/lit/ - Literature

bump

I stand here across from the gallery of hate
Pretending to passers by to be waiting on a date
"All you need is love" my parents often said
But that was for youth, and now they are dead
The world, it seems, has little room for love
And if you ask for it, you'll get a rude shove
So, I cross the way and enter the door
And blow that fucker up, it's nevermore

>>6178337
no one takes authors who can't get laid seriously, take the angst to, like, /r9k/ or something

>>6178339
She lays on the bed glistening with dew
After a pause, she says it:
"I wanna fuck you."
I peel off my clothes and lay by her side,
She gives me a kiss and says:
"Let it slide."

>>6178373
>edgy

13/10

>>6178337
>The world, it seems, has little room for love
>And if you ask for it, you'll get a rude shove

fucking god i hope you are trolling

I want to evaporate into the atmosphere and have a really good time.

I want to turn into a steamy ghost and cause mischief.

I want to knock over buildings because I can.

I want to blow people's skirts up and make it look like it was some guy who would have done it anyway but didn't have the nerve.

I want to shove people into the middle of the street when traffic is coming and then shove them back onto the sidewalk right before they die.

I want to cool off people's food at restaurants to their dissatisfaction.

I want to blow hot coffee into the faces of moms in coffee shops.

I want to blow hot coffee into the faces of children in coffee shops.

I want to make women and children cry and then dry their tears

I want to dry their eyes so much that they have to use eyedrops

And then I want to dry their eyes again

I want to raise Visine stock by 20 dollars and then stop drying people's eyes and cause the eyedrop market to crash

This will cause everyone who bought Visine stock to cry

I want to make everyone cry

>>6178397
Reminds me a lot of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXzouMb3BFg, except a bit more tedious at points, and I think you could totally do away with the three lines before the last. Overall pretty good, in my opinion.

>>6178298

FUCK FREE VERSE
U
C
K

F
R
E
E

V
E
R
S
E

technically still poetry[spoiler/]

>>6180225
I like you

It's basically genre fiction, though its edging on patrician compared to the rest of the site. Erotica, Sci/Fi. If you're bored, there's a lot of good reading and good fapping to be had on literotica.

http://www.literotica.com/s/the-book-of-rai-soh-ch-01?page=1

No matter what you think of the actual story, can you rate it 5 stars? You can tell me its shit over here.

>>6178397
>>6178397
I like this, it's funny.It made me smile.

A thousand doors ago
when I was a lonely kid
in a big house with four
garages and it was summer
as long as I could remember,
I lay on the lawn at night, clover wrinkling under me,
the wise stars bedding over me,
my mother's windows a funnel
of yellow heat running out,
my father's window, half shut,
an eye where sleepers pass,
and the boards of the house
were smooth and white as wax
and probably a million leaves
sailed on their strange stalks
as the crickets ticked together
and I, in my brand new body,
which was not a man's yet,
told the stars my questions
and thought God could really see
the heat and the painted light,
elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight.

For benefit of clarity

Done and double done
hath won our fortune clear;
yet ‘ere upon the heights of
victory we stand most to fall:
the climb undone by one false wrung,
and ‘O, six feet plummet near’.
Heavenwards I grasp
sovereign all above,
hate’s leash of
Tyranny to suffocate all love,
and there shall I howl:
“Asunder crash the silk veneer;
real delusion stand apart and clear!
Cancer of mind, corruption of soul”
my tyranny once more to suffocate:
“let your blood dry cold.
In death, heathens extol
fruits forbid;
‘burn the tree! Let not
Adam live’,
strike with thunder
wreathed once upon your hip
now bloody virgin soil below;
the age of man is dead.
Human is that which live”

The worst part, whoever you are, is that I can never ask you why you did it. Does it hurt? Absolutely, though it's just a ticking of a number to you. It is an understanding of the appreciation of my work. You have altered it, for every future reader who will ever be.

And I can never ask you why. Why, man? Because I wanted it? You're here in equal capacity. I'll certainly survive, but you've taken a touch of light from this world. I can't forgive you for that.

>This isn't a poem or prose, just a message.

>>6178298
Can I post my gangsta rap?

you know what I've given up on this one so I'll just post it and throw it out. I just cut out the first paragraph and a couple of the ones after

As he greeted me in the field alone, as I lost tether and streamlined south by south-south, as the winds fell flat and noise overtook, as I glanced his features, as I memorized his features --

Young Julas with slap-pocketed cotton above kneecap, and sun-stoked skin and scrape below: two young legs slipped in whites strapped to black shoes south of two arms, a remote-controlled plane radio strung between. His knee and elbow scuffs are green and red. The plane he radios is named “Pappy” after a drunk tiger who etched a shattered China with stripes and stars. The plane model is Curtiss P-40 Warhawk and Julas had at one time accidentally painted it lime green. Julas has a brain that is good with math and legs that are good with a bicycle and fingers that are great with remote-controlled plane radio levers, especially on good days after good breakfasts of orange juice and grits.
The plane radio requires two triple-A size batteries -- Julas’ hair is flaming red, his eyes are flaming blue, his shirt is green and billboards his elementary school, Julas has two triple-A size batteries readied, the elementary school has a narrow, and often used, usually by middle school teams, even in June, green soccer field, a football field, Julas drops a battery compartment screw, a baseball field, not at all fit for elementary students, not fit for Julas, Julas streamlines south by south-south towards the the grass, not fit for flight, Julas labors in the grass, not at all fit for June, Julas finds a screw in the grass. Two pops of five fingers, three shifts of steel, two times repeat -- the plane radio required two triple-A size batteries. The plane ebbs vision with a shattered stripe of diesel.
Julas salutes his pilot as the pilot descends ten meters per second per second streamlined south by south-south towards the grass.

>>6182911

also I'll give some quick critique before class

>>6180831

develops a bit slowly, got a bit better by the end. Not sure if you're going for meter, but it's not easy to read aloud. But it seems to be on the right track

>>6180256

> He watched. It was not so important as to the fact that he watched but to who and what he watched from the balcony.

Already a bit wordy, also not a very great opening. I'll rate it 5 stars after class, just reply to this and tell me how I can do it, I can't figure it out. Of course I do not think it is 5 star work but you asked nicely so

>>6180256
>It's basically genre fiction, though its edging on patrician compared to the rest of the site.

no one will take you seriously if you start out by saying "yeah my work is more patrician than yours." just post it without all that bullshit next time

>>6178312

bump bump

Nothing like this
Felt in a kiss
Couldn't resist
Her

Fell for her charm
Lost in her arms
I keep a photograph

Give me a glimpse
Let me come in
Be there inside
Her

Here it begins
Here is the sin
Something to lie about

You think you're smart
I think you're art
We agree on this

It doesn't work
Feeling like dirt
Feeling like you don't care

We get a room
And in the gloom
She lights a cigarette

Clothes on the bed
Love me she said
I lose myself to her

Now what comes next
After the sex
What do we do now?

Finding the time
Drawing a line
And never crossing it

Gave her the hours
Gave her the power
Cannot erase her

Gave her the truth
Gave her the proof
I gave her everything

>>6183427
>Couldn't resist
>Her

>Be there inside
>Her

this fucking enjambement sounds cheesy as fuck

>>6183549
O-okay, what about the rest?

>>6183418

bump bump bump

"mfw dead thread on the bedspread filled with lead before we were wed," the david foster wallace said

I read plenty but I've literally never written any fiction in my life before. The only writing I've done in the past has been essays and reports for uni.

critique and feedback please?
http://pastebin.com/ZYDNqbLx

>>6184477
>>6184487

none of you will get critique until you critique something above.

>>6183427
I agree with
>>6183549
the "hers" are unneeded get rid of them or replace them with more than one word

>>6184498
that good?

>>6184487
It's nice and easy to read but that bit about planes being reinvented threw me.

Please don't make it a dystopian post-apoc kind of thing, that's WAY too overplayed in YA crap. Just make it a nice story about two brothers.

Weather Record

The clouds are spreading like tar
so the sky holds its breath.
Then sparks of hail
And out comes the cold invisible fire
the scorching gale, the exhaled scar
and everywhere moves like its burning
All for an arsonist’s smile
yearning a storm, chasing spires
So there’s no such thing as a grey shower
First real poem. Should I keep trying?

>>6184560
I like it, don't know much about poetry but the imagery is nice. Maybe a little bit edgy? Unless that's what you're going for.
In any case keep writing.

>>6180831
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2013/11/08
GG

>>6184533
the idea is that it's going to be post-apoc but not dystopian. the people are just as happy as they are now, the royal governments are constitutional monarchies with a balance of power, and even though the've been pushed back hundreds of years, most of the medical knowledge has stuck around so people aren't dying of small scratches or tooth aches. Really, I wanted a setting like this so I could throw in some stuff like giant mushrooms, or explain why the witch has a car in what looks like the 18th century

Nobody cares.
You will not go anywhere.
Trying is useless.
You're lying to yourself.

>>6184578
I liked it.

>>6184583
The setting is fine, any setting can be fine. What matters is how you justify it. Is this essentially Earth in the far future? Or some other entirely different world?

If it's the former then you need to come up with a believable reason for very technical medical knowledge to exist (and I assume also the means to implement it, after all you can understand why and how a scratch could potentially kill someone, but if you don't have the necessary tools to treat it that doesn't mean shit) yet things other things like planes are basically 'extinct'.

I like your writing, just don't let it become superfluous to the subject you're writing about.

>>6184578
Overall nice but don't start three paragraphs in a row with the same words. I see what you were going for but in this case it didn't work so much.

>>6184587
I. A. F. poem bro

>>6184560
oops meant there to be three stanzas if that's not clear

>>6184574
I think nature poets are edgy

I have a notepad file on my desk titled "Open Me".

I periodically forget it is there, then rediscover and open it, then I write another sentence.

I began this three days ago, and will carry it on for as long as it interests me:

Listening to Russian rock radio at two AM

Do you ever meditate upon the strangeness of your hobbies?

He talks to lizards with the power of drugs.

He talks to Lizards with the power of his mind.

>>6183149

Patrician compared to Space Sluts Chapter 2. I'm not bragging, I'm characterizing it as a rather speedy snail.

>>6184614
thank you. I changed it up a bit and added another 500 words or so.

http://pastebin.com/5qDVvXgr

>>6182924

Ayy. You scroll to the bottom of the page (assumably after you've read the contents of the page) click the drop down arrow or the next page button. The rate mechanism is a star system 1-5. Some anon gave me a 1/5, because he's very special. It was 4.86 before that, now it is 4.78.

>>6178388
Mfw when i got to that line

In Fawcett City
There’s a beauty
She’s the rolling of the thunder and the lighting heading under the cracks in your skin when you stop and
She’s a real hero
But she can’t see
She’s my rock of eternity
I want what I feel for her she feels about me
I wish there was one word that could make me nothing and everything like what I am
A magic word that could turn a frightened boy into a man
A magic word, like “Shazam!”

>>6184622
bahhk

What's the best writing software out there? Is Scrivener (sp?) actually useful?

>>6185053
bump?

>>6178397
I really liked the progression of this poem. Line 8 gave me an audible laugh, not just one of those subdued chuckles. It ended perfectly.
>>6178337
These sound more like song lyrics. Not a fan, to be honest. If it was in a song, I'd probably like it.

This is mine:

This Boy

This poem can be for the folks who live vigorously,
Although it’s more for the curious onlooker.
But to the sufferers of unfortunate circumstances
And to the slight friend, I say, read on,
I guess.
Writing truly, this poem is for me,
And those like this Boy,
For the people who know that they are,
Unambitious.
Those born in the Land of Opportunity
Or really within any country or planet,
The individual that mostly sits
And does little else,
Born in enough wealth to laze
But not enough to matter:
This Boy.
A crescent shape of lunar life
He thrives, disappearing like many do, before
Solemnly returning to that silent despair.
Some nights, I wonder if they notice and proclaim:
“It has been months since the last full moon."

BOUT TO HIT THESE NIGGAS WIT A FEW BARS FWI YOU FEEL ME


I WANT A HIGH MAINTENANCE BITCH WITH LOW EXPECTATIONS
SO WHEN I GIVE HER DICK WE NEED NO EXPLANATIONS
I DINT CUM FAST I JUST AINT GOT PATIENCE
QUAKE THAT BITCH BOOTY LIKE THAT SHIT WAS SUM HATIANS

TINY PEEPEE, WHAT U GON SAY ABOUT IT
GET THE PIECE G, SEMEN GON SPRAY UP OUT IT
THERE AINT NO TWO WAY ABOUT IT
I AINT NO CUCK I JUST ENJOY MY BEDROOM CROWDED

MICROPENIS REALLY AINT A JOKE SON
U A DICK? LEMME SHOW U HOW TO CHOKE ONE
HIT THE BONG, SHOW U HOW TO TOKE ONE
I AINT THAT BIG, GOT A TINY LIL BLOKE HUN

I COMPENSATE BY SMOKIN MAD REEFER
TOTIN BIG GUNS CAUSE I CANT GET MY WEENIE IN BETWEEN HER
U DONT UNDERSTAND HOW SMALL IS MY WIENER
AINT A CUCK I JUST LIKE TO TAG TEAM HER

I've never actually written a full poem besides rushed exercises I did in a few weeks of poetry club at school, so any critique is well-received.

---

Half past three the tide rolls in
Ships come back and surfers do
sweep themselves right back to shore
cut their feet on ocean floor
or else be swept and carried far
by powers past their mortal reach

Who swims out far into the tide
and scarcely turns back but to look
at once, too late - Apollo's light
Now sunk to some perplexing height
Has left you in the midst of sea
Whose image now would this one be?

The waves do mimic such a being
Whose thoughts stay clear of earthy things
And lives divine and most carefree
With heart and bay and hand at sea
Who looks here toward the moon and says
Oh here, oh now I've found my glass?
And just then pass with judgement passed
The fate of one man out of many
Netted once then willed away
Whose soul did leave by idle hands
And glimpse the source on its departure

>>6178337
The meter here is really awkward, and the subject matter is pretty cheesy too. Also not really agreeing on the word "fucker" here, it seems really forced in to convey the mood without putting any real work in.

>>6178397
This is very nice. I like the repetition used most, and especially the first two lines I enjoyed.

>>6180831
I like the way the setting is expressed, you do a good job at making it come to life.

