/lit/ - Literature

From the moment we are born, we are slowly dying.

Captcha: inspr

>>6414332
Trigger warning: counter-postmetamodern ideas.

I am screaming across the sky surrounded by heads and bodies, while Paul, 27, and stately plump Buck Mulligan go to bed early

Wrote this intro myself for a novella im writing. What do you guys think>?

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness

Tamilore Stevens read Neechee into Last Man on Earth before stripping the cafeteria salad bar of its spinach.

>>6414380
As soon as I read "it was a dark and stormy night." It kinda just died on the page for me.

>>6414332
The itch in Tommy Bruno's nuts just wouldn't go away.

>>6414376

"STATELY", IN THE OPENING SENTENCE OF "ULYSSES", IS USED AS AN ADVERB, NOT AS AN ADJECTIVE.

YOUR PASTICHE IS RENDERED INEFFECTUAL BY THIS BLUNDER.

"When you try your best but you don't succeed, when you get what you want but not what you need, when you feel so tired but you can't sleep, stuck in rever-er-erse!" screamed Paul -- 25 (twenty-five), a recently published author -- through his sunroof and across the sky of the post-noon heat as he made his way home from the office, which is where he was posterior to the present, and in which he had been surrounded by heads and bodies.

The digital green dials told her it was six o'clock, a thing she took on faith.

>>6414380
Bad way to start, friend. Both
>dark/night
and
>stormy/rain falling in torrents
are horribly redundant. Let's not forget how generic the first line sounds. I understand you're trying to set the tone but try to make your opener dependent on the novel and not independent of it; you can attach this to nearly any novel to the same effect. The last part was nice though so I'll give you that.

Hairy Gustavo whacked his gack, but he was asleep before he had time to clean up.

>>6414455
>The digital green dials told her it was six o'clock, a thing she took on faith.
where from?

>A screaming comes across the sky.
Such a loaded opening line it makes me woozy. Absolute brilliance. If you read it close enough these six words would be all you'd need in the book. It's all there.

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

I love this one. Too bad it kicks off such a mediocre book. Feels like it belongs to something DeLillo.

>>6414487
You guys should state which books their from.

>>6414496
>not recognizing a screaming comes across the sky

Are you ... ... joking?

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.

>>6414471
>>6414496
almost no one took this as an invitation to post favorites from publishedworks. you're getting parodies and peoples personal creations, with a couple exceptions.

>>6414496
Lurk more.

>>6414495
>>>lain.io

>>6414500
N-no,
Woe me.

>>6414461
eddie isn't here, my friend
>>6414496
you should read books

>>6414412
>not even realizing that he didn't write this
This is considered the worst opening line of all of literature btw. There's an entire award dedicated to it, the "Bulwer-Lytton" award, named after the dude who wrote it. The book is "Paul Clifford".

Someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks.

He was one hundred and seventy days dying and not yet dead.

>>6414412
Literally the worst meme intro there is.

Call me Ishmael.

The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer.

Truly one of the most beautiful and influential lines of all time.

>>6414496
gtfo

>>6414340

Wow, that's so bad I would just close the book right there. You had one sentence to hook me, a sentence that could be as long as you needed it to be, and ya still blew it. Better luck next time......... kid.

>>6414743

I have the same problem with the opening lines of a lot of books that /lit/ recommends. I borrowed Infinite Jest and Gravity's rainbow from the library, but I couldn't get past the first sentence of either book. They're just so... *mediocre*. Nothing really all that clever, or exciting, or 'hooky'. Are the second sentences any better? Help guys.

>want to write novel
>can't think of a good opening line
>try to write something that isn't the first chapter
>can't think of an opening line
>try to write a paragraph in the middle of a random chapter
>can't think of an opening line

welp, guess I'm keeping the day job

>>6414380
So it was any night in any place that had rain and a revolving planet. C'mon man tell me where I am in london. Tell me how the rain felt to listen to and who felt it. Where is the time, when is the place, what are these people?

