/lit/ - Literature

“Whore, you can be assured that if you speak that name again, I will deprive you of the means to utter it a third time.” His voice was rasp and his brow moist, yet despite his physical agony, he stood so as to address her without granting her the opportunity to retort down to him. “You are mistaken if you think that it is your unholy slums which render men insensible that I am interested in. I am only a servant to the essence of justice which communicates itself through he whose image I am almost surprised you recognize; you dare ask me to commit sacrilege by preventing him from seeing what he obliges me to do? You will soon be judged and sentenced and eventually will perish, but first I am to play for you. I wish to abolish from your mind any notion you are harboring that is contrary to the truth; you are not here to satisfy any base sensual desires, but only to suffer the sentence that, had we lived in a society not so far removed from striving for man’s best interest, you would have been subjected to long ago. I will play for you Waldstein and if you are in the slightest degree sensible, as your recognizing the great immortal depicted suggests you are, you will be rid of the aim you believe me to have and in doing so, realize that between the two of us, it is you who is corrupt and deserving of the punitive measures which you will come to know. Needless to say, I cannot be interrupted; if you attempt to disturb me, I will dismember you as I have the man you had just seen but with a severity that exceeds infinitely what he suffered.”

>>6433607

Well, this seems to be a rather satirical piece of writing. I don’t think the author was really trying, but it is neither very good nor very bad. There are some great lines, in my opinion:

>His voice was rasp and his brow moist

Is interesting to see that the author was paying attention to so small details, like the moist brow.

One of the problems with this piece of writing is the tone of the speaker: he at the same time use aggressive words and insults (like one who is possessed by strong emotions or as some uneducated person) and speaks like a rhetorical book supporting decency and good-customs (even showing knowledge of one of Beethoven sonatas). The way expression of the speaker is a mixture of natural and artificial, and to my mind this is the main problem of this piece.

I will now post some of my material. The original is in Portuguese. I am thinking in putting this in a poetry contest whose winners are going to have their poem displayed in trains and buses. I don’t know, however, if my effort is quality work.

Morning Song

When morning tears the black flesh of the night and the heavens bleed rust;
When the glacial crystal butterflies and moist fireflies of the stars
Flee from the sun that, growling honey of light, raises his blond head and wheat mane,
Then the realm of soft blankets and warm nest of beds is abandoned:
The gummy spider web of sleep and the yawning varnish of dreaming evaporates.
Roosters, watches, the aquatic song of the showers, bread, the mint foam that embalms the mouths, the pores of dawn that breath coffee-with-milk:
All of them summon humanity to rise up and sculpt their survival.
Homes spit anthills in the streets: the nation's blood, human erythrocytes;
Lives come and go, swarms of eyes, busy bee-hives of minds on trains and buses.
Each craft is valuable, all sweat is the elixir of dignity, each function a cosmos:
Tractors and taxis, asphalt and crops, shoe-glue and soy, hoes and pens, Injection molding machines
And computers, cattle and excavators, cement and paper - all of them are vital parts:
Each worker is a cell in the body of the country; the raspberry daybreak prays for all.

>>6433709
I appreciate your feedback. You make a good point concerning the consistency of the tone; the inconsistency is a fundamental aspect of the character and if it is evident in a paragraph then I am pleased. As to whether I'm trying or not, I don't know but it's been a pleasure to write so far. I thank you for your feedback and only regret that I cannot provide critique to yours that extends beyond my saying that I like it. I do not read poetry enough to be able to differentiate the good from bad but I enjoy yours for the colorful quality which makes it all vivid and easy to produce in the imagination. Although I cannot speak for the technical quality, my opinion of it is enough for me to suggest that you enter it into the contest. Best of luck, brother.

http://pastebin.com/kH4XNNSe

>tfw poetry

There's a method to the madness, I assure you. Don't hesitate to ask me what I mean by things, but I emphasize upon every person finding their own way interpreting words and opaque phrases.

bump

>>6433896
>the inconsistency is a fundamental aspect of the character

Then you are making a good job. I wonder what's his personal story.

>>6434504
Disillusioned cop imposes on himself the role of serving as the executioner of justice as he perceives it; excessive indulgence and Beethoven drive him into madness. It's doing a number on me but I am proud of the progress I've made with it.

bump!

This is in the very beginning of a long work, but it bugs me.

It bugs me a fucking lot. It feels so amateurish.

But I know I want to keep it as well. I don't know what parts need to be tweaked, what words don't belong there, etc.

-------------------------------------------------------------
The fallen leaves of the autumn formed a human shaped sarcophagus around the sleeping vagabond, on the wayside of the cobblestone highway, under a mighty oak. The orange hew of sun rise illuminated the clearing outside the village, matching the squinting eyes of the traveller perfectly. A gloved hand brushed the leaves off of the face of a smiling man, whose face was youthful and cheerful. Or so it would appear to the average onlooker. His eyelids covered two dead, dying stars, about to implode upon themselves, two gas giants falling into a supernovae grave. This eyes were the eyes of a dying sun, nearing its funeral.
The orange orbs that made him stand out reflected an ambivalent thoughtfulness, but also did had a blithe twinkle to them.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

It's just describing a homeless man whose body is covered in fallen leaves.

Working on new, secret stuff.

Above James’ parents room is his own room. The floorboards were placed during the second world war. Some creak quietly and some creak loudly, but they all do creak. Every step James takes during the night bothers his parents.

In his small, loud room there are a few things. There are poorly painted walls. They’re painted a faded light-pink, with the eastern and western walls bending on a 45 degree angle inward one and a half feet from the floor on both sides. This leaves little room for James to do his thinking. There is a laminated darkwood dresser with more clothing placed on top of it than inside, and even more on the floor. A short ceiling with angled walls in a small space gives a tall man like James a narrow pathway down the middle of his room where he can walk without needing to bow his head. The door, also placed there during the second world war has only been painted once. A not-so-white color marked with dark, fainted handprints. There are smaller handprints and larger handprints. The smaller ones are lower on the door. This door faces north and a tiny window faces south.

An unhinged lightbulb dangles from middle of the ceiling. If it weren’t for this lightbulb, James would have no second thoughts about walking back and forth through his loud room.

>>6435741
calm down your fantastical diction

>vagabond
>mighty
>hew

the sentence "Or so it would appear" is just bad imo

then it gets really overblown really fast, just cut all that out and dont be such a tryhard next time

http://pastebin.com/xrRamAdc

call me a fag, etc

>>6435804
"Or so it would appear" is gone now.

"Vagabond" and "Mighty" can go, but hew is the exact word I want.

What else can I use for the eyes? I WANT it to be overblown, but right now, it seems sloppy as hell.

The comparison to dying suns is purposeful, as I want something to not-so-subtlety say they are orange or yellow.

>>6435818
>hew
do you mean "hue"

idk what to do for the eyes because i dont really get the effect you're going for

>>6433896
I liked your paragraph, I found it easy to relate

>>6435829

Holy shit, yeah. Hue. English is my first language and all, but I don't speak it much anymore.

The feel I want is something that is doomed but still is positive against the odds. The idea of a dying sun comes from the fact that it is going to go supernova in the future, but until then it still burns on, no matter how cold.

>>6435829

Slightly revised. Looks less amateurish.

---------------------------------------------------------------------


The fallen leaves of the autumn formed a human shaped sarcophagus around the sleeping destitute on the wayside of the cobblestone highway. Under an oak his body lay incognito as if the leaves were a pile constructed by a child to jump in.
The orange hue of sun rise illuminated the clearing outside the village, matching the squinting eyes of the traveler perfectly. A gloved hand brushed the leaves off of the face of a smiling man, whose face was youthful and cheerful. His eyes were the eyes of a dying sun, nearing its funeral. The orange orbs that made him stand out reflected an ambivalent thoughtfulness, but also did had a blithe twinkle to them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Better, imo, but not perfect. Trust me, the work isn't all as shit as this. I fully admit this is shit. And it's all on the first page too.

>>6435838

hew is better than hue


pls no bullyerino:

http://pastebin.com/LDFTxejR

http://pastebin.com/d5jVSctd

beginning of a novel about some accountant drenched in ennui and a schizophrenic living in a jungle and some other people too

>>6435883
Are you joking? You want be to say the sun has been hacked, or cut at? How does that even.

>dark and legendary

Is only one word off from "dark and edgy." Aim for "mythic and maudlin." You know, alliteration for the heck of it.

>until his throat scorched

What. Do you mean, "Until his throat was parched"? Saying it is scorched makes it sound like his swearing literally burnt his throat.

>>6435874
The feeling of "too much" reaches a climax at the paragraph's conclusion. I think there is potential but it is hidden behind all of the excessive words you've incorporated to what seems like a simple image. Specific suggestion would be to focus on eradicating redundancy.

Consider: A gloved hand brushed the leaves off of the face of a smiling man, whose face was youthful and cheerful.
Vs
A gloved hand brushed the leaves off of the youthful, cheerful face of a smiling man.

Don't give up.

>>6435741
I feel like what it needs is some simplification.

"The fallen leaves outlined a human sarcophagus around the sleeping vagabond by the cobblestone highway and under a gnarled oak. The rising sun's lit the clearing outside the village, matching the squinting eyes of the traveller perfectly. A gloved hand brushed the leaves off of the face of a smiling man, whose face appeared youthful and cheerful, though his eyelids covered two dying stars, about to implode upon themselves, two gas giants falling into a supernovae grave. This eyes were the eyes of a dying sun, nearing its end.
The orange orbs that made him stand out reflected an ambivalent thoughtfulness, though they twinkled blithely."

Your prose is very wordy and this makes it difficult to get through. In addition, you use big words when none are necessary. Why is 'illuminated' better than 'lit'? Illuminated has the connotation of a smaller light source, in my opinion, and bringing something out of mystery. I think lit is much more a word for what the rising sun may do: it is not sudden, or focused.

>>6435929
vagrant, not vagabond

overall comes off as pompous, and I don't know what you want to do with the end but really all that talk about supernovae doesn't seem necessary.

>>6435933
>>6435929
>>6435922

Yeah, thanks a lot for the critique. I don't know why I venture into purple prose when I write sometimes. It goes for reading too.

I can read Gene Wolfe, Frank Herbert, Nietzsche, and other writers with a lot of verbosity with ease.
But I have to think twice and pay more attention when I read stuff like Mark Twain, Hemingway, etc.

I'd swear I am autistic sometimes, if I knew as a fact I wasn't. My writing style reeks of me being an aspie.

I am fully aware that it sounded pompous, try-hard, and more than a little pretentious, which is why I requested a peer review from /lit./

ANYWHO.

---


The fallen leaves of the autumn formed a human shaped sarcophagus around the sleeping destitute on the wayside of the cobblestone highway. Under an oak his body lay incognito as if the leaves were a pile constructed by a child to jump in.
The orange hue of sunrise lit the clearing outside the village, matching the squinting eyes of the traveller perfectly. A gloved hand brushed the leaves off of the face of a youthful, and cheery man. His eyes were the eyes of a dying sun, nearing its funeral. The orange orbs stood out by reflecting an ambivalence with a hint of a blithe twinkle.

---

Best rendition so far. Much shorter than previous drafts. Trust me, it has been worse than even what I originally had shown. Much worse.

I really need to learn to be more succinct.

If I don't, my logorrhea will turn into nothing but vernal diarrhea on paper.

>>6435741
i quite like it, but like others i agree that it needs some cutting down.

but only a bit. a teensy tiny bit. not much. i like the fanaticism.

>>6436065
see
>>6436047

Largo was drowning, that’s the sensation he was feeling. His eyes were wide open, but a thin shroud of darkness obscured about 80% of his vision. He clambered for his glasses, they were not on his head, he felt them, but they weren’t. Now he became blind, the storm was raging as wave after wave slapped against his face. Thrashing around in the ocean Largo tried to look around for any discernable sign of which ocean that he was drowning in. He looked around, water on top of water. Up, the sky was dark, at least he knew it was nighttime, that narrowed down a lot of his choices. He couldn’t fight the waves anymore, his arms started to give out, trying to think of a way out he dived underwater.

There was more darkness down below; flashes of light illuminated the scene before him. Everything was in perfect clarity now, looking around; Largo tried to find an object to grab ahold of. As Largo started in a direction, something grabbed ahold of his leg. He looked down to see a figure; a mop of long black hair obscured its face. It drags him down. Largo tries to flail out of the Wight’s grasp, but to no avail; it’s hands grasp over his neck and begins to squeeze. Largo tries to push it back; he pushes back its hair and looks into it’s eyes.

Waking up on the plane, white noise entered his ears. The first sensation that he felt was the moment when you would descend down a rollercoaster, the drop, the shortness of breath. Even if it wasn’t a dream where he was falling, he still felt like he fell down right into his seat. He looked next to the passenger seated next to him, an old Japanese man with a medical mask draped over his face. Largo wondered if he had woken up anyone with his landing. He grabbed his book, “The Confessions of a Justified Sinner”, from the pouch in front of him. Opening it back up by the bookmark, he began to read, but the words he was reading didn’t register at all between his eyes and brain. Largo put it back; his loss of appetite spread to his other desires. A gray dull mass formed inside his mouth, which is the way he would describe the feeling he had at the moment. The only sensations that he felt that were being feed were his ears. The white noise emanating from every interior of the plane, he wondered if he had gotten onto another plane that he would hear the same white noise. The intricacies of the construction of a plane started to snowball into a long train of thoughts; maybe that was the reason why some planes fail and crash or explode. Largo would imagine the henry ford style lines of flesh and steel combined to create the respective Sproose gooses. A Kleenex box slammed against his head, looking back in his mind the spirit of Howard Hughes was shaking his fists as Largo, screaming: “IT’S THE HERCULES GODDAMMIT!”

>>6436102
Largo snickered to himself, biting his lip to keep himself from laughing out loud. These sort of apparitions that sprung from his mind at various intervals in his life, mostly at times when there was the need for something to fill the void of boredom. He was a fickle sort of child growing up, a real jack of all trades, a renaissance man from the time he could speak. Whether it was an instrument, pencil, paintbrush, or any kind of craft that required analytical tendencies, it would come to Largo easily. He would write whole books and have no feelings towards them. When he would paint there would be no passion behind the stroke, like some automaton he would perform this various actions adequately well. This talent that he had that spawned to every corner of the skill tree had amazed some, inspiring envy in some and the praise of all. The only problem was that Largo couldn’t articulate any aspect of his talent to anyone in a coherent way. He could do anything effortlessly, but he grew tired of these activities after awhile, it was not a matter a discipline for him. Largo had discipline instilled into him at an early age with his family. His father was an account and a very pragmatic man by trade, he never listened that much to his words, but there were times when he focused his attention to his father at certain times. The air would become cold and silent, sparks cracked in his ear, when the words finally emerged from his fathers mouth, which was when he listened. His father was named Olen, an other wordly name that his father Leone prescribed to him in hopes to keep the ideals of the age that were waning at the time of his birth.

The advice that he passed down to Largo was usually told to him whenever the two of them went on their car rides to the Dam located at the far end of town. Largo knew whenever the two ventured that far out of the city that the talk was either a serious discussion about Largo’s future or a contemplation of his father’s life up until that point. “Stay out of Microsoft…their numbers, they’re destined to fall.”

Olen would say this as he took a drag off his Hi-∞, a brand of cigarette whose particular taste was passed down from generation to generation. It was the most particular brand of cigarettes as the colour of the ember that glowed from each puff was a shade of phosphorus red, contrary to the orangish glow of rival cigarettes. The nature of this anomaly was only know to the manufactures who kept it’s creation one of the best kept secrets of the world. Though most of it’s raw materials are shipped from Tangiers, Morocco.

The rain was relentless and the street was quiet and the stranger's hand was inching ever closer to my wife's breast.

>It's the first line of a novel I'm writing. Please give feedback

>>6436107

An attendant broke his spell of concentration, probing him a question: “Drink?”

He was lapsing in and out of reality as he spat out the words, “Coffee please.”

She poured him a Styrofoam cup filled with the black water as he asked for cream as well. The attendant continued down the aisle, always with a smile included. Her name must have been written on the lapel of her uniform, but did they wear nametags he thought?

What was her story? What was her life up until that point, it intrigued Largo briefly and his curiosity often got the better of him. Though these were flashes of intrigued that languished for no more than a minute as his attention diverted elsewhere.

What I got so far.

>>6436108
I don't know. I like the idea. What's the tone? If it is lecherous, I'd replace "inching" with "creeping." If it is a red herring, I'd keep it how it is.

