/lit/ - Literature

I mustn’t have been older than thirteen or fourteen at the time, as I remember this happening during the semester was being homeschooled. My father was having me rake the leaves in the front yard late one cool october night as the shadows of the houses were being stretched by the lowering sun. On the opposite side of the street the window of the neighbor’s house was suddenly flooded with light, and I couldn’t resist the temptation of looking into the inside in hopes of catching a glimpse of the private moments of another’s life. A young girl came into view and, oblivious to her audience, began to undress until she was left in only her black bra and panties. She was a year my junior, but well developed for her age. It wasn’t long before she left the room, as swiftly as she entered, towel in hand.

Crouched in my backyard behind the fence with my binoculars pressed against the knot-holes in the planks, I awaited her return. The sun now fully down, a blanket of darkness was laid upon the night. Finally the window was once again illuminated, revealing the young girl with a towel draped around her body and another wrapped around her head. Shame, anxiety, and arousal mixed together to create a very strange and exhilarating sensation. When she began to unravel the towel my hands shook, my heart raced and my breath quickened in anticipation. The towel dropped like a curtain being raised in a theater. My eyes swept up and down her exposed little body, from her damp red hair to her frail shoulders, then from her pink, puffy nipples on her small supple breasts to her tight, toned waist, down towards her small bush of flaming hair and bare thighs of pure ivory.

It wasn't long before my little show was interrupted by the sound of heavy feet on dry, brittle leaves came from behind me. My heart now raced for a different reason. Arousal was replaced by fear, and shame morphed into mortification. There was an enveloping silence that lasted either a moment or an eon.

“What are you doing out here?”

It was my father. I tried to speak but there was nothing to be said and only a timid croak escaped my throat. He looked down at the binoculars gripped at my side, raised his eyes above my head to see the voyeuristic display that was being broadcasted into the night, then slowly lowered them back down to mine.

pls validate me

http://pastebin.com/HfPJgjbx

>>6963108
1: neighbors' & their

2: came into view and, ..., began::change to::
came into view, ..., and

3: well developed::just give an example, thats too abstract imo, so wispy bush? swollen buds?

4: darkness was laid::change to 'darkness laid'

5: kill yr darling::jk, it should be: 'The towel dropped like a curtain raised in a theater. [Kudos btw]

6: flaming? noooope. pure ivory? noooope.

7: My heart [metaphor].

8: that's an exhibitionist display, not voyeuristic, the narrator is the voyeur and his binocular/tree thing is a voyeuristic display

It's good, you know how to handle yrself.

>>6963084
hey guys, this one is about getting censored yesterday

when i posted this poem and found everything stricken from the record a mere hour later.

what gives?

>>6963175
Idk it's pretty brown.

it's not as subtle as I'd wanted but I was caught up in the feels tbh

A pale young cardinal flew to my feeder;
I didn't want it to leave, and I stayed so still
And distant. It left despite my cautious steps,
Though like true steps, begat of habit,
Not true care. The bird wanted holding, not silence.

>>6963112
Take out every single adverb and report back. I will read it again when you fix it.

So do you guys intend to actually try and improve eachothers' work or are you just going to keep posting these poems/prose, leaving the thread, and hoping somebody replies?

I myself am not a writer but I just don't see the point of these threads if you guys aren't willing to help eachother out.

Here's a poem I wrote last week:

Oh, in the final hour of the days
When the shadows merge into one
And a spell is cast upon us all
I see your face before me
It gives light to the iris of my heart

>>6963219
Ikr. But after reading their stuff—do ye really want their feedback?? I trust the few ppl that crit, since they are going outta their way.

>>6963227
More like metaBORE.

I think that ANY other body part would work better. Just pick one at random.

>>6963171
Yr narcissism rly shines through bud.

What I mean is, ye should know that no one wants to read yr scribbles (I did to test my hypothesis). Type it out, make it coherent, get those ideas nice and clear!

>>6963219
It is pretty hopeless, yes. It's a shame because I think even if your critiques aren't too accurate and experienced, you still get practice in your own writing and editing by trying to point out problems in others' work. I critique pretty often in poetry threads but I don't think anyone takes it seriously.

>>6963227
Try retina, maybe pupil?

>>6963278
There are no good poems on lit. Occ good prose. Tbh.

>>6963296
true tbh

>>6963305
>>6963296
Would you read a short story I wrote if I post a link to it?

>>6963084
In the sky,
countless call to me,
I hear their voices,
as sweet as honey.

They sing to me,
to fall asleep,
permanently.

But I am not ready to go yet,
so I drown out their abet.

>>6963334
not if it requires a logon

>>6963358
>as sweet as honey.
work to avoid cliches
>so I drown out their abet.
really jars from the rest, particularly the last word

She seemed pretty happy, after twenty-six years of cutting hair, and spending what I assumed was another 18-20 in the same place, the same little homeland. She says she barrel races in Kansas City to keep herself from going crazy.

“Oh yeah? I’ve never been, but I almost bought a horse from Oregon last week…I saw the bloodlines and said, ‘I have to have it!’”

Yeah, I thought, we do that too.

I wonder if she still likes me. Looking backwards I see she did, and didn't, since she doesn't seem to now. Does she know? If she likes me. Do people know when they like someone else? I would make it a necessity that if she did, she would now. Have I changed? I feel the same. I am my name, humans change but always under the same name, so the change is part of their identity still. To change but remain the same. To change and remain the same. She had the obligation to keep liking me. Does she, still? If she did before, she must now.
¶
To conspire... I can think all I want but I'll be doing it to myself. The role of the psychoanalyst, Freud. He didn't give us what people thought but gave us how they thought. Am I conspiring? For or against her? I just like the thought of her. I think it's bad that I think about her. Maybe if I had less tools. The intellect! Stop spamming me. Spamming oneself: consciousness. Self-consciousness. She was a strange person. Is. I ought to determine if she still likes me. Like, she could be a psychopath? Sociopath? But I wouldn't be. I wish I could at least be of some use to her, then. I would be an object to her, maybe, alright, but she wouldn't be an object to me. I would see right through her... manipulation, and I'd find it cute like when she would speak awkwardly shyly. She'd make such a cute sociopath. And I must have said this now, since I'm saying it before. Right, you had to ruin, it didn't you.

>>6963370
Doesnt. It's my proudest work so far. Heh.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/139zeVTgmT0_HoWLcjNs9P692X9CpqLQGfFNKqLA270Y/mobilebasic?pli=1

>>6963150

write something will ye
I'd like to read something of yours, I saw a bit of your writing before and I did read it and was going to write a reply but it was a shitty reply and I was really sleepy so I ended up not writing anything
post something well ye

also you look particularly sane today

>>6963334
Yeah, do it.

>>6963406
Fixd:

She seemed pretty happy, after twenty-six years cutting hair and spending what I assumed to be another 18-20 in the same place, that same little homeland. She says she barrel races in Kansas City to keep herself from going crazy.

“Oh yeah? I’ve never been, but I almost bought a horse from Oregon last week… I saw the bloodlines and said, ‘I have to have it!’”

Yeah, I thought, we[? who was just speaking?] do that too.

http://pastebin.com/bGGhWGNP

English isn't my first language nor is it the language the original draft was written in, so I'm more so looking for critique on the narrative and the plot itself rather than the language.

>>6963422
I like yr theme but it's a mess. Maybe I'm projecting but isn't the point to transfer yr ideas into the reader's head? I felt like I was 12 again, trying to make out tits through the scramble Spice channel.

Again, I like the idea. Most people aren't going to work for it though. Channel John Greene: he has SEVENTEEN MILLION DOLLARS. Don't be afraid 2b understood!

>>6963487
It's here>>6963436

>>6963227
that last line really fucks everything else. other than that, doing fine. Maybe some form or meteor would be nice.

>>6963358
idk man. i wanted to like it at first. it just sorta feels like you aren't drawing from something inside you, y'know?

>>6963502
Anyone?

>>6963422
if you're going for the world-through-a-child's-eye trick then you're on the right track but even still, it needs a lot of work.
if you're not you are a probably a child and i want you to know that you're very very special

>>6963679
Ok give me a sec

>>6963195
I've added a line can I have critique now

In the muggy heat of early Fall, I saw
A pale young cardinal fly to my feeder;
I didn't want it to leave, and I stayed so still
And distant. It left despite my cautions steps,
Though like trues steps, begat of habit, not
True care. The bird wanted holding, not silence.

>>6963436
Number 1 thing: This is very very good. My comments are up to the end of Ch2. [the rest is coming]

• Fey—maybe provide a syn bc it's the 2nd meaning yr getting at

• Let the axe fall? I want to assume you've chopped wood before [?]

• 'ax' is standard American English & this is in NH—so...

• as they approached numbness → need to say this another way, 'approach' is abstract, hands approach women, not numbness

• The sun had reached the middle of the sky and that made him sad.

• drank his liver out of commision → I know you can do better than that

• at 47

• you can nix 'a hopeless dream' and just say 'hoped to become an artist one day'

• by October, he

• his plan too clearly [ I know you know]

• in one winter

• just say: especially a New Hampshire winter [we know it's cold there & Hampshirian is douchey (douchie?)]

• figure out whether you want to set off 'of course' w/a comma or not & be consistent

• maybe just drop the 'of courses' they don't add anything and no one cares that narrator has inside info, of course

• I'm not so sure about yr classification of trees... birches are flimsy? maybe papery... Pines are plenty hard, ever cut one down?

• It was winter, and it was cold. ←Lol really??

• By December he had cleared

• twelve hours straight felling trees he had made

• severely depressed him → I know you can do better

• the abyss: No, don't ever, pls use any other metaphor or even just 'darkness' or 'pitch'

• 2 abysses?? jfc dude, maybe 'breakdown'

• his mental health declined → do better, show don't tell, etc

• some pneumoniae → just say 'pneumonia'

• completely sober and terrified (...). [Don't dangle the 'and terrified']

>>6963227
the fingers of my heart
no stealing

>>6963707
Thanks man!

>>6963679
Calm the fuck down, we'll get to it!

>>6963723
>'ax' is standard American English & this is in NH—so...
"Ax" is like "catalog" and "dialog" — they may be perfectly valid American English, but even in America you see them less often than the longer versions and they just look somehow wrong.

>>6963760
You cause me psychic pain, brother.

'Ax' is statistically more common. I get that you don't like the look & maybe don't see it often, but fax r fax!

Do what you do, though.

>>6963713
you need to get some consistency

what impact does the muggy fall have on the story? the cardinal connotes activity and life
but then you are detached from the reality

and then you use language like begat and through like trues steps where before you were using simplistic lanuge like pale and feeder

you need to really clean your language up imo
If you want to have a really hot and muggy setting you should throw in words like you are feeling lazy and the cardinal (maybe give it a gender?) is a bright flash of red which breaks through your stupor

>>6963502
-- Are you making fun of new year's resolutions? You say its a time to make wishes which is not technically correct but it is what usually happens. In any case, I found that bit very funny.
--- "crawled over the sink" do you mean curled? I'm not sure it translated well.
--- "climbed on top of a sandbox" also makes little sense. Surely you didn't mean this?
--- "elegantly wearing a tux" should be "wearing an elegant tux" in my opinion since it seems to be describing the tux

I skimmed after half-way through. Try reading Aesop or Lewis Carroll. They do similar stuff but in a better way, in my opinion. Just don't give up. You have a long time to work on your writing. (I assume you're kinda young.)

