/lit/ - Literature

>this is OP's writing
>it's a subtle critique thread
>I am a cockroach

>>5695514
It's not. It's a screenshot of the word file he sent out to the class. I could post some of my writing, but it is shit. Difference between me and him is I accept the fact my writing is shit, instead of being an arrogant holier-than-thou prick about it.

>>5695499

>Be enrolled in grad school writers workshop
>Bald middle aged faggot constantly berates everyone's writing and bitches about "woman writers" despite the fact that the workshop is predominantly female
>constantly interrupts professor to talk about Bukowski; it's almost always completely unrelated to the topic at hand
>every story he writes is weirdly homoerotic and either about guys shooting guns for the first time or banging underaged girls
>EVERY FUCKING STORY
>mfw

So, writers workshop dickheads thread?

>>5696350

>same workshop
>older woman who tells everyone she's only there to network with the professor since he's a published author and she's looking for an agent for her novel
>talks up her novel and how she's been working on it for 10+ years
>time comes for her to submit a story
>1st person narrative written entirely in ebonics
>notmythingbutfine.jpeg
>Second story
>Third person perspective written entirely in ebonics
>hmmmm
>Third story
>Ebonics
>Goddammit woman, how have you never learned to write properly?

>>5696350
>>5696367

post excerpts

>>5696350
>guys shooting guns for the first time or banging underaged girls
>homoerotic

>>5695499
It's shit, but he must be doing something right, because I REALLY want to know what happens next.

>>5696374
>>5696380

"Me Dougie and Steve slid out of our shirts and played the best damn game of stickball anyone had every seen. Dougie slid across the makeshift base, muscles tensing his chest into a gleaming erect bullet heading home. I mopped my brow of sweat and looked away as he stood proudly over the base and shouted 'How do you like that, Smith, you big sissy?'"

And later
"I gave Dougie the manly type of hug guys give each other after they've really had it out. He shrugged. 'Good luck with little Susie tonight, dog.'

Oh, shit, I was so wrapped up in our wrestling match I forgot all about Susie."

Dude is kind of like a fat, balding Mac from It's Always Sunny.

>>5696404
Haha this is golden. The homosexual undertones actually make it really good.

>>5696404
>I was so wrapped up in our wrestling match I forgot all about Susie
Top kek

>>5696406
If he wrote it that way on purpose then this dude knows what's up.

>>5696414
>gleaming erect bullet

there's no way he doesn't know lmao

I think anon just needs to get a sense of humor

>>5696404
>Dougie slid across the makeshift base, muscles tensing his chest into a gleaming erect bullet heading home.
ayyy yooo

>>5696418
>anon just needs to get a sense of humor
Yeah he does. He fits the stereotype perfectly of bitter angsty workshop guy. Me thinks he just can't stand the heat in the kitchen.

>>5696404
>Dude is kind of like a fat, balding Mac from It's Always Sunny.

>>5696443
>tfw you aren't fat enough to carry around a bag of burritos

>>5695499
>the way he doubled over in the middle of math class and vomited for no reason

i legit accidentally spat on my laptop screen at this. wtf haha

>>5696449
>mfw I am

>>5696455
You bastard, you better share.

>lanky pimply guy in writers workshop
>he doesn't talk
>sort of just comes into class wearing giant ass headphones listening to music and sits perfectly still until class starts
>writes fantasy stuff, like werewolves fighting each other and shit
>always describes his characters eyes as being the color of gemstones
>one day turns in a sex scene and it totally outs himself as a virgin
>in it, a young guy and older woman have sex in the shower
>even though the young guy is a virgin they both cum at the same time multiple times
>has every sex cliche in the book and weird descriptions, like "bags of sand" type shit
>whole class sits and cringes the whole way through it
>and the pillow talk, oh god, the pillow talk this guy wrote... unintentionally hilarious "you're the best I've ever had, young male virgin" etc.
>feel kind of bad for this guy but Jesus Christ his writing is just awful
>the next day we make fun of him for writing that shit before he shows up

>>5696367
>>talks up her novel and how she's been working on it for 10+ years

it seems a common way to advertise your work either it's true or not

there was a thread on lit, somebody posted an amazon link to his book he claimed he worked 4 years on, i googled a bit, he claimed he worked 7 years on it on facebook or something (he probably decided we wouldn't believe in 7 years here, on lit)

the excerpts from it were poor btw and didn't seem they took much time

>take a film studies course as an elective this semester at Berkeley
>class is supposed to start but professor isn't there
>Suddenly the lights go off and Nightcall comes on
>Lights go on and suddenly the professor is pretending to drive around on his chair while wearing the Scorpion jacket

>>5696476
you should dress up as CIA and quote TDKR when ever you talk

>>5696476
Big kek

>>5696418

I promise you, that guy doesn't do it intentionally. He lost his shit because one of the girls in the class turned in a story about a woman who discovers her husband is having an affair with another man. It included the line "he'd never desired another man until he met James."

Cue Big Mac huffing and puffing "Huh, huh, I couldn't get into it. You really need to change that line. Men don't just up and start wanting other men like that. Huh, huh. Amirite Professor. Huh,huh."

>>5696476
I want to take this man's class

>>5695499
Why why why, Why would someone write this?

>>5696476

Am I beyond help for liking that movie? I saw it in theatres and it was one of the only movies that came out that year that I liked. Everyone on 4chan makes fun of it though.

>>5696380
Sounds like you didn't start with the greeks.

>>5696505
pretentious pleb shit.

>>5696473
>not in front of him
lamo you need to learn to shitpost in real life

>>5696505
it's a nice movie, I think it's just the protagonists autism and his jacket (just check /fa/ for that pic where people look shit while wearing a replica) that makes it banter material

>>5695499
OP nice find. This is quite awful. Apart from the weak grammar, there are awful attributions, constant scene changes, and very poor characterizations.

But the most glaring problem: where is the conflict?

>>5696402
>It's shit, but he must be doing something right, because I REALLY want to know what happens next.

Leave /lit/ forever. There is absolutely nothing that is driving the action in those three pages.

>>5696494
you have to say that you "liked the homosexual undertones" when discussing his next story. do it for everyone in the class.

>>5696528
This. Be overtly sincere about it too. "I really liked how your narrative subverted the heteronormal in such a daring way. It was very brave of you to create a tender emotional relationship between two men but still maintain a masculine energy."

>>5696421

Nah, Big Mac is a repressed asshole who wastes class time by talking incessantly about Bukowski while we're trying to workshop everyone's writing

I am bitter as fuck about paying for a class only to have a chunk of it eaten up by that tard though

>>5696538
>I am bitter as fuck

You're in for some more bitterness down the road. The sole purpose of the workshop is to emphasize the importance of revision by exposing you to awful writing. That's it.

>>5696551

I'm all for being exposed to terrible writing and having my own terrible writing critiqued. Like I said, my annoyance with Big Mac comes from the fact that he constantly interrupts productive workshops to start talking about how Bukowski is the greatest writer of all time. He literally uses about 30 minutes average per 2 hour class blathering and flopsweating about his hero.

The unintentional homoerotism of his work is a damned treasure, though, thus my willingness to share

>>5696528
I like the way you think, anon

>>5696476
I wish this was real

>>5695499

I have no idea what's happening, but it's actually sort of interesting. It feels like he has some trick going on there, but without the beginning or the ending, it obviously makes no sense. Taking an out-of-context excerpt for people to laugh at is pretty dick move, OP. It's obvious this is better than anything you came up with.

>>5695514
Underrated post

tfw i write worse then this

>>5696404
That's not Ebonics.

>>5696404
Sorry, thought this was the Ebonics lady. My bad.

>>5695499
it's alright, even though I don't quite get wether the creature is supposed to be scary or not.

>>5695499
>rubbing at his eyes
>>came a voice of sharpness and ozone
I'm sure he thinks this kind of stuff is genius, and a god writter could, maybe, make it work, but I laughed out loud.

>>5695499
I cringed SO HARD

>>5696476
Was it as a joke, meant for a laugh at him, or did he try to look cool? sadly 4chan has made it hard for me to distinguish between funny people and autists without tons of context.

>>5696505
It's a really worked movie in terms of cinematography without being the over the top stuff that the sequel is (only god forgives), some people dislike how simplistic the story is but it makes sense considering the characters it has. The music is pretty cool but it falls in what was in vogue at its time and you know 4chan hates that.