>>6414376
Love it.

>>6414487
In Soviet Russia, sky come screaming across you!

Oli Oli Oli Ohh

>>6414769

>>6414770
The book itself is the week in the life of a lone pygmy in the jungle who lacks language and find the Platonic notion of Agathon in his solitary life amongst the trees.

>>6414743
Care to elaborate?

"Published by Harper-Collins, 1995."

Great year for books.

>>6414495
>Neuromancer
>mediocre

keke

OY FUCKING CUMSWAPPER

>>6415499
And a great year for America.

>>6415499
kek

>>6414495
Gibson is mediocre but I think NM is legitimately good.
Do androids dream comes nowhere close to that atmosphere. its fairly original.

>>6414332
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

>>6415521
I never understood the Biblic conception of "the Word." Does it refer to Jesus or something?

>>6415528
The word in greek is logos, which is a very complicated word in itself. Every philosopher claimed a different meaning to it.

Possible meanings: word, reason, reasoning, discourse, speech, intelligentability.

Bane?

not a book but

Limp, the body of Gorrister hung from the pink palette; unsupported—hanging high above us in the computer chamber; and it did not shiver in the chill, oily breeze that blew eternally through the main cavern.

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream

>Call me Ishmael.

Cliche but it truly is great. And the fact that the name of the first chapter is "Loomings."

>>6414332
There once was a man named Frank.

>>6415657
He was itchin' real bad for a wank.

>>6415660
10/10

>>6414448

Contentious. It'd have been unlike Joyce to use it in the adverb sense and not use an extra "-ly": "Statelyly."

>Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

>>6414332
>Either forswear fucking others or the affair is over.

Truly, I have become The Legacy of Totalitarianism in a Tundra Presents: Kolsti's Adventures in the Everglades.

>>6414743
Agreed. That sentence was pompous as fuck

I'm on a blind date with a white guy that says nigga.

>>6415687
My nigger.
It shares its spot with The Brothers Karamazov and The Sound and the Fury, as my favorite book of all time

It was the year when they finally immanentized the Eschaton.

>tfw 8k words into a novel
>tfw no title
>tfw generic opening line

i just block out entirely if i need to make one specific portion meaningful. is it okay if i just churn out stuff while it's coming and sort it out later?

First line of my novel:

I spray paint a tree. What I do next? Genius.

>There was a razorstorm coming in.

>>6414332
OP was a fag.

>>6416877
> generic opening line
Could you literally delete it? Often the second sentence is a better start.

>>6416912
that's three however

>>6417007
Three sentences, one line.

>Once upon a time
or
>It was a black, rainy night
then you proceed to pretend it's ironic.

>>6415678

IT IS NOT CONTENTIOUS AT ALL; THERE IS A COMMA AFTER "STATELY".

>>6415496

I just picked the first one in the thread to make a point about how dumb it is to place any emphasis at all on the first sentence of a story.

But now that I'm actually thinking about it, it's an observation so obvious that it's almost a cliche. It also fails to set a mood, if you're trying to be bleak. Does it really matter that you're slowly dying if you're having a great life? It's a meaningless observation.

They told me, We are come to bang, We are come to bang your mother. I pointed at the door, my hand jerking up and down like a goddamn jackhammer and still covered in play-doh. Good boy, one of them patted me on the head as they bounced down the hall, We's go'n par-tay.

Read me book fagot

>>6415528
It does, but in a way that still leaves you asking, What is the word?

>>6414332

This is my favourite opening line which is also from my favourite book

"He speaks in your voice, American, and there's a shine in his eye that's halfway hopeful." - DeLillo, Underworld

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth

ARMA VIRUMQUE CANO, TROIAE QUI PRIMUS AB ORIS
ITALIAM, FATO PROFUGUS, LAVINIAQUE VENIT
LITORA, MULTUM ILLE ET TERRIS IACTATUS ET ALTO
VI SUPERUM SAEVAE MEMOREM IUNONIS OB IRAM;
MULTA QUOQUE ET BELLO PASSUS, DUM CONDERET URBEM,
INFERRETQUE DEOS LATIO, GENUS UNDE LATINUM,
ALBANIQUE PATRES, ATQUE ALTAE MOENIA ROMAE.