Well, cut down on the "ands." Too many and's.

>>6436131
Not necessarily lecherous, they're making out and she's into it too. The stranger is smooth and attractive, and although he's dominant he's not a creep.

Regarding the 'ands', that was a deliberate stylistic choice. Two of my favourite authors are McCarthy and Hemingway, and they have a similar way of writing flowing prose with minimal punctuation. I know it's a bad idea to try and emulate your literary idols, (and in this case it would be futile for me to even attempt it) but I don't believe anything is truly original anyway and I like reading books with this style, so that's how I'm trying to write it.

>>6436207
So you have the exact opposite problem that I have. Great.

I'm the fag horribly over-explaining a homeless man under a pile of leaves.

>>6436239
Just read it and I agree with some of the other anons. I think it's quite common for beginner writers to feel the need to over-explain everything and attach as many adjectives and adverbs onto a sentence as they can. Your writing is generally good, but you occasionally fall into this trap. Re-read it, and omit anything that isn't directly related to trying to capture the essence of the thing you are describing.

>>6436264
I'm not a "beginner", but I myself can't deny the juvenile manner of this trap I fall into. Thanks for the support.

I think as a child, I read too many complicated books, and not enough simple ones, and am still to this day grasping the concept of succincy.

That, and having a classical education and being homeschooled may not have helped.

Complicated stuff is easy, and easy stuff is complicated.

>>6436312
If you did so, then don't take 'beginner' as some sort of insult because it certainly wasn't intended that way - I meant unpublished author, as I guess all of us here are unpublished and without either agent or editor, which is why we ask other anons to critique our work for us.

>>6436115
Anyone read it?

>>6436357
I didn't take it as an insult, just, you know. I've been at it for quite a while.

I think if you've survived /lit/'s pretentiousness, and haven't given up writing forever, you've at least graduated to amateur level.

May we all strive for a better written tomorrow, brethren.

>>6436383
Not yet, I'm exhausted. I might read it tomorrow morning though.

>>6436108
>Ok maybe one sentence isn't enough to judge, so I wrote a paragraph instead. Any comments on style and/or content are appreciated

The rain was relentless and the street was quiet and the stranger’s hand was inching ever closer to my wife’s breast. Already four minutes had passed since they left the hotel and yet still they stood outside kissing in the rain with the sort of gusto that would cause any woman who saw it to admonish her partner for not being more romantic. I could not clearly determine the nuances of this intimate communication because I was in a car on the other side of the street and my vantage point was obscured, but it was obviously apparent that the unfolding events were merely a continuation of a similar act that must have occurred in private only an hour or so earlier, only with more passion and fewer clothes. The woman I loved had taken another lover, and the feeling of nausea in the pit of my stomach grew to almost unbearable levels.

>>6435813
bumping this bc I'm a sad loser

>>6435900

you read the whole thing (or skimmed it)--do you have any other thoughts?

also, the "hew of the sun" is quite poetic language and imagery, and it does make sense

>>6436438
it's a good first line, you should keep it until you finish writing the thing. relentless rain, relentless pace, lots of mystery etc. etc.

idk I get a great noir vibe from it, but the rest of the text seems to be going somewhere else

>>6436115
anyone read this?

>>6433606
Here is my new blog, got a few posts on there. Would love some views + comments.
Too long to post here so here is the link. I promise its worth it.
karmicdeath dot wordpress dot com

>>6437000

maybe try critiquing other people fucktard

>>6436894
Fuck's sake ernest, you were in the army. Trigger safety.

>>6437171
trigger safety is for effeminate ladyboys, not Papa.

>>6433606

I dread the loss of her I've never touched
love keeps me a slave in a cage of tears
I gnaw my tongue with which to her I can never speak
I miss a woman who was never born
I kiss a woman across the years that say we shall never meet

Everything passes
Everything perishes
Everything palls

my thought walks away with a killing smile
leaving discordant anxiety
which roars in my soul

No hope No hope No hope No hope No hope No hope No hope

A song for my loved one, touching her absence
the flux of her heart, the splash of her smile

In ten years time she'll still be dead. When I'm living with it, dealing with it, when a few days pass when I don't even think of it, she'll still be dead.

When I'm an old lady living ion the street forgetting my name she'll still be dead, she'll still be dead, she'll still be dead, it's

just
fucking
over

and I must stand alone
My love, my love, why have you forsaken me?
She is the couching place where I never shall lie
and there's no meaning to life in the light of my loss

Built to be lonely
to love the absent

Find me
Free me
from this
corrosive doubt
futile despair
horror in repose
I can fill my space
fill my time
but nothing can fill this void in my heart
The vital need for which I would die
----------------
Breakdown

>>6437283
>killing smile
this seems slightly out of place compared to the rest of your choice of words
>which roars in my soul
this might be nitpicky, but based on the previous line I feel as though roaring in my soul (or something similar) might fit better
>couching place
this seems oddly out of place, again, but I quite like the word 'couching'
>but nothing can fill this void in my heart
ehhh

I like the subject matter and I'm particularly fond of depressing poetry, but try to show a little more and tell a little less, especially in the last lines

some shit I wrote instead of going to class today:
O eggshell dress
dancing with breeze
rhythmic through breast
but a cut above knees

pluck-ed ripe bush
blossoms amongst loom
with nought of a push
steps soft as a tomb

buckwheat born skin
or of harvest at dawn
speaking bathwater gin
and horseshoes on lawn

the crease of a peach
in lips that are purse
and freckles from beach
scatter sand upon earth.

Such a day indeed to sit among redwoods
with trumpeter vine jewelry
and fireplace eyes
whispering kindling between tuna
and marble
such songs flap of mockings
that of garment and young

I think I will stop on the way
home
to watch them sheer
the sheep in the
fields!

>>6433709

Sup muh poetry duderino.

Will you critique mine back?

First of all - I thought this was great - So I'm gonna do a line-by-line

First pass, my impression is that you were going for bombastic imagery to elevate the common morning for the common worker to a mythical or godlike state - it is truly exultant! I also strongly picked up on the insect/hive/machine imagery in the last half.

>Morning Song

>When morning...
the dawn violently triumphs over the night, causing it to bleed (decaying) rust
>When the glacial...
the stars: cold, dead, beautiful, frozen, and damp
>Flee from the sun ...
The sun is leonine, "growling honey on light" is really wonderful here,
>Then the realm of soft blankets and warm nest of beds is abandoned:
humans as animals, nesting, humans are soft
>The gummy spider web of sleep and the yawning varnish of dreaming evaporates.
gummy like eyes and mouths after sleep, "yawning varnish of dreaming" is really really evocative and good soundplay
>Roosters, watches, the aquatic song of the showers, bread, the mint foam that embalms the mouths, the pores of dawn that breath coffee-with-milk:
don't like "aquatic song" - i know showers are aquatic, doesn't add anything new, likewise bread doesn't add much, "embalms the mouths" is a bit showy. Love everything else in this line : )
>All of them summon humanity to rise up and sculpt their survival.
Fuck! You see what I mean about mythical/godlike? humanity is summoned! to sculpt their survival! Shit!
>Homes spit anthills in the streets: the nation's blood, human erythrocytes;
Insect-like/hive-like humans are the nation's red blood cells (maybe consider changing erythrocytes to something less technical? may be the intended effect - I had to look it up :/ )
>Lives come and go, swarms of eyes, busy bee-hives of minds on trains and buses.
more insect talk - love the soundplay of buzzing sounds (lives swarms of eyes busy bee-hives of minds). Like and wonder about the sudden stopping at "trains and buses" - as if man's culture is intruding on nature
>Each craft is valuable, all sweat is the elixir of dignity, each function a cosmos:
Yes, necessary! "all sweat is the elixir of dignity" is really cool - "each function a cosmos" yes! complexity goes down to every level, from the largest to the smallest -
>Tractors and taxis, asphalt and crops, shoe-glue and soy, hoes and pens, Injection molding machines
I wonder about these comparisons: seems like rural/urban split? except "injection molding machines and computers"? that one seems odd man out
>And computers, cattle and excavators, cement and paper - all of them are vital parts:
also odd man out is cement and paper? which one is rural and which one urban?
>Each worker is a cell in the body of the country; the raspberry daybreak prays for all.
Boom! Thesis reached - but I don't think I need it - the images speak for themselves, in a lot of ways - just a thought. "The raspberry daybreak prays for all" is so fucking tight, hahaha!

>>6437167
No name calling in /lit/ them's the rules.

Couldn't you have said a little more to me
Than, "I'm sorry I thought you understood.
Welcome to the world, where there's something in between
What we want to do and what we should."

Won't you say a little more to me
Just save me this last time
You can go ahead and forget the irony
Is your heart as weak as mine?

Can you tell me the reason it gets so hard at night
Can you teach me the art of letting go?
I'm struggling to know what's wrong and what's right
Please tell me that you don't know

Why wouldn't you stand atop the pedestal
They were building to put in your shrine
You said there was too much for you to lose
Is your heart as weak as mine?

I thought I'd turn my head and I'd see you standing there
And I'd put my hand on your leg
Drawing circles on your thighs and breathing in your air
Why do good things have to change?

bump

I could use some help with this. The story will focus around James, but I got stuck writing about Dylan who I have no real plans for. How is the writing?

“We're a nation full of dumbbells”. James paused to laugh.

“It doesn't seem worth it.” He added.

“Seem worth it to what? Get in shape? James' friend Dylan asked.

“Seem worth it to spend hours lifting up and placing back down the weights. I could go for a run through the graveyard and I could skate fast down the ice. I could be outside bailing hay on the neighbour's farm or helping my father lay bricks at a new school, yet you recommend I stand or sit in that room with all those people to lift and drop the weights. I don't want to be there or around those types of people.”

“Those types of people. You mean like me?” Dylan asked again. They both laughed.

“Yes like you. It's all for girls right? If they'd only like me for my body, then I wouldn't like them for their mind!”

Liking the way he said that, James carried on thinking. He and Dylan had met each other at Arborist school. The school taught them how to identify fungus and it taught them how to safely climb a tree. Arborist school did not teach them how to pay attention, and Dylan fell from the top of the tall treaty oak that the school taught them how to safely climb. Dylan's climbing days were done and he quickly lost interest in the rest of school, so he stopped going. Because he couldn't run anymore, he started to lift things. A briefly used school book, and then two, and then three. He lifted them and then put them down. He did this a few times and it made him feel very sad. After a month of lifting books Dylan had told himself he would always be sad. The books were replaced with weights and the stairs to his home were replaced with a makeshift aluminum ramp his father put together. Having a crippled son was very expensive and they lived with little.

>>6437490
Cliched topic really stilted use of English archaic words and phrases.

>>6434058
>tfw no critique 45 posts later ;(

>>6437752

Eh, this critique is weak and flaccid.

>>6437751
i laughed at how stilted it was

>>6437824
Digging trough your sewer right now

>>6437834
It's really stilted? Fuck. Can you explain more?

bump

Forty silk maidens
Banter like a court show bailiff
Bitch I'm the literary Anthony Davis
Half-yellow Jaden, other half what?
If you have to ask are you from Taiwan?
5th season; end weak like The Wire
Tell that bitch I'll kill her less she jumps on the pyre
Damn, cut his throat Sam. Thai pirates on the boat
Cheated for your smarts and your memory is rote
Lai See money at the bottom of the drawer
Got the type of dick to make a tiger mom roar
Got the type of dick to make a rich bitch poor
If she pays for the date maybe she can get lucky
Boardwalk ugly, call me Nucky
I'd rather be Long Duc Dong than Ducky
End it on a good note, Mary Tyler Moore
Eyes so slanted 50 points off your score

>>6437751
bump. Would like some more critique on this.

bump
I went to bed 8 hours ago and wake up to three new posts
come on now

>>6438958
How about critique those three.

>>6439009
>bump
great post
>forty silk maidens
fantastic pasta

>>6437751
The dialogue is a bit unnatural and doesn't really flow between james and dylan. It goes from colloquial to literary and then back to colloquial and both characters sound like they have the same voice, despite one obviously having different ideals on the subject than the other.

>>6439173
Wait forty silk maidens isn't pasta, it was written like a week ago.

>>6434058
i don't understand...

>>6439192
http://postmetakolsti.tumblr.com/

>>6439226
do we just assume that all daytime weekday Kolsti-posting is organic since Kolsti is still in high school ?

>>6439173
What could I do to further differentiate their voices? Dylan doesn't say anything of value.

“Seem worth it to what? Get in shape?"
“Those types of people. You mean like me?”

These are the only things Dylan says. They seem very generic and without a style. Maybe I can't see it. What could I do differently?

>>6439276
>Dylan doesn't say anything of value
Then why have him there? If a character isn't contributing anything to a scene or dialogue, then what's the point of putting him in there?

>>6439310
The story around him will be interesting, and I plan on making him an important part. A necessary part to the James character. However, he's not much of a talker or thinker like James.

>>6439320
I understand you only posted an excerpt with dialogue and a bit of back story to Dylan, so it's understandable that we don't see much of his character, if any at all.
Just try building on the dialogue in that scene then--we understand that he's crippled because he ironically fell out of a tree. He's now 2sad4u and, apparently, broke, so why don't we see this reflected in his character? Again, what is he contributing to the story in being there with James, other than just taking up space? James had might as well be talking to himself in a mirror.

>>6439349
This is actually all I have for this short story, and that is the beginning of it all. I have never wrote something before.

You are correct. He seems without purpose right now. I never considered plot or anything other than writing something enjoyable to read.

>>6439369
Well, certainly don't give up on it. Prose, be it a novel, short story, whatever, is extremely difficult because you have to plan all this shit out and have characters develop and a story that goes somewhere.
What you're doing is fine though, just keep writing the short story and see where it takes you. Develop characters as you like and develop the story as you like. It's just hard to critique a story on such a small excerpt.

>>6436115
bump

This won't be at all good,
atop of the water slide I'll say.
Can't the wind die down, not dive up?
A whirr ripples my bathing suit
that has been chaffing my family jewel
like a sandpaper diaphragm superglued in–
a naught gnat nearly nestles on my knee,
but then I drop, flying, hydroplaning...
the disc elongates below my rushing eyes
spooling together a spindle of spittle
running out the corner of my mouth.
I hit the plateaued bottom, meal in hand–
catching pigeons with my trunks
is my favorite pastime.

find a paper
fold it over
on the paper
write read me
in the paper
draw a cat
let your cat outside

hug your foot
for twelve hours

flight with light
flick the switch

cut apart your happiness
find the seed
plant it somewhere sad

recipe for understanding
negative frames of mind:
- squint your eyes

the paper is white
but now painted blue
so ask yourself
if you can too

important steps to take
when you feel too sober:
- open beer with can opener
- pour into bowl of cereal
- eat bereal around others

when you aren't interested
in something somone says:
- pretend you are
- see if they believe it
- celebrate after they leave

http://postmetakolsti.tumblr.com/post/108793009235/for-lit

Written for a dormant project.

>>6435883

FEEL BACK FOR THIS ANY ONE PLS

>>6436102
>Largo was drowning
That should be the end of the first sentence. You don't need tell us that's the sensation that he was feeling, even if it's literal or figurative.
>a thin shroud of darkness obscured about 80% of his vision
Does this need to be exact with percentages and all? Why not say the water licked the top of his lids or muddied his vision?
>It drags him down
You're switching tenses here. Don't do this, it's distracting.
>Largo tries to flail out of the Wight's grasp [...]
This last sentence is shit. It reads worse than a Goosebumps paragraph.
>A gray dull mass formed inside his mouth, which is the way he would describe the feeling he had at the moment
Why is this necessary? Why are you telling us this? "Which is the way he would describe the feeling he had at the moment." What, like if he were, say, being written about?

I can't keep reading this. It reads like a 7th grader's ADD short story.

And an anaconda birthed a bevy
of thumbed lemmings clawing at rungs
headed skywards a mosaic pharmacy: a cliff.
At the bottom resides a donut shop called Donuts
owned by the Parks from Seoul drinking coffee,
and right now they're closed,
because it's 12 o'clock in the afternoon.

In the same scene, a man of headless face
crosses the tollway without looking both ways
because he needs to meet all the chickens
on the other side–what a bad spot for a farm.

>>6439430
>Pushed him to study meds and scientific stuff.
> Some people think I’m one of the best 17 year-old poets out there

>>6439446
Can you please finish it?

