/lit/ - Literature

http://pastebin.com/JxZ55RHa

need critique, especially for the second half.

I don't usually do scifi, but here you go. For a
short story contest on a forum, two chemists
(married) discover a compound that transforms
them. Pretty standard crackerjack stuff

The city had been aimed, and on the bus ride home I'd only felt I were in a series of photographs. Worse, I was taking them--every hour was only Moriyama or Winogrand to me. And suddenly my outstretched leg became a most evocative gesture, taking up the evening frame of the interior.

>>6599061
>http://pastebin.com/JxZ55RHa
Have some punctuation problems, can easily be fixed up.

You have a good sense of stylization, but don't have me reading a picture book. I just recommend more experience on outside, to better fill in your descriptions. There are characters in what your trying to describe, but they're filled in by a derivative vernacular.

>>6599071
I've read this before, figuratively. I feel like every paragraph is a shot in a film, but they never dissolve into the elements of a scene.

It feels like an intimate scene. Measure it. Not so much purple. Let the reader fill in.

>>6599061
>>6599117

>>6599071
>>6599131

You two. Somebody. Critique my short passage.
>>6599073

I always get skipped in these threads.

Entertainment
Silence and inaction are insufferable. I cannot, just cannot waste away unentertained. Every passing second, accumulating to every atrocious minute is torment. Self-reflection and introspection have become so hostile, so foreign to me. My own thoughts are poison. Feasting on any of my self/ill-conceived diarrhea makes me vomit. Pre-packaged and readily-assembled thoughts is all I can process to circumvent my mind’s toxic outputs. Namely doubt, existential fear and what the fuck am I pining away in the name of what the fuck. Hush, soothe and calm the infected rebellious fear factory with some more Big Bang Theory. Let me forget.

>>6599073
It's abysmal, because you combine highbrow name-dropping with what reads like a zero-effort thread contribution. I assume you think 'suddenly my outstretched...' etc qualifies as some sort of payoff or piece of eloquent description, but it doesn't. Think about what you find entertaining and readable and try and give us that.

>>6599146
Feasting on your diarrhea makes me vomit, too, glad we figured this out

>>6599071
>>6599131
like in a fragmented way or incoherent way?

tell me what you think of this passage then.
It precedes the dream and them waking up.

>>6599137
I will after I finish with the bus story guy

>>6599160
Give me a break. What it mean to be "elegant"? There's no ornamentation in a two-sentence work. Nor a payoff, for that matter. Give it another go.

>>6599174
forgot image

>>6599177
Sorry bud, squeaky wheel gets the unvarnished feedback. I feel for u

>>6599071
good pacing, seems like the set-up for what's going to be a bad trip, if this goes how it generally goes for other compounds.

you name a lot of places, so I have to wonder if it matters or not where the characters actually are.

would read more.

>>6599182
Oh, I didn't notice so much. I count it as a critique. Wish I didn't have to settle for blue balls because the ass isn't on display.

>>6599146
It doesn't have to be much, but put this man somewhere. Reads more like a diary entry. I want to see him doing something.

>>6599174
I can see the line it runs on. Too much of an effort to hit the beats.

I'll read the other passage now.

>>6599179
Think of it this way. The audience *knows* this scene. It's a trope.

Give it new life. Don't plot it.

>>6599179
you misspelled will a lot

When I was a young man, I ate a rotted tomato on a dare. The stink was enough to drive away the bright-minded, but the need and desire to be cool worsened (and to be seen as an object of value to the group, to brand myself as a ‘wild card’ in hopes of inspiring camaraderie) I was beyond reconciliation.
I bit into its tawny and leathery flesh, and its taste sank into my tongue.
In horror, my body attempted to reject its newfound meal, lurching forth from the deepest hold of my bowels. In a true display of courage, I kept it down. The first bite anyway.
After making a great show of the depravity of my most recently perpetrated act, I looked to my companions for their reaction. Did I expect them to hoist me up, upon their shoulders, and parade about as a golden idol of willingness and gnarlyness? I am unsure. Though I know what they did do.
I was exposed to rejection, a sickening, howling and shrill laugh at my self-imposed suffering.
There was no benefit to my destructive behavior. Was this to be my lot? To subject myself to mindless and fruitless tortures for the amusement of my captors, my friends? These rhetoricals brought me no solace. They simply brought to mind the baseless and idiotic existence to which I had cemented myself.
I was alone, and surrounded on all sides.

2 or 3 years old. Thanks.

>>6599071
>"said Atila."
>"She went downstairs behind him, feeling lightheaded"
>passive voice

>>6599263
You have an intuitive grasp of pacing, but you could trim the odd word or phrase. Will make it seem less "written" in this confessional-type work.

Whatever.

The possum's sore hurt more and more, at every step of the way, from the chicken's place to the willow tree.
"Hew reach tree? Hew reach tree?"
Possum's sounds echo in his mind, voices heard long ago, of young kids playing joyly. But stumpters youngsters and terries keepers keep the path, then free to come as go as pleased, deathly for those who crossed it at this hour past noon.
*Possum's plan: Round the house swim the river walk the hill*
*Possum's plan: Down the hill cross walk path thust thick thickets hit the tree*
Bleeding badly! Walking fast possum's rounded farmer's house, then swimming slowly for couldn't fast, cross the lake's short way from shore to shore leaving blood trails all the way. Stepping fastly through the hill the walk path was nearby, but reaching it was fatal, a tandem rushed him over. Bleeding dripping from his body and air getting dense and rough, once rider picked him up and hold him for a while.
"Don't touch it!" said the woman way behind
"Throw it in a bush, it's just a filthy rodent!"

And so he did with so much disgust, that he flew to hit his tree.

>>6599061
>She looks like a former flower child who cut her hair short and now makes decent money working a real job. She dresses thrifty-chic. Her handbag looks to be handmade, possibly recycled denim. I know from seeing her often that she frequents a popular, upper-middle-class type bar on this route, which tells me a lot. She’d probably like you to know her recycled bag saved a lot of child laborers’ fingers. Likes to dress like money isn’t a big deal for her, but likes to drink with guys who wear cowboy hats and own small businesses.

This passage is a little much, but apart from that I loved it. You're a great writer, keep it up.

>>6599260
it's intentional, to differentiate from the Will that's short for William, to make the characters seem like "normal" people but also to give the story a slight cast towards a timeless, placeless scifi future setting

>>6599295
i would read all of this

Here's a song I wrote for my new mixtape coming out in septemeber. Be sure to get a copy fo ya boi. That shit is fire.


I'm the lyrical spiritual miracle spherical clerical individual!

>>6599295

hey its me >>6599323 again
i dont know why i like this so much but i really like it. im sad that the possum (presumably) died though. it is strange in a non-edgy non-faggy way

>>6599327

What's with the recent surge in FF posting? Is that all you, nigga

>>6599318
you should just call him bill

wil is obstructively obnoxious I couldn't get passed it

>>6599323
>>6599342
Thanks a lot, I really appreciate if you're for real. It was just a random post I improvised in the comment book.

>>6599295
Pleasant passage. Reminds me of what I'd read in elementary school. The broken English is a little here and there for me, but I was really just bothered by "How reach tree? How reach tree?".

>>6599295
worthy of the worst of /lit/ pastebin

>>6599295
>Bleeding badly!
made me lol. the simple language works with this bit and successfully adds to it, for me.

When he pulled the tabbed lever to open the beer, a deluge of suds spilled over his hands and onto his light-grey pants, causing him to curse. "Fucking waitress must've been jerking my beer off in the back or something. Doesn't she know how to tap a can, equalize pressure, not be a a totally incompetent cunt."
Gregor, sitting to the right, simply looked down at the negligible mess, saying nothing as Devon used napkins to dry himself off. The two sat starved for words as the remainder of the crowd percolated in, filling open seats like a game of musical chairs. Slightly damp as any basement is naturally expected to be, and just as dim, the room took a deep breath in as the buzz of the settling crowd reached a subtle, momentary peak before rapidly dying down to make sonic space for the upcoming performers. Eyes fixated on the adequate though paltry stage, elevated only a baby's shin up from the floor, the night's emcee grabbed hold of the mic as well as the audience's welcoming attention. Routinely, she addressed various crowd-members by their appearances, highlighting and amplifying first impressions like a fun-house mirror, exclaiming to one man: "Hey, this guy's wearing an Everlast t-shirt, I wouldn't wanna fuck with him. Tell me sir, you look like someone who does something with goggles, please tell me you scuba dive or ski." Participatory laughter and "ski," followed by another friendly barrage of comical assumptions, observational guesswork. Then, after a successful intermingling with the super-organismic crowd, she vibrantly introduced the night's 'promising' line-up, snappily like an auctioneer, eager like a Christmas Eve kiddo.
"Finally," mutters Devon, with a traveling glance from his watch towards Gregor's marble encased eyeballs. Naturally taciturn, strangely vocal, Gregor reciprocated his friend's gesture with no more than a singular nod of the noggin. The show was about to begin.

>>6599416
No need to use words like "light-grey". Too technical. Indent the dialogue. Reads like run-on.

The second, large paragraph is best paced.

>>6599295
i'm not sure why i like this, but i do

>>6599416
It's shit. You write like you are paid by the word and not trying to tell your story as effectively as possible.

For example:
>When he pulled the tabbed lever to open the beer, a deluge of suds spilled over his hands and onto his light-grey pants, causing him to curse.
You could say twice as much in half the words with greater impact, especially if you want to show that Devon was making a big deal out of nothing.


As an exercise, try writing this same scene three or four different ways and see if you can tell the difference between them. The voice and habits you are using now are bad, inexperienced, and seem completely without purpose. Until you learn how to write thoughtfully and deliberately it's a waste of time critique your writing, you are basically asking other people to proofread and they will be proofreading bullshit.

Same goes for pretty much all the rest of you. These threads are worse than the fanfiction posted on DA.

>>6599466
>>6599439

Hey, thanks guys. Much appreciated

>>6599409
thank you

>>6599073

Nobody's going to critique this because you've provided nothing to critique. Give us more than three sentences. And make sure the sentences are actually worth reading next time.

And drop the entitlement. Earn feedback by offering something worthy of it.

>>6599323
>>6599342
>>6599451
samefag

I know it's supposed to solely be a prose thread, so I hope it's okay if I share a poem too.

Juggling chainsaws, chewing on razor blades,
my something-or-other is a feral pet snake
eating Chihuahuas in the Florida everglades.
The damp rot in the woodwork, submerged in the lake,
the torrential rains keep the lifeguards occupied
while they're not busy smoking pot in the alley;
or complaining about the neighborhood, un-gentrified.
The sloths at the zoo, truants like Kirstie Alley,
accrue green, and metabolize the air without care,
accrue green, and metabolize the air without care.

>>6599028
I like her feet

>>6599489
Of course I did. If I can read about Lydia Davis on bookforum, then I've provided something to critique.

"And make sure the sentences are actually worth readin next time."