>>6417255
real?

>>6414332
While taking a shit, Jason (a normal fag whose life is about to change and flip upside down) hears a scream...

>>6414411
Underrated.

>>6417493
i'd probably keep reading

>>6414332
>For the past hour, Julian has been watching his left hand disappear into thin air.

>>6415528
Don't worry. Literally no one else does.

>>6414380
absolutely beautiful. don't let these other faggots ruin it.

"I watched steelheart bleed."

Sure it's YA fantasy, but that's the best opening line I've read.

Who is this guy, why is it so important that he bled?

What the fuck did you just fucking say about me you little bitch?

Chills every time.

>>6414380
Idk what time period you're going for, if it were set in Sherlock Holmes time I'd go for something like:

To an outsider it might have been a dreary scene, but the warm light emanating in regular squares from ground floor homes all the way up to a few attics gave the impression that full protection from the regularly falling wind-swept canvases of raindrops lay inside. And there was little to suggest otherwise. The merchants had headed homeward at the first sign of dark skies, the tradesmens' pants would be dry by morning, and even the beggars had been allowed into the various churches throughout the city once it was clear the storm would not let up. _____ Street was no different, and once a thoroughly soaked grey (currently) cat ducked into an alley, the cobblestones were truly lifeless, save for the twisting and guttural noises of the steady flow of water (if it could be called that) in protest of its being forced underground, where it knew far more sinister thoughts were sure to be residing........

>>6418660
>>6414380
I got kind of carried away and forgot to comment on your opening. Openings like these are about form, not function, in general. Unless you're going for some crazy plot twist, it won't matter exactly what kind of imagery is present in the opening. You're trying to set the scene; whether you focus on the dark tree, the dark gravestone, or the dark... dark doesn't really matter, as long as it's done well.
I think you rely too heavily on tired images: "dark and stormy," "struggled against the darkness." Unless you're trying to underline those motifs, ala True Detective, it's distracting as well as rings an alarm for the reader... Not good. I tried, in my opening, to focus on images that I feel I can use to describe a similar feeling but which also are rather removed from the simple realities of the situation. For instance, pointing out the comfort one might obtain in the regular spacing of lit windows is an example of moving past simple light vs. dark into a more complex territory that I hope is unique to my writing. The canvases of rain is another decent example of this. At the end of the day, you're reader probably won't be entirely unfamiliar with your setting. Therefore, you have to describe it in a way that suggests what follows (the actual story) is special. The best way to do this is not "the story that follows is unique" but to actually be unique in how you write. It all goes back to 'show don't tell'.

Go gentle on me, /lit/:

"Flames, like thin translucent mercurial ribbons, kept on licking the fragmented landscape of charred timber passionately. Ethereal symbols, shapes and faces danced vigorously in the ever-changing mystical corpus of the campfire."

>>6414735

It annoys me so much that he closes both eyes when he winks.

>>6414332
On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. Bridge.

The first time you simply have no idea what unfolds after those simple words.

>>6414735
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OztMFkRp0k

nice....

"Revolution was once a possibility; and it was wonderful."

not mine

No one tells you the thing you love most will be what kills you.

>>6414536
Sauce on that image? It's really made me laugh

>>6419622

Sounds like fucking Palahniuk.

>>6414760
>Are the second sentences any better?

10/10

>>6417221
You are such a fucking sperg. Please stop with the caps lock.

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."
Now and forever.
It also works as the worst.

>>6417221
I agree that stately is used as an adverb, but it's very common in English to list adjectives separated by a comma.

>>6414380
It sounds like a 12 year old amerifag who is trying to imitate british books from the age of romanticism.

The final pass of Burt Ryan’s career eluded the outstretched arms of his receiver and fell harmlessly to the ground.