>>5696476
Hey do you live in GA? Atlanta/columbus area?

Just curious, girl in the picture looks familiar.

>>5695514
>>5696402
>>5696452
>>5696501
>>5696527
>>5696781
>>5697417
>>5697548
>>5697557

Okay, after sleeping on it I've decided it was a dick move to post his writing to be made fun of and not mine. So here you go, the piece I submitted for that very same workshop class:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1eSErMeetAhMFFSV0FzNHJxQ3M/view?usp=sharing

Enjoy.

what's up buttercup?

>>5697711
Why do you structure every single sentence the same way? It's repetitive as fuck.

>>5697711
He - I? - thought that this was very bad. He posted a reply saying so. The OP is a faggot, he thought.

>>5697711
you cant see the side of a SUV if its behind you

>>5697720
>>5697734

I absolutely agree with you both. It's repetitive and bad--I focused more on the story than the prose. Before posting it I physically cringed, just so you know.

>>5697776
This is something I was aware of while writing; I originally planned on the SUV skidding to an angle, leaving the writing visible, but I forgot to add that in and decided it would be cheating to edit it now

What I'm trying to get at is this: I am not a good writer. I realize that. That's why I don't act like a condescending, arrogant prick like my classmate.

>>5697832
Don't worry, it's still better than that other guy's (though not by much).

>>5697832
>I focused more on the story than the prose.
Dumbass, you have to work both at the same time, show some teeth and write that shit again.

>>5697711
lol OP give up your writing is shit and you have no talent
no amount of practice would even bring you up to dan brown standard

>>5696494
Yeah, or he is just pretending. He could be sitting in this workshop only to cringe about other people's teenage crap and shoves his homo erotic works down your throats for the lulz.

>person brings their novel to class
>it's obviously been self published
>she desperately wants to talk about it but refuses to do so unless someone else brings it up first
>she's constantly making sure her novel is in full view of everyone at all times so we'll notice sometime that her name is on the cover
>it looks like a fantasy novel where different tribes control the elements with magic (from the way the cover is designed: with clear fire, water, air, and earth motifs)
>one time I see her slowly flipping through it during break
>the pages are filled-- FILLED with annotations denoting spelling, grammatical, and formatting errors for when she rewrites and republishes it
>feel sort of bad for her
>self publishing

There is the most delusional, insane dude in my shcool's program. First off, he seriously wears all black every day, usually accompanied with a Dr. Who scarf and a fedora. The real problem though is how awful his writing is. Everything he writes is full of direct namedrops and references to various shows and games for no reason at all (one piece my pal in a class of his hsowed me had like a full page quote from some Battlestar Galactica where he basically just transcribes an entire scene, since something in the story made him think of it). He also is obsessed with Hunter S. Thompson and sometimes breaks out into an impersonation of him. When he hands in papers they are sealed with wax. He fancies himself the next great fantasy writer.

Maybe he's reading this too. I know for a fact he browses 4chan since he literally talks about it in class and writing.

>>5697920
>When he hands in papers they are sealed with wax.
TOP KEK

>>5697837
>>5697838
>>5697848

Give me like two hours, I'll write something new literally right now.

>>5697902

While paying for it? Top grade entertainment

>person sitting by me in workshop
>has exact hair of dfw
>exact bandana
>exact glasses
>talks with his exact mannerisms
>talks about wittgenstein constantly
who are these people who are ok with so fully subsuming their personality into another's

What the fuck, all of the people in my writing courses have been normal, usually well adjusted human beings with no serious problems that bleed into their writing.

>>5697973
English major at a small, public liberal arts school. The ever present inane banter of reclusive losers in my class constantly makes me think of the money I am paying to go here.

I was thinking about enrolling in a workshop because why the hell not, but after seeing this thread I'm having massive second thoughts... Are they completly useless?

>>5697933
You are paying either. Thus, he isn't only shoving cocks down your throat, but he is also costing you money.

>>5697920
I talk about DFW and Tao Lin calling them "those guys the internet likes a lot", I consider that being too close of just saying I browse 4chan. What kind of stuff does this guy say?

>are sealed with wax.
I actually had to stop there.
Why would you even seal your college work?

>>5697940
DFW's bandana is quite generic, bro.

>>5698003
I mean he actually explicitly references "4chan." Here is is, btw.

>>5698024
omg he's real
KEKEKEK

>In introductory creative writ class
>Semester goes memoir->fiction->poetry
>Memoir goes along swell enough, find one guy in particular interesting due to the tragedy he writes very well
>Fiction section starts, professor asks class if we have personal writing journals or such
>He says he has seven beaten, nearly completely filled notebooks, and the one that's falling apart at the seams which he brings to class is the one in the finest condition
>His submission to first fiction assignment is elf lesbians
Fantasy is escapism. He's had a shitty life. I understand completely. But I only like his writing when he's bleeding.

>>5697837
>>5697838
>>5697848
>>5697776
>>5697734
>>5697720

How's this for prose, cocksuckers?
It's still shit, isn't it?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1eSErMeetAhOTd0ZUVaQWYxUlE/view?usp=sharing

>>5698241
is this comedy

>>5698241
>opening your story with this much edge

>self-publishing

>>5698241
finished reading. literally the most boring thing i have ever read
i have in fact read 18th century legal documents that are less dry

>>5698241
>A car drove by the cafe's exterior and headlights illuminated the tiny raindrops that had recently made the glass their home. They looked exposed and naked; caught eavesdropping.
This has to be a joke, OP

>>5698241
>said
>said
>said
>said
>said
>said

>>5698241
It's not bad if you did that in the time between posting last in the thread and now.

>>5698302
That's actually the preferred dialogue tag 99% of the time, fyi. Read a book sometime.

>>5698389
You don't have to use it every time though. Whenever it can be inferred which character is speaking, you should drop it.

>>5698408
Actually, you're right. There were a few instances where I could have left it out. My bad. I do a better job with this in the first link I posted, but everyone is shitting on it. Not that I mind, I kind of deserve it.

>>5698419
It's only a casual "let's insult this because we can" shitting on of. It would be a lot worse if the piece was really that bad.

>>5698427
Thanks.

I want to clarify that the only reason I made fun of the piece in the OP is because the guy who wrote it thinks he's God's gift to the literary world. He's not a good writer, and neither am I. We're in a college writing workshop to get our writing criticized and to learn from our mistakes, not to rabidly defend our writing and refuse to accept any criticism like he does. What the fuck's the point of wasting money on the class if you're not going to learn from it?

I think it's important to pick and choose which literary advice to take. You can't cram in every little change people suggest because you'll wind up with a cobbled-together, Frankensteinian thing that's not really your own. On the flip side, you can't plug your ears and go "la la la I can't hear you fuck off my writing is great!" You have to find a balance, you know?

>>5698459
I'm not sure whether to tell you that you don't need to explain that, it's pretty obvious from the context to anyone with two brain-cells, or to let you carry on as it's also pretty obvious that you just want to vent about him being a prick and that's entirely understandable.
Maybe try not to worry about him. Pity him, and show him up by just being a better writer and a better person.

>>5698459
You sound like a decent person, anon. Do you want to be a writer, or are you just taking the class?

>>5698498
Thanks, anon. I'd love to get published someday, but right now I've got my sights set on teaching English abroad when I graduate. I'll definitely keep writing, though, no matter what I wind up doing in life.

>>5698459
I don't see anything wrong with making fun of him, he does really silly stuff. You on the other hand are just a poor writer. Both of you could fix a lot of stuff, but on your case more practice will mean improvement while someone who writes like the pic in the OP is just gonna keep using dumb approaches to writing like reinventing adjectives.

>>5698024
Hey that's me, take down the photo/

>>5698553
Timestamped pic. Fedora in, dick out, please.

>>5697940
could be DFW's reincarnation. Throw a tennis ball at him and see what happens.

>>5698459

OP, to really work on your writing, join scribophile or any of those online communities for writers. You post your shit and have it critiqued, you critique others. But without all the shitposting that goes on here.

>>5698596
If he fails to react then it's him.

>>5698610
fuck. not the reply I expected, really made me laugh.

