/lit/ - Literature

wow this is so bad. like a 10th grade kid who thinks he's pretty smart taking his first college-in-high-school creative writing class bad.

>>6897519
>Practice What You Peach
Kek

>>6897595
AND WE'RE OFF!

This is already shaping up to be a legendary critique thread.

heres a novella i recently had published.

As if her hand was a pita chip(irony her name Stacy) she aimed towards my hummus penis (irony my name Sabra) and scooped it up and put it in her mouth like someone who is eating hummus with pita chips or a big trash truck scooping trash in with that claw thing. It felt good.

Reddit isn't so bad after all.

First paragraph of something, who knows

I wake up with such remorse for having disturbed the only peace I seem to find these days. People don’t get enough credit for getting up in the morning. It’s hard when you go to work every day to do the same thing, with the same people, getting shit pay with management that doesn’t respect you. It’s an endless loop; restarting every night I shut my eyes. The lines are becoming blurry. Weeks are becoming days. Soon, months will be years and the more life continues to move forward, the farther back I will go into my past. Trying to come to terms with who I am and trying to figure out who I’m going to be.

I need critique on a plot outline I have

I. Blind girl lives on a farm town
II.Moves to a townhouse in a big city
III.Meets dissident
IV.Works as a watchman
V. Capture

>>6897865
Too many ideas and big words in one paragraph. Dilute it.

>>6897874
>I need critique on a plot outline I have
Critique #1: Make a coherent plot line
Critique #2: Make each plot point more than just a sentence fragment
Critique #3: Looks horrible. Please trash it and start with a new idea

>>6897865
As real as it is, moaning about the depressing nature of repetitive work is a huge cliché.

>>6897904
Don't worry, that was just a simplified outline.
This will be a short story or novella.

I. Life at home
A. Early life
1. Segregation from other children, the farm, school for the blind
a. introspection
2. Audiobooks through the library
3. Amtrak/Airplane first class -- charity
a. delicious, soft chicken
B. Town Hall meeting leadership
1. she is angry, others are bemused
II. Moves to the city
A. University
1. the campus is huuuuge
a. nothing new
2. social life impeded by brother, who is fearful
B. City experiences
1. Wanders alone
a. can not sense homeless until runs into one
b. so much trash
-resentment
c. voices
-spend days wandering around
d. a desire to clean up the community

I'm stopping here as this is all I have so far

>>6897906
The work is just a part of the equation but, I'll keep that in mind!

>>6897519
> beginning anything with a character waking up
> being this amateur

>>6897519
Title is clearly trying too hard to be quirky. Before even reading it I already see serious problems with your shit. You need to clean up the format. Have you ever cracked open a novel before?

When Atlas shrugged and gazed at what he’d wrought—
A clod of clay in million shattered shards,—
A keening cry from billion throats was caught.

A thousand wars to quarter clay were fought
By men whose names had died unkissed by bards
When Atlas shrugged and gazed at what he’d wrought.

When all the human wisdom mind can plot
Surrendered to the ignorance it guards,
A keening cry from billion throats was caught.

Made brick and stone from hazy mists of thought,
Collapsed to dust the obelisk of cards
When Atlas shrugged and gazed at what he’d wrought.

When sea spilled out, the russet soil a clot,—
A barren mass of grey that rain bombards,—
A keening cry from billion throats was caught.

The elder race of men was therefore blot
From history, their towers and boulevards,
When Atlas shrugged and gazed at what he’d wrought—
A keening cry from billion throats was caught.

>>6898317
> ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA

(first try at surrealism, it probably sucks)

The static in the radio is worth more than the voices for the scientists.
There are remnants of the Big Bang in the signal.
But the Big Bang is for all of us a man in a gorilla suit.
A movie theater to cool ourselves with the screen.
It is much like criminals who come to put the police in prison.
The department store, which opens its doors to man.
The condition that the flies posed for the swarming on the food.
The knife which cut the orange in half
like a man who goes to the museum and spit at the paintings.

I write this to you as I sit here on the train.
A train that does not travel on rails but on dogma and morals.

>>6898338
i.e. a villanelle

>>6898342
> The static in the radio is worth more than the voices for the scientists.
> But the Big Bang is for all of us a man in a gorilla suit.
> It is much like criminals who come to put the police in prison.
> The condition that the flies posed for the swarming on the food.
> like a man who goes to the museum and spit at the paintings.

>>6898355
i.e. a shit

>>6898363
Is it shit because it's a villanelle, or is it shit because the poem is bad? And if it's the latter, why?

>>6897865
> waaa le depressed
> work is unfair
> muh time a big blur

go back to tumblr

>>6898369

It's bad because the form is overshadowing the rest of the poem. There is a disjunction between form and content. Part of this is because the diction of the poem has a sense of being self-conciously elevated, preening itself as classical. Words like "wrought" and "keening" and hyperbole like "billion."

Read "One Art" and "Do Not Go Gentle" again. The repetitions flow naturally into the subject matter, the rhymes mount with the feeling of the poem. The diction has been pared back slightly, even in Thomas' poem, in order to make the poem less artificial.

Part of this is also that the thinking in the poem is shallow. The repetitions don't really add. Each stanza is just an repetition of the same thing in the first stanza, atlas dropped the globe, everyone died, woe. The form comes forward as the culprit, "how the fuck do I keep writing this? Ah! By saying the same thing over and over."

Read Poets Thinking by Helen Vandler.

Visit to a Friend

The trees still lacks leaves.
They resemble elderly men in the daylight.
Soon the hairs will regrow.

The airplane in the sky that is so distant
is visible now.

The doorbell remember me.
Freight cars are loaded and offloaded.

The baggage that is one's soul is expanding.
It thrills with its duties.

The perfectionist worries
watching his shadow grow.

>>6897519
i cringed at the over-explanation in the dialogue.

>>6898416
Keep these two lines and delete all rest:

The perfectionist worries
watching his shadow grow.

>>6898370
It might be further trolling from that bizarre OP yesterday who kept spamming threads. One of the more suspect 'poem's I googled and found it several years ago across tumblr and pinterest.

>>6896378
>>6896572
>>6896410

After sink washing his face, pits and crotch he left the confines of the putrid bathroom and took a moment to peruse the offers. It had been more than a full day since his last meal, but the 2-for-1 special on French Hot Dogs still didn't manage to arouse his appetite once he laid eyes on the gray cylinders slowly spinning behind the greasy glass. The store itself was abandoned save for the clerk deeply engrossed in something on a badly hidden laptop behind the counter.

“I'll just have a coffee.” he said, laying a few coins on the counter. The clerk, 'Detlef' the name tag read, didn't look up and a barely audible grunt was the reply.

Pushing the clean paper cup into the machine felt like sacrilege, pure white cardboard tainted instantly by the half dried slop on the plate beneath the sprout. He selected the plain black option. Not daring to try his luck with the milk carton beside the machine, he took a tentative sip from the now steaming cup. It tasted burnt. Gas station coffee was always burnt. He left the store, coffee in hand sparing Detlef an unrequited 'Thank you.'.

Outside in the darkness the air felt crisp and cool. The silence was broken intermittently by the occasional late traveler, or early depending on how you looked at it, that passed him by on the nearby Autobahn. He walked some distance from the pumps and once he was what he considered a safe and polite distance away, fished a package of smokes from his pocket. He took a seat on the low cement wall just opposite the row of trucks parked for the night and enjoyed the solitude and his buffet of stimulants. He took this moment to scope out his options. Finding trucks from Albania, Turkey and Bulgaria he soon had quite a few potentials for heading south. He took a drag and watched the sky, a faint hue of pink had begun to appear over the horizon. Perhaps today will bring better luck, he thought.

>>6898316
>You need to clean up the format.
Because novelists are known for their formatting wizardry right?
That's what editors are for.

>>6898875

>having dough enough to pay out your ass for editorial services

Yeah, right. Even your parents will stop paying for your shit eventually, son. Once you git gud and git pubbed then fine, you'll have that. But for your first script best learn to handle your business.

>>6898316
>Title is clearly trying too hard to be quirky.
More like you're trying too hard to be critical.

But by all means continue, this is exactly why I come to these threads.

>>6898883
>for your first script best learn to handle your business.
Because novelists are known for their formatting wizardry right?

>>6898900

Good luck ever getting shit published with this shitty attitude.

>>6898914
Because published novelists are known for their formatting wizardry right?

>>6898416

This is not well-written but oh it breathes something pleasant.

Rewrite it please. Your thinking is good

>>6898921

No, but getting your first novel published without proper formatting is almost impossible, especially these days. If you can't afford an editor, you need to learn how to do a half decent job yourself. Why are you so resistant to doing things properly? Are you mentally deficient in some way? Do you have a learning disability? Did you have your own personal wrangler while in school?