>>6414332

"See the child."

>>6419977
as opposed to harmfully?

Today is the start of my end, but the end of everything else.

>Connect with friends and the
world around you on Facebook.
Moves me to tears every day

"This country used to be a beautiful place," said Cedric, "but now, in this free market frenzy, in this capitalistic madhouse, it's a mean ugly place, with low men in high places, where chivalry is beat out of you, where hope's not a word, and where imagination is extinct... yeah, you guessed it -- I'm talking about the United States of America in the year 2015."

>>6420322
9angsty11me

>>6420222
I see it more as the last line of your first chapter.

>>6418702
> Flames like ribbons kept on licking the landscape of timber. Symbols, shapes and faces danced in the corpus of the campfire.

no.

>>6419622
hey you that one schizo?

> The facts at hand presumably speak for themselves, but a trifle more vulgarly, I suspect, than facts even usually do.

>>6420444
Nice trips! No I'm not schizo but my friend lives the true /lit/ lifestyle as he writes. This is his place. I was visiting to keep him company and have a beer.
I'm Gas-Kun

>>6420654
You can find his stuff on Amazon.
Try " I could never be a cop because they don't make enough ammunition"

>>6420654
Didn't you make a big post about how you were going to travel the world and leave /lit/ behind to concentrate on your writing a couple months ago?

What happened did you fail miserably or just give up on your dreams?

For all I know, he used to be much of a fool, but, as he was standing in front of me, I could see the arrogance in his eyes.

>>6420654
>No I'm not schizo

No believe me, you are. Or at least you have some kind of mental defect; and no it isn't some 'cute' kind of anxiety disorder, no, you are properly fucked.

Get it together kid.

Lazily did the mist clear from his waking mind, not that it would matter much for what was to come.

I will literally salute the person who can find what this is from since it's an obscure translation from an even more obscure book.

>>6420700
I've been editing and helping to build authors.me which is a website for writers but thanks for the kind words

>>6414512
it's from Gravity's Rainbow

>>6420709
Again, not my place. But thanks for the kind words, guy! You're a winner in my book.

My perceived purpose; everything that mattered in life; gone in an instant.

>Top cuck.

>>6420799
>one of this is gas-kun
I really don't find any of them likeable, I hope it's just a bad pic.

>>6420987
Well, the women can be automatically ignored. He sounds as if he were in the "Founder" category (and the other two seem to have some corporate experience and we can assume gas-kun has none). "Creative" is the kind of shit title someone form /lit/ could get, but David looks a bit old for our beloved gas station attendant. How much would Henrik's "Technology" charge matter when we have a developer? His last name also would justify gas-kun's taste for weird names in his novel, so I would put my money on him.

>>6421003
I wouldn't rule out Uzair Rahim. Henrik looks kinda clean cut to hang out with junkies like in the above pics. And people with names like Uzair have a penchant for working in convenience stores.

I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids -- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass.When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination -- indeed, everything and anything except me.

>>6420987
OMG. This is fucking great. What's going to cut you off at the knees is the fact that I'm a beta tester for those guys. I have no stock in the site other than free use after it goes online. They don't know what I do for a living other than being an aspiring writer, though. 8/10 Internet sleuthing guys!

>>6421297
And there's ALOT of beta testers.....
-Gas Kun

>>6421297
isn't that what someone who thought they were on to him would say?

>>6421314
Perhaps, but my second job is selling bourbon. (Here comes the plot twist)
I'm also Bourbon-Kun

>>6421361
You've posted your story with both types of images, you either worked selling alcohol or you were an alcoholic yourself.

>>6418702
It's a little heavy to be throwing out the word "passionately" in the first to lines of something. Also, i would try to further elaborate on "symbols;" seems too ambiguous. Show me more, tell me less

>>6421370
I sell bourbon... Not a big drinker
#notwelvestepprogram

>>6421572
In the mythos of this board would butterfly be our adoptive mother, baring our resentment, loving us despite our shortcomings, while drunk ass bourbon-kun is our absentee father figure, wildly trying to abandon us with talk of broken dreams and shamelessly returning each time to our cold embrace smelling of piss, failure and the junkies den that he sought refuge from his responsibilities in?