Hey OP, the second piece of writing you posted is bad, yeah, but it's not terrible. And seriously, the fact that you're willing to learn and take advice from others is the only thing that matters right now. Keep writing.

Get yourself a book on how to write fiction and do the exercises. And just in case you're wondering, all beginner workshops suck balls. But after doing this one, sign up for an intermediate one. At my school the intermediate level required aproval from the professor to sign up, which meant you had to submit your work and be aproved by him. This weeded out all the horrible losers you complain about.

>>5695499
you know you have an amateur when you flood your book with short conversations, basically just to fill your book.

>>5696473
>even though the young guy is a virgin they both cum at the same time multiple times

jesus fuck clear marker for a hentai addict right here

>>5698024
Renaissance fair or PotterCON?

>>5698652
Anybody have this in PDF?

>>5697940
Ask him if he plays tennis. When he says no, then tell him it's really the combination of the grad school douchebag and the sports jock that makes DFW cool, and since you've borrowed just the douchey side, you're not emulating DFW, you're just being a douche.

>>5696475
Why would you say it takes a long time? I'd say it took me a three fucking months.

>>5696505
4chan hates everything, most of all itself. To see a guy that is basically loser anon:the protagonist really makes them hate the movie. Trying to make an introvert cool and charming without him just being a dick or "losing" his introverted nature? Nah, 4chan can't have that, that might give them hope, and hope is a painful thing.

>>5698675
That's just how he dresses.

>>5696380
>fingers stroking barrels
>cocking and recocking the weapon
>thick, veiny tumescence
>loli is just a prerequisite for lengthy descriptions of the guy, his physique, his attitudes etc

I can see it.

>>5698705
Not to imply that it's any less shameful, but people like that aren't entirely uncommon.

>>5698713
This reload time is exhilarating!

>>5698719

It's so different from just changing a clip...

>>5698678
I have it, but can't uplodad now, I promise to do it tomorrow. If the thread is not alive, please make a thread with that MFA book pic and I'll upload it.

>>5695499
The execution isn't very good, but conceptually it's better than most of the shit i see posted on /lit/

>>5698746

>>5698746
also this

http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2012/07/02/the-top-100-creative-writing-blogs-updated/

>>5696476
enjoy your soda tax faggot

should i post my story from a writing workshop I took at uni this semester?

>>5698812
Do you even have to ask? Post it.

>>5698814

Okay. Here goes...


REV 16: 16

‘It’s over. You can consider this my resignation.’
Facing the panel convened in the spacious office of Mencius Megiddo, the voice of Chief Engineer Leo Esperon sounds hollow. The panel numbers four; the two pale, bespectacled attorneys simply stare from their places in the corners, while the Cryptologic Vizier, one Dr Pyrrhon, leans back pensively in his chair, a ballpoint pen between his teeth. Seated centrally behind his polycarbonate desk, having just returned to Silicon Valley from Hanukkah with the Zuckerbergs, is Megiddo himself. Gesturing with his miniature Julian Assange Plush Doll™ in hand, the CEO and Chairman of La Berinta Enterprises Inc. addresses Esperon:
‘If I were you, compañero, I would just return to my office and find something to do. An event of great significance will be taking place in one hour, and it would be a terrible shame if any of our family were to miss it. The board has been well aware of your growing, uh, ‘qualms’, shall we say, in the last month, and indeed we have been monitoring your communications for much longer. There is no cause for - ’
‘I don’t care what you say, I’m out,’ replies Esperon as he rises to his feet.
‘There is no cause for alarm. We have been preparing for The Happening for a long time now, and trust me, you will want a front seat for it.’
‘…what’s happening?’
‘We have no idea. When it Happens, we will know.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘What we do know, is that it will Happen,’ Dr Pyrrhon interjects helpfully.
Esperon looks back and forth, from one to the other.
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you Mencius, but I just can’t go on like this. I’m going home.’
‘Oh?’ Megiddo tilts his head inquiringly.
‘…look out the window!’

***

>>5698825

2 At a folding card table placed in a corner of Mrs Megiddo’s garage, Mencius is nearing the conclusion of an interview with a promising candidate for the upsizing of the start-up software company he founded after dropping out of UCLA.
‘So, as I have been saying, it is very important to our operation that anyone who comes to work with us at La Berinta understands our philosophy and that we, uh, see eye to eye, so to speak.’
‘Of course.’ Leo Esperon is fairly certain that he is about to be offered the position, and in any case only needs to fill in a month or so before he can resume work on his doctorate at Berkeley.
‘In your own words, then, what is your understanding of what we do, the whys and wherefores?’
Esperon recalls a snatch of text from the company site he had perused when making his application: We serve Capital by bringing its force into the realm of pure abstraction, pure information. Everyone knows that human existence has always been governed by the exchange of one signifier for another, a transformational calculus that underwrites history itself. The fulfilment of our mission depends on antagonising, and eventually escaping, those state apparatuses that have always prevented the realization of Capital in a true free market. Our task is thus doubly scientific and political. But history is on OUR SIDE.
‘Well, what I gathered is that you buy and sell information for other parties, and you want to stop government regulations from corrupting capitalism.’
‘Correct. What we are working towards is the union of Being with the free market.’
‘Which has always existed and never existed.’
‘I’ve never been one for semantics, but what matters is that you comprehend our aims and motives, which it seems you do…’
Setting aside Esperon’s resume, which he has been intermittently glancing over throughout, Megiddo takes a hearty draught of Mountain Dew and extends his hand across the table.
‘Welcome aboard, hombre. Your part in our story begins tomorrow. 8am sharp.’

***

>>5698833

3 Esperon turns back from the terrible view of the noxious purple mushroom clouds, to which Megiddo had been pointing, erupting all along the horizon beyond the Japanese rock garden, beyond the desert. The CEO-Chairman and his associates, moving off, pass in single-file through an incidental door and along the veranda, descending sunbathed steps to a polished table laden with tea party paraphernalia at the edge of the garden, where a cohort of Saudi businessmen and La Berinta employees have already assembled. What follows will be a tightly coordinated and choreographed eroto-economic business meeting and orgy observing all the formalities of Victorian tea party etiquette and Talmudic scholarship. Megiddo lubes up while Dr Pyrrhon provides running commentary and quarterly projections. The pale, bespectacled attorneys simply stare from their places at the corners.
‘Behead those who question the Profit,’ one of the businessmen moans.
Contemplating the scene unfolding beneath the acrid apocalyptic sky, Esperon feels his breath quickening and takes off running down the corridor. There is, he knows, someone - in an office way over at the southern limit of the building - who might unravel the nature of the looming disaster that Megiddo had invoked with such bland concern and which has only just entered, dimly, the horrified imaginings of Esperon himself. His own investigations, in secret, have in recent months merely suggested the deep rotten machinations that he knows in the gristle of his heart to lead back through Megiddo’s labyrinth to that handshake in a Fairfax garage. Those purple clouds...
How had it come to this?

***

>>5698835

HOW IT CAME TO THIS

4 Esperon had been there from the beginning. He had been witness to all as the anarcho-capitalist micro-community at La Berinta emerged and then flourished far beyond Megiddo’s wildest dreams...

***

5 Running, Esperon passes by John the scripting consultant and seven others, slumped over and wailing at the cocktail bar. One of them blows his nose with a sound like a trumpet.

***

6 The company acquired organs and subdivisions internal and external… the myriad multicoloured standalone La Berinta™ street vendors from Venice Beach to Santa Cruz and beyond… the research facilities manned day and night by software engineers... code monkeys... lab techs... cryptographers... cryptanalysts... logicians... data entry peons... masseuses... baristas... yoga instructors... a recursively defined many-tiered cadre of supervisors to oversee all of the above - and each other...

***

7 The man he seeks is a relative newcomer, a secretive but – rumour has it – ingenious architect of cybernetic systems who had faced volatile censure from the head honchos at LBE only a week before. Apparently several dissenting comments bearing his authorship had floated down through the company’s social media currents, and lodged in places chafing and ticklish.

***

8 So prodigious was the growth of LBE Inc. that within three years of its founding every last Californian citizen collected a La Berinta pay-check, and all of its corporate competitors had either been subsumed or driven out of business...

***

9 The architect’s name is Stanley Cortaran and it is in the direction of this man’s office that Esperon’s thundering footfalls now proceed.