Yes, this is a critique. Doesn't say anything, though.

Regards entitlement, I was calling out the troll. You may not recognize him as such. I don't care, this is 4chan anyways. I haven't asked for critique beyond one post. And certainly it's frustrating because this happens often. But these are all my posts:

>>6599073
>>6599117
>>6599131
>>6599137
>>6599177
>>6599228
>>6599239
>>6599246
>>6599252
>>6599278
>>6599393
>>6599439

Where else have I obligated anyone? I enjoy critique.

>>6599529
Very good imagery but I think your first line is too abstract or metaphorical for the rest of the poem. It might have a better place later after in the poem after establishing what the fuck you're talking about.

Maybe it was the seed for your poem but opening with it really weakens the whole thing. Otherwise I liked it.

>>6599346
I might change it back to Will if that spelling is annoying. Does anyone find it obstructive?

>>6599061
This took a long time. Worth it though. I'm not a fan of how most people in critique threads either post something short and meaningless they're never going to finish for replies and other people who just shitpost tiny quibbles and lazy critiques (see above) Probably the only piece here worth the time (other than mine of course-heh).
It's good and shows promise of ability; clever. On its own is mundane (and unfortunately not clever enough to justify that like Tao Lin or anyone else who does (bleak mundane)
If you applied your writing toward fiction, or made it more rigorous and made it nonfiction, I think there'd be a lot of promise
do you have a place where you keep your writing?

>>6599566
fuck me, forgot image again

How does one get good at writing?

I'm primarily a drawfag myself and in art there are certain fundamental concepts that need to be adhered to, perspective, basic forms, etc., and I can only assume that writing shares this principle of fundamentals.
Pretty much any art does for that matter whether it be judo or cooking.
But how do you go about learning?
With drawing, an important aspect is studying other artists, like old masters for example.
I imagine this equates to reading a lot of books by very good writers, so that much I understand, but is there a book/resource on 'writing fundamentals'.
I want to get into writing but I don't want to end up like most people in these kind of threads.

Pls help.

>>6599601
Might do you well to read on aesthetics, or continental philosophy (they write often on fictional writers or poets). Badiou, Deleuze, Baudrillard, etc.

Also, kill your babies.

Every scene through them becomes a glint on the morning. Children only know the theatre from living room windows.
On the podium: is there any other word that becomes the fact for the day? I pass the news on the way to kitchen....the sport is doubtful. Something about a crisis in Ukraine:

France says it will not provide weapons for the moment, saying it prefers to focus on encouraging dialogue. The United States, which is still to decide on further help, is consulting European leaders.

The milk is on the counter. Back in the living room, I find the politicians narrating to me. I've never trusted a type.

Every scene through them becomes a glint on the morning. Children only know the theatre from living room windows.
On the podium: is there any other word that becomes the fact for the day? I pass the news on the way to kitchen....the sport is doubtful. Something about a crisis in Ukraine:

"France says it will not provide weapons for the moment, saying it prefers to focus on encouraging dialogue. The United States, which is still to decide on further help, is consulting European leaders."

The milk is on the counter. Back in the living room, I find the politicians narrating to me. I've never trusted a type.

>>6599073
Alright dude. let's see. I like "the city had been aimed," Shakespeare has a lot of "unstressed (x number of iambics) stressed)" lines; they feel "right" rhythmically.
"were" should be placed with "was"
"and on the bus ride home" has no connection semantically with what precedes it, unless you meant "aimed for". I understand why you might purposefully not added "for", but when you do that it loses coherence.
"only" is awkward, meaningless first of all unless you really mean something like "I felt like my the entire bus ride was only a series of photographs. The grammatical ambiguity might be interesting sounding but feels contrived.
Other things I think you added to just be cool:
"And" instead of "but"
"of the interior"
not adding "a" to the references
Here's what I would write if I rewrote this:

"The city had been aimed for and the bus ride home was only a series of photographs. Worse, I was taking them--every hour was only a Moriyama or a Winogrand. But suddenly then my outstretched leg in the evening frame became a most evocative gesture."

You're trying to write a third-person, detached observatory thing on how meaningless everything is while you're fucked up, except aesthetically, which yes we've all seen it before, it's great you can be ironic and not have to say anything interesting. I don't agree that this is shit like some people are saying, but I can tell you're trying to substitute style for substance in this.

>>6599601
The fundamentals of art are not at all dissimilar to the fundamentals of writing, or any other art, which is first the ability to effectively communicate.

When you are learning how to draw the most important thing to develop first is your hand-eye coordination, in other words having enough control of your hand to literally translate onto paper what you see with your eyes. This is most effectively practiced with exercises like gesture or still life drawing, copying from old masters will only exhaust your expectations and you will likely pick up some bad habits. Similarly, with writing the first thing you need to be able to do is communicate effectively to your reader without flourish, to get them to see exactly what you do as you are writing. As an exercise you could keep a diary or write for a small paper.

Only after you have a basic, consistent, effective voice and a technical understanding of language should you start trying to emulate 'old masters'. Read difficult literature often but if you imitate their style before you are able to understand exactly what makes them difficult and why, copying will be more of a detriment than ignoring them entirely. You will develop regretful, transparent habits like the people in these threads.

>>6599725
>>6599725
I know this is the person from before. Let me leave that alone.

But anyways, it's a critique. I'm glad. Won't "varnish" it.

I just have to comment on your rewrite, in order to explain my motivation better:

>"The city had been aimed for and the bus ride home was only a series of photographs. Worse, I was taking them--every hour was only a Moriyama or a Winogrand. But suddenly then my outstretched leg in the evening frame became a most evocative gesture."

>You're trying to write a third-person, detached observatory thing on how meaningless everything is while you're fucked up, except aesthetically, which yes we've all seen it before, it's great you can be ironic and not have to say anything interesting. I don't agree that this is shit like some people are saying, but I can tell you're trying to substitute style for substance in this.

I didn't mean to write about the meaningless of things. I wanted to write about how we define the places we visit with the media we associate with it. It was based on a personal experience with NYC. I wrote about Moriyama and Winogrand because they often simulate human vision in their works. So that in the final sentence, even ordinary experience becomes associated with its simulacrum.

Sure, convoluted. But, it's an experiment.

>>6599601

every art has fundamental concepts, and every art is also learned best through experience. My personal opinion is that it doesn't matter what you write, as long as you do it, which is the same way I feel about music and painting.
however, the comparison makes me realize that imitating old masters in books is probably not a great idea in writing specifically. It's bad in art too--if you spend too much time imitating you don't get a grasp on your own stuff--but it's deadly in writing. Nobody at all wants to read your imitation of dickens if you aren't dickens, or your approximation of Tao Lin if you aren't him.

But if you want the writing equivalent of the conventional learning for art where you learn anatomy, observation, landscape then perspective, then colors, etc. I would recommend doing these things for as long as you can, instead of and even if you think you can write a piece:

-put down any conscious thought you have that seems interesting. Thoughts about a show, or how something you see looks, or an entire experience, but also simple lines that you think sound catchy.
-watch TV or movies or read a book
(doesn't matter which) and write down what sounds "good" and try to figure out what makes it interesting.
-do the above and memorize the plot points, then write them down (don't do this until after you've read/watched)
-practice memorizing conversations you have or hear, and write them when you have the opportunity.

you'll start having ideas, dialogue, descriptions, and plots. Build this up and start combining them or riffing off them when you're ready to really sweat over something like it's an oil painting that would be expensive to fuck up.

>>6599566
just notebooks and MS Word. this is one of a few bus-related sketches that I have, trying to make it grow into a book of short stories or novel. I almost know what I want it to say, but haven't figured it out yet. thank you for your thoughtful critique.

as far as the spelling of Will/Wil in your story, I didn't find it distracting. when I read sci-fi I expect weird names, and simple-weird is much better than nonsense-weird. I don't like when I can imagine the writer struggling over a unique name, saying gibberish over and over in his head until he finds the right gibberish.

We stand upon the clouds at the doorway to some indiscriminate afterlife, white light from the mouth of infinity permeates the solid and un-solid membrane of mystical dew lain beneath our feet, suspending us in some unknown fashion. As we march forward towards the, for lack of a better word, heavenly, gates, we see a man dressed in all white, a suit that in Earth currency would have cost a considerable amount of money, his movements are graceful and there's an enigmatic-but-kind look on his soft and clean-shaven face.

"Welcome." He says.

I had not tried to speak yet, in bewilderment of the place and as I did try I found myself unable. Frustration eclipsed my being as I forced words that would not come out of a mouth I wasn't sure really existed. Finally, I set aside the challenge and approached the man, I nodded to him, and he stood aside as if granting me access to the mouth of infinity.

>>6599179
This is pretty good, I like it. It feels, if a bit generic, at least genuine. What is, a positive at least. The rapid, unresolved change of perspective kinetically charges the piece, and I felt drawn in quite cinematically, but in a subtle, dogma 95 kind of way. What this means is, I felt that the dialogue willingly goes into honesty and mimesis while being firmly aware of its being a dialogue, which is something I enjoy reading. The fiction in the fiction is also quite compelling, in its barebones semplicity and pregress meaning towards the future of the story. I'd say Heidegerrian, but I've been pretentious enough already. Sorry, is sleepy.

A non-fictiony essay of mine. A stupid thing, but I haven't got much to show. It was this, or vampires or people wanking about.

http://pastebin.com/1ezBa4xd

Upon arriving in Trafalgar, Dora found herself bewildered by the bustle of the hundreds of thousands and millions of people zig-zagging about one another on seemingly infinite invisible rails, each person looking for a moment as if they were to crash into the next before jarring in one direction or another as if a switch had been thrown at the last second to avoid a fatal collision killing hundreds.

There were swarms of birds neatly arranged overhead in shapes that resembled nothing, save for the tight bombing pattern of a military fleet. She was never one for ornithology. They could be starlings.

Dora remembered her reason for coming to Trafalgar amidst the chaos and made her way to the Grand, perhaps Mr.Rite could shine some light on the puzzle which lay before her, or lay before them both rather, its annals of intrigue slowly dragging Dora beneath the tides of paranoia and mistrust.

She arrived at the room. Apparently he was something of a regular tenant as there stood a plaque on the wall "Detective Inspector Thomas Rite". She knocked but there was no answer, trying the handle she noticed the door was not locked and stepped inside. There lay Mr. Thomas Rite born 1978, Michigan, US, laying headless as if some large sharp object had cascaded down upon his neck cutting cleanly through it.

He lay with his hand upon his cock and there was semen all over his chest. He was nude. She searched the room, but there was no head to be found, and all of his personal belongings were missing, save for his Michigan PI license. Written in blood on the en-suite's mirror were two words. It. Goes.

>>6599818
What person from before?
> define the places we visit with the media we associate with it
Alright, well I figured it was personal, most stuff here is since it's more clear how to tone it. The words "only" (twice) and "worse" imply that the ride being a series of photograph is a negative thing, and that the ride is "only" photographs instead a full experience of life.