Rage--Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.

Faggles' prose is better than any lacking metre translation.

>>6421602
Fagles

>>6421590
Or would dipshit-kun (that's you) be rolling in the conversational feces of insanity whilst simultaneously trying to swallow his own tongue? 0/10 troll is 0/10. Again, not a big drinker. I had a coors light last night and that was enough for me.

>>6420654
oh, well some guy a week or two ago had similar photos of a room, i.e. very messy, taken from the floor, legs visible, etc., so. very /lit/ I suppose.

>>6421623
struck a nerve did I, daddy dearest?

>>6421638
Ain't even mad bro.

>>6421590
Butters could be our mom since she's a lesbo. She's the weird aunt that our parents don't want us to see too much.

>>6414332
>No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

- The House on Haunted Hill, Shirley Jackson.

>>6414760
>are the second sentences any better?

UNDERRATED GOLD

>>6414777
nice trips

My novel's first draft.

>They met three times, three times for the first time.

I'm ready to die

>>6417278
Well, since you bomb us with caps-lock you could also change those horrible U's with V's

>>6415601
why is it great

>>6418554
Please kill yourself

"By the time his mother yelled all the things that were wrong in his life,he was long gone,sailing to an unknown destiny,leaving it all behind,because everything that he didn't choose to happen,wasn't worth to be remembered"

When he awoke the world had changed. It was strange enough that he had moved from one room to another, one bed to another, but stranger was the collusion of tubes and wires feeding fluids to his body and information to the arrays of machines that loomed large either side of the bed, bearing down on him with clinical light and sound intimidations. Beep beep: don't move a muscle, tough guy.


Not one sentence, I know, but I think it sounds lame out of context. It probably sounds lame in context, but whatever.

>>6414765
Did you read The plague by Camus

A young man stands in his bedroom.

>>6422103
Have you considered dropping the first line?

>>6422212
I have now. Thank you!

>>6422141
I'm actually halfway through it right now, is this a reference to Grand?

Dark was the path his soul yearned, shuddering, shuddering, while the wind blew across and to his eyes sent sprays of snow, but back to his love he yearned.

The house was on fire and its wasn't my fault.

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed"

The series is aight. Like King's writing in general, it turned to shit after his accident

>>6414332
Not book but chapter : “Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes.”

>>6422085
Done

>>6414332

En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor.

>>6422736
is this even english? don't quit your day job buddy

>>6422752
>not recognizing Dante's inferno in italian.
Kill you'reself

>>6420805
Never heard of it.

As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I take a look at my life and realize there's nothing left.

>>6414376
Is this an actual cover? I dig it.

>>6418702
Slightly awkward use of progressive tense there ("kept on licking", largely redundant). Might consider changing the order around. The word "passionately" seems like an afterthought. The second sentence lacks the weight of the first.

>Flames, thin and mercurial, licked charred timber. Faces and figures danced upon the cracked, fragmented landscape. The corpus of the campfire... [dunno where you're planning to go next]

>>6417278
>Us not Vs
>spaces between separate words
Do you even?

The main reason Z fell in love with only grieving spouses was because if they already loved one dead man, then they could love another.

>>6418702

cool lots of adjectives literally the next joyce mane

learn to write

>>6414380
nice b8

We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall.
-

>>6414380
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

A memeing comes across the thread.

>>6414380
you sure?

Our story begins in an open field 5 miles from the city of Station Square, which is under siege by the perfect chaos monster.

>>6414332
>>6414332
My nature is subdued
To what it works in. Like the dyer's hand:
Pity me then, and wish I were renew'd!

"Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura ché la diritta via era smarrita."

>>6414448
kill yourself you freak

See the child.

>>6414332
All our live we dream of flying.

The rainfall was coming in never ending, it coerced him into a state of shock, anger, enough to make a man mad.