>>6898316

I agree that format is important. The visual sense is still pretty important on literature. And nowadays you should know about it since you write on a fucking computer and you have all the necessary tools to do it. It helps you visualize your work, it helps others see what it would look like. And it could even be a factor, the formatting could be part of the content (and it always kind of subliminally is)

>>6898941
>Are you mentally deficient in some way?
>Do you have a learning disability?
>Did you have your own personal wrangler while in school?
All this nerdrage, jesus christ.

>>6898426
what are you even talking about?

>>6898966

>being proud of being an ignorant dumbshit

fuck off back to /fit/

I figure I’m attractive enough that a lot of people think about me that way, and I don’t like it one bit, it makes me feel small and claustrophobic – most of my class is claustrophobic; they’re afraid of using clauses. Ha-ha! If only they knew I were sitting here thinking about how much better I am than them, and thinking about how much I know they want to and can’t and how much I want to with some of them but can’t bring myself to allow that to happen. They’d probably just want me more, and in a more violent manner, nothing seems to motivate people like a common enemy, and I just don’t think I could do anything about it if they all decided to gang up on me one day and drive me out, or worse.

I wonder if other girls think about how much guys want to fuck them? Some of them must, a few of them already know how to use it to get exactly what they want, I wish I did, I wouldn’t feel any remorse for a guy stupid enough to let a girl teasing him drive him to do stupid things, I could get all manner of things, but maybe I’m just not that girl. I was reading a little about gender and how gender roles have changed over the past years, it made me laugh to imagine a guy holding out on sex to illicit gifts or praise from a girl, it just wouldn’t happen; or maybe it would and just not at our age. I don’t think a guy could realistically hold out more than a few minutes once he knew he could, because once he knew he could, there’d be no reason to anymore. They’re still all hormones and irrationality.

I wonder how big Peter’s cock is? Maybe I should just come out and ask him? But I don’t want a reputation, you know how it is with rumours. Besides I hear that guys never tell the truth about that sort of thing, bigger is always better right? I bet these guys were packing eight inches at birth. I don’t know why they think such stupid things. I can barely use two fingers and they think that ten inches and the girth of a medium-sized tree branch sounds appealing? (It does sound a little appealing, if for nothing more than to marvel at how ludicrous it would be)

The blood is rushing to my cheeks. Maybe thinking about Peter’s cock isn’t appropriate right now, but this lesson is ruining my creative mind, I wish she would just die. I don’t really wish she would die, because we’d likely get a substitute who is even worse, until they find another teacher who would be worse still (hard to imagine, I’m sure). It’s also the last class of the day, and I’m getting more and more restless, the whole class is. Although maybe not all in the same way, I just want to go home and read (something worth reading) and maybe if I’m still in this awful state I can masturbate too ((perhaps in reverse order) it’s such an ugly word, I wish I could use something else).

>>6898981
Is an argument over formatting really worth getting this upset over?

Bad minimalism:

I leave the room
She lies on the floor
Touching herself
Looking up

Bad opinions:

>>6898813
Not an interesting or engaging situation or character, which I'm sure you know, but the prose is adequate. "...confines of the putrid bathroom and took a moment to peruse the offers" needs to go, for sure.
>>6898416
Simile of the first stanza is too awkward. Third stanza is clunky, and the repetition feels pointless. Fourth stanza is just no good, but the last one I agree is decent.

>>6898988
>gives critiques
>doesn't even know what a similie is
This is why I don't bother posting things in these threads kek

It was Tuesday morning, sometime between three and seven. Somewhere in there. It doesn’t make a difference within these hours. Not when you use blackout shades during the day and get blackout drunk every night. Tomas (toe, moss) Erdstein, twenty one years post-birth, was watching a Russian girl take her clothes off for money. Or maybe he was watching people give a Russian girl money for taking her clothes off. It doesn’t matter. Both money and clothes were flying. He thought she was good, but not great, and insisted on watching her because he had a thing for Russians ever since reading Dostoevsky. He gave her emotional support, but he never gave her money. He had better things to do.

>>6898988

>Not an interesting or engaging situation or character, which I'm sure you know

Well, it's autobiographical and I'm boring as hell, so yeah, I know.

>"...confines of the putrid bathroom and took a moment to peruse the offers" needs to go, for sure.

Too tryhard and edgy? That bathroom WAS fucking putrid though, just saying.

>>6898997
Simile is comparing two things with an explicit connecting word. I'm so sorry your high school teacher didn't tell you "resemble" is just a fancier way to say "like" or "as."

>>6899010
case in point lmao

>>6898935

It's a translation from my native language to English, so there are some clunkers there that I will never be aware of. I probably can't make it any better in English.

And I am also lacking in craftmansship overall. I always think about metaphores and similes and nothing else. I need to improve in other areas too. This is the best I can do at the moment.

As she looked into my eyes across the table I longed for her butt. Her OKCUPID profile had said she had an interest in discipline so I decided to experiment with asserting my masculine authority.
"I will take you to the ferris wheel after this." I said matter of factly.

"Oh goodee!" she squealed and clapped her hands.

"There is no need to be so exited, You'll make me rethink taking you." I snapped pausing her antics...
...Later behind the carnival utility shed I lifted her sundress tenderly around her hips exposing her bare bottom.
"I'm going to give it a smack and you shan't scream." I said. I was practically bursting, this was the closest I'd been to a woman since prison.

SMACK her snow white ass ripple like a puddle of yogurt in the night. she squeaked but I clasped my hand on her collarbone and oriented myself to insert my throbbing cock into her ass. I spat onto it and started rubbing the spit into the shaft but it made me cum as I saw I was about to shoot I decided it would be a good way to mark my property so I aimed it for her lower leg. I smiled wryly as some dripped in her shoe. She moaned and complained about the stain in her pink socks.

An hour later I dropper her off at her parents house and reminded her not a word about this to anyone. She nodded and took the candy I had won her at the carnival, She said she couldn't wait to see me in class tomorrow. I went home and listened to Schubert the rest of the evening began work on my lesson plans for school the following day.

Demolish Slack


It's true that ever since you learned you'd die
You've been fragile. Don't think
We don't know you know, and know you know the gleam
Of dusk on gravel,
The riffling purple glare of fireworks off Pacific waves,
The slow-orbit glimmer of dew through April mists,
The swelling in your chest you sometimes felt crossing
the street across the park, cloaked still in dying
cedar,
all of that,
is not a shortcut for mentioning death
without mentioning it;
a rusty, ill-tended cudgel passed around the slaughterhouse
- staffed by fat, underpaid, bleary-eyed goblins
carting Harmontown-packed Iphones and skin stained by Doritos;
by well-studied snuff-takers, clicking across flagstone hallways,
perfectly confident they've hoisted Virgil's precious torch;
by men who find the ball beneath the just-then lowered cup
and are absolutely stunned to see it's still not moved -
where story goes to die.
It's just that mortality, in small doses, makes you
Dumber than before, and that is useful
because original stories
are hard.

>>6899031
>>exited

love the yogurt part

>>6898983
now write a story justifying the bland chauvinism

>>6898813
nice. i'd read more.

>>6899056

Why does the chauvinism have to be justified?

Surely unjustified chauvinism is more interesting a character trait?

This is how it usually ends and is forgotten. Never to be spoken of around a morning breakfast table. Never to be mentioned in even the most comprehensive appendix. How many individuals, how many achievements, how many events of interest have quietly shuffled off the pages of time? Its uncountable and Its tragic. Nearly everything that happens disappears. Lost in the thick murky mud of unspoken, unwritten, untold history.


However. Rarely, and virtually unnoticed, like an opportunistic thief spying an open window, chance reaches out. Its long, slender arms avoid and twist past destruction and loss. Past common violence and decay. Countless fires and accidents, robberies and demolitions, plagues and wars are passed by. It disappears down an alley, narrowly avoiding a marauding mercenary band. It crawls and hides in the bowels of a boat escaping a city on fire. And all the while, the hand safely drags the precious object in tow.


Yet at any moment, that hand might lose its grip and that history would be lost in one of the many common calamities that have consumed so many treasures in time. Not today

>>6899071
not talking about characters in the abstract, talking about your monologue, which was boring

>>6898998
A bit like Hemingway. I like it.

>>6899106

Eh, I feel the piece[the whole project] doesn't really work when I take excerpts from it, however I think as a whole it works well. Though it needs editing awfully, due to the fact I put less effort into sentence structure when I'm writing SOC.

why aren't black and white in the rainbow?
a zebra solemnly asked me at the zoo
Shush, prisoner, the zookeeper shouted
while burning Hari Hari villages with substance C
I say, because all or nothing is had by nothing
and rainbows are what dictionaries call something
but then burnt cigarettes fall from the skies
(because there are more than one sky)
and the ground fissures open, unleashing legions of ravenous hellspawn
otherwise known as chips to people with retainers in their teeth

>>6899151
I don't get it. Am I supposed to? Sorry.

>>6898416

Visiting a friend

The trees still lack leaves.
They resemble elderly men in daylight,
Soon the hair will grow again.