>>6963723
Wow thank you this is great I never expected so much back

"MDMA" is a contraction of "Methylenedioxy-methamphetamine," itself a contraction of "Methylenedioxy-methyl-alpha-methylphenethylamine." “Methylenedioxy-” refers to a methylene bridge, composed of a carbon atom singly-bound to two hydrogen atoms and simultaneously singly-bound to two other atoms, in this case a pair of oxygen atoms, hence the “-dioxy-.” Oxygen tends by its own chemical nature to form two bonds, so an oxygen atom bound singly to a methylene bridge will seek to bind with something else, and sometimes, just like that dilapidated tragedy of a man you pass en route to the office, the lonely forsaken oxygen-end of a methylene bridge will stumble through life until it finds itself evicted from its former place of residence and bound, inescapably, to methamphetamine.
Methyl-alpha-methylphenethylamine consists of an alpha-methylphenethylamine (a name which, if you’re following the pattern, contracts to “amphetamine”) molecule bound to two methyl groups. A methyl group is an atom of carbon bound to three hydrogen atoms and to a larger molecule e.g. amphetamine. Amphetamine molecules occur in two variants which, though compositionally identical (C9H13N), are structurally mirrored; think of one as the left hand of amphetamine and the other as the right. These are termed dextroamphetamine and levoamphetamine and amphetamine when taken as a drug will consist of a 3:1 dextroamphetamine:levoamphetamine ratio or entirely dextroamphetamine. It was manufactured as a stimulant and antiasthmatic in the Interbellum in a 1:1 variety but consumer demand and the budding military-industrial complex inevitably drove the production of a more potent derivative: methamphetamine. The effects are similar: the user is more alert, more concentrated, more awake, than he could naturally be. If that sounds like an adrenaline rush, that’s because it literally is: amphetamines and derivatives stimulate the release of catecholamines, such as adrenaline, noradrenaline, and dopamine, in the sympathetic nervous system. These hormones respectively moderate energy levels, concentration and alertness, and the brain’s reward system.

>>6963776
>(maybe give it a gender?)
female cardinals are often a pale red/brown whereas males are bright red. It's not a very obscure fact at all, but I think it's subtler than outright declaring its gender.

Thank you, you're right though. I'm gonna rethink my diction and make it longer to more adequately explore what the first line introduces.

>>6963502
Ok, it's a nice story and I liked it. I'm going to guess that most of the errors happened in translation so that's no big deal, maybe work on pacing, things happened either too fast or too slow and it was Ultimatley inconsistent.

Out of curiosity how old are you?

Suddenly, something amazing happened.

"Oh, Charles!"
"Yes, dear?"
"Charles, darling."
She pointed at his swelling crotch.
"Ohh- ohhhh!"
His face ovalled into a look of surprise.
"Charles"
"Judith"
She buried her face in his shoulder and cried.

>>6963812
Now consider your job, your sex life, your creative endeavors: in each of them you seek a mental state which 老子 (“Lao (rhymes with the first word of “Dow Jones Industrial Average”) Zi (rhymes roughly with either syllable of “tsetse”),” which essentially translates to “old master”) first called 無爲 (Wu (sounds like “goo” without the “g”) Wei (like “away” but instead of the “a” sound make the “‘goo’ without the ‘g’” sound), which means something like “non-doing (but not not-doing)”) in the sixth century before Christ and Csikszentmihalyi (you’re on your own for this one) first called “flow” roughly 2500 years later, in anno Domini 1975. It’s a mental state in which the human brain performs at its optimum and loses consciousness of its own “doing,” and amphetamines and their derivatives bring that elusive state about by force. This shit practically sells itself. The condition is necessarily desirable during every moment of activity spent outside of it; that is to say, by definition addictive in the extreme. Consider the addictiveness and the fact that brute-forcing catecholamines in excess will produce degenerative effects in the brain and you have a recipe for restrictive legal status. Indeed, methamphetamine is a schedule II drug in the United States (if caught and convicted you will be locked up for five-to-forty and fined up to five-million) but because it has less addictive and damaging potential amphetamine is only schedule III (you might not be imprisoned at all, even if caught and convicted) which is thankful because of the two regular old amphetamines are usually much easier to acquire and all traces will vanish from your bloodstream within 24 hours. Adderall (3:1 dextroamphetamine:levoamphetamine), Dexedrine, Vyanse, ProCentra, and Dextrostat are all available from one of probably many people you know who were diagnosed with ADHD in the 1990s and early 2000s. If you’re in the market for a perfectly legal gateway drug, straight levomethamphetamine is available over-the-counter in a drug store near you as Benzedrex or something similar. www.walgreens.com lists a Benzedrex inhaler at $7.29, and offers free shipping on orders of $25.00 or more.
Amphetamines and their derivatives are great, but it’s with MDMA where things start to get really interesting.

>>6963823
Did he ded?

>>6963778
>-- Are you making fun of new year's resolutions? You say its a time to make wishes which is not technically correct but it is what usually happens. In any case, I found that bit very funny.
Making a wish when the clock strikes twelve is an old tradition in my country so it is "technically correct", I don't even think we had new years resolutions before American media influence.
>--- "climbed on top of a sandbox" also makes little sense. Surely you didn't mean this?
I meant one of those boxes that have sand in them that you find at construction sites.

Thanks for the pointers! Even if the finished version won't be in English it's always good to improve your lamguage skills.

>>6963823
Lol. Roy Lichtenstein!

Sunset found her squatting in the grass, groaning. Every stool was looser than the one before, and smelled fouler. By the time the moon came up she was shitting brown water. The more she drank, the more she shat, but the more she shat, the thirstier she grew, and her thirst sent her crawling to the stream to suck up more water. When she closed her eyes at last, Dany did not know whether she would be strong enough to open them again. She dreamt of her dead brother.

>>6963847
Ebola?

anyone, read this itll take a minute, anitreligious theme

>>6963822
Thank you, I'll rework it with that in mind! I'm 18 btw, as you might be able to tell by the childishly naive theme and the "that's deep bro" armchair philosophy.

>>6963877
why do you type like this
wtf is wrong with you

it's not the fact that you are 18 it's the fact that while acknowledging it you are acting like a huge faggot
can't really put a finger on why it's so repulsive, but it definitely is

>>6963832
Were you on amphetamines when you wrote this?

>>6963896
No but I definitely got into a flow state while writing because I missed a free dinner and had to drop $10.75 on a Subway steak-and-cheese (pepper jack) on wheat with cookies and drink. I would appreciate any feedback; my apologies that it's kind of hard to read, I forgot that 4Chan doesn't register paragraph indentations and I'm posting from my smart phone.

>>6963870
>gnarliest cedar
>It consisted of the coarsely amalgamated remnants of English, Latin, and any other written language that had left a lasting impression
>Nearly 300 years since the Nihilists had departed from Earth
>The very scaffolding of society changed

>>6963926
Alright, the middle paragraph needs the work. I think the ending is good though

>>6963870
never use 7, use seven.
when you can use conceits rather than 'the very scaffolding changed' USE THEM. metaphors are garbage if you just use them once

>>6963108
¿Any reason this red, in terms of mode of awareness and speech, like a character describing her memories to Poirot (TV) or some other detective? I mean, it's natural to that extent, but do memories really sound like what you wrote?
And those testimonies are usually filled with lots of noise or unremarkable detail that Poirot has to actively weed out, and I mean he is a gentleman and listens to everything they feel like saying, but noteveryone is

>>6963175

genuine question, what are the colors for?

Anyway, first you have the sounds of a TV (radio?) show, then you work your ways toward Internetdirected speech, but the parenthesis colors are like a recurrent mystery that don't add up so be kind and say what their purpose is

>>6963778
—
>>6963812
this gave me an idea

>>6963823
>"Charles"
>"Judith"
>She buried her face in his shoulder and cried.

Gold

>>6963892
It's repulsive because you have that particular reaction image and you've grown used to using it (and if not you just wanted to try it out)

>>6963529
>>6963695

It seems it's confirmed then, that I am a manchild......
>tfw when nothing I think makes sense anymore
>tfw when if it weren't messy it'd be dishonest although you are right in the extent that it could be much more elegantly messy
>tfw when
And >>6963529 I don't into the "to transfer yr ideas" mindset at all.

————————
any portuguesespeaking person(s) here?

(Uma Noite)
Celestial é a aura
Que cobre a prata dourada,
Um jogo de sombras e luzes
Compondo a longa estrada.

Vultos movem-se sincronizados
Em harmonia desconcertada,
Fixos num horizonte perdido
Todos procuram a saída errada.

Pensantes, poucos são os que vêem
A intriga da jornada.

Escutam-se vibrações no ar:
Carros apressam-se,
Silêncios desesperam,
Passos perdem-se,
Sentimentos governam.

E a lua etérea já chora discreta,
A sua beldade em tudo dispersa...

Mas nem tudo desperta:
Os sentimentos ainda governam,
Os passos ainda se perdem,
Os silêncios ainda desesperam,
Os carros ainda se apressam.

E os vultos iludem-se
Em busca do eterno,
Confundem-no com o terno.

>>6963938
It's mediocre which gives the illusion of looking good when it's placed next to something horrible

>>6963943
I think I understand.

>scaffolding changed
>civilization reconstructed
>a new world built

>>6963915
I don't really have any critiques, but I did find it very interesting. I got lost in the beginning because I don't know much about chem. But other than that I really enjoyed it, especially the connections you made with Doaism.

>>6963962
regardless you use a scaffolding to stand on while building something
when a scaffolding changes that means what? that you are going to work on another part of the building?

if you want to use a building as a conceit make it like from the bricks of civilization the new world order was built
the pillars were the christian principles which held society up. when they were challeneged it collapsed.

or something like that.

Three poems I wrote.

A shell
waves swell
worn down
men drown
by time
bells chime


I heed sad waves
Rhythmic cascade
Lunic black dirge
Ceaseless worn surge
The sea's dull blade
Broken on graves

The lone man stalks the road
Old patched jacket sewed
Marks snake where he once strode
A stolen meal, nothing owed
He still lives by moral code
That lone man nothing slowed

>>6964000
Checked, or do people only do that on b?

Anyway, with scaffolding I meant that the people who hold up society left earth, forcing society to rest on something else. Maybe I should specify that

>>6964007

How to read this?

>>6964011
look up the definition for scaffolding dude

>>6964021
They're three separate poems. Each space between a paragraph is a new poem.

>>6964007
The first one is special. It has the rythm of the ocean going in and out, and rhymes very nicely. Only thing, are the bells supposed to be for a funeral, wasnt sure

>>6964007
Unless you're trying to ironically use a nursery rhyme meter or not, I think you should change it because this sounds like shit. The last stanza's first three lines are better than all the rest by a lot.

>>6964029

I know, not what I meant.
How are these supposed to be read?

Whatever effect you're going for, I'm sure I'm not getting it. Talk about 'em? and don't sound like
>>6964040

Poopy
A dark one
Brown? Maybe black
Not clogged yet, jealousy
Friendless shits in friendless potties
Just something I've been working on the past few months. Thoughts?

>>6964043
It's just me messing around with iambic meter. When I first started writing poetry I just wrote in blank verse. Eg.

This reflective Selene
Matched by man's incandescents
Merely an echo, a mockery
The effect but no affect
For who stares at filament
And wonders the depths
Wanders the depths

>>6963436
>>6963723
>>6963795
• and he closed them in

• Rob should have fed his pigs. Damn it all to hell!

• which would by then would not look ← I know ye know

• if there was a deli → I was under the illusion that you were telling the future w/yr 'would's

• going into town or the sight

• his deluded mind → ye can do better

• by his fantasies of failing health [& cut the pneumonia part → the reader will remember]

• cut: By the end of that week he never had an internal thought.

• he watched two lovers

• who should

• cut ' "happiness" '

• Taverne? If ye say so

• it's 'Ides' ← capital

• I suggest 'tides of skiers'

• 'without so much as a glance back' should go after 'as he could'

• clear up whether the heart attack or the inheritance caused him a low about of sadness [reword]

• 'necessarily' isn't the word ye want there

• 'who slowly drank themselves back to their youths' → good idea, need a better way 2 say—maybe just cut 'slowly'

• from the last of the skiers

• a woman [she's 'the' to you but she's new to the reader]

• which assured the man

• 'What do you have against the police?' this ain't how drunk people talk → 'What you got...' or something

• had shown enough interest

• his monologues [anyone who can be said to have 'their monologues' is obv notorious for it]

• anounced over the din

• [ one of the last times I was truly happy was in Woodstock, NH : C ]

• presence transcended his body

• the man he sat with [guy is too chatty/inconsistent w/yr tone]

• torturous [if you DO mean tortuous, it's too close in the sentence to 'suffer']

• he was simply bashful ←I lol'd [as in: keep it]

• 'Here's a pculiar local, folks' ← outside yr tone. methinks ye want it attributed to Ian's thought so make that clear

• had no clue

• the small knife [ye already brought it up—'a' is only for the 1st time[& yeah that guy is seeing it 4 th' 1st time but yr telling us, the audience]]

• now I want a glass of vodka

• 1st person out of nowhere, wtf

• cut 'comically'

• The skiers slowly stood up in unison and filed out of the door. ← lol'd again

• over his face

• clearly you've never been in a fist fight...