How should I edit this mess?
His tent was gone.
Stolen, most likely; though he’d never know.
It was during his trip to the 24-hour that the thieves had struck.
He was sure of it.
He asked those around. Surely someone might have seen them.
A few, politely, said they hadn’t.
Others asked him who he was.
‘How can you not know’
‘Easy to forget a face’.
Everything was gone; rightfully, he was upset.
Photographs, memories, and the last of his family: vanished into the unfamiliar city night.
On the verge of tears, he turned to the mouth of the alley; the bastards had returned!
Not just for the tent, but for him.
‘Come on then ‘ye bastards’.
The police were with them too.
‘In on it both, are ‘ya? Not satisfied to leave a man in peace?’
two men in white coats pointed towards him.
A policeman approached; at first he tried to reason with him. Then he tried to trick him.
All ends with odds, a scuffle broke out. Like a child forced home by his mother, they dragged him from the alley and into a van nearby.
‘Where ‘ya takin’ me, thieves. First my tent, now my life; what’s the world comin’ to! Not happy ‘till I’m dead you’se bastards, O yes, all like me one by one behind the chemical sheds’. He spat at the driver. ‘Fought and killed scum like you’se’.
They pulled up to a row of houses. At the sight of the van, one of the doors opened, and down the garden path came a middle aged woman; her eyes red and cheeks wrinkled into a smile.
Forced out of the van, the door slammed behind him. As it did, the middle aged woman flung her arms around his neck.
‘Daddy’ she cried.
‘Where’s my tent’

I am centered. The smell of saliva, the softness of the lips. It intrigues me. Makes me wonder. What is it, is it something? Is it her face, her eyes, bliss, a thunder, a kiss? The touch, the nails, how they dig into my skin, how the bite marks appear forth on my throat, how all of myself disintegrates to the thought, to the feeling, to the view.
The cold in the room, the scar on her leg, the sun in the window bathing my chest. Innocence. Beauty. Perfection. Death. The paint feels weird in the fingers, sticky. My fingertips are purple, I smear it on her face; laugh. The keys explode in letters, the cold of the room, the scar on her leg. Green tea with too much sugar.
Her. Her. Her. Her. Her guilt. My guilt. My grandmother’s pool, the room is no longer cold. The huskies, a strange angle in the shower, her face in the sun, a smile, two smiles, orgasms. Complaints. An afternoon watching movies, eating, playing around. She laughs. She cries. I look away. Look away. Look inside.
Was it for me? Was it for him? Is there someone. No there isn’t. There’s nothing. There’s her. There’s them. Disappointment. Maybe. Broken rules. Rebellion. I go back again; I’m a kid, a saint, a believer, church, Catholicism. I’m good. I’m evil. We all are. My home, her home, my eyes, her lips.
The turtles. An unused piano. Cats. Many cats. A load of emptiness of mind. Nothing to say nothing to write I’m nothing, the pills, the medicine, my mother, him, my sisters, my dogs. The nothing, the her. What am I saying? Nothing, that’s what I’m saying. Honesty I try to follow but I can’t sometimes, don’t know what that makes me. Does it make me?
My books, their words, all of it. All of it. Her face, her hugs, she loves me.
Her, me, you, them, me, her, her , us.
Us.

And attemp to write in english, oh lawd.


Everything seems disappointing today
but i feel kinda special my dear,
so let's make the dance of our unperceived brightness,
an automatic exchange of ghostly values.
While the crumbling and decay of this contradictory machine
raise to the peak of its crescendo:
great confusion,
friction between gears
of equality and singularity.
We will be dealing our private grandiosity
giving every "om hari om" to the shrine of our past selves.

>>6185540
I like the idea and some of the words you use, but at points it feels forced. You're still pretty decent tho.

Something I wrote about 2 years ago:

There is something we drag since our lungs function
A strange invisible block, a nerve chain
The bones enlarge, the hormones flow, thoughts are birthed
But the lock barely breaks, if it even moves

We drag the corpses of our past
Of children, of young, the ghost of the elder
Same faces, same scars
We all have the same corroded blood

And in the madness of blood we are lost, and we see angels
We see gods, demons, they’re smoke, they’re colors, they’re poison
And they’re people, and emotions and they are meat and they are holes
They are exhausted spirits

In the madness of blood we find coral reefs
Places were our bodies can rest and drop the weight of existence
Beaches made of glass and tears; beaches that don’t last long
Plastic reefs; wrong shelters

Misanthropy thrives, and we loath our souls
The whips of the universe, the missing salvation, the lack of purpose
And the black cloud hovers above and pours gallons of nihil eyes
And the world pays for its unknown sins

But someday, maybe in the last, maybe in the first
The chains rust, and the angels leave, dragging the devils away
The beaches dry out, the world reboots
The blood is clean

Someday, breathing doesn’t hurt as much
The tears are not so hot
Love is not effete
Friends become Siamese

Someday, the anger washes
And the suffering
And it all beings again
And life is good
Life is good

100 feet above London, he adjusted his cape as it billowed in the wind.
"You can't do it"
"Oh, and I suppose you'd know"
"Well, yes, actually"
"Really". He didn't believe him.
"You don't want to do this"
"I think I do; I didn't get dolled up for nothing"
As usual, he was right; no point in turning back now.
"You want me to count you down"
"What"
"A countdown. You know, for when you" jump.
"Oh. Erm, yeah, go on then"
"What sort"
"What"
"Three Two One Go, or Three Two One"
"Go sounds better, doesn't it"
It certainly did.
"Ready"
"Ready"
"Three"
"You know"
"Two"
"The more thought I give this"
"One"
"The less - "
"Go"
He leapt. Fee at last,
he bade the ledge goodbye.
The city was bright tonight.
His city was bright.
The moon hummed.
Cars beeped.
Parents cooked.
Children played.
Mistake.
He didn't want this.
Like a swimming blur they ascended; ready to catch him once again.
So close.
Last time wasn't high enough.
Again, the same.
"Oh well" he thought "There's always next time"

Posted it in these threads before but I've never really gotten an opinion on it. Really the first poem I've bothered to edit or put any real work into.

"An Ode to জুঁই (Jumi)"

Arrested in a dark-eyed smile
I forget my world for awhile
Against the current of sin and trial
And there swam I, upstream

The tendrils of infatuation grow
Lacerating me and all I know
In a canoe of earnesty I row
and there have I a dream

Of raven locks framing freckled face
And though I know it is not my place
My feelings I will not debase
to gain, here, is to lose

(part II)
The stench of boredom covers me, fetid
It's coating on my clothing is wretched
Though, comforting, now that I mention
All love is a ruse

Cold Winter of life to follow Autumn
But her face turns my pulse into a drum
Though, I know she can't be the one
Another has claimed her heart

Her words are sugar glaze on my ears
Every sound is symphonic that I hear
Her smile brightens a dim-lit room with cheer
Her soul's a work of art

(Part III)

She has eyes like fields of coffee
And they belie the strength of an oak tree
When I catch her scent I'm filled with glee
The sigh of cloth on skin

Breathy words of passion escape her lips
The trees imitate the sway of her hips
The beauty of her being will eclipse
Her cherry-lipped grin

A beauty purely ethereal
A magnetism immaterial
A stake laid on my heart imperial
Thus she's woven a snare

Who knew such soft words could part the heavens
With a glance and gaze that can leaven
The weight of this awful confession
If I so choose to date

Imperfections highlight her luster
So that with all the courage I can muster
I stare once more into those big brown eyes
I know what they mean when they say time flies
Thunderstruck in a trance

>>6178337
Kind of a basic rhyming scheme, but simplicity is the essence of beauty. It's just a little awkward in its execution, like carrying a table that's light, but too long and too wide to lift.

>>6178397
I dig it

>>6185660
dare* not date

I've lost so many poems,
On post-it notes and 4chan posts,
I take great pleasure when I remember an old line,
from something I've read,
triggered from a memory or a scent,
an unconscious recollection,
the unintended lesson, the solution to one's very personal storms,
evoke; felt; resonating -- grasping at the little's connections,
so long as it sounds right, dear anon,
read on, read on

I just finished writing this:

He comes walking from the Horizon. A narrow dot in the vanishing point of your vision. The wasteland he’s created remains a wasteland. The bright colors being to flourish behind his back. The glow of the afternoon sun melting into a rainbow of dripping clouds and snow. You could swear there was a city behind you but there is no more, and you doubt it ever existed. For all you know mankind was but a fleeting jolt in your sleep. The sound of joy inundates the atmosphere, the laughter of babies, the barking of dogs, every sound dancing inside your eardrums. She suddenly disappears from your side. You hear her scream as she slowly disintegrates into the air. The entire sky begins to screech. The entire world begins to yell. He brandishes a gun. You would reach out for yours but it’s gone.

(continues...)

>>6185816
The flowers rot out and are reborn, spazzing about and glitching in the meadow. He’s a towering figure. You can feel his every steep banging in your head. You feel calm, but you feel fear. He comes closer, but he has barely moved. You feel her death grip on your hand; you see her becoming nothing the closer he is. The glow is unbearable and sweet. The dust that lifts from the ground fails to fall. The rainbow decays behind him. You could swear that life has ended and begun with every step he gives. The earth fears him. The gun's cocked. He wants you. He wants her as well. For what, one may never know.

(continues...)

>>6185821
His boots are rotting. He wears a black jacket and black pants. His long gray hair falls to his shoulders. His eyes fixated into the nothingness, a little insane perhaps, or a little enlightened. He wants to kill you. The sun overflows. The stars vomit out the colors. Have you ever been in a dream? I mean, have you ever been in a dream? This is not a dream. He destroys dreams. You question if she’s a dream but you know she’s not because a dream cannot feel as much pain as she is feeling right now. The screeching of the earth becomes louder as he comes up. His face is expressionless. You hear him walking past you and turning around. An infinite drag of dandelions appears in his wake. They are blue, and red, and yellow, and green, and purple, and it’s like the air is filled with a million transparent wires, all of them dancing around you as he parades into us. You obey him when he tells you to kneel down. You could swear his voice sounded like piano notes. Like harps in the wind.

>>6185825
Your hands are tied now, you are ordered to close your eyes. Your entire body vibrates with his presence, as if a star had begun to be within your chest and you feel the energy pumping through your core and without of you the heat is burning but a breeze passes by and you feel safe for a second. Her laughter in the distance, bouncing off the walls of the clouds in endless succession as she has completely been torn apart by the wind and the light. You were supposed to get her. You were supposed to protect her. You feel lifted as you are kneeling still. The last thing you feel is a cold metal in your neck. He doesn’t even breathe. He’s so calm. He’s so calm. And now you’re calm. It’s all calm. You feel a sudden release of pressure. You look up and her head rests in a clearing in the grass, slowly melting away like candlewax into the ground to become one with the colors. You will never sit under a nuclear sunset with her in your arms. You try to find bliss in failure and freedom in silence. We wind down. The glow secedes. You are dead.

(End)

>>6185224
scrivener can help organize. if you have a book with lots of characters and need to sort out their timelines, that kind of thing, then scrivener is useful.

honestly i just use text editors and save different files. i have folders for characters, plot, settings.

>>6185831
>>6185825
>>6185821
>>6185816
revise your shit. drop the cliches. fix the grammar. it's overblown.

>>6186093
It was made in a single sitting, took me about 10 minutes perhaps. It's an idea I have, but its not concrete yet. Simply felt like posting it. Thanks for the feedback.

Pulled an all nighter /lit/. This is my opening paragraph:

The inherent flim flam bam of current spoods has led recent historians, dobbiously, to rehersiate the youvian tirth. Neckrobiously, and, I might add, emeenly, they have sought to find answers in the interbobulations of the necessary queristic cupulations, without any results. In order to bactrify this anular frenition, I will lactrially essume a set of tertiary omnistics in order to circumspent these coppsian rigaffes.

>>6186166
I have a thesaurus: the poem

I feel the fog float on, and my heart wants what it wants
But my heart wants blood, so I bare my fangs and I hunt
I see a girl at the corner with a ring through her lip
And a purposeful dare in her eyes
So I zone you out, stalk over, and say hi

I'm on the tree-lined road that encircles Berlin zoo
I got my wolf hat on and I'm howling about you
So I'm steak to a tiger & grain to a gull
And scraps to the one that I love
And when they all want more
I won't ever have enough

At the sideshow tent the weather's wonderful today
Above the water tank, taunting couples on first dates
Well I hung on the boardwalk and I hoped for your face
And I wince as the platform's released
I come up for air and you're waiting in line for me

>>6185831
>You are dead

gaem over man :DDDDD

dont call me now, i am in bed. i've sacrificed all chances for street cred as a result of sticking near the same bedtime for thirteen years. you beg me and scream say "i need you here, there's something missing...maybe it's beer. regardless come quickly i won't ask again, you have 20-odd minutes".

pacing down the hallway stairs, mental notes of quick repairs for the gaps in my story of why i was up at this hour. you live next door so i have time to bide, 10-odd minutes to mess up my hair. 10-odd minutes to get sleep in my eyes and forget about all the other guys.

your window's open you are less so. i knock so lightly only i'll know. you're sitting there with your unkempt hair and you whisper to me "did you come alone?"

you usher me in, a night filled with sin. your eyes soft; how you drew me in. we walked down to the kitchen counter, and back upstairs for less than friendly banter.

so we laid there on your dirty mattress. you say "your hairs long how did you do without it? i'd never date someone who looks like you unless their hair and all extremities were longer too."

my measly arms can't move your frame. you laugh and say "they couldn't do that either, but boys your age are so damn eager".

>>6186173
>it's prose
>i made all those words up

This is really the only thing I have ever wrote. It's nonsensical and I feel sick reading it, but it is all I have. I want to become a writer. I'd love to give children or adolescents similar feelings I had as a kid. It would be worthwhile to inspire people. So, how can I become better?

---

“Kiss me! Kiss me! You’ll do nothing wrong the sooner you kiss me! James! I need all of this! This hiding in the bastion has got me sick. I’d rather burn than see myself grow old with him, and this seems less likely the case with you. Do you not want a secret to hide? Something to keep us up at night, I say! Less than quicksilver the ideal, of course. I’m growing awfully tired. I’ll try not to suck my thumb, but I must ponder! What’s so great about India? Are they too busy flying kites to even notice we are gone? That must be it! The summoned serpents seem to be the only ones doing as they’re told, and that’s by way of flute! Am I inaudible to you James? Am I insane? Look at me James. Fetch me another poppy, one that is in full bloom.”

>>6186208
>So, how can I become better?
Write, lots. Get in the habit of writing.

>>6186223
What I want to know is, based off this piece of writing do I have potential? Is it worthwhile? I don't want to dedicate time only to lack inspirational text.

>>6186237
http://www.carrothers.com/rilke_main.htm

There's only one thing I've written and still feel genuinely good about. Not even that good, I know. But reading it makes me feel young, and it reminds me of clouds and blue skies. Never posted it for fear that the memory might be ruined, but whatever, here goes.

On and on and on and on
Until we find the time
To find the time

Lo Ping stood at the door frame. Ming was in her bed fast asleep. The bedclothes were twisted and bunched around her still form. He sat on the cot next to her to admire the melody of her curves. What a beautiful gal, he thought. He put his hand on her hip to wake her up and tell that breakfast was ready, a steaming bowl of rice porridge was ready for her. But at the touch of his hand she recoiled and curled up into a ball with the blanket.

“Get yourself off of me!” she roared.

Lo Ping shot up from his seat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything. I was only checking up on you,” he said with a panic.

“You don’t need to be checking up on me. Everything’s fine,” she shot back.

“Good, I hope things stay that way,” he said with a sigh and left the room.

Lo Ping was a protector of the Han Royal Family. Assassins from the north had kidnapped the emperor and he was to care for and watch over his daughter, princess Yongchun. But it was not easy, she treated Lo Ping with cruel mock and would not cooperate.

>>6186303
More!

>>6186237
there is no way to know from one paragraph. the only way to find out is to put in the work and see how much you can learn. personally, i think anyone could become a good writer.

you've been posting this one thing for a couple of months when you could have been working on your craft.

>>6186208
you get better by learning and writing. pick up some books on writing. since you're a beginner, almost any writing book will help.

>>6186371
I don't know how to read.

>>6186166
This is so reminescent of a thing Cortazar used to do. The name of it eludes me, but it was a kind of experiment in which he would write with made up words that sounded a specific way, so that only thru hearing one could infer the message

>>6186208
stay away from all big words and make every sentence raise your eyebrow

>>6185224
Adderal

>>6186458
>not shitting out dante's infernos on shrooms in the woods

I was experimenting with prose and poetry with this short 2000-word piece. What I tried to do was write something in meter and for verse, but present it as prose. I also have a version of it presented as poetry here. Which one works better?