>>6439469
I did finish it, but I'm not going to try and continue critiquing particular sentences. You need to work on your basics and style. Even with punctuation, your sentences and descriptions are all over the place. You have an almost omnipotent character doing fuck all on an airplane and, to be perfectly honest, I wish the story had ended with the Wight killing him so I wouldn't have to read any more.

>>6439460
That's from when he was 11. The whole joke was that he used to suck.

>>6439495
>used to
You can stop talking about yourself in the third person

>>6439489
My basic's? Style?

>>6439528
how should I develop or study them?

>>6439508
>>6439508
Basic literacy will tell you the poem being comically bad is the point of its inclusion.

>>6437490

Thank you very much for your kind words and extremely detailed criticism: it meant a lot to me.

You know, to be quite honest many of your propositions for alteration have signaled exactly the passages that seemed worse to me when I was writing; your eyes have seen exactly the small focus of cancer in my poem, and I thank you for that. I think I will change the poem now before I inscribe it in the competition. Thank you once again for your time.

As for your work, I confess that many times I try to achieve a similar tone of quietude, a simple way of using words, but I always end up coloring my things with excessive feathers and end up creating scarecrows of bombast.

I loved this line:

>We weep when when verdant leaves put on brown robes

I wish I had written it myself. Another line that I loved, and that is very simple, is this one:

>So here’s a lovely port in which to moor

I don’t feel very able to give good criticism because my native language is not English, and so the rhythms, the sounds of the phrases and the whole aura of the works in English don’t come naturally to me. I translate my poems very badly, for example, because I don’t have good sensibility in English.

I think that, if you be more severe with the metric and the rhyme, you might achieve greater effect. To my mind your style of poetry reminds Robert Frost in its simple phrases and crystalline word choice that hides beneath them deep layers of meaning.

Days of youth spilled with color

Splashes, gushes, canvas substance, hands to touch with, guiltless lovers

Waiting for a former me to smile and describe it to me

But colors never seen don't ever seem to find us

>>6437475
posting another
feel free to critique the shit out of either

How strange it is
to watch people you love suffer
to see them shake over and ruin
like too much salt,
and the look of favorite foods graying with all too great of effort
bones built on loose snares
and cymbaled lungs
pupils drought and bruised with
dreamless mares.

Wilting in spring is a spectacle
to never wander upon
with loose thoughts or
deaf ears
but you may hold it safe--
even too tightly.

test

Dispersions of Mascara
in luminous oceans of blush.
How her eyes float and rise
like sun over seas,
widening with wonder and
love

Sometimes I eat cheese
It smells, but with ease
I eat it then I sneeze
And it's cold and I freeze
Then it's gone like a breeze
And I'm left with just peas
Man, I love cheese.

... I also love pizza...

>>6439903
I actually enjoy this one. I really like "cymbaled lungs" and it just has a nice aesthetic.

Here's a little paragraph thing I wrote.

I cradle you in my arms. Your eyes glisten, widening to accept the kisses from my own tired eyes. You kiss me and my face turns flush, my cheeks burning with passion as I recoil in shame, for I know it is not real. Your face blurs as the room grows hazy and my dreamworld melts away. And I awake in a cold sweat, surrounded by swirling darkness and solitude. The faint patter of the rain against the window sounds like your laugh, and I close my damp eyes to meet you again in some distant world.

>>6434058
It's not bad, but maybe you could try being less opaque. There are only about 4 lines in the 3rd one that make any sense to me. You can leave things open to interpretation with poetry, obviously, but you might be taking that too far. That said, I get the feeling that a lot of what determines how successfully you can publish "confusing" poetry is determined by how confidently you present it.

vump

>>6439968
incredibly shit

>>6439430
The parentheticals don't take off the way they do in some of your other writing. They have a nice comfy rhythm to them, with a consistent cadence, but its a totally different feeling then your other stuff where the text just explodes on the page

About 1500 words. It's a lot more sentimental/saccharine than I usually write.

http://pastebin.com/rtf5WbB9

>>6433606

This is made out of Buzzfeed article titles

Do you show empathy for others?
Have you been having a hard time
Waking up?
Does it sometimes feel
Like you are brain-stuck,
vaporous
Rapidly expanding
Pushing out the indents in your skull?
Is your head occasionally
Plotting against you?
Do you suddenly want to
Kill yourself at
Three in the morning?
Where do you go
When you get stir-
crazy?
How many cigarettes are you
Smoking
To numb the buzzing behind
Your eyes?
Who are you letting
Fuck you until you bruise?
When was the last time
You called home?

*
Now,
pick the romance movie
that best describes
You.

>>6440927
An interesting idea, but I feel as if the introductory line doesn't quite fit. The lines proceeding it follow the same style--almost as if they were rhetorical questions one would hear in a pharmaceutical advertisement, and I read it as such. But "Do you show empathy for others?" doesn't quite fit this trend, and ended up mucking up the meaning of the composition as a whole.

I really enjoy the playfulness of the poem, though. Great content.

>>6440927
This is great.

>>6440951
Thank you for your feedback anon, I will try to improve my work based on your suggestions.

>>6440927
It's not perfect in execution, but the concept and how you applied the idea are both great.

>>6434058
Was it rape?

>>6440951
agreeing with this guy. the first line is distinctly positive in connotation, but the rest are more negative, which is what causes the dissonance.

>>6440927
Reminds me of Fitter Happier by Radiohead. I'm immensely glad that in making a 2015 Fitter Happier you didn't have anything like "10 Reasons Your Smartphone is Ruining Your Life" or something.

How long exactly, does a minute last ?
With haste I dash, slowly I grasp,
the golden seconds of the past.

For time is money, now you see
the face of faith might be turning
when little hands fight in the ring.

Ajar doors of tourmaline,
agate bindings on melanin
on my skin calls forth the sunder.
Does sunday end ? oh, I wonder.

And cuts and swings, diamond fencing;
the duel is numbing and fast.
No façades, you hear the ticking ?
My silver watch wakes me; at last !

not a native be gentle

>>6441017
Nope.

A word is worth a thousand pictures
if carved in a knot of magnolia bark
by covalent lovers 'midst the mist
of fog-less farts from man's machines;
and foxes wield mechanisms of defense
in unveiled wooly sports-coats worn
by and by the jinni in shattered carafes
polished into a frozen lake of mercury;
and Montana slides to and fro, catching gnats,
sprouting seedless sunflower tender-loins
torn away from sow-less lantern skies
obscuring the pupil black curtain far behind;
and when a blind man trips on fingered feet
dampened in salty dew and mucous fun,
he sees that silence makes those who weep
hear the sobs from echoes' rain-dropped keys
up onto the eminent brows 'n' ridge furrowed furred:
a promontory for truck-driving fleets of crippled use
to warehouses bustling with oily nails and meat;
and vowels tesselate to Persian patterns
seamlessly collected by some suspecting eyes
surprised mid surpluses of decanted meaning
that floats on by like fiery birthday blimps
manned by a trillion cells named Giuseppe;
but what factory made the first factory?
and whose name formed itself first?
by the letter-less alphabet comprised of grunts?
These questions sit ashamed in the corner
wearing still a pointed cap quoting "dunce;"
and so the shell with the infected pistachio nut
cracks open inexplicably and decides
to grow into a salamander's spot–a maze–
constructed by invisible web-coasts called mind.

>>6441304
>delineate

dropped.

>>6441323
I think you mean dilettante, nice try memeing.

>>6441304
>covalent lovers
I'm stealing this.

>>6441369
Don't bother, it's teen poem tier.

Legend had it, if you left your truck running in the alley behind the Thunderbird Motel, laid a ten-dollar bill on the front desk, and asked the clerk for a cherry donut, a woman would appear and take you to her room. The first time we heard of this, we were too young to understand what a ten-dollar girl would give you for the money. But with time, things clarified, and the legend, apparently adjusting for inflation, now promised the same pleasures for a twenty. This connection to the laws of monetary flux leant the story a shred of the possible. It must be, we thought, or at least could be, real.

“Why not just believe it,” Cy asked us, “and leave it at that?” He was uncommonly smart, so we gave his question honest pause. “Do not touch the hem of mystery,” he warned, but now we were lost for his allusions. And besides, he’d lost a bet, and so he had no choice but to go put this cherry donut rumor to rest.

This was a Friday, the start of lunch hour in the MustardWorks cafeteria. While the rest of us spilled soggy lunches onto company tables, Cy zipped his coat and readied to leave. “Okay, fine,” he said. “But there’s no fun in actually knowing.”

Cyrus Fence was a college kid not in college, a valedictorian with a lunch pail. He lived in a big dying house outside town with his older sister, Min. They were, in a way, our own living legends—Min who’d starred in a series of toothpaste commercials (“Just shut up and kiss me you fool!”) before finally coming home from California, and Cy with his uncanny musical talent, his perfect SAT scores, his incredible patience with the teachers back in school. Most astounding of all, though, was the familiar yellow jumpsuit he wore to work every day, as if he were just like the rest of us.

>>6440628
Well that wasn't constructive. What didn't you like about it?

Going ahead and bringing more attention to my first post, since no critique yet.
>>6440909

Also: a pretty picture.

Brussels in Late Autumn

Ambitious drifts of snow still cling,
Somewhere between a street lamp light
And waffle house, to greying roads
That sparkle; melting gold from lamps
Are blurring lines, and smudging out
The borders drawn on cobbled streets
Left sprawling, carelessly, adrift.

La Grande Place never looked so sweet
As when we laughed to nothing jokes,
And ran like madmen, wild, to dives,
Just barely eighteen. Manneken
Was laughing with us. Still he grins,
Though echoes roared in smoky rooms
Have faded from there long ago.

If troubled houses beckoned us
Return, we never heard their calls.
And maybe, somewhere in those streets,
The carefree boys still laugh and run.

review pls

http://www.wattpad.com/103401062-heaven-can-wait

>>6443042
>wattpad
Haven't read your piece, but don't do this to yourself. Get a blogspot or something.

1/2

Summus, humm... was waxing spurée collages over the sky in her midnight dress of a thoyznd floops n hoops, moov howoover to hoover the crumps of Braskap Smitters and his good time band (a Rolex, you know) he waas maasively prod(,) oof(!) and said to her "thaaks guttu!" He'd come oafer to Eejit from Erasier because he wanted to see the Niles. And seethe m did e flowayng most spediciously without records to tribune areas and smurps, which weren't mud and weren't sand, but they weren't gaseous clay either, and more ham had been served with alcogrohl but the daves went by slowly even with drink to help them pass. Back to his stintituation whit Her, for that was her name, short for Hermaphrodisia Plobgobbitz, routine rung and rope shown shoely as the gay does day goes.

Braskap breakfast, you see the connection? He wasted away in the ten minutes it stook a stork to flyng his brakfest, but when it archived he enjored imself enjoying hatterly the sweet nutty nads of the animule imp horses and impostors thereof, such that the table became a seeming of cement, cracker and crunk about the grain and grapes, but never the tapes, though that is mostly what he disgoggled himself of the presence. Diaphragm? Hocking suncoping in the syn coppered sky of erstwhite blue like a narwheel on a wagoon out in the arse end of a tree tracktor beep beep!

Later later later waiter not so much but water, whatawhata cool little drink of kropped krape scraping the bottom of the burrow for mice and other things, an assortment oef (or öf, but not so much of) opplined applequations sitting in the back of the black pack, an ace or a joker caroused, fifty teenites of the old guard smacking pips, plips, plumps... poppse? Well, maybe. Or blimps! Blimpes as in the classical gelkque of P.F. Dooner, locally known for his crisseps flavoured vingerly with spall and a smaller even sminiscupal circumscribbled on the dork whose legs went ba-doo-ba-doo-bah, gotta gettem! But he was, is, might avenue been there, no of course not, a smelly lungquist quenching thirsty two small saildoors who hit whit many spades the space or the smoker in front of the blunt cunt. That's how they talked back then, and supposing now here and now and here, we hear, or see, or feel, a fipping of jinsk all the way forming a colliding claude door what wood you think, maple? So it came to be that Aphrodisia Hermaproductions, owned jointly now by Hermaphrodisia and Braskap, was in business for a slicking of slakers named Blake and Bloke, and their folk, which was played on diurnal gutters, received condiments from all passers by.

>>6443179
2/2

Out in the street, you can hear them caulking polypso before the croopers, Blake shinning a wooden spatula; Bloke broke a spinkling scapula, heretofore unbroken, the people of the town being tawny like smithers objecting to a clapped head bontroppée, their bier on the pierre a slight cause for concern among the Rigards of this word, monguely or indeed this time of (worth noting, because it has no D) and again the rescintanard harangues of a grippe Espagnole. That's that, he thought, old Braskap won't know it, but it is that. And so do we, in our strangled ways and means, which means somehow we won't be home in time for supper, but we can always call inverse elevenses and wake everyone in the world with our prize fireplace bassoon, who only works on weekends. Ah, the freedom of writing no characters at all with this new means of verbaloney communiqué, that's the beauty of a glasspack pazooka from Pazzo's Pasterie, in which the titular gayque makes a cayque but is caque handed and caught redandled on the knee of some royalty for an obscura reference shot five horns in the partaking of. Hwat ha hweeze he shaid, and Shaid (like shed but shai-eed) is another matter entirely, that clown, bull or no, but a bill from Porkland, where all the faggates come from with their slipper sloops.

To bring your attention now to Wov once more, I will once more append to your brain the matte tension of Wov, the Orox of whom, as it is now painfully abbreviated for the benefit of less well read [prə'jɛd:wùoyd] peers, notes an interesting distinction most relevated to our presents isituat. Wov writes, in the second chapter of the fortieth paragraph of the eighth petroglyphe: “Kraa, somsk moenat henai smanek plaais neush ook okko koo.” Which, roughly translated into Dude Fench, means: “se il vous plaît me donner plus de poulpes et de la sauce, je ai besoin du fourrage afin que je puisse chier mieux plus tard dans l'après-midi, quand il est calme.” To whit, I say, is the crux, a spamale in the bath of oats makes us not the master but the marrow, necessary for bony fish and dishes of shit we might then partake of, for the expenditure of meringues latent in the system. Now, as the man once said: that's love.

To retune to sour tories everywhere, the message for Braskap Smitters, not to be confused with aforemotioned smithers who object, left by Hermaphrodisia Plobgobbitz on the table of the place he was at (as the kids say). We must remember that it did not say anything, which we should, though we were not privy to this information previously. And what about the cards? 10, A, 5... damn it, almost haddem, ba-doo-ba-doo-bah, gotta gettem!

I beheld a man in black armour riding a white horse, in one hand he held a flag with a red cross on it.
He approached me and then stopped. He stared at me for days and days but the sky hadn't changed. Raising his free hand he lifted up his visor, and i beheld saint George. I tried to speak but the saint held his palm as if about to say something. I then stood silently and waited. His face changed from a stoic demeanor to one of stern anger, and he spoke ''Dont fuck with me,boy'' ,and so he rode off.

First time writing in this pov, would love to hear some opinions

Just another Jane or Sally with second-hand clothes, pink make-up featured in women magazines and heart leashed by the American Dream – that's who I was. And I died. On April 28th.

Call me an oracle, but I've seen it coming, or rather galloping, ever since I first set my high-heeled foot in that district. Lights were supposed to be red there. And they were, but I didn't notice that until much later. To me, red was a symbol of passion; romance, love and sex it's synonyms. It was a good mindset to have for a starting hooker.

http://pastebin.com/bXWzJY3s

Posting this again since I haven't done much more and my pc is down. Apologies for the spelling mistakes

>>6438881
The Thai pirates line is fire

A certain effervescence bubbled from deep within a forgotten crevice, the precipitation of an ancient synthesis finally given catalyst to myriad agents and reagents left slowly simmering. Final scene of the first act.

Xenagic figures and perversions of life cast hues beyond vivid from the libidograph. Enless imagery, endless depravity, shocking, scintillating; disturbance of the humors in resolution, minutiae of of obsession laid flat for perusal. In detail. At one's leisure. Insubstantial arrhythmic clatter marked shift of wavelength across his face in the sepulcher. Release from the bloodied shackles of body and mind would not come. He shook heads and loosed sigh-as-scream to no catharsis. This redolence was sanctuary as it had been always--a geist-haunt.

>>6441323
>>6441340

But neither of those words appear in my poem (though you can still call me a dilettante).