What that makes me ask, is what are you trying to guide this to? If you don't think that is "existential" or "bleak" in the way many /lit users I would imagine feel about life and thus project onto their tastes (the boards' general enjoyment of Tao Lin/postmodernism) and writing .

> even ordinary experience becomes associated with its simulacrum
unless you have a different definition for "simulacrum" then I don't think that means anything.

The city lights organized a tryst with the dark
between the funeral home and church-tower clock reading: "Night Cometh."
Forbidden, the couple swallowed Adam's apple,
lodged throatwise, born as a suffocating goiter.
And the gold loiters, gone fishin', back in the March,
carried by a pack of disoriented lemmings and teeth.
Solemnity turns to cheeriness, and the chattering ceases,
waiting for a package delivery, expedited but late.
How can the mosquitoes hold their tongues?
while sweat and tears leave blood hanging dry?
How can we ask the gentleman on his high-horse
how to file for a visa, and leave this sideways country?
You can't, he says in my sleep, nodding like a sculpture,
you just have to wait for the shores to merge
and for dusk to dissipate, like your aching tooth.

And so I leapt up out of bed
and sling-shotted into space with a gun in hand,
dithering, pilfering time, scraping the ceiling,
waiting for shortening, for a full filling slice of pie.

>>6599601
Read more. Read as much as you can. Read the classics, read contemporary fiction, read histories and biographies, read the newspaper, read philosophy, etc. Start with the Greeks. The /lit/ starter kit is fine too.

Also write. Start a blog and write extensively on something that interests you. Begin writing a short story and send it in to some journal you like, or poetry. Work on your writing everyday.

>>6599896
bad

undeclared pronouns, no easing into suspension of disbelief, no reason to care about anything going on

boring first person voice

nothing happens

cliche


did you read this over before posting it?

>>6599924

Nothing I ever post in these threads is part of an actual piece of fiction I'm writing, I was thinking about the phrase "White light from the mouth of infinity" and quickly typed that up.

>>6599949
>I was thinking
I don't believe you

The city lights organized a tryst with the dark
between the funeral home and church-tower clock,
reading: "Night Cometh."
Forbidden, the couple swallowed Adam's apple,
lodged throat-wise, born a suffocating goiter.
And the gold loitered, gone fishin', back in the March,
carried by a pack of disoriented lemmings and teeth.
So solemnity turned to cheeriness, the chattering ceased,
waiting for a package delivery, expedited but late,
forcing one, or two, to ask:
How can the mosquitoes hold their tongues?
while sweat and tears leave blood hanging up to dry?
How can we ask the gentleman on his high-horse
how to file for a visa, and leave this sideways country?
How can I ask you exactly what I need ask you?

You can't, he said in my sleep, nodding like a sculpture,
you just have to wait for the shores to merge
and for dusk to dissipate, like your aching tooth.

And so I leapt up out of bed,
and sling-shotted into space with a gun in hand,
dithering, pilfering time, scraping the ceiling,
waiting for shortening, for a full filling slice of pie,
waiting nonetheless...shiiieeeeet.

>>6599924
>>6599949
>>6599955

shh.

>>6599632
>>6599785
>>6599822
>>6599915
Thanks guys.

>>6599912
Well, as a writer I feel my first obligation is to perform under my aesthetic standards. What I consider as integrating into the work is secondary to that. It is up to the reader if he feels the work is bleak. I feel naive to that.

It is influenced by Baudrillard (And his ideas on simulacrum) but I don't take his nihilist stance, on a personal level.

>>6599955

Epic joke, how did you come up with that?

>>6599985
I didn't believe he was thinking then I typed it

A non-moose conjured up five nines––
we're talking glocks, you should know––
and fired a fat expletive to the sky like
"shiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet."

>>6599991

He? You mean me. Can you not keep track of a singular discourse?

Enough with all this gay poetry it's time for prose.


Wet brown shit ran down his leg and followed a thin path a short way down the street. He was facing downhill and followed where it might go with his eyes, finding an unfamiliar car parked on the side of the road close to where he was standing. He was old enough to feel sorry for the owner. His name was Charlie.

Charlie was peeing as well and his pants were in a horrible state. On a weekday afternoon the street was still very quiet and on the condition that Charlie not leave the block his mother let him play outside on his own. Alone in the middle of street Charlie didn't know to hide what was happening but there was an unplacable sense of guilt toward his mother that made him uneasy. Finishing his business and surprised at how short of the car his little stream swam he walked back home and walked into the foyer to the surprised gasp and laughter of his mother. The shit on his leg had dried on the way but it certainly did not stink any less. His plain young face held a serious expression and asked if he could a snack.

>>6600005
it's hard to assume that any one idiot is the same as another on an anonymous imageboard

>>6599904
Boring. Not bad in terms of writing, but plot-wise, boring.

>>6600054

Did you get any of the jokes?

My friend asked me to write a concept album intro a la B.I.G.'s Ready to Die. I told him I don't want to offend him and know I will. He asks again, I do it, and he gets offended . I mean what the hell am I supposed to do?
I can't deny it was "fun" though, writing something superficial

Tony has deep sterotypical black male voice and Bobby a stereotypical white male voice.

Felt it at about the hour. That horrible taste, it was like licking nuclear spillage. The whole jaw is at the dentist. Their legs are starting to shake a bit from all the walking. “Batt”, he calls out. His nose runny from allergies. It was wet and hot in Gamboa.

“What?” He heard behind him. It was a confused voice. “Mark, what?” came right after, from a jittery throat. Turns around to find him falling back behind. He watches enchanted at the trees, like a baby to a toy or an animal to the headlights. Upon further observation he is not so far from him. It just seems that way.

(Cont.?)

>>6600057
I just didn't find it funny.

>>6600071
Don't continue, it's not even worth explaining why it's bad. Move on. Start something new.

>>6600084

Nobody ever does. Nobody gets me.

Arm fold.
Bed shift.
Bone feels like its melting.
Off.
Repeat.
"Why do we do this to ourselves?" she asked.
Arm fold.
Bed creek.
It won't boil.
Why is it so cold?
Fire. Vein.
Bone marrow soup.
I face her, asleep.
"Because people like to ache".
"Because people need to ache."
Skin on the ground.
Nothing to be done.

watch out guys the illuminates here

>>6600139
very mc ride

>>6600208
SPREADEAGLED ACROSS THE THREAD

http://pastebin.com/r6FnndXF
I'm auditioning to be on next year's
Totalitarinism in a Tundra: Star Search Sweepstakes

pls and arigatou

>>6600273
I don't read anything that opens with dialogue sorry

>>6600283
pls... Do you know how many dicks I had to suck to get this on here?

>>6600292
fuck off idiot I have principles you know

>>6600208
I'll take it as a compliment.

Opening line of my new novel:

It was all a meme.

>>6599670
Anyone?

>>6600345
is this first person or over familiar third person? either way it's shit

>>6600351
also shit

>>6600345
Nah.

It was all a spook.

>>6600355
Someone needs to stick a dick in you.

>>6600345
How about: I awoke from a meme. Or: Life is but a meme.

>>6600013
please respond

>>6600874

I'm not entirely sure what youre going for with this bit, but it doesn't come off as particularly funny, gripping, or especially well-written. The subject matter is crude, yet not detailed or vivid enough to evoke any real guttural reactions. There aren't any truly awful portions, though not any legitimately good ones either. That all being said, my main word of advice to you would be to tighten your wording, make it more concise and eliminate any superfluous information. For instance, "and on the condition that Charlie not leave the block his mother let him play outside on his own" could be said in fewer words and in a much less awkward way. Anyway, just play around with it.

>>6601125
thanks for responding

Incandescent Bulbs Emerge from the Field of Madness, Just Outside of Detergent, OH

The listless list reasons for tying
strings around their hands, down to the
nine pits of Hell, the wire, where Pol Pot's Posse
run a vaudeville show on Wednesday's, and
a trapeze act manned by Greg––the crowd
is less vituperative than you (and I were never
meant to be together) might expect. "Expect
might," bellows World's Strongman 2012 runner-
up in his nursing home bathroom. But
I leave the boats at bay, for no 'ifs,' 'ands,' or
'buts' could smuggle it through customs,
meaning the pugnacious Irishmen downing
Guinness in McO'Deasmhumhain's Pub, moistening
their potatoes with aloe vera, and comparing
everything to their Mima's bangers and mash,
probably lack 401k's, but not red-lashed shiners.
Beside the point geometrically, the metric,
not for Tetris but flying buttresses' little sisters,
the horizontal building stilts for cinematic stunts,
is the number of Jackie Chan skin flakes
that don't lack rancid cancer, the kung-fu-mancer.
Distributed, languidly spread like creamed cheese on a deep-
fried Senegalese rye-flour beignet made by a blind woman's dead daughter,
a king's yawn can only echo in a warehouse,
overstocked principally with surgical supplies,
of which forceps make ups 86%, like me.
Though the legend ends not there, but nowhere
but the minds of those but long forgotten by
those who forget not, not unlike our second-cousins
the elephant, no. The end arrives like an obese
telegram delivery man or woman, barreling house-ways,
rhinoesque, ready to pounce on commission-less duty, unbeknownst to the world and its termites;
it arrives, leg-and-armageddon, the day of wrecked awnings, rainless sunshine, molecular Tourettes.
And when that day comes harder than Ron Jeremy on yohimbe,
it will be I, the protagonist in perpetual soliloquy
inside your mind's storage container, fat head,
who materializes a gavel out of rubble
to slam it upon the shoddy, stodgy constitutions
of red hued, passion-fruitless, and inconveniently fuckable
arcological resting places of Homo sapiens and
the psychical manifestations drawn out of
their extensions, media for an afterlife in which
voyeurism is the only viable option for participation
for the neverlasting eternity of the sole's owner:
the human soul, the opus of mummified biologically encased ideals that
take wet concrete to construct the ephemera of beauty
(looking at you first apartment) and all that is
(or by virtue of Russell's paradox) or is not,
abstract.

As limbs that lithe began to preen and spread
With Grecian grace, unfolding me to you,
Arrest without a sign, turn stony dead,
With iron pace I labor into bed

The old and rusted chain of hoary steel
That sputters in my chest begins to creak
In dusky beats it measures what I feel,
A heavy ballast sinking through a keel

Electric waves that crest within the mind
Are equalized to lap a lonely thought,
A mad recursion, sparking blue with times
When hope had swelled unto a bursting rind

Opening paragraph of a short story involving Cain and Abel of biblical fame:

The fire rises. Father yells the preamble to the sacrifice as Mother chokes down intermittent tears. Sister Zinniah is off to Mother’s left, drooling whilst tilting her head back and forth, the insufferable cunt that she is. My sister, Awan is to my right, holding my hand, her long black hair illuminated by the flames as her thin frame reels from the sudden burst of heat brought forth from fresh kindling. She’s quiet. The only other voice that's audible is Brother Abel’s, as he and Father shout in unison to the stars.

