/lit/ - Literature

A grim sense of dignity is all it takes. One step back, a moment is all you need.
With subtle wobbles side to side. An intoxicating sway in the elevator's climb through the pipeline. The rounded lift was encircled with fluorescent lines of dim azure light. Its doors made of bulletproof glass, a bruised shoulder never lies. Not even a crack. Through it I watched the steel panels of the shaft fly past. Lighting up the exposed pipes and bundles of wires as we rose.
A slight reflection in the glass veiled the scene. A faint silhouette of a handsome bastard stared back at me. Face painted with blood, Jet black hair streaked of red. 5 o'clock shadow and furrowed brow. He wore a kickable, smug grin, and intense burgundy eyes fierce enough to gouge out yours. A wide scar started on the bridge his nose, and kept going across, under his right eye and towards his ear. A fresh gash was underneath and parallel to it, I could feel it sting on my own cheek and the warmth of the blood pouring out of it, down his face only to drip off of his jaw. My reflection wasn't alone, but what's trailing me doesn't matter right now. Just keep forward. Never. Look. Back.
Nothin' behind me that I hadn't seen before anyway.

>>5471519

some interesting descriptions but the flow is pretty bad

you need to work more in varying sentence lengths

also a lot of sentences are borderline nonsensical and can definitely be improved


4/10 not the worst I've ever seen on /lit/ and maybe not completely hopeless, but requires a lot of work before can be considered good in any way

>I'm going to post the "engaging" part of the first chapter (you know where I'm supposed to hook the reader?) and you guys tell me if you're interested in any more.
You should be careful with posting your work online if you're planning to publish it.

>>5471537

Its not so much as literature, as it is a story. Its not something you read its something someone reads to you.

The flow is fine when I speak it out loud, I do skip some punctuation marks though.

Examples of nonsensicle?

>>5471542

Yeah, I wasn't going to post anything big, I don't think i would be able to get it published anyway, just a hobby

>>5471519
Cool, I liked the description of the reflection's scar and how it afflicted the narrator. Would read for a couple more. Though the first few sentences has a lot of imagery just to set an elevator scene. You could 'save' those words for better things no?

>>5471542
Why? I've posted a 40k work under anonymous before. No one's claimed it yet word for word, though of course it is free to be liberally picked apart if its publicly accessible.

>>5471574

I'm like a hoarder with detail, I could remove the first one, but I feel like that gives me impact lol

Heres something else from later in the story


God always sends the prettiest angels when you're drunk. Endless blue eyes under a canopy of full eyelashes. Alluring, soft lips, high cheek bones and a small nose. Flawless is an opinion but her complexion just changed mine. Makeup so well done she might not be wearing any. And like any woman worth a damn, she had a proud neck, shrouded in silky blonde hair that tumbled down over her shoulders in a French braid.

While her face said 'delicate innocence', her body wasn't as pure. A little taller than average, clothed in a tailored officer's uniform. She was petite but thick in all the wrong places. Her tempting hips moved side to side in a seductive dance she was blissfully unaware of. She stared deep into the empty helmet visor, elbows braced on the edge of the table. I saw two sides of the same femme fatale. One I desired, and one I admired. I wasn't sure which petrified me more.

>>5471609
At this point, since this is just a random snippet, I'm more interested in the narrator/character and how he interacts with the things around him and how the story is structured or if there's a plot or whatever.

>>5471636

Sure thing, let me get a paste bin of a larger scene

>>5471636

http://pastebin.com/JLscB9vg

sorry all my files are really messy

i wrote that like 4 months ago or so

>>5471663
>>5471689

For the record, reading the intro makes me cringe too, I'll edit that shit one day.

Just get past the first few lines and it gets good, i promise.

>>5471565
>I do skip some punctuation marks though.
then correct them, why didn't you do this as soon as you noticed?

>>5471519
>A grim sense of dignity is all it takes.

What?

>>5471689
Good. I sense sci-fi, wild-west esque, bounty hunter vibes. A little suggestion, among other things, I would put these lines
>"Between you and me. . ."
> I reclined and twisted my head to look directly at him. A confused look across his face, brows furrowed and mouth open. I made sure he had a good view of my burgundy eyes staring dead into his.
> "You're the one in debt."

into a paragraph of it's own.