Really great story. Eerily close to my own life [minus the pigs]. The bar scene is great. The after bar scene will benefit from re-writing &/or re-thinking. & the last scene is solid.

I was able to get lost in it.

>>6964099
Thank you again. I've always been afraid to touch the bar scene because I thought it was good when I first wrote it and I didn't want to mess it up. This will be a good place for me to start tweaking.

I'm 16 if that means anything, and got most of my inspiration/knowledge about bars from stephen king books.

And, im curious, have you really been to Woodstock? There is a real life truants taverne (with the e), never been inside though

Eating leaves and the sex of flowers
Pigment ground over tongue
Spit color, if color exists
Not just as white
Light but tangible, hot
as breath play,
Exists as silken
slips, reveals itself
like lovers

>>6964198
Shit, yr 16? You, my friend, will be a well known author someday. Yeah, def got a SK vibe, but also a Kesey vibe. You might like Sometimes a Great Notion.

Yeah I was there. Don't remember the Taverne tho.

http://pastebin.com/eZQ5MzNJ

inb4 Pincone. I know already. The audience is /lit/. Think DFW's brain damaged ghost doing Pynchon doing Patterson.

I tried to keep it movin for ya.

[Thx in advance]

>>6964007
bells clonk
ftw

Good stuff. No metaphors tho.

>>6964285
Tough to do metaphors in mono, di and tri meter. But I appreciate it, thanks.

>>6964061
if that last line is part of the poem: 10/10

>>6964260
I guess that's the dream, man. And I'll check that out.

>>6963943
to clarify, one should write out all numbers less than or equal to abs(ten)

>>6963451
4ye:

http://pastebin.com/tD0QNFUq

>>6964198
You fucked up man.

>>6964322
Why? Are you a mod or something?

>>6963713
>>6963776
>>6963820
Back with a new write: I also tried a sparser version if there's any interest in that.

In the muggy heat of early Fall, I lounged,
Alone and weak, on a white patio chair;
Day surrendered to dusk, and mutely I gazed across
The grass, the trees, and wrinkled violet sky.

A pale young cardinal flew to my feeder,
Its soft brown tufts lending a tender life to both
My thoughts and the humid air they slept inside.
Not sure I deserved her here, I kept so still
And distant, not wanting the bird to fly away -
Not calling - taking cautious steps through grass.

But was I careful for her sake or for mine?
Perhaps they were as selfish and cowardly
As my dozing - fearful to move, or change too fast?
In meek flutters, the cardinal left, I creeping, yet still,
To the swishing feeder in the air now empty
Of the sun's last rays. I knew too late that she
Did not want silence, but life and holding warm -
Crisp chirps and arm waving and kisses steady and long.

Returning in the black, I take up my chair,
My glass, my quiet and thinking, alone once more.
In the heat, my frail arms shiver constantly.

>>6964355
em-dashes: —
alt + 0151

>>6964358
thanks, noted

>>6964358
option + shift + - on mac

>>6964303
Yr story's Lexical Diversity score is: 0.875
[vocab size / total words]

>>6964269
>>6964319

I will read this first thing in the morning I tried writing something but my mind is not functioning properly >4 a.m.
pic related is proof

That I will read this first thing in the morning is already a word on how much I liked/wtf'd what I saw and on how I am willing to wake up in the morning (in the morning!) just to read it

>>6964355
too, much punctuation;

I dont care for the alliteration/consonance either, dial it back a bit (grass/trees, crisp/chirps esp.)

try using words other than 'white' or 'violet', use stormy or wicker or something like that

also read this again http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173536
less is more, in some ways

it's better though
also don't put too much stock in my criticisms lad, only change what you think needs changing

>>6963498
Thanks. Did you guys think it was alright?

She was talking.

And I'm thinking at the end.

>>6964383
Sweet. Also, yr right about the visualization thing. I'll look into better words.

>>6964382
So that's not bad, like not many words were repeated?

Are you an english teacher?

>>6964393
how do you go from: 'She says she ... in Kansas City...' to '...I've never been...' ? That's where I get confused.

>>6964397
Basically, yeah. You'd have to compare it to things of similar length though.

& no.

>>6964385
Thank you. I definitely agree about the punctuation: I didn't want too little where it's just edgy enjambment after enjambment, but I took it too far.

Funny, I've never been a huge Frost fan - I've read quite a few and enjoyed them for the most part - but mine does read like a Frost knock-off.

>>6964420
>not liking frost

"Two roads diverged...

>>6964432
frost is GOAT, anybody who says differently is a contrarian imo

>>6964432
I meant that I like him but don't read him so much that there would be a reason something I wrote seems similar.

>>6964435
I agree sir

>>6964408
>She seemed pretty happy, after twenty-six years of cutting hair, and spending what I assumed was another 18-20 in the same place, the same little homeland. She says she barrel races in Kansas City to keep herself from going crazy.
>“Oh yeah? I’ve never been, but I almost bought a horse from Oregon last week…I saw the bloodlines and said, ‘I have to have it!’”
>Yeah, I thought, we do that too.


It's going from here telling me her story as she cuts my hair to asking me if I've ever seen barrel-racing, which is left out, then I would've said something to the effect of "No, but I did once in Oregon."

The idea of the poem is just that natural flow of conversation and how sometimes the most interesting things are the interpretations that aren't made aloud, that aren't shared.

Did you like it or is it not enough to work with?

>>6964465
>poem

>>6963502
Yr Lexical Diversity Rating is: 0.75
[Vocab / Total Words]

>>6963112
Yr Lexical Diversity Score is: 0.875

>>6964483
well fuck. Here's an excerpt from the thing I've been working on this summer:


For lunch I think I had something like a Cuban Panini and raspberry iced tea - not water; you can't show weakness in the face of corporate leisure. I tried to seem curious in the work, pretending like another pipeline really could just (Car Salesman here) jump start the Economy of the American Heartland! Somehow we got around to the topic of the associate would be starting in the next week or two, how she might be onto a few odd jobs, here and there.

"We've actually - I've actually had a hard time getting someone into the open position..."

Trying not to seem that over-interested type.

"Well, Kim left for another job, and we had another lady all lined up, had her in the office, then she had some family issues, she said it felt like the timing just 'wasn't right.'"

This is where real interest starts, but I won't try to show it at all: age thirty-three, White, male, two daughters in their teens, married (first wife). The tell is that he slides his ring with his thumb, maybe unconsciously, as I say, "Gee, that's weird, I wonder why."

And I'll tell you this too, as insignificant as that was, there's been a lot of quiet days in that office between the two of us. Sure I looked through her old things; pens, business cards, Thank You letters & envelopes: nothing. The only other things was those big oak tables I would put binders on, after a day running the printer, like a cushion on that waist high slab, empty, the right height for everything.

>>6963112
meh, seems kinda r/writingprompts to me

Even back then, everybody understood immediately. Even people walking past him on the street couldn't help but roll their eyes.

It was a profound understanding; it surpassed his own.

>>6963832
u just made me read all this shit in which things didnt even get interesting wtf

>>6963084
Well, the years start coming and they don't stop coming
Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running
Didn't make sense not to live for fun
Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb
So much to do, so much to see
So what's wrong with taking the back streets
You'll never know if you don't go
You'll never shine if you don't glow

>>6964567
Em-dash, Eli! Emmmmmmmmmm-dash!!

'Trying not to seem over-interested.'

Also, imagine trying to tell yr story at a bar. Or better: someone telling you this story at a bar. As a guide.

>>6964592
Perfect. Tbh.

>>6964626
I thought about looking it up, but didn't bother...my sincerest apologies.

Would you continue reading?

>>6964637
Don't ask that. Tbh ye should know.

Sex, violence, family conflict, a main character who's funny, knowledgeable, and was wronged undeservedly, quotable dialogue, ppl forced to work together who normally never would?

Of course, how could I not?

>>6964680
Wow /lit/, half expected to be called autist. Shouldn't let it get to me too much but, thanks.

>>6963112

really good and readable tbh

>>6963948
Is it actually gold or you being ironic. Btw Charles has erectile dysfunction>>6963838
I don't understand
>>6963833
He's supposed to have ED

With a slouch and a slung about my swagger I scurry past the dim-lit halls, with roughhewn cross-stitched baboo threading lined about and ivory panels flush along the walls scraped and picked by bell carts. The floor tattered, smattered with chipped ovals and moist peeling cascades of grime-clodden arrows furnished smooth with age by polished feet. Handrails loosened, worn bronze by oil-slicked hands and the caprice of quick clutchings and stabilizings, rubbing skinned out squeaks, and the clunking of hollowed steps reverberating under the load of labor...

>>6964783

>what is purple prose

to I guess it depends on the context

>>6964785
Not necessarily driving at anything. Just observation.

>>6964783
If yr going to do this, use right branching sentences pls.

http://pastebin.com/jsiDVYbc

wrote this up still drunk after a night out, was almost surprised with it the next day but have since lost interest in the story

what do y'all think?

>>6964832
who's that hottie on the right

>>6964832
Yr telling us:

this fell out of me head

& it even bored its author

Who IS that qt on the right??

>>6964861
Adèle Exarchopoulos

>>6964869
what? what are you saying?

>>6964861
>>6964869
Adele Exarchopoulos or something

From, Blue is the Warmest Colour, I would seriously recommend you watch it

bumping w/ adele

I'm going to try something more improvisational.

You've got a reed box, there. That's interesting? Whatcha got in there? Paper work, tools? A smaller box, and then a smaller box inside of that, etc, until there's a tiny piece of paper at the centre with words of wisdom? If I wasted all my time opening those boxes, I think that the piece of paper would say "go outside," or something like that.
Boxes are meant to hold but also to conceal things away from us. Longbox, strongbox, kongbox dongbox... Is there a dong inside of your box? I'm sorry, Ma'am, I don't mean to be rude about things, but is there a rubber dong inside of your box? The one made out of reeds, that is, I apologize for the confusion. If I owned sex toys, I suppose I would need someplace to put mine. I suppose though, I'm a rather tasteless individual, so I'd stick unsavory pictures and slogans all over it, like CUM TOWN, or some kind of smug lie over the contents, like ANTIDEPRESSANTS. But that's sex. I suppose you're lucky that you just use the toys, I need to use porn all the time now, I can't use something in my own head, or else I begin to feel disappointed with my own imagination. "Yes anon, we've had this same fantasy 5 times before, ho-hum." I need the porn, because half of the appeal of it to me is the fact that my thoughts stop becoming my own, and start surrendering themselves to another's vision. All those people who think cuck porn is a brainwashing ploy would probably point their finger at me, though I personally don't partake.
But anyways, where'd you buy the box, Mom?

>>6963112

Readable but all dem adverbs

He slid into the cockpit and with an eager, ravenous haste the intelligence slid into him. An array of wonderful wires, life-giving, nutritious data was moving into his flesh and he could feel the power in every particle of his body. As the hatches closed around him, the utter godhood of it brought him to orgasm and he pumped a thick dribble around the cable now worming down his urethra and every part of him was filled with delight and wasn't this machine and that war that helped create it, weren't they just the best things that ever happened?

"Yes sir! They're the best, I can feel it jacking into me, into the port of my soul!" His young subordinate replied.

>>6963436

I would say that this is good. But were it up to me I wouldnt publish it. I think the story itself is fine and I liked reading it but there is still an elementary feel to it, like you submitted it as an English final essay or something.

My advice would be to re-write it. Open a new doc and keep the old one with you as a reference and improve on every line, not just on the sentences pointed out by willing anons.

>>6964269

I will say that it did not entertain me but I think it is quite well written. No problem with swearing, but in amatuer lit it always runs the risk of seeming cringey or overdone and my impression of the two "fucking"s in the opening paragraph were that it was done to be edgy. I know it likely was not and that it probably seems natural but just letting you know how it seems on the surface.

Overall a good story but it does seem a little in complete and disjointed in some areas, there is a flow to it that I liked and i think you've done it quite well but being so commmited to that flow it's easy to see where it is and is not, lacks consistency I guess.

>>6964832
Who is that lesbian thespian?

>>6963108
This is really fucking good
which author inspired you mainly may I ask?

>>6963892
It's performance art, I do so to mildly irritate anime reaction pic retards on an anonymous imageboard.