>>6601661
>sacrifice
That sounds extremely painful.

>>6601663
well meme'd friend

>>6601668
Now's not the time for butthurt, that comes later.

I have a prose poem. I'm about to start working on a more ambitious and experimental, potentially running/revolving idea.

The black trees are frenzied and aflitter. They beg and plead and vivisect themselves for the darkened firmament, and a piercing florescent bulb claws its way into my vision. The fronds and limbs cannot shoulder anymore; they scream. As the first drop appears on my eyelid, the pitiful things fade to an olive green. Good babies, see? You can take more and it will go slow.

The rain does grow, the trees' burden mounts, the earth is fed and my open mouth gulps. I've go to change, I cry, I know this and need it now. And somewhere in the crashing swamps she's ready for me, with guts of Spanish moss and bones of balded cypress. Her mood is hadopelagic just like my skies and she sprints to me.

When she gets here we will be lovers and above all I'll love her. She throws me into a storm window and if my throat isn't too ravaged I'll be happy. Wild boars will walk on me and she watches. Our home will be joyous and military and Catholic. She makes the ground full, the ancient pines suffer, my eyes close. The storm fosters a furious writhing blanket across the ground and bends all below it. This is the change I need, but first she must come.

I'm inside once more. The trees stand still and I am bathed in lightning flashes and the digital light of screens. I am impatient.

>>6601262
hi. erm...never comfortable reviewing others but here goes:

I like a bit of stream-of-consciousness and this is certainly that. I'm just not sure where its home is or who its neighbours are. You can clearly write but this piece isn't you doing that. The clended cultural references seem awkward and kinda teenaged poet, like a clever white kid rapping.

But to be fair, I don't like anything that includes the words 'pugnacious' or 'vituperative'. I am very confident that amongst bookish girls this will definitely get you laid a lot though.

and here's my chapter:

http://pastebin.com/dVMHCeee


please review.

.

What's the general opinion on applying Blake Snyder's "Save the Cat!" to fiction? I'm about halfway through and seeing how it could be used as an outline for writing quick, self-published genre trash, as recommended by that one guide I lost the link too. Thoughts?

I already know I'm soulless.

http://blackstorkstudio.com/download/save.the.cat.pdf

>>6601814
not read it but my general view is that writers read about writing to delay having to write whilst still appearing (to themselves) to be engaged in forward momentum.

>>6601716
I thought that was pretty good. It's not really my thing but you know what you're going for & I think you achieve it. You've found the tone/voice you;re after and it feels like it's really yours - there's an evenness of tone which is always hard to get (I find) and the imagery is strong (except crashing swamps perhaps - must be a better option).

nice work.

*ahem* I've reviewed 2 now, but I forgot to say the second one was me reviewing.

please rate/slate/bate/hate:

http://pastebin.com/dVMHCeee

“Gentlemen, good morning. Roscoe, unless you want me to hook your screen up to the
projector again, I suggest you turn that goddamn phone off. Now, a question that I have asked myself several times over the years is this: how do we select senior executives at Piccolo
Industries? I always arrive at the same answer: very, very badly. Assembled in this room, myself and to some extent Sal excluded, is one of the least talented groups of people outside of
California. If any one of you, right now, in a depressingly rare moment of informed inspiration, finally grew a pair of balls and crammed a grenade up his educationally-subnormal ass, taking the
whole sorry bunch of you with him to whatever squalid misery hole the Devil reserves for fat
suburban degenerates who die in such a manner having squandered every undeserved
opportunity life has, presumably as part of some grand cosmic prank beyond my
comprehension, presented to them, our share price would double instantly and I could finally
afford to pay off that lousy Arab fuck who says I felt up his retard daughter at that Unsung
Heroes Awards fiasco. As if, Jesus! And we’d be able to hire a brand new management team
without going through the whole fuck-knows-why-so prohibitively expensive process of firing you hopeless pricks. A new team full of energy and ideas, a bunch of whip-smart Yale chicks with
tits like the Hindenburg – before it crashed, obviously, a team that could finally show those
slant-eyed little fucks at Imperial Jap Metric that Piccolo Industries is still able to kick their yellow asses all the way back to Naga-fucking-saki. No offence, Nakamura.”

“None taken sir.”


http://pastebin.com/dVMHCeee

oops apols for formatting wonks.

Bump

Random entry I just improvised for my blog. Comments of any kind are appreciated

I was standing in the corner of the room, watching everybody dance in the center of the room. While I watched her, I was unable to hear the loud music and instead, a soft whistle of silence was all I could hear. I could get involved with her, and hardly could I even talk to her while you're still here. You stopped dancing with her. I saw you. The song was over, everyone stayed but you left.
You sat. Alone.
She went outside to smoke, never came back.
She knew what I wanted, she knew my plan and intentions to ask about it, and she knew as well that you would not answer. He did as expected indeed, stayed silent, without muttering a word.
"It's not your problem" he said.
And he remained silent while looking everyone else dance. He knew well about their problem and the unbreakable impasse they encountered, but he did not care. He didn't want her to become involved with anyone else, especially if that one is one he knew. And he tried to shake off the matter, pretending to play with the hoster's dog while talking about dog related-matters. The dog seem'd happy to receive attention, it was not clear which was its race but it was one of a friendly kind as we could see. It was patt'd in the head by all of us in the party, but us two it was a matter of avoiding a subject which only one want'd to talk about.
At the end we didn't talk about it, despite of how much we knew we had it. Maybe neither of us really want'd to touch the subject, and as such it wasn't for us more than a vague mist that tied our small talk. Everyone in the party was aware of this fact, and nowadays, we look back and remember that day, and regret our clumsy behavior. They didn't say a word to each other again, and they never saw them in the same room again. Both of them have been walking their own way for quite a while, and I'm afraid that if I hadn't been such a wreck I would be with her now. Despite of what you think of her, she still would be here. It cannot be changed, the past is the past. But we must remember to not fall short again, we must remember how they fell back like that, and how they lost, everything they ever had.

Random entry I just improvised for my blog. Comments of any kind are appreciated

I was standing in the corner of the room, watching everybody dance in the center of the room. While I watched her, I was unable to hear the loud music and instead, a soft whistle of silence was all I could hear. I couldn't get involved with her, and hardly could I even talk to her while you're still here. Shortly after, you stopped dancing with her. The song was not over, everyone was still dancing when you left.
You sat. Alone.
She went outside to smoke and never came back. She knew what I wanted, she knew my plan and intentions to ask about it, and she knew as well that you would not answer. He did as expected indeed, and stayed silent without muttering a word.
"It's not your problem" he said.
And he said no more, while looking everyone else dance. He knew well about their problem and the unbreakable impasse they encountered, but he did not care. He didn't want her to become involved with anyone else, especially if that one is one he knew. And he tried to shake off the matter, pretending to play with the hoster's dog while talking about dog related-matters. The dog seemed happy to receive attention, it was not clear which was its race but it was one of a friendly kind as we could see. It was patted in the head by all of us in the party, but for us two it was a matter of avoiding a subject which only one of us wanted to talk about.
At the end we didn't talk about it, despite of how much we knew we had to. Maybe neither of us really wanted to touch the subject, and as such it wasn't for us more than a vague mist that tied our small talk. Everyone in the party was aware of this fact, and nowadays, we look back and remember that day, and regret our clumsy behavior. They didn't say a word to any of us again, probably they didn't say a word to each other neither. And until this they, they never saw them in the same room again. Both of them have been walking their own way for quite a while, and I'm afraid that if I hadn't been such a wreck I would be with her now. Despite of what you think of her, she still would be here. It cannot be changed, the past is the past. But we must remember to not fall short again, we must remember how they fell back like that, and how they lost, everything they ever had.

bump

231 words short, English is not my mother language so I believe there could be some grammar mistakes I didn't see.

http://pastebin.com/4KKej5Eb

Thanks for reading it, if you do.

I will review/rate later

>>6602145
your formatting is all fucked up

>>6604738
much ofuckingbliged.

>>6604775
It was the nicest thing I could think of to say.

My cross legged Gestalt hovered some where near the more yellow coloured wall of a hungarian girl's interior room.
I was half invited. The people were acquaintances at a stretch.

As I morphed in to a more ready pose,
my left hand rested against the papery material which was pretending to be a wall.
The people in the room appeared overly self important and I got the impression if I talked to any of them they would begin spouting either marxist or feminist rhetoric,
so I observed the notion float yonder.
My invitation was a sort of spectre which possessed everyone in the room.
They were posers who pretended to be inclusive,
but were in fact exclusive faux-inclusivists, for lack of a better term.
I observed a desire to leave.

The aforementioned metamorphosis reached a climax in its merging of hand and doorknob.
My left hand was almost sweating as it worked, like a cat clawing at a closed door.
I saw some eyes drift toward my Gestalt, like a spacial aneurysm.

I am not of this world.

bump
just because

I just started writing this today. I didn't really have any clear idea, I just felt compelled to write, so I wrote.
I'm not very good, but would like to improve.
What am I doing wrong?
In the cosmic blink of an eye, one's life is over. In several generations, his accomplishments forgotten. Even if he was considered an important figure during his life, and his deeds indisputable; they will go on to be questioned, belittled, and eventually unable to be recalled altogether.

These were the thoughts that ran through Mika's head as she sat in her decrepit, peeling baby blue apartment, staring blankly at a typewritten page, which she had authored minutes earlier. Her gaze began to wander, scanning the four familiar walls surrounding her. One adorned a series of bookcases, spanning the entire wall with their wide oak frames, reaching the height of the ceiling, with the exception of one, which was thin, centered, and only waist high.

The inhabitants of the various shelves were James Joyce, Hunter S. Thompson, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, Cormac McCarthy, Albert Camus, and many more. The books were mostly hardcover, all in mint condition, as her fastidious demeanor dictated them to be.

Her survey continuing along the room, the adjacent wall is completely bare, decorated only by the cracking wallpaper encircling a moderately sized round window, through which the view of a stereotypical suburban neighborhood, populated almost exclusively by old, white, conservative, home-owning retirees, can be seen. It's a safe area of the city, with low crime and high cholesterol. At the base of the window is a small table, lightly cluttered with textbooks, bills, and a cold meal from the previous night.

The paper, still wet with ink, is violently ripped to pieces, landing daintily on the crimson carpet beneath her feet.

“Trivial bullshit!”.

Her face quickly becomes streaked with tears, and the air thick with stifled whimpering. At a time which is traditionally suffered through and then celebrated, her heart was filled with despair. Her mind racing with questions of meaning and importance. She stands up from her mahogany desk, stumbling as she tries to walk, only to eventually collapse on an old floral-pattern couch, burying her face in a pillow; a futile attempt to muffle her melancholy outburst.

“Why must we all suffer through the same examinations of purpose over and over again, century after century? Are there no answers to these questions? Many great thinkers labored over these quires for the entirety of their lives and careers, never reaching a conclusion other than pointlessness; the very answer that initially sparked the line of questioning to begin with!” Her voice, broken and shrill, pierced through the polyester prison, filling the room with an audible suffering.