NIGGAS IN MY FACTION DONT LIKE AXING QUESTIONS

Bce cчacтливыe ceмьи пoхoжи дpyг нa дpyгa, кaждaя нecчacтливaя ceмья нecчacтливa пo-cвoeмy.

>>6418660
This is mine, can anyone comment on it? It's not a beginning to anything specific, just trying to put a twist on the tired "dark and stormy night" opening

>>6422777
>meming well
Pat yourself on the back, don

>>6414332

For reasons unknown the kingdom of blindness and the empire of the mute were at war with one another; however the union of the blind were oblivious to what is going on as always.

>>6427946

That's supposed to be union of deaf.

>>6420654
>>6420675
>buy book
> "pain in the ass finding the beer vs. the // bottles of piss"

tell your friend to end himself

tell your fr

>>6419692
I think it's eric andre or some shit, kind of funny

"Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested."
Simple and clear, I like it

"Start with the Greeks.", the professor said to his mass of students crammed into the lecture hall.

A lone figure, green in appearance, stood from his desk in the back of the room with a glass of wine in hand. Laughing he said,

"Well meme'd, friend!" and took a jolly sip from his cup.

Maman died today.


kek

>>6428295
I'll pass it along.

I think the first sentence should throw you into the maze of the plot right away. Something like this:
" He found the first body around midday."
or
"LIke adhesive mud, fear tied his limbs tights, blindfolded and gagged him. "

I wanted the girl who would let me do anything to her and have the decency to disappear afterwards.

>>6422327
only anon with taste

>>6414332
I seek meaning beyond gods and masters, beyond truth and untruth, beyond good and evil.

Mornings he sings on the toilet.

Ça a débute comme ça.

JUST

>>6414448
nice catch

Do dedications count?
"To the worm who first gnawed on the cold flesh of my corpse, I dedicate with fond remembrance these Posthumous Memoirs"

First line of my current book:
"He's perfect."

Come at me faggots

The hooker's name was Spiro Agnew.

>Having had Infinite Jest on his backlog for quite some time, our hero just decided to get straight to the point and kill himself.

Cilantro noticed how people always seemed so stressed and anxious but never understood why: "what's the big fucking deal?" he often thought while igniting a lighter inch-wise across his face.

The minute he started he knew he should stop, but that was nineteen years and thirty-one cadavers ago.

The first step to writing is not writing but being.

>>6414380
>mfw all these assholes think you were being serious

Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure.

inb4 two sentences

If you're sitting in a chair, then it's already too late: the chairs, in ire drenched determination, have won, claiming the hind sections of man and soul alike in draconian malevolence.

If you're sitting in a chair, then it's already too late: the chairs, in ire drenched determination, have won, claiming the hind sections of man and soul alike.

Vivo en la Casa Blanca. Todo es perfecto. I live in the Casa Blanca. Everything is perfecto.

It was just the two of us on that farm in the middle of nowhere. I was eleven and pliable; she, thirty, gorgeous, and horny.

Can I use a theatrical convention and start my work with "Enter?"

>>6414380

It is b8, but I dont think that this is a bad intro. It is just a little cliché, but not bad.

Just look what poor criticism a guy like this offers:

>>6414461

So, the poem Dark Night of the Soul is bad because it unifies dark and night?

"He just sat there and read the book. Nobody knew what was he about to say, but the stares of many had knew what was about to happen."

>>6430067
this is my fetish

She made me call her Mommy.

Her footgame could drive a man to Lovecraftian madness.

>>6414332
We lay together in confused togetherness, while our stomachs pretended to be aliens wound up in some gargling conversation.

>>6414380
Sounds like youre trying to hard man. Honestly try a more subtle and less edgy approach

Bitch sucked my dick

>>6432288
Why a bitch gotta lie?

>>6414332
Atop the grassy knoll he sat, in his hands a little book about snipers of the marine corps.