The airplane in the sky, distant,
You can see it now.

The doorbell's ring reminiscing...
Freight cars are loaded, and offloaded.

The baggage, one's soul, is expanding.
It thrills with its duties.

The perfectionist worries
Watching his shadow grow.

>>6899005
>Too tryhard and edgy?
Nah, just too wordy for the situation. Something a little simpler and to the point would fit it. But yeah, I believe you; and I've drank some nasty ass coffee in my life, so I enjoyed the "it tasted burnt" bit. Perfect way to describe gas station shit coffee.
>>6899018
you what

>>6897519
OP is memeing

>>6899175
What exactly are you trying to express here ?

>>6899288

>Nah, just too wordy for the situation. Something a little simpler and to the point would fit it. But yeah, I believe you; and I've drank some nasty ass coffee in my life, so I enjoyed the "it tasted burnt" bit. Perfect way to describe gas station shit coffee.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll rework that part. Still, I feel I'm doing something wrong. It's a story about hitchiking through Europe (I went from Copenhagen to Istanbul), there -should- be a moderately interesting story there but I can't seem to make it sound interesting.

All my men are dead, but the job insists:
"build, build, build," a constant white boom,
and so I stare at digital blueprints wringing
my head dry. A call, a complaint, a sigh.
Contracted by a disembodied deity, CompCorp,
like Muhammed and Jesus and everyone.
Pain stakes painstakes in my back's plain steak,
but these bad rhymes don't cheer me up,
they just remind me once again of my mediocrity
and how poopchute rhymes with hirsute. Shoot.

>>6899958
could have been good but mediocre

>>6899162

It's about our treatment of both wild animals and the indigenous people concomitant with them in lesser developed ecologically habitats, as spurred by the international debacle concerning Cecil the lion. The teeth reference at the end connects to our felicidal friend, and the bit about the zebra in the zoo attempt to unpack (very topically) the extent to which we see zoos, prisons, and exploitation of tribal areas as morally black/white, rather than lying on a moral spectrum spanning various colors. Duplicity is key(s), here.

>>6899961
thanks bad rhymes

One and two and two and one
and one and done and be done son
and so we are just in this car
with Dutch superstar Huntelaar.
Okay no, fuck OK Go, phone home,
for it pleases the court to be short
as a jester who says he impressed her
not undressed her and pressed her
up against the dresser, on the stretcher.
Wretched, people can be, good oft and on:
one colon, two holes, one ball, three holes,
bowls and pins and pens and Roald Dahl's chins.
Can't we all just get a long steamy love affair
on and on an on/off type of deal going, after all
(we are going to die eventually so might as well
enjoy it and ignore the quote-unquote haters,
baiters, rapists, murdererers, bad drivers, unpolite
people, just people, all the people, the dividing line).
But, conjunctions in any given junction, cellular
or otherwise rambunction and compunction and gumption
mean nothing but being able to rhyme with function,
of whose function is to be rhymed with function.

Now, then, listen, soon, comma, broom sweep
weep peek go forth populate copulate mopulate
strangulate justforfun find a safe word word pumpernickel works fuck work work to fuck fuck to work
prostitootyfruitylemoncutie candy ass sweet cocaine breached peache juice spruce goose
howard hughe heffner left her lying on the stretcher

fetch her

>>6898983
I like et

>>6898399
I intended the stanzas to have four distinct themes: human conflict, human philosophy, human endeavour, and nature.

http://pastebin.com/VZrep533

Currently writing a story as a means of practicing writing. Story is not supposed to be heavily grounded in reality as the main character has a heavy disconnection with reality. Narrator is a dirty old man. Story is about a group of children and their individual hopes and dreams as they sit in an asylum. Everything is a reference to child abuse.

Didnt see it in the sticky so im asking here. Anyone know of any good books to practice poetry and short stories? Im a complete beginner who wants to practice on the side btw

>>6898416

you should actually read some poetry before writing it

>>6898317

very awkward in form even as a vilanelle

Beginnings of a short story I'm writing for entry into an online zine. The tangentially related topic is "sugar.'

Through the keyhole, I cannot see
the picture whole, only slightly
can I perceive the symphony
of what happens behind the door

yet I spent days trying to catch
trying to hear, trying to watch
what would happen if I perhaps
could slide a finger through the gaps

At night though, I do well
I can picture great shining bells
the marble walls of citadels
that await me behind the door

I dread the hour someone like me
led by a marvelous idea
will through this keyhole align
his wandering gaze into mine.

>>6900171
Bretty cool. Nice flow

>>6900138

>hundreds of identical exposures

feels awkward for some reason

I like it though, would read more. Also, friendly reminder that being gay is a sin :^)

>>6897519
This is the opening paragraph of something I'm working on, first draft. I'll type up the rest of the first chapter in a little bit but am wondering if this is on the verge of purple prose or if it's decent to start with.

Bright and twangy tones cut through the air as guitars players pick and pluck at steel strings with soulful precision to the rustling of brushes on a tight popping snare drum and the locked in groove of an electric bass. The warmth of breath and skin is felt as bodies gather close to fill every table throughout the desert bar on a Friday night as bottles clank and cigarette smoke dangles in the air. A man sits in a booth at the corner of the room, his skin flush against the wall next to a lovely young brunette sitting by the outside seat whose eyes vacillate like a sentry on the lookout for the next round of drinks.

>>6900594
zzz

>>6900618
Oh, is this one of those threads where nobody gives actual criticism?

>>6900594
Don't know what to tell you other than I found it purple.

>>6900627

Ugh, fine.

Like >>6900640 says it's purple as fuck. It's a full paragraph yet you manage to say exactly nothing, basically it's "a dude's sitting next to a chick". I get that you're trying to build atmosphere, but this is a sloppy way to do it, sneak that shit in via small snippets while -somewthing's actually happening-. Also, actually build the scene in a tangible way. So far we know nothing of the setting, except for these purplish embelishments of the "vibe" of the place I guess.

>>6900672
So I could put in something about bartenders walking buy, people talking and laughing at tables, some other similar stuff. Describe people doing things?

>>6897519
>yoghurt

>>6900684
EXPRESS WHAT IS NECESSARY NOT CONTINGENT

Wrote this for fun at work inside of working. Pretty self indulgent and unrefined but whatever.

Not child, not man, not anything that belonged anywhere -- not that there was a sorting order for naive young anteaters or any male animals for that matter. He had no office job, nor did he work at a library or bookstore where he could spy pretty young girls take pictures of themselves next to topical or otherwise esoteric books for their blogs, making sure to get the good lighting on their neon-dyed fur and trimmed bangs and second-hand store black dress amateurishly hemmed and refitted just so at her parents home and paired with a nice set of knee-high socks and tennis shoes. Not that he would dare approach them, for even as he admired them and their exaggerated individuality Z.Z. was well aware that the cotton candy colors that were beginning to muddle from wash were an ironic aposematism, despite all of the resources pooled to conjure up images of schoolgirl innocence. Or perhaps it was not, as such girls of the town were just as likely to incriminate a man for merely enjoying their apparent showcase, so maybe it was so that they were only meant to be watched, from afar, and never touched, broached, or approached.

But that didn't matter, not today. Well, it mattered a little, in the long run, with behavioral sinks and societal depredation and the inevitable reality of post-irony, but at this waking moment there were other things Z.Z. prioritized over this sinking ship which was actually a city on a high plateau in a hushed rainstorm. He was, today, going to the cartoon store in midtown.

>>6900722
I am pretty good at listening if you can explain things better.

So if there's a bar brawl about to occur, which is what is about to occur, describing the people in the bar would be deemed necessary, correct?

>>6900740
Do you know what necessary means anon

>>6900758
I'm new to writing, I know what necessary means, but I'm not sure what it means in context to the story. Some things seem necessary to me that aren't and other things seem unnecessary that are.

>>6898306
>the metamorphosis

>>6900758
I redid the entire thing


A band is on stage picking country tunes from the early thirties as bartenders walk up and down aisles of tables replacing beer bottles, serving shots, and dumping ashtrays. The desert bar is packed to capacity with boozers, losers, cruisers, dames, rednecks, white breads, inbreds, thoroughbreds, dunces, whores, floozies, woozies, tightwads and any other kind of upper class or bottom feeder, man or woman, who feels the urge to cut loose on a Friday night. There's dancers in front of the stage, some on their own and some in pairs, spinning in circles and kicking their legs way up high like the spirit's got them right down deep in the gut but the only thing down there is a spirit of a different kind washing away worries like dust to the wind. In the corner of the room a man sits in a booth pulled right up next to the wall next to a lovely young brunette on the outside seat whose eyes vacillate like a sentry on the lookout waiting for the bartender to pass by with their next order of drinks.

