/lit/ - Literature

If you're struggling for ideas, tell a story of something that happened to you in your life; when you were a kid, for example.

how do i learn how to write

>>5606058
Alright this is a third-person account of something that happened to me when I was young, with the names of the characters changed:

NEAR MISS
“Bye Mum”, young James called over his shoulder into the house as he left through the front door. It was the first day of summer and he had anxiously awaited its arrival; the first summer since he had befriended Roy, a boy from the other side of town. “Hunter’s Grove” was the estate. James had always known Roy to see but never talked to him properly, until one day the boys of his estate had challenged the Grove-boys to a football match. They clicked. James was delighted he now had a friend just as mischievous as himself, and he had been growing bored of his old friends anyway. He had told Roy he would knock for him early and they would explore that little abandoned house over by the rugby pitches. If they were lucky there would be some unsmashed windows waiting fresh for them. When James got to the park, he started running. He didn’t understand why people didn’t run more often. It’s quicker, it keeps you fit, and it’s more fun than walking. He loved feeling of momentum when he turned a corner. He moved so fast and he could fall over so easily. He fantasised on how he would cope if he was being chased by a demon, or if two goons jumped out and tried to mug him. “Guys”, he would say, “you don’t know what you’re getting into”. But they wouldn’t listen, the fools. He would dodge the first guys haymaker with cat-like reflexes and trip him up with a spinning roundhouse kick to knee, then he would catch the other guys kick and throw him down hard to the ground, and he would bolt away unscathed, having showed them what for. Actually, it would be cooler if he had a lightsaber.
Anyway, he arrived at the Grove panting for air but still full of energy. He had only been here once before: the day he first met Roy. Yet he still remembered which house it was. He approached the door and knocked confidently and Roy answered after a few seconds.
“You ready?”, said James.
“Uh I’ll be about 5 or 10 minutes, my Mum wants me to do some stuff”.
James said “Ok” and walked back up the driveway. Outside Roy’s house was this ornamental rock thing with engravings on it that read “Hunter’s Grove”. All the estates in his town had these. He supposed he’d go stand on it. Both feet together he leapt up onto it and looked around, proud of the extra height it gave him. After about a minute, a door to one of the neighbouring houses opened and a man came out. He had grey hair and wore an old grey suit, and boy was he fat; huge belly on him. Most striking about him though was he had this big toothy smile from ear to ear, so exaggerated that James thought he might have been pretending. Whatever, some happy fat guy, no big deal. But then James noticed: he was walking right towards him.

>>5606944
Nervousness crept up his abdomen; this guy was going to tell him off for standing on the rock. It’s only a damn rock, he thought to himself. He looked away from the man towards anything else but still he was there in his peripheral vision. Yep, he was definitely walking right towards him. Then:
“Hello there!”, the man boomed in a big jolly voice.
James managed an awkward “Hi.”
“You look like a statue standing there! Ha ha ha!”
James didn’t laugh because it wasn’t funny.
“How are you today?”
“Fine.”
“A bit cold out isn’t it?”
It was a bit breezy maybe.
“Yeah”, said James, looking to Roy’s front door. What was taking him so damn long?
“Who are you anyway? What’s your name?”
“James.”
“Hello James, my name is John. And where are you from James?”
“Woodquay.”
“Oh that’s the other side of town isn’t it? What are you doing up here?”, inquired the fat man, still smiling.
“Just calling for my friend”. James ushered lightly towards Roy’s house but the man didn’t look.
“Oh ya’s going off gallivanting are ya’s? Ha ha ha.”
“Heh”, said James.
“Is your friend a boy or a girl?”, said the man. By now he had his hands in his pockets and he was slightly rocking forward and back on his heels, looking fairly comfortable with himself, his big belly like an oversized beach ball.
“Eh, a boy.”
“Oh right. Do you have a girlfriend yourself anyway?”
“Eh, no.” This question struck James as pretty odd. Why does this guy care? He guessed he was just making conversation. But why make it with him? He’s only 10, and this guy is like 50. James had no problem talking to adults, but he never had an adult, less a complete stranger, go out of their way (leaving their house with the front door ajar, for example) to ask him if he had a girlfriend. And he had never had a girlfriend. He didn’t think he was expected to have one at that age.
“Ah right,” said the man. Then: “Here listen, do you wanna come inside for a cup of tea or something? I’ve got some cake in there too. Get out of this chilly weather?”
Alarm bells. James felt the anxiety grasping at his innards like a pair of vibrating hands.