>Poetry
http://pastebin.com/8UfaHVGX

>Prose
http://pastebin.com/k2druDSv

Past the *** break both versions are the same, if you want to save yourself some reading time.

>>6186301
I like its simplicity

Her lustrous glossy mossy-speckled emerald skin gleamed with its slick slimy excrete in the silver moonlight as she laid on her back by the stream, letting the gentle water run over the delicate webs of her feet and listening to the little insects and birds of the forest adorn the forest air with all their placid chirps and squeaks.

--

That's all I've got; a vague description of the frog girl. I can't work out where she came from, what she is exactly, or what will become of her.

That poison in the well!
She's plunged her face in that cool water
Gasping for air just to take a drink!
There's a poison in the aqua I can surely tell

Coursing deftly through her veins
It seeps and flows like a bludgeoned corpse
On that white sheet of the plague doctors table
Bringing cutting, jabbing, aching pains.

Clutching her throat she screams "despair"!
Pumping fluids fill her lungs
The bell that tolls has surely rung
The lesson learned is life's not fair.

>>6186584
Gives me an Irish vibe for some reason.

>>6186596
Not what I was going for but I wholeheartedly believe it doesn't matter what the author thinks, only what the reader takes from it.

Have another:


A layer of moss grows upon my back
My spine is oak to provide a sturdy shade

A river flows from my shoulders
through the lush valley of my chest

My bone is ground fine
A smattering of soil for cultivation

Dark green eyes form misty caverns of emerald and jade

But what becomes of an old soul?
It burns until it is dust and
Scatters on that billowing breeze
A genuine breath of life.
Filling cold dead lungs that were never supposed to be.

>>6187330
wasn't this posted in like the last day?

>>6187352

Yeah.

>>6186323
Later that night they both watched the yellow flames in the fireplace and the falling snow from the window. Lo Ping twirled a crystal ball in his hand, meant to improve his hand coordination and balance, but it was used mostly for fun. The glass giving off splintered gleams and princess Yongchun looked at it was large eyes. She saw his fluid movements, his gracefulness, and his delicate handling of the crystal ball.

“How beautiful, how terrible the world is,” Lo Ping said quietly, as if to himself, not minding the girl at all who watched him silently from the corner of the room.

But Yongchun could not stand it anymore, she had to have the crystal ball in her hands immediately.

“Give me that.” Yongchun demanded, standing up.

Lo Ping pulled away, “Hey, now.”

“You must give it to me now!”

Lo Ming smiled. The young girl was used to getting things her way, but now she was no longer in the house of her father, who would eviscerate whole armies just so she could have whatever it was she wanted, there was nothing she could do.

“Come get it,” Lo Ping teased.

He sidestepped her as he she maneuvered to take the ball away from him. Yongchun’s determined hands grabbing at it with quick movements, but with the ball in his palm Lo Ping eluded her with swift dodges. Her delicate but lightening-fast hands worked in all directions.

“I’m serious!” she said, becoming more aggressive with her attacks.

“You’re a stubborn girl,” Lo Ping chided, one arm behind his back, balancing the crystal ball with the other and shuffling away. “Yongchun always gets what she wants. Now that your father is not here…”

“You watch it!” she said stopping to point her finger at him.

“Your father is in danger and you refuse to cooperate with me.”

“Do not talk down to me. You are only a servant.”

His expression turned sullen. “Only a servant,” he mumbled. “You’re right. I’ve served your family for a long time. Honorably, I might add.” he said and tossed the crystal ball in her hands.

Surprised, Yongchun looked down at the crystal ball in sitting in her folded arms and Lo Ping pulled the old carpet from under her feet and sent her flying in the air. She fell hard on her bottom with an "ompf".

Lo Ping laughed loudly and glanced down at her innocent, hurt face and shook his head. “I’ve come here to protect you, to watch over you. If you don’t need me, just say so. I’ll leave you.”

She gave a big huff and stood up. She looked at Lo Ping, blew the hair from her face and stormed off.

>>6182911

I'll give figurative head to whomever critiques this first

you will never develop a sense of superiority
and interpret your loneliness and lack of social skills
as evidence of your being too cerebral to be around other people
who you dismiss as recklessly hedonistic and lacking self-awareness
and treat your few family members
who are the only ones who care about you
with impatience and casual cruelty

and spend your evenings and weekends
posting for several hours on an imageboard online
convincing yourself that the people here relate to you
and you to them
but knowing all the while that your narcicissm
and intuitive dislike for other people
would make you not want to spend time
with other people posting there in real life

and spend years and then decades
becoming more obsessively individualistic and withdrawn
gaining weight and losing sexual potency
eventually finding yourself experiencing regular bouts of hyper-awareness
wherein you regret every major life decision you've ever made
and finally realize how repulsive
your behaviour and mental disposition has been
since early adulthood

>opening line (improvised in the other critique thread):

New wave came blaring out of the conference room speakers, a secretary opened windows to the smoke unasked, and I found my stomach for our firm.

>>6187971 me
>>6182911 critique:
some of the less plain but more accurate word choices don't lose any clarity, like "streamlined" instead of "drifted". other times I'm not sure what the euphemism adds, like legs being "south" of two arms (especially in this context, where the legs are elaborated on and comes across a striking image, whereas the arms... he memorized that Julas had arms and they were higher up than his legs?)

"The plane he radios ... accidentally painted it lime green" these two sentences are excessively referential and noun-heavy. too many objects for how much is said about the character (exacerbated by that information being scant), cluttered, reads as insincere. there's a better balance between impersonal and personal detail in the rest of the passage. I like the breathlessness of it, the imitation of memory. south by south-south eventually grates.

>>6188037

thanks, all great points, appreciate it greatly

>>6187971

Sounds good, but I'd love to see it in a bit more context. Maybe post the sentence or two that comes after?

Is this sentence too long? How should I shorten it?

These theories were taken to the extreme during the Holocaust, but the Holocaust was certainly not the first example; as I mentioned, the Holocaust was merely the culmination of other experiments, one of the earliest being the forced sterilization of those deemed “unworthy of living”: the clinically insane, the intellectually disabled, the genetically deaf or blind, those thought of as “asocial”, and suffers of alcoholism, among others.

You wake up filled with dread.
There seems no reason for it.
Morning light sifts through the window,
there is birdsong,
you can’t get out of bed.

It’s something about the crumpled sheets
hanging over the edge like jungle
foliage, the terry slippers gaping
their dark pink mouths for your feet,
the unseen breakfast— some of it
in the refrigerator you do not dare
to open— you will not dare to eat.

What prevents you? The future. The future tense,
immense as outer space.
You could get lost there.
No. Nothing so simple. The past, its density
and drowned events pressing you down,
like sea water, like gelatin
filling your lungs instead of air.

Forget all that and let’s get up.
Try moving your arm.
Try moving your head.
Pretend the house in on fire
and you must run or burn.
No, that one’s useless.
It’s never worked before.

Where is it coming from, this echo,
this huge No that surrounds you,
silent as the folds of the yellow
curtains, mute as the cheerful

Mexican bowl with its cargo
of mummified flowers?
(You chose the colours of the sun,
not the dried neutrals of shadow.
God knows you’ve tried.)

Now here’s a good one:
you’re lying on your deathbed.
You have one hour to live.
Who is it, exactly, you have needed
all these years to forgive?

Over countless fights
there's a halo of light.
Beyond the days of sorrow,
there's always tomorrow.

Though the past is flawed,
by acts of God,
Memory is a slate
to which, like our fate,
can be wiped clean--
fresh for new days come.

Through unspoken words we talk;
soundless as our voice we listen;
without wings, ambitions still flock.
Regardless, we glisten.

Flight into unknown days
to which are numbered,
I bid farewell, gracious rays.
Today I must suther.

>>6188423

3 minute edit

The Holocaust exemplified extreme application of these theories. However, it first among many others; as previously mentioned, the Holocaust merely served as a culmination of other experiments, such as widespread and forced sterilization of those “unworthy of living”: the clinically insane, intellectually disabled, genetically deaf or blind, “asocial”, alcoholic, and others.

obviously it's just a quick restructure and not an acceptable final edit but I hope it'll set you off on the right track

H-here I go.

Gold and sable, blessed sight
Bound in ceaseless herald's flight
Flown from some Creator's hand
Spreading news of blooming land
O'er field and meadow green
Morning dew on petals sheen


Kept aloft on wings of lace
Beating out a furious pace
Set to Nature's precious task
Boon of Man you do not ask
But gift you give, an amber flow
Thick and lit with inner glow

The Web of Life you help to weave
And never respite nor reprieve
To interrupt your busy work
A mandate that you do not shirk
If only all would strive to be
A steward, diligent as thee

>>6182911
Love it. Keep writing.

Eric J. Bleiler, frontman of rock group Agony Hill, tickles his Felix, Felix Kellogg Gepetto, in the bootyhole. Felix enjoys this, and screams with joy. I love you dad, he says. This is cut short as Gongo anally penetrates Fuddish's girlfriend, Taylor the Table Mate. She has a small anus and this hurts for her. She begins to cry as she bleeds from her butthole. Eric Booger is aroused by this, and his erection begins to swell to the point where the pressure building inside of Tabler begins to become too much for her to bear. She splits at the groin, and blood pours from her stretched orifices. Elrich Jango hangs his new trophy on the wall and Felix begins to laugh. Ha! Ha! he says. You're so funny dad. I love you. Gurgo says, I know Fungus. I love you too, you little bag of tricks. By the way, I like your butt. Fernando, proud of his sweet booty pleasing his father, offers his anal virginity as sacrifice. Angus L. Mango gladly accepts this offering, and fills Fungdo's rectum with sweet post-Table man juice. Felix tastes this through the mucus membrane in his prostate, and the sugary texture of Jingle's semen stimulate's the dopamine receptor's in Fangdolus's brain. Famish experiences an orgasm more intense than the explosion of 1000 suns. Felix dies, backside pressed up to Gringo's groin.
Eric sighs. His work on this planet done, he flees back to the astral plane, where he awaits the next episode of Folicle and Canker's XXX Adventures sometimes featuring Tangier Bluberry. The. End.

>>6188222
>Sounds good, but I'd love to see it in a bit more context. Maybe post the sentence or two that comes after?
>>6188037

oh and by "maybe post the context" I meant "please post the context"

There is literally nothing bad about your sentence on its own. It's great. But I'd love to see what it leads into.

>>6189840

He did say that it was improvised for the other critique thread. There is presumably nothing else to it yet.

>>6189852

oops my bad, didn't see that. Go raibh maith agat

The spinach had been spoiling faster than usual. He was sure of it. The usual yellowing spattering of slime licked leaves that littered the domain of their emerald cousins was rearing it’s gum-laden head all too prematurely; that cellophane greenhouse, soaking up the harsh, clinical rays of the buzzing fridge bulb too often became a compost heap with no middleman to take it there. The bulb, an indicator of intrusion, committed its own pervasive assault on the set of narrowed, heavy eyelids that clutched Daniel’s peepers with a faltering fervor, as if threatening to give up and let them drop at any moment. But it was Daniel who caved first, this time. He slammed the door and let out a low groan; empty handed.

>>6189864

De nada, Mick.

>>6188779
Can you explain the last 2 stanzas?

>>6178298

Two great powers staring down
The barrel of a gun
Iron curtains fade away
Leaving only one
Entrenched tribal power grows
No common cause pursued
And without breath for irony
Tears it into two.

no h8rs, only r8rs.

>>6190024
I like.
The only jarring thing for me is 'entrenched', it's pronunciation fucks with the flow. Ideally i'd replace it with 'In trenches, tribal power grows' - but obviously that would alter the meaning.

Maybe 'Deep seated' could work as an alternative?

K: Soft chorus cheers success, dear brother. Spoilt are they not?
F: Fed 'till over-ripe; but how sweet the fruit made sweeter still
K: A most poisonous venom
F: Come come, stomach the gains of cheer, sour them not with hateful tears
K: Bitter not I cry, but call: where does their loyalty lie?
F: With the tavern wench no doubt, playful wife in life's fantasy
K: And you then Brother, their whore?
F: 'Till my thighs are numb and then still more!
K: Laugh if you will, make light in victory but mark me -
F: That my brother takes anger? That I have won? Dear brother, be you jealous I share not some?
K: Test further, test me still. Test father with the name you ill.
F: A name borne for sons -
K: And here you were a daughter of vulgarity not a second pass?
F: Idle jest, dear brother, hear the rest -
K: Of a drunkards slur? Take comfort in the night, for what you were hall wake again tomorrow, pregnant senseless with pang of sorrow. O headache, still, that grief does spur; cross idle bounds with loosened step and tighten further fate thou neck.
K: Serpent's spit of gallows string but like the damned you sing! Perhaps, dear brother, I am the daughter of another son, for love of hades is thy mother's tongue.
F: All the better in lashing filth; what need I the whip when fear? Respect earned not in insular to fear.
K: Your empire benefits beyond no doubt; but pray, in ecstasy my name is called by all. Hear; the call doth come. Shadows of my step cast like thunder wrung. Giant stands among the gods, but tall.
By all done 'twas were alone; dear brother, alone does my immortality lavish Rome.
F: Grand in the stature of madness!
K: Guards
F: Lock me up. Bury me; send me deeper than this hell, blind deaf and dumb to insanities' knell.
K: Dear brother, spare the viper's pussy crack and say no more, lest with eagerness I deliver your wish, and starve you from your avenging dish.

>>6190126
I don't understand.

The exhaustion of man only lasted as long as he tried.

“Her”
“Really?”
“Sure. Problem?”
Several, by the looks of it. Eyes that don’t match, hair ‘straightened’, radar dishes either side, and make-up that clearly isn’t waterproof.
“She looks alright”
“Alright? Get a good look in mate, or get your eyes tested”.
I’ll book an appointment for us both. Truly, looks that kill.
“What about you”
Here we go
“Got a favourite?”
“Uh…that one”
“The blonde?”
“The one next to her”
“The other one?”
“In between”
“You gay shit”
Hidden in plain sight.
“Really though”
Really.
“If needs must”. Which beast is fit for it, I wonder. Perfect:
“Her”
“Fuck you”
“Rather her mate”
“Seriously”
“No seriously, her”
“Lay off it; that’s my mother you cunt”
“Oh”. I hadn’t noticed.

For that special someone this valentines™

Here's what I've got so far. Just started it tonight.

“Mooooooo”.

A collective sigh echoes through the hall.

“It’s all she’s said. This one, the one before her, the one before her and so on ad nauseum.” grunted Tooms, the portliest of the grays aboard the ship. All six of them stood around the bovine, scratching their disco-ball sized heads - telekinetically of course. He reached into his metallic blue space suit and grabbed some sort of cylindrical apparatus. ZZZZZZAP!

“Moooooo.” this one more fervorous.

“I don’t know what you want me to do about it.”, groaned Kyle, who looked more or less exactly the same as every other gray aboard the ship, sans the fact his suit was purple, “we get the orders, we carry them out and that’s all there is to it.”

“Sure”, said Tooms, “But this is the only species we’ve taken from the planet. They’re hideous! Why don’t we try to take one of their caretakers for a sample?”

“Caretakers?” he asked, though only humoring him.

>>6190785

okay, before I start I'd like to say that the whole "alien abducting cows that go moo and then meet a baby tuckoo" isn't very funny at all, and by this point I doubt even a good author could make it so

> “Mooooooo”.

please there are a trillion more creative ways to start a narritive, try studying some good literature to see how they begin and learn from that

> A collective sigh echoes through the hall.

cliche string, a lot of writers paint sighs as "(collect(ive|ed)) sighs", which "(reverb(erate)?|echo) (through|across) the (room|hall(way)?)". Please don't do that.