>>6606511
Cont.

Her thesis was titled “The Spinning Cadence”, of which only the title had been written. Her aluminum garbage-bin was filled with page upon page of false starts, off-topic hypothesizes, and utter mad ramblings.

The end of one's academic life is not the most ideal time to have a personal crisis, especially one as elaborate as this. It's understandable for a music student about to officially enter a field notorious for struggle and hardship to have tormenting thoughts about her future, but for it to evolve into an engrossing philosophical dilemma reaching far outside of just her own life was hardly prototypical.

The room darkens as she lies motionless, hitherto not having spoken a word for weeks, let alone screaming with all her might. These are the most important days of her life; a time when importance itself is in question.

Hello /lit/. Lately I've begun reading and writing, as I'm currently homeless and I have nothing better to do. I haven't written for a long time but I find myself enjoying it. My librarian suggested that I write a personal narrative. Lately I've been thinking about my childhood and this is what I came up with. Any feedback is appreciated.


Houses are bathed in soft light. Trees murmur as the wind flies lightly through their arms, shaking the morning dew from their leaves. They reach upwards towards the sun, trying to grasp it in their long arms. Among the trees rises a barren dirt hill. It stands alone, enormous, like the thumb of God. Projecting from the side a lone bluff, grimly surveying the world below. At the base of the hill lies a small pond. Little distance away from it a dusty road, twisting it’s way over the ground like a black serpent. The sun is at the height of it’s arc, coming to a standstill in the sky.

>>6606569
Baked aureate earth crunches softly underneath my feet as we make our ascent. The hot sun beats us down, burning our backs. My lungs ache and my legs are possessed by a fierce pain that holds me down to the ground, an ethereal tether. We reach the plateau, each of us breathing heavily from the exertion, and sit. Spread beneath is our world. It’s beauty is marred only by the rock jutting out from the hill. It’s bleak appearance draws my gaze, you don’t notice, you keep watch.
For a time we talk in hushed voices, careful not to disturb. We are still as can be in the evening air. I explode into action. I’m up and running, around the top, like a child. You join me, dancing and laughing. You fall into my arms, and the world is crashing down around us as I stare into your eyes, robin egg blue, for the second time. I could kiss you, but I don’t. Then you’ve gone, moving away as I try to hold you close, and dear, to me. I think I may have pushed you away.
The pond turns opaque as the sky begins to darken, reflecting what is above. As the light from the sun slowly passes away stars wink into existence, taking it’s place. They dot the surface with pinpricks of light. Each one appears to be very close to the other. Slowly they begin to form a band, twisting like the black snake that does not seem quite so close anymore, here in the dark. A mobius strip has been created in the muddy water.
The curious wind has returned. I watch as it throws about my hair with wispy fingers. It roars, frenzied, tearing at me, trying to break my concentration. I’m staring at the bluff again. It appears to hang over pond, positioned so that if one was to jump he could land among the infinite stars. And I’m running again, like a child. I am a child, I’m ten again and this is a game. My tiny heart beats as I pump my legs sprinting towards the bluff, cutting my anchors loose with each step. The edge rushes towards me and I let go completely, falling or flying.
Bruised knees are in their own way a form of escapism, albeit an unpleasant one. Like most wounds they will heal, leaving behind only a scar. On those damaged foundations we will build anew.

The earth is made of choc-o-late,
the sea is filled with wine,
And all the stars in heaven's crown
With matchless splendor shine;

Yet heaven, when she, looking down,
compares her crown to mine
(A humble wreath of fennel leaf),
feels somewhat less divine.

For mine's a kingdom more sublime
than aught she comprehends;
No handprint mars that lofty climb,
--but mine abounds in friends.

Nor deity on Helicon,
nor maiden of the vale,
Nor gypsy's magic tambourine,
nor lovelorn nightengale

Has melody enough to sing
the strains of my delight;
For friends, what little joys we bring
in measures more requite.

And anyplace I go do foe
and foe their wrongs repent,
As though my smiling face the woe--
ful warps the strife unbent.

From Camelot to Evergreen,
dear friends, all mankind,
My joy is that of bonhomie
and not to me confined.

Is it possible to write fantasy these days without it being generic?

>>6601806
>http://pastebin.com/dVMHCeee
not bad.

America has become profoundly disinterested as a people and our government has mutated into a pseudo fascist corporate amusement park where only the rich have express passes. The recession and the youth of the eighties have raised a generation who are solely bred for the rat race. The young should just say fuck that and build our own industries and organizations, maybe we would ache and suffer in the short term but I would rather die next to people that labored to make their world better than die boxed into a cubicle slaving away at a sprawling machine so my children can get eaten by it too. Precious sleep was fought back by flashbacks to the beggar Al Capone in the waning moments of my trip clutching at me for cigarettes and young flesh. I had thought of my bed all day I was finally here and I felt like the first man on the moon. I couldn't stop thinking of the stream of consciousness I had paddled down to get here. I have doubts that the acid was still even affecting my mind, but with no break to let my mind adjust my thoughts were still warped and geared toward the fast paced trip. I pondered about an extended metaphor that the final stages of my acid trip reminded me of our once proud nation. Long gone was the bright lights, shimmering ideals, and great movements which once defined us. Only the warped skeletons remain and now we wander through them asking ourselves what we’re supposed to do with the tail end of it all.

One of the final excerpts of a short story I just started.

A paradoxical philosopher, carrying to the uttermost length that aphorism of Montesquieu's, 'Happy the people whose annals are tiresome,' has said, 'Happy the people whose annals are vacant.' In which saying, mad as it looks, may there not still be found some grain of reason? For truly, as it has been written, 'Silence is divine,' and of Heaven; so in all earthly things too there is a silence which is better than any speech. Consider it well, the Event, the thing which can be spoken of and recorded, is it not, in all cases, some disruption, some solution of continuity? Were it even a glad Event, it involves change, involves loss (of active Force); and so far, either in the past or in the present, is an irregularity, a disease. Stillest perseverance were our blessedness; not dislocation and alteration,--could they be avoided.

The oak grows silently, in the forest, a thousand years; only in the thousandth year, when the woodman arrives with his axe, is there heard an echoing through the solitudes; and the oak announces itself when, with a far-sounding crash, it falls. How silent too was the planting of the acorn; scattered from the lap of some wandering wind! Nay, when our oak flowered, or put on its leaves (its glad Events), what shout of proclamation could there be? Hardly from the most observant a word of recognition. These things befell not, they were slowly done; not in an hour, but through the flight of days: what was to be said of it? This hour seemed altogether as the last was, as the next would be.

He had never allowed himself to displace his consciousness into the rift. Perhaps he feared it would see the eclipse and deconstruction of his soul, something that; as a man a little too tied to the past, he could not abide the idea of. This did not prevent him from carrying out his work with due prejudice and diligence, in fact, he proposed to himself that the very reason he was able to perform the research he so enjoyed was due to the fact he had been uncontaminated by the vast, soul destroying expanse that would have been lain before him should he have chosen to don the technological vestments his subjects so often did in his presence.

>>6607231
brief but positive...I'll take that.

>>6607585
Hard to feel affected by this without a buildup, feels preacy/over-dramatic. I like the sentiment as the backbone of a story though.


I looked at Tupac, he was looking off through the trees at the horizon. His outline shimmered as he walked.
“Hey Tupac.” I said.
“What?” he said.
“Why do you think we’re here?”
He swung his foot through a rock, trying to kick it down the path.
“I don’t know man.”
I stopped walking.
“Do you think we’re here for different reasons?”
He stopped walking and turned around.
I said, “Like you being a hologram, and me being a person. Do you think we’re here for different reasons?”
Tupac pulled out our last joint and lit it with his laser vision, he hit it and handed it to me. We kept walking.

>>6600013
I laughed, the last line killed a lot of my appreciation. Broad overreaching advice: Use the least amount of stuff possible to make the punchline. It feels like it hits you once then like rubs the hand around on your face.

Good tho

I began writing this draft yesterday. Felt so nice, but what can I do to up my game?

>>6607190
Of course it is. Just because it might be a minority doesn't mean it's not possible.

>>6601698
kek

>A short story (flash fiction, really)

I lit up a cigarette even though my chest hurts. She told me that ship has sailed, and it truly has. I have been hearing this often and not once has it been unfaithful. At a loss for ships, I lay in bed with that whore phrase, make love to it.

Early in the morning I leave the brothel and drag my self back to the gray empty harbor, lighting another cigarette under the streetlights in attempt to smother the feeling in my chest and in honor of things past. Of things gone and sailed, by others. Nothing awaits me but the seaside, and yet I do not feel abandoned. It needs my observing eyes to come to be, and to keep on being, my recurring gaze, immaterial, is what keeps the concrete and iron from dissolving, sugar-like, in the water. If I did not perform this observation, others would eventually be forced to rebuild it with gaze and noun, re-say the light refractions of solids.

I did not have to pay the whore for her services since I am a known, respected figure in this small town. They all know I harbor the quay whereof their ships take sea.

>>6607605
Good prose, dense shit. I'm saving it to my computer in order to read a few more times and analyze, but
>is there heard
This particular kind of indefinite subject doesn't work with there, it would be better phrased as "it is there heard..." (or, IMO, even better as "it is heard, there,..."); also: an echo rather than an echoing would probably be better too, since you need a complement to what is heard and a noun fits best.

Very good, though. Is it part of something else? Is there more, is it going somewhere?

>>6608386

Your first sentence makes me think it's starting in past tense and moving into present tense.

I'd personally change it to "I light a cigarette" or "I spark up/spark a cigarette".

>>6608386
First paragraph:
As the previous anon said, the beginning verb confuses with the tense shift. Establish that the story is primarily written in the present tense. I find the words “even though” to be clunky, could a single-word conjunction be used? The long vowels are not particularly attractive, especially since the utterance causes one to become breathless before the sentence ends. The phrase, “my chest hurts,” is pleasing. The extended metaphor of the ship falls flat and is unoriginal. Thus, the concluding sentence is unappealing, but I feel the sentence is better than the one preceding it. I would suggest editing out the third sentence; it does nothing.

Second paragraph:
I am not a particular fan of adjectives or adverbs, so the opening sentence of the paragraph irks me. “Gray empty harbor” could endure several rewritings, especially some light editing; there is a missing comma. This first sentence feels off balance and needs restructuring. It feels trite (“in attempt to smother the feeling in my chest and in honor of things past”). Lots of telling and not showing. “Of things gone and sailed, by others,” this sentence should be taken out. The subjects are implied in the last sentence and this sentence just stopped me in my reading; its construction is jarring.

I stopped reading.

Hope you continue writing!

>>6608503
Any chance you can critique this for me?:
>>6607714

Also, I know soul destroying is missing a hypen.