>>5606950
“Uh, I uh … I-I … n-no, thanks, I-I’m ok.”
“Ah come on, just a quick cup of tea while you’re waiting for your friend”, the man pressed, still wearing that smile, still looking at James, who still stood on that rock.
“N-no … I uh … m-my … my friend … “
Then, like a guardian angel, Roy came out of his house. He walked towards James but stopped abruptly when he noticed the fat man. He had a look on his face like he had just interrupted a private argument between family members.
“bout time”, James said to Roy, jumping down off the rock and making down the road with little hesitation. Roy ran up beside him and looked back at the man, but James didn’t look back. He kept walking.
“Who’s that?” asked Roy.
“Dunno”, came the reply.
Some years later, James’ mother found herself becoming more blunt with him with regard to the goings on in the world. She was on the phone as he walked into the kitchen for breakfast, talking to a friend about something seemingly very serious. Then she hung up.
“Did you hear about this John Brooker thing?” she said.
“No?” said the adolescent James, feigning interest.
“A man from Hunter’s Grove. The police busted into his house and arrested him for child pornography”.
James almost lost his balance.
“Oh yeah?” he said, trying to disguise that sinking feeling.
“You might have seen him around. He was always very jolly looking and wore a horrible grey suit all the time.”
“Big fat fella?” said James.
“Yeah”, said his Mum. It was him alright. She was talking about Fat John for sure. James started into his cereal, refusing to make eye contact with his mother.
“God it’s terrible. Apparently the walls of his house were covered with pictures of naked children, and they had to scrape them off. Ugh, it gives me the shivers.”
“Yeah”, said James, continuing with his cereal, and that was the end of the conversation.
But that detail, “scrape them off”, echoed throughout his mind. He never forgot it for as long as he lived.

END

>>5606046
Could be good. though "it must contain at least 3 plot-points/events" is a shitty rule.

>>5606978
I suppose he just doesn't want people rambling some half-arsed philosophical thesis while the character does fuck all

>>5606046
>>it must NOT contain superficial action (murders, weapons, explosions etc.)
>>it MAY contain "unreal" elements (talking animals, magical objects etc.)
No fun allowed.

Life was a lot like a Thomas Pynchon novel, that was what good old Mr. Randall had said to him just before heading off to the bank, without bothering to elaborate any further. And so now he was left to wonder just exactly was meant by such a seemingly-innocuous statement. Not actually knowing who the author was, he decided to hit up Wikipedia and came to the conclusion that his tenant may have meant this whole living thing was extremely difficult to get through, and lots of it wouldn't make any sense unless he took some care and time off to consult a myriad of external sources, but every so often he'd find himself experiencing a moment of clarity, beauty, awe... something which he could treasure forever. It sort of made him want to try and read such a novel, though he couldn't remember the last time he had bothered to pick up a book.

That Randall was some card, he'd tell you that much. Just as he'd become accustomed to expecting, the ones who made him shake his head in astonishment didn't do so with their actions, but rather their subtle mannerisms, and their consistency with them. He'd mention it to his friends every so often, after a work day, having retired to Sherry's for a few casual drinks, if only to keep up work relations, how he had this lad staying with him who was quite unlike anyone he'd ever known, despite the fact that he'd never really done anything to justify such a claim. It had happened yesterday, actually, now that he thought about it - as he walked up the stairs with the intention of roaming through his tenant's room for the aforementioned Thomas Pynchon - when he was speaking to Gretta after running into her walking coming home. In the corner of his peripheral vision, he saw what had surely been the silhouette of Mr. Randall in the east wing of the manor, obscured by curtain and light. 'My,' he pointed up at his own place of residence, 'that fellow who moved in just last month is something completely different.' When pressed for details by his neighbour, however, he was at a loss as to how exactly he could explain it. His aura? His way of being? His calm nature? None of these really sounded like qualities at all, and so he settled on saying, 'well, the guy's twenty-one, yet he insists on being called Mr. Randall, and calling me by my second name as well.'

'How very odd!' Feigning incredulous empathy as only women can, 'what a sophisticated-sounding gentleman indeed!'