What I have is long so I don't expect a full critique but I do think it's entertaining so if anyone just wants to read a story...

http://pastebin.com/8eJdxi2U

>>6965070
Thx. & it's ongoing. im used to girls that talk like sailors

What entertains you? ffs

>>6963084
>>6963171
1n43dgyness

pls r8 my 'aurtistic' lament

>>6963812
Ugh why? whhhhhhy

>>6965554
I would have to say that my writing is most strongly influenced by Dylan Thomas. This is actually the first thing I've ever written outside of school, I'm glad you liked it.

>>6963108
One more thing that hasn't been mentioned yet . . .
You say she comes back with a towel around her body and another around her head. Then, after only mentioning her dropping one towel, you can see both her naked body and her uncovered hair? You see where I'm going with this.

>>6963812
>>6963832

Maybe I'm the only one but I really like this. If it was 800 pages long, I'd read it.

>>6966180
I originally included a sentence were she took off the towel on her head, but didn't like it so I deleted it and forgot to rewrite it. Thanks for pointing that out.

>>6966206
I enjoyed it. If he were to write another one about psychedelics or opiates I read totally read it, no matter how long.

>>6966234
>I would totally read it

Standing in line in a packed Midwestern post office, listening to "Turn the Page" by Seger over a crackling dust crusted speaker, the nihilism began to overwhelm. How would the Norse gods look upon their child now, mailing a box of newly bought vinyl records to a college freashmen studying gender theory in an ivy league university back east. She had asked for them as a birthday present, she had one of those turntables in a hard plastic briefcase.

Were he conscious enough to perceive the postmodern nature of his current mental turbulence he could likely laugh, instead he felt the vast emptyness. The earth is hollow, filled with the decaying shells of self-important ideologues.

"Can I help you, sir?" asked the cashier, words forced from an over-make-uped and sagging face. She was probably not pretty in her younger years. He stepped up to the counter clutching the package of indie rock records.

>>6963833
He HAS risen...

>>6964832
it's ok tbh

>>6966280
>the nihilism began to overwhelm.
BOOOOO

>>6966280
• 'the nihilism began to overwhelm' → the world pulling away into blackness.

• asked for them → asked for the records

• postmodern nature = groans & eyerolls

• it's: overly makeuped / overly makeup-ed / overly made up → just not what ye did

• she/he who has the records?

>>6965691
Yr Lexical Diversity score is: 0.18
[Vocab / Total Words]

>>6966575
Standing in line in a packed Midwestern post office, listening to "Turn the Page" by Seger over a crackling dust crusted speaker, the world began to dissipate into the great nothing. How would the Norse gods look upon their child now, mailing a box of newly bought vinyl records to a college freashmen studying gender theory in an ivy league university back east. She had asked for the records as a birthday present, she had one of those turntables in a hard plastic briefcase.

Were the dead spirit inhabiting this body conscious enough to perceive the absurd nature of his current mental turbulence he could likely laugh, instead he felt the vast emptyness. The earth is hollow, filled with the decaying shells of self-important ideologues.

"Can I help you, sir?" asked the cashier, words forced from an overly makeuped and sagging face. She was probably not pretty in her younger years. Stepping up to the counter clutching the package of indie rock records he placed it on the scale.

>>6966611
is this good or bad

also hit me:
http://pastebin.com/TWVVvpEi

>>6966647
• She probably wasn't pretty in her younger years.

Mmmmm feel that improvement!

A man came up to me in the street one day

"Hey! The Earth, It is Hollow!" He cried.
"Why, sir, that's insane! The Earth's insides are deep, and have a center of hot-stuff!"
"Why, tis not true, Thou pyon! The Earth is hollow! Why else can we stand on it!"
"Sir! Wherefore thou thou me, thou thou'r? And we can stand on the Earth because it's got heavystuff on the inside that pulls us towards it, thou fool!"
"A fool is I to you, but th'art wrong of that, and of the Center! It IS hollow, seest thou! Were there a Mass of Heavystuff in the center we'd've exploded from the reverse invariability by now!"
"No, th'fool, the reverse invariability, it's countered by the gravitional pull! How canst thou not see!"

At that, I turned and left him.

>>6966654
It's subjective.

For example:
DMX is on the far low end & Wu Tang is on the higher end. OutKast is in the middle.

If ye can tell a great story w/a small range of words, that's pretty cool. If ye can effectively command an enormous vocabulary and tell a great story, that's also good. [but ye should only send someone to the dict if the word is spot on in meaning & used perfectly.

Yrs is: 0.446

>>6966656
Standing in line in a packed Midwestern post office, listening to "Turn the Page" by Seger over a crackling dust crusted speaker, the world began to dissipate into the great nothing. How would the Norse gods look upon their child now, mailing a box of newly bought vinyl records to a college freashmen studying gender theory in an ivy league university back east. She had asked for the records as a birthday present, she had one of those turntables in a hard plastic briefcase.

Were the dead spirit inhabiting this body conscious enough to perceive the absurd nature of his current mental turbulence he could likely laugh, instead he felt the vast emptyness. The earth is hollow, filled with the decaying shells of self-important ideologues.

"Can I help you, sir?" asked the cashier, words forced from an overly makeuped and sagging face. She probably wasn't pretty in her younger years. Stepping up to the counter clutching the package of indie rock records he placed it on the scale.

>>6966681
/lit/'s diary tbh imo

Fuck everyone on this board for ignoring me every goddamn time I post in one of these threads.

>>6967068
Maybe if you wrote better people might say something.

>>6967106
maybe if I wrote worse someone would at least make fun of me

>>6967136
Link me your shit.

Sub nopţile calde pulsaù de dans astfel de teatre ca ale luì Velyn, fiecare cu tavane maì mult saù maì puţin înalte, decorurì vegetale maì mult saù maì puţin înalte, decorurì vegetale maì mult saù maì puţin somptúoase etc. Vocì de ìubirì nebune chiotèaù în toìul paradeì de stele pe bolta cerèască şi a umbrelor petrecăreţilor pe bolţile sălilor: freştele, desenate în aşa fel încât să mişte odată cu proìecţiìle lor părèaù să urle de plăcere, acolo sus, captivând atâtèa privirì candide, susceptibilizate de tòate parfumurile, şi ce parfumurì… Asta da atmosferă, cu zoriì ce pândèaù de la părânda infinită distanţă ritmurile instrumentelor, şoldurilor şi umerilor, cu rafinamânt nămaic al portuluì şi gestuluì, permeat de gurì multe de mursă după mursă în care se vădèa la uniì şi prezenţa băuturiì maseltote, un amestec ce dezlega şi lega limbì şi dezlega inhibiţiì şi norme şi lega dans încins şi dezlega mintèa, şi tineriì care se despărţèaù de atì tinerì să se refugìeze cuplu la lumina nopţiì schimbând ritmul tobelor pe al inimilor ce bătèaù atât de repede acum, pe terasă, la ţărmul de sunet negru: valurì, valurì, valurì, şi stâncì şi èa care se agaţă de umeriì luì, de umeriì meì, ne izbim uniì de alţiì ca nişte valurì, ce momente frânte cu fiecare sărut şi prăpastie de buze, picăturì în marèa lor de vìaţă de mie de anì.
Sub imperìul umbrelor se conturaù corpurile atât de colorate de mişcare şi de straìe sub acele bolţì sinúoase ce alcătuìaù organicul tavan al teatruluì.
Plecat Odren, Madarye, Dirys, Falal, Resyr, plecată familia Semadhys, Velyn agonic debarasându-se de marasm cu largă monologhie a mâìnilor, Velyn dând pe cèa terasă dând afară pe ceì doì. Cu teatrul săù scăvat, cu faţa prinsă între degete, la marginèa teraseì, lângă marèa înalbăstrindă, fu surprins de sòare plângând. Ruinat, epavat, depravat, cu ghìande lăcrimare rubiconde, dărâmat într-un somn ce-l fură disperăriì, acolo gìos, în mizeria de lângă zid. Minunata luì haìnă se lipèa acum de el, transpirat, aşa cum se lipèa praful de braţe şi de picíoare şi de orìcare bucăţică de pìele abandonată gìosuluì.

>>6967164
Go to bed Vietnam

>>6967145
pastebin.com/tD0QNFUq

>>6967875
It's got a lot going for it, very vibrant and kinetic.

Afraid it's not my thing though, seems like it would be a chore getting to the story, themes, and message through the haze of descriptiveness, pleasant though it may be to an extent.

If that makes sense.

This is just me talking though.

>>6967911
It's a book—it needs more plot? More themes? More message?

I just started it two days ago.

>>6963112

post more faggot

Here's chapter 4 in the hot new novel "Practice What You Peach".

Featuring a peach farmer... who doesn't like peaches???

In this chapter, Frank the grumpy old peach farmer goes to the state fair. Let's watch...

>>6968061
this is great, i laughed at the end.
i normally perfer more descriptive text, but the speaking heavy style was enjoyable.

>>6968061
This is actually really enjoyable for a meme book.

How many chapters do you plan on including in the final novel?
Have you planned out the overarching story yet?

When will it get published?

>>6968096
Thanks man.

>>6968104
I have a number of ideas and an ending in mind.
It's probably going to be something more like a short story or a novella.
Last thing I want to do is milk this thing.

CREATOR GOD,

i amass knowledge, distilled as oil, to shine the light of mind upon the darkness of ignorance, and un-knowing.

i follow the wise, mouth their sayings, and keep to their ways. i discern. i yet follow. i search for teachers, and in their speech, action and thought, I search for you.

in the effulgence of life and the blooming beauty-green that kisses the eye as it moves through my sight and into my heart, I search for you.

in the sinew of my brothers and the radiance of my sisters, I search for you. within mouths and intoning voices, i yet search for you.

in night which is the sacred darkness that existed before the light, i search for you.

today i ate a pear gifted to the whole of earth from a pear tree. i took and it was consumed.

when i ripen
and when i fall from the tree of life
consume me too,
that there may be nothing of me left
that has not become one with you

pastebin.com/gCmuQFHs

>>6968492
Yr Lexical Diversity Score is: 0.407
[Vocab / Total Words]

>>6968545
That's 537.24/1320, not bad when presented that way. Do you feel accomplished as a critic? I must say that if you actually counted this it would be wastefully impressive.

The wood was a soft grain. It was heavy gray and most likely contained the word “sandle.” The trees from which it were birthed grew thick on the shorelines around this region for thousands of years and were regarded as entities of power and respect by the local tribes. When the first ships began to thunder on the sands and remove these fixtures violence and upset erupted. The tribes and their odd eroticism for those grooved and gray trunks died off and were replaced by low budget time shares. Slowly businesses cropped up to support gambling addictions and dry cleaning and no more was the moon reflective on the black waters. The last traces of the respect and honor of these beliefs were in the beach houses that used this wood. The creak and fiber of the decks and the vibrating stilts painted a landscape of bleak survival that slowly degraded into odd fratricides and sibling rivalries. The vacations were nightmarish escapes that were embarked upon with no regard for conversation or pleasantries. It was an obsession with the old wood and business that drove this migratory wave onto gray sands and desertous stilt walkers that evoked imagery of herders in the dutch regions of europe. It was on those bleached decks that one would find starving brothers and sisters reaching for dried sea oats and wondering if salt was really worth it. The discomfort and knots that the trunks brought were driven hard into the minds of children and classes to venerate these cubist angles were created. Slowly but surely vacations ceased being temporary. Jobs were quit and wives were murdered as abandoned gas stations became universities and sanatoriums became restrooms. Sea water was carbonated and was consumed by these dreamers as "pop" and calories were counted by the trillions.

>>6966687

Your writing is stuck because you don't realize there's more than one way to express the same thought

This is called "tone"

Your tone right now is "confusing" and "pretentious" and none of your little changes have helped in this regard

In your second sentence/paragraph/thing you write
>Were the dead spirit inhabiting this body conscious enough to perceive the absurd nature of his current mental turbulence he could likely laugh, instead he felt the vast emptiness.

Let's list all the noun phrases here
>dead spirit
>this body
>his mental turbulence
>>the absurd nature of his mental turbulence
>the vast emptiness

Let me rewrite this not like a faggot
>He felt dead inside.