>>6608386
>Very good, though. Is it part of something else? Is there more, is it going somewhere?
It's from Carlyle's French Revolution.

http://pastebin.com/mCJUDzB1

Chapter 2 is unfinished, but I've made over 1000 words already, today has been a good day.

I finally have my opening:


My book is tedious, it has the smell of the grave about it; it has a certain cadaveric condition about it, a serious fault, insignificant to boot because the defect of my book is you, reader. You're in a hurry to grow old and this book moves slowly. You love direct and continuous narration, a regular and fluid style, and this book and my style are like drunkards.

>>6608398
Good point, I paid no attention whatsoever to verb tense and made a mess.

>>6608503
Woah, god bless you, thank you so much for taking the time.
>lots of telling and not showing
That's the point, really, along with the ships metaphor (why do you say it's unoriginal?). It's supposed to be a little play on the expression "that ship has sailed", with a sense of purposelessness/loss but that is not desolate because the gaze of the character whose ships have sailed keeps the harbor in place (Berkeley influenced POV).

Of course, my prose is far from perfect and if I must explain it this much then I did not do a good job, but I thought I'd clear my intentions up nonetheless.

Also
>no comments on clumsy language other than problems with the prose itself
English is my second language, I am now proud.

>>6608593
Ah, I love it when anons post other people shit on critique threads in order to test the critiquers. Well, at least another book made it to my to-read list.

>>6608530
Where is the rest of the story? Joking aside, the piece “suffers” because I have little context at hand. I enjoyed reading it. The first sentence is loaded with ambiguity. Who is “he”? How does he displace consciousness and why does he do it? What is the “rift”? I feel a strong sci-fi vibe here. While the first sentence does good to hook the reader, I felt the sentence is overdone with ambiguity, but this could be seen as a personal preference on my part as I like an establishing shot. There are some grammatical concerns. The third sentence could be rewritten (again, my personal preference) to enhance the flow of the sentence (and to replace the semicolon with a comma and “see” to “mean”): “Perhaps he feared it would mean the eclipse and deconstruction of his soul, something that he, as a man a little too tied to the past, could not abide the idea of.” In the sentence following replace the comma with a semicolon, because the two independent clauses are not connected by a conjunction and I believe connecting the two clauses would break the flow: “This did not prevent him from carrying out his work with due prejudice and diligence; in fact, he proposed to himself that the very reason he was able to perform the research he so enjoyed was due to the fact he had been uncontaminated by the vast, soul-destroying expanse that would have been laid before him should he have chosen to don the technological vestments his subjects so often did in his presence.” (I am not fond of “due prejudice and diligence,” but it works.) (Also it is long, but that is not really constructive criticism.) Again I dislike that I feel I am not able to give more constructive feedback as the flash fiction feels like an excerpt.

Sorry this took a while.

>>6608700
>Well, at least another book made it to my to-read list.

You should probably already know something about the revolution to a reasonable historical detail or be ready to interrupt your reading with research every few lines if you want to get a good grasp on this particular book.

>>6608700
Actually the last sentence of the first paragraph has a slight grammatical error. Honestly I felt I needed to direct my attention to prose. In the second paragraph the first sentence does display clumsy language with the use of the dependent clause; the dependent clause is overly long. Then I stopped reading, because of the prose.

>>6608717

Thanks for the feedback, it's really quite helpful, I only started writing it today, so it's a little rough, so I'll take all that into consideration, if you want to read any further, as it stands, this is what I've written:

>>6608606

>>6608037

Anyone?

>>6608752
The last sentence? Where? And, ah, that is still good enough. I'm still young, there's plenty of time.

>>6608743
It's probably going to be an arduous read, then. Not that I mind, though.

I placed my hand on her stomach, waiting for the kick. It never came. Maybe the mother needed to be alive for that.

My hand traveled along the curve of her belly and between her breast. I played the bongo before finishing my solo with a smack to her cameltoe.

Critique?

>>6609390
Dude, c'mon.

>>6609611
What? Can't handle my style? Besides, no one else is critiquing my other work.

>>6609628

Your writing is absurd, but you know it's absurd.

You're trying to make a point but although you know what it is, you want to post this snippet either alone or out of context to make it seem like you're more intelligent that people who don't "get it".

If anyone could critique my third draft of this, I'd be more than grateful.

Particularly if anyone notices any comma-splices that I happen to have missed, or anywhere the writing doesn't flow particularly well.

http://pastebin.com/1C96Rf0M

>>6609876
Actually I wrote that because it made me giggle. I was on /co/ and a post set my mind working. I dislike the notion that I set myself out to seem more intelligent. People comment that I am broody. I want to show I'm not. By God, I can be funny! Anyway...
>>6608037
care to critique? I'm serious here at least.

>>6610020

I feel like you're either trying to experiment with grammatical conventions, or English is your second language.

It works, don't get me wrong, there's some interesting sentence structure, however, the fourth sentence (2nd sentence, 2nd paragraph), is just a complete mess and unintelligible.

I enjoyed reading it, like I said, it's oddity makes it interesting, aside from that one sentence.

If you don't mind doing me a favour, could you take a brief look at the first few paragraphs of this:

>>6609989

>>6610119

>it's oddity

I should go to bed.

A racing heart bound to a tree,
Pounding loud and dull
Sinews meshed in frigid limbs
Probes that press and pry -
A ventricle’s limit tried
And the branches sway with a wanton music

Ah yeah, the genius tyrannosaur finally clambers down from his tower to dispense his phlegm among the peons. No bratwurst in these caves you Lilly-livered cunt. Monstrous applause for the Germanic reveal. Sploshing out onto the patio his innards slept a dance of ruinous acclaim. There can't be found this time of day a number so brilliant. Must traverse many a swamp for ye finds the holiest of sacraments. Eat a dinner of turgid lungs and mayhap you'll be able to enter His mausoleum. Statues guard this ring. Click-clack, click-clack. SWING. No more yearning for the knight. The opulent river-coons swing a tango for this begotten priest on the rings of Ploythaxmus. The bucket is emptied now.

>>6610182
the kind of thing that's fun to write when completely hammered then laugh about the next day with some friends when drunk again, or with yourself

It's fun as long as you don't take it seriously

Bumpelstiltskin

it's awful and english is not my native language, but here goes
I just started writing and am looking for feedback on how to improve, just point out everything thats shit please

Slowly creeping comes wearyness, comes fatigue and at long last sleep, sits down in the corner, watching you out of small, tired eyes. As time passes on they move closer with a cozy and peaceful smile on their small round faces. They sit next to you on the couch and you turn your head just a slight bit and nod politely. Over time, you feel the couch tilt ever so slighty to your new neighbours' side and as you look over, you could swear they look bigger than before. Not definitely, but perhaps slightly more voluptous. You start to feel soft fur brushing up against your arm as they spread out to accomodate for their new size. You knew you were right. A bit disgruntled and displeased at their sudden appearance you shuffle to your end of the sofa, trying to bring just a bit of space between yourself and the three unannounced guests. You look over once more and observe the once benevolent faces turn into gruesome grimaces, watching you with a self-righteous, sly smile. Their growth is undeniable now, one of them is again brushing up against your arm. Flight is impossible. Soothing sing-sang surrounds your thoughts, lulling you and tucking you into bed. They have taken control now, throning high above and looking down upon their prey, a mischievous grin spreading from ear to ear. Now it can't be long. There is no rush. Darkness engulfs you. Don't struggle. Submit.
You look into the Abyss.
And Jump.

Emery I am so tired.

last week I wanted to die and I don't know why. I am ashamed I felt this way.

I finished my last final at 9:30 Wednesday evening. I felt so down walking the empty linoleum halls and emptying my locker and putting all these big books into my sweater and tying it up. I went to the ladies room and I sat on the toilette. The Janitor had cleaned the floors. The smell was strong and I vomited a little. I felt cold like I have never felt before so I unwrapped my sweater and put it on and opened the stall door and looked at myself in the mirror for a long time. I was paler than my father and skinny as Phillip before he passed; it's a disgrace to be ugly. It's a disgrace to all mankind showing my face around these halls, opening my mouth to chatter chatter chatter.

Islam is a monotheistic, abrahamic, religion articulated by the Quran. I know very little about it. I care even less about its teachings. What interests me is the specific practice of hijab wearing. I would wear a Hijab to cover me, they would think it an expression of modesty or commitment or faith, they would not know me.

>>6612598
I don't know if thats a stylistic choice that you intended but you start lots of sentences with "I" and they have a similar structure. Might be dull to read if it carries on longer. I'm pretty sure the "and ... and ... and..." in the first sentence is intentional and I quite like it, but the fact that your overall sentence structure doesnt change too much in the following sentences doesn't make it too interesting, although I liked reading it. Just some input, who am I to judge?

also someone please take a look at this: >>6612330

>>6607585
Next draft of this section. http://pastebin.com/v80hz3g8

>>6612674
just gonna keep commenting on stuff while I wait

>>6612682
when I started reading the first section you posted, I sighed because it felt like the whole "captilamsi is evil!!" shit you read on facebook all the time, only phrased slightly better. probably has a bit too much pathos and I also believe the whole "slaving away for the machine"-thing is overused nowadays. the sentence starting with "precious sleep..." was really confusing at first but for some reason the "clutching at me for cigarettes and young flesh part" really drew my attention and led me to read the rest of the excerpt. Correction: "bed all day[.] I was finally..."

Generally the excerpt seems out of concept and hart to understand with prior explanation or buildup and the start includes too much pathos, seems overdone to me. Overall its interesting though

Actually just started this like an hour ago

"In all my years I’ve never seen such a beautiful corpse.” one beige, ill fitting suit adorned detective said to the other. Purple lilacs laid cross her waist, perfectly scattered - too disheveled to haven’t been placed that way. Her scarlet rose lipstick smeared over her cheek, eyes somberly closed. The other suit went on about how it looked like a Rembrandt painting, though he likely only said it to sound educated. A flash camera POP interrupted their revery...or morbid infatuation over the fallen starlet."

people if nobody critiques others this thread will die dont just post your stuff help others out too

>>6612330
It's 4:30am, but this is no excuse, you deserve better than this crit.
I am assuming ambiguity is intentional, I am also assuming you are trying to personify weariness, fatigue, and sleep, if I am wrong, either I am too tired and stupid, or you may want to reconsider this metaphor, I don't think my reading is entirely unreasonable. If I am correct thus far, sort of interesting concept.
w several simple plural form issues
> a self righteous smile
self righteous smiles
> a mischevous grin
> mischevous grins

Word choice might need improvement.
>volumptous
sensual connotations, is this intentional?
>sing-sang
sing-song is a better choice, even if this was an intentional malapropism.

the end is a little cliche I think

>darkness engulfs you
>don't struggle
>and jump

maybe write a couple drafts of the end.
This was good, especially for an ESLAnon, goodjob.
>Darkness engulfs you. Don't struggle. Submit.
>You look into the Abyss.
>And Jump.