There's a lot of extraneous movements,
>I could see a slight shake to his head
>He put his right hand down on the counter next to my arm.
> I looked down at the murky red cocktail in my hand.
Once its set in a bar, there's a lot of things you can drop, especially if it's as simple as the narrator just talking to the barkeep. Critical movements like his pre-emptive feeling of the alarm button is stuff that deserve their sentences, the glass being shattering from shock, how he made the drink with its ingredients and stuff. Things like this,
>I reclined and twisted my head to look directly at him.
, to me, are unnecesary if the scene is as simple as two characters talking.

Overall, you could edit it to be tighter. And there's definitely some interest in the setting. Will their relationship be explored further? Or why did he try to hit the alarm etc.

Keep it up and polish it! For longer works, it's figuring out what to axe or qualify and stuff.

>>5471565

>the flow is fine when I speak it out loud

the pacing is really bad op

"With subtle wobbles side to side. An intoxicating sway in the elevator's climb through the pipeline. The rounded lift was encircled with fluorescent lines of dim azure light. Its doors made of bulletproof glass, a bruised shoulder never lies. Not even a crack. Through it I watched the steel panels of the shaft fly past. Lighting up the exposed pipes and bundles of wires as we rose. "

all those sentences are basically the same length, and super boring

it doesn't help that a lot of sentences open with articles/prepositions

>examples of nonsensicle

>A grim sense of dignity is all it takes. One step back, a moment is all you need.
>With subtle wobbles side to side.

etc. etc.

it might also just be your style, which I think is needlessly convoluted/confusing

>Its not something you read its something someone reads to you

lel

>>5471636
is better imo, but still kind of waffling/cliched

>>5471537
>>5471852

oh oops, didn't see you write "Don't judge the writing style TOO harshly, I want it to be unique, Imagine someone telling you the story around a campfire."

then idk

your story really isn't spontaneous enough to be like an oral campfire story imo

if anything, I think you might be reaching a little too hard for some sentences e.g. "Her tempting hips moved side to side in a seductive dance she was blissfully unaware of" aint nobody ever said dat when describing someone

Had to go for a little while

>>5471842
Dead on about the sci-fi wildwest vibes, a little more complicated than that too

I believe they are in seperate paragraphs, just the way paste bin copy and pasted it.

Their relationship prior isn't part of the story, but it is told later on. and hinted at, enough for the reader to get an idea.

I do need to re edit this entire scene, what I find myself doing is I write something, and then a month later its shit and I re-write it and it turns out a lot better.

Like when I first wrote that scene I thought it was amazing, now I see how clunky and repetitive it is.

Basically, what's going on at that point, is they haven't seen eachother after 20 years.

>>5471870

Ill be honest that sentence does flow a little bit harshly. I'll see if i can edit it a little.

I don't keep the 'campfire' thing going the whole way, that'd be ridiculous, it goes in and out, usually when I'm setting the scene, but i do keep very minor elements with it during descriptions just because i enjoy the style, it feels more varied to me. Probably becuase im a bad writer

>>5471516
>Bastion soundtrack
My motherfucking nigger.
>>5471519
Eh, not hopeless, but could really use a lot of polish. It's a word salad as it sits, and it needs to flow better. Also a little edgy, but that's an unfair criticism as I don't know the context.
If you took a sander to this thing you could have a nice shiny story that I'd be interested in reading. Your descriptions of the blue lights and tangled wires are nice and make me think of things like 'Transistor' or 'Prism'
Final rating: Fixable
But rest assured, OP, that you still have absolute GOAT taste in video games and video game sound tracks.

>>5471580
It has to do with publishing rights. If you post the story on a forum and then it gets published, the owners of the forum could possibly sue over copyright infringement.

It's best to just put whatever you want to share on google docs where you can easily take it down if need be.

>>5472972
4chan explicitly states that the post content belongs to its author

>>5472975
But it's hard to prove that made the original post if you're Anon and have a dynamic IP.