>>6900793
necessary = that can't be differently than it is
contingent = that could be different

write the necessary
your prose is pretty bad but it has soul
I suggest practicing a lot and reading more

>>6900802
I will take that as a compliment, anon. This is my first week of serious creative writing. I picked up reading again this year after I cleaned up my life quite a bit. So far it's a blast, your criticism is fantastic and I appreciate it.

I have The Elements of Style that I need to run through and I am using Vonnegut's eight rules of writing as best I can as a template to break off from.

Is there any prose you suggest for study? I was told to read Invisible Cities which I actually received in the mail the day I was told that. Right now I'm reading Ulysses and I fell in love with Thomas Pynchon earlier this year and have read V, Gravity's Rainbow, and The Crying of Lot 49. After I finish Ulysses I'm going to read Invisible Cities and then The Tunnel by William H. Gass, then I'll probably read Mason and Dixon if I don't start on reading resources for this book I'm working on, which I'll probably read alongside a novel anyway...

Well he was done a good one now his wife she left (open the door) and she had done him good (open the door, honey) and all the years spent (open the door!) and (crash) he had never heard her scream like that (she ran to the closet) and it was going to be back to normal just he had to (steady) he just had to (screaming) he squared the sights upon the door and (i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm) how old was little matthew now (how proud he was that day) here matthew (it hurt to see him) he kissed little matthew (i love you) and left him with the music box (i love you i love you goodbye)

>>6900818
Don't study prose. You have to build it naturally. work work work. You'll like it more as you practice and end up developing a skill. Carry a notepad. Write in your head.

Reading is here to give you perspectives, not to form an edifice that is your style.

Writing is easy.
1 - have something to express
2 - express it correctly

dont do anything without a reason and you'll be fine

pic related

>>6900138
I really like this, it's got just enough detail. simplistic elegance.

>>6897519

This is my first attempt at writing on my own. I'm 15 so I feel like I can't accurately judge my own work because kids are shitty including me. Honest criticism welcome

>>6900849
Just want to let you know I reported you.

>>6900834
Okay, I understand this now. This is what it means when you give writing purpose, it has to be something that is unbroken and only understood as is, sort of. I saved that picture. This is valuable advice.

Writing has saved my life, I started out writing silly journal entries about my whims and worries and decided recently I want to write novels and short stories.

>>6900859
Good on you man. Writing is pretty neat stuff.

>>6900855
yikes

>>6900793

>the desert bar is packed to capacity with boozers, losers, cruisers, dames, rednecks, white breads, inbreds, thoroughbreds, dunces, whores, floozies, woozies, tightwads and any other kind of upper class or bottom feeder, man or woman, who feels the urge to cut loose on a Friday night.

Probably the most purple sentence I've ever read. Ok, seriously, do ALL of those different character types have ANY impact on the story? If not, just fucking make it "the desert bar is packed with people who feel the need to cut loose on a Friday night".

See what I mean, it says the EXACT same thing, only more effectively.

>>6900867

>>6900859
oh and also don't take anything personally
your work is not your baby or any bullshit like that
criticism isn't attacks

>>6899116
thanks fam

>>6900880
This is kind of a flawed ideology, in my opinion. Stories aren't just about the events that happen and the most pertinent details. I'd agree that the original sentence greatly overdoes it but your version is incredibly boring

>>6900899
If your writing was a book I'd read it

>>6900901

You don't have to go to either extreme, I was trying to illustrate a point. You could keep the upper and lower class bit, for instance, without going into purple territory.

>>6900880
I just wanted some rhyming and stupidity in that sentence, I'm fully aware of how ridiculous it is. I get what you're saying and I might change it later. This is a first draft with quick editing thus far.

>>6900892
I don't, I appreciate the sentiment. I am soaking in all the criticism I can. I'm already way better than I was at the beginning of the week.

>>6900910
For sure.

>>6900909
that's the plan

I met Eric in a bar in late 1999. I was fresh out of conscription and felt like celebrating the state finally being done spending valuable tax Kronor shaping me into something useful. Eric was fascinated by this. As an American, he'd heard about the draft, had a dad who did a tour in 'Nam, but was apparently under the impression that only the Russians forced everyone into the service.

“Yeah, everyone” I said, upending my shot glass and sliding it into the neat little line we'd made in the middle of the table. “Even had me a paraplegic quarter master.”
“No shit?” Eric replied. His eyes had grown comically large under his blond fringe. “How the fuck would that even work?”
“Oh it worked. Grumpy bastard would just yell whoever was closest to do shit for him.”
“Like get things from the top shelves?” Eric said, chuckling at his own joke.

This was the one thing I didn't like about the guy; he'd laugh at his own jokes, or even his own general statements if a joke was not forthcoming.

>>6901136
wow cool read brah

>>6897519

gonna be honest

i like it

i would keep reading. its comfy

>>6901164

wow cool critique brah

>>6901136
> I was fresh out of conscription and felt like celebrating the state finally being done spending valuable tax Kronor shaping me into something useful.

That entire sentence needs reworked to make it flow properly

I think you are using too much description.

>Upending my shot glass and sliding into the neat little line we'd made in the middle of the table

That would be easier to read if it went something like

>upending my shot glass and setting it in row with the other glasses we'd already emptied

Which even that is still a bit much. Does the line of glasses on the table actually add anything to the action? You could almost remove everything but the action of taking the shot.

It's also a little choppy.

>“No shit?” Eric replied. His eyes had grown comically large under his blond fringe. “How the fuck would that even work?”

Would be better reworked something like

>"No shit," Eric replied as his eyes grew in astonishment "how the fuck would that even work?"

Honeslty I don't think it's the best description even then.

This is all I can muster, I'm not terribly good at editing or critiquing yet.

I don't have much written down right now, but perhaps someone would be kind enough to critique my idea(s)?

Sort of an alternate history that follows an American marine in WW1, but since WW1 was pretty bad in the time it took for the US to enter they developed a drug that alters the mind to not see the horrors of war. They don't see blood or shell holes, but instead see grassy fields with pock marks and healthy trees.

That's all I really have so far besides some information about WW1 in my notes, but I intend to keep the drug thing going throughout the entire book. I either want to make it sort of like an after action report by a "historian" or make it into some form of journal. That, or just completely abandon both ideas and just write a straight novel. Shit or not? I'm not too attached to it.

>>6901354
Do what makes you happy and speaks to you.

Beggining of a novel im making, the prologue. If you dont get spanish, well, grab a dictionary or something.

Me gusta una chica.
Me gusta mucho. Me gusta su cabello, largo y negro, me gustan sus piernas al andar, me gusta su mirada astuta, orgullosa como la de un león. Creo que nunca nadie me había gustado tanto. Tiene una piel blanca, suave, tersa como la de una muñeca, como la de las viejas muñecas que mi nana tenía en la repisa sobre su cama, que me juzgaban con ojos silenciosos. Me recuerda a eso. Me recuerda a mis deseos cuando aun me sentía vivo.

Ayer, de noche, encerrado en casa, pensaba.

No me puedo acercar. Su hermano me desprecia. Si me ve, si comprende que la deseo, me echara a patadas y todo terminara para mí. Pero no puedo vivir sin ella. Necesito vivir con ella, tocarla, oler su cabello y tenerla en mis brazos. Quiero su vida, la quiero conmigo. Es tan linda.
Pero todos me desprecian, no solo él.
Susurran, al verme caminar. “¡Niño brujo!” me gritan “¡Niño brujo!”, o se alejan, temerosos, seguros de que algo esta mal con mi. No se equivocan. Mi espíritu esta sucio. Mi espíritu quedo teñido con el color del otro lado, y ya nada duele. Pero deseo.

Ayer, de noche, encerrado en casa, apague todas las luces.

Hasta mi cuidador me desprecia, puedo verlo en sus ojos. Me trae la comida como un prisionero, y evita mi mirada, y tiembla cuando me ve sentado; cuando me pierdo en la oscuridad. Creo que quiere matarme. El otro día, cuando me desperté a la noche, lo oí afilar su machete.
Dice que hay serpientes, pero no me importa. No le temo, no a él. No puedo morir. No puedo morir, porque deseo.

Ayer, de noche, encerrado en casa, rece una plegaria sin cruces.

Tan linda… Sus pies… Sus uñas, hasta sus orejas, los lóbulos blancos, donde el cartílago se amontona, y sus labios gruesos, y su cuerpo de niña, y la seda de su vestido deslizándose contra su piel, y su gesto al no comprender… Una criatura de luz. La quiero. La quiero ya. Cuando la vi por primera vez, cuando recuerdo verla trepar en el parque ese árbol, con su hermano, y los dos reían, y entonces el otro joven me miro y dijo “¡Niño Brujo! ¡Niño Brujo! ¿Qué haces vivo en MI parque?” y yo enrojecí, pues todos me miraban, pero ella también me miraba y no solo me miraba, me veía, me veía como nadie antes y brillaba, y pensé que yo estaba seco, desde la caída, y que alli había algo para mi, algo para sorber, alguien con quien jugar.
Pero entonces recuerdo a su hermano, y su gesto desconfiado. El si me da miedo. No puedo tenerla, si el esta. Pero la quiero ya. Es tan, tan, tan linda.
Ayer, de noche, encendí cuatro velas rojas.