>>6612777
Everytime I revisit the passage I realize what it is I'm actually trying to say. It's going to probably morph more and more as the story behind it also goes through edits but I think I'm getting closer to what I'm trying to say.

>>6612785
Very vivid but has some trouble flowing, maybe it's just me but the "to haven't been placed that way" line just kind of stalls it, also the description of the detective, nitpicking probably but hey that's what critique threads are for. I like that you identify them as suits first, was that entirely intentional?

>>6612840
the end is a bit cliche because I was trying something with the words, if you look at the 5 sentences before "you look into the abyss", youll notice they have 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 words respectively but I realise now I should have focused on syllables instead. I was trying to increase the tension a bit by stacking those sentences on top of each other, leading up to the jump

like build-up, short pause (you look into the abyss), JUMP

Whatever happened to the daily exercises guy?

>>6599670

>>6612785
I like this - kinda like a less bizarro Steve Aylett.

>>6612785
as >>6612846 said, it doesn't flow very well and some sentences made me go back and read parts of them again to make sure I read them correctly but that could be completely intentional. Quite liked it overall

>>6612682
First excerpt from the same story...

A sign outside the metro station informed us we couldn't smoke so I was glad that had we dropped acid instead. We had left the dull suburbs behind in interest of glimpsing culture, fine art, and as many public monuments as we could. I recall that it was the early afternoon and we’d come out in a party of four. An aspiring composer and reluctant psychonaut, an artist who entrusted her future to computer science but would rather be a tattoo artist, one boyish man who I imagined to be some kind of humanized sea lion, and myself dragged along on the promise of a concert in the future and one and a half tabs of twenty five. We were riding the orange line from the suburbs into the metro center. Normally traveling through the humid tunnels of Washington D.C.’s metro network is like being pulled through the perspiring sleeve of a career politician, but on a fine Memorial Day weekend the boggy capital had relinquished to us a dry and sunny day.

>>6613029
Your first sentence is bad Hunter S. Thompson. The following sentences are worse Hunter S. Thompson.

Just from this paragraph I feel like your writing tends to take a rhythm of ending in predictable deflating contrast punchlines. This grows tiresome for more sensitive readers after just a few pages.

And, given the stylistic influence and the setup, I have a hard time imagining you're headed for anything original with this story. Which doesn't so much matter in a lot of instances if you're writing about the movements of normal life and using those as framework for personalizing exploration. But patchwork gonzo Ferris Bueller doesn't easily lend itself to soul searching or original thoughts.

Also it was pretty humid in DC last Monday.

>>6613095
Memorial day weekend, went in on Friday. Thank you for the tips though. I'll keep working on it.
.

Tomorrow the foreman will dismiss the packers from the third floor an hour after closing time. He will shower in the locker room and when he steps out he will avoid the mirror. At his locker he'll put his uniform on: it'll be a dark work-shirt, black slacks, etc..etc... then he will drive into the city and park at the warehouse.

Tonight, he calls his mother at the home. Sammy is sick again, she phoned Martha to tell him that she would bring the kid over Sat. morning instead of Friday night because she could only schedule an appointment for Fri. afternoon, and she would be busy busy busy filling the prescription afterwords, but the kid would be at his apartment by Sat. evening at the latest, depending on traffic patterns and if he was hungry.
His mother tells him to bring her the cream for dry skin, but he had already done that yesterday. After work, he stopped off at rite- aid and bought a pack of beer (drinking was not a problem. By designating drinking days Tue. Wed. Fri. he had minimized inebriation and was now confident his face would droop less and his gut would tighten up after several weeks of brisk exercise for him this meant walking laps around the reservoir and burning on the park bench where his height allowed him an excellent view of the nubile asses of passing qt's). He bought her cream, and took it up to the home where an elvis impersonator set up in the foyer was gyrating for the silent generation..He was all shook up, because 103, 103, 104, 106 with the forecasted weekly average at 109 had cooked up that place; it was piss and meat loaf and shrivel up even though the windows were all open and the breeze had kicked up in the evening.

In her wheelchair sat Martha the Queen Bee. She wanted her cream, and she weighed barely over a hundred now, so he picked her up, laid her on her bed, stripped the nightgown and applied it where it was sore or where it smelled. She asked him any women in your life since Sammy?
Later they watched reruns but Martha was pissed and passed out of her mind how did she get into that in here? then started to complain about this and that and this and that and

>>6613173

At first I kinda hated it but I think you got some chops under that skirt.

The minimalist stuff I am a fan of. Some bits like "drinking was not a problem" were quite affecting.

The rest was a bit of a mess. First off. Write a proper story. Beginning, middle, end. Characters. Setting. Conflict. That kind of thing. It's hard to judge something that is a mess when you haven't got a structure to work off.

I'd drop some of the goofier elements like etc. etc. and busy busy busy. It's fun but it's also shit. Drop the fancier language like 'inebriation' it doesn't suit minimal down to earth language. Also avoid some of the longer unpunctuated sentences. They're a bitch to read.

>>6613029

It's a bit dry for something about taking acid. Drop some of the stuffy language 'I recall', 'informed', 'relinquished', 'reluctant psychonaut'. I'd say drop the middle class shit. Fine culture, computer science, composers - uh. Stop pretending dude. You don't live in some world of literary kings. Be real.

another excerpt from my WIP novel, I've reviewed other people's stuff thrice already & will do more shortly.

chapter title: Maurice Van Der Doelen, Stance Coach


“Come in, come in. See those certificates? All bullshit. There is no Harvard School of Physical
Positioning. There is no Oxford College of Applied Commercial Appearances. I think the Beijing Number One Faculty of Personal Space Management may be for real, but I sure as shit didn’t go there. And I tell you this not only without shame, but with pride. Because what I do here, what my clients learn here, is pure boardroom stance-based alchemy, my friend. And that can’t be learned in a classroom. Except this one. It can be learned in this classroom.”


more here:

http://pastebin.com/VJj4gwSW

Achka occupied the questionably named position of Secretary to the Undersecretary of the Secretary to the Director of Records of the Office of the Treasurer. His duties consisted of ensuring that the Undersecretary of the Secretary to the Director of Records of the Office of the Treasurer was fully resourced such that he could effectively resource the Secretary to the Director of Records of the Office of the Treasurer. It was essentially little more than a dick-sucking position. The Service was full of them. Achka sat in his office filing the occasional file or mailing the occasional letter, but he spent the vast majority of his time engaging in casual banter with friends or even complete strangers over the info-net, or under the Undersecretary's desk and between his legs. The Undersecretary had no complaints. In fact, the Undersecretary preferred it that way. Achka wasn't actually very good at his job (people promoted on the basis of literal dick sucking rarely are) and about three months in the Undersecretary had explicitly forbidden him from doing it, lest he fuck something up. Achka, of course, had no complaints. It wasn't exactly unprecedented. Secretary to the Undersecretary of the Secretary to the Director of Records of the Office of the Treasurer wasn't called a dick-sucking position for nothing, and it wasn't the only dick-sucking position in The Service.
The Service, like all good public services, was funded by taxes and not profits. The incentive to perform well was small, the incentive to spend money wisely was tiny, and the incentive to create underlings you don't need for any other purpose than to have them ride you was attached to your body and demanding attention. It didn't exactly create a good reputation for the Achkakahisska race in the galaxy, but who cares? Got laid - worth it. Besides, everyone already knew the Achkakahisska were hyper-sexual anyway. It's not as if pretending not to be was going to fool anyone when they walked in on the President and the Director-General having a quickie in the humanoid oxygen-breathing stalls during a break in the Galactic Senate. So yes, in human terms Achka was little more than a taxpayer-funded prostitute to be whored out to his boss as required, but in Achkakahisska terms he was a respected member of society. He was the lubrication that allowed the cogs of Achkakahisska government to revolve smoothly, without grinding each other down. Everyone's a little more amiable to compromise and get on with the job in their afterglow, after all. Dick-sucking isn't easy when you've got a mouth full of fangs made for stripping flesh off of freshly killed prey and a barbed tongue, but with skill and dedication Achka could administer the medication required to bring the Minister for Agriculture to the table.
And orgasm.

>not part of anything bigger, just something i wrote up literally right now. i'm kinda fascinated by my own idea though. i might take it further

>>6613173

I think you could tighten this up a bit with putting a bit more person into the narrator's voice:
I'm not sure people say 'traffic patterns' conversationally.

'..but he had already done that yesterday.' could sound more like the guy I think you're writing as 'but he did that yesterday.'

'...where it was sore or where it smelled.' He's narrating, not talking to his mother. I'm pretty sure he'd say 'stank' instead of 'smelled.'

'Nubile asses' is a word combo you would only ever see on the internet; I cannot believe that it has ever existed in anyone's thoughts.

There's something there, but I think you could make the writing more impactful by really honing the sentences, get them as lean as fuck.

Example:

In her wheelchair sat Martha the Queen Bee. She wanted her cream, and she weighed barely over a hundred now, so he picked her up, laid her on her bed, stripped the nightgown and applied it where it was sore or where it smelled. She asked him any women in your life since Sammy?

I think that just restructuring the sentences a bit gives them more urgency and tension:


In her wheelchair, Martha. The Queen Bee. She wanted her cream. She weighed barely over a hundred now so he picked her up, laid her on her bed, stripped the nightgown. He applied cream where it was sore or where it stank. She asked him any women in your life since Sammy? No.

I could be wrong though. It does happen.

Mine is this if anyone fancied giving feedback. I posted it just a while ago, but now remembering to do it after a review:

http://pastebin.com/VJj4gwSW

another excerpt:

Department of Homeland Security
Case ref: DHS/NN/458489
Evidence Item ref:111/27/4
Transcript of covert recording

EP: Ernest Piccolo, President & Chief Executive Officer, Piccolo Industries
SB: Sal Buscemi, Chief Financial Officer, Piccolo Industries
BP: Patricia (Bookie) Penette, Executive Assistant to Ernest Piccolo (not present in room)


EP: Sal, you ever take a shit, go back to the bathroom an hour later and see that shit still

floating, looking right up at you, grinning?

SP: Not grinning, no.

EP: I don't mean literally grinning Sal, I'm not insane. I’m not your son. No offence, he’s a

great kid, he’s my nephew or something and I love him, and I know you and Maria did your best,

and by saying that I’m not suggesting you could’ve done more, although obviously you could, or

he wouldn’t be such a crazy little prick. If your Peter had asked such a question, it would not be

unreasonable to assume he was genuinely enquiring as to whether your turds were in the

habit of taunting you as he no doubt believes his do him. But I am not your son Sal, and

I almost certainly never will be. So just humour me and answer the question – did you ever

take a shit and find it still there hours later?

SB: I guess.

EP: You guess or yes? It’s not the kind of thing a man forgets, Sal. Not a real man.

SB: Jesus H. Yes.

EP: Yes what? What yes, Sal?

SB: Yes, I’ve taken a shit and returned to the bathroom to find it still there.

EP: That’s unimpressive Sal. A man should never be defeated by his own shit.