There. I've said everything you said, but better. And of course you come running to me like a bitch crying, "No no it's a DEEPER, more EXISTENTIAL kind of emptiness, and the hollowness, and the absurdity."

wah wah wah. Show don't tell.

>>6968598
This is weird but sort of intriguing and Id probably read a book that started out this way.

>>6968584
No, didn't count them. I'm learning programming for linguistics analyses, so I H4X0Rd yr words.

How the fuck can everything written here be so terrible?

>>6968634
Show, don't tell. As a writer it's your job to be conscious of what you're guiding the audience through, word by word. Let's take the first paragraph

>Standing in line in a packed Midwestern post office, listening to "Turn the Page" by Seger over a crackling dust crusted speaker, the world began to dissipate into the great nothing. How would the Norse gods look upon their child now, mailing a box of newly bought vinyl records to a college freashmen studying gender theory in an ivy league university back east. She had asked for the records as a birthday present, she had one of those turntables in a hard plastic briefcase.

I'm going to present the information in the order you displayed it. I'm also going to name your subject Charles because you thought you were too edgy to give him a name.

1. The post office is packed.
2. "Turn the Page" is crackling over a speaker.
3. The speaker is dusty and old.
4. Charles is standing in the line.
5. Charles' world began to dissipate into the "great nothing."
The norse gods thing is totally random and gives us no information so I'm not going to count that one
6. He is mailing a box.
7. The box contains vinyl records
8. The records were bought recently
9. He is mailing the box to a college freshman
10. The freshman is studying gender theory
11. The freshman is studying in an ivy league university
12. The university is located on the east coast
13. "Back east" infers that the east in Charles's past
14. She had asked for the records as a birthday present
15. She had one of those turntables in a hard plastic briefcase

So, if you look at this, you can see that the information here is too dense. Density in prose is not a bad thing on its own but it's NOT THE ONLY WAY to present an idea

As a reader, it's totally overwhelming to receive this much information, out of order. Even though you paint a detailed picture, you are not giving me the chance to engage with the story. What is it like to BE Charles at this moment in time?

Which brings us to an even more fundamental point... how much of this information was it necessary to convey in the first paragraph?

Let's try something on the opposite end of the density spectrum... What if your first paragraph was something like this...

>Charles' fingers ached supporting the weight of the box. He couldn't hold it for much longer, but the line at the post office was taking forever. "Turn the Page" by Seger droned ceaselessly over a crackly old speaker. Why did Penelope's birthday present have to be so fucking heavy?

here the information is sparse, i used the same ideas as you but presented them in a way that sets up mysteries for you to answer later, rather than opening up the dumptruck and spilling everything out all at once. Makes it more fun to read... i also gave the box some weight, it's good to have tactile cues so the audience feels like we are holding it ourselves

>>6968598
•"sandle".
yeah, yeah, w/e

• isn't it 'Europe'?

• 'and classes to venerate these cubist angles were created' ← why go passive? It tangles up the sentence.

>>6968771
Do better. Show us how, Master Unchipantsu of Tawagoto.

>>6968634
>>6968777
I think yr my spirit buddy

>>6968273
>in the effulgence of life and the blooming beauty-green that kisses the eye as it moves through my sight and into my heart, I search for you.

fixxx

>>6968758
Interesting. So I suppose you're beyond reading the words at this point in your intellectual ouerve.

>>6968895
Ye rly want me to read it, huh?
FINE

>>6968923
Have you always posted cartoon images? I believe I've seen you critique before. I wonder if you will connect this piece with the one you read by me before. Probably not. My writing is really shit and has only gotten worse since I've started, somehow.

>>6968777
Here's another way to present it...
"Here I am, on a road again/ There I am, on the stage/ Here I go, playing star again/ There I go, turn the page"

Bob Seger's soulful voice crackled through the dusty old speakers.

"Next!"

The woman in front of Charles hobbled forward to the counter and dropped seven bars of soap on the counter.

"I want to mail these to my grand-daughter!" she yelled.

Next in line, Charles peered inside the box he was holding. Sonic Youth, REM, Velvet Underground, all the classics. Penelope would be delighted to open her gift. She would play them all, one by one, on her special little turntable, one of those ones that came in a hard plastic briefcase, and she would think of Charles, and what a good boyfriend he was. What a good person he was.

Charles cringed. In an instant, the world was hollow and absurd. He might be able to bring himself to laugh at the mindless drones around him, he thought, if only he weren't one himself. What would the Norse gods think of him now, sending a pretentious birthday present to an ivy league freshman-- a gender theory major no less? Everything he believed in was a cruel joke. And the fact that he believed it meant that he was the punchline.

He was on the verge of abandoning the project, walking out of the crowded Midwestern post office and throwing the records away in the nearest trash receptacle, but just as he was about to sneak away, the old woman in front of him hobbled off, leaving him in the direct eyeline of the postal worker.

"Can I help you sir?" she said, the makeup clumping up unnaturally around her wrinkled eyes and sagging cheeks. She looked like she had never experienced a day of beauty in her life. Reluctantly Charles dumped the box onto the scale and gave the woman a half-hearted smile.
This one is more visceral, it sets up questions and answers them, and more importantly it doles out the information in a respectful and meaningful way to the audience.

Not that there's a right answer....

but when I see somebody tweaking little words here and there but still missing the big picture, not really asking themselves at any point, WHY am I writing this, WHAT am I trying to say, and HOW am I going to go about saying it? It's questions like these that make or break a writer. Hopefully you will get better and better at expanding your concept of how good writing ought to be done, because there are so many approaches to the same idea, and unless you know what you are trying to accomplish, you risk making absolutely no sense. Hope this has helped

(typing weird and it's your fault)
~
The pathos of a psychopath. A bit disturbing...
High: cocktail/hybrid of different media. Sometimes the syntax of cartoon/comics (iconic: "He raises his eyebrows and smiles") of cinema (you tend to give descriptions of data one would expect to see on a screen) of TV (your sentences end quickly like screen cuts), or even the remote control (fast forward→)

>>6964319
SELECTIONS

—Brilliance—
>Sixteen and [perfectly] callipygian
>waiting for someone to blow up her iPhone.
>Mrs. Arms Wide Open, hug, light cheek kiss.
>So fast forward→Doorbell sounds
>Rewind—→Natalie Pennis
>he screaming pulls back like a tide, his voice the moon pulling her attention to him.
>The amount of blood spattered across the room scrambles her entirely, momentarily, lost temporarily in a hospital sized second, she begins screaming.
>He raises his eyebrows and smiles, a jack-o-lantern.
>Still unsure, he grabs for her head for a good bathyspheric kiss and it's all just pounding fists, fucking cunt.
"fucking cunt" is just so beautifully placed there. beautifully misogynistic, makes one feel bad afterwards
>bathyspheric kiss
>deepwater kiss
>>Natalie Pennis flashes her 16 year old tits for Black Angus.

+how you made 7 loci, spatial and architectured cartoonshly, memorable
+the story, really good

—A challenge on tolerance—
>'Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii!'
>So fast forward→Doorbell sounds
>Natalie Pennis flashes her 16 year old tits for Black Angus.
fuck man

—Snippets of things I happened to thing are important (personal)—
>Stendhal syndrome, he thinks.
There is a tendency for hypochondria and obsessive self-diagnosis when everyone has access to medical information — symptomatic thinking actualizes the symptoms. It is really a hellish paranoia
>
(I give up on this one)

—Things I didn't like—
>5.
was especially unfamiliar and strange to me. felt artificial and a portrayal of the present I sure am not comfortable with. I can only say I'm somewhat thankful for being informed of it, nature without check. Felt really hellish to me.

Also I sometimes am not sure what's happening even if that might be due to me being a retard and not being able to pick up on the simplest of narratives or plots

Again this is fucking psychopathic I love it

>>6968953
>respectful and meaningful way
let me clarify what I mean by this

Look back at my last rewrite. I never say out loud "Charles is in the post office" but I let the audience infer it by showing the old lady dropping the soap and saying she wants to mail it. I didn't say "The records were indie rock records," but the audience understands it because I listed 3 indie rock records.

So in fact I am making the audience do a lot of work here. But giving them that option shows that I trust them to be able to figure things out for themselves. And because I present the information in a sequential, meaningful way, the audience feels like it can trust me. (I made the Norse gods line less jarring, I think without changing the original meaning too much)

But really what it all comes back to is SHOW DON'T TELL

Here's an example of bad writing in TV
>Dave, honey, I can't believe you sold Jimmy's speedboat to the mafia! What are we gonna do now?
(this is family guy writing, don't do this)

Here's how that same thing could be SHOWN:
>A man in a black tux writes a check while Dave looks around nervously. In the background, two identically suited guys hitch up a speedboat labeled "Dave's Pride & Joy" to a black limo.
>Cut to a woman in a kitchen angrily chopping up a carrot. Dave sits at the kitchen table with his head in his hands, groaning

Here we tell the same exact story but we let the audience make the connections. We don't need words when we have PRE-ESTABLISHED CONVENTIONS for how to convey an idea. Black suits + black limo + money + a general air of sketchiness = the mafia. A woman in the kitchen? Must be his wife. Body language in the second shot indicates their entire relationship and predicament INSTANTANEOUSLY.

This works for any idea. For every idea you have, there's a hundred different ways to present the information required to convey that idea to the audience.

>>6969044
*
>Dave's Pride & Joy should be Jimmy's Pride & Joy but you get the idea

>>6968960
No. 1 thing: Obrigado for the in depth consideration.

I'm glad ye were thrilled.

Could ye elaborate on the tolerance challenges? 2/3 are also under the 1st cat. I'm taking a # of risks w/this style I guess thy're 'wtf' triggers?

Not sure abt yr take on Stendhal syndrome. I was yoking violence & art & perception together I mean: tried

& 5 is rough, def. 3D isn't a person (if that helps). I tried dropping hints abt that/his nature.

And upon review, there are def spots that are unmoored from location & I need to fix that.

Thx!!!!!!!!!

>>6969182

Holy fuck are you obnoxious

>>6969224
ikr :DDDDDDD

>>6969224
be nice, we are all vulnerable here

>>6969270
spk4yrslf fgt
I'll fight both of ye

>>6968492
>>6968584
>>6968895
>>6968930
P comfy read overall. It feels like a slice of something bigger. Did not connect 2 prev post—sry.

• with spears of black crossing the orange glow. ← doesn't work

• His suit itched.

• its depths ← noooope

• if I see another semicolon, I swear to fucking YHWH I'm OUT

• kill all semicolons ye didn't use it right (almost no one does—it's ok)

• draperies can whir? idk bruh

• ye can probably drop 'Unbidden, '

• authorization for the outer door

• materialized ← nice

• hunched with age

• this longass ¶ is SO boring. Maybe break it up...

• Without predicate, ← idk what that means

• to-day ← just write 'today' ffs

• automatic glance [?] ← 1st off, I'm stealing that [or some permutation of it], 2nd, it doesn't fit yr tone

P good by the end.

>>6968273
this is some good free prose but it needs to be refined. let us subject it to a bit of the refining process here. what is the poem trying to say? can it be described in plain english? in its most distilled form, stripping it of as much abstraction as i can, the information this poetry conveys is

>I'm searching for you, God, so that you can eat me and we will be one
??
it's an interesting message, even a little jarring, especially with the very aggressive first line.

>>6969410
Now let's look at the idiom

>CREATOR GOD,
apostrophe
>i amass knowledge, distilled as oil, to shine the light of mind upon the darkness of ignorance, and un-knowing.
"submitted for the approval of the midnight society..."
>in their speech, action and thought, I search for you.
>in the effulgence of life and the blooming beauty-green that kisses the eye as it moves through my sight and into my heart, I search for you.
>in the sinew of my brothers and the radiance of my sisters, I search for you. within mouths and intoning voices, i yet search for you.
>in night which is the sacred darkness that existed before the light, i search for you.
4 florid prepositional phrases followed by "I search for you"
one of the "i search for you"s is interrupted by a "yet." there are 2 yets in this poem and i find them both unusual
>today i ate a pear gifted to the whole of earth from a pear tree. i took and it was consumed.
confusing story

>when i ripen
>and when i fall from the tree of life
>consume me too,
>that there may be nothing of me left
>that has not become one with you

this last bit kind of threw me off a little bit, it has a totally different tone from the rest of the piece and feels a bit rushed.