> and so on ad nauseum

awkward dialogue

> All six of them stood around the bovine, scratching their disco-ball sized heads - telekinetically of course. He reached into his metallic blue space suit and grabbed some sort of cylindrical apparatus.

> ZZZZZZAP!

please don't

> sans the fact his suit was purple

"sans" sticks out like a sore thumb against the completely regular language

> "Why don’t we try to take one of their caretakers for a sample?”

your dialogue is boring and cliche and there is no discernable different between characters

work at it, read more, and read closely, and read things with literary merit. And write often.

>>6190857
Thanks for the critique anon :^]

I have a story, not a way to start it yet. I'm just goin' with it. your input is appreciated.

>>6190857
but what do you mean by "and then meet a baby tuckoo?"

are you just painting it as silly and w/e

>>6190684

literally makes zero sense out of context

>>6189922

ਤੁਹਾਨੂੰ ਵਿਰੋਧੀ ਆਇਰਿਸ਼ ਮੂਰਖ ਗੁਦਾ ਖੋਲ ਮਰ

psssh کچھ نہیں اہلکاروں ..... لڑکے

>>6190867

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4217/4217-h/4217-h.htm

>>6190862

and no problem, keep at it

>>6187954
Right in the motherfucking feels.

I make poast

>>6190024

Best poem in the thread

>>6190033

Ignore this guy.

Her mocha skin looked so good against my pale white skin. She had just enough of her Indian mother in her. I pressed her in her black bikini up against the side of the pool. The hair past her shoulders was wet and her face was dripping with chlorinated water I'd splashed on her. She smiled. Her dark eyes looking directly into mine so intensely my eyes almost watered up. I kept her locked up against the wall planting kisses all over her cheeks and lips. She struggled against me, pushing away from the wall, trying to get her body as close as she could to mine.
"It's cold," she said.
I put my arms right around her and slid my cheeks against hers. Her cheeks were cold. It was late afternoon and we'd been in the water for half an hour.
"We need to move around," I said.
She smirked. She knew just the kind of moving around I had in mind, not because she saw it on my face but because it was in her mind first. She projected it, sent out the signals, beamed her desire right into my head.
She lifted her legs up, slowly and surely treading water, floating. She wrapped those gorgeous brown legs around me.
"My pussy is aching," she said.
I was shocked. I'd never heard her say anything like that. She was a girl more conservative than most. She realized right after what she'd said and she blushed a bright red like she had been slapped across the face. So red I could see it through her tan skin. She wouldn't say anything more.
"Your pussy aches?"
She just bit her lip, red-faced. "Uh-huh."
I reached down there and stroked her pussy over her bathing suit. She relaxed a little. Her head dropped down onto my shoulder and she hummed in my ear an indiscriminate tune. I pulled her swimmers to the side and stuck my fingers deep into her sex. She stopped humming to gasp and she went tense again.
She moved her arms down and pulled the strings on the side of her swimmers. I lifted her body up and let them fall away. Her pussy brushed up against my stomach, feeling in the water almost soapy the way it slid over him.
"Let me take off your shorts," she said.
I held her up and she reached down to pull the strings of my shorts and then ripped it open. Instantaneous, my cock leapt up, hard, at attention. She smiled, seeing the cock diffused through the water.
"Quick," she said. "I"m cold."
I kissed her and slid my thick cock into her velvet pussy. The way her body shook in the water and the way we slid over each other was divine. We shared body temperature. I held her close to me and pumped her young pussy as hard as I could. Her brown tits bounced up and down on the surface of the water like buoys. They were modest, but the moment they shot out of the water, they looked enormous, inflated, the water in a state of flux was the best push-up bra you could ask for.

>>6191605

She shook her dark hair over me, covering me in her strawberry scent. Her hair made a sort of tent and under it we both heavily breathed into each other's mouths, foreheads pressed together, sharing warmth as if on a wintery mountain peak. We were alone like the last people on earth. My cock thudding against her pussy, my hips against her ass and legs like a tabla drum, her tits splashing water up into our chins. I could feel her body heating up, my arm around her, every place where her body touched mine ecstasy.
"I could die in your arms right now," she said.
It was almost as if she was. Every stab of my penis, deep into her body, my arms strangling the flesh of her waist, the death throes of her sparkling tits, the low growls from her throat. With one last thrust, I came deep inside her. As I unsheathed my cock from its home, the scabbard that was her pussy, where it should remain for all eternity, where it belongs, the semen flowed from her pussy.
"I'd like nothing more for you to get me pregnant," she said.

>>6191605
>>6191608

One of the least sexy things I've ever read. Well done.

I've had more bonerfication from a Haynes Manual for a Mk III Ford Cortina.

>>6182911
there's some good stuff here but also places where you go overboard and need to scale back.

>>6191617

It's not filthy erotica, you perv. It's high art.

>>6191626
>It's high art.

>>6191664

I wrote it directly into a comment box in about 15 minutes in a thread where we were supposed to write erotic stories about girls that OP provided pictures of. I wrote 5. They aren't really erotic, yeah. But I wasn't really trying to make something to jerk off to. Just amusing myself.

>>6190033

In trenches, tribal power grws
As young men, huddled over
Books like sacks of wool,
Yearning to be sheep.
Voices echo, palliate and
Dissent is slavered into the
Groupmind overthink, filtered
Through pure ideology into
A distilled and knowing hatred,
Catalysed by the bodies on
The every street, the blood
Inside the every heart that
Yearns, longing to be free.
No voice says no, apocalypse
Is certain, and desired.

>>6191684

Hair tumbles, slinking down
The form like a black cat
Dripping off a wall, a murder
Of crows, falling from the sky
To skin the colour of a caramac
Sweet to see and dangerous,
Lip held in tension, teeth the
Gear, flesh the spring held
In this escapement of lust
And pure desire, the eyes
Stare past me always and
Eternal in their disregard
And yet the unseen promises
Mystery and a possibility.

>>6190868
It's the first line from a short story about an astronaut getting left behind in space by everyone else on earth.

>>6191872

Oh right. Well, in context, it's shit.

>>6191702
>In this escapement of lust
>And pure desire,

I like this line/phrase/whatever

>>6190878

You're a fun one.

>>6186301
yeah sure why not

Can I count the days I will be from you?
Will it be a year or will it be five?
Will it last a day, will it last our lives?
And through that time will you be ever true?
My darling, how I wish I truly knew
-- The answers to these questions which I strive,
Without them can I very well survive?
Will these answers ever come into view?
Do not worry my darling, for I won't lie
Now, nor will I put more fear into your mind;
For with you now I shall ever remain
Because, my love, my love now does not wain,
My true no new love do I wish to gain
Without you I can only obtain pain.

A small chimney of light billowed from a roof window into the cold fog of the night. Overhead, a moon sauntered, passing lazily across the pinhead industry of stars, like a factory owner inspecting his workmen. Below, a shallow rise of mortar; the families of London sandwiched between workhouses and brothels.

To some, it might appear as though clay had been knitted at the ends of hammer and nails; sewn with haste at avenue seems. To others, it might appear as home. And so it did. For some, it was ownership of the factories, for they belonged to Maltman and Co. For the night sky, to that of November; a harsh and bitter mistress for those lost. And that dim illumination of the universes' shadow, to that of Mr Hollowolowitz's son, Gabriel.

>>6194947

trying this hard lmao

>>6195006
i agree

>>6194947
if this is the beginning of something than please stop it

Working, standing, sitting still,
In an office, call it life.
Inside all day, waiting to stay
Paid paradise ever year.
We, as pale as our paper,
Love it, and never leave.
Loving to be stuck,
In our great bureaucracy!

>>6195028
Why?

>>6195035
generic af sorry

>>6195039

not either of them, but honestly the prose is so thick that all of your effort that went into crafting that scene went into the trash. Simply put: a reader can't visualize the scene fast enough to keep up with their reading pace. Anytime a reader has to go back and re-read a sentence -- not in admiration of its beauty, or to get a second layer of meaning from it (think Joyce) -- you are wasting their time, and their attention span will suffer.

Your opening is a pain to get through. Tone it down. Like, really. You're describing a fucking house with "dim illumination of the universes' shadow" and "knitted at the ends of hammer and nails; sewn with haste at avenue seems." It took you three lines to describe a fucking house, and yet we still have no fucking idea what it looks like.

And,

"passing lazily across the pinhead industry of stars, like a factory owner inspecting his workmen."

A rare metaphor like this is fine. But it's like every single sentence.

>>6195039
you won't be able to keep it up for more than a page so you'll never finish and it's also not very good

they say it's mind over matter
but who's gonna mind
when it's my brain matter
all over the kitchen wall, splattered

>>6195061
>>6195068
cool.

>>6186301

I really, really like this.

With arms outstretched in the water
Her dress floated to the surface
Like a vibrant lily pad
Centerpiecing her as the Nymphaeaceae

i’m hiding behind
infinite beers two glasses of wine a whiskey sour some shots of jager
talking through a rapidly disintegrating platonic vow


i’m hiding behind
a liquid mask, an azure veil, amber hidden cloak
pulled up to face flow down gullet and taint breath;
wise lesson listen learned, i hide behind this courage.

i figure there’s
no problem not solved with
a swig of courage. poured courage,
drink drank drunk courage, all better.


no problem not made
worse by courage.
not a morning made better brighter by consumption of courage.
recover slowly as stupid dull courage recedes
back to a headache pound skull vibration;
i promise never to be brave again.


i’ve learned my lesson, but have I recovered
from nights of excessive courage?
am I a liquid lion
drowning in the dregs?

will I roar again tonight?

Spoiled the mint phrase
In who do we trust
From the first crawl
to the last in the dust
There is no escape
Alone from our fate
Here now and ended
the pleasure of plenty
are froze in parts
by the dead of the empty

>>6178397
can't stand unnecessary line breaks

>>6185278
this is cute, and sad, and true.

>>6185660
this had some excellent moments. That being said I wouldn't read it again.

>>6185686
Best consonance so far

>>6186187
way to open up

>>6194563
This is kind of trite and corny, rhyme is really forced
>>6191702
this surprised me. nice opening image. Excellent language, very competent poem.

>>6195123

This got me thinking, so I like it.

>>6184477
Go back and remove every adverb from that passage. Then after that, remove every single word that isn't absolutely necessary to understand each sentence.

It's difficult to write effective prose when there's a bunch of useless filler words.

Winter Daze

The glistening drops fall from the eaves
As snow melts from the winter sun.
A gentle breeze moves leaves,
But most have fallen, nearly every one.

The Silence! It can be a prayer,
Or to some, too much, too long.
More often, it's a Presence rare
In a struggling world's throng.

Our destinies are quite a maze,
As pathways lead us on.
Sometimes we see uncertain haze,
Sometimes it's bright as morning sun.

How glad we are for moments of respite,
That glimpse the picture of it All,
Like this time of bright snow light,
And the quiet of the canyon wall.

>>6178298
Keep in mind I'm a complete fucking pleb, am a freshman in college, and don't know jackshit about writing, and I've never been on this board. This is just a sketch, and more catharsis really. I generally like writing essays better, but I've never tried even so much as a sketch until this. So please be kind:


She could play hard to get all she wanted, but it was her wildcard status, her big blue eyes,—they seemed buggy now, the more he thought about it—along with her flaxen hair that kept him coming back, and that alone. He did not love her. This he should have gathered by their second conversation. Sure, they shared a lot in common; “Everything feels so suburban here”, and, as if stumbling onto sentient life for the first time, he dutifully agreed. She was his femme fatale, an artsy girl to her core, and, he would never hesitate to refer to her as beautiful. But, for the time being, he was indifferent, and he was thankful. There in front of him, fidgeting nervously under the warm yellow lights, talking at a mile a minute, she was everything he ever wanted. That familiar warmth in his gut, that good feeling, which by his early teens he had thought cliché, it was wonderful, and even more wonderful in retrospect. She, whom he barely knew, she alone was his favorite stranger. And a brunette, too. Go figure.

>>6195087
2deep4me with that big n word
>>6186603
now this is good

>>6178337
Okay guys, I'm gonna be completely honest here, so please don't take anything to heart or get discouraged.


>>6178337
too edgy
>>6178397
not sure if i like this because lots of people have replied to it, or because it's good.

>>6180831
beautiful
>>6180869
this seems really good but it went way above my head, so sorry.

>>6183427
sorry m8 wouldn't like this even in a rock song, stick with the form though.
>>6184560
good

>>6185176
9/10 some original shit you've got there, i like it a lot

>>6195258
Just wrote this in like 15 mins, please tear it apart. I just want any opinion on either of the things I wrote:


As if one of the lost boys, Ty Valdez proudly strode down the corridor to his second-floor apartment. I feel renewed, he thought, and that he was. Valdez had just underwent a vasectomy of the soul. He could pound good girl after misguided whore, and feel absolutely nothing. Not even a second thought. "Fucking sweet, man”, he moaned the last syllable. His couch smelled like pussy, which was a call for exultation. Porn now spoke to him. For all intents and purposes, he was 11 again, and coming geysers to silly women. Nearly 30-percent of his paycheck—he crunched the numbers for kicks—had gone to Trojans and Penthouse. However, the magazines were meant as an ironic statement for his coffee table. Brooklyn had sure left its mark on him.

Once rigid mortise and loyal tenon
Sending men to clay
Now rigor mortis, now rotting tendons
Buried near the bay

>>6185176
I take it back, it goes downhill after you stop and.

>>6195061
My story hasn’t got description.

It’s got an endless cycle of unedited words.
Like letting a tiger loose in a shopping mall; there’s no seriousness, it doesn’t make sense, and all those involved stroll along unquestioningly. “Don’t touch that” parents might say to their children; “you don’t know where it’s been”.

Maybe it’s a kid of four or five; they probably can’t speak well, and some still wear diapers. They want to say ‘Maybe not mother, but your authority to disincline me lies in fear, and I, the vassal of intuition shall ignore with the kindest regards your insensible campaign of tyranny’.
They wail. The evil ones listen to their mother. They take their hand away from the tiger and march onwards a pace not their own. Maybe evil’s too strong; but that’s what they’d call themselves.
Then there are the big children. They aren’t dressed up in diapers, but they make a racket. They dribble and slur some words – they’re probably forty and generally have an invisible leash. You can spot them by looking where everybody isn’t. Floating along in their own privileged world of bliss. They want to run towards it and hug it, stroke it, lick its nose and poke its claws. If they could speak, you’d imagine: ‘What mighty fangs oh strange mammal of this earth you have. And my! What wondrous muscles adorn your royal felt’; gaggle giggle waggle burp. They roll around on the floor and squeal, but they mean good. Mothers don’t hold their hands, and they don’t call themselves anything.
And there you have it.

Oh, but the tiger. It’s not actually a tiger, we can all guess. It’s a metaphor for somebody that can’t be described otherwise. They have feet arms and legs, like any other human; but they don’t have a beginning. Nor an end. Like a bag of nerves set in motion, painfully aware of its clogs slowly clicking to a close. A tiger’s the same, isn’t it?

>>6195123
Thanks, what were the good moments, so I can maximize those?

Wrote this quite some time ago:

>Ivy
Like vines I wrap
and grow up your legs
hands clambering for more and more of your flesh.
Twisting and covering every bit of you,
but you accept, solid and strong,
my leaves becoming your face.
Allow me entry, let me grow within,
the sunlight filtering through your eyes as sustenance,
the breath in your lungs as air,
your body as my soil
your heart as my seed.