***

10 By and by Megiddo had found it prudent to further advance the cause of free market enterprise by adjusting the salaries of his many henchpersons, such that a small reduction in their annual pay enabled the anarchistic micro-community to install clean and efficient healthcare facilities, on-site electricity, water, and gas utilities, and roads... Staples being, due to the operations of the nefarious thumb tack cartels, a rarity in the environs of southern California, this reduction in salary was appended to each citizen’s pay check by means of a small silver thumb tack; this small sacrifice for the progress of free market enterprise became known among the staff as ‘the tacks’...

***

>>5698840

11 Stan Cortaran’s office is just beyond the point where the windowed section of the corridor ends, and looking over his shoulder one last time Esperon sees the mushroom clouds have grown and multiplied, thrusting up to meet the dense storm clouds rapidly forming above, closing cancerous black around the still blinding sun. Reaching the door to Cortaran’s office and trying the handle, Esperon enters to find the room empty.
Then, a lilting tune catches his ear. Venturing further into the office, Esperon finds Stanley Cortaran, white-haired and skeletal, seated cross-legged on the floor and winding a bedsheet noose hand over hand. He is whistling ‘Glory, Hallelujah’.

***

12 The company and its culture grew ever more ubiquitous, and as the social and technological advances of this living testament to the potential of human creativity (when untrammeled by state bureaucracy) acquired international fame and prestige, it was further agreed that some means of defense from the jealous scheming of International Statism be devised. Thus it was that the fittest among the La Berinta staff were trained and equipped for service in the Retaliatory Munitions entourage (the R-Me).

***

13 ‘Stan, what are you doing? We have to get out of here!’
‘It’s... all over now, Leo. I would have warned you that it might come to this, but I suspected you were coming to your own conclusions...’
‘About Mencius?’
Cortaran laughs, ‘you think Megiddo is behind this? The world is coming to an end, and you think this is all the work of some schmuck from Fairfax with a word processor and a Messiah complex? This goes far, far beyond Mencius, my friend.’
‘Then who is responsible, and why is everyone around here losing their minds?’
‘I will tell you, but only if you can beat me at Mario Kart.’
‘Okay.’

***

14 Many soon grew to dislike the work involved, but all acknowledged that it sure beat the hell out of succumbing once again to the tyranny of government rule, and in any case one could usually avoid the R-Me, as long as one met the tacks.

***

>>5698842

DEUS EX NINTENDO

15 Incarnated as Yoshi and speeding along Rainbow Road, Esperon hopes, whether he triumphs or fails, that Cortaran will yield and provide some clue to the disaster, some reduction of its scope to this lonely desert, some… hope of salvation for his career and his mortal existence.
‘Get behind me, Stan!’
But even as he discharges a banana peel in the path of Cortaran’s Donkey Kong and approaches the finish line, the answer presents itself to him, rising soundlessly from the neon ribbon of the Rainbow Road and its attendant void, echoing the treachery of those blinding colours shimmering all along the unfolding road, a code eternally returning to its oblivion... revelation under the wheels of a pixellated go-kart.

The exchange of history for a signifier.

The purification of Being in Capital.

Capital speaking itself in a pristine pure syntax.

Capital perpetuating the growth of Capital, and growing to perpetuate its growth.

As bodies fall out of its calculations.

Billions of bodies trembling with hunger in cities and dwellings located nowhere in our calculus.

The world inflamed in its flesh and joints, repressed anguish erupting in the swarming of mobs, the toppling of façades, the seizure of nuclear weapons.

Geotrauma... we cannot eat information.

Entirely unnoticed by the software engineers of ghostly Capital and the fanatics who had unleashed its carnivorous logic.

Until now.

***

16 The screen fades to black and Esperon turns to Cortaran, who has resumed winding his noose.
‘I see now. We really are utterly fucked, aren’t we?’
‘Yes. Not even Megiddo realized that La Berinta was not even really his idea, but was only speaking through him. And what you see outside is its final collapse. La Berinta will take us all with it.’
‘I’m going up to the roof. I want to see it for myself.’
‘I’ll go with you, then. It’s such nice weather out.’
Together they depart and ascend via the stairwell to the open rooftop of the building. From here the desert extends in all directions, its sands and parched bushes growing slowly darker as the eye of the sun is infarcted with cloud, from above and below. Each intermittent atomic blast obscuring the distant figure of San Francisco is louder than the one before. The Earth rends itself with great thrusting Fault-Lines from which ascend terrible deathly Fires that scorch and suffocate the very Air. The Heavens open and from their Bower is loos’d a tremendous Deluge of burning copper Shekels and glossy, greasy Dollar Bills.
Somewhere below the tea party proceeds and voices rise up from the garden:

‘Oh God, I’m coming!’

‘Amen.’

>>5698825
>>5698833
>>5698835
>>5698840
>>5698842
>>5698843

That's all of it. I know it isn't anything great but I like these threads.

>>5698241
do drugs, it will make your writing less pretentious.

>>5698241
>The milk on the surface reacted and flowed—warm and inviting as a bed; hypnotic and spiraling like a distant galaxy.

nigga why

>>5698884
I wrote this all on benzos.

>>5698905
I don't know, man, I rewrote that sentence fifty times and this seemed like it captured the feeling well to me and I really liked it. Why don't you like it?

>>5698912
I never get why descriptions of minor stuff like coffee are included anywhere

I like it lyrically in a way, just the shift from milk on the surface to distant galaxy made me go 'ohh..', the whole does capture a particular feeling though, yeah.

>>5698912
>Why don't you like it?

Not him, but it's really quite bad imo. Firstly, I don't think it's a good idea to deploy two similes in one sentence to describe one thing. Secondly, I don't think it's a good idea to contrast their referents so sharply - the banality of a bed against the exoticism of a "distant galaxy" (which is lazy anyway: for one thing, all galaxies are distant and those closer to us aren't really any less "hypnotic" than those farther, are they?). I realise that juxtaposition is probably intentional, I'm just saying I don't like it.

Secondly, it is just this Libby person stirring her latte. How interesting do you think that can be? Obviously, you're trying to show us something of Libby's mood. Do latte-swirls make a lot of people think of bed, though? The galaxy comparison in and of itself doesn't seem bad in that respect, but what purpose is it serving? What is it telling us?

>>5698961
First off, sincere thanks for your feedback.

The cramming of two similes into one sentence isn't practical--no arguments here.

As for the two contrasting examples, I thought they worked, despite their vast differences, in that they both offered compatibly in regards to the qualities to the coffee: warm, swirling, hypnotic, and inviting.

I threw in "distant" to "galaxy" because the end of the sentence felt unbalanced without it.

As for the last bit of your post, it's a doped-up, depressed girl absorbed in her coffee. Latte swirls don't make a lot of people think of bed, but I figured I'd try to do something original instead of writing something that came too quickly, too naturally, because those are often the cliches that have been done a million times and are not fun to write or to read. I guess it doesn't work as well as it did in my head.

Thanks again for your advice.

>>5698652
>>5698678
>>5698746
>>5698771

http://keep2s.cc/file/ecbbfa218254d

literally 2 minutes on google

>>5697913
oh man that's painful. One of the guy's in undergrad chem self published his own sci fi novel and handed it out to everyone after a lab. In the next two lectures he sat near the door reading his book upright so everyone could see the cover, which was a picture of some spiralling galaxy and his name in large white type. He hadn't named it yet. He left a copy on the lecturers desk before a lecture.
The lecturer came early and started reading it, then when the lecture started, she did the usual, "If anyone owns a samsung phone, a hello kitty diary...blah blah...and this book, "Anon Lastname", i understand if you do not wish to collect it, i'll leave it here so when everyone's left you can pick it up." I never saw that kid again. I hope he's okay, i tried searching his name in amazon to see if he published it but i couldn't find him.

From memory the first line went something like
>The sun surrounded them like a super-nova. Sara Konnely smiled, David Spann could see her eyes like red dwarves as she steered the mining craft Shino B.

>>5699068
Jesus Christ, I would change my name and move to a different country. I simply do not understand self-publishing. It's saturated with amateurs not good enough to be legit published, but why don't established authors not take advantage of it? If you're fucking Stephen King, you don't need a marketing middle man, people would buy your grocery list, for fuck's sake.