>>6969416
there's nothing wrong with making me feel rushed or confused while i'm reading your poem, of course not, in fact i think that's a wonderful goal to aim for. but i can tell you did it by accident. you have a feel for the kind of writing you want to do but you don't have the experience CRAFTING it to say what you want it to say. this is something that will become easier and easier to you as time goes on, if you are observant about what you produce. one guiding principle is to always be writing with intention. If I don't get that immediately, I won't care about what you have to say because I'll be unconvinced it's something I have to care about. And in truth, if you're not saying much, I don't care how pretty it is, I'm not going to pay attention to it.

So again, the good news is that you have a naturally good feel for syllables, and the way that they approach you one after another in a sequence, on a page, and you have a great instinct for carving your message into the prosody itself, making it bounce along weightlessly from paragraph to paragraph, it's a gas, it really is

but then it runs out of steam, completely, because i think you've been chugging along without much of a purpose to your writing, and even though repetition is good you can't just keep repeating the same thing over and over again, so where do you go from here?

Plus, i don't think this poem is supposed to rhyme; the first two lines ended with "GOD" and "knowing" which i quite liked, but then it did a bunch of "you"s and forgot it wasn't supposed to rhyme so it wrote "consumed" which doesn't quite rhyme and then the author must have been like "fuck i have to make this whole thing rhyme now" so you wrote the middle verse of a very dark love song and that's the end somehow. the fact that it doesn't seem to have been sparked by the need to convey a cohesive idea is why this poem doesn't work for me.

so no more starting the engine unless you have enough coal. but trust yourself to write a good poem, because you're not half bad. you just have to know what to pay attention to in the future

>>6966681
this is too silly i give it a D-

an imitation of Emily Dickinson's #303. dunno in what way it'd be critiqued tbh just trying to figure her verse out

The soul selects his own society—
Then—Shuts the door—
Nailing planks in rows—
Locks turned—

Preparing—Guests stop at the gate—
The curtains draw tighter—
A lonely letter slipped
Into the box—

I've chose one—From a desert
Barren—
Each faucet drop of attention
Caught in buckets—

The day you came into my room
And your stomach was full of rust
And how it cuts you like fire across the woods
Like a million needles in your head
And you firmly grip my throat
When the stars collapse
When your mouth is red
And our lungs melt on themselves
The way you stare at the wall
When we are afraid the most
How you smell when you cry
How ugly we've become
I feel your teeth in my back
And I smile when I do
We are not an ending
We are whats left

>>6969317
Thank you for the critique. What tone would better fit that, if you don't me asking?

>>6965824
>>6966611
>>6966656
>>6966684
>>6966689
>>6967865
>>6967875
>>6968015
adele posting is my thing you fucking spacker

but good taste tbh

>>6967875
thats terrible i should kill you for even posting it mine is a golden dick compared to yours

do you have donkey brains?
are you malnourished?
do you have A.D.D?

I couldn't think a better death for you than to be raped by mules you absolutely deserve it

if you EVER post adele again I will have you boxed up and lost at sea

>>6969926
duh

>>6969935
do you WANT to be beaten? you punk, you child molester if you reply to me ever again I WILL call the police, show time is over you abortion, i could whip you into submission you fairy never EVER post here again your time is over friend so say good night to this board because if i ever see you again i WILL have you scalped

>>6965691
Dialogue is way too packed in
holy fuck dude

not to mention you sometimes veer off the vernacular with words like "residential"

The long rule of Queen Victoria has been characterized by sexual repression, censorship of the obscene, and domestication of the female; however, is there more to Victorian culture than merely superficial restrictions on discourse? Although there was relative silence on the topic between child and parent, teacher and pupil, or even master and house servant — was there not also, perhaps, a growing fascination with sexuality as a human condition? In 1841, the British state, for the first time, became instituting a full census of their population. This expansionary measure would include statistics on marriage, birth rates, and death rates [8]. The family was promoted as the building block of British life and marriage was superimposed as a guiding force in establishing such social harmony. Prostitution became an epidemic as poor female laborers struggled to find an income and were economically coerced to sell their bodies to usually wealthy upper-class gentry [9]. Priests became more interested in “confessions on the flesh” during the Christian practice of Penance, where individuals would confess to the priest their supposed “impurities.”

is there some must read creative writing books, is writing something you should just do?

>>6970231
Did you just copy-paste this from an online essay?

http://pastebin.com/ACnzC5ZB

Quite unfinished obviously. I'm not gonna waste your time w/ details about the completion and how it stands now, I just can't tell if this is garbage or not

>>6970245
zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

>>6970404
I don't know what the fuck I just read but--perhaps because I've been reading Calvino--it had a weird effect on me. The action is unclear and I wonder if English is your first language because I find that native speakers are much better with the idiomatics of English, its eccentricities in practice as opposed to its supposed rules and conventions. Your language had an odd effect of being too formal and too specific to depict anything very accurately. I'm not in your character's head, I'm in your head, and I'm confused. This may be the point, but I am so confused that the only explanation that avails me is that I'm reading literary trickery.

>>6968634
>>6968777
>>6968953
>>6969044
not the guy you were responding to, but this is great advice, thanks

>>6969891
>>6969926
>>6969973
She's so purty tho

>>6963084

Some Anon made a thread about ocean poems some days ago. I offer him some lines of my own production; I actually thought they were good and decided to make a poem with them myself.

This is the song that a drowned entity chants in a play that I am writing. These are ghosts, kind like the witches in Macbeth: there are a few of them, one of them a drowned man (or demon). When one of the creatures ask him were he were he sings this song as an answer. The original is in Portuguese (I will post it in a second post).


Thorough lakes and through rivers, on the sea, on the abyss,
In the steppes of slime and pitch I wandered,
Under shrouds of salt, under liquid thunders:
Worlds where light never stepped I stepped.

Ghosts of babies I found crying in the lakes:
They're mothers have drowned them in perpetual cold;
For affection and warmth they are claiming for centuries,
But in vain: not even they're mothers love them.

The specters of raped girls
I saw on the rivers, slime is now they're sepulture;
They died for the hunger of some knave,
And the water consecrate them in mermaids of bitterness.

A green tiger is the sea, sweating foam,
Getting fatter with the winds, roaring waves;
Boats are fleas that pollute his back;
His hurricanes clean him of such wounds.

Man is the caviar of the shark,
And the mariners are the spawn of the ships;
They're crying involves the sea with mist, the choir
Of the Golgotha of masts lost in the emptiness.

The abyss his on abysses have, nights on the night:
There the Kraken waltz, the Leviathan dances;
There they breast-feed the whales, their calves;
They are kings of chaos, they are the angels of Satan.

Like anchors the human spirit languishes:
It marches from the sun into the cold den of the ocean.

>>6971475

The original Portuguese version. The rhymes are xAxA, xBxB, xCxC, etc: only the second and fourth verses rhyme.

It ends with a coda of rhyming verses.

Por lagos e por rios, no mar, no abismo,
Nas estepes de limo e breu vaguei,
Sob sudários de sal, sob trovões líquidos:
Mundos que a luz jamais pisou pisei.

Fantasmas de bebês choram nos lagos:
Em frio perpétuo as mães os afogaram;
Por carinho e calor clamam a séculos,
Em vão: as próprias mães não os amaram.

Espectros de meninas estupradas
Vi nos rios, lodo é sua sepultura;
Morreram para a fome de algum biltre,
E a água as sagrou sereias de amargura.

Um tigre verde é o mar, suando espuma,
Com ventos engordando, a rugir vagas;
Barcos são pulgas que poluem seu lombo;
Seus furacões o limpam de tais chagas.

O homem é o caviar do tubarão,
E os marinheiros ovas dos navios;
Seu choro envolve o mar em névoa, o coro
Do gólgota dos mastros no vazio.

O abismo abismos tem, noite na noite:
Lá baila o Kraken, dança o Leviatã;
Amamentam baleias, seus bezerros;
São reis do caos, são anjos de Satã.

Qual âncora definha o espírito humano:
Marcha do sol rumo ao covil frio do oceano.

>>6971481

Words I don't know, or know vaguely ("estepes") but in a way that doesn't help visualization
>estepes
>breu
>sudários
>biltre
>gólgota

>Mundos que a luz jamais pisou pisei.
This is ungrammatical? I do get the meaning, and but so. Would it be so clear if I was hearing it instead of reading it? idk

The 2nd stanza has a strange sad warmth in portuguese that didn't work on english...

You start with
>Espectros de meninas estupradas
And end with
>a água as sagrou sereias de amargura.

It's like you're not taking it seriously and hiding behind a veil of metaphor that basically, in a way, also desensitizes you to how fucked up what you started describing was

With the 4th stanza you're wandering but the 5th I just don't see its purpose...

Nor the 6th...

>Um tigre verde é o mar, suando espuma
>tigre verde...suando espuma

love it, great imagery

>>6963948
the colors match up with "joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat" in the song about his coat of many colors

I wish I could read what the rest says

>>6965810
i do tend to work in closely linked american references from a narrow perspective of challenging quotations to layer meaning with slight misdirection (ie. misspelling, punctuation change) in a manic stream of conciousness style.

I don't understand why a meaning has to be totally clear. I consider art to be a documentation for the artist and then an experience for the audience.

plus i got booted from the other crit thread from days before for posting the same thing. that's what I meant about being censored. I was like WTF I know it's unpolished I didn't think it was bad news bears.

oh wait, let me talk like you did here.

Rly H8? Y? SOMEBAWDY GOT TRIGGERED TROG! oh wild thing, why are you so upset. (the cat is fine)

>>6968273
prayer. nice. odd.
>>6968492
kinda sci-fi
.>>6969834
please don;t be my girlfriend

>>6971540

Thank you very much :)

It's always good to have a criticism made by someone who speaks our own language.

Basically what I tried to do was to make a song that would cover a small but significant number of human tragedies that are related with the water. Since the speaker is some sort of demon he doesn’t possess empathy for the human beings, and his vision is more of curiosity than of pity and pain.

The tragedies are set in lakes, rivers and the ocean, the tree main aquatic kingdoms.

In lakes we have mothers killing their own babies (I suppose that this happened a lot in old times, in uncivilized villages, where food was scarce and there were was no method for conception control. The babies become phantoms, but not evolved panthoms: they are still babies, and keep crying forever for attention and warm caress, but in vain – they will be alone and cold for all eternity.

In rivers we have pretty girls from the country being thrown in the streams after they were raped and killed by criminals who roamed in the woods. They become a sort of mermaids of lament, spirits of eternal bitterness: muddied nymphs.

The tragedies at the sea are vaster: they encompass the very common danger of shipwrecking. Being the ocean so mighty and powerful I opted for making some verses describing its grandiosity. The ships are like great fishes of oak in whose womb the eggs of human beings are deposited, and when the wood is ripped by the storms all the “human caviar” is launched in the ocean for the terrors of the water (sharks, the deep abysses) to feast upon.

I also wanted to make some sort of small voyage in the poem, from the lakes and rivers of the country to the sea, and in the sea from the surface to the darkest and coldest bottom.

As for the language:

Sudário é uma manta na qual são envoltos os cadáveres, como, por exemplo, o Santo Sudário, aquele manto que, segundo os crentes, teria coberto o corpo de Jesus. É um sinônimo de mortalha.

Gólgota é o local onde Jesus foi crucificado. Significa “Caveira”, era um lugar onde estavam depositados ossos de condenados, ou melhor, os crânios dos mortos: é uma colina de ossos, pode-se dizer, algo como um cemitério.

Estepes são campos longos e planos de vegetação, algo como os pampas gaúchos, ou algo como campinas. Longos vales planos de vegetação baixa.

Breu é usado para escuridão, para trevas, e também para piche. É algo como uma escuridão grudenta e lamacenta.

Biltre é uma expressão para homem maldoso, vulgar, sujo, violento, desonesto. Eu considerei usar a palavra “bêbado”, mas eu queria algo mais geral, mais relacionado com violência. Nem todos os bêbados são violentos. (eu precisa de uma palavra com tônica na primeira sílaba).

I tried writing in ballad form without a regular grouping of ideas into stanzas. How did it go?