>>6897795
you use too many extraneous words, such as "n't" "so" "after" and "all," I think you'll find your prose much cleaner upon their removal.

>>6901361

Deep, man.

>>6897865
I like it anon. That one paragraph made me want to read the rest of your story to understand where that character is coming from. That might even be a good opening to your book.

>>6901313
>This is all I can muster, I'm not terribly good at editing or critiquing yet.

No offense, but you kinda need to know how to write first

My shit poem inspired by The Hollow Men and Preludes by TS Eliot. This is about 10% of what the full version will be.

---

The young Duke empties his martini and smiles
The sore on his upper lip expertly concealed
And looks in the direction of the waiter, whose
Own mouth upturns at the gesture.
One week hence, he will, when
Looking one afternoon at his
Reflection, notice a sore of his own
And will conceal it too

Above the courtship
And the coupling
And the conception
And the creation
The world revolves

Above the sorrow
And the pain
And the passion
And the loss
The world revolves

Above the mercy
And the mystery
And the majesty
And the madness
The world revolves

Spread your fingers across the sky, and
Laugh, as the world revolves like the mobile
Of a gurgling child.

Preparing to post a pomo poem.

>>6898306
>beginning anything with a character waking up

Oh I'm sorry.
Here, I made another one. Is this a better beginning?

>>6901822

based

>>6901822
you're a good writer

>>6901745
If you enjoyed writing this, carry on. If you have any interest in writing something good, cease and desist immediately.

The modernist ironist apathy was played out by the time Eliot wrote, so the first stanza has no interesting subject in any day or age.

The following three stanzas are the definition of dead language.

Last stanza is hopeless imitation.

In stages, like a great warehouse
shutting down,
its lights resigning to darkness,—
first here, then there, now there and there—
are the layers of sound
peeled off,
leaving quietness thicker than before
and deeper still,
until a silence
as the bottom of the sea.

>>6901822
>>6897519
>peach farmer doesn't like peaches
>has a dog named Apples

>>6900013
>>6899036
>>6899092

>write something
>no one says anything

:(

‘Hi!’ Sara said into the trees, half-expecting a response. The sound of the engine was fading. If they were to hear her, she would need to scream. But she could not bring herself to. Her voice died in the night, though it echoed for a moment in her mind. It was soft and wavered, appropriate more for her suburb than this howling wilderness. She closed her eyes and imagined a tall and bright man turning to face her, a clear sky overhead, and heard herself again, emboldened now: ‘I’m sorry, I’m lost. Can I use your phone?’ He smiled and opened his mouth. Thunder roared out, cracking the sky and her eyes open. Everyone was gone.

>>6897519
What is a morning kitchen table? Do you have separate kitchen tables depending on the time of day?

>>6898813
Try to start your sentences with something other than "He..."

>>6897519
if you're going for colloquial farmer-type dialogue then they probably wouldn't use the word 'transparent'. at least stylize it like 'trans-purrent' or just use 'see-through' or 'clear'.

>>6897865
too much too soon

>>6901428
It's not deep it's super simple and people forget about validating themselves by themselves.

>>6902188
It's the same principle as "morning sun".

>>6902210
I'm going to change it to 'clear'.

>>6898338
This

>>6902200

I think it's because they're right after eachother that it seems a lot, only 4 sentences begin that way in total.

If I clench my eyes
and arch my back
and shrug,

there will be no
earthquake sending trails of
cracks through
familiar ground;

no redemptive tidal waves
to damp the links and chains
of a shattered world;

no seraphic smiting;
no water-born inferno
to baptise and purify;

but only a muffled
swish of cotton on cotton,
as the cloak I inhabit
slides to the floor
in a lifeless heap.

here's the opening canto to a longer poem i'm writing. thoughts?

The street was golden in the evening. Blackness's encroachment was pierced by the searing yellow searchlights of the streetlamps and the orange and neon glows that reached out. The air was fresh and the ground was newly drenched by a recent shower. Laughter and music emanated from the many bars that progressed down the lane into the distance. It was close to midnight in Rue Charles De Gaulle.


'Excuse-moi'
A man was brushing past the revellers in the night. Drinkers looked at him with a bemused interest, taking one look at his trenchcoat and brightly polished orange shoes before returning to their important task at hand. He broke free of the crowd before disappearing round a less well-lit corner.


'Arrête! Monsieur!'
A young woman burst out from the crowd. Her eyes searched the darkness, trying to make out where the trenchcoat that briefly flashed in the illumination had disappeared to. It was in vain. He had gone. She looked down across her body. In her hands she clutched a green plastic bag.

>>6904506
Rue Charles De Gaulle is a place holder. Should be Rue Loyer or a street with actual bars...

Whatever it doesn't matter.

>>6898317
Possibly the worst thing someone has unironically written in this thread

Pet Theory

A truly dreaded inquiry
Your own pet theory
The future for us two
So certain in adieu
Dumbfounded gasp
Thought that it would last
Memories I can’t grasp
A future for you
What could I do
Get in your way
Force you to stay
It was always in your head
But it wasn’t in our bed

>>6904369
It's a bit hard to read, I read almost all poetry aloud and I didn't get any tempo in this.

>>6899036
The "know know know" parts comes too early, it's cool and it was neat to read but still: too early on if the rest of the poem.

The entire middle needs reworking.

>by well-studied snuff-takers, clicking across flagstone hallways,
flagstone hallways need to go, does not flow.

>It's just that mortality, in small doses, makes you
I read it with emphasis on "that" which fucked it up. Remove "just that"?

>>6903461
Cool. I liked it.

>>6897519
I vomited when I read "casual sip," which is all I really picked up during my extremely quick glance at your terrible writing.

>untitled

Swept away by turbulence
lucid waters bring disparity.
Artists dream, poets sing
possessed by infallible clarity.
Demurring sympathy
Demanding symphony
skaldic tongues resound!
Brahma's great undertow
defies the stars eternal row
foundations shake, creation unbound

Ah well why not


Arms of Daybreak

Upon calamity of my mind
as a pale gale thrusts my ease aside
Reaches your hand into the void of lost sight
deflowered there be the starry blossom of night

Whilst I am mourning what was and has not been
your fingers undress the cloudy density before me
I see the moment revel as springtime bees swirl
your cheeks are cherry red I kiss them tenderly

Had I known before your this softness between arms
soothing as neon lights on rainy weekend nights
The now and here had only been daybreak of you and I
the sun alights the joyous sky

>>6905289
That's swell. If the Brahma[...]Undertow-row-(not cow (India)) was on purpose it's not a super snug fit, if not: I thought about it because I'm a pleb with apparently racist thoughts on India.

Right, so here's the unfinished first chapter. I thought I would play with the idea of an exposition dump by making it a travel guide. Let me know exactly how awful it is.

An Excerpt from: Notes and Observations on Anceese:
A Traveler's Guide

When one travels to Anceese, where do they go? Perhaps to some of the charming cities along its eastern coasts to enjoy the warm sun, soft sands, and comfortable mansions that are rented out to many a pleasure seeker, or perhaps they visit the island of Marnham, with its famous hospitality and bevy of luxurious goods from the world over. Invariably though, any traveler will make a trip to Anseth, the capital sitting on the River Fote to experience one of the jewels of the world. Indeed Anseth, with its population of over two million souls, is one of the largest and most diverse cities in the known world and can be counted in the same ranks as Tresselor in Varyia and Dix-Assat in Qu-Sonnos. Containing the main branch of Goldheld Bank and the second largest amount of merchant companies, after Marnham, of course, Anseth holds enough wealth in its citizenry alone as to be worth all the riches of a small country. But, my dear traveller, you have not travelled miles on end to simply conduct business or acquire a loan, you endeavor to experience the richness of all the cultures contained with the Anceesian Empire. You will not be disappointed with Anseth, in it you will find the short, hardy, and fair haired southerners, the mahogany skinned merchants of Marnham, and of course, the almost unnaturally pale Anceesians. As I have done previously in my chapters on Marnham and the coastal regions, I will briefly describe the typical Ancessian. What will strike you first, should you have never met an Anceesian before, will depend on your individual disposition but invariably it will be either their afore mentioned skin tone or their great height. Historically, the Anceesian has always been of a paler complexion, but around 600 years ago (a century after the beginning of the current iteration of the Empire) the Anceesian barrier was modified in an attempt to make them more resistant to sunburns (about which, rather amusingly, there are entire books dedicated to curing). I have heard from some of my learned friends in Anceese that the goal was to simply darken their skin, as it is easily demonstrable that the more swarthy southerners and Marnhamites suffer negligibly from sunburns, but alas, as with any magic on such great a scale, it worked, but not as intended, leaving them quite resistant to the sun's rays making them even paler.