>>6195329
i like porno. i used to feel bad about liking porno, for reasons that i neither understand nor wish to understand nor spend any time thinking about whatsoever, but lucky for me and the imaginary hooker i visit when i masturbate, who always comes 3-4 times whenever i fuck her, calling out my name in a way that reminds me of something but i can't remember what, all that guilt and denial is in the past now. i am who i am, and who i am is a porn-hound. i like the settings, i like the women, i like the sounds they make. i like the stories in porn. i like pretending i'm in that other world, fucking. i like pretending i'm the guy in the porno film, with such a big dick and he gets laid even though he's ugly. i like pretending i'm that guy, who comes so hard that it makes other people come just watching.

i spend a lot of time thinking about porn. i used to not spend so much time thinking about porn, but those days are gone. they are a faded memory. i can barely remember what it was like, not to think about pornos constantly. i usually have one or two cued up on netflix, and then maybe i browse /s/ or /hc/ or sometimes, after i've had a couple of wanks, i look at /gif/. i don't save porn, or post to these boards, because the roulette is half the fun. i used to only look at /b/, and i would occasionally see porn there. i have some old porno mags, from the pre-digital age. i'm a connoiseur of porns. i know the best ones and where to find them. i know the worst ones and what to stay away from. i know who guzzles cum, and who screams in orgasm from anal. i know which girls do lesbo scenes. i know the fetishes.

4chan sure has left its mark on me.

Red.
My throat is red with blood.
And the lagoons of my breath;
weeping. Wheezing.
As it pumps.
Pumps.
Pumps.
Without me.
I no longer feel
the inflation of my chest.
The movement of my ribs.
The beat in my breast.
The walls are the white of heaven.
My bed a coffin black.
My arteries are strings,
that pull upon my limbs.
As I recline upon my side
and show myself,
that I have nothing within.

My throat is red with blood.
My back a hollow trunk.
But inside,
the lilies grow and
the roses bud.
They're sitting in the shade
right now.
In the bowels of bark's
rough comfort.
But soon this bed,
the walls,
the iron lungs
and sheets of skin;
will be consumed in greens,
in blues, in yellows.

And so shall the dead
once again
be living.

N E critique pls

>>6185016
LAUGH at the JOKE

You’d think I’d think of me, wouldn’t you?

demijung

Meditate.

documentary: the smash brothers

i think it’s probably best to consider spiritualized as a “post-stones” band.

soap = clean oil = clean cheese

even if some of the snooping is worthwhile, they’re acting like a paranoid roommate and that’s not someone i want to be living around. (in re the u s a)

>>6180869
I can't decide if this is great or retarded.

>>6195544
Neither can I; but since it's posted here, it's probably trash.

>>6185176
80s love ballad / 10

>>6185176
I see you, /co/.

>>6185534
Even in intercourse, I wish to be alone. The thought surrounds me: here I am. Face to face with what was before... what? My dream is becoming my reality. This is what it all was for. The sheets, the bed, the mattress, the headboard, the floor, the walls, the comforter. All of these things are familiar, and yet, it's as though I've never seen them before.
For all my imaginations, I never imagined that I would share this with another person. She looks at me with her eyes. For a brief moment, like the sun kissing the morning dew, I am aware that she is aware. Then the feeling passes. Then it comes back again. How can I make it pass?
I turn to science. Thank god I was a lonely child. I am a journalist. I am a documentarian. She is my subject. I see her totality from outside.
I pause a moment, lost in the beauty of her gaze, her lips, her teeth, her smell, her tongue, her gums, her nose, her ears, her face, her mouth, her dimples when she smiles. She looks at me questioningly. She cannot understand the memories I am facing. Then she yields.
Her cunt. I have genitals, too, I am reminded. Sex is something that happens with lots of emotions involved. Sensations are created on me, and she is there to create them.
The map cannot observe itself, I whisper to myself. Where am I? At home, her house, a field, a hill, a high school bathroom, a dungeon? The sky? Am I in the sky? I'm upset that I'm not competing with anyone.
Animalistic forces from beyond time take over my body and soul. Sex. My mother. Nothing makes sense any more.
Orgasm. Orgasm. Orgasm. Orgasm. Orgasm. Orgasm. Orgasm. The map is satisfied.
The territory claims the existence of many people, but I don't believe in it.
It is okay that I have a body as long as it is contained in hers.
I am
content.

>>6189339
Best in the thread

>>6185569
A long time ago
Somebody told me
"I am," he said, by vibrating his vocal chords with air drawn by a diaphragm,
"Happy to be alive."

It has been many years
Since I heard him say that
And, except for the words I still remember,
He is long since dead.

There are many stories we tell ourselves
In order to forget the fundamental truth
Which is that there is no god,
There is only Nihilism.

Because that's the only truth
Once you understand logical positivism,
Once you have been made aware of death,
And no longer seek to deny it.

Or, if not death, then anger
We all hate each other,
For not being able to make each other
Feel less alone in this cruel, empty, dark world.

Sometimes, if we are lucky,
Usually after a good nights sleep,
Or an especially heavy magic mushroom trip,
We forget our reflexive well-reasoned hopelessness.

Sometimes, we find that
We enjoy the company of others
Despite the potential for awkward situations
Or other forms of embarrassment.

Sometimes, we forget
Our suffering
And we try to tell someone
"Life is good."
Life is good.

>>6180831
Fuck you I was enjoying this before I found out it was Sexton. I don't enjoy Sexton but then again I've only read The Awful Rowing Toward God.

I stood atop a nameless hill,
So strong and swelled in pride,
I stood there and I fought there
And at last twas there I died.

The smoke and gunshots rang about,
Fire filling up the air.
Gentlemen with smallswords
Charged off here and ev'rywhere.

The battle went quite well at first,
Or so passed round the word.
We held the line, dirty gray
Against the deep blue horde.

But then the cry went up aloud:
"The general's dead! Away!"
Our panic rose, a great flood
That caught all within its sway.

The line was broken on that hill,
That clump of filthy mud.
And what came of my pride then?
Naught but dirt and fatal blood.

>>6189339
Wow, an actual good poem

>>6195646
>Not liking Anne Sexton
What are you, gay?

>>6195624

don't forget that this is entirely my own opinion and it's impossible to make any claims about being right
also i wouldn't do this for someone i know or a friend, but it is what i'd like people to do for me
:

i really hoped you would have good things in this
and you do, the things you want to express are very good pieces of information, and i believe they'd work very well in a poem

but i don't like your voice
you borrow too much from ready-made language
you have to work harder than this

parts that made me think of this:
-There are many stories we tell ourselves
In order to forget the fundamental truth
-Because that's the only truth
-Feel less alone in this cruel, empty, dark world.


*

I literally hate this
it makes me angry
i think this is very close to how i used to write a few years ago and i hated it and changed my tone and now i can't stand to see a similar tone. This is bukowski sentimentalism, you can do much better than this:

Sometimes, if we are lucky,
Usually after a good nights sleep,
Or an especially heavy magic mushroom trip,

i like the 'reflexive well-reasoned hopelessness' part, it's not original but still pretty fresh

*

this stanza is pretty good but i would have skimmed it because of the 'sometimes' and i would have missed it:


Sometimes, we find that
We enjoy the company of others
Despite the potential for awkward situations
Or other forms of embarrassment.


*

this part is pretty obvious to the reader from the first stanza, and you spend a long time on it. i think you should reduce this to a single sentence. Or, alternatively you can change the first stanza but then your ending is floating, maybe you can change that too, i'll come back to this:

It has been many years
Since I heard him say that
And, except for the words I still remember,
He is long since dead.


*

Or, if not death, then anger
We all hate each other,

this doesn't follow from nihilism, i feel, or it kind of does but not well enough to be in a poem. you could write another poem about this, it can be shorter

*
Sometimes, we forget
Our suffering
And we try to tell someone
"Life is good."
Life is good.

i find that this last stanza follows from the 'bukowski sentimentalism' feeling, and i found it underwhelming
if this were my poem i would do this:

i would cut the sometimes's
i would give one or two examples like the 'bonding even though it's usually a terrible thing to try' example
and instead of going to 'life is good', i would stop at something to the tone of 'i think these moments are very nice'


i think that's all i have

>>6196806

and i don't like the diaphragm line nobody needs that

>This is a semi-exercise in dialogue and being very short and sharp.

Lachie was staring at himself in a palm mirror.
“How do I look?”
“What?” Ace grunted.
“How do I look?” Lachie looked up. “Y’know.”
“No? Is this a trick question?”
“What? No. How would it be a trick question?”
“I don’t know. It feels like it is.”
“It’s not.” Lachie waited for a reply. “Well?”
“I don’t know.” Ace glanced up from his phone. “Yep, you’re still you.”
Lachie groaned. “You’re useless.”
“Why do you even care? What are you, a fashion lady?”
“Fashion lady? Fashonista?”
“What?”
“I’m a fashonista?”
“What’s a fashonista?.”
“A fashion lady.”
“Oh. Are you one?”
“No.”
“Well then why do you care?”
“Because part of my job is looking the part for my job.”
“Is your job being a fag?”
“Shut up.”
“Jeeze, man. You look like a big hairy monster. Happy?”
“You’re not just saying that?”
“Put on your angry face.”
Lachie did so.
“Yep, I’d piss myself. Can I go back to videogames now?”
“No,” Lachie replied, relaxing. The snarl became a smile but there were no less teeth. “You can’t play videogames on a phone.”
“I’m literally doing it right now.”
“You’re doing the videogaming equivalent of eating fast food.”
“But you eat fast food.”
“Not when I play videogames.”
“Oh,” Ace drawled, “you’re such a connoisseur.”
“It’s connoisseur. Don’t use words you can’t pronounce.”
“Connoisseur?”
“Connoisseur.”
“Connoisseur.”
“That’s right.”
“God you’re a fag.”
Lachie put the palm mirror away with the other pile of cosmetics that rested in the ‘bathroom’ corner. It was the corner nearest the single two centimetre slot in the wall that was roughly foot level for people at ground level. A piece of wood blocked all sight through it, but the wood was spaced back from the ‘window’ to allow ventilation. It was the only ventilation. Fortunately, communal toilets and showers were provided as part of the motel so the only use the bathroom corner got was spraying deodorant and other basic hygiene. With the palm mirror carefully placed where it belonged, next to the pile of crap Ace had just thrown down, Lachie straightened back up and leaned against the wall.

>>6189339
How much William Blake do you read?

>>6190754
I like this. Good work anon.

>>6197389
>Message continues.
He took the time to think. He thought about how much he didn’t want to go off and manage this mystery delivery for ‘the boss’. He thought about how much he didn’t want to somehow be stuck managing ‘the boss’s’ criminal enterprise. ‘The boss’s’ name was Bill, and he was an unpleasant man who made money off unpleasant things. Most of all Lachie thought about how hungry he was. It was a constant gnawing hunger that was rarely satisfied. He didn’t lose weight, and some people might have said that at some hundred-plus kilograms easily he maybe needed to, but Lachie could still almost play music off his ribs with a stiff piece of metal. If the pay had been particularly bad for particularly long he ended up just sleeping, and waiting for Ace to return with food, until they could make more money again. He thought about how much he hated that dependency. He gnawed on a claw.
“Hey,” he grunted.
“Hmm?”
“When’s Truckie getting here?”
“Never.” Ace fiddled with his phone. “Five minutes.”
Lachie pushed off the wall and opened the minifridge. It wasn’t a luxury item, it was the only food storage system in the room. “Do you want anything?”
“Nah.”
Lachie did. He grabbed two slices of leftover pizza and stacked them together, then ate it in two bites. It was messy, and stained the fur around his mouth. He went to clean it off with a rag.
“Leave it,” Ace said.
“What?”
“It makes you look tough. You’re too clean.”
The palm mirror revealed that it was the truth. A little bit of tomato sauce around the muzzle did wonders. Perhaps it was coming on too strongly, though. Lachie carefully removed a centimetre of stain. That was better. His teeth, normally a pearlescent white, were dulled by the food and saliva and seemed more dangerous for it. Not sated, but the edge removed, he more comfortably waited for the sound of tires on gravel.

>that's the entirety of that scene, the story moves on quickly to the next step. does it feel too long/empty/boring?

>>6195133
>Excellent language, very competent poem.

lol made it up as I went along m8, hitting the return key as required. but thanks

and this one >>6190024 is pic related

Fourty-Five degrees up and to the compass right of the guard office tilts a guard stand and a guard umbrella and a guard that wishes a plummet from guard stand to guarded pool and pull the plug on the unguarded pool and go back to the guard office and wishes himself home. The sun could pop an aleve. Or 5 tylenols. Or follow guard example and pop both. There is a blue sky.
The now-parked blue honda and its opening door set a ephebe near the gate and the ephebe shoves a “Stephen sits in the fucking chair!” towards the poolside and Stephen in the fucking chair pops an aleve and pushes a “Stephen wants out of the fucking chair” to the gateside and the ephebe crosses urined toilets and an old man’s untoweled thighs past the gate and walks to the chair and takes the chair and Stephen drops a green whistle under eight feet of water. The office races Stephen along its poles over eroded epoxy tracks and popcorns and Stephen sits in a chair onto Alissey’s lap and immediately desecrates his half hour office break.
“Off, and Marcus will hear of it.”
“And Marcus will not check back for two weeks, he’ll liquidate the supplies, spit red on the Operator, and leave us an ‘Unsatisfactory, why did you not order Cyanuric’ and you a ‘I’m not a lap, I give 88s and below out of 99s and leave, work it with Stephen’, and prove our schedule’s efficacy flat as your chest.”
“Blood on the deck. Fuck you -- Near the slide, dress it up with TSP -- Marcus will hear of that.”
“Really, a sandbelt crawled your training bra when you were young, huh, nice craftsmanship.”
Marcus would hear of it. That time it was an ‘EXTREMELY Unsatisfactory’ and a ‘Aliss, I’m not a lap,’ and ‘Aliss, I’m not a pair of underdeveloped mounds’.
TSP aroma shutoff his nerves and popped him an Ibuprofen.

>>6178298
I'm working on a sci-fi novella.
It's about a hotshot Space Disco dancer named Zalex Jeager who travels from star system to star system competing in space disco competitions in order to be the greatest dancer in the Delta Quadrant of the galaxy.
He saves a beautiful girl from a violent drug pusher and soon finds himself caught up in a police investigation of a dangerous organization known as The Cartel, which he learns may have been responsible for his father's death.
There's lots of cool weird aliens and spaceships and stuff.
So far I've only got a little over 3k words though. Shooting for somewhere between 8k and 10k when all is said and done.

If anyone is interested in reading what I have so far and giving me some feedback I would really appreciate it.
http://pastebin.com/A7MTHJj0

>>6198695
needs more anime

>>6196812
lol everybody needs a diaphragm

F-first poem. Be gentle p-please.

Plum, Pomegranate, Walnut

I lay still and I loaf; but In my stillness I still drift through time. I am by self, but never alone. The pigments of my mind swirl constantly, And with it, the embodiment of my thoughts float around my aura like glowing pixies. I feel the spinning force and I close my eyes: through time, time, time. I remember:

The first plum, so plain and round. I remember the first bite, so sour, and the gore as the fruit began outpouring its blood as it gifted youth and fertility. I remember as I accept and drank its life, so sweet and fulfilling. I remember the scorch of the summer air, pulling me out from the safety of my homes cool comfort. I remember bicycles, I remember pools. But most of all I remember simplicity. The world so electric, so raw. I took all the sourness and from within I found nectar.