Oh, you were like a summer's day.
Its swollen buds, their juice
And bursts of fruity sweetness held
Inside the rough winds loose—
And prodigal the heaven's eye
That scented man to spoil—
And clouds, and songbirds, and the sky
Belonged to you, all.
Eternal should the day have been.
So who had it been, who
Aboard this little earth had come
To net your flowered rue,
And freeze your winds to store them in
A cabinet to view?
Was I the perpetrator, used
Too long to arctic hue?
(Who else? The world held but us two!)
Dazed by your nectar wild—
Cupped by your richness, and then
In turn, your currents mild—
Perhaps I'd seemed a ready thief,
Bringing my gales and ice
As all the gifts you might receive.
For you, a mocking price.
For me, a harvest gathered twice.
Yet buds begrudge the place
Which hard rime takes upon their beds:
They shatter it its base.
So let me make my return, flee
From treetop-roosting birds
To where no music comes with words
To where there is but me.
And as the summer comes to thaw
In sticky fruits, in jars,
I'll walk the Arctic's midnight thrall,
Watching the icy stars.

There was an unwritten rule in class 3B of Hindersmith High School, which was that no one spoke to Mathilda Sorenson. Some thin, scattered clouds aside, the sky was clear that day and Hindersmith was covered in snow. The Breadthwater, just by the school, had frozen so that the first students were crossing it on their way to the city's bus terminus on the other side. Mathilda thought it was like something from one of her stories, with the ice and all. She was having her last class of the day, advanced mathematics. They had just finished vectors and were going to make a head start with the space geometry before the ball rang. The teacher picked up one of the large blackboard rulers and the class mimicked him, the sound of everyone simultaneously getting their rulers sounding like a gush of wind through the branches of a fully flowering tree. Jeremy Akermann shortly finished drawing what was on the blackboard and looked out the window, catching the sight of an older man with a hat and in a large raincoat passing while carrying bags from a nearby, expensive clothing shop. Emily Dixon was worrying about the pregnancy test she had picked up at the apothecary the same morning, still in its box at the bottom of her backpack, while Caroline Jane Honeyfield, dirty spectacles on her nose, still couldn't find her ruler. And no one spoke to Mathilda Sorenson.

>>6970653
you're welcome

>>6964998
reasonably brilliant, impressed.

>>6970520
How odd, thank you. I will try to make it more clear

It was at 3 o'clock when the children came screaming out of the school next door that Harold discovered something terrible.

Coming through the front door he found the house silent. He went into his son's room to ask how was your day.

Beatrice his second wife came inside from the patio where she was tanning. Her flip flops made a loud sound in the hallway as she came closer.

She found Harold standing in the doorway. She looked at him.
He wasn't looking at her. His face was twisted and confused.

"My son."

She raised one hand to her mouth because she did not know what else to do besides. It meant something, although she knew not what.

"Oh, honey."
"My son."

He started to scream like a wounded hawk. She rested an arm on his stiff shoulder and said words.

The note his son had left was written in big sloppy letters. It said:

">tfw no gf"

He picked up the note and pressed it gently between his fingers and made pretend it was his son's wrist when he was a baby. Then he pressed his forehead to hers and cried.

"Harold, honey."

"My son", he said. "My son."

Bienvenue I failed French too which is why we're stuck in Spanish
"Bienvenada enchilada" and to German we will vanish
Willkommen my fuehrer friend are you feeling kind of clannish?
Salve I'll try to see if I can a long-dead language manage
Welcome's all that's left for the American advantage
Movies in the classroom, burgers on the desk, whoever said that Yankees had anything but dialect

tfw you don't know enough about the world and things so you constantly run into issues with your writing

>>6973281
you got google bruh

>>6973281
just lie bruh

Swinging a gradual arm across the canvas, the shore settles itself into a fixed clarity of marine impotence. Should've used a darker palette for the sea really, looks like the sky is invading through the horizon. Maybe just a few touches of foam to patch it up? A little white, a little blended grey in the shade of the arches... And there, a tyrannical surging way out at the fringe of the bay. Not exactly what I had in mind, but I suppose storms are rarely intentional. This one at least is a safe distance away– so why am I hearing so much thunder?

No, wait– it's just Papa's careless footsteps climbing the spiral staircase. There's no question that he drank himself into a raging tempest last night. Missed the real violence of the bay by enacting it on me instead. Hopefully he's hungover enough to leave me alone for the time being, mornings are rarely his strong suit (or at least one of his less turbulent moments) and I know how guilty he gets seeing the bruises. His conscience pushes him even further into the bottle and then he forgets why he ever felt bad in the first place. Best to keep out of his w–

“Addy, if you'd care to take a pause from all this serene contemplation”, his arm arcing in mock veneration at the surface of the water beyond the window, “It wouldn't be too much trouble for you to wander into town for breakfast?”
I paused as the momentum of his trailing hand caught the door and clouted it against the steel bookshelf. You could hear the echo carried to the very bottom of the stairs, collapsing under the weight of its own intrusiveness step by rusted step.
“But it's the middle of the day.”
“Precisely, and seeing as our fast has remained unbroken since last night, it would seem a perfectly appropriate time for feasting, no?”
“Where do I have to go?”
“Where are we going, my dear boy; the walk and fresh air will do me good”, winking through a bloodshot eye as he began drawing tobacco and rolling papers from his breast pocket. He span round sharply with the careless vigour of a younger man, grazing his shoulder against the doorframe as he left. “We leave in five minutes, and I expect no tardiness!”. Papa isn't usually so erratic at this time. And he certainly isn't one for spontaneous gestures, unless of course you count the aggressive swing of an open palm. I slipped my toes into a brown pair of weathered boots, and dared to linger a gaze through the window on a fishing boat until it passed over the horizon and disappeared out of reach.

>>6973625
• marine impotence ← pick one

• don't need 'tyrannical'

• 'rarely intentional' ← you've been attr intention throughout the ¶ so 'sometimes intentional'?

• ...time being. Mornings are...

• 'clouted' isn't yr best option

• last night it would

• Addy is a boy's name?

• kill yr semicolon ye didn't do it right anyway

• it's 'vigor' if yr American

Reminds me of Dickens... in fact, when I googled yr post b/c it seems a little too good for /lit/, Dickens came up but there was no exact match. r u chettin me dolan?

& I like yr setting

I got fired in the most depressingly anti-climactic way. No outbursts, no shouting or defiant gestures. I walked into the office, and was told, sorry, you’ve been late too many times recently, we have to separate, and we aren’t giving you two weeks notice because you’re technically a part-timer.
Separate. That’s what they’re calling it this month. First it was you’re fired, you’ve been laid off, you’re a redundancy, and now “we need to separate.” Our lives are a journey, young one, and here our paths on the grand road of life diverge, I will meet you another time and another world. By the way, our paths diverging means that I won’t be paying you anymore and your benefits are all gone. Right.
No outburst, shouting or defiant gestures. I blinked and nodded heavily. The closest I had to a protest was me saying that I had a different philosophy over how this business should be run, that my value to the company was real, but their metrics weren’t concerned with the benefits I brought them. They were laying me off to replace me with a more malleable newbie who I had been training all summer, and all I could say was that we had a difference of opinions. Great. Smart. Just say “okay” and be on your way. Pick up your last minimum wage cheque, and be on your way. Some people will think I’m still working there. Or that I never worked there. The store is a Russian photograph, and I’m a politician being erased from it.
I’ll ride my bike I can’t afford to repair all over with these resumes, now. I spent all the last three years working for this place, so now my resume looks empty. I only have one other job with cash experience, so I have still have a job from 8 years ago on it. Still has my time in high-school plays in it. My Vitae has very little in its curriculum.

>>6973875
Impressive.

• No outburst, shouting or defiant gestures. ← drop

• 'cheque' oy vey mr uk

• Those years a Soviet photograph, and I’m a being erased from them.

• My bike I can’t afford to repair I'll ride all over [town?] with these resumes, now.

• kill the darling My Vitae has very little in its curriculum.

• 'Some people will think I’m still working there. Or that I never worked there.' ← so true

>>6972113
• her stories with the ice

• apothecary ← if ye say so

Basically perfection. I'd read more.

L
I
V
E

N
LIVE NON EVIL
N

E
V
I
L

>>6970404
>garbage or not
Fuck you, it's rly good fgt.

'I wade into our class and ripples scatter as I advance. She’s speaking and my eyes are on my feet submerged and surrounded by sunshafts pale blue pink and yellow. The shallow tide below me is rushing away off some strange crag and Dolores is reading aloud now.'

SUNSHAFTS

The whole thing is based, I'd read more.

I'm trying to get my prose to sound less cock-gobbling.

http://pastebin.com/

>>6973981
http://pastebin.com/sL0WZUJA

>>6970404
Lexical Diversity: 0.48
[Vocab / Total Words]

Content Carrying Words: 53%

Occurrences of 'Ye' or 'Yr': 0

Zombie Nouns: conversation, reflection, impression

Longest Word: misunderstanding

23 occurrences of 'I'

>>6973759
Addy is an abreviation of Adam (in some places at least), and I chose 'clouted' because it adds to that air of private violence (a father clouting his son round the ear etc etc) underlying it all. Cheers bruv, not everyday you get useful critique from /lit/

>>6973992
>>6973981
http://pastebin.com/jgXVkRaE

Yup.

>>6974025
Zombie Nouns:
resignation
expression
Retaliation
defection
frustration
conversation
reaction
recognition
comprehension
Explosion

You wrote 'were' 20x

Content Words: 57%

Lexical Diversity: 24%

Longest Word: disinterestedly Also shittiest

>>6964355
work on your rhythm
>In the muggy heat of early Fall, I lounged,
12
>Alone and weak, on a white patio chair;
10

>Day surrendered to dusk, and mutely I gazed across
14

>The grass, the trees, and wrinkled violet sky.
10

>A pale young cardinal flew to my feeder,
11
>Its soft brown tufts lending a tender life to both
12

>>6974004
S-sorry, what? Are zombie nouns bad, and how do I fix them? What are content-carrying words?
Is my lexical diversity low?

Please link me to the website you used to calculate this, if you used one. I would be open to improving things like word choice.

>>6973967
Thank you, that is very nice of you. It motivates me to hear a little positive feedback.

>>6974004
>>6974101
Also why is his lexical diversity a percentage while mine is a decimal? Did I get .48% or 48%? Also, is a high lexical diversity necessarily good? And why are you checking specifically for "Ye" and Yr?"

>>6973875
>The store is a Russian photograph, and I’m a politician being erased from it.
I laughed at this, but the rest is rather pointless

>>6974341
F U C K M E T R E
U
C
K
M
E
T
R
E

>>6974394
>To be, or not to be- that is the question:
11
>Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 1750
11
>The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
11
>Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
11
>Wine comes in at the mouth
6
>And love comes in at the eye;
7
>That’s all we shall know for truth
7
>Before we grow old and die.
7
>I lift the glass to my mouth,
7
>I look at you, and sigh.
6

>>6964355
Monosyllables are the soul of wit

>>6974416
>1750

Let me tell you:
In my heart I'm nursing a half-formed
something embalmed in salted water
It grows like a cancer or a child
To excise or nurture?
I hold it tightly in cupped hands.

You are exquisite in my memory,
formed of some rare sorcerer's smoke
watery, primordial nebula
child made of stardust
nurturing new gyres into worlds
handing their future to free will

Former murmured half secret
Wanton movement, thunderous disintegration!
Children love to tease me
Nudging my chaos to coagulate
Hands snapping to telegraph spells
you could hear a world away

Children of the millennium
Nervously cupping the duties
handed down to our generation
You share our heavenly mandate
forming an earthly future with
water peeled from the heavens

Nurture by probing the inscrutable
Hands plunged deep in cosmic dark
You taught me to move there
For I can't rip the world asunder
Wet with desperation
Crying like a newborn

Hands intertwined in quantum tandem
Your moment entangled with mine
Forget all my yearning, I cannot suffer tears
watching you shed mingled atoms for a
child and wife in a bright foreign place
nurtured by the sun

You set my waystone and
Formed constellations to guide me.

Victor, my triumphant augur.

>>6973914
I'm actually canadian. I suppose that's worse.

>>6974379
Learn math.

.xx = xx%

Son of Man, it means nothing.

>>6974827
I know, but why are you doing it in two separate forms? How do I know you didn't forget to put a "%" after my number, and I in fact got less than a percentage point. There are so many unanswered questions about the post in question.

http://pastebin.com/H885pyMh

Not sure if posting it here is appropriate. Anyone would like to help me improve it? I have this feel that it lacks something.