>>6905307
>Reaches your hand into the void of lost sight
>deflowered there be the starry blossom of night
I dig this. Flows very easily.

>Had I known before your this softness between arms
"This" shouldn't be there, right? It doesn't fit. If it's supposed to be "you're" it's even worse. Also maybe change "between" to "in".

>soothing as neon lights on rainy weekend nights
Yes please

>the sun alights the joyous sky
I'd write it as "a joyous sky". Can't explain why.

>>6905214
>It's mortality that, in small doses, makes you
There, fixed.

O Lord Where Art Thou?

“Rejoice Matthew for one day we will return to the land of our father!”


It was a cold plight for the two souls, who found their footing in dust and rock amongst the road- from which they walked inseparable for many miles beyond.
They cried through day and night, carrying bodies which had been left to oblivion bringing them to safety with their eternal touch.
“I sometimes weep for ourselves brother that our burden is too much, that we will never find sleep- that our bodies will die among them.”
“I do not doubt you.”
Trees hung parallel to the violent force of the wind of the west, one of the two picking up an apple, rotten to the core and one of several that had found its way onto the road, from which he ate.
The second looked up towards the sky, grey and foreign- omnipresent and howling, screaming in condemnation on the world below.
The brothers took themselves several miles to the east where the roads split, from there into streets, and from streets to highways.

A city.

The first brother looked onwards with a callous expression which harboured beneath a resignation which had long since buried itself within the crinkles of his face.
From here they found many others, men of varying age and form, ignoring the living who did not see them hidden within a hundred shadows- for they ventured for the dead who spread themselves in a magnificent tapestry along the roads.

Many of the bodies were fresh, death through simple circumstance , bodies half contorted through window shafts, their heads split in metal casing, torsos broken and half purple, mouth s agape and eyes without sockets.

A pile of bones coincidentally wrapped in a loose layer of purple flesh.

The brothers would look them for any remnant of a soul that they could find, sometimes finding none they moved on, the second brother weeping in silence.

Besides a bin lay ragged man, his throat violently slit, the blood at the wound now dried and clotted, amused by flies.

The second brother walked up to him and kisses him on the cheek.

The brothers parted, and as the wind calmed they witnessed a body, held up as if a scarecrow at the end of the road. Upon it a blood red sign emblazoned upon its bullet ridden stomach:

“BEWARE THE CHRIST.”
The first walks up to it and removes the sign with deliberation the face itself sheathed in ivory cloth.

The second silently weeped.

From the east a bird spindles, finding footing on the body where It pecks and it caws, strings of meat unravelling from the body’s turgid flesh.

The brothers hear a scuffling and watch as a beggar rushes up to the bird as if to send it away- yet the bird does not fly, and as the beggar grunts the bird squawks for the sky which deadens into a plea.

Crack.

The beggar turned and walked away.
(Part 1)

>>6905358
The first walks up to him weeping, the second whispers and embraces him, pulling his head back and kissing him on the forehead.

It was then when they heard the awful sound, piercing the air in its hellish glory.

A low horn bellowed from an unknown place- the brothers trembled at its power, the living stopped and looked towards the sky, women screamed and birds squawked and fled- but it did not pity.

The first cowered cradling back and forth like a baby, yet the second screamed into the sky, his face crimson red.

The brass beauty begged penance from those that heard it, the brothers grew pained, their bodies closing in on themselves attempting to shelter.
For several minutes the bellowing came, then fell into nothing, its encore the gentle gust from the east. The brothers moved on, soliciting each other with sweet whispers and embrace, bastards to their own infallibility.

Sometime later they came upon an orphanage, a terrace half ripped open, pipe work mangled and contorted.
The walls inside were damp from the water which had been spewed from its gullets, oil paintings merging into a turgid mess on the concrete below.
The Last Supper. It was one of the several paintings, defaced but recognisable, whims of colour which coalesced randomly with another, the hand of Christ himself fed itself half into the table, a streak of crimson John’s head spread itself horizontally across the painting onto the grey wall from which it was placed.

The brothers moved through the rooms in the orphanage- a room of cots on the left side, and a paternal ward on the right- the middle room however was closed, a mahogany door which stretched up about seven feet. The brothers moved towards it, the second remaining behind, the first came to the handle which did not resist his hand.

A Girl.

She met the door at half its height she stood next to a bare mattress- a glass of milk in her right hand and a jar of honey on a wooden stool, she did not react- instead smiling at the two brothers.
The brothers were shook, they were not to be recognised, not to be seen, not to be heard.
The girl began to laugh, she danced around the small room, jumping upon the mattress in a manic euphoria for which the brothers had not seen lest for in the mad.
But she did not speak- only in laughs and cries of joys did she express meaning, the brothers reciprocating.

The second brother looked upon the girl, a pure spirit, her smiles hiding nothing, an altruism which the brothers often failed to find in themselves.


(Part 2)

>>6905366
But the girl wore only a thin vest which concealed very little, her bones peaked above a tight drum of pale skin, her cheeks were hollow, and unnourished, between her laughs were soft moans much like that of a stray dog. She stopped, and sat upon the bed, her body frigid.
The two brothers sat with her, and she smiled, but beneath it was now pain, a brief respite before her laughs, they took the milk from the bedside and offered it to her, she sipped from the glass up until she spew the milk out, she spluttered and arched her back violently easing the stream of vomit that came from her mouth, no tears came from her face, she stopped coughing and looked up toward the two brothers and she smiled again.

The brothers looked upon the girl with pity, the second brother began to sing to the little girl who fell into his arms:
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me home
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me home

The second brother soothed her hair, her breaths slowed, and her cheeks flushed.

I looked over Jordan and what did I see...

Unfurled among the brothers she lay still, her eyes staring Among the two figures in pure adornment, and it was then her face changed, a profound inexplicable understanding, an emotion which the brothers received in turn, for a brief second she completely transformed; a radiant glow for an instant, and emitted a half moan.
Shhhhh
Her breaths stilled, her face empty, her body now floated within the brothers arms. Lifeless.

Comin' for to carry me home
A band of angels comin' after me
Comin' for to carry me home
(Part 3)

>>6905339
>"This" shouldn't be there, right? It doesn't fit. If it's supposed to be "you're" it's even worse. Also maybe change "between" to "in".
The "your" just shouldn't have been there, somehow left it there while rewriting the line. The "this" might be superfluous too, yes. That'd make it "Had I known before softness in arms" Sounds better indeed.

> I'd write it as "a joyous sky". Can't explain why.
Yep, I see. Thanks for the advice and the positive feedback! Not used to writing in English.

>>6904506
Change "Blackness" to "Darkness," it sounds better and just makes more sense. The street isn't going to become pitch black, just dark.

bump tbh

The sky looked painted on. This what was I thought on a summer day as I lay on a grassy knoll. Not the grassy knoll that assisted in the assassination of President Kennedy, but the one of many that will never feel the kick and pulse of a sniper rifle being fired. The sky looked painted on. The clouds were white paint brushstroked on baby blue canvas. I licked my thumb, stretched my arm to the sky, and tried to rub the clouds away. The girl called Samantha, but known as Sam, who lay next to me asked what I was doing. I told her I was erasing the clouds, and she didn't respond. I thought it was odd how I could tell someone that I was erasing the clouds, and they could do nothing at all. No laughs, or sighs, or eyerolls, or cries out for me to stop it before I ruin anything else. I turned to her, but she didn't turn to me in the way that most people do when you turn to them. I put my thumb on her face to see if she would erase, but she wouldn't. I realized my thumb was now all wet, because Sam's face was now all wet and so I turned back to her and asked her, "Sam why is your face all wet?" But she still didn't respond. It was a summer day and the weather was good. The grass itched the back, and tickled between the toes. The sky looked painted on.

>>6905802
That is a wall of text. Have you hear of this brand new spanking concept of paragraphs?

>>6901170
Well then you're in luck, I'm going to write an entire novel.
http://jeremyoakwood.tumblr.com/

>>6897519
that's great. fucking amazing. the syntax gets a little wonky and indulgent at the spitting part but otherwise fucking fantastic

>>6907520
I made a bunch of changes already, see >>6907457
Mainly leaving out the "fat wife", "dirty look" stuff.

>indulgent
For this exact reason I'm considering dropping the line "for the sake of completeness" in the spitting part, but I think I like how it shows he's being methodical and not emotional about it.

Bumb

>>6900849
Decent style. You'll get there.
>>6900831
I'm not sure how much I could read of that.
>>6900171
I like this.
>>6900049
And this. I wouldn't mind reading more.


http://pastebin.com/mUVJQsZW
How is it? This is all I've got of a novel I'm writing. 1485 words. I'll get there eventually..