>>6432312
I like it. It makes a world where a lot of thematical expansion and interpretation can take place. Will it feature violence? Or veer away from that in pursuit of other themes? Either way, I'm sure the final product will be intellectually stimulating.

>>6432328
Thanks. I just came up with it after looking through this thread. I'm writing an autobiography right now, but maybe I'll do something with this.

>>6414380

>All these plebs falling for this b8

>>6414380
nice baitprosing

I'm considering starting my pretentious/YA inspired/existentialist/total shit short novel with the opening lyrics of Smashmouth's "All Star". It would be the ringtone for the MC's aka totally not-me guise cellphone alarm clock.

>>6414332

Me and my dad both post on 4chan.

>>6432420
Vacuous.

>>6432434
well yes
thats what im going for

>>6432442
Oh, alright, then right on man! You hit the nail on the head. I sort of miss out on the meaning of the "MC" bit later in the sentence, but I definitely like this more than other entries in the thread.

>>6432467
Master of Ceremonies
main character brah

>>6414332
The lack of wind still scared her, as did the lack of movement in the 'stillborns'; what frightened me was how--even after being a part this world for god knows how long--she had the audacity to be stupid.

Is this any good?

>>6432506
it's shit

>>6432530
Why

>>6432541
Overworded as hell.

>>6432506
it's alright

>>6432496
Good for you bucko.

>>6432548
Yeah. Originally was going to break it up, but I wanted to follow OP's rule like a good boy. Other than that, is it still shit?

>>6432567
Yes, you have a comma a dash and a semicolon in one line. It breaks up the flow of what you're saying and makes it confusing as shit.

>>6432567
Yes. Too convoluted. A first sentence shouldn't be overcomplicated. It's sort of difficult to establish context after something like that. You jump around to what seems like a whole bunch of different topics and quite honestly I have no idea what the fuck is going on.

>>6432506
No. Stop telling and start showing.

I went to El Pulgarcito with my brother on the Saturday after Valentine’s Day.

When shells start falling just short of your half dug foxhole, when the tanks start rolling and the walkers march- when the beasts of war are licking blood from maggot riddled corpses, there is only one thing you can- and will do.

Dig in, hold the line, punish them for every inch of ground they take, fight twice as hard to take it back.

>>6432665
This too confusing, dawg.

Just say:

You are the foxhole: an uncomfortable pen where body odor mixes with the smell of excrement, gunpowder, and worry.

>>6432728

Your function is to provide shelter for the lone soldier. Whether as cover from the enemy while he's shelling you, or just as a place to sleep, your mere existence is a convenience to many people. In fact, you might get so popular that you think you are irreplaceable; a spot on the land that can never be erased. The truth is that foxholes are sometimes needed, but will always be abandoned for a less vulnerable position when possible. You are not invincible.

A moment, lost from it's owner, wandered alone in the cold streets of manhattan.

>>6432818
what does this even mean?

>>6432835

If you feel like you want to know, then it fullfilled its purpose.

>>6432818
>It all happened in a New York Minute, afterall!

Anon you hack!

>>6432894

But i am not a hack...or am i?

>>6414735
That's the opening of the second chapter.

"We should head back," Gared urged them as the woods began to grow dark around them. "The wildlings are dead."

>>6414495
"He never saw Molly again."

Last line of the book. Gibson added it just before delivering the manuscript to the publisher to prevent himself from writing a sequel. Didn't work.

>>6414332
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all it's contents."

Sums up the central theme of the whole canon.

>>6414332

This:

"The woman pushed on the baby's stomach and sucked its penis into her mouth; it was thinner than the American menthols she smoked and a bit slimy, like raw fish."

>>6433395
you have no worth

"I was the master of my mind, though I soon learned in not such short time that, being a master is more than conquering; It is becoming, but what I became confounded and bedazzled me. And even now, Im not so sure what it was..."

>story of my descent into insanity

"I shall claspe my hands together and bow down to the world."
From Bridge of Birds

Maman died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don't remember

Selling jimmies, never roused.