The first pomegranate, so bitter, so frustrating. But when I think back now I laugh at myself. How serious was I! Chewing, smashing, biting. So violent in my conquest, not a soldier but a rebel. I remember the red gore, as it's beautiful flowered shape was broken and sacrificed to such a simple greed. To hell with it! I would say, as I refused myself as I did the fruit. In the end, always left unfinished.

The first walnut. So hard, so sturdy under the pressure. But why did it resist so? For as soon as that bitter shell began to crack, a ray of light from the small ambassador of hope held, waiting to be found. I remember clear, the awareness, the wisdom! But it wasn't soon after that I desired again, and I drank. And from that fountain I found drunkenness, a peace within but without.


(I really need help with this cause i feel like i cant be honest in my writing. The pomegranate is basically how I always give up on relationships and end up bitter and alone as a result. Please help pleby, feely me ;_;)

SKUNKBONE
on his throne
eyeless gaze from cinder stone
horse and cat passerby
where he's content to wait and lie
come stubborn freeze
or blizzard burn
skunkbone sits with grin upturned

>Portions of this novel originally appeared on 4chan in a slightly different form.

And so I staggered about for three days as though damned, my eyes sinking deeper into my face and my person overcome by certainty of impending doom. My lord and my friends, in whose service and with whose love I am normally made joyful, saw the skin of my face become lead and my joints become gnarled wood. Afraid that I might be going mad, I neither sought their council nor gave them an explanation but resolved to diminish the evil with prayer and silent supplication. For the first time in my service to him, my master became suspicious of my health and my motives. Sensing, as Caesars often do, a threat to his court, an iniquitous omen or a contagion of bodily plague, he would have me banished to the darker halls of his palace like a wretched prisoner. For three days, friends were made rivals and trust was made a wind of whispering rumors, each promulgated by my ghastly appearance and encouraged by one whose seduction replaced my counsel. Though my waking hours pained me, I clung to their relative refuge as if they were a thorny vine hanging over the abyss of these bleakest dreams. Let me now speak of the first, a shrieking, grotesque parody of human form, the beginning of my downfall...

...I was in the middle of a wide plain, completely naked save for a knotted rope around my neck. I ran for my life, flinging mud in every direction. To my astonishment, I achieved this flight as if I were a beast, my bare feet and clenched fists pounding into the sodden grass, my back baring against the sky. Though I did not know what foul predator chased me, I felt a greater urgency to move than I have ever known in the waking world. The only thing I knew for certain was that stopping would be my death. As I struggled to see ahead of me, my head flinging wildly and my heart pounding like it no longer wished to reside in my chest, I heard an agonizing, horrible cry. Its higher tones were the shrieking of an evil, violent harlot, and its lower tones the mournful lament of some tortured, innocent maiden, all of it echoing about the empty plane as if enclosed in the vault of the highest basilica. I heard this odious sound again and again, and, running as fast as ever, I felt my ears begin to bleed. Scarcely had the bleeding begun when I noticed the grass growing thicker and taller. The ground gave me less and less spring, the shrieking became louder and louder. Small shrubs and saplings sprouted around me. The shadow of a bird appeared on the uneven ground in front of me, and it grew larger by the instant. I turned my head upwards just in time to see the creature over my shoulder. Feathers, wings and talons, but no beak had this bird. Instead, the head of a woman- her eyes brown and cruel, her features shockingly beautiful- returned my gaze, and I felt her talons at the very tips of my nerves. Quite suddenly, a massive hole tore the earth open before me, and I crashed like a crazed, hunted doe into its midst.

>>6198979
>implying I don't need to critique to receive critiques
hit the showers

>>6178337
>nipple
BLUE BOARD

>>6198695
What do you read? Even by the low standards set by sci-fi your prose is bland. Estella did this thing, Estella did that thing. She engages in a dull internal monologue for the purpose of exposition. It's a total drag to read, man. Slow down, give us some scenery, or some real characterization, or anything at all. Just tossing some quirky alien names around isn't enough to set the scene. And the drug: totally boring. So you introduce it, and then explain what it is. Generic feel-good stuff. Highly addictive and very expensive, of course.

Fuck's sake man, I can't even read any more of this. Bland and stupid. Step your game up and read more sci-fi.

. . . I was with him at Actium, when the sword struck fire from metal, and the blood of soldiers was awash on deck and stained the blue Ionian Sea, and the javelin whistled in the air, and the burning hulls hissed upon the water, and the day was loud with the screams of men whose flesh roasted in the armor they could not fling off; and earlier I was with him at Mutina, where that same Marcus Antonius overran our camp and the sword was thrust into the empty bed where Caesar Augustus had lain, and where we persevered and earned the first power that was to give us the world; and at Philippi, where he traveled so ill he could not stand and yet made himself to be carried among his troops in a litter, and came near death again by the murderer of his father, and where he fought until the murderers of the mortal Julius, who became a god, were destroyed by their own hands.

>>6199534

You're right D:

What a peasant slave am I. If someone wants their prose read hmu ;)

>>6199659
dont even try

>>6199675
Don't try what, mon ami? ;^)

>>6199688
how uneducated do u think i am budlord

>>6199690
I'm sorry sir, but I just don't understand. :^)

>>6199695
we both kno ur tricks bro

>>6199718
this other thread is not going so well, maybe you guys could help?

>>6189767
"offers his anal virginity as sacrifice" felt incongruous to me, as well as "explosion of 1000 suns"

>>6178298
Here's a short story I wrote, hope you guys like it

MARLA'S BRAINS
by Anon

Every day Marla's brains spewed out, there, out through her ears you can see it like a spigot her brains,

Gelatinous, laden with chunks and dwindly spindles, inert copper filaments now too oxidized to function, flowing out like a waterfall from her congenitally leaky ears.

To facilitate this Marla wore for earrings enormous basins made of copper that collected the drainage.

Marla's immediate response to this was jovial at parties, morose at home, and filled with vexation when in the company of fast friends and close acquaintances, of which she had many, since, despite the smell of Marla's brains spilling out, there was nothing else objectionable. Besides, the cats enjoyed licking up the pink stuff.

At the end of every day she would cram her brains back into her head by any means possible. If her nose was blocked she would have to use her ears. If her ears were blocked off she would have to come up with something else. She would lose an average of 0.01% of it daily due to what she was unable to scrape off the surface of the the two enormous hanging copper basins and another 0.01% due to what she could not make the cats vomit back up. They usually swallowed about 7% of Marla's total remaining brains over the course of the day and it was their very favorite treat. But losing 7% of her brains made Marla very slightly stupider by the end of the day, 7% more oblivious, 7% more forgetful, 7% less interesting, and so on. Paradoxically this often made it very difficult to remember how to make the cats vomit, and she often failed, making the cats fear her instead and swat at her hands when she tried to stroke them.

And so, at its very best and fullest, her head was full of dirty old brains and cat vomit, and her hair was full of cats who only stayed for the foie gras, so to speak.

But Marla didn't care, because once you lose your brains you are often very content.

For example one day her friends played a very nasty trick on her which was that when she was napping they filled her brains basins with dog brains instead, and when she woke up she was acting just like a dog, rolling around on the floor and panting and lifting her leg just to piss her jeans, and her friends thought this was very funny and put it on YouTube but then they felt sort of bad afterwards because Marla was so unjudging.

Then again there was not much to keep them guilty because she didn't seem to care; she lacked the capacity to rigidly question herself and her surroundings, and this made her never suspect that people didn't love her all the time. Although she did express some regret when they put the right brains back in her head and she wouldn't get to be a dog anymore. She said it was peaceful and courageous.

"What do you mean, 'it was courageous?'" said her friends, not understanding, "You mean, you *felt* courageous?" They asked.

"No," she said with a bittersweet smile, "*it* was."

>>6199799

garbage, go read 10 novels, 100 short stories and 50 poems of your choice. then try again.

I dont often try to write unless it's an essay or song lyrics. But I remember liking this half dream I had years ago so I tried to jot it down to sort of remember it. It is in pic related.

>>6198979
You sound boring
Keep pouring your heart out but next time write about something more interesting instead of metaphorical fruit
In my experience this kind of writing may be beautiful and technically proficient but it is painfully self-centered and unfortunately this makes it not very popular. In the real world people just don't want to hear about you and your feelings. Next time try writing about your reaction to something in the real world, just as a macguffin, like a tree or a homeless person, people love that shit

hope this helps

>>6197907
good use of rhyming and polysyndeton and non-use of pronouns. it read fast

>>6199810
thank you, i needed that

but fuck you you're full of shit

>>6199818
He's not.

http://userbody.tumblr.com/post/99896074534/stz

>>6199814

thanks, I've been closely reading V again by Pynchon because I was impressed by how quickly he could set up and end an entire scene in only a few sentences.

what do you mean, "the office races stephen along its poles?" i'm having trouble picturing that

the whole second half of this story is kind of tangled and messy. be CLEAR. there's something nice about being evasive and clever like this but it's also kind of a "fuck you" to the audience. you seem to have a very clear idea of a scene that's taking place but you write it in a way that screams "I am mysterious and clever." This is good as an exercise in free association but the ambiguity of the actual events taking place will turn a lot of people off

>>6199854
oops, meant to link to
>>6197907

>>6195624
ugh there's something really off-putting about the way you bandy about things you learned in philosophy class

>>6199869
Good thing it was written for philosophy class.

>>6199854

I wrote it as my daily "5 minute challenge", where I give myself about 30 seconds to think of an idea and then 5 minutes to write it. Probably should have done a second pass before posting

>what do you mean, "the office races stephen along its poles?" i'm having trouble picturing that

shitty failed metaphor that in MY head was basically "Stephen is magnetized towards the office, he zips there ASAP over the crumbling and littery deck covered in food."

Yeah, makes sense you didn't get it, because looking back at it I wouldn't have either.

> the whole second half of this story is kind of tangled and messy. be CLEAR. there's something nice about being evasive and clever like this but it's also kind of a "fuck you" to the audience. you seem to have a very clear idea of a scene that's taking place but you write it in a way that screams "I am mysterious and clever." This is good as an exercise in free association but the ambiguity of the actual events taking place will turn a lot of people off

Appreciate it. Yeah, even though I'm drawn to the whole Pynchon writing style, I suppose he DOES make it very clear what he's writing about or describing at a given time. I suppose I could be evasive as you say, for example, when euphamizing around something expected (unlike the second half of the story, which is rushed and hard to figure out without DFW endnotes)

thanks, and great advice, I'll take it entirely

>>6199898
glad to be of help. looking forward to your next post anon

>>6199482
i love it, it's like a dark little nursery rhyme. finally something for the goth girls to chant while they're skipping rope!

the only lines i don't like are the last two. "blizzard burn" sounds redundant since you already mentioned the freeze, and "grin upturned" sounds redundant too since what kind of grin isn't upturned? besides all this it doesn't have the ending punch this little poem needs, although i do like the image of skunkbone grinning. i would change the last two lines to something that carries a similar meaning but which fits more with the style of the rest of the piece

I have a central shaft of molded black plastic made variable in length, between 5 and 7 inches, by the accordion folding mechanism just before the flexible rubber cuff loop at its tip. My two similarly variable-length molded black plastic arms, one between 2 and 4 inches and the other between 3 and 5 inches, swing freely from a hinge at the center of my central shaft, and also have flexible rubber cuff loops at their tips. At the base of my central shaft is a fourth, larger flexible rubber cuff loop. This larger cuff loop fits around your wrist. The cuff loop at the tip of the central shaft fits around your index finger. The 2 remaining loops at the ends of my freely swinging arms fit around your pinky finger and thumb. These 4 flexible rubber cuff loops are cobalt blue and mildly adhesive. Set through the back of each cuff is a stainless steel button the size of a dime. Lengths of copper wire between 8 and 10 inches loop through hooks fixed to the buttons and, at their opposite ends, loop through 4 hooks closely packed on the face of a small disk of green plastic bolted, in 3 equally spaced places, into a 3-inch radius rubber ball the color of ash. My rubber ball also has a watch face and mp3 player fixed onto it with epoxy, and 92 non-overlapping one-inch smiley face, peace, cross, Earth, shake hands, heart, and skull and cross bones pins pinned in every space left on its surface. My materials are water resistant and will not melt below a temperature of 160℉. Holding a candle to any of my oil based components will damage me. Clenching your hand into a fist while my flexible rubber cuff loops are fitted around your wrist and 3 fingers will cause my central shaft and 2 arms to break into 4 to 8 sharp molded black plastic pieces.

>>6195650
sounds like a middle school project about the civil war, sorry dude. the imagery, the style, the meter, the story, it all seems very contrived, i feel like i've seen this before. if you want to stand out you've got to go out and find your own style, break the rules a little, be a little more expressive.

one good way to do this is to expand your vocabulary. in this poem you have simple descriptions of colors and simple adjectives, but no words that excite me. like you use the word "dirty" and then two stanzas later you use the word "filthy." we get it, it's dirty, and you haven't done much for my imagination. english is full of lovely words like grimy, tarnished, befouled, shitty, etc. etc. etc. etc. try using some of those.

>>6199659
No one wants to critique this beautiful piece of writing?

>>6199949
draw a picture instead, i don't feel like picking this apart

i'm glad i read this though... in my writing i often desire to give incredibly specific technical details about things i am imagining. i am working on a series of what i am calling biology bedtime stories in which i describe the detailed machinations of alien species interacting with each other and evolving over time. i want to describe all very specific mechanical processes but then i end up with sentences which are hundreds of words long, and which nobody cares to sit there and pick apart.

from reading yours i find ways to critique my own writing: start with a big idea, a big interaction, and work small. a good first sentence might be "i have a pair of headphones" or even "i have a y-shaped thing." however instead, you start, "i have a central shaft." what is a shaft? let alone a central shaft?

this will need substantial restructuring before it is finished, but i like the idea you're working with.

something stupid i wrote while watching the amazing race

Do other countries have alcoholics,
Complete with Alcoholic Anonymous meetings,
And all?
I can just imagine the great samurais of Japan
Sitting around in folding chairs talking about
How the last time they had sake, they got intimate
With an Octopus.
Maybe it is just
The American dream.
If it isn’t.
The Germans host their meetings,
In those big cathedrals with paintings by some
Schnoodle Noodle that everyone publicly wished
Was Leonardo DaVinci. Or the other ninja turtle.
They would just drink beer anyway,
They are just there because of the Meister.
Do those middle eastern countries talk about how
The United States has a far superior menu at
McDonalds.
“Hey Sanjeep how is your McPaneer.”
“Mediocre, it’ll never compare to the
Bigger Mac, you just can’t get good Cow in India
anymore.”
Those bastards over at Gliese 581g are lookin down
At us with their fancy spy equipment they stole
From the Egyptians, watching us coherently complain
About incoherencies. Ziaglestor looks at its Pomfro
In disgust telling it to take notes and it has a problem.
In anger it says that it doesn’t have a problem, that is just
What Liberal America wants you to think.
And takes another sip of its
Four Loko.
The answer to all this should take suit to those
Peace corps guys, and send groups of patriots who already
Completed twelfth step, (or would that be called the thirteenth step)
To far-away lands.
Their job Would be to go around building high school gymnasiums to
Eventually relapse in.

>>6199659
This is like the Bible, beautiful but dreadfully boring. I wouldn't want to read this book.

>>6200014
Next paragraph.