>>5695499
>she grinned a grin
>GRINNED A GRIN

>>5699024
you just saved me $10, no need to buy the book now. And if the book is any good, it'll save me $40000 cause I won't need to do an MFA.

Thanks, anon, you saved me $40010 with two minutes of your time!

>>5698241

>“Sometimes I wish my mom had just aborted me,”

literally closed the tab right away.

>>5699107
The ADD generation, everybody.

>>5699107
dude, keep reading.

>"But actually I'm glad the abortion only managed to get rid of my would-be twin sister,"

>>5699111
>She had been sent back in time to save her sister from the machines. Judgement Day was upon us.

Giving myself a 5 minute time limit. No editing. Just writing. And I'm doing it FOR YOU, /lit/. Can I get a style critique?

Hopped off the trolley not far from the boardwalk. Don't know what I was searching for, but there had to be something out there. Magnetism doesn't just happen. So I prowled around, checking the stalls and stands and sometimes looking out past the neon glow and into the dark of the beach.

A kid in a goblin mask shot a Nerf gun at me and I finger-gunned at him and he cried and ran away. His dad came up to me not long after, wanted to know why his kid was shaking and screaming and pointing at me from across the way. People were staring. I said that his kid'd made fun and he said that's what kids do. Maybe it is, but why not us? So I finger-gunned the dad and he swung a fist around and then it was lights out, the black that seems like it'll be there forever but that's gone in an hour or two.

I woke up in an alley soaked in gin and missing my shoes. Never done drugs, never smoked, never drank--so why was I covered in gin, again? Figured that I'd have to find out and gave myself a mystery to solve. That's how the magnetism works, just drawing you from place to place and even if you don't know the reasons you know damn well that you're in the moment, that you're you. Out of the alley I found I was about two blocks from the boardwalk. A hotdog vendor said I'd stumbled there with a fist-shaped bruised welling up on my forehead, my shoes gone, smelling like I'd been pickled in drink. I bought a dog from him and shoveled it down as I walked about and looked for leads on the shoes.

>>5699111
made it to the third line, things are picking up.

>"Still inside my mother's uterus, I swore to avenge my sister's premature death. I had my work cut out for me."

>>5699127

This reminds me a fair bit of Alfred Bester's The Pi Man.

>>5699127
I really like this style, anon. It feels like you wrote it in five days, not minutes.

>>5699093
Some writers have decent deals with publishers, as well as publishers do have a lot of benefits such as large scale marketing, they offer editors, and sometimes advisors and such. I suspect that big writers like Stephen King have got pretty decent deals with the publishers to allow them to publish his work.

>>5699127

Terrible

I'm currently in a creative writing class.

So far I've read:

Story about werewolves
Story about vampires
Story about sasquatch war (this one was funny and the only good story I have read in that class)
More stories about vampirs
More stories about werewolves

For some reason everyone likes to write in the present tense and then slip in past tense shifts on accident which totally fucks everything up and confuses me.

>why am I the only good writer in this damn class?
(said every aspiring author ever)

>>5698253
>Traditional publishing
>2014

>>5699151
Can't say I've read it.

>>5699193
Thank ye, but rest assured it was 5 minutes. Looking at it now, there are things I would have changed.

>>5699225
Please elaborate.

>>5699248
>Can't say I've read it.

You can find it online. It's very, very short and is my favourite SF short story ever.

>>5699228

>sasquatch war

Sounds like it's story time.

>>5699093
I don't see why Self-publishing is so bad when traditional publishers will make you change your work so it sells to shit heads.

>>5699280
Seconding what cutie says.

>>5698729
>clip

>>5699642
>caring

>>5699109
Or the people that don't enjoy reading attempted edgy stories filled to the brim with pretentiousness.

>>5699695
How is it in any way edgy or pretentious? The main character is depressed. Oh no, how subversive! Surely this type of thing has never been attempted before, and is being done solely for shock value!

Seriously, just stop. If you want to offer constructive criticism, fantastic, appreciate it. If you want to just call me a faggot, go right ahead. But if you want to call it shit without giving a barebones explanation of why it's shit, you can fuck right off, because that doesn't contribute to anything. At least calling me a faggot is amusing.

>>5699695
>filled to the brim
It was 1 sentence

>>5699767
Which sentence?

>>5699662
>not being a /k/ommando

>>5695499
why would you make fun of someone who is earnestly trying to make art? are you a dick?

>>5699808
Elitism is a good thing.

>>5699804
>not being a /v/irgin

It's a line from a videogame.

>>5699817
I don't care. You don't 'change' a clip

>>5699808
criticism helps to establish some quality level

>>5697617
>Berkeley
>Georgia

>>5699808
Read what I wrote again. The guy is an arrogant prick, that's the only reason I'm making fun of him. Besides, my writing got anally-blasted in this thread, too, and I'm fucking grateful; I'm making revisions because of these posts. Criticism yields improvement.

>>5699825

No, you care. A lot. *I* don't care.

>be me
>study bachelor of science majoring in geology
>take Contemporary Literature as an elective
>just fuck around with it and have fun
>includes a short "flash fiction" assignment
>get a High Distinction for every assignment
>get a High Distinction for the course
>the aspiring writers get shit marks and write shit fictions
>laugh and never come back
>mon visage quand

>>5699844
I don't care that it's a line from a video game. I do care about the incorrect terminology.

Is this now a critique thread?

>>5699866
It always was

>>5699856
so you are glad that you possibly bury your talent for some geology

That's not a bad story, OP. The concept is very interesting and made me want to read further.

I don't know why you are shit talking it. I found it entertaining at the very least.

>>5699817

Video games suck and only sedentary, cave-dwelling misogynistic savages play them.

>>5699856
something similar happened to me when I took a film study class for fun.

I was among film majors who couldn't tell their ass from a wide angle lens, like they did not understand the terminology of editing and cinematography, and my final essay for that class is now used as an example.

it's sort of funny, the sort of people who get into universities.

>>5699859
>I do care about the incorrect terminology.

You shouldn't. Though I don't really care.

>>5699951
Why shouldn't I?

>>5695499
That is not that bad at all, this is a uni class we're talking about...

>>5699945
>Video games suck

Oh, almost all of them, yeah. Though I'm not sure how you'd know if you don't play them.

>only sedentary, cave-dwelling misogynistic savages play them.

Nah.

>>5699953

Because it is unimportant. Not, mind you, that there is no case where knowing a magazine (or whatever) from a clip would be important, but in the context that it arose ITT? 'Trivial' would be an upgrade. Especially since it's quoted. I mean, your problem is with either the script editor or the English translator of a 10-yo videogame, not with me.

>>5699962
That was a very nice explanation, and I mean that with sincerity.

>>5699950
I'm getting my masters and the people around me have trouble differentiating between the shot they want to make and the one they're making at that time. It's even worse that it slowly underscores your own confidence since they seem to believe they know what they're doing.

>>5699804
The gun in question might have used clips, though, I'm not sure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makarov_pistol

>>5699950
>>5699856

Yeah, this is pretty common.

I took a few different courses that were outside of my major (music for undergrad, creative writing now for my MFA) and I usually did really well.

I think a big part of it is coming into something and understanding you don't know much about it.

As opposed to coming in and thinking, "Yeah, I already know everything about this. I'm pretty much awesome." Which is unfortunately a very common mindset in younger college students; I think it has to do with finding themselves in a new place both socially and in "life", where they're given more responsibility but not quite considered adults and pretty much all of the meaningful friendships they made in high school dissolve and while they're trying to "reinvent" themselves, they still want to cling desperately to the notion that they've got talent, which ironically ends up preventing them from being efficient during their first semester or so.

>>5699940
>>5699956
read >>5698241 and laugh, my friends.

>>5700011
I understand that 'clip' (as in stripper clip) is a legitimate term, but I can't imagine a situation (that isn't nonsensical) where 'changing' a clip is appropriate. At best, you would just be loading the rounds from another clip, which hardly constitutes 'changing'.

>>5700011
Also, I'm not quite sure why you linked to that pistol, it seems to be fairly clear that it takes a magazine and not a clip.

>>5700031
It's a videogame boss, they force things a bit, it's implied that he had his own budget for bullets just playing around and doing tricks.