>>5607035


It was only later on, when Mr. Randall hadn't returned by suppertime (he always left at eight in the morning and always returned at exactly six in the evening, never having any other engagements outside of those hours) that he realised something might just be up, judging from the peculiar parting message he had been left with earlier that morning, and the sudden awareness of the fact that it was the first time in forty-two days that Mr. Randall hadn't referred to him as Mr. Hallofax. His suspicions were only confirmed - or his nerves were only more shaken still, he couldn't decide - when, upon finally resolving to go to sleep that night (Mr. Randall was a college student after all, and the idea of him having an impromptu social life wasn't completely out of the question), he found a Thomas Pynchon novel waiting for him on his bedside table. Turning on his the lamp positioned atop his desk, he proceeded to open up The Crying of Lot 49, totally oblivious to the rabbit hole he was about to fall into, but already falling as soon as he opened the liner notes and found a letter written to him by none other than his lodger, Mr. Randal. Unfortunately, he could only make out his own name, and the scholar's signature underneath... the rest of the short note was obscured, the unintentional(?) product of ink and teardrop polymerisation.

He began to read.

>>5606046
>it must fit into a maximum of 3 posts (9000 words)
I'm guessing that's supposed to be "9000 characters"

I was going to reply to this thread asking if it was dogme14 then i read the title

>>5607039
>>5607035
I expected more

>>5607057

Yeah, I was planning on something double the length but I have an essay due tomorrow evening that I've only halfway finished so I gotta allocate priorities and go to sleep pretty soon. If this thread is still up tomorrow evening, I'll try and finish it. The plot twist ending is sort of okay I think, for something I came up with in the space of sixty seconds.

Bob Slocum got the willies when he saw closed doors. At work doors provided the privacy for others to talk about him, at home they allowed his children and wife to shut him out of their lives, which was probably for the best, because when they spoke he often baited them into petty arguments or went on long tirades.
"Did you do your studying this weekend?"
"Yes daddy."
"How can you be doing so poorly then?"
"Fuck you daddy."
He drank to cope with the stress. He also slept with some of the secretaries from work and occasionally prostitutes.

>>5607097
Despite all this though, he considered himself a happy man. Every day, he found solace in the company of his youngest son, who was a retard. Alone in Bob's study, they enjoyed long one-sided conversations about all the troubles Bob had at work and at home.
"I just can't stand her sometimes. She is such a bitch. we used to have such great sex when we first got together but now she just lies there. And then there is your whore sister.. Don't get me started on her! I wish I had fucked that secretary before the war."
"gurgle."
"Exactly!"
Bob loved his little retard son.

>>5607102
Unfortunately, Bob's retard son had respiratory problems. One evening while Bob was one his way home from a conference for work, where he had given a Really Important Speech, his retard son died from coughing too hard. His lungs came right out.

When Bob got home he ran up the stairs to his little retard son's bedroom. His son was lying on the bed with his inverted lungs draped over his little retard arms.

Bob sat with his son for the next thirty minutes, hugging him tightly until the paramedics arrived to take the body away.

Without the comforting presence of his retard son, Bob took a mental turn for the worst. He killed himself several weeks later in a murder suicide at work.

if you want others to do your homework, 4chan archives are tracked by google quite well and your prof probably can google

>>5606046
>You write

Fuck no.

>>5607115
>>5607102
>>5607097
ok

There's no one else here. No one to talk to. Dialogue is cheap anyways. Infantile.

No, I'm all by myself here. Me? I don't play by the rules. I live in the present. In the now. And right now I'm surrounded by dozens of bloodied bodies riddled with bullets, piled in mounds. I'm the only one left. If I'm not counting the massive nuke I'm handcuffed to that's going to make a crater on the side of this planet the size of Connecticut.

I'm wondering how it even got to be like this. What kind of diabolical plot could create so much carnage? Only now do I realize how simple it is. There is no scheme, no plot. Some things just happen. Bullets are made to be fired. Bombs are built to go off.

It's not magic. It's not poetry. Life's more like a Michael Bay movie when we get past the flowery bullshit. Predictable, trite humanity. Death and helicopters.

But I guess it's easy to get caught up in everything and forget to appreciate the moment. I'm just now noticing a mole on Sanchez' lifeless forearm. Actually, it's like a group of moles joining together into a shape something like Mickey Mouse's head. Funny how I worked with the guy for fifteen years and never noticed it. Life can really get away from you.