I am Marcus Agrippa, sometimes called Vipsanius, tribune to the people and consul to the Senate, soldier and general to the Empire of Rome, and friend of Gaius Octavius Caesar, now Augustus. I write these memories in the fiftieth year of my life so that posterity may record the time when Octavius discovered Rome bleeding in the jaws of faction, when Octavius Caesar slew the factious beat and removed the almost lifeless body, and when Augustus healed the wounds of Rome and made it whole again, to walk with vigor upon the boundaries of the world. Of this triumph I have, within my abilities, been a part; and of that part these memories will be a record, so that the historians of the ages may understand their wonder at Augustus and Rome.

>>6199949
so u r a dildo monster?

>>6199999
nice quints, plural of "samurai" is "samurai."

try not writing about anywhere you only know about from tv, even as a parody.

>>6197438
Great, endearing, charming opening exposition. As soon as I read the line "You're not just saying that?" I am immediately won over. This short scene tells me everything I need to know about the dynamic of two main characters. They are friends, capable of being playful, but there is an imbalance of power simmering under the surface which threatens to tear them apart.(Maybe idk food for thought)

Give the boss his own paragraph, as this is a major character introduction, and separate him from how hungry Lachie is and the rest of his thoughts. Remember to guide the audience through the story, line by line, paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter.

You show an excellent sense of pacing and rhythm which feels exceedingly Neil Gaiman-y. This is the kind of comfy story that I would enjoy reading, like a big, warm sweater. Keep up the good work.

>>6200028
>>6199989
this joke is so overplayed and proves nothing ever

One week already passed, soon it'll be two.
And soon, I'll care just as little as you.
Though you are a queen and I just a fool,
A fool too, would have things better to do.

Wallow the water entirely clothed.
Cry bout the waves and the chest that stays closed.
Trust all his hearts treasure in the hands of his foes,
All that I've done and I do, surely will be known

This spell I've wrote down, I can now strike through
If only the letters sent you received,
Than nothing at all was done erringly,
I won't repeat it for who I am to you.

I don't need your love, and you don't need mine,
I just thought your eyes were like those divine.

>>6200044
interesting, where does that idea come from? just curious as something to consider for the future.

i wanted a tone of arrogance to come across.

>>6200044
i also did do some quick research on the countries.
and possible habitable planets.

>>6189339

It's a poem about a bee, isn't it?

>>6200051
Or does it prove everything never?

>>6199999
Do Asians throw french fries at weddings?

This is witty and clever, but that's about all anybody can say about it. As my professor once said there's not much "there" there to talk about.

Also why would the 13th step be to relapse? Why would that be "the answer to all this?"

One last thing, the "Maybe it is just the American dream. If it isn't" bit is sorely out of place. It could go at the very beginning, after the first question mark, so that you can state your complete question and then respond with all the examples in order. Or it could go at the end before you start talking about the peace corps.

hope this helps.

>>6200102
actually didn't mean to be this harsh. i really like the piece, it's a complete thought and it has personality

>>6200102
luld at first line

yeah there isnt much meat to it as far as content. if i worked it i could probably come up with something, not sure if it is worth the effort though. i do like your suggestions. about the placement, i also wasn't sure if american dream was too blunt or not
the thirteenth step is being done with the twelve steps?

>>6200108
oh it wasnt harsh at all, ive been on an editorial staff so that was pretty calm compared to some of the stuff. i would rather have someone tear it apart than give praise. although, praise is well appreciated.

>>6200050
Thanks, I appreciate the remarks.

I did think about giving more detail about the boss and the actual situation the two characters are in but I'm worried about getting bogged down in long explanations. A lot of my earlier work was basically infodumps with short monologues between them. Character A would say like five sentences and then there'd be a paragraph of description and then Character B would give a speech in reply and so on. Perhaps I've been overcautious. I'm just wary of giving the reader more info than is absolutely strictly necessary.

>but there is an imbalance of power simmering under the surface which threatens to tear them apart.(Maybe idk food for thought)
Got it in one. Lachie is a monster of some description that hides from society and Ace is his link to the world. They're tight friends but the friendship will be tested. Ace will always be loyal but Lachie is too paranoid/messed-up for his own good and all the doubt and strain comes from his end. Ace takes it badly, but blames himself.

Again, thanks for the feedback. I live for attention.

>>6200114
ok but why would they send the peace corps to build gymnasiums in faraway lands for the purpose of relapsing in? what would that solve? what exactly is the question to which this is the "answer?" it sounds like you tried to wrap up the piece with an image that doesn't make sense if you think about it even a little bit

>>6200127
ok i will hae to rework that, i wasnt directly talking about the peace corps doing it, like inventing an organization that "takes suit" or mimicks what the peace corps does, to set up buildings for alcoholics of other countries to host their own meetings, but the activists will just end up relapsing before they finish the job

>>6200127
and you are right about that it really isnt an answer once i relook at it, thanks

>>6200124
Good that you've learned from your own mistakes. Now that I know this, yes, I can appreciate that you were trying to use a light touch at the beginning. But again, this is a major character introduction and you don't want it to feel rushed. The prose builds up nicely to the introduction of 'the boss,' but the transition back to Lachie's train of thought feels abrupt. It might need nothing more than a paragraph break.

It sounds like you've got your story all figured out. Just finish the damn thing and keep coming back here if you feel like you need minor style tips, which honestly is nothing a good editor an't do. You don't need us anon.

>Lachie is a monster of some description
whoops lol maybe you do

>>6200138
oic

the image is good, keep it. it's not an "answer" to anything but it is the natural consequence of humanity's continuing folly. your cynicism is not just national, it's a criticism of the whole world, even other worlds are not safe from your laser vision of what life is really all about. alcohol is the common denominator whether they like it or not.

it's good you've learned to be cynical and clever but now talk about something real.

>>6200168
>But again, this is a major character introduction and you don't want it to feel rushed. The prose builds up nicely to the introduction of 'the boss,' but the transition back to Lachie's train of thought feels abrupt. It might need nothing more than a paragraph break.
Roger that. I'll take a look. I can think of a few other situations that might need the same treatment actually. You're right that I could structure the writing better to draw attention to some parts over others and make them more 'in focus' without actually adding to the length, using things like paragraph breaks.

>You don't need us anon.
>whoops lol maybe you do
The ride never ends.

You didn't pick up on it from being 100kg and still having visible ribs, having a muzzle, and such prominent teeth and claws? I was trying to be "subtle" but not that subtle.

>>6200180
lol

"of some description"

the phrasing threw me, it sounded like filler text you forgot to replace with an actual description. the way you describe lachie in the story is just fine.

>>6200214
Oh, okay. Awesome. I'm happy that you think my work is good.

I panicked there for a second.

paragraphs 2 and 3 of a story i'm working on. thoughts on da prose?

Whirring between the apartment buildings and the vacant north side streets, the winter wind hung over the lonely intersection of Ashland and Waveland like a chandelier; the origin of the curious orange glow of street lights upon powdery new snow all around. Turning his back to this mysterious, painful wind, Charles trudged along the frozen walk beside his street, making no efforts to conceal his incessant sniffling.
To him, all the world was the fifty yards separating himself from tissue paper. More relieved with each step up to his front porch, Charles turned the key, opening the portal between this harsh over-world and all of the indoor comforts awaiting him. He turned his shoulders toward the lifeless intersection, gazing right-to-left at the snowy dust skittering along like tumbleweed with the southerly winds. Charles' green eyes followed the wire-frame of frozen branches protruding upward from his neighbors' front lawns, then guided his hand to the doorknob and watched as he turned it stepped inside.

>>6200222
Yeah, it's just a phrase that sounds unusual to an American

>>6200237
Really? I hear it a lot in Australia. It's just kind of a stand-in for "unspecified/unknown" and it's usually pretty dismissive. "There is some description of it out there, but I don't have it".

>he was driving a van of some description
It just means that he the speaker knows he was driving a van but that's all the speaker knows.
>it was a pizza of some description, but it was really good
>some description of foreign beer
>the suspect had black hair and was wearing a singlet showing some description of band logo

Language is fun.

>>6200231
i would take out the street names and the adjective "green."

interesting images but kind of long-winded (see what i did there) for just a guy opening a door.

i didnt read this the first time, and then when i went back and read it i didnt care.

To him, all the world was the fifty yards separating himself from tissue paper. More relieved with each step up to his front porch, Charles turned the key, opening the portal between this harsh over-world and all of the indoor comforts awaiting him. He turned his shoulders toward the lifeless intersection, gazing right-to-left at the snowy dust skittering along like tumbleweed with the southerly winds.

interesting prose is fun to play with and works in some of your case, mostly the first paragraph and wire frame reference. readers appreciate brevity

>>6200231
OK so first you describe the wind as something that whirs between buildings, then suddenly it's hanging there like a chandelier, and now somehow it's producing an orange glow of street lights... what?? First of all, why are you spending so much time on the wind and second of all why do you give it three completely different descriptions?

Third, this prose suffers from what I've heard described as being "overwritten."

Shakespeare once said, "Brevity is the soul of wit." Get this tattooed in backwards letters on your neck so every time you brush your teeth you remember never to write like this anymore.

You are exerting so much effort crafting these elaborate, tiresome sentences, and for what? What actually happens? It's cold and Charles goes inside. That's it. That's all the important information your florid, winding sentences have communicated to me. Nobody cares about the dust that skitters along like tumbleweeds.

Try rewriting this with no commas.

>>6200264
Try, rewriting this, with no commas.

couldnt do it.

>>6200269
Fuck off, you think you're too good to rewrite but you come on here asking for help, really just wanting us to praise you? Tough shit, the writing you've given us is bad, it has a complete lack of style, and you're not special because you've figured out how to stack a lot of clauses together.

>couldnt do it.

bullshit, you just don't feel like it.

>>6200264
>>6200231
the tumbleweeds imagery was the worst part. if you're trying to portray the feeling of a snowy day, a wild west tumbleweed is the exact opposite of what you want to write.

>>6200297
i was actually
>>6200260
this guy, i couldnt help myself from being a smartass. i mostly agreed with what you had to say about him. you are a pretty good critic to be honest.
are you also this guy
>>6200179

>>6200269

The wind was cold. The street lights emitted a curious orange glow.

Charles trudged along through the snow. He yearned to get back to his house. His house was warm. His house had tissues. Tissues could stop his sniffling.

Finally Charles arrived at his front porch. He scanned the dead trees in his neighbors' front lawns before turning the key and entering his home.

looks like i did the impossible, i guess i'm some kind of genius!

>>6200264
> Shakespeare once said, "Brevity is the soul of wit."

>2015
>still quoting polonius as though he's expressing shakespeare's own thoughts

>>6200309
i fucking lost my god damn shit.
>tissues could stop his sniffling
>dead trees
i like this much more than the original.
in all respect to the original poster, this did a much better job of creating the world, and achieved the same effect.

>>6200312
>2015
>knowing who polonius is

>>6200312
polonius knew what was up, don't even front like shakespeare just shat that gem out for no reason

>>6200324
polonius definitely is the opposite of a character who i would say "knew what was up" lol

>>6200231
I rewrote it in a way I think is good.I will explain the differences.

>The narrow, looming terraces that lined Ashland street and Waveland street intersected without grace*. The wind would roar down one urban canyon, grabbing whatever newspaper or lost lunch in its way, and would deposit them there at the crossroads as it hit a flow in the other direction. Small drifts of garbage formed around the feet of commuters and could remain undisturbed for days on end. Charles pulled his coat tighter against the chill and picked his way through them by the soft orange glow of a failing streetlight. It was a bitter late night for him and he was glad to be going home.

*you could add another sentence here describing how graceless the intersection is any why. I didn't but I think it would be better if there was a good explanation. I just couldn't get it brief enough.

I'm not saying this is better than yours, though I think certainly that grammatically it's more polished. I prefer it though because it gives the streets and city more character. You could do more with it - describe what kind of terraces they are (very briefly, maybe one or two words, like 'lavish art-deco terraces' or 'sandstone Georgian' or whatever, or so on) - but I wrote it trying to create an atmosphere of bleakness and urban decay.

As for the tissues and so on, I left it out. Nobody really acts that way about a few tissues. You could say something briefly about how his sniffling annoyed him but even the stuffiest of people aren't *that* focuses on a goal. Even if Charles *is* that kind of character you should try and ease people into it so that it doesn't just come out of the blue that he cares that much about getting some tissues.

>>6200306
yeah that's me, glad to hear my feedback is appreciated

>>6200343
u r p good.

although i find the subject still uninteresting and something i have seen many many times before.
what i have not seen before is a large essay about tissues. or a story about a guy obsessing about tissues for 2000 words. i would highly enjoy this.

>>6200343
i think op of it jumped ship.
>>6200349
are you in college?

>>6200354
>u r p good.
:^)

Rereading it, I noticed that towards the end the sentences get pretty clumsy. That should be fixed.

>although i find the subject still uninteresting and something i have seen many many times before.
Agreed, but characters moving around is something that has to be done somehow. You can't just teleport them from place to place. I think being able to do good transitions from point of interest to point of interest is important. It's the glue that holds the actual fun parts of your work together.

The better you are, the less your transitions feel like transitions.

Or just go the young adult fiction method and use linebreaks and chapters. It's certainly easier, I just have a distaste for it.

>>6200343
I don't like this either.

What does it mean that streets intersected "without grace?" do streets usually intersect more gracefully? this is the same, over-descriptive nonsense. why do we need to know about lost lunches that sit in the street and stay there for days on end? are you projecting your NEET lifestyle onto trash anon? you are writing a different story here, i think.

also, the tissue thing was the only part I liked about the original. as someone with frequent allergies I too have pined for the gentle embrace of Kleenex.

Although this writing does have a much better sense of rhythm than the original, it still is focusing on the street, and the story the street has to tell, and the story of the garbage in the street and the story of the nameless commuters. While at the same time telling a very boring story about Charles.

>>6200356

just graduated, you?

>>6200366
i would agree with you on the transitions but we have no context to the story yet. just glimpses that seem like something that is pretty generic will follow.

unless tissues are real people in this world.
like the movie her, but with tissues. and the oppressive government is trying to segregate the world from the sentient tissue beings. which is why the lamps are glowing orange, because they are heat lamps, trying to eradicate the need for the tissues. putting them in frosty ghettos of the northeastern sections of the world.

>>6200377
what did you get your degree in

working and community college. the writing and lit program at my college is better than the universities of my area though. we have a school lit magazine that will win awards over the ivy league schools. working on the staff in that class taught me more than i have ever learned about writing.
where did you go?

>>6200377
>>What does it mean that streets intersected "without grace?" do streets usually intersect more gracefully?
That's why I said it needs a good descriptor to follow it. I just couldn't think of one. Consider the difference in these two intersections. You need to put that into a few words somehow. "without grace" is the best I could do.

>why do we need to know about lost lunches that sit in the street and stay there for days on end?
Long story short, we don't. The person I was responding to wanted a description of the street and I gave him one. I wouldn't write the story the way he is writing it, but I'm not here to write my story I'm here to help him write his story the way he wants it.

I did my best to trim off as much of the floweriness as I could and leave only the stuff that actually adds to the 'feel' of the description. I thought that telling the reader it was a dirty intersection/street with ugly, squashed houses would help. I could have been wrong, but that was my instinct.

>>6200385
i went to a small hippy liberal arts college in Massachusetts where I studied studied film, music, and many languages.

sounds like you are having a good college experience.

>>6200397
sort of, i spend a lot of time fucking around with random classes and stopped goin to college for a while. now im finally on track and excited about school now. i also had a sonnet published which was a pretty nice experience and confidence boost to keep me pointed in the right direction.

what do you hope to get a job in? do you make any film?

>>6200343
this is slightly better but has its own problems

>roaring wind
cliche

>wind picking up newspaper
ok. an entire lunch? no.