This one is also mine:

>>6433709

The original is in portuguese

BADURA: Gentlemen, before any of your proposals
I must warn you that gold and riches
Will never buy her; many were
The gentlemen who, embraced with
Fortune, with smiling grains of gold dripping
As cascades from their pockets, have already
Tried to acquire her as their wife,
To buy here, as you buy immovable property.
But she, however, and just like me, will never
Sold her freedom for material wealth.
Gold, with the disguise of a butler
Smiling, dressed as the servant
Of all desires, with a couple
Of sugared eyes and shiny teeth
It is a more hungry a tyrant
Than the growling wolf-pack that preys under the moon; the silky
Face of the angel with yellow curls
Camouflages the skull of the leviathan.
Gold is a sparkling gentleman
That rides greed over the whole world;
It is an elegant suit, which embraces
The body that was corroded by putrid syphilis,
Exposing it to the party of lives, to the ball
Of humanity as the greatest icon,
As a celebrity, while the righteous,
Forbidden to enter, beg at the door.
Gold is a universal mercenary:
He sows the explosive-seeds of wars; enslaves
Populations; destroys families; pollute bodies;
Corrupt leaders; dissolves the perfumed snow
Of virginities; conducts hearts
In dog-collars and forces them to lick his feet;
It feeds the fat belly and greasy stomach
Of Vices, but forces virtue
To fast in anemic oblivion. The metal god, blinking,
Serves poison in champagne glasses,
And, by courting, kills many souls.
Gulnara, however, does not submit her
Life to the mirages of honor, to false glories,
In front of which, on their knees, many people fall,
Begging crumbs of vapor, offal’s of emptiness .
Gulnara has respect for herself;
So, good lords, you do do not need
To go on and try to buy her: she will not sale herself.
The richness of the spirit are others,
Not the ones you can find sleeping in the safes of kings.

bump

>>6434058
Bumping with a serious request.

>I've been mulling over ideas for a fantasy novel for a handfull of years now. I posted a new thread but was told to post here. No experience/ education when it comes to writing. Looking for a complete breakdown of what doesn't work and where I should go from here.

Sunlight filtered by dropforge fumes lit the workhouse dimly. Footfalls echoing over a silence made more unsettling by the overwhelming size and deliberate purpose of a place unused to inactivity. Hero Fenswift walked cautiously and careful, mindful of the dangerous dead. Remnant revenants, wraiths fresh risen from desperate skirmish over machines of production. Echos of emotions of martyrs fighting and dying for righteous causes and glorious regimes. Though impotent and mostly discordant, intrusion upon ghosts hallowed bloodgrounds made the ambiance unsettling. Legend Fenswift paced row by row of towering machinery mystifying in complexity and obscure in function.

>>6445249
>dimly
Either move it where it belongs or change to 'lit the dim workhouse'. You don't get to go all Corinthians 13:12 without good reason.
>Footfalls echoing over a silence made more unsettling by the overwhelming size and deliberate purpose of a place unused to inactivity.
This is not a sentence and it excites my autism. Not even a good phrase that could pass as one. Probably a typo somewhere.
>Echoes of emotions of martyrs
Something feels off here. Could work but feels like too many 'of''s in this case. Also not a sentence or able to pass as one. Possibly a good place for hyphens, but most likely needs some linking particles to make it flow into it.
>Though impotent and mostly discordant
Not working at all.
>intrusion upon ghosts hallowed bloodgrounds made
Your inversion of sentences like with "Footfalls...." feels unnatural instead of a powerful shift to where the focus needs to be. Could just need a "The", though.
>paced row by row of towering machinery
Something is off here, maybe needs a 'through' or 'by' after paced.

I don't like the names unless there's going to be a good reason for them, which I wouldn't care about anyway unless it's really good. Nothing grabs me about the writing, but it's fantasy so I'd need at least sixty chapters to make any judgement about what usually matters like the plot. I'm not particularly gripped, but it's better than Brent Weeks and didn't hurt to read like quite a few published books. I'm not repulsed or bored either. The major problem is it is a terrible sample because it tells me nothing of any of your abilities as far as painting scenery porn or expressing a character or describing action.

It feels like you know the genre, but haven't read much outside it. The general advice of reading widely and learning the craft applies, taking what you learn and putting a critical eye to what you like. It really rests on the plot, characterizations, lore, and how good you are at expressing them; none of which comes up in the sample. It would probably help to write short stories using the setting and/or characters to find your narrative voice and hone your skills as well as give better samples to work from. You also tend to end up with a better setting and characters and find holes in the book itself.

So yeah, bad sample with rookie mistakes that could be average at the very least with work put in. Weak prosody, but better than half this poetry.

>>6445746
>>6445249
Another thing, it needs more description of the area. Strange machinery is all well and good, but I'm just feeling some generic brown factory interior from a PS1 game. I want to be coughing and sneezing and hot and cold and damp and sweaty from the environment. Either more lucid or more dreamlike in description is the way to go; I either want to be there or be looking at an impressionist painting of it.

People always talk about themselves in the abstract in the most obvious way. The house you're looking at is only as much of a 'fixer-upper' as you are. And no, your dog does not prefer to stay in on Fridays to recuperate from a stressful week, nor is it partial to people who like jazz music. That poem you wrote? Yeah, there's a reason that its central subject is 'mysterious aura drawn from a forgotten wind'–you're probably as vapid and forgetful as the air being described in your work. And me? Pointing out other people's blatant faults at hiding their projections onto various canvasses probably means that I'm guilty of the very same right? Fuck if I know, mirrors don't have eyes. Anyway diary, thanks for listening. You're such a great piece of leather-bound sanctity, my safe haven, my dangerous pie.

Games manifest themselves
in like the dopest ways, yo.
This one time I was kicking
a ball of paper into a recycling bin
and I realized that I invented football
so I called it soccer. Then I peeled
back the foreskin on my chalice
and began playing the pan-flute
for a silent chorus of women
that all looked exactly like Oprah.
And another time, these homelesses
badgered me for a nickel, so I gave them
a cigarette to split nine-ways
like the town whore (or sheep for Serbs).
And this here too is a game;
this: this: this: this: goose;
not the lyrics to this tuneless song,
but the rally of Pong (Yang)
I'm performing in my head
with a gasoline-drenched head
of a red dead Dead-Head, Ted.
And if I'm annoying you then please realize:
you chose to read this far,
faggot.

80k words, here's a part from near the end


In her anger, she accidentally drops a Gucci purse, the real deal too, not one of those cheap knockoffs they hawk on Times Square, out of her jacket. I realize that she was using it to look pregnant. The sight fills me with an even greater orgasmic sensation that words can never truly describe. Everyone’s eyes are on the two of us right now. I pick up the purse and hold it out to her.

“Excuse me Miss, I believe you dropped this.”

I can feel the confusion in the atmosphere. A few people are laughing and the guy next to me has the hugest shit-eating grin I’ve ever seen on his scruffy face. Our train arrives at its current destination, prompting the doors to open. The rotten apple of everyone’s eye, that brazen little beggar girl, quickly snatches the purse from my hand and runs off.

You can blame me
but casualty does not imply causation
it was not my fault that he jumped from that high bridge
down to the fresh paved street, freshly painted
and if it was could I really tell myself any different

The phantom hovering at the edge of sight
moves away with every glance to see it;
lacking fear, it forever taunts blurringly,
dancing asymptotically close like moments
that beg for a limit that does not exist.
Then it begins humming a viral tune
which evolves into an earworm, then mania:
the calculus of insanity remains incomplete.

Neither magistrate nor jester, the shade
offers no hints as to what it is, though I know:
Elusive, the truth can only ever be alluded to
like nothing else but its atomic self: I/O

>>6446135

you sound like a nasty, assumptive, irrelevant person

>>6446311

The first sentence alone is already incredibly stilted and a bother to read. Make your clauses flow, don't stagger them with unnecessary comma breaks and odd phrasing. Just say: "In her anger, she accidentally lets a Gucci purse–the real deal mind you, not one of those Times Square knockoffs–fall out of her jacket.

>>6446630

Sheesh, stop projecting Sideshow Mel. But really, what you said is deliberately and unnecessarily cruel whereas my post is just a blob of poorly ironic bombast. Please stop being so assumptive and nasty anon, it hurts people's feelings.

Properly authorized to do so:
always put the second first,
and never overuse 'I.'
Don't be didactic;
don't repeat yourself
and don't be didactic.
Relinquish faulty advice
and condemn meta-analysis–
this is not a piece of iron ecstasy.

>>6446311
>I really liked your scene and felt like I had to write it myself, sorry.

In her anger she lashes out, and a Gucci purse falls out of her jacket. We both stare at it for a moment, and suddenly it occurs to me that she was using it to look pregnant. The thought excites me in a way I can't describe, and I begin to feel hot. Everyone's eyes are on us as I pick up the purse and hold it out to her.

“Excuse me Miss, I believe you dropped this.”

The mood in the train is awkward, and I can feel an air of confusion. Some people are laughing, some are looking around nervously not sure how to feel, and the guy next to me is wearing the biggest shit eating grin I've ever seen in my life on his scruffy face. Our train screeches to a halt as it arrives at the next stop, and the doors slide open with a familiar hiss. The rotten apple of everyone’s eye, that brazen little beggar girl, quickly snatches the purse from my hand and runs off.

>>6441552
Interesting read.
Got any more?

>>6444106

Can I have some criticism on this piece?

Are we posting ideas / plot summaries in this thread too?

>>6448059
Yo are you the Brazilian lawyer?

>>6447066
>>I really liked your scene and felt like I had to write it myself, sorry.

Nah, it's alright. It's just one tiny out of context part of an 80k word novel anyway.

"No one knows heartbreak the way that I do."
I'd like to think that, but I know it's not true
There is nothing special and I've held nothing new
But without all this heartbreak, there would be no you.

I gave away everything that I am
Your reservation and mystery, I now understand
I'm another god you watched turn to a man
So loosen your grip and draw back your hand

Should I write you a poem or should I make you a list?
Should I remember the places that you touched with your lips?
Let go of my heart, I don't need this shit
Whether I want to or not, I'll soon forget your kiss

For the rest of my life
When someone speaks of love
My mind will always jump to you

>>6448248

Yes, it's me.

While I was where the brights lights near the ceiling I froze still, at least for a minute as far as I can tell, to hear the sudden laughs down below. “What happened?” I asked aloud though I knew well there was no one there to answer.

A heaven seemed to lie below where the laughs and the claps. I wished to know, more than anything for the time being, what was the reason of such joy among the present and if it was sharp wittiness which I certainly would like to hear or vulgar ribaldry that to my very shame I enjoy even more. I tried to stretch myself enough from where I was to caught a glimpse of the scene and filch some of the ample joy down there, maybe even hear the voice of the speaker below for I could not hear him from where I stood and the never-ceasing laughter made him hard to listen to. The voice from proscenium, that particular place that I could not see despite of my efforts and being right below me, was covered all in all by the noise of the claps and the laughs, and while I could not see any part of the stage I did see some people lying immediately in front of it and staring upwards awaiting.

The place where I was allowed me not to see the stage at all but to take a look to the people down there and appreciate the elegance of the whole group, obvious even for man often called a philistine like me. Just by looking I could tell that the happiness there behave in a way that rather than a static feel in the ones present was a flow growing and decreasing here and there. I could tell even from far away that it was not constant, for moments it seemed to increase and it was needed a very close look to see over the global euphoria and notice the slumber that started to appear between those who outlaid the first. The opposite was true as well and the slumber somewhere revealed to be nothing but a preamble to a mindless joy to the ones away.

“You're done. Come back” said a voice in my left ear. The lights grew dim and I was absorbed in absolute darkness. Somehow I could see myself and despite of being no lights around me I found myself in the very center of a dim circle of white light. As soon as the lights went off I tried to get up for several minutes but it turned out to be something I couldn't do no matter how hard I tried. Yet, my shadow now projected over the white circle and in front of me moved as I wanted to and followed each one of the moves of my still body.

Minutes or hours followed and while I spent my time playing with my shadow in this curious game I just discovered. I must say that being unaware of how it happened impressed me even more, and even if scared at the time I cannot deny that I was also a bit amused. But I'm afraid that my new game didn't last long, for it was harder to move the shadow as the time passed by and its new moves seemed to be out of my control, just a few moves I could be do and by sheer will alone.

>>6448818
Eventually all control was lost. I could not move my body nor the shadow, and I lied there like a doll, watching my body own move as my shadow stood still.

My body moved by its own will and in a rather dull way, re-discovering its parts and bumping with something at every step of the way. A hardly constant move I would say, since it changed from dancing in an almost euphoric state to move sluggishly in the snap of a finger. It did shake when all of a sudden someone called for me, quite angrily I must say, as it looks like it was a call repeated a few times already that I have not heard until then. “I should go back” I thought to myself but I couldn't since my body didn't seem mine no more. I should have gone back, I was very conscious of that, but I lost the sense of time and there was nothing a matter of will anymore. If I could have moved by my own will I probably wouldn't be here, but now, now I was just dancing shadow on the high bridge.

From darkness to brightness changed the lights below, swiftly as if there were no middle state between white and black or shadow and light. Yet the white light from below didn't come from down there and the source was high above, for I could not only see brightness down there but an interrupted blank caused by a human shade in its very center, and as expected, a disturbed continuum with no gray between white and black but from white to black and black to white with no dissolved space in between. The light below shone as never and every time brighter, like if it for my own being and from the deep darkness in the shade below I could easily hear the claps and laughs. The next thing I know, is the shadow going bigger and my body going numb, darkness coming closer for a time seeming endless and becoming an outsider while I, staying with my eyes closed saw myself from there to here and white to me.
Nobody noticed at first, and when they did everybody laughed. He fell and his whole spilled all over the black stage like a blood-filled balloon or a woman's bleeding sea. My drink was warm and my eyes tired by then, that moment when in middle of the public hilarity the curtains closed and everybody clapped.
It was just another night here in Celebricity.

>>6441552

Good stuff anon, would like to hear more about Cy–"uncommonly smart" is a great descriptor.

>>6446311
>In her anger, she accidentally drops a Gucci purse, the real deal too, not one of those cheap knockoffs they hawk on Times Square, out of her jacket.

It feels it was dragged to long. I'd replace for something like

In her anger she accidentaly drops an actual Gucci purse out of her jacket

since the
>not one of those cheap knockoffs they hawk on Times Square
feels redundant. You already stated before it was the 'real deal'.

>The sight fills me with an even greater orgasmic sensation that words can never truly describe
I would rephrase the last part

The sight of [whatever] fills me with an even greater orgasmic sensation, one that words cannot describe.

>Everyone’s eyes are on the two of us right now. I pick up the purse and hold it out to her.
This baffles me a bit. Your first two sentences were long, and now you put two very short ones. I think it'd read better if you put this two together and drop the right now

Everyone’s eyes are on the two of us, just before I pick up her purse and hold it out to her

>A few people are laughing and the guy next to me has the hugest shit-eating grin I’ve ever seen on his scruffy face
Drop the 'hugest shit-eating grim'. Make the sentence shorter.

A few people are laughing by then, and the guy next to me, one with a scruffy face, has the one of the most [??] grin I have ever seen.

>Our train arrives at its current destination, prompting the doors to open. The rotten apple of everyone’s eye, that brazen little beggar girl, quickly snatches the purse from my hand and runs off.
No comments here. Sounds alright to me.

>>6448648
Feels a bit indulgent. Something like a teenager would write when going through a heartbreak.

It's not bad, but I don't see anything special in it. If thie poem were the first of a collection, I wouldn't bother in reading the rest.

Saul Ickfit was man in his late twenties, he, who did nothing worth mentioning since his twelve birthday (up to which he was considered a bright kid, just like everyone else). His last job was official known as manager and supervisor of food distribution, which is to say, he was the delivery man of a fast food company. He wasn't very good at it since he's driving skills, although good, were not good enough to deliver any food he had to on time. Saul was fired after two months with best wishes and a small paycheck that was not nearly enough to eat the very same food he used to deliver by now.

He asked himself about new jobs opportunities or any possible way to get money, if not enough to pay the life he would like to have, enough to pay for food and rent and clothes. After a few interviews with no luck at all, he decided to give it a try to a place he had rarely been before: the internet. Saul only knew about the internet because of his favorite books, the totalitarianism of a tundra or a title of the sort that he couldn't remember at the time, came from one of the websites that her ex-shut-in sister used to visit all the time before knowing a blind guy who was willing to fuck her despite of her fucked up face. That night browsing craig list Sauly found his perfect job: gigolo. He may not have a nice body, but olden women may not care about it that much, therefore without giving to much thinking to the matter he made an appointment with a forty year-old lady that lived only a one hour by car.