What's the point in plotting my way out of this anyways? To complete some rule-maker's "mission"? Let's keep this short and simple. We all have to learn to quit struggling sometime.

>>5607097
That's a fantastic novel

>>5607141
See above

>>5607146
when you try to be edgy like this you end up being boring as fuck.

It was sometime around noon when the clouds fell from the sky. Millions of tons of water falling all at once in torrents, sweeping children and cars downhill and away. Some houses were lost in the inertia of things. But for those on flat land, or for those under clear skies, the incident took little or no hold in the going of things. It was only after the world went home for the night that things registered for everybody. Flash flooding and landslides happened across the nation, and it seemed nobody in the world could look out their window and see even one cloud.

And slowly things began to dry. First the farmers came forward and talking among the community about the lack of rainfall. They turned themselves to wells and reserves for water, but those did not last long. Soon there was no water for anyone inland, and it became rationed quickly as governments and businesses rushed to build desalination plants and harvest the vast amount of fresh water from the glaciers in the north and south poles. For a year or two there was chaos. Finally, after a systematic process was put in place, things began turning back to normal. The National Water Department (NWD) was founded and it seemed everyday new and improved desalination techniques were developed, making it much cheaper and easier, and at the same time eliminating the worry the world faced with using all the pole’s glaciers. Some countries did not have the resources to get water to all it’s citizens, and other isolated individual groups were cut off. These people died. News kept coming in as people gathered themselves around their television screens to watch the grimness and feel lucky that it was not them.

And then the oceans went. Day by day the tide went a little further out, compounding until it was loosing miles at a time. It seemed to be evaporating, yet still no clouds were found. We were losing hundreds of miles a day toward the end of it, and all we could do was collect reserves for a few people until a solution could be found. The day came when the last of earth’s water disappeared from the ocean trenches. The world descended into chaos once again. Governments collapsed and billions of people died in weeks. Even those who hoarded water found themselves in just as bad of shape after the riots started. Eventually things quieted down. In Quam there was a reserve to last the military outposts enough time to develop a rocket that could travel into space and harness water from other planets and comets, but production was slow with limited resources.

The reserves were rationed wisely, and the rocket rolled right along schedule. Two years after they lost contact with the rest of the world, the first mission went up. It was a simple mission to collect somewhere around fifteen thousand tons of water from Haley’s Comet, which was passing by around that time. A camera was positioned to take pictures as it left earth, so the curious engineers and scientists could observe what the earth looked like without it’s big blue ocean. They waited with anxiety as the rocket went up, not so much for the photos, but instead for the mission itself. And when the first photo came back they saw the earth was nothing but a dry and barren land of mountains and valleys. The great drought had not only killed the humans, but all other life on earth as well.

And in the darkening and awful expanse of space something had kept on. There was a problem they ran into way up there. All the water lay frozen in space like a big piece of ice. When they saw it the white ball of mystery moved slightly farther from the rocket and into space a little further.

Haley’s Comet came into the rockets path and the people on earth yelled and cheered, but all they found there wa frozen Carbon Dioxide. The ball of ice had taken it’s water too. So they turned the rocket’s thrusters towards the giant ball and lifted off. The rations on earth would last long enough to find another source. But the closer the rocket got, the faster away the ball moved, but the rocket moved with it, for in the rocket was also a bit of water. Sort of a paradox began to happen. The water had to move away from the rocket, but the rocket had water. And so the rocket traveled with the ball of ice through space and on through the galaxy until we here at earth lost track of it. It has been countless days and hours and everyone has lost hope. Some traveled off into the great desert of the ocean barrens. Some saved themselves the agony of dehydration and took their own life. But Tom stays there in the control room, speaking everlasting to the AI device on the rocket. Trying to connect to a lost signal he will never find again.

“Omega, do you read me?”

“Omega, do you read me?”

>>5607323
>>5607329
same story, in case you didn't notice

>>5607301
In what way is it "edgy"?

>>5607097
Something Happened doesn't get enough credit here. It's too cool to be edgy and hate on Catch-22.