>>6414380
>such dark
>much storm
That's how you come off. Choose something else

>>6433687
selling gf, never kissed

>>6430085

"Enter" said the sign on the door, so he did. As he walked into the building he took another drag of the lit menthol cigarette in his mouth, marvelling at the feel of the baby-penis-thinness of it as he rolled it between his lips.

One day.

The end.

>>6429877
this, thread/

>>6414332
Be warned, this book has no literary merit whatsoever.

>>6414380
IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT AND THE RAIN SPLASHED ALL AROUND ME LIKE ATOMIC WATERBOMBS. THE RAZORSHARP WIND CUT THROUGH ME LIKE THE BITTER MEMORIES I HAD STORED FROM THE YEARS I HAD PUT INTO THIS CITY. THE RAW TASTE OF SEWAGE PERMEATED MY VERY FIBRES AS I LOOKED OVERHEAD TOWARD THE SOILED HOMELESS MAN GROWING OUT OF THE PAVEMENT LIKE WEEDS THAT THE GODS HAD FORGOT TO REMOVE. EXPERIENCE HAD MADE ME TOUGH, REALITY HAD MADE ME WEARY, BUT I KNEW THAT EVEN HERE, ALONE IN THIS RETCHED CONCRETE PRISON, I WAS BETTER OFF THAN THE FAGGOTS ON 4CHAN.

>>6415562
Thats "I have no Mouth and i must Scream" from Elin stg. I love that short story, defionetly worth reading!

>>6433715
herp derp can't smell irony

>>6414332
There will never, ever, ever be a more satisfying opening line than from The Whale.

"Call me Ishmael."
There is nothing more powerful or direct.

The first lines of Genesis are a close second.

>>6414452
is that fucking coldplay?

why do I know that hmm...

>>6435743
i really don't get what's so great about it. isn't that just the character's name

Things were all fucked up an' shit.

>>6414340
>adverb in the opening sentence
this book is done before it even started....

The barber looked on in horror as the man screamed for a solid five minutes the phrase: JUST. FUCK. MY. SHIT. UP.

>>6437631
>for a solid five minutes the phrase
clunky

>>6437654
well, "the phrase" doesn't need to be there but then it wouldn't fit in with the faggy pretension of an internet forum dedicated to literature

I was surprised to find out that the bare, pink vaginal walls shiver fearfully upon exposure to the elements.

"Don't listen to her, Anthony; Celebratory Oriental Cocksucking is a respectable graduate major in and of itself, regardless of the naysayers."

I'm having a good day today.

>>6437689
genuinely curious about this story... where are they, why, what happens next

"The stovetop's getting warm lads." said Harriot Ainsley, as he turned up the heat for cooking human remains.

Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt.

>>6414332
Suicide was only the beginning.

>>6414332
Why?

Romping niggers romped my flowers.

>>6437739

nice one

>>6414332
Looks like he fell face first into a deep fat fryer and ass first into a gay porno.

In my younger and more vulnerable years I wanted to be a fantasy author but everything I wrote felt pretentious and forced.

>>6414448
Rei what do you think of the pineal gland?

>>6437689
Interested
Details?

>>6426623

It immediately sets the neo-biblical narrative, but I feel like McCarthy just threw an aspie fit at some point and yelled

SEE THE CHILD! WHY WON'T YOU PEOPLE JUST FUCKING SEE THE CHILD. SEE IT. FIRST LINE. BOOM.

>>6414380
>(for it is in London that our scene lies)
I wish people would copy that instead of the "Dark and stormy night" part.

So there's this bitch, right?

>>6438160
>trying too hard

>>6436226
thats because ur dumb

A way a lone a last a loved a long the

>>6414332

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the
spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

>>6414380
IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT; I WAS WALKING IN THE STREETS OF LONDON WHEN SUDDENLY I WAS COMMITTED WITH A STRONG DESIRE TO FUCK EVERYTHING AROUND WITH MY UMBRELLA. I STARTED WITH THE VITRINE OF A COFFEE SHOP