>undisturbed for days on end
you've got strong winds coming from four directions. they aren't going to magically cancel each other out

>pulled his coat against the chill
>bitter late night
>glad to be going home
generic
generic
generic

>>6200393

>You need to put that into a few words somehow.

Do you really though? You're the one that made that up about the strange angle of the intersection or whatever it is that made it so graceless.

>He wanted a description of the street, I gave him one.

He already described the street, you just changed the description, added garbage and gave it a personality, erased the tissues.

The point is, your description contains no more useful information than the original.

>>6200411
how about
>Charles walked to his door and opened it, then blew his nose in a tissue he found lying on the ground. Before he tossed it away, he checked the contents of what he had just produced. He could not tell which parts of the goo were snot and which parts were the semen he spilled earlier in the day. Either way, this gave him the knowledge that he did not have a respiratory infection.

>>6200405

I'm working right now as a video game composer, I spend a lot of time writing on the side.

Good to hear you're back on track and seem to be thriving in school. Now, for the rest of your life you'll be able to say "I went to college and I did good work there!" That's a valuable thing to be able to say.

>>6184578
I liked the use of repetition and the structure with the narrator. Is there an implied listener for this narrator within the story (besides the reader)? I ask only out of curiosity.

Also, I did something sorta similar for a a writing practice I did. I tried fleshing it out earlier today, but it's not working out very well. well.

Also, please critique my work. I've only just started to spread this stuff around. At my college all I seem to get is "that's cool" or "it doesn't make any sense."

>>6200424
what do you play?
i think video games are one of the most promising vehicles for creativity in the future.

>>6200419
>semen spilled
Biblical cliche

try

He could not tell which parts of the goo were snot and which parts were the deceptively mucusy jism which a powerful but lonely orgasm had compelled to erupt from his pisshole earlier that day.

See my simple description has made it beautiful

>>6185352
You spelled 'HAITIAN' wrong. Other than that, a perfect postmodern dribbledick of dongbongs.

Now wreck my shit:

fridge whimpers and squeals
like farms of electric pigs
next to my desk
screaming for help

its late

the neighbors are trapped
arguing over whos the biggest
fag
while playing rehashed
video games
and stomping clumsy
stomping with their heels

they got no balance

captain ahab had vision
even a drunk amputee
had more sense than to sit
with landlubbers
couchlockers

glow-faced hazers
in front of monitors

writing poems

about fucking refrigerators

>>6200418
Okay, show me what you conceptualise as good and worthwhile.

I gave it a shot. Your turn.

>Do you really though?
You can't just not describe anything. A story pared of all "useless" information is literally just a list of plot points. You're looking for things to strip off, not reasons why they should be stripped, and I'm having a hard time taking you seriously because of that.

Charles walks through an intersection and down a street. I gave a brief description of this.

>He already described the street,
Poorly.

I attempted to improve on his description. My goal was to describe the street well. If your contention is that the street can't be described well then feel free to tell me what should be written in its stead. If your contention is that my description is poor feel free to tell my why.

>>6200437
I'm a composer, I play a little bit of everything! :)

>>6200435
it is clear you are starting off new. my biggest suggestion is that you start to practice showing and not telling. ben is this, ben is this etc. also exclamation points are for cheerleaders .

keep at it though just keep writing and reading as much as you can. reading is really important. also going to your peers is going to be a really poor experience most of the time. even in writing courses people are unwilling to learn how to give good criticism. i would recommend sending your works to your schools magazine if they have one. or going to one of your professors office hours. or find a core group of people that share the passion you have.
dont be afraid to share your works either. i know it can be nerve racking to put yourself out there, but it is the only way you will get better.

>>6200445
is it? i havent read the bible yet. i need to steal one from the next motel i go to.

i like where you are going with this though. the word pisshole is a little out of tone, maybe genital or deflating member

>>6200450
OK you are getting defensive and not listening to my feedback, this tiny sample of mediocre writing is not worth getting so worked up over, sorry I called you a NEET, I didn't mean it

>>6200455
I am new. I've been reading quite a bit over the last few years, but I can't seem to stick to any style so far. This was one of my practice scribbles. I think I was trying to emulate Vonnegut at the time.

>>6200435
Funny! This is a great first step, but I agree with
>>6200455
your style is underdeveloped. Keep reading and writing more and let your voice mature over time.

>>6200467
The point is that your feedback isn't helpful. If it was helpful I wouldn't be dismissing it.

You objected to these things
1. the street was described, not charles
2. the description was poor

I concede 1. I already said earlier that if I were writing the story I would focus on Charles, not the street. I cut out the tissues because it was silly but that didn't leave me with anything to say about Charles without just making things up, which I didn't want to do. I also didn't want to dwell to heavily on a man whose sole characteristic was that he wanted to go home. That's even less interesting than describing a street. I was doing my best to build on the foundations that OP laid, not lay my own foundations.

As far as 2. goes, I admit that the description is missing important features and the sentence construction is plain bad, but I certainly don't think that it's drastically overdone for what it is. Was the description of the street necessary? No. But it couldn't be avoided, because that was what I had to work with. Was the description of the street poor? I don't think so.

You're blaming me for describing the street when that's 70% of the source material and 90% of what was left after I took out the tissues.

>>6200435
>>6200468
not bad. i picked up on the vonnegut patische.
i would cut the first sentence even though you echo it in the 2nd paragraph.
i think you need to explain why his hair flows to the walls and ceiling. at first i thought it was in zero g but i see his hair is just weird but it's too random to not mention that oh his hair grows that way naturally for some reason.

>>6200455
>>6200484
Thanks a lot. I've written some short stories here and there, but have only recently started my Ray Bradbury exercise routine (1 short story a week).

Here is something I hope is a bit less of garbage. As you both mentioned, my voice hasn't matures. I worry if it ever will or not, simply because I keep changing it all the time.

I'll be on for a while still. I'm gonna go look over some more poetry for critique.

>>6200486
y r u getting so butthurt over sum dumb writing.

write more about things like giraffes

>>6200490
You too. Thanks. I need to mention the unkemptness.

>>6200493
oo post a poem.
ill post one of mine that almost got published.

Sunny Side Up

Some girl I knew many years ago,
probably from high school,
approaches me and starts to
unzip her
giraffe costume.
A nipple starts to peak out, I move in.
Tenderly touching her
sienna splotched skin
Then, she sings to me, in a sexy robot voice
“wakeup my child, breakfast is ready.”

…

I make the descent, on my phallic shaped
Hot Air Balloon, landing
onto a marshmallow valley full of
scantally clad House maidens
anxiously awaiting me to
Penetrate their every orifice.
Bare-assed and Jumping out of my vessel,
I approach them confidentially.
The vixens then start
mewing and mewing and mewing at me…
fucking cat.

…

This slut waitress
in a short leather skirt,
she was serving me.
She was serving me, waffles
at Dennys.
Bitch drops my fork and bends over,
revealing her lack of
panties.
Looking into my eyes
She begs me to show her my weiner.
I unzip my khakis, plop out a
Sausage…
She coos at me and chomps down.
…


Sitting in court, the honorable Judge Kunis,
In her sheer black robe seductively
Pounds her gavel in preparation
Of my sentencing,
“You are hereby burdened to five years
minimum, as Katy Couric’s sex slave.”
the twelve foot tall bailiff puts on
my new gimp mask and marches me
on set of the Today Show .
The director tells me,
there is someone I need to meet.
My Grandpa comes in,
Telling me I have to
prune his tree.

Not in my wildest dreams.

>>6200486
You're being a huge dick, I'm not going to pick apart your 5 stupid sentences for you, fuck off and go do something else.

>>6200510
>I'm not going to pick apart your 5 stupid sentences for you
Then why are you even posting?

>>6200486
yours is probably worse, i don't know why you are getting so buttblasted. "without grace" is just stupid nonsense that doesn't even sound good. the "lost lunch" is stupid. "drifts of garbage" that are "undisturbed" is nonsense. "soft glow" is cliché."failing streetlight" is melodramatic. "against the chill" is cliché. "bitter late night" is cliché or just boring. "terraces" is nonsense, they don't even intersect at the intersection of streets

>>6200505
That was a fun poem. You did well with describing those situations. However,
"scantally" is spelled 'scantily'. Also,

"she was serving me.
She was serving me, waffles
at Dennys."

I'm not sure why the comma is there. It doesn't seem to flow with the rest of your lines in the poem.

>>6200448
Here is the most recent poem I posted. I actually managed to get one of them published on a lit journal last week, but my interests have been swaying towards short stories lately.

i love how there is a debate on someones rework of someone else's work

>>6200531
it was just a break in the beat of it. like a recollection of the events. but i appreciate the feedback ill see how it reads without the comma.

>>6200523
Then rewrite it so that it's good. Or at least add some depth to your complaints. What you've given isn't critique. It doesn't instruct or inform.

It's literally the equivalent of saying
>it's shit

I can only assume that the reason you don't rewrite it is because you're afraid that other people will do to you what you are doing to me. That or you can't be bothered. Either is plausible.

>>6200260
>>6200264
>>6200298
>>6200343
hey friends

these two paragraphs actually have nothing to do with the story, as charles gets into his apartment and meets the other principal characters from the story, which is when the action begins

as for ashland and waveland, those are real streets which actually intersect in the north side of chicago where the story is based

as for the tumbleweed, I kind of liked the juxtaposition between the chiberian landscape and the western tropes i borrowed the tumbleweed itself from

as for the tissues -- well, it's cold outside. that's just one more way that the setting affects the character, nothing more comes of his sinus issues

>>6200518
I'm here to help people who aren't so insecure they can't handle criticism. What you just did, that was not being able to handle criticism well. You are now acting in defensive of your own ego, acting without really thinking. You are fighting a losing battle.

>>6200505
not bad
but fix "peak" and your capitalization is randumb

>>6200543
i liek your style

>>6200540
you need to learn to take some healthy criticism rather than choosing to defend your weak writing

>>6200538
no, i'm not rewriting it because i'm not going to waste my time rewriting someone's rewrite of a useless description.

you need to learn to take criticism. you wrote something bad. now write something better, without clichés and random nonsense.

>>6200548
I mean, which criticisms were offered besides various forms of "this seems over-written"

between these two paragraphs, almost none of the story elements are even present to be criticized. i was just asking about the readability

>>6200543
Your psycho-analytical skills do not impress me. I'm fully prepared to accept any criticism you want to offer.

>I'M NOT GONNA PICK APART YER 5 SHITTY SENTENCES
^this is not criticism. This is shitposting.

This (>>6200418) is far better, and I responded to it fairly here (>>6200450). I don't understand why you think that's some over the top mega-buttlfustered reaction. He brought up points, I asked him to elaborate them so that I could better understand them. He said "no". I said "oh well," and gave my concluding thoughts.

Apparently he couldn't handle my tone. Somehow this makes me the thin-skinned cry baby?

>>6200550
>no, i'm not rewriting it because i'm not going to waste my time rewriting someone's rewrite of a useless description.

>you need to learn to take criticism
You need to learn to give critique. I'm not interested in your criticism, I'm interested in your suggestions on how to improve.

"This is nonsense" isn't critique.
"This is cliche" is critique, of a form. I even agree with it. However, if I knew how to write something other than cliche don't you think I might have done that?

It's almost as if I require input other than "this is cliche" to not write cliches - something your critique isn't giving me.

>>6200556
i think the criticism that you have contradictory descriptions of the wind is pretty good and i think the tumbleweed thing is pretty stupid too unless you can tie it together with everything else. i also think in general it's just a bad beginning, if the story actually starts when he gets into the apartment then just describe that. you're just trying to flex your muscles with imagery, which every writer likes to do, but you should find natural times to do it. read henry james or something, he's great at imagery but he's not just going to puke it on you at the beginning for no reason. his images are intertwined into the plot

>>6200556
lol did you even read the comments? dont be so defensive, we are critiquing what you posted not what is further on in the story because we dont know what the fuck that is.

i am just praying that it involves tissue people or ejaculants.

>>6200556
the inconsistency of your metaphors has been mentioned and it's glaring.

>>6200565
baby it's a harsh world out there. i can't make you become a great writer. i can point out to you where you suck. "this is nonsense" should be useful to you because it should show you that the things you are expressing are not understood at all by other people. "without grace" just gives me no meaning. intersecting terraces is meaningless because they don't intersect. you have to put in the work. nobody on 4chan is going to do it for you

>>6200579
sometimes when i am really lonely, i will make friends with my door knob.

>>6200580
this guy knows his stuff.

they are giving you tips you cant just disregard tips as OMG ITS NOT TELLING ME ANYTHING it is telling you something, fuckin figure it out. or just write something that is fucking different. you dont need to focus on some stupid fucking scene in a road that everyone has seen before.

>>6200572
I want to establish the theme of a harsh winter's effect upon artists/creative-types. The wind imagery may be a little bit disoriented, but do you think the idea of starting with a very cold landscape works?

>>6200574
I /want/ criticism, hence posting in the thread, but the criticisms in the thread are just about individual elements, as opposed to form or syntax or pacing etc

>>6200565
If you don't know how to write anything but cliches, why should we read what you write?

>>6200580
>nobody on 4chan is going to do it for you
wut

>"this is nonsense" should be useful to you because it should show you that the things you are expressing are not understood at all by other people
Considering your posting standard so far I'm hesitant to take you as representative of the average person.

>"without grace" just gives me no meaning.
That said, I included a very clear NB that extra description was needed in the original post I made for this exact reason. Maybe you should go and take a look at it.

>intersecting terraces is meaningless because they don't intersect.
Have you ever been in a city?

>>6200592
>it is telling you something, fuckin figure it out
It's literally "IT'S SHIT"-tier posting.

It is of equal value to that.

>you dont need to focus on some stupid fucking scene in a road that everyone has seen before.
So why are you? If it's not important why the hell do you care? You're clearly not enjoying this posting experience. Why are you participating?

I'm participating because I honestly believe that people have good advice. There are actual reasons they don't like what I wrote. I know they don't like it, that's absolutely clear.

What isn't clear is why. "It's nonsense" isn't useful.

That's why I'd really, really like someone to fucking rewrite it. It's not that hard.

>>6200599
Pic related.

>>6200579
as far as 'winter wind' can't exactly 'hang,' one or both parts of that image should be substituted

>>6200601
If you want critique, and not just to feel attacked and victimized, try acting like less of a dick. You get what you give, friend.

>>6200601
im done with you lol you can just be mediocre idgaf i've given you far more than i owed you already

>>6200597
we posted about all of that. how fucking dense are you.
the pacing is too long winded
the syntax is overly described and generic. it does not progress the story or add anything interesting to it.
what the fuck do you want to know about the form? its two fucking paragraphs.
fucking be open to what people are telling you. criticism is criticism. if that is what the reader thinks, then that is what they think. you cant just go oh i dont care what you think about that part what do you think about this part? its all fucking inclusive.

>>6200601
what being a dick looks like

>>6200611
I think you are confusing my posts with others. I didn't reject anything

>>6200597
i don't know if it works. i don't think your description is very good but it's possible if it was better and tied into everything else in some way it could work.

>>6200565
>>6200601
everything you're posting reeks of butthurt. you're just digging yourself deeper at this point.

also, you either don't know what a terrace is or you don't understand what intersecting means

go to be anon. tomorrow will be a new day.

the beauty of writing is allowing the reader to experience something that they cannot experience with any other vehicle of art. you are writing for the reader's experience. if you do not convey the particular effect, then you are doing it wrong. and if you are not willing to work to change this, then you should consider a different form of expression. like play dough.