At the agreed hour, just twenty minutes before midnight, he was at the absurdly big house of the aforementioned lady, a rich woman called Margaret who at her age deeply regrets marrying Pedro who spends his whole days away from home selling churros on the beach.

"I believe you are Mr. Saul?"
"Yes madam"
"My dear, please come in."

She walked just like a killer queen, and while she walked she took off her shoes and stripped of her clothes. After reaching a piano, above which she sat crossing her legs and lighting a smoke, she added

"Honey, I must warn you, my desires are a bit... unusual"

Saul, like every well-read man, had read fifty shades of grey and expected and exciting session of bdsm and stuff as kinky as can be. Instead, Margaret called for him with her soft voice

"Dear, please come closer, closer..."

As Saul got close the woman extended her leg pointing her left foot to Saul's face

"Will you lick it? will you?"

Saul, knowing he was a gigolo now and had to abide the desire of his clients, lick the foot one and two times, each time using his tongue with higher pressure

"Between the toes honey, don't forget to lick between the toes"

Then Saul thrust his tongue between her toes, licking her sweaty foot and wrapping Margaret's toes with her strong and carnal tongue.

"Yes... now put them all in your mouth..."

And he opened her mouth as big as he could, and put her food inside his mouth as deep as he could.

>>6449941
Margaret's foot was deep down his throat, and he could feel her toes playing with his vocal chords. She was moaning by then, moving her foot in and out like if thrusting penis.

"More, more deep!" Margaret screamed

And she pushed her foot and leg inside Saul's mouth. By then, Margaret's legs was scratching Saul's anus from inside, but she wasn't pointing at his anus, what he wanted was his own leg. Doing this, Margaret managed to get all inside in Saul's body, controlling him at will. Suddenly, someone opened the door

"Honey cariño, vendí churros hoy sí sí!"

But Margaret, using her new young body jumped off the window and flied through the skies with an almost never ending fart.

She was now free. She was young again.

part of a larger short story, will post the whole thing if yall are into it

Thomas turned 180 degrees then stood there with his back to his friends for a few moments to feel the difference. After concluding that the primary variations were visual, the secondary changes sonic, and the tertiary deviations highly cerebral, he walked to his class taking turns gradually. Caution was always of paramount importance to Thomas, for movement was never guaranteed, and each incidence of motion had to be deliberate if all fatal variables were to be avoided. The campus was full of sharp corners and concrete obstacles, but grassy patches sat adjacent to almost all asphalt paths as safety nets for the oft falling and unbalanced short of breath. Thomas arrived untouched at the door of his classroom, cracking all his knuckles in several different ways before entering, then slamming the door obnoxiously, drawing the collective glare of his classmates. Thomas understood that the rules of residence were quite unique in an academic setting, and with that knowledge, chose his seat after several minutes of disruptive durability experiments (banging his palms open-handed against the desks and back-supports of each chair) and aural measurements (blank-faced, he stood screaming at the center of the room).

>>6449987
post it

Something I posted yesterday

The tide, ebbing and flowing ceaselessly under the unflinching gaze of the silver moon, nevertheless held semblance to that of a mirror, utterly delicate and reflective of the world around it. Nothing could feel more alien to the man huddled against a tree which he had quickly noted was quite different from the foliage he was used to watching from his veranda across the Po River. Of course, this was his fate, bound by the declaration of Caesar Augustus to spend ten years in relegation on this lonely tract of land for the supposed crime of conspiring with a certain North African governor. As he lifted his gaze again, the world around him was growing darker as the moon was growing brighter; to the point which he thought nothing else existed besides that celestial body and his consciousness confirming its presence. His fingers brushed against the engravements of his helmet lying beside him, and he was grounded in reality once again. Although all light in the world was fixated on a single point in the sky, he could still feel the eagle with spread wings grasping a viper in its talons, and a roaring leopard juxtaposed to it. The helmet had been forged in Britannia under direct orders from the legate stationed there, after he had rallied an entire cohort to descend from their ships and charge against the barbaric chariots and calvary. Having reflected on his deeds in the past ten years, the man soon began to ponder what the next decade of his life held in store for him.

A small excerpt:

The boy resisted the urge to step back, and instead braced his feet into the mud, supporting both their weights, which was no small feat for an otherwise small boy (or maybe he wasn’t really small, but just felt that way). Though he wanted to think about what the girl had said, the only thing he could think of was the hand across his chest and beating of his heart and how she surely knew how nervous he was and how much more nervous he was becoming. And because he was young and had not yet been numbed by the passage of time, his heart rate accelerated and the magnitude of the force of the pounding in his chest increased. The throbbing radiated throughout his body, like the vector field in the graphing paper his calculus teacher had shown him one week prior. He became very red and very sweaty, until it seemed like he himself had become into one giant, human-sized heart. The boy thought about the girl’s hand, and how, for a brief moment, it seemed as if she were actually touching his heart, and he thought about how he wanted her to grab onto it and not let go and not let it sink back into his chest, because he was genuinely afraid he might not ever find it again.

>If you post yours, please be kind and critique another's

The trudge through shallow guilt
Hollow feelings rain down; carmine puddles form the good days
The has been, and the would be
Beautiful are the spirits unborn
Fake is the deceitfulness bleeding through
Bleeding through
You're a murderer
But that's OK.

>>6449987
Genuinely feels like you're approaching the work with the intention of incorporating complex language which comes off as muddled and pretentious. The name "Thomas" is in almost every sentence, and reflects your lack of attention to detail to all other aspects of your writing besides vocabulary.
>After concluding that the primary variations were visual, the secondary changes sonic, and the tertiary deviations highly cerebral, he walked to his class taking turns gradually.
Even though this may seem like good writing while you're writing it, to the reader the sentence comes off as unnecessary and snobbish. Brevity works wonders in writing since the one right word is infinitely more valuable than a string of flashy, empty ones.

>>6450257
love the rhythm of the last three lines

>>6449993

http://pastebin.com/KzcGsAY6

>>6450258

I can agree with that. On one hand I find myself overwriting one way or another; on the other hand, this particular character (Thomas) is meant to come off as an over-thinking, mildly autistic, borderline schizophrenic dullard (as almost everyone in the story is meant to be). I'll definitely working on toning down the language once I finish and start editing. Having said that, the primary reason for writing with a sometimes inaccessible vocabulary is because what I'm trying to describe either doesn't exist or does only abstractly (a few paragraphs on the consequences of energy released by people offering their seats on a bus is an example). Though I object to calling any of the words "flashy," I can agree that they're empty, purposefully so, but nonetheless, you gave some really great criticism so I'd appreciate your take on the greater text posted above (pastebin link). Its not finished yet but its a lot more diverse than that one paragraph. Would be glad to give my critique of any of your work in exchange.

>>6450311
I really like the idea that you have, and I'm glad that you showed me your work in its entirety. What you are trying to do does require a lot of skill to toe the line between writing for a character without confusing the reader into thinking that you're being lazy. You can definitely write for your character Thomas, and I am seeing him as having those characteristics that you described.
>Seated beside an excessive window was the cafe's only customer, his head propped up with a hand behind his neck, ignoring the product of his purchase (the smallest size of lemonade on the menu)
I think this sentence is what you should continue to strive for in your work. Although "excessive window" doesn't make sense, the rest of the sentence is wonderful to read and highlights the eccentricities of Thomas.
Think of it as a paradox in that you as a writer has to clearly portray to the reader the muddled nature of your character.

>>6450362

I appreciate the kind words about that sentence but that's actually not describing Thomas; it's describing Andrew, a friend of Thomas'. Andrew is even more severely eccentric than Thomas (Andrew lives with his parents, they published and reviewed his 2-page novel, he has birthing hips and tiny hairy baby hands,etc.) so I'll still take the compliment (though a need to clarify who's seated may be an inherent criticism thereof).

>>6435741
>The orange hew of sun rise illuminated the clearing outside the village,

Surely you mean "hue" right?

Hi, hope nobody minds me reviving this thread a bit to post a work I wrote earlier today. I have an idea of the larger setting in this story, but most of it was written off the top of my head, so it might be a little inconsistent. My main concerns are:

Does the world feel approachable? I tend to introduce fantastic elements of a story very casually and matter-of-factly. The idea is to make them feel more "real" and part of the universe, but I know sometimes it's a little too obtuse, and the reader can't quite understand what I'm talking about.

Is there any part of the story that really catches your interest? Something that makes you say, "That. I want to know more about that thing." Or none at all?

And most importantly, I'm terrified sometimes that all my characters sound like they come out of a Joss Whedon story. I hate Joss Whedon but everyone compares me to him. Please tell me I don't sound like Joss Whedon.

I'll try to get around to critiquing the more recent posts as well, but for now, here's my story: http://pastebin.com/e6EgGdi8

Something small.

http://pastebin.com/ijB7Rrzv

>>6435741
>sun rise

Please learn how to spell. Thanks.

>>6436438
I feel like there's a serious inconsistency here that you need to address. It is only in the last sentence that I became aware that the husband is not actually indifferent to catching his wife with another man.

I think you could achieve this sooner by shortening the sentences and not dwelling on description.

>the sort of gusto that would cause any woman who saw it to admonish her partner for not being more romantic.
I know what you're trying to imply (the kiss is passionate), but the way in which it is written is at odds with the way the narrator is feeling. If you had just caught someone you loved cheating, would you see it as an act of romance?

>I could not clearly determine the nuances of this intimate communication because I was in a car on the other side of the street and my vantage point was obscured, but it was obviously apparent that the unfolding events were merely a continuation of a similar act that must have occurred in private only an hour or so earlier, only with more passion and fewer clothes.
Too long. Try to focus on what's pertinent. Also --
>but it was obviously apparent
this is tautological.

I would also advise against including
> the feeling of nausea in the pit of my stomach grew to almost unbearable levels.
It is hackneyed and trite and instead of serving to emphasize the emotions your narrator is going through only serves, for me at least, to draw attention the words constructing the scene, rather than the scene itself. You would be better served by getting this across without explicitly stating it.

I loved the opening sentence.

>>6433606

My Latest Mistake

"If I could tell the world just one thing it would be, we're all OK" - Jewel

The worst part about being on "psychiatric"medications is the secrets. I don't have a suit that fits my 100 pound heavier frame thanks to Seroquel. My family and doctor encourage me to take as much as I can. When I was 21 and under I was thin and dare-I-say attractive in 2007 I finally started gaining weight from the Seroquel and got HPV and as diseased as I was, I sat in my basement for months, and time stopped in the way it is prone to do so with melancholy.

I keep a mental list of my relatives ages and health, and what I would do if they died and I literally couldn't fit into a black suit for their funeral. It scares the fuck out of me. When I came out, when I was homeless and my dad had instructed the whole family not to talk to me or give me a cent, it was my dad's mother who was the only person to talk to me, to answer my calls.

A part of my brain says no, they will live forever. Another part says, do they know I abuse pills? Ever seen the final scene in Cruel Intentions where Sarah Michelle Gellar is exposed as a vengeful cocaine addict? I feel like my world will come crashing down at the slightest tragedy.

I haven't seen my dad's family in 8 years now, save for a few visits to D.C. by my Dad's mom. I saw my mom's family briefly in 2012, as my step-grandmother's dementia was worsening, to say my semi-lucid goodbyes. Sometimes she fades to black because brain won't let her be her. I fade into the shadows too. I drink too much at family reunions, I am petrified someone will directly bring up that I haven't finished College because I am an "addict.

Addict is one of the worst words in the English language. It is not a strictly medical term, but rather a cultural signifier of someone who is/has made decisions that we find supremely deviant.

Addict is the quickest way to tell someone that their words and actions don't matter because what they put into their body supposedly renders them incompetent.

To quote the Cranberries "When your silence, causes violence, we must be mistaken".

I am me. I am not my pills. At least I'll keep telling myself that.

Much Love,

Karmic Death

Everywhere I look, normies I see
Normies to the left and to the right of me
They don't know my feels, I just want a girlfriend
But I mustn't break, I mustn't bend
Just love of some kind, a hand to hold
"Just be yourself," I am constantly told
Most are disgusted by what they view
So I put back on the mask, big guy for you
I say I'll make changes starting tomorrow
But changes never come, not even in sorrow
Days pass me by like bitter cold
The years go round, I grow old
People are settling, they all have a wife
But I have not begun my life
It's too much, I cannot do it
One chance at happiness, and I blew it
Nothing in life, no legacy
Generations of fathers, and it ends with me
I am nothing but an empty shell
I can already here the funeral knell
Empty chairs, empty casket
People will walk just right past it
I'll order that helium tank one day
One day never comes, I learned the hard way
I have no other outlet but rage
Fuck you, fuck this thread, sage
So while I wait for my doom
I post on a board for little girl cartoons
I join in this culture of hate
Against those people who did not wait
It's all I have left in this sad life of mine
They still don't understand, they just think I whine
What I wanted in life will never be
Nothing left to do but just go RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Somewhere along the lines
I gave up cleaning
Now I don't have to see
What's on the bathroom mirror

>>6451934
>>6451899
>>6451878

>If you post yours, please be kind and critique another's.

How do I write a haiku without sounding like an edgelord? I want to write a haiku for my gf but I have no idea how. I want it to be pretty romantic yet slightly tongue-in-cheek to avoid sounding like some 16 year old sitting in the back of a classroom. I say slightly tongue-in-cheek because we're not Japanese weeaboos or anything, it's kind of an inside joke where she challenged me to write one a few years ago but I never got around to it. I want to surprise her

>>6451899
no gf
no bf
no love even felt
no self
respect left
gf?
piss eff
no kitchen ref
kitchen even got no chef
what the eff?
living by myself
no bf
no gf

>>6451716
b-bump

draw a line between
me
you

paper white
painted blue
so can you

plant a seed
with your hands
into your hands
to feel it grow

taste your finger
feel your tongue

you never chose to be
what stops you from becoming

when you feel mad:
stop touching it

>>6453143
im glad you started tripping instead of making those dorky threads, but youve already posted this before. i think i said i liked the constant descriptions and sterile tone you used while painting the view. what else have you typed up?

>>6451899
reads like a mirror, feels bad man

.

is the fall
not the season
but a fall
all the reason
for a rise

peace made from
pieces gathered
pieced together

cup your breasts
with open arms

faces drip
on rainy days
collect the drops

don’t forget
to feed your mailbox

>>6453224
I have other things, but the reception has been poor. Here is the beginning of a short story I wanted to write, but now I'm not so sure.

http://pastebin.com/TrYJKs08

>>6453235
its not bad. the way you write is a sort of aimless and detached realism, which is good to start with, but it seemed odd the way you exposit the dialogue and include some things. i recommend reading some short stories by chekhov and taipei by tao lin to find a commonality of their styles

>>6453159
I like it

>>6449941
Stick to writing in your first language.

>>6453273
i'm a very new writer. i have only written around 1000 words - probably less, in my life. i have hardly read any novels either, aside from harry potter, twilight, and a few hemingway short stories. candide too.

i want to write well enough to have kids and adults read my stories and feel inspired to go out and do something. or build a special world in their mind just like harry potter did for me. i know harry potter was shit writing, but if i can build something similar imagery wise, that's all i want out of life.

what are some good chekhov short stories to read? i will read them right now.

>>6453471
you will probably enjoy picking and choosing from here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_short_stories_by_Anton_Chekhov

but

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13437/pg13437.html
look for 'the bet' and 'the darling'

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1754/1754-h/1754-h.htm
there is also a play 'seagull' which you might like

English is not my native language so forgive me, also, I have no experience with literature at all, I'm more of a scientific guy nahmsayin, so my writing style will most likely appear to be very simple and unsophisticated, but let me give a go:

"He couldn't believe what he just heard. With his face slowly glowing red, at first silent, but progressively getting louder words sprouted from his mouth: "Excuse me, but what in the actual world did you just say? Did I hear correctly? No, this can't be true."
He just couldn't ignore what his partner has, perhaps accidentally, casually mumbled while arguing about a certain concept of virtual reality. No, he just couldn't let these words drift away that easily, he had to confirm his masculinity once again, seeing how it slowly slips from his hands.
"Listen here, I don't care what you really meant by saying this, but this is straight up unacceptable. You probably already know my history in Marines, right? Is there any need to remind you how well I performed in these classes? Little did you know, what I actually learned there was useful in some situations in my life.”
“What do you mean?” – his friend asked, at the same time realizing that he understands everything and what he asked was meaningless.
“What I’m saying is you never actually knew who you’re dealing with. You think you KNOW me, and while we share some common interests indeed, there are some secrets you’ve never even dreamed about. For example, perhaps you didn’t know that I had some, should I say, “affairs” with Al-Quaeda? I can tell from your eyes, you don’t believe me. Well, this IS the truth, my brother.”
He started to swing hands furiously, involuntary spitting saliva from his mouth. The other man in room was confused and, at the same time, scared.
“See this rifle on the wall? Ever noticed how it’s REAL? Yes, I’ve had a honor to use it. You still think this is a joke? You still think what you said was even remotely funny? Trust me, I’m a man of my word. I’m not to be messed with. Just listen to me. I didn’t spend half of my life in US armed forces just to be insulted by some fry like you.”
“Now that’s just—“
“Shut the hell up when I’m talking! Do you even know what that means to have been stabbed right into the dignity? Oh, now you’re saying you didn’t mean anything by that? You really think you can go around just spewing words like that without any consequences? I have to admit, I am a great man, yes, and I will not let you make me any less of it. “
Then he proceeded to talk about how people like him are nothing, but just another target and his ability to literally wipe people from this Earth, but nobody listened anymore. He was all alone in the room. Nevertheless, he continued. ….