>>6974362
Zombies:

The proliferation of nominalizations in a discursive formation may be an indication of a tendency toward pomposity and abstraction.

Vs Alive:

Writers who overload their sentences with nominalizations tend to sound pompous and abstract.

So basically ye take a verb and kill it, then bring it back to life as a noun. Obv they're useful but they don't trigger an image of smthng happening in the reader's head.

Content carrying words are words that aren't The, A, But, And, Or, That, There, etc, or w/e I decide to filter out.

The website is nltk.org. You'll have to familiarize yrself w/Python first, if ye aren't already.

>>6974850
>>6974850
Hey kid, I'm a computer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH1ekuvSYzE

Ye know what? Math? It's yr vocab [distinct words] / all the words in yr piece.

>>6973934

It's hard to say when it became clear that Mathilda Sorenson wasn't quite like other girls, both to herself and for the people around her. Judging from her parents there was nothing to suggest such a fate. Her father was an engineer, her mother a librarian. They had both been veritably normal, living veritably normal lives. No special, unwritten rules about communication had ever adhered to either of them or anyone they had known. A careful, all-knowing historians could at best point out only three omens and they were all highly dubious. The first was Mathilda's great-grandfather somewhere on her mother's side. He had been the heir of a steel mill and some kind of rich eccentric, aristocratic to the degree someone could ever had been in such a small city. When he was young he had composed a very popular symphony whose more famous parts could be even be easily recognized by popular audiences, often misidentified as something by Beethoven or Mozart. He had followed this success by exclusively creating atonal music which he claimed was the crystallizations of the dreams of the ghosts at the graveyard located a few kilometers from his home, whatever that meant. Except for himself, no one had ever found anything interesting about these later works. This was the first highly dubious omen. The second one was something strange that happened to Mathilda's mother a rainy autumn day, shortly before she became pregnant. The administration at her university speedily required some important, personal documents and she had at once traveled home to her parents to get the papers. On her way, by herself in her carriage, the train had technical problems and was forced to stop for almost 45 minutes. After almost half an hour a Romanian woman who claimed she could tell the future had entered the carriage and seated herself across from Mathilda's mom. As Mathilda's parents were already planning children at the time, she had asked for her child's fate. The fortune teller had drawn three cards. The first card was The Endless Mist. It meant that the child would get lost. The second card was the inverted Doppelganger. It meant that the child at some point would be replaced by a stranger, but that no one would ever know. The third card, which displayed a man in a coat and hat with a wicked smile on an abandoned battlefield, scared the fortune teller so much she left the carriage, refusing to say anything more. This episode, which was the second dubious omen, left Mathilda's mom uncomfortable, but by the time she was back with her friends in her university town again, it had shortly come to seem like just some vague, strange dream.

>>6975250

The third highly dubious omen regarded the stormy night Mathilda was born. This is probably also the most dubious of all the omens as there was no direct connection between the matter and Mathilda. It was simply something that happened close to the hospital where she was born, at about the same time. A young, somewhat drunk man had after a fight been locked out of his building where he shared an apartment with his girlfriend. Around the building was a metal fence covered in sharp spikes, more ornamental in their gothic terror and great size than they were there to keep strangers out. The young, somewhat drunk man had climbed up on a tree beside the building, hoping to get onto their second floor balcony by way of a thick branch. The plan itself was, physically speaking, perfectly reasonable, but possibly due to his somewhat drunken stature he had at some point lost his footing and on his stomach fallen on the spikes. Somehow he had managed to get down from the fence and he had screamed for help, but late as it was and with so much rain and thunder, no one had heard him and he had painfully bled to death by the time the hour was past. This was the final dubious omen.

>>6974868
good point anon but for fucks sake stop saying ye

>>6975250
>>6975255
first of all split it up into paragraphs
second, you have to be careful with the way in which you're presenting ideas
the very first thing you write sets up the question "When did it become clear that Mathilda wasn't quite like the other girls?"
then you proceed to answer a DIFFERENT question: "What factors led to her being different from other girls?"
some of the english is kind of weird, it sounds like a native french speaker
the ideas are nice and spooky but the writing still needs work
try experimenting with it and seeing if there are any other ways of telling the story, the same set of events, but in a different idiom. maybe with mathilda as a narrator or something idk. it's good i like it

>>6967164
Anyone?

>>6968104
>When will it get published?
Fwiw I'm posting new chapters here: http://jeremyoakwood.tumblr.com/

>>6975431
G-guys?

>>6970404

Falls apart at the end but otherwise well done this is really good.

>>6975701
Any specific ideas as to how I can improve the end? Either way, thank you for reading and replying

>>6971475
>>6971481

Can I have another look at this?

This song is one of the first things the public will hear in my play (if I manage to finish it and find a director who will be interested in staging it - not an easy thing to do) and I will like to make it a thing that is both beautiful and disturbing, but I am not sure if I achieved this effect.

Any opinions (the more brutally honest the better) are welcomed, be it saying what is wrong or mentioning what was well made.

Thank you all (and just to remember, the original is in Portuguese).

For those who are interested in Mark Van Doren's Shakespeare's threads I will make another when I come to my office. I don't know exactly what play analysis to post, I think it will be either A Midsummer Night Dream or Twelfth Night.

(The pic is a gift: young Audrey on top of a Pepe)

>>6975808

One more gift (p-please)

Posted a little of this earlier in the thread, but nobody responded. Was hoping now that it is expanded a bit I could get some feedback.

>>6976225
Why do ppl post pics of their stuff? Just wondering.

Δ 'in the crook of a dell'

>>6976305
I'm just not that wild about the pastbin formatting.
But thanks, I'll change that. Nothing else jutted out?

Here's two poems I wrote

1.
Frankie leans in, wide mouth open wider than ever,
join ‘em there, yonder snake pit,
wrestling flesh,
bare mattress sans box spring sans risers;
Everyone is gone and it’s late.

One can make love in a sandstorm
(despite what I say)
Deep in its maw, grinding flesh-searing particulates, into another,
raging in our dark closets, closed hard,
bolted against intrusion, don’t let it out.
Join them there.
Set up on date after fallen through date
with someone who, in a game-silenced moment,
Looks at you and wants you and feels you with worm-riddled eyes.
Someone who is older
and only needs your body for some youth-ritual,
Vicarious skin tightening pore reducer.
But no, not now.

I am in the mall watching videos in the back of a beauty salon.


2.
Do you believe in my love at last?
With your eyes crowned in candles,
settled, wreathed,
eyeing out at cityscapes
miles beyond stained meridian lines,
tracing in map-scale guessing games.
Voluminous white. Thick-skinned veins.
How soon?
How soon until I am brought back along leylined street posts shining forth,
leading ahead.
Boardwalks and a sea scene landscaped with time-hobbled bricks stuck up and tottering.
Brown homes along the creek.
Candles are here.

>>6976225

There is so much going on in just the first paragraph and apparently it keeps going on and on like that, too much information too much information it gives me the headaches

>>6976492
Fuck. Does it work better if I cut out the part about the bats?:

To the West, Cuba was awake with fire. The sun had sank upon the rim of the jungle and spread itself crimson through the treetops, violet through the clouds above. Carbon silhouettes of seabirds roved over the horizon in flocks of tens and twenties, descending homeward towards the canopy and dissolving into the glare. From the peaks of the low-mountains and buttes rolled waves of evening mist that settled into the valleys, and it was in the crook one such dell that Arlo and Cleto had camped for the night.

>>6976225
That's about as purple as prose gets.

>>6976552

Idk man it's just that, you have great imagery in mind but me I'm used to reading paragraphs in a sort of flow and you're just like

>Something cool is happening, but look something cool is happening here too, and here too look! and here too, oh and here is another thing cool too and look here, here, etc.

I'm not that energetic you know
It's like in chat where everyone starts posting youtube links and I trust they are good links, but there's no way I can watch them all and remain sane, or watch them all and keep paying attention to the chat's flow

In the context of a book, this bit I would just skim through until reaching the dialogues (all your descriptive efforts would just made a gist in my mind adding up to "cool nature stuff"), and your "turning away from the fire, its light falling unevenly across the mud-mask", your "sitting up and looking over his shoulder at the fire" etc. I would probably ignore and just keep reading

Nothing seems essential. Even if it isn't poorly written, you know.

>>6976637

I think I gotcha. Thanks so much for the considerate response. My purpleness has haunted me for a long time now. I should probably stop working with a copy of Suttree on my desk.

>>6975304
total shit, no effort

>>6975476
write it in fucking english you paint sniffing street urchin

Here's the short story I started working on today. Critiques much appreciated.

http://pastebin.com/Af3LnS2E

>>6977214
>http://pastebin.com/Af3LnS2E
very basic, sorry my man, I don't dig it

Above the dust plain, low under the aflamed sun, morose air breathed heavily. The day was at its peak, the atmosphere sultry and sizzling. Fine strolls on days such as this one were a tradition, one ingrained into the very habitual life of these parts. Fergus trodded down the sandy path, hands in his pockets, chin level. What a finest time to be alive! His mind was preoccupied by the salubrious possibilities, a gale of them, hinted at not by Banba herself but more so by the youthful shape in which Fergus’ mind has found itself. One, one again, two, numerous ways through to a young woman’s heart, and yet a sere thirst for an immediate solution pained its way into his shoulders. As he made the first bend after the turn at Cnoc Mhuire hill, Fergus remembered the tenuous albeit sweet fragrance brought upon by laundry baskets carried in that same morning, and thought that Banba’s mien is very so much like that.

Would appreciate any feedback

What do you all think? It's a poem I've been working on lately

http://pastebin.com/LvUsFD8y

>>6977250
Bummer dude

>>6977261
Parts I thought stood out in a bad way
>a need for genuine contact
>Salamanders that grow rarer each year
>How will he escape?
>marginally acceptable imagery

Overall it just comes off very tryhard, but I can see where you are trying to go, and quite like the direction.

>>6977279
Thanks for the feedback

I wrote this to amuse myself at work today. Realise now I pretty much ripped off South Park. Oh well.

http://pastebin.com/4h09Eujg

>>6977261

I have no idea what this is supposed to be. What is this supposed to be?

>>6977372
a poem

>>6977255
"aflamed sun" is redundant

i don't like the low, rumbling antiquated language

"trodded" :(

"What a finEST time to be alive." come on man, just say "fine." it's not stupid and scans better

the next sentence is abominable. syntax and diction should reflect the complexity of the idea. don't contort the prose out of some notion about literariness. please don't use "salubrious" unless to make fun of the character using it. and then don't use a clause containing a metaphor to elucidate on the already too heavy word.

a thirst got into his shoulders? you will need to explain that one to me.

overall you need to castrate that dicktion. there is also not much going on, and being a full-time, near-professional hater of modernism, and devotee of aristotle, i want you to think more about plot and less about passive feelings.

or in modern lingo, man up.

>>6975808

C'mon, not even my pic of Audrey riding a Pepe will convice you guys to give a look at my song?

Please.

confusing clues
and blinding views
paradox whose
truth is untruths
it wins to lose
virtue less muse
a nice abuse
that warring truce
exciting soothes

>>6977381
Thanks very much for the honest analysis

>>6963108
i like it

>>6977375
See, you're a despicable person, I was interested in what you were trying to go for because it appealed to me in some way, but I didn't know what to make of it past the superficial appeal. I'll still accept an explanation of what you were trying to go for if you want, but, shame on you.

>>6977414

clues confuse, viewpoints are blinding.

paradoxes are the awareness of contradiction.

"it wins to lose" confused me
with the rest you just lost me

I guess you win

seriously what's the point tho

>>6977452
I guess my inspiration for it comes from this sort of stream of conscious look at interactions with place/nature/moments/whatever. I guess it's me trying to put the sense and thoughts of place into words. I don't know if it succeeds or not

>>6964783
worst thing i've read

>>6977408
Not happening.

>>6977926

Jesus lord, what the fuck is wrong with the soles of his feet?

I made this to play around with some of my concerns about anonymous writing, and my own little obsessions with punctuation.
http://pastebin.com/Y6eeF6cS

>>6978334
How big of a nigger cock do ye think Natalie Portman can fit in her little Jew hole?

>>6978671
What kind of statement are you trying to make here?