Bump

>>5606944
>>5606950
>>5606953
That's creepy man

>>5606046
>hey /lit/ I have an assignment/want to steal your work for my personal gain as I am currently in a dry spell
>please conform to these rules, as they will rightly put you in the farm of thought that I want my novel to go
>I won't steal from you
>I promise

>>5610292
dat paranoia

>>5607035
>>5607039

Why did the Trystero sound so familiar? Hadn't he heard the name Thurn und Taxis somewhere before? Where was Mr. Randall tonight? Was he really a landlord? Did he really have a tenant? Did Mr. Randall exist? Did Mr. Randal even have a first name? What if 'Mr.' was his first name? Was this onslaught of questions, some mental iterative function, merely a symptom of early-onset schizophrenia? Enough was enough - he closed the book over and placed it on top of his bedside table (wishing he had a little less impulse control and had thrown it across the room for dramatic effect) and stood up, accidentally stepping on the PLAY button of his iPod Classic. Music he didn't recognise but words he could make out suddenly emitted from his earphones (he always played his music at top volume).

"HE'LL GIVE US WHAT WE NEED,
IT MAY NOT BE WHAT WE WANT.'

so lets just say he real composed like yeah? this nigga, he seen some things today but he aint no cracka man oh no, no sirree. and he aint got time this shit that sir mr randall is pulling, nope not him. so he says you know what? he says to himself he says he just says no. he says this be his damn house, this is his place of residence and he aint doing this no more. so he stoops down picks that ipod up and turns off my music. nigga are you serious? like i appreciate that youse a little spooked right now but nigga i am kanye motherfuckin west. imma let you turn me off and all but you gon have to freeze right there in time ill let you finish in a bit. im taking over the job of omnipresent narrator nigga. this my story. and this story begins like so -

there be a fifth dimension beyond which you or your bitch or your mama could know. its beyond humankind nigga. timeless and vaster than space itself, just like the pokemon universe. dont you be lookin at me with those judging beady eyes, this is EVOLVED STORYTELLING alright. it is the middle ground between pop music and art. it is this thing this this is the great beyond, beyond your knowledge and imagination. that true fear. that what make a man afraid. this right here is scene 2 so get hyped up in this place, cause we about to join mr randall himself in royal avier hall for the concerto orchestra tonight. it might just be the performance of his and his landlord's life. this be the twilight zone niggas, brace yourselves.

>>5611049

This is going to end up being slightly over 9000 characters. But I will finish it.

>>5610292
as if anyone here ever wrote anything worth stealing. we're readers not writers.

>>5607035
>>5607039
>>5611049

>>5607035
>>5607039
>>5611049

I have heard music before. I have studied psychoacoustics. I am a human. I can hear sound frequencies between approximately 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz. I have allowed various vibrations to pervade throughout my sensory organ, while being subjected to both positron emission tomographies and functinal magnetic resonance imaging, enjoying the dopamine release from the stratium, feeling oddly satisfied despite my bleak environment.

This is not a bleak environment per say, though it is quite depressing. The lights, designers suits and dresses, top-quality seating arrangement, the stage, the 140-piece orchestra simply going at it. There is no spark in this auditorium. The performers are performing, the listeners are listening. But the former are not playing, and the latter are not hearing. I used to play the accordion. I have memories - back when I was a child, never really carefree or innocent, I was always the type who wore the weight of the world upon his shoulders... but I would play for my mother's family, all the classic tunes. I knew them. I don't know them anymore. Sometimes I feel the notes pouring out of my fingertips, yearning for a medium through which they can produce such carefully calculated noise. My mind overcoming my body is not a source of sadness for me. That is the learned way of the man.

Not I. I do not believe in that anymore. Composition and covers and the like. At least, I thought I didn't, but this last week has proved quite surprising in numerous ways. From the kettle boiling unexpectedly at four in the morning, to those strange notes in that Thomas Pynchon novella I recovered from the antique shop downtown - I'm convinced they must mean something, they must be a message, or a map, something to decode at least, they are far too intricate to be the idle work of a bored mind - and also my landlord's growing social needs... and then Jared Frumples coming up and telling me of this classical music festival, in aid of Montgomery Sherackles. Montgomery Sherackles. A name I hadn't heard in over a decade. One I never really thought of since he disappeared from my uncle's life. But still. Sometimes the most pronounced of images linger in the back of your mind, waiting for you to look upon them and... remember. I remember. It is why I am here tonight, sitting in row AD seat 41, watching him, the conductor, and thinking to myself just what it was I planned on doing tonight when the music stopped playing.

bump

Bump 2, the final fifth and sixth installments are coming later tonight