DEEP DOWN IN THE BOGS

deep down in the bogs something awoke
from yesterdays dream and crude remnant it rose
strata on strata of wet soil it did grope
from decades of sleep and millenia of foes.

what was it? what was it?

out of the blackness comes something advancing
breaching the surface with soundless enhancement
lifting its head over depths standing chanceless
the grave giving birth to the beast it abandoned.

what was it? what was it?

it shakes off the dirt from the shoulders it bore
steps into the night and the all-forsaken world
claws prancing the ground, teeth like noone before
noiselessly trotting through nature unfurled.

what was it? what was it?

there in the distance the village lights shining
there in their sleep is the prey soft reclining
the breath of the monster, though quiet, fast rising
its hungry advance through the night it was hiding.

what was it? what was it?
it was a new era

>>6453636
>I'm more of a scientific guy nahmsayin

OH, IT SHOWS QUENTIN, IT SHOWS

Friends, gamers, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury modders, not to praise them.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with modders. The noble Gaben
Hath told you modders were entitled:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath modders answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Gaben and the rest–
For Gaben is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in modding's funeral.
They were my friends, faithful and just to me:
But Gaben says they were entitled;
And Gaben is an honourable man.
They hath brought many mods home to Steam
Whose content did the general playtimes fill:
Did this in modders seem entitled?
When that the poor have cried, modders hath wept:
Entitlement should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Gaben says they were entitled;
And Gaben is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Steam Greenlight
I thrice presented them a kingly crown,
Which they did thrice refuse: was this entitled?
Yet Gaben says they were entitled;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Gaben spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love mods once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for them?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with modding,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

>>6453402
why?

The debt crisis effecting Greece today is the greatest economic collapse an European country has faced since World War Two. The original calamity began with the collapse of the US sub-prime mortgage industry in 2007-2008, which is now know as the Great Recession. Investors across the planet began to doubt the economic viability of markets, and buying slowed. Due to the economic pressure of the world and the poor performance of Greece's New Democracy Party; the Panhellenic Socialist Party (PASOK) won in the October, 2009 Greek Parliamentary election. The Party realizing that they were approaching dangerous levels of debt to GDP ratios published their full economic report to the European Union; showing that the Greek budget deficit forecasts for 2008 was 12.7% of GDP which was nearly double of the predicted 6% ratio. To put that in perspective the previous party, the New Democracy Party, stated a forecast that was three times less severe. This lead to rapid devaluing of Greek government bonds and Greek public and private industry, and are downgraded by Fitch, Standard and Poor's, and Moody's. By the end of 2010 the Greek Government had a credit rating of CCC, which was junk bond level. To avoid defaulting on their debt the Greek government was forced to accept loans with austerity measures attached to them; once in 2010, and a second in 2011.


I'm working on a paper regarding the Greek Debt Crisis. Could you just give a purely literary critique? Thanks guys.

I had nothing for this thread, so I just started typing and came up with this.

We sit beyond reach of infinity
The ocean-view positively reeks of
perfection
death
immoral acts of extreme love
our sighing forefathers cannot prepare
these dead words for your mouth
these shattering
burning
black
words that our gods died for
worlds that never should have been
as the eyes close in on us
as I hold your salt-stained fingers
the shrieking can not overwhelm me
the isolation cannot destroy me
the light cannot consume my
hopeless veins

>>6446571
What is this about?

a pretty high skied picture hangs
from the drifting bottom of wells
and somber rooms with empty guests,
those silhouettes of shattered light
that interrupt how bleak the corners,
how low beneath and high we stretch.
from a shifting seat according high
to a standard figure thrown nearby,
such that the dead and their like alike,
with sharing tombs in frightful night,
all equal share with forgetting soon
where lay bare we down under the moon.


but follow me hither, in the afterdream
where safe and still rest side by me
below which brings back yesterday,
in a broadback valley's image in grey,
a calm but prospering shadow at noon,
and introduce ourselves, so it begins.
to my loveliest a most the terrific you
that i dedicate better and make anew
an assembly of words that all can see,
private hooray and greatest victory,
to it that i make with justice more
for what i too lightly asked before.


proceed the creeping dawn of terror
and color my picnic a terrible mauve
then embrace the ascending cloud aloft
or take refuge, strewth, the incredible
takes grace in laughing at our escape,
and while you are the intangible string
that sets the heavens right and sends,
and a pretty eyed picture in the sky,
you haven't taught the world to paint
but peacefully settled as our manor
with practicing your palette and brush.
run by my eyes the colorful array
and strike me harder, for i'm a world,
marveling, complete in your glory.

>>6455663
Seems to be about a mad man, who thought that the Golden Gate is over a road.

>>6455663
Seems to be about a mad man, who thought that the Golden Gate was over a road.

>>6433606

Just started writing a short story. Would like some feedback.

edricwong.wordpress.com

Under a mass of clothes
There's things on my floor
Which I forgot were there

And on my dining room chair
There's a coat i once needed
Now my wallet lives there

There's just one thing
I have left outside my house
It's not my life

Or anything dramatic alike
It's just the key to this house
It wouldn't do to leave without

>>6435874
Simplify it, you don't need to supply unnecessary synonyms to some perfectly fine imagery.

Though the world professed its refusal to end by the virtue of quiet displays of activity, an event of irreversible ramifications had occurred just several years behind Thomas' present state. Agency, a lonely cumulus cloud theretofore performing his duty to a diversity of academics and professionals, had been chosen to hide the past, present, and future of our illusions. There was one condition, however: Agency must forfeit his conceptual identity. He must depart from the company of Passivity, Differentiation, Functionality, even Reflexivity. He cried when he thought he might never see Totality again, that most old and seasoned of abstractions, that mystical figure who had been torn through every form of torture and mutilation, but still managed to remain intact, omnipresent. Having said his goodbyes, Agency left his home and family (his grandmother Desire could be heard wailing from the speakers of the television set) for the pioneer land of compressed codices, omni-texts, inverted apostrophes, the ever-expanding vastness of surface-value, and the ever-shrinking spheres of density. Through the grace of a definite article, Agency was knighted (not yet crowned by capitalization), thereby given the gift of monolithic, impersonal pervasion.

>>6455688
For me, it's too abstract with so much going on in just one sentence it shows with the disjointed grammar.

Try stretching out the ideas that are already in a few lines, but into a couple of verses.

You might be able to make a few poems out of it all this way.

>>6454871
>The ocean-view positively reeks of
>perfection
I like this line a lot. The rest is flimsy.

note: made to be overtly ridiculous. copying the style of early beckett

Two and Two makes Four. Fours and Fives, ineluctably, regale the shelter of verminous sixths. Here he is, the sixth of the major waterside scale, a minor note: a nigger, or rather, the peccadillo of a bitch pickled by the Annapolis lifestyle: Jacob. A case of numbers, portside citizens: behold, a diurnal vivisection of the Annapolisian-African-American. Jacob collates four deal planks from the palette heaps, trusses shipping offals into prisms, two on each side; councils between his two lashed triangles on an avenue of Annapolis (quite comfortably); forces a tarpaulin veil over the honeycomb of the Two and Two two by fours; pawls corporeal ponderances, mans the crank of the Carmagnole, cranks the manhood of the Cardinal. The carnal engine guzzles clontarf. He drinks pissy hops from a crapulent cup. His gender engenders urucum blood in vicinity of sagging britches and brummagem whores. A penis hibernates in his pocket, and it is black.

Reader, behold this negroid diadem stuck in the craw of Northwest St., Annapolis Maryland. Does he swallow the town, or the town him?

(“fire stop thief help murer save the world”

what world?
Is it themselves these insects mean?
when microscopic shriekings shall have snarled
threads of celestial silence hunger than 5
eternity, men will be saviors
---flop
grasshopper,exactly nothing’s soon;
scream,all ye screamers,till your if is up
And vanish under prodigies of un) 10

“have you” the mountain,while his maples wept
air to blood,asked “something a little child
who’s just as small as me can do or be?”
god whispered him a snowflake “yes:you may
sleep now,my mountain” and this mountain slept 15

while his pines lifted their green lives and smiled.

>>6455863
everything is extremely underwhelming in this poem, and the "its not my life" is too blunt and doesnt fit with the tone of the poem
however,
There's a coat i once needed
Now my wallet lives there

these two lines are very good. cut everything else and start over.

>>6439968
suns don't widen over sees
.:last line was shit

>>6441092
ending seems redundant: you grasped the seconds but wait for your watch to wake you?
2nd stance seems unrelated

>>6442597
don't like the personification of snow... it's still mystical to us. words like "and" "the" are overused

>>6445746
you're stupid, dimly makes it sound musical. nice effect for sunlit workhouse.

I am beginning to alter, I hate my verses, every line,
every word, I am kind to my neighbors, I am not anyone
in particular, I am not a painter, I am a poet, I am sorry

that Che Guevara is dead, I asked for something to eat,
I asked if I should pray, I, Maximus of Gloucester,
to You, I can't live

blossoming drunk, I dream of nude policemen
investigating, I'd swish though the door, I dwell
in possibility, I keep my diamond necklace in a pond

of sparkling water, I myself like the climate of New York,
I celebrate myself (I pray you've finished) I celebrate myself
and sing myself, I look back to you, and cherish

what I wanted, I said: "The flowers in this light
are beautiful," I know the colour rose, and it is lovely, I know
I change, I see the winter turned around, I shout:

"I shall return," I lost you to water, summer, I wanted
to be sure to reach you, I will sleep, I will die
in Miami in the sun, I will grieve alone,

I have not ever seen my father's grave, I learned to be
honest, I will teach you my townspeople, I, the poet, I wake up
in your bed, I know I have been dreaming, you,

you also, Gaius Valerius Catullus, You, Andrew
Marvell, you blame me that I do not write, you love me,
you are sure, you send me your poems, you sit in a chair

touched by nothing, feeling, you've gotten in
through the transom, you come to fetch me
from my work tonight, you approach me carrying a book,

you who desired so much--in vain to ask, we talked
to each other about each other, we resolve to think of ourselves,
we take place in what we believe, we make our meek

adjustments, we must see, we must know, we live on the third world
from the sun, number three, nobody tells us what to do,
we shall have everything we want and there'll be no more dying

i'm surprised this has been going on for days now.

>>6456207
One of the worst LCT ever.

>>6453683
I like it except for "what was it" and the last line

>>6456403
Dolores is a great name

also it sucks

>>6456117
YOU ARE NOT A POET.

Would very much appreciate some input into the strength of the opening line.

-------------------------------

From across the waste, a shot rang out. In its wake a caped man stood swaying in the shade of a stack. Ahead, held in the eye of the torpid sun, a figure lay prone and unmoving. The cut had been executed not too long ago, but here in the stolid wilderness the fallen form had already conformed to the contours of the terrane.

The man in the cape chewed moistly on tobacco and stood watching the snake of discharged smoke slither vaguely from beyond his hip, unmasked by the darkness, to melt into blue. With a slow, reflective movement he tugged at his chin and then spat. His mouth was sour and the stench of gunpowder yet hung in the air. The chew had been a poor idea.

A shout came hollering from the distance and the caped man stood awhile in its aftermath hovering with his hand on the trigger and his ear to the wind. Again the bark entreated but this time he was ready for it, his gaze turning reflexively towards its origin. But for the curtailed whip of wind and gentle displacement of sand, the wasteland lay motionless. Holstering his weapon he turned on his heel and set off in the opposite direction with the sun arching beyond his back. Away from the shade of the stack the heat soaked him as though he were a lodestone, and his throat begged him as though he were its captor. Wiping his tongue against the roof of his mouth he ignored the plea, knowing it to be futile; the fallen had carried no canteen. That had become evident.

>>6456786

>from across the waste, a shot rang out

"A shot rang out from across the waste" would be a lot more effective I think. What's more stimulating: a silent waste, and THEN a gunshot or a gunshot that illuminates the wastes with a deafening blast?

>In its wake a caped man stood swaying in the shade of a stack.

the two in's make this sentence a bit onerous.
"In its wake" is a bit ambiguous, something like "A caped man stood in the shade of a stack with smoke rising from the barrel of his revolver" or something along those lines. Go your own way with it but that needs cleaning up.

I'm not gonna go line by line with this but you seem to have some issues with style. Read some of your stuff aloud and try to sense where knots are forming.

>>6456812
Thanks for the swift response.

>"A shot rang out from across the waste" would be a lot more effective I think. What's more stimulating: a silent waste, and THEN a gunshot or a gunshot that illuminates the wastes with a deafening blast?

I'm not sure I agree as to the stimulation, but it probably does read better that way. Thanks.

>the two in's make this sentence a bit onerous.
Yeah I'm not entirely happy with 'In its wake', but I'm loathe to make it too explicit. Would
>In the wake of the sound a caped man...
read any better?

>Read some of your stuff aloud and try to sense where knots are forming

As in where it doesn't read well? Could you elaborate at all?

I appreciate the effort, thank you.

>>6454702
it's "a European" not "an European"

>>6454702
>>6454702

You should be analysing these things not listing the narrative of historical events. "calamity" is a childish word. You've misused a semi-colon in the fourth sentence. You've miss a comma after "The Party". You've misspelled "known". You've missed a comma after "GDP ratios". "Dangerous levels of debt to GDP ratios" is poor because of the clash of the pluralised levels and ratios. Again you've misused a semi-colon after "European Union" (a clause must be able to stand by itself after a semi-colon, unless it's contained within a list). "double of the" is redundant and retarded, change it to "double the". "To put that in perspective" is a tired cliché. "rapid devaluing" would read better as "rapid devaluation". The polysyndeton of "Government bonds and Greek public and private industry" makes it read like Cormac McCarthy fanfiction. "And are downgraded by Fitch ..." does not make sense, since you are describing 2008, which is in the past, so the bonds "were" downgraded not "are" downgraded. Missed a comma after 2010. "which was junk bond level" reads like it was written by a child. Missed a comma after "debt". You finally misused a semi-colon again in the final sentence, in this instance a colon is appropriate.

Your primary-school-level grammar notwithstanding, the essay reads like a BBC news article. The purpose of an essay is to elucidate about a subject, analyse casual factors and the interpretations of others. You have simply listed facts, much like a young child would do, e.g. "WWII began in 1939. America did not join until 1941. This was because Pearl Harbour was attacked by Japan." In my critique I have attempted to emulate your style to draw attention to your failings. It is unnecessary to make every sentence a short sentence. You may find that, if you begin to vary the sentence length, throw in some commas, interweave clauses and adapt the strength of each sentence to its position in its respective paragraph, the essay will begin to read like it was produced by a University student, rather than the stunted ramblings of someone who posts a picture of a Japanese cartoon with the filename "twinkdicks.jpg".

>>6457216
>>6454702

BTFO
T
F
O

>>6456861
1/2
not the guy you replied to, but some other random anon. I suspect you're into people like Cormac McCarthy and gene wolfe based on the extract, and I'd go further and say you once liked sci-fi and fantasy and Stephen king until you reached about 18 and started to see them as 'unpatrish'. this is not meant as an insult, but as a way of helping you find your voice. what is it about the prose of the people you really like that makes it good? going off my rather baseless assumptions of McCarthy, take an extract like the legion of horribles:

“A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained wedding veil and some in headgear or cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a Spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses' ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse's whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen's faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.”

why do I see this as beautiful? is it the fact that it's a single sentence? is it the heavy reliance on Anglo-Saxon and latinate vocabulary instead of franco/Greco, in order to stimulate both the archaic old-timey world and the emotive 'now'? is it McCarthy's references to history and the display of his erudition, such as the conquistadors and breastplates? is it the subtle introspection on the nature of humanity, and the "bones [that] are now dust"? is it the extended clauses that arise from the rapid conjunctions, "or..or...or" "and...and...and"? all or none of these things may be why it's beautiful, and you may not find it so. nonetheless, there is a pattern to his work, there is a rhythm and a flow in his writing; it knows where it's going, he has a "voice".

