/lit/ - Literature

Other thread this is from is long dead so I'll just post it.

A cool breeze rippled across the lake and through my hair. I breathed deeply, in and out. I was home.

I stepped off the small wooden sailboat, making sure to secure it against the gentle bobbing of the lake, and proceeded to head up the lawn to the lodge. Upon arriving I took a short look around to make sure everything was in order and ventured within to pour myself a glass of brandy. I stepped out onto the porch. I don't know exactly what draws me back to Lake Wimapeg, but every year I make sure to arrange the time with the firm to visit its quiet shores. Maybe it's just the experience of getting away from civilization and the chaos of work for a short time. Not to say I don't enjoy my line of work, but you must understand the need to step away every now and then.

A lazy afternoon, it was. The autumn was just getting into full swing, with the first leaves beginning to fall from the great expanse of maple and chestnut that was called, quite fittingly, the Browning forest by the locals. What can be said to give it justice? Trees hundreds of years old, as far as the eye can see, all returning their lifeless leaves to the unforgiving dirt, every year. Almost poetic. I laughed it off, the very idea! I was nothing like the trees. For one, I chose to take this time to refresh, I didn't have to do anything. Could very well just work year round, how about that for practicality?

Well, no point in getting worked up at old trees. There was ample time to do that later on, should I so desire. Breathe in, and out again. Let the anxiety and tension seep out and down to the ebbing lake where they should sink like a rock in the deep caverns of human imagination. I signed and headed inside as the last rays began to fade behind the trees. Fall.

I'd give it to her, if you know what I mean ;)

>>7023946
I actually don't.

>>7023946
what do you mean?

>>7023946
A book? She already has one, anon. You won't get laid by piling books on women.

Excerpt.

Twenty-two years old Emila Guns ran back home from the cheese factory after spending the day in the factory auction, and winning after a few small bids some bad-for-sale but good-to-eat cheese wheels.
"How many wheels did you get?" asked Todo Casa, Emilia's husband, when she was back home.
"Five, but two of them are roquefort wheels. I suppose we'll sell them to someone who likes them."
Emilia took the cheese wheels out of the shopping bags in the kitchen and cut a few pieces to cook cheese on toast. While cutting the cheese she found herself unable to cut a piece of lambert.
"Todo, could you came for a minute?" she yelled back from the kitchen.
"Is the cheese on toast ready?"
"I can't cut this one. It shouldn't be that hard, it isn't that old."
Todo took the cheese and gave it a closer look. With his swiss knife he cut small bits around the uncuttable area to find himself holding a small red ball.
"What the hell is that?" Emilia asked.
"Looks like some kind of meat"
"Eat it babe."
"You wish. Better to just throw it in the trash." said Todo as he threw the small red ball in the trash.
Later when cleaning dishes after eating cheese she checked the trash and took again the red ball which she saved in her pocket.

>>7023794
>ventured within
What's the risk involved?

>A lazy afternoon, it was.
A sentence without pretension, it was not.

>getting into full swing
>as far as the eye can see

Cliches. Kill 'em dead please. The following are also somewhat trite:

>cool breeze
>ample time

>Almost poetic
Is it though?

>I laughed it off, the very idea!
I laughed it off---the very idea!

>I signed
I shall presume you meant 'sighed'.

>Fall.
What are you trying to achieve with this?

>>7023946
What did you mean by this?

>>7023983
Did you actually think this is remotely clever or worth posting, you unbelievably boring retard?

>>7024192
You felt it worthy of a response at least, fagtard.

>>7024036
I'll venture a rewrite in a few hours

>>7023794
A cool breeze rippled across the lake and through my hair. { OK }

I breathed deeply, in and out. { kill in and out }

I was home. { OK }

I stepped off the small wooden sailboat, making sure to secure it against the gentle bobbing of the lake, and proceeded to head up the lawn to the lodge. { bobbing lake (less prep = better) | and went up the lawn (obv) }

Upon arriving I took a short look around to make sure everything was in order and ventured within to pour myself a glass of brandy. { and went in to pour }

I stepped out onto the porch. { PERFECT PROSE }

I don't know exactly what draws me back to Lake Wimapeg, but every year I make sure to arrange the time with the firm to visit its quiet shores. { my firm (?) }

Maybe it's just the experience of getting away from civilization and the chaos of work for a short time. { SO ORIGINAL WOW SUCH INSIGHT }

Not to say I don't enjoy my line of work, but you must understand the need to step away every now and then. { ZOMG IKR MUCH INSPIRATION }

A lazy afternoon, it was. { is this a parody? }

The autumn was just getting into full swing (GET A METAPHOR), with the first leaves beginning to fall from the great expanse of maple and chestnut that was called, quite fittingly, the Browning forest by the locals. { OK }

What can be said to give it justice? { NO KILL }

Trees hundreds of years old, as far as the eye can see (GET A FUCKING METAPHOR), all returning their lifeless leaves to the unforgiving dirt, every year. { KILL unforgiving }

Almost poetic. { IT IS POETIC JFC KILL KILLLL }

I laughed it off, the very idea! { NOPE }

I was nothing like the trees. { OK }

For one, I chose to take this time to refresh, I didn't have to do anything. { OK }

Could very well just work year round, how about that for practicality? { MAKE THIS MAKE SENSE }

Well, no point in getting worked up at old trees. { OK }

There was ample time to do that later on, should I so desire. { KILL "should I so desire" }

Breathe in, and out again. { KILL "and out again" }

Let the anxiety and tension seep out and down to the ebbing lake where they should[kill] sink like a rock in the deep caverns of human imagination. { UH OK }

I signed and headed inside as the last rays began to fade behind the trees. { Sighed? Otherwise OK }

Fall. { BOOOOOO, KILL }

>>7024