sasha took avy and put her in her yellow raincoat, carrying her past the piles of trash on the three flights down and letting her walk outside. They would roll the cart from the bodegas back here with Avy riding like a princess in a triumph trailing sage and dill and celery leaves. And the world would be good for awhile."