>>6457269
2/2


all good authors have it: Nabokov has the sensual and esoteric semi-aristocratic detached perspective, fitzgerald has the opulent yet paradoxically simplistic language of an emotionally-repressed 20s high-flier, rushdie writes with a mix of academic british irony and the sincerity of eastern appeals to nature, butterflies, the ocean and the sky. whatever it is, the voice is a unique concept, and in order to work out what yours is, I'd recommend you find the author whose prose you most enjoy (nothing else matters, I for instance think toni Morrison writes beautiful prose but I hate her works), copy out some passages you particularly like, and try to really focus on what it is that you like, whether that's the syntax, the word choice, the strength and emotion of the order of sentences, or simply the rhythm. from this, try to replicate, it, and then see where your natural instincts want to take you, perhaps write stream of consciousness (a good thing to do is to write about nature, as this will be without melodrama). then you can find your voice.

>>6457272
rushdie is an awful writer

>>6457216
Thanks anon, I appreciate the critique.

>>6457352
thank you for that opinion friend

>>6457360
you're welcome
reading it back, I didn't intend for it to come across as so harsh, sorry

>>6448818
>>6448820

Can someone comment about my shit?

>>6457402
put in the effort to proofread it first and I might put in the effort to critique it

>>6457269
>>6457272
1/2

I've not read any Wolfe, but yes as I was working on this I became aware that it was almost Cormac-lite -- not something that was a conscious decision.

I wouldn't say it's particularly indicative of my normal style. Though, as with all of my writing, it is heavily 'constructed' and perhaps that is something that you, and the other anon, are getting at. I find it difficult to write something and let it be.

Is the rhythm so far off then? That is something that I generally try to strive for in all my writing, and feel like I usually get close to achieving it, but my knowledge of poetry is poor and I feel like this is something that holds me back.

I'll post an example of something that I would consider more closely resembles my 'voice' in the next post.

I'd appreciate it if you could let me know whether you think it suffers from the same affliction.

Thanks

>>6457474
2/2

But for the baying of the sea, the world had fallen silent. It had become, or had always been, a haunt for spectres and phantoms. And Ophelia, a pale slip in the moonlight, felt little exception.

As though an echo she had returned to places of note, drawn not by logic but something more elusive; a thread unwinding from the hem of her dress that she followed to and beyond lost locations, focused entirely on the evanesce of the silvery wisp.

Despite the undisturbed nature of the island, the trail she took was well worn into her mind, and she had returned to the spot where her home had once been or would be, to where she would lay her head and watch the stars, to the small patch once round the back where an old nag would bristle and bridle as the sun fell and now the grass grew knee-high.

Then in search of something else she had left her erstwhile home and ghosted through the shade of a foreign copse, where there once was or would be towering rows of maize rising in proclamation to the sun, through to the edge of developed woodland that thronged from the heart of the island, and then swept past as though winged, beyond sedate does and curious bucks, who either did not see her or did not suspect her, to come eventually upon the western bay, where the golden beach spread wide like the wing of an eagle, to slow to a standstill with her ankles cooled by the surf and her toes sunken in the sand watching the horizon for a sail or prow.

From there she swung back, following the rise of the bay and sworn by the thread, to mount the cliffs of which her inaugural, prescient climb had lead inexplicably to this moment and now seemed an aeon ago. She felt weightless, drifting up the ascent as though vaporous, her tread so soft in the flower-starred meadow that the grass refused to bow to her passage. As she came to the top, where the bluff plateaued and the flora thinned, she fell to a dreadful stop, unaware of having been steered, let alone forsaken.

Here now, with the breeze a swarm of sprites whispering lies, she rocked on the edge of doom, listening for the imperceptible twinges of her heart. To fall seemed appropriate, circular, a prophesised end. Yet, something held her back; perhaps the phantom clutch of Glaucus, persistent like an ectoplasmic imprint from occasions old, where he was so often firm that his faith had worn into the fabric of time.

>>6457480
this is amazing

>>6457414

>>6457480
pretentious but promising.

This is a poem I'm working on, and don't know whether to round it off with a couplet to make it into a sonnet, or to keep going and explore the theme slightly more:

Atop the hill, where still we witness suns
In dying throes, he stands, regarding not
A bruising sky - a fracture of ink blots -
But casting down his eyes to quiet towns.

As shadows lengthen, dragging out themselves
Across the swaying grass, the windows flare,
Defiant rage against a dying glare,
He wonders of what stories lights could tell.

In bedrooms, lying under duvet sheets,
Where nightly promises are made again,
Still hidden there, behind old curtain frames,
The lonely ones, together drift to sleep.

>>6457486
Th-Thanks anon.

>>6457535
Better than pretentious and unpromising I suppose. Thanks.

>>6457536
make it 600 lines long please
it's good tho I like "suns in dying throes"

>>6457559
Thanks, anything that you would change?

Bump

Two men were looking at a house.
The house had three windows; two were darkened by night; light emerged from the other; it gleamed on the front-yard evergreen shrub. A distant modal jazz flagrance could be caught floating with the occasional gust of wind. Truly, the men were confortable under the night sky, standing on a small, healthy grass patch. No, it was their minds that felt uncomfortable, their overstimulated brains spinning furiously inside their masked heads.
As a matter of fact, these fellows had a plan, carefully concocted over the course of the last three weeks. Said plan involved hoods, knives, a locksmith and running shoes. The items acquired, it was finally time to proceed; interrupting their ceremonious onlooking, the two figures approached their destination. It felt as if no one was around — as a matter of fact, no one was. Door opened with great care. Men entering said doorway. Look down: men not wearing shoes. Part of the plan; leaves their step silent as a turk. Ceramic feels cold on bare feet. Blurred sound of television from somewhere, left resounding elsewhere. Rapidly fading in the dark corridor corners.
Two men reached the bedroom door.
Two men’s stares met.
One’s eyesight was saying: “If we must go onwards, it is our destiny that we will never see the world in the same way again.
The other’s was quoting Socrates’ Apology: “If you had waited but a little while, this would have happened of its own accord. You see my age, that I am already advanced in years and close to death.”
The other’s eyes blinked in agreement: “This is the reason the first had to be elderly. It’s only rational.”
Their eyes had no telepathic connection and none of the four could quote Plato; but, for an attentive onlooker, this is what could have been glimpsed through them.
The door slid and the air stood still. The masons could be said to have greatly contributed on the execution of this plan (this thought passed through one of the two silhouettes’ mind: he mentally noted to send a thank you letter at the builders’ attention).
Like a pastoral yell from God, the old woman snored. A sign, a declaration, a holy decree. The eleventh commandment, immediately imprinted onto their inner, cancelling any and all justice. Acting up and crashing down, thunderous, a decrescendo of nasal sound waves pulsing, exciting. Murder could be justified in purgatorio, as it had been for hundreds of year by the Church. Surely God understands His own messengers’ work and witnesses Himself through it. The resounding, intermittent sights were the final justification for murder, proposed by the old woman herself.
The knives came out and the yelling began. The eye-rolling, sight-inducing, overacted yelling they had only heard in movies.
Two men were looking at the inevitable, smiling.

I've had this poem stuck in my head for a while now but I just cant seem to make it click; its far too repetitive

Twas when I gazed upon the lead,
For all the troubles I had bred.
I looked upon a bag of lies,
The stars did fall on idle eyes.

When fathers born and dead did cry,
For knees against the dirt of crime.
I looked upon a bag of lies,
The stars did fall on idle eyes.

Look with glee, all works are seen,
For many lives had come to be.
I looked upon a bag of lies,
The stars did fall on idle eyes.

Of all the dead and dying still,
Those men that did do battle ill.
I looked upon their bags of lies,
And to my eyes the stars did shine.

Had this rattling around in my head for a while but I think its too repetitive. Critique?
messed up the copy and paste in my deleted post

When I gazed upon the lead
I looked upon a bag of lies
For all the troubles I had bred
The stars did fall on idle eyes

When fathers born and dead did cry
I looked upon a bag of lies
For knees against the dirt of crime
The stars did fall on idle eyes

Look with glee, all works are seen
I looked upon a bag of lies
For many lives had come to be
The stars did fall on idle eyes

Those men that did do battle ill
I looked upon their bags of lies
Of all the dead and dying still
And to my eyes the stars did shine

>>6457692
Too repetitive and boring.

>>6457671
Alright writing, good premise. Work on it a bit.

>>6457728
>Too repetitive and boring.
eh, fair enough

>>6457758
i liked it m8

>>6457809
well thanks

>>6457692
While I like the meter, it is definitely forced in some places:
>And to my eyes the stars did shine
just sounds *way* too forced.

Also, it is very repetitive; I feel like you should try a villanelle if you like repetitiveness.

First paragraph of a short story I'm writing:


No one expected the news that Professor Michael Kay was found dead in a hotel room one Wednesday morning. It was ruled a suicide without much difficulty, an assortment of empty bottles of over-the-counter medication and strewn pills covering the table beside the bed where he lay rather less than peacefully in death. It took some time for the police to know whom to contact; it was about a day and a half after the maid found him before the news reached those who knew him. One could, I suppose, accuse me of a rather cold lack of affect in how I've reported all this so far, the death of a man: how undramatic and procedural it's all sounded. Professor Kay had one or two close friends, it's true, and the oldest of these might even have wept owing to the news. His ex-wife may have felt an odd sense of irrecoverable lose -- if not a stinging emotional paid, an uneasy ache at least. His brother, though they were not the very best of friends, surely was kept up that night with sad thoughts of their happy memories. But our Michael Kay's life was of such a prosaic quality throughout that one could do his death no less justice than by a colorful and excited account of it.

>>6456441

it's a poem from the 2003 winner of the william carlos williams prize

>confirmed for not knowing shit about poetry

Fix this sentence.

>Since the denouement of the Second World War and the liberation of the concentration camps throughout Europe by the Allied forces, the question has frequently been asked whether or not the United States did enough throughout the war to aid the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

lend forth your hand should we mightily grasp
upon this another us. part we never but pair,
should we evermore share then a binding chain (of heaven).
listen me hear, wide and grope too low a fruitful,
the tender hand, not seize, but gently cradle
a quixotic you - my own together, a sought, beloved haven.
commemorate me this memory not, and climb us both the obelisk
a terrible cycle disserves our plight, our monsters grow awakening
and the vortex churns from bottom-most up a horrible, endless hurricane,
a spectacular sight from the nightmare ruptures all our hopes apart.
without to kneel, there's no feigning prayer
and one grown in manhood dares never descend,
for to wrestle oafs and put horrors at bay
or a dwelling too long among evils bend
what affording the touch of loving she my like
the abominable flesh, not inflicting psyche
for solace in each would dissolution cost
though we cannot forget (lest an either is lost).
then the manner hastily we ascend this still
and your tremulous, dimming voice, love, hurts
and reverberates out through the chamber thrill,
gives rise, then a cascade of tears outbursts.
their breadth tenfold our bodies' width
and radiant fear from strength strikes awe
and we're the inventors, and imprisoned here
both for transgressions of another's law,
they wither us cold and throttled the cage.
vain life, and yet more their pursuit grows vain
as we near our false picture in the hemisphere
but fall below trembling

>>6458775
>whether or not
>or not

>>6459497
?

>>6455937

at times a bit overwritten (even for a Beckett imitation (Beckett's one of my top boys)), but ultimately very promising and fun to read.

I'm re-writing a rejected story, but I'm unsure if I should keep 'fixing' it or into the trash it goes.

This was the second paragraph:
http://pastebin.com/KfXiD9s7

and this is the new version:
http://pastebin.com/gSxdKh9Z

Any thoughts?
Is it better or should I wipe my ass with both of them?

>>6457576
end it right there, it's ill

or the couplet if you're shakespeare

>>6457480
>prophesised
you fucking rookie

>>6456786
the waste needs more description, if not also the shot.

>>6459761
Kolsti go

>>6460135
I won't go (just because you want to (who are you anyway?))

>>6460024
the second is definitely better but the voice is still unnatural. trying reading it aloud to see what i mean.

>>6457692
try rewriting this as a villanelle and i think you will be more successful

>>6460146
Okay you're obviously not Kolsti. Your parentheses nesting is sloppy.

>>6460622
>the second is definitely better but the voice is still unnatural. trying reading it aloud to see what i mean.
I kinda understand what you mean since reading it aloud sounds a bit odd, but I'm not sure how to make it sound more natural...

>>6460625
I dis(agree) with (you) my (nesting) is not sloppy (fck u).

>>6460665
You're a poor imitation.

>>6457942
First line, I suggest changing "news that" to "news when", but that's just my two-cents. Possibly that first comma to a semi-colon as rather than listing two ideas you're supporting the former with the latter part of your sentence, like you did a little later. The comma might be more appropriate, I just wanted to suggest it to you. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Other than that the only critique I really have is flow in the writing sort of becomes less fluid between sentences as the paragraph progresses. Not a big deal though, and I like the approach you've taken when 'speaking' about what is going on. Perhaps it's lack of audible pause that makes some of the sentences flow strangely when I read them. Particularly when you go on to describe the two closest to him, the jump to his brother sort of seems to come from no where, but I understand the progression fine, so you get your point across.

It's interesting, though. I'm not particularly well-read amongst others on here, but I hope my opinion helps or satisfies you.

>>6459447
bump.

>>6461228
>>6459447
excessive. stop using expensive words, simplify your imagery, and ground your metaphors in the concrete and specific

>>6460071
Cheers nigga

>>6460091
Thank you for pointing that out, I may never have known.

>>6433606
"Are you there God? Its me, Cannabis."
-----
I woke up today and listened to the song “I Drive Your Truck” by Lee Brice. It is as sappy as could be. I would tell you I hated country music if you asked. I lie.

22 American Military Veterans die a day from suicide. I have heard reasons why the statistics may not be perfect but imagine.

Picture 22 people you love. Dead. Right now.

Sometimes when I smoke I wonder if the vapors reach Gd because I guess my tears don’t.

Gd is the best at listening to questions. Gd answers them all, but they are never the answers we expect.

I don’t consider myself a person from a “military family” but my grandfather on my mom’s side was born to poverty in Peoria, Illinois. He went to high school in Utica, NY. He joined the Marines after Pearl Harbor and after the war was over went to Yale and then Harvard Law all courtesy of the GI bill. I suppose I owe much of my ability to sit here on a fancy Macbook to his sacrifices.

Back to suicide.

When 2003 came about, I didn’t know why we were at war. I still don’t know why. I stopped watching the news when every night they would end a broadcast with a silent montage of names and pictures of those killed in action. What goes through your head when you watch your friends die and you have so much guilt that you die inside and out?

The U.S. only recently started handing out Purple Heart medals to those killed by “friendly fire” aka their own allies in battle, dating back to Vietnam. A man whose entire helicopter crew was killed, now finally receives some peace, decades later, in knowing his courage under fire was not in vain.

Is mine? Am I fighting? Am I helping? Why are people dying Gd? I may not have served in battle, I know not what its like to have your life fall apart like a house of cards made of lies, fear, and courage.

If I make sure that all veterans have access, safe access, to medical cannabis have I done my job?

22 people.

Where are they now?

i'm not very good at critique but i'll try:

>>6459447
maybe i'm just stupid, but why a lot of the phrases are fragmented?
> listen me hear
> upon this another us
> my own together
obviously you did this on purpose... well, anyhow, it kind of creates an abstract tone that i appreciate it, and myself i dont think it has too many "expensive words," unless you were trying to sound intelligent which i think you aren't because you definitely don't sound like a total amateur. ok that was unhelpful but i tried

>>6462714
i'm assuming "Gd" means "God"...
honestly im not a huge fan. im not saying you *were* but it *sounds* like you're trying to sound deep. you have some good starts, like the beginning on line 2, which had me expecting some sort of interesting observation, but i dont really feel like line 3 delivered on that - it's too "in your face". and obviously you weren't going for subtlety, but throwing out one-dimensional statements doesn't really create that "abrasively honest" vibe it sounds like you were going for. the little autobiographical part could work if done better, but right now it just feels tangential to me...

next comment is my own lil' thing i wrote for my book :)

>>6463028

this is pretty out of context but still. the character doesn't want to accept that he's fallen in love with a man whose nickname is Sin.