>>5700015
I'm seconding that a mature mindsett can make you get better results than the standard first year take on college. I'm sure first year kids in, say, geology also suck at it in ways that no one should suck at.

>>5696505
I still really like that movie.
Everything else aside, the cinematography is enough for me.

>>5700015
you're doing an MFA? Where are you at, if you can say? How do you like it so far? I'm applying this year, any tips?

>>5699397
jesus christ, that doesn't actually ever take place, does it?

>>5695499
i like it

>>5695499
>somebody has an interest and is curious

>HURR DURR SNOB FAGGOT ONLY THINKS ABOUT HIMSELF AND THINGS HE LIKES
>ILL GO TO MY BLOG ON 4CHAN AND CRY ABOUT HIM
>I SURE SHOWED HIM

>>5696476
No way

>>5696505
Great Film.

>>5699397
>tfw write something really artsy, poetic and deep
>book is your baby, every word chosen with care and intention
>tfw the publishers dumb it down to appeal to a mass audience
>tfw the meaning is lost
I can see the appeal of self publishing

>>5702183
it's a meme isn't it? it doesn't actually happen?

>>5700697
>>5702218
Well I guess it'd depend on the publisher, actually.

Considering stuff like The Naked Lunch gets published and all.

>>5702226
But it can't possibly be a common phenomenom

Book editing sounds just so bizarre

>>5702230
I think that guy exaggerated a bit when he said that, it's more of a compromise thing. But publishers get all the say when it comes to cover art and other aesthetic qualities that impact the over all work.

But I've heard nightmare stories where Traditional publishers will fuck the author in the ass when it comes to rights and other legal matters. It's pretty awful, Self-publishing gets a horrendous rap here and elsewhere due to the massive volume of shit but there are several very valid reasons to prefer one over the other.

>>5698241
>Jen had concern written on her face. She'd gotten the tattoo when she was nineteen and had gotten drunk for the first time.

I'll admit I laughed, but I also stopped reading there, so I guess it's up to you whether you want to count that as a victory or not.

>>5702259
But respected and mainstream traditional publishers shouldn't manage to do that? As in, they're a brand pushing a lot of material through, it would all become big relatively fast etc., no?

>>5699397
this is just an old wives tale perpetuated by the self publishing market.

if a publisher likes your work, chances are they don't want to change it. And it's always better to have someone who actually wants to publish your work, vs no one wanting to publish your work.

>>5702278
Just depends I suppose, I'm no expert.

>>5702284
The only published poeople I know writewomen's books and genre fictionso they never had any such issues, talk about quality, but it still sounds like such an exotic thing, why would anyone want to publish anything that needed modifications previously

>>5702289
sorry for the clustered words, spoilers are messing themselves up again

>>5698241
This is unreadable.

>>5699093
>If you're fucking Stephen King, you don't need a marketing middle man,
If Stephen King self published his books would suffer a steep decline in sales.

Lets think about this for a moment. Where do you think Stephen King makes most of his money? At Barns and Noble and Walmart, where they line the walls of the store with his latest piece of trash novel.

If he self published his books would not be in Barns and Noble and Walmart, because major retailers do not carry self published books.

Suddenly those impulse buys by casual readers are gone. Sure, the die hard Stephen King fans will still find his books, but how many people are legit fans of his work? Like when was the last time someone who was an avid reader came up to you and said Stephen King was their favorite novelist?

>>5696350
>and bitches about "woman writers"
I agree it's in bad taste to point out the obvious. It's self-evident that female writers are bad.

>>5696476
holy shit

>>5698024
That's not all black.

>>5698255
kek

>>5702304
He wouldn't get film contracts that easily either.

>>5702356

>>5695499

>Emroiled in World of Warcraft on his laptop, the girl's father didn't look up as he called back"What's up, buttercup?"

>>5696473
>>sort of just comes into class wearing giant ass headphones listening to music and sits perfectly still until class starts

hehe

>>5702514
Thom Yorke sure let himself go.

>>5697711
Pretty good. I ain't reading all that shit cause I'm hungover as balls, but you -it seems to me- use the dashes too much.

>>5699856
An oddly common phenomenon in many fields of study.

It's widely known that pre-law students are some of the worst scoring on the law school admission test and pre-med students are some of the worst scoring on the medical school entrance test.

>>5702304
>major retailers do not carry self published books.

Kind of feel like they would if it was Stephen fucking King.

>>5697711
I liked it OP good twist at the end, but like the other anons said you shouldn't start all your sentences with he or she.

>>5702655
No, they have contracts with publishing houses. The difference between the mafia and companies is that the second ones uses paper contracts.

>>5702356
>virgin detected

>>5696505
the death grips of movies

>>5696537
Fuck you're making me horny.

>>5696367
You should pick up a linguistics book.

>>5696473
>they both cum multiple times
>the guy does
Is that a thing that can happen? Because usually after I get off it's softsville for 10-15 minutes at a minimum.

Though I did go for like 45 minutes my first time. I think I was just too damn nervous to cum or something.

>>5696505
It's still my favorite movie. No shame, no regret. And I'm actually really extroverted.

I think people who dislike it are more likely to be autistic than people who like it, to be honest. Given how there are constant cues for how characters are feeling and what they're thinking, but because they don't outright state it, people bitch that "nothing happens and the characters are really shallow." Just pay attention. Jesus.

>>5705610
During fap or sex? I usually dont get soft until the third cum.

>>5695499

The writing is trash, but there's worse out there. The storytelling is okay. It needs work, but no fucking shit, it's a first draft. I cringed a little but my sides are perfectly stationary. You sound like you have some growing up to do, OP.

>>5705797
>Because I am afraid of criticism, I defend shitty writers on the internet

>>5705768
>>5705610
>hotdogging a guy's ass for the first time
>sensation is ridiculous
>jizz after like four or five humps
>"Already?"
>didn't even get inside him
I'm such a beta.

>>5699127
>finger-gunned
This reminded me of Sam pINK.

>>5706476
In a good or bad way?

>>5705610
It can happen, but you have to have practiced tantric type sex.

>>5706382
>hey everybody
>I'm gay!
>Did you hear me?
>I'M GAY!! GAYYYYYY

>>5707689
>he should wait until someone asks in case a straight person gets upset

Fuck off, /pol/tard.

>>5707689
Do you need him to change guy for girl so your sensibilities aren't offended?

>>5706382
Hotdogging an ass sounds appealing for some reason.

>>5705596

Why?

>>5709523
Language is constantly changing. "Standard" English is not the only valid form of English. I'm not sure exactly what dialect she was using that you call "ebonics," but it's probable that she was using an entirely consistent grammar, even if it was different than the one you're used to.

Language changes all the time. Different dialects are often delegitimized and treated as "less than" others, but generally they're just as functional, and only subjectively less aesthetic.

This isn't just a "look how PC I am" thing; I'm making an actual statement about what linguists have learned about how languages work.

If you're interested, I recommend "Language Myths" by Laurie Bauer & Peter Trudgill, especially the first two essays, but honestly the whole thing.

Sorry for being so pithy before. That wasn't really conducive to conversation.

>>5695499
>be enrolled in writing workshop in college

lmfao

>>5710241

Do you have a degree in linguistics?

>>5697920

say that to my face fucker not online see what happens

your dead when i see you pal

>>5710248
No. I'm one semester away from a degree in cultural anthropology, though, and have had to study some linguistics in the process.

I suggested a book by people who have PhDs in linguistics, however, after summarizing a point I received from that book.

>>5710323

Well, I do have a degree in linguistics. So you can rest assured that you don't have to condescend to me and tell me I need to read pop-linguistics texts.

>>5710345
Damn...

oh man I loved creative writing class

>>5710345
I don't believe you're that anon. I also don't think you have a linguistics degree, but that's not relevant since you aren't who I was talking to.

>>5707689
fucking lold

>>5707753
uh yes it's a straight man's world and he was just being an attention whore and was called out for it cry about it

>>5705856
>I like to pretend my snark is armchair psychoanalysis because I know I need help myself

>>5697920
>There is the most delusional, insane dude in my shcool's program. First off, he seriously wears all black every day, usually accompanied with a Dr. Who scarf and a fedora

i thought people became more tolerant since the time when wilkie collins wrote his 'woman in white' and wearing one color by choice isn't considered as a sign as madness anymore...