>>6897519
My novel isn't in english, so i'll just post the plot
Pls critiq
>Post nuclear war setting, desert wastelands and destroyed cities
>Protagonist is a 30 years old guy who was born before the war. He lost a lot of friends throughout his life, and is currently living one day after the other
>an old friend he thought was dead met him.He said he heard rumours about some mystical object that could return the world to what it was before
>he and his friend begin a journey through the wasteland in search of the said object, and in their way they find more people willing to join their cause
>for the first time in years, the protagonist haves hope. Hope that they'll be able to rebuild the world
>when they thought they were about to find that object, they discovered it was a myth. It never existed.
>they get ambushed by bandits. Most of their friends are killed, the ones who survived lost a member or something. The protagonist loses his right arm

It'll be a long story, that part i told is just half of the plot. It will be similar to books like Lord of the Flies and Metro 2033, it'll talk a lot about human nature.

Constructive critique please, don't just say "muh it's shitty"

I'm interested in the Imagists

Crusted vines climb a tree
Whose leaves are greener than Crayons.

>>6905307
Somehow manages to combine awful clunky showy diction with the tired cliches. The whole first stanza is the worst example of this. Try again.
>>6905289
Same thing as the other poem, to where I almost think you're the same person. Tonally it's a jumbled dramatic mess, and your diction makes me feel claustrophobic.
"Demurring sympathy
Demanding symphony
skaldic tongues resound!"
Are the worst offenders.
Try again.
>>6905178
Get the first two lines to actually rhyme, and they'd be a little awkward but okay. From there, it falls to pieces.
"Thought that it would last
Memories I can’t grasp
A future for you
What could I do
Get in your way
Force you to stay"
Are just too simple, too cloying.
Your metre is too sporadic, and I don't think the rhyming couplets is a good idea at all, especially if you want to have short, simple lines; sounds like a fucking nursery rhyme towards the end.

I'm using a Cotman watercolor brush to ink, and I find myself asking, "where have you been all my life?" I should have invested in it long before.

This is just an exercise which will not likely merit a full comic book. I took a wrong turn on the second face, and I'm not sure if it's going to come out alright! It will probably require a skillful application of white-out.

European comics are probably the last refuge for sensual materialism. I think I was going for a bit of that and maybe a touch of Hitchcock as well.

>>6901822
when's chapter 3 coming out?

>>6910492
See >>6907457

New chapters about once a week.

Ahead of Sara was Jason, leading her and the others through the riverside brush. Every now and then she risked looking away from the poorly hewn path to watch him. His movements were deft and certain, as though unburdened by the fear that guided her own. It reminded her that she was there with him, his companion on this adventure, and was sure that if the path was wide enough they would be walking side by side.

As the forest thickened and encroached on the bank, and the glint of the easy path dulled with the sun, she began to fall behind, forced along the slower and more prudent one. This amplified the whispered dismay of her followers, angering and embarrassing her, though Jason seemed not to notice, and he let the gap between them widen.

(later)

‘Hi!’ Sara said into the trees, half-expecting a response. The sound of the engine was fading. If they were to hear her, she would need to scream. But she could not bring herself to. Her voice died in the night, though it echoed for a moment in her mind. It was soft, and wavered, appropriate more for her suburb than this howling wilderness. She closed her eyes and imagined a tall and bright man turning to face her, a clear sky overhead, and heard herself again, emboldened now: ‘I’m sorry, I’m lost. Can I use your phone?’ He smiled and opened his mouth. Thunder roared out, cracking the sky and her eyes open. Everyone was gone.

>>6898875
With writing that bad you might want to at least make the format good so people won't be even more inclined to >into the trash your shit.

>>6898983
Has potential to be OK as long as it's either very short or doesn't keep on the sloshy pace of going on and on about opinions and thoughts.

>>6899031
Agree with the other anon, yogurt part was great.
The surprise cock was a nice touch too, you didn't mention it a single time before or prepare the reader for the sex scene. Creates a nice shock. I might fap to that.

>>6899031
>schubert
top taste

Gammy Ray Bursts & Other Light-hearted Matters

I fear not the villain that hides behind the shadows. Shivering,
as the child that struggles to sleep, for fear of the limbs
stretching from the closet frame. A father can exorcise
the threshold by turning on the lamp or plugging in some
cheap but colorful light right of the door's bottom hinge.
Faint luminance for $0.03/hour cast out such monsters.

I fear not the villain that isolates itself in darkness. Exploring
the wooded area around him, a boy scares away bogies by
clanging his armor of pans and cardboard like the son of
Quixote. Such forests are purified by pressure waves,
as the monsters find themselves paralyzed by the sonic
boom. Unable to move, they evaporate in the sunlight.

Sunlight floods the plains. Villains find far fewer places
to hide, as they sprint to caves or risk being enraptured.
I do not fear the ghost that is obliterated at dawn.
I fear the one who stays.
I fear the one, who says,
"I will ruin your life. I will fuck you in the sun."

>>6911456
>Writing bad! Format bad!
Are you salty or just not very good at criticism?

>>6911750
Not even him, but you're a faggot that can't handle the fact that his writing sucks. You probably think you're the next Hemingway or some shit, protip you're not and your writing is just dull and bland.

Wrote this a while back. Mostly hoping to see if there's too much implied imagery or if it can be followed at all. Any critique would be appreciated though.
He strained his wrists against the chains that held him in his current circumstance. He shook and screamed but none came to his aid. He was alone, forced to stare down at the hazy concrete, painted in dry blood that he knew to be his in his heart. He watched, half coherent, as the red speckled ground morphed rapidly into his first scrap of adolescence.
He quickly regained his footing and ran at the foe in front of him with all his might. He wouldn't let that egotistical prick say another word about him. He felt the full weight of his opponent, a reminder of how real this moment was. He felt the abrasive force of Mother Terra below supporting his actions, forcing his enemy to suffer the every pound that seemed to be rushing up to meet him as he fell. He felt the silence that marked the end of his anger and the beginning of his regret. Fear swallowed his entire being, shaking his body violently until he wasn't sure he'd ever been still before. The consequences were sure to be dire, weren't they? He'd committed murder, and his classmates were to witness.
The world around him slowed to a halt as he watched himself grow into an adult. He saw himself getting married, opening presents with the kids, and watching the sunset on his porch as his family rested in the house behind him, secured by the thoughts of their hero dad. That life shrunk away, as if running to a place where he could never hope to reach. Such an existence wasn't meant for a man so worthless.
His boss was yelling at him in a large executive office, the office he had always dreamed to call his own. He had forgotten to fax out his data sheets again and lost his shot at the promotion. He would be forced to endure a life of solitude in his studio apartment with nothing to look forward to but his dream board; the place where he pinned pictures of all the things that he could never acquire in his wildest dreams. Not like consciousness mattered. He only dreamed of his insecurities night after waking night anyways. If only he could wake himself from this nightmare. . . . .
Then he awoke in a sweat, gasping for air. He looked around in a daze searching for a scrap of familiarity toward the place he was in, to find sense in any form. Then he noticed the hazy concrete, painted in dry blood that he knew to be his in his heart.

>>6911801
What the fuck?

>>6911966

>>6911966

He/she is pretty rude and insecure huh

>>6911973
Probably off some meds.

>>6901745
I like it

>>6898317
I like it

>>6899309
Worst in this thread.

This is not a good question and you should feel bad.

>>6900013
Idk why but I enjoyed reading this, so thanks.

>>6911866
The assonance in the first sentence is painful to read. You start the first NINE sentences with the same word. NINE. WHY? NEIN!

>>6911441
>Sara
>Jason

Just bad names that immediately tell me I'm reading Children's lit or YA.

>poorly hewn path
Why do we need to know this?

>His movements were deft and certain, as though unburdened by the fear that guided her own.

2purps

You seem to have a decent understanding of the process but you're overdoing things. It reads like it's contrived rather than from the soul. Try less.

>>6912811
Thanks for pointing that out, I'll try to be more aware of that. Other than my poor word choice, can you point anything else out?

>>6913595
It's riddled with cliches and poor grammar/punctuation. It's very purple.

But really, first and foremost, you need to work on your flow. As I said originally, starting so many sentences with the same word is a massive no-no. Try reading it aloud right now. You hear how monotonous and lifeless it sounds right? In an attempt to rectify that you need to mix up your sentences. A simple rule that I try to follow is to never start consecutive sentences with the same word (unless it's for emphasis---and that's something you'll want to use rarely). Think also about mixing up the complexity (clauses per sentence) within your paragraphs in order to generate rhythm.

>>6911441
let me rewrite your first couple sentences so that they're better cos it only took me 10 seconds to find a better way to say what you said.

Jason led the others through the riverside brush. Every now and the Sara risked looking away etc etc

good luck

>>6905320
Look, let's be honest, you know as well as I do how very unlikely it is for a reader to meet with a wall of impenetrable boredom right from the off without wanting to burn the book and then their eyes out because they'll never want to read anything again. I know you know this because of what you said before you burdened us with your shit anyway. I do, however, think that this particular steaming piece of drudgery could [and I stress upon the importance of understanding what 'could' means here] be resuscitated if you breathed some humour into it. Make me laugh right off the bat (within the first two sentences hopefully) and I'll want to read on, continue to make me laugh throughout your exposition and it will cease to be a dump, having been flushed away with your wit, if you see what I mean.