Or so it goes, moaning pleasure in my ear late last night – no crime, but treason? not unless I make the fatal admission, no-no-no the lie, the lie! – oh yes, even with one hand in her hair, another with fingers like teeth grazing her navel, I thought only of Sin, sacred Sin in silent repentance, the face of man vs. boy, the dichotomy of which… what side am I on? Even now – especially now – what breed of man am I? None, just a child again, just a little curious toddler toying with her nipples, fingers exploring between her legs – what does this button do? what do you hide in this pocket? – oh, a hiding place indeed, when I moved inside of her… only to hide? No, no – no fear, no secret, no mystery – this is home; we are home!

ただいま! Please, please! Let it be home! ただいま!

>>6463047
After the ellipses is good if unoriginal, before the ellipses is bad and really unoriginal.

>>6463054
i'll take it, but just out of curiosity what does it sound like it's copying, if you say it's unoriginal?

>>6463063
It's like if one of Shakespeare's crazier characters had a short monologue in a Spanish soap opera.

>>6461709
What about simplifying the imagery, when I'm aiming at an organic sort of complexity? I'll admit, though, I may have expended a whole lot of expensive words in my lexicon, but only because I had to confuse people not to adhere to the meaning I'm trying to express. What, I could easily ground what I'm attempting to describe in actual events, but I sort of tried crossing the barrier and now it's like I intended to obfuscate the imagery. Also, the verbosity, that even I don't necessarily like.

The intention was with experimenting in language. I think I did a horrible job, considering everything you said. Would you care, at least, to tell me your general impression? I'd like that the most.

You autists will definitely hate this but here it is anyway.
_______
It was, in a sense, progress. Maybe Wilhelm and his peers merely feared it because they like all outmoded obsolete relics of a bygone age would be destroyed, discarded, or put on display in museums when the waves of advancement began lapping at their toes. It was the sort of malaise that could not be understood by those upstanding normal citizens who had nothing to do with any of it, and have had their minds warped by any number of Weapons Of Peace. The perspectives of those who saw Holocaust and Holodomor, blockade and blitz, Gravity’s Rainbow and Enola Gay, in social injustices such as the plight of women and the LGBT community as well as civil unrest involving mostly nonviolent protests following racially based incidents of police brutality, could never be reconciled with those who fondly reminisced of concentration camps and gulags, massacres and missile strikes, hand to hand combat and torture as things which bore a quaint romanticism when compared to the updated forms of guerilla warfare and convoluted counterintelligence principles of this brave new world, this perpetually beeping digital purgatory that had superseded their simpler more familiar clockwork one.

>>6444106
>>6448059

P-please?

Or maybe some more words on this thing:

>>6433709

>>6463370
Have you noticed that you have a pattern of using two redundant adjectives before the subject of your sentences (outmoded obsolete, upstanding normal). It creates a kind of boring cadence. You should also probably break the last sentence up and could easily remove some of the examples without compromising the point.

Lying down on the train tracks,
I pucker my lips and kiss the rails,
squinting at the metallic taste.
It begins to rumble softly,
building, growing louder and louder,
until I must embrace the rail
with all my limbs like a rodeo bull,
and ignore the whistling onset
of some one-eyed beast down the way
who is bound like a tornado
to change direction any time now–
any time now will do.

an excerpt from something I'm working on...tear me to shreds /lit/

Being a dog person unlike the Dr. Moreau variety, he couldn't help but notice a certain burrito shaped pug wandering the sidewalks without a leash on his walk from school. At first, it appeared that this beige, scraggly, evidently ancient pig-tailed pug, bulgy, cataract ridden eyes, hanging tongue and all, panted and trotted unaccompanied like some Detroit-bred homeless man who got lost and accidentally took the Greyhound bus to New York City–though I can't be sure if I've ever actually encountered such a man. But after looking at this ridiculous, densely packed hand-roll of a quadruped for a few moments, I noticed that an equally elderly specimen (that of a woman) was chaperoning it. She walked deftly in front of both me and the dog with her hands resting interlocked behind her back. Every few seconds or so she would turn her head towards the inbred companion, beckoning for it to hurry, but to also presumably ensure that it doesn't cluelessly find its way under a bevy of traffic. Just before I passed the delightful duo, I observed the AARP recipient lower to one knee and endearingly pat her lovable pug's head three times before standing up and continuing to walk–compacted affection.

All in all, he probably only spent a total of 45 seconds watching these two symbiotic friends make their way about the city, but he relished every instant. The thought of how much happiness that dog brought to that woman put a smile on his face that could only be rivaled by the thought of its near, inescapable death. While, the thought of her death impacted him much less; it seemed like her dog represented the only family she had any more, like it was the only thing still dependent on her in any way, the only thing validating her use as a human, as anything. A flash of theoretical family members, personal histories, tragedies and celebration flashed before his mind's eye, but to entertain each and everyone would have been exhausting and above all, depressing: such is life. Then, he grabbed a coffee before returning home, and in remembering that he owed Zdravko a considerable amount of money, he went back to the library.

an excerpt from something I'm working on...tear me to shreds /lit/

Being a dog person unlike the Dr. Moreau variety, he couldn't help but notice a certain burrito shaped pug wandering the sidewalks without a leash on his walk from school. At first, it appeared that this beige, scraggly, evidently ancient pig-tailed pug sporting bulgy, cataract ridden eyes, a hanging tongue and all, panted and trotted unaccompanied like some Detroit-bred homeless man who got lost and accidentally took the Greyhound bus to New York City–though he can't be sure he's ever actually encountered such a man. But after looking at this ridiculous, densely packed hand-roll of a quadruped for a few moments, he noticed that an equally elderly specimen (that of a woman) was chaperoning it. She walked deftly in front of both me and the dog with her hands resting interlocked behind her back. Every few seconds or so she would turn her head towards the inbred companion, beckoning for it to hurry, but to also presumably ensure that it doesn't cluelessly find its way under a bevy of traffic. Just before he passed the delightful duo, he observed the AARP recipient lower to one knee and endearingly pat her lovable pug's head three times before standing up and continuing to walk–compacted affection.

All in all, he probably only spent a total of 45 seconds watching these two symbiotic friends make their way about the city, but he relished every instant. The thought of how much happiness that dog brought to that woman put a smile on his face that could only be rivaled by the thought of its near, inescapable death. While, the thought of her death impacted him much less; it seemed like her dog represented the only family she had any more, like it was the only thing still dependent on her in any way, the only thing validating her use as a human, as anything. A flash of theoretical family members, personal histories, tragedies and celebration flashed before his mind's eye, but to entertain each and everyone would have been exhausting and above all, depressing: such is life. Then, he grabbed a coffee before returning home, and in remembering that he owed Zdravko a considerable amount of money, he went back to the library.

>>6463465
predictable language at the start, but everything after "rodeo bull" is not so bad

Ayoo lemme tell you a story guys
This is about a person that always lies
He lies to everyone, to his mothers and fathers
That doesn't make him any more penis

>>6463541
First sentence needs to be pruned. Good description there, but it flows poorly and starts to meander near the end. Do the whole "read it out loud to yourself" thing and see if that helps. I also feel the Dr. Moreau reference here is either misplaced or needlessly obscure. Only being aware of the Island of Dr. Moreau through the film, I couldn't tell you which. You're describing the dog as a kind of monstrosity of inbreeding, so the reference is not totally out of place, but it adds nothing to the description and actually confuses what comes after a little.

Second sentence is good, though I'd replace "But" with "It was only".

"Bevy" does not parse with "traffic" as bevy is a collective noun while traffic is always used in the singular. "Rush" would work in place of bevy or "cars" in the place of traffic.

By the end of the first paragraph, your prose is starting to feel a little purple. There are many unnecessary adjectives that can be pruned but that's not the central issue. What it really needs is some variation in the cadence. Short action sentences between the long expository ones, and you don't need an adjective, much less two, before every noun. You also don't need to find a different word every time you describe the woman, as this is unneccesarily unclear. Just don't call her "the old woman" every single time.

Paragraph 2, sentence one, "all in all" and "a total of" are redundant. Pick just one. No comma after the "while" in sentence 2. Actually, "while" probably isn't the right word there. It sounds like you're going for "strangely" or something similar? Same with "use as a human". "Use" in this case is subtly different from, say, "purpose" or "value". "Everyone" should be "every one" in the second to last sentence. Second paragraph flows a lot better than the first.

I like the overall feel of the excerpt. Within the context of a larger piece, I can't speak to its relevance. It seems like something of a minor aside and you should be sure it contributes to themes or characterization or tone. But it's novel and it's funny and a little bit poignant, which are all good things.

The house itself was not, on the whole, remarkable. It looked as though it had been built by hand, or at least without the aid of an architect, and it was in a state of repair which Sarah, after careful deliberation, decided to call "salvageable". The vivid blue-green paint on the wood siding was beginning to peel in places, and the color itself bespoke a previous homeowner whose tastes were decidedly grounded in the less timeless sensibilities of the 1970s. A walk-through of the house confirmed this suspicion. Each room had been decorated with a different gaudy patterned wallpaper, the pea greens and almond browns fading now into less dramatic and altogether uglier shades. The realtor seemed defensive about it. Her hands kept gravitating to her face, and her speech was just slightly pressured. She used words like "fixer-upper" and "flip". It was hard for Sarah not to notice that sort of thing. She wished momentarily that the realtor would leave.

And yet, Sarah could see that the bones of the house were strong. The floors, despite their age, were made of beautiful polished hardwood, which never squeaked when she walked across it. And when she turned on the taps, after a brief groaning and coughing, they splashed a cold, clear water which the realtor assured her came from an on-site spring.
Its charms, Sarah decided, were not in the structure of the house itself but in its context. It seemed less like the house had been built in the woods and more like it had grown there. Its form seemed to blend in with the trees around it. The long, winding gravel drive settled into the nearby landscape as a creekbed might: organically, and in accordance with the laws of gravity and wear.

Repairing the thing would, Sarah reflected, require a great deal of expense, which of course was not a problem. It would also require a lot of time, and this gave her pause. Would it do to languor the weeks or months it would take to renovate? What would she do? For a moment, she imagined herself doing the work alone. A kerchief holding her chestnut hair back, sunlight streaming in through the window as she paused from scraping away the abysmal wallpaper in the living room to brush a solitary bead of sweat from her forehead. But as much as the idea appealed to her, fit snugly into the theme of the whole enterprise she had taken on, Sarah did not know the first thing about home renovations, and so she interrupted the realtor in her most politely assertive voice to ask if she might perhaps know any good contractors in the area.

i don't see another thread for these kinds of questions but:

How do I write realistic dialogue if I'm a socially retarded outcast who hasn't had a meaningful conversation with a person in years.

and
How do I make the description of someone being run over by a car as long as possible?

>>6464737
Read American Psycho and your questions will be answered.

Writing shit poetry for my English class, here's a four liner about the rape of nanjing

Nippon's folded carbon steel
In Nanjing killed a fifth million
But of what use is a soldier's sword
If used only on the civilian?

I know it's badly worded, some pointers would be much appreciated

>>6464824
4/10, almost made me stifle a kek

Last time I will bother you guys asking for criticism on this:

>>6433709
>>6444106

Hope that eventual readers like the material.

Near midnight we were laying down at the school roof when we found ourselves covered, to the point we could utter no word, by the noise of the people coming out of the last lectures of the day.

Penny, my retarded blonde classmate, accepted coming to the roof with me in order to have a friendly talk, and lord, she did talk. She talked more than I have talked in my whole life, I could swear at some point that I was hearing two voices, one from her mouth and one from her pussy, the latter apparently trained by her so she could avoid wasting her valuable time reserved to suck hairy balls and do some talk with it as well. Penny the retarded blonde, retardenny as many fugly girls like call her often, was not brought to the roof to do some silly talking, but to get her involved in a systematic act of seduction by that gentleman, id est: me, that's willing to do her a favor and give her the change of letting something smart come of her mouth, e.g: my cock and hairy blue balls.

"'Cause y'know, the gals can't git it."
"I know..."
"And she said that her dad was going to..." started Penny in a sentence inspired by Molly's internal-eternal monologue.

"Do yo know what hour is it?" I asked with a sexy voice
"Like, twelve or somethin' I think"
"No. Now it's cock time."
"Uh?" she asked, wearily
"SATAN GUIDE MY COCK!" I screamed

And my shaft grew as big as the Eiffel tower, hitting the building walls with a *pff* and the moving, just like a neat pendulum, from side to side in a peaceful movement.

"JAPANESE GOLDEN RAIN!"

And it came out to bath all mankind with my golden rain.

Here is my latest story.
http://a-s-arthur.tumblr.com/post/117575695346/ice-cream-trucks
Apologies for the tumblr link. Go wild.

>any good?
Standing in
The hospital. I barely knew
Him. You're living off the wait
On your shoulders. It's breaking you.
A forced smile succeeds at extending
His life. I feign help with some late
Condolences. I'm stuck pretending.

Lots of good critiques in this thread so I'd better throw mine in. Be harsh.

__

They dismounted their bikes at the other side of the road and began along the dirt path that ran through the dry-grass paddock that by-passed the highway. They road this trail every morning on their way to school and they knew it well enough to know that they did not know it during the night, so they walked with their bikes at their side. The path was their last and easiest obstacle; it took them far from the curious ears of the suburbs and led directly to their destination. Much further along its course it ran along-side the school and they could see that it was no different at night-time but both thought that it might still be fun to walk where they walked all the time but at night. They decided that they would on the way back and that the girls might come with them and maybe they could find something to do in there with no one watching. The path eventually ended in the middle of the paddock and at their feet was a crossroads of countless directions formed by children of all purposes going one way or another, each path eventually disappearing into the paddock not walked upon nearly enough to remain. Like many would before and after, they pressed on through the paddock and into the dry-grass. It scratched their legs and drew blood but they would not realize until later, for now the pain blended into the irritation of the grass and into numbness after long enough of walking.

bit of free verse i just came up with

you once told me that your friend had had it
too much lifestyle
got to his head
now he lives with his parents
on a couch that smells of himself

i get insecure
listening to your past
jesus christ i feel sick
but i want to hear more
because it makes me hard
fucking diamonds
thinking of you
with someone else

especially that time
you said you tasted a girl
you licked her cunt
but you clutched remembering it.
it didn’t reassure me
because i wanted that with you
I wanted to watch whilst you enjoyed her
I wanted to sit and jerk off and watch
but i love you i do
i don’t want to cheapen it
don’t sully this thing we have

but i still can’t get out of my head
that time you said you’d like it
find it hot
get you going
to see me fuck someone else
and now my thoughts are polluted
with images of it taking place

sometimes I wish i could go back to the time
the time before porn
before i became warped
where being on top or underneath
was enough.

>>6466872
Despite it being cliche as fuck, I really enjoyed this. Refine your prose and write within the frame of poetic rhythm and you could be a really good poet.

>>6434058
Requesting for the last time a serious critique, please.

Jackson
"Jax" the 50th the 3rd was patrolling the anchorbay of the Hudson 13. The Hudson 13 was a strange ol' ship, the strangest to ever sail the stars. After the Martian Rupture of 3239, the galaxy was a much more peaceful place. The Martian Rupture was a space exploration catastrophe, and is the reason why nobody is allowed in space for longer than a single hour. Planetary law instated by GUPO has an automated off switch implanted into all of the ship's engines, after one hour of documented space time the ships are shut off and must be recovered. Jax was one of the few brave souls who, in a single hour, must carry out deadly rescue missions to rescue the poor sods who'd been stranded. Jax was currently investigating the strange noises radiating from his ship's anchor bay, he had forty minutes left.
-
=
I got a 100% on it

>>6434058
>>6468757

I read it through out loud and really enjoyed it. My only only suggestion is that lines 33, 42, 46, 61, 82, 90-94, and 116 need some work. Other than that, really enjoyable reading.

4-28
Drape-ed en black
she carries the sun on her
skirt traipsing against legs
and hair drummed from foam of waves.

How calm a nap in her shadow
must be!
and to swelter in such words
as lips with smiles

lasting longer than a season
that so every ground she walks
must show her
always twice.

>>6435883

/R/ING FEEDBACK FOR LISTEN TIME BETTER THREAD GOES DOWN

PLS ANY1

>>6451716
>...bending on a 45 degree angle inward one and a half feet from the floor on both sides.