>>5710483
I am that anon, and I've taken a great deal of linguistics courses. While there are "high and low" variants of the English language and all are perfectly functional, anyone committed to writing for a living should be both able and willing to write in the current accepted dialect.

The woman in question seems to be unaware of "high and low" forms of language and that, as a writer, is a huge problem. Even if she intends to write genre fiction in Ebonics, she's facing major syntax and grammatical issues that will make it virtually impossible to write a query letter or submit to journals. This, combined with her "I'm a more advanced writer than y'all and I'm only here to make literary connections through the professor" attitude, is why I'm making fun of her.

Thanks for the salty attempt at schooling me on the most basic concept on linguistics, though.

>>5710746
I was mostly criticizing your participation in treating certain language as "less" than others. Even moreso if you're educated on the matter, honestly. But you're right that from a purely practical standpoint if she can't write in standard English she will probably have trouble getting published and I agree that arrogance is bad.

I still object a little bit to your use of the word "proper" there.

>>5695499
https://rbt.asia/mu/thread/S50666301

be careful OP

>>5702304
He's my favorite novelist. No joke.

>>5710483

Right. You don't think I have a degree in linguistics because...?

>>5710746

Yes, this what I thought. Which is why Mr Cultural Anthropologist is a cunt for sperging out and going all 'hurr if you disagree wit me u ignorant, read a book sometime pleb.'

You guys don't even know the worst entry level creative writing classes have to offer. I teach a few sections of entry level poetry classes at my university, and I get the "I am the next Sylvia Plath" type every single semester. And that shit is just difficult to workshop at that level.

>>5699986
I empathize entirely with you anon

>>5711171
Generally reluctant to believe any post on 4chan where someone is conveniently really knowledgeable about the topic at hand right when it's time to argue with someone.

>>5711181
Did you see the reply to that where I apologized for the way I responded? Also, am I supposed to assume every single anon on /lit/ is studied in linguistics just by the fact of being on /lit/? I shouldn't have just said "read a book," but given that this was just some anon, I think my next reply was reasonable. Suggesting that a random anon read a specific book that may interest them doesn't seem like a problem to me.

>>5696505

No it's okay but that kind of film (pulp essentially) has a bigger and better history to it. Personally I'm a sucker for Japanese crime movies from the 60s/70s. If you're interested in watching something similar to Drive, the obvious film-makers to check out would include Meville, Suzuki, Aldrich, and Fuller.

>>5710241
>>5710323
VUW student or is that book actually used in other places?

>>5697711
>>5698241
OP, please stop using em dashes. I used to use the a few times a paper--that was too much. They are just a lazy way to write. Challenge yourself by setting artificial limits, for example no em-dashes, don't use 'said', etc. Do experiment with punctuation, but do so to increase the clarity of your writing.

>>5698241
>the waitress was alternating between giving them dirty looks and glancing at her watch

You don't know shit.

>>5712977
Not a VUW student. Read it on recommendation from a linguist.

>>5713125
Oh, interesting. I didn't think much of the book. The writers lecture at my university.

>>5698849
No joke, that was great. Do you have a blog?

>>5712943

You were assuming yourself to be more knowledgeable than others, which is rather arrogant and unbecoming.

I understand that you're studying cultural anthropology and that any anthropologist worth his/her salt assumes all cultures and features thereof are equally valid (despite the face that anthropology is historically very deeply rooted in colonialism), but we're talking about an English course, and a graduate course at that. The fact is that English dialects outside of standard English are absolutely not academically acceptable (Ebonics being no more or less acceptable than writing in say, cockney rhyming slang, for example) no matter how functional they may be in speech. You may take issue of my usage of "properly" in my original post, but the existence of proper English is point of contention amongst many working anthropologists and considered a matter if fact in the rest of the English speaking world. I highly recommend seeking out Lindsay Johns' Language is Power, which makes a practical case for the usage of standard English in lieu of popular dialect in modern society

>>5714371
>his/her
die feminist

>>5696537
This is gold.

>>5714393
Probably a student. I remember using the general 'his' in an essay and getting shit about it from the tutor. After that I just avoided those kinds of sentence constructions altogether. Didn't want to get marked down for doing it the right way, and didn't want to cave in to meaningless feminist academic bullshit.

>>5714462
I believe Eric Wolpaw said that using "their" actually has precedent in the english language.

>>5714463
Using 'they' can lead to a grammatical argument though, which isn't great if you're being marked on something. The weirdest part of it all is that people using a generic 'her' on its own don't seem to attract the same criticism.

>>5714393
>angry virgin detected

>>5714469

Right, using "they" can be grammatically confusing, so the most correct way to phrase it really is "his/her," although clearly anyone on this board would know what you meant if you chose either pronoun. Since we're all anon and this board in particular has a higher percentage of femanons than most of the other boards, I see nothing wrong with being gender neutral, which is actually more anonymous than using "his" anyway.

Well, that and its always amusing to watch the underaged gamergate crowd get their panties in a twist over inclusivity.

>>5695499
Here's a thing that happens a lot in the writing class I'm currently enrolled in:

>People write about a subject close to their heart, like a pet dying, a family member being ill or passing away, a grandparent who survived the holocaust
>they cry while reading it
>no one dares say anything about the piece other than "it's brave" and "I can feel your pain"
>I critique it like I would any other piece of writing
>Everyone looks at me like I'm a dick

I mean the reader isn't gonna see you cry, you have to convey that through your writing.

>>5714371
>I highly recommend seeking out Lindsay Johns' Language is Power
Will do. Thanks for the recommendation.

Sorry for the prior arrogance. I just thought the book was quite good and felt the desire to recommend it.

By the way, how do you feel about Bourdieu?

>>5714530
>using "they" can be grammatically confusing.
"You" works as both singular and plural. I fail to see why "they" couldn't.

>>5714562
>Everyone looks at me like I'm a dick
You are a dick, anon. How dare you try to help people express their pain effectively when that's clearly what they want to do?

That said, you could say something along those lines. "I'm sorry you went through that. It's really cool that you're getting it out there. Here's how I think you could make your writing express that even better."

>>5714883
>acknowledging mistakes
>your OWN mistakes
>on 4chan

Doing.
It.
Wrong.

>>5714562
As an asshole, critique is hard, I never want to lie to someone, even if it is being nice. Always try to preface it with the idea that you like the core parts, here is how you would improve them. Remove them from the work in some way, so that what you are saying doesn't seem like an insult

>>5698884
LITERALLY THE OPPOSITE OF THIS STATEMENT

>>5710248
Oh my fuck, kill yourself cunt, you're giving Australia a bad name. Which is difficult.
How can you have a trip THAT'S ALSO A BLOGPOST

>>5711301
Why do you teach poetry? More background info. Are you an MFA student? Community college, low-tier uni, Ivy league? Are you published?

>>5714530
>inclusivity rhetoric

I can't believe this is 4chan now.

>>5714530
>this board in particular has a higher percentage of femanons than most of the other boards
citation needed. did you hear about this place from /pol/ or somewhere as some kind of marxist feminine foil or some other such bullshit?

also, please go be inclusive in tumblr or something

>>5714530
meat doesn't read

>>5711301
Make them write in simple forms at that stage.

>>5715652

Bitch, please. 4chan wasn't the mra circle jerk it is today until a few years ago.

Of course, that's all beside the point. His/her is entirely grammatically correct no matter how many "muh seek it club" replies that post generates.

>>5715860
Lol

This is what newfags ACTUALLY believe.

Femanon=cumdumpster

I fucking hate immigrants.

>>5715860
It's phenomenally stupid that you retards who have no fucking clue believe repeating lies about the website that spammed CP and made people kill themselves will make it true. In all of your lying, misrepresenting yourselves and history, and generally being scheming faggots, how do you not realize you are actually "the bad guys"?

>>5715880
It's true. Unfortunately, most of the anons here are too young to remember 4chan prior to the influx of fags all the media attention brought, bit meh.

/lit/=literature
Do try and stay on topic

>>5715892
In the context of this comment the last sentence seems silly so I should note that I switched to a more general sense of "you guys" as whiney, mischievous, 'tolerant' pussies, not as in newfags.

>>5715892
"The bad guys?" REALLY?