(over intercom) Bookie, make a note for Sal’s next appraisal – Sal is to be bonus-dependant

on establishing mastery over his own excrement.

BP: I’m not sure I understand that, Mr P.

EP: Excrement, Bookie. It means shit.


more here:

http://pastebin.com/eLYdzDM6

http://pastebin.com/qj1NjvSm

The air is heavy and unmoving, settled on us like skin, moving only slightly when we do. On her I can see sweat through the dull glow of the street lights outside the ratty curtains of my small room. Outside I can hear traffic passing, and somewhere in the distance I hear the frightened scream of a car alarm. She puts the glass bottle down and slowly scoots back up the bed and into my arms. We make love and fall back to sleep.

The rest is in the pastebin... Don't know why I would continue

Buuuuump

Overcast, concealment.

Every moment of conversation
I feel as a child does
first learning to swim,
in an ocean.
On deck they stare;
why are they not looking
for a buoy? Rope?

A fisherman aboard? Well?
Is he scolding them
for the greenhorn term, rope?

Sorrow eyes have met mine,
they do take pity
as father would
of an old diseased dog.
For years I have ate from your children's leftovers.

>>6614245
I like it. I'm not sure I can justify that though. Or even explain it.

Can someone please give me a bit of critique on this?

http://pastebin.com/1C96Rf0M

>>6607984
I'm glad someone enjoyed it, thanks.

Now some raspy voice comes in a wheelchair
three-ten black eyes breathing tubes
completely bald face cracked
still laughing (voice cracks me up)
starts saying something about smoking
still laughing
start to wonder what angle are they taking
haha where's the payoff?

Adipose stains, varicose veins, nut-shells ’n’ bolts,
crooked Rectoress’s smiles, herbs from Humboldt,
the scene sets itself a paper-thin veneer,
noticing the translucent naïveté, now and here:
the realization that he, I, have no clue what we’re
doing, out-of-step, drunk as an amoeba in beer.
Re: reticent rectifiers reluctantly refer the alliterative hack
to someone whose name is an industry secret (Jack)
the carpenter sulking between panoramic, off-shot cracks
at midnight out between shiny buildings, un-gentrified,
bushels of corrugated roofs, sounding: roof, roof, chide,
meow the cakes’ killer, children howling and showing teeth,
grabbing pockets with their sticky hands, yanking briefs
down at the lengthily-laced patience of Mother Earth,
howling, showing teeth.––the buzz is nudged, mirth,
undone shoes meet polished wood, bedside––
moans, squeaks, apologies, slaps, and blood-dried
orgasms erupt––teh non-nonsense re-returns
in a redundant city-float parade, adorned with urns,
a star, a son whose matriarch eludes all’s breath,
the exasperated fog emitted at the precipice of death,
the carrier of carriers, denier of murk, of spongy space,
so as to say that the today has laid down its subtle grace (faceless).

>>6615150
PROSE MOTHERFUCKER CAN YOU READ

>>6614581
>“Are you mad?” He said to me, trying not to raise his voice. We had chosen a poor place to talk about this, I admit that, but it just so happened that neither of us wanted to host the meetings in order to persist in the anonymity we lent each other.

“Are you mad?” He said, trying not to raise his voice. We had chosen a poor place to talk, I admit that, but it just so happened that neither of us wanted to host the meetings. We'd lent each other too much anonymity.

and on. Didnt read past second sentence.

>>6615159

I'm sorry, I forgot how stringent the rules and regulations on this site are.

>>6615181
his version is better

>>6615188
TWO THREADS
ONE PROSE
ONE POETRY

>>6615193

Duly noted. Now please use your inside voice, you're scaring the children.

This is the first time I've written anything non-school or college related. I'm writing it to help myself learn, so some critique would be helpful.

I'm studying ancient history and archaeology, and I like reading about fantasy, so I decided to combine the two to make a Byzantium-inspired fantasy piece.

http://pastebin.com/xtCVHegn

A short poem

I can't drive busses
I don't want to
But smiles stop
The black man pushing the pedal
Too early, and early
When it is cold
I just want
To get home. Fucking
Hell.

>>6615204
IF I SCARED YOU OFF THEN GOOD

>>6615215
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

>>6615219
AAAAAAA YOURSELF CUNT

>>6615229
Sorry

>>6612785
>one beige, ill fitting suit adorned detective said to the other
This is terrible. If you want to describe what they look like, whatever. But the "adorned" shit is clunky as fuck. Just use a fucking verb. "one detective wearing a beige, ill fitting suit said to another"
>Purple lilacs laid cross her waist
"cross" isn't a fucking preposition. "crossed her waist" or "laid across her waist"
>perfectly scattered - too disheveled to haven’t been placed that way
They're perfectly scattered, but disheveled? What? Disheveled implies something is unkempt, messy. I can't even tell you how to fix this because I can't tell if you're trying to describe that the lilacs look deliberately placed or that they look like someone tried to make them appear disheveled.
>The other suit went on about how it looked like a Rembrandt painting, though he likely only said it to sound educated.
Good on you if that's some self-aware irony. But given how purple your prose is, I'm guessing it's not and it flew over your head.
>POP
>...
Bad.

>>6615219
hey man, you should really chill

>>6615214
Great exposition. Remove "The next morning...", find a more formalized transition, as I agree there should be one. Some issues with tense.

Continue, certainly.

>>6614581
Indent after the first sentence, to pace it a bit. Keep your tense straight, it afflicts the storytelling. Find a strong arc in exposition, I became bored quickly.

>>6599670
Me.

>>6614389
Thank you! It's much more bleak than I intended.
The last line esp. has the EDGE factor. I'm taking it out.

Tried a short bit of inner monologue, could use some critique. I've taken too long of a hiatus from writing and reading and I fear my skill has fallen by the wayside.

>
The snow and frost bit into my ankles through the thick leather of the boots that sat loosely on my cold legs. The shivering hadn't stopped in the last hour, and I wasn't alone. Hans sat frozen on metal bench of the beutetraktor. The ice danced and shook as the vehicle trundled along. He stared endlessly into the white abyss.

“Charlie,” I shouted over the rumble of the engine. My finger rose lazily and waved in the general direction of the ice caked shell of a man that sat across from me.
Charlie turned to look, and at a glance it seemed as if he just fell away. Hans' frigid body fell out of the tractor with a small white puff and a wet metallic bang when he bounced off the towed PaK gun that trundled along by hitch from our humble vehicle. My eyes followed his grey form as it slowly drifted away in our wake. I pursed the chapped strips of dried meat that had served as my lips for the past week. Dreams of yesteryear filled my frozen brain. I felt the inexorable lust for another to join me inside the warm confines of my psyche. The gentle breeze that wafted across the Rhine swept through my brain, the sweet taste of wine on my tongue titillated my taste buds.

No, I hadn't a sweetheart like most of the lads. My experiences weren't through rose tinted goggles of romance and bravery. I relished the time spent on my own, given my own devices and my own conquests as week after week passed by my bored adulthood. A smile cracked across my shivering cheeks, the pain from the facial motion jerking me out of the simple summer paradise that gave me a brief respite from the white hell of the Ukranian countryside.

Kiev had fallen. I looked over my men with tired disdain. They were the broken remnants of Hollidt's Sixth Army. A tired band of boys – children, if anything – the lucky few that managed to join me as I so shamefully retreated in the face of Soviet tanks. Tanks, that we had been tasked to stop with the battered PaK 39 gun we captured from the Bolsheviks. I would have gratefully accepted any punishment sent my way for such treasonous thoughts as retreating in the face of battle. No shred of authority could reach out to these wastelands, anyway. My men were true children of the fatherland, that much is certain. Hans especially, what a trooper. Always would he stir the spirit of the platoon with his good deeds and prideful inspirations. Bless his soul. Carrion birds roost during the winter, not daring to fly out lest the ice drag them towards a cold death.
At least he would have his own peace.

Started a new project yesterday.

Inspiration hit and now I have a rough plan of the whole thing, as well as a first chapter of just over 2000 words penned.

If anyone wants to read:
http://pastebin.com/HGGBzyMd

>>6617336
Bit stilted. More brevity. Larger words are awkwardly placed.

Try not to reuse words so much in that context; I read 'soul' too many times. It's a heavy word. Maybe you should read more esoteric works to compliment your vernacular?

>>6617008
A bit too written.

>>6618014

Thanks for the feedback, I'll try and look at any words that look awkward when I'm going through redrafting.

>>6615496

Good post, thanks for your honesty.

I've come up with a more formalised transition by making the main character sign off. It's written from his point of view because it's meant to be extracts taken from his personal journal.

What issues did you find with the tense? I expected to mess up somewhere so it's not a surprise.

>>6618287
Yes, that would be perfect. I find the work would be more foreboding that way.

There's some confusion with past and present tense. Probably because of the journal format.

No, I liked it. I was able to imagine it as a esoteric short film in my head.

>>6618311

I'm used to writing in the past tense because of history projects. Everything is always "Constantine said" or "Genghis rode to" which rubs off on you after a while.

I don't know what kind of project I want it to be yet, I just wanted to write about Byzantium and other cultures without being constrained by actual history.

I'm also not sure if I want the main character to eventually ascend to the throne (Meaning the journal would be a sort of "Secret History of the Mongols" kind of thing), or if he will just be recording daily life in the cultures he experiences as a diplomat.

>>6618333
I could see the guy dying in the end, personally, but that's probably just my shitty mood. Good luck.

>>6618343

Death would be good actually, because I want him to explore the themes and ideas of Neoplatonism over the course of the text. I could have his health slowly decline the more he writes (This would become a plot point if he became emperor), and have the text/his journal end on a cliffhanger when he dies suddenly.

Save

>>6617008
The other anon is right, some things are a bit overwritten, making a few of your sentences awkward.

>The snow and frost bit into my ankles through the thick leather of the boots that sat loosely on my cold legs
This is a good example, as you're trying to describe your scene with a lot of detail, but you end up repeating the same thing. Just by mentioning "snow and frost" (itself a redundancy!) you've already established a frigid setting, and going on to say "cold legs" is superfluous because you've already established snow and frost biting into your ankles. No reader would assume that only your ankles are cold, and that the rest of your body comfortable! If you wanted to, you could shift the personification from the snow and frost to the cold quality of the s+f, but it's ultimately unnecessary. Also, describing how your boots sit on your legs should be done elsewhere, if anywhere, because it divides the aim of the sentence, and it ends up feeling like a laundry list of initial setting conditions for your story. Another thing, describing your boots as "thick leather" but still describing your legs as cold implies you've been outside in the snow and ice for a while, and you could work with this implication by making it more direct later on in the chapter/paragraph/story.

>>6613645
I've always like interviews/dialogues formatted as formal interrogations as a unique but not unbearable way to tell a story, so nice format.

I just hope the entire story isn't one big interview

>>6618023
>>6619581
thanks, I appreciate the critique, I definitely see what you guys mean

>>6599915
this is some 'avid reader' tier stuff