My book is very comedic, and the protagonist narrates it having reveries all the time. This one is about hip hop.

Everything started a long time ago, in a time so far away none of your grandparents were around to even know about, an age of rudimentary technologies and culture, of course I'm talking about the year of 1973. It all started in Brooklyn, New York, in a time period where there was absolutely nothing to do for people like me and the revolutionary fellows who created Hip Hop. The thing is that the 70's, much like the 60's, were a paradise of open fields and drugs for whiteys to go use and watch their little rock bands playing, but after a time that doesn't do it anymore. The hardened people from the ghetto had to start their own thing, and they did. In the beginning there were four of them. Four fellows who changed the world forever. One of them had a very strong shape, and good stamina, the guy was a health bomb, and he was able to do some wicked dance moves with his body. That guy created breakdancing. Then, there was another one. He was smart, quick-witted, and hungry to tell stories about his hard life in the ghetto, and he was able to speak those stories fast in patterns and make them rhyme. That guy created fresstlye, and rap as it was back then. The third guy was just an overall vandal, who got his hands on some spray paint and started messing other's people's walls and houses around. That guy created graffiti. The last guy had absolutely no talent (that meaning, he almost died trying to breakdance, he was too dumb to freestyle and he could only draw on pen and paper like normal people) but one day he managed to find out that if you pull the vinyl as it is still spinning, it creates a very nice little sound, and thus that guy created DJing and scratching.
They appeared at the ghetto with their new art forms fresh out of the oven, and other people became monstrously impressed by it. Soon enough there were folks in little circles doing cyphers and rap battles, people breaking their necks trying to breakdance in dance battles, people writing their street names with ink on the city's walls and people almost ruining perfectly good vinyl by scratching it all night long. Hip Hop was born, and it was a beautiful, beautiful moment. All the white, straight-faced, brown-haired, guitar-playing whites realized at that moment that their skills of composing simple and boring chord progressions, moaning about their problems on a microphone and paying some recently rehabilitated drug addict to work the drums was menaced. They then started a war against Hip Hop, claiming it was “not music”, that “real music” needs to have instruments and that the rappers around are just egomaniacals who sing about killing people, doing drugs and having sex (like any other rock/punk/metal band frontman out there).
It did not work.

>>6897519
This is my OC poem I just wrote a min ago.

I wish I knew what I was doing. I float astray with empty dreams that fill my day. I stand alone with a frown, for I threw it all away. Burst my bubbles by the sea shore hold my tongue stop my ego tie me down dont let me go. Born a man that few can stand I weep, mumble, and scribble my damed nonsense on demand. Dying, starving, cacophony caughing, bring swerping justice now make me yours. Hear me well lurking death, held down by God's breath, I wish I knew what the hell I was doing.

I would also appreciate if someone could help me decide on a title.

“What is sex?”

My parents look at me uncomfortably, like Mr. Ubrik did when he had to explain to us that Natalie wouldn't be coming back to class, and that she didn't move, and was in a better place now, all the way back in the first grade.

I mean, I have a general idea what sex is. I know that girls have holes and guys have, well, what I have, a dick. I measured mine since that seems to be the thing that all the older kids did, and it came out to about four inches. All the older kids say they have eight, or even ten inches, and I wonder when mine will start to grow. Maybe I should ask my parents about that too. Kevin said he had a foot, and all the kids laughed at him and said it was nothing but an inch. Is it bad to have a small dick? What if my dick is small?

“When does my dick start to grow?'

Dad and mom are obviously taken aback by this. Dad less so, with a knowing look in his eyes, but mom looks absolutely terrified. What did I say wrong? Is sex wrong? What about boners? Are they wrong too? I mean, usually my dick feels nice and soft, but sometimes it gets hard and weird, and I remember being younger and trying to push it away because it felt so weird. Felt good rubbing it against things though, although mom told me to stop once she saw me.

>>6913857
lots of this could be cut:

>Everything started a long time ago . . . year of 1973
say 1973, or make that first sentence important/funny enough to justify itself.
>beautiful, beautiful moment
cut one instance of beautiful, at least.
>fresh out the oven
>monstrously impressed

furthermore, you could use an additional paragraph break or two, especially when you focus on the four guys.

more importantly, I'd suggest giving the guys names, throw in some dialogue. I guess this is supposed to be a vignette, but make it seem less like a vignette by making specific stuff happen. otherwise, you'll sound like a conversational Wikipedia article; I can't tell where this story wants to go.

specificity is required, too, since you want your book to be comedic: the reader needs names, individual instances on top of exposition for the comedy to work.

/my .02

>>6897519
here's something I wrote, part of a longer thing I'm writing. I posted it in the other crit thread, didn't get crit, but would appreciate some.

http://pastebin.com/4hECCJ0n
~550 words

>>6913951
forgot my picture too, just for >>6913857

>>6913951
Yea, the guys are not that important, it's just to show that the protagonist is sort of ingorant and thinks that four guys had created hip hop because there are four manifestations of it. The text got all messed up in one big block but there are some paragraph breaks.

Thanks for the feedback.

>>6913951
Hmm, I don't really have any input, but I like it.
>>6909758
Sounds cheesy/hackneyed, sorry. Hard to be sure given half of the plot though.

Could anyone take a look at mine please ?
>>6909111

>>6911966
>>6911973
>>6911997
>samefagging

>>6909111
>>6914136

>>6913951 here. ty for reading.

premise is interesting; I never see taxidermy stories.

I've skinned some squirrels in my day, so gj on "bald, purple body had lost its squirrel-like qualities." accurate and amusing.

after this, I got confused. El is having "macaroni and cheese for tea" wat.jpg in one paragraph, and in the next she's in an antique shop, then in class. so, I'm guessing these are the seeds for a number of scenes that you have compiled.

your prose is decent, for sure--I can tell you have the capacity to string a sentence together, and it's not about a NEET waking up lonely (/lit/'s favorite story to write), which is refreshing--and this could be really good with revision, after you build on the material that you have.

>>6913809
>>6912827

thanks

Now matter how right or wrong this thing feels, there is always the question, for him at least, how did I get here? Past Sunday mornings and Wednesday afternoons, past that first eternal hardon in the track bus, past twelve years of a Lutheran education, past youth leaders that always tried to connect with his body but never his mind...something was there, unaddressed, some minor key behind all of it.

Did Martin Luther mutter it to himself before his damnation at Wurms? “...a servant of your creation Lord, an agent of your Creation, Lord.”

But there really is something there for him, even now he realizes it, actively, he still tastes it on front and back of his tongue, some combination of mixed taste experience that we’ve collectively come to call “savory”. A good deed done for “the least of these” still creates something more concrete than blessing in him, or maybe blessing has a chemical name: the rush of molecules after a fulfilled altruistic deed, the final step of acceptance amongst staggering tragedy, the internal trade of human information, now removed, hopefully for a vicar, from the actual trade itself; a simulation of fulfilled instinct.

From this basement he found his harmonic natural seventh, his comforting wet black, his self-education. He found in it a hidden intention, the logical second coming of not Christ himself, but a symbol of his third resurrection from a tomb of the deleted failures of man.

"Watch out," Mark gestured to the figure who entered the lecture hall - thick sunglasses and clothes probably grabbed in a morning slur - "Hangover alert." Laura, who sat in the seat next to his on this day and some others, giggled a little, and Mark allowed himself a grin. He liked it when he made her laugh. When Sunglasses turned around, dimly aware of the laughter at his expense, Mark and Laura shrank into their chairs, but nothing really came of it. The lecture began and as it went on Mark took any opportunity to make a joke under his breath, which Laura seemed to appreciate. On more than one occasion he just looked at her. He must've been in love, he supposed. He guessed that maybe the fabric of her sun-dress is what heaven feels like, her smile what heaven looks like. Any one of these days, he proposed, she would know how she feels. And she'd feel the same. All he was and more would be reflected in her, and he'd grow up to be one of those happily married couples he had glimpsed beyond impassible thresholds in the houses of childhood friends.


Mark threw himself off the top floor of a car park on a grey day with a grey sky in a grey town. He had just turned 37 - he had not seen Laura in many years. The girl who saw him fall and saw what remained of him when he landed just so happened to be the sister of the cute Arab girl who worked in the cafe who Mark had once considered asking out, but decided against it. The same girl from the cafe grew up just next door to an English teacher who had taught in the same school that Laura's boyfriend of 4 years had went to. It's funny how things all tie together, isn't it?

>>6914741
not bad, first block reads somewhat like YA fiction

second block seems like your just needlessly confusing the reader, what point are you trying to really make?