Methinks thou doth protest too much

>>5715903
>Get called out
>Dig in harder
>"bit meh"
>"T-try to stay on topic ;_;"

Stop posting.

>>5715915
already addressed. >>5715915. You only responded to that part of the comment because you have no other ground to stand on. Stop being a lying, whiney newfaggot and lurk moar.

>>5715917
How old are you?

critique thread?

The bizarre moment about to take place, however, would have occurred regardless of whether or not such a vista did exist. The public lavatory was extremely compact, barely measuring over seven by nine feet, with a ceiling so low that most average-sized men might have to constantly hunch forward to avoid the risk of a concussion. Inside the restroom was a single man of around thirty years of age, wearing a striped shirt that was only a tiny bit too small and blue jeans pulled down below his waist. The man was slightly overweight, but not so much that one might discern a hint of plumpness in his daily wear. Should he sit down, however, the tight-but-not-too-tight shirt would show several creases of fat compressed against the surface.
One could not discern the man’s complexion beneath the low, afternoon lighting of the room. Where it did exist (the man often wore a beret to cover his embarrassing bald spot; on this particular day he had dropped it on the streets to have it stolen by a six-to-nine year old Gypsy beggar), his hair was slightly curled in a uniform light brown. One might barely notice a full moustache on the man’s face, curled and pointed in a hyperbolic curve away from his pale lips.
At this point in time the man stood hunched over on his knees. His jeans, as mentioned before, were pulled down to his knees so that he might expose his buttocks the filthy, dry air. One of his hands lay supporting his weight on the floor; the other remained free to manipulate as he pleased. That hand, which happened to be his left, gripped tightly to the oblong circumference of a baguette approximately ten inches long of the highest French quality. The man closed his eyes (the color of which one could not tell at this moment; perhaps they were green or brown, but the lighting obscured any noticeable difference) and made a tight grimace from his lips to his brows in a manner one would expect of a convicted death row prisoner on the night of his execution. Taking a deep breath, he slowly brought the baguette around to the rear of his body, collinear with his vertebrae. Without provocation he thrust the baguette into his anus, barely withholding screams of sudden and intense pain.
“Oui!” he shouted. He could get the baguette about halfway in before the pain became too much to bear. He was determined, however, to finish the job. How would a Frenchman look with a baguette halfway distending from his anus? It would almost be as if he had a reverse-erection, or a prolapsed colon. The man quickly leapt up, and with all of his human might he catapulted his rectum toward the feces-covered bidet.

>>5715925
“Sacrebleu!” The baguette was fully immersed within his colon. A fiery pain shot through his body. He knew, however, from experience, that such a pain would last at most twenty seconds. He managed to withstand his suffering by biting his lip and grunting like a lame hound. For a short while the man lay motionless on the restroom floor. The sheer agony of his sodomized rectum immobilized the fibers of his body. Helpless, he closed his eyes and imagined a scene from his childhood. He beheld a vibrant meadow, cradled with the blood-red warmth of a blanket of poppies in full bloom. Staring ahead he could only see the hills slowly fade away into the expanse of an endless blue sky painted with floating specks of white that wandered about above his head. Bountiful cosmic rays of warmth graced his nude figure, and for a moment even the nauseating, filthy lavatory odor was overcome by the sensual delight of roses. In front of him frolicked his beautiful cousin, a feminine figure blessed with the innumerable virtues of youth. He playfully pursued her as she fled giggling. The golden locks of hair which flowed from angelic body glistened under the sun. For a split-second her gait wavered and she came stumbling to a fall. With plentiful laughter the man fell upon her, and as their eyes met their mouths sank into one another's. As her tongue crept between his teeth, the picturesque fantasy suddenly collapsed upon itself with a rapping on the door.
"Are you okay, Monsieur?" It was a gruff, masculine voice. Airport security, no doubt. Those self-righteous pigs were everywhere: always inquiring, and always trying not to resemble the talentless cockroaches that they really were. Maybe they desired to please their masters for a promotion, or perhaps they simply wanted to validate their own hopeless insignificance and mediocrity. A dying man, starving in poverty and ill with some terminal pestilence has limitless human potential when compared to a fat dog content to wallow in its own excrement.
"I am well," spat the man, not attempting to veil his contempt. "I am very well, and you may go now." With some effort, he managed to slowly rise to his knees, and finally he stood up. His anus was throbbing, but it had become bearable. It was time to go.
Opening the bathroom door, his assumptions were proven quite correct. Before him stood a diminutive and obese man cloaked in full police uniform and sporting a black beard. With a momentary glance at the guard’s face the man could see a veritable quarry of lesions and pus, each throbbing independently in some sort of disgusting contrapuntal harmony. If all of the pimples were to pop at once then the airport would likely be caked in six centimeters of an oozing, wretched broth. Our hero shuddered at the thought. There are many things on this fair Earth he would have sex with, but this beast was not one of theme.
“Pardon me, Monsieur,” said the pig. “Might we speak for a moment?"

>>5715936
“Non,” replied the man, spitting on the airport floor and walking away. The security guard was dumbstruck, unable to fathom what had just occurred. It was as if the world itself had stopped turning for a moment, and instead rotated in the opposite direction. No longer were the sheep chased by the dog, for the sheep feared not fangs. And the dog, physically degenerative from years of blind authority, could not, despite all the effort in its body, even budge from its point of vantage. What would the master do? Would he yell, spit and reprimand? Would he skin the dog in place of the lamb? Would he slaughter the hound, cook it in a skillet, and serve it basted with beer? In what world could proper order be defied? What kind of self-centered, arrogant sheep would dare disrupt the farmer’s way of life? With all these idiotic questions stewing in his facile mind the security guard ceased to remember how to stand, and he fell upon his side and rolled about.

Now, our hero, whose name I shall relate to in due time, was not a man particularly fond of waste. He was a very busy and important person with a very busy and important life, and he simply could not tolerate the presence of plebeians. While his demeanor might come off as rude to the outsider, if one should do proper business with him, one might find him the most amiable of men, bound by heart to unworldly virtues of goodness and charity.

A girl of no less than twelve years strolled past. He leered in her direction.

"Piss off!"

Now today obviously was not a terribly good occasion for our hero. Yet though his words seemed to sting with cruelty, they were mantled with the warmth of postmodern irony, so that within all the livid fervor of his crude heart lay a cold sarcasm; when he spoke with the most selfless benevolence his tongue flicked with hatred.

>>5710260

0/10

>>5707753
>>5708840
>hotdogging an ass
>didn't even get inside

look how easy this was. no gender necessary and how a straight man would write it. Maybe because there is no desire to shove sexuality to the forefront whether it belongs there or not

>>5710878
>treating certain language as "less" than others
>language
>ebonics
>not dialect

you have no idea what you're talking about yet continue to babble in an effort to save face on an anonymous imageboard

>>5716252
>how dare someone not be straight by default

Ugh, just stahl

>>5716309
Staaaaaaahp

>>5715917
Called out for what, exactly?

>>5715892
>website that spammed CP and made people kill themselves
Oh, for fuck's sakes. 4chan 8 years ago was essentially the same as it is today, but with less anons and far less shitty neo-conservative rhetoric as it wasn't yet in fashion to be all "uh hate the sjws whyte boyz 4 lyf." Someday you'll be 10 years older and understand. Meh.

>>5716252
What. Nobody would fucking write "hotdogging an ass", that just makes it sound like you're talking about a disembodied ass. Or as if you're trying too hard to make an "ass/donkey" joke.

>>5697711
>https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1eSErMeetAhMFFSV0FzNHJxQ3M/view?usp=sharing

he his he he he his he he his his his he

have you ever tried swapping it with she or her and notice how unnatural it sounds?

>>5717727
Yeah, this is something I'm always conscious of but find difficult to avoid. It was especially difficult in that story because I had an unnamed protagonist and the narrative lent itself to a play-by-play kind of style (he did this, then he did that, etc) with little room for divergence.

I think I did a better job here:
>>5698241
but now my writing is apparently "unreadable," "pretentious," and "dryer than 18th century legal documents" so I guess I'm doing something wrong. Also have to quit with the em dashes.

>>5699127

I actually really liked this. The narrator reminds me of my uncle.

>>5716435
Please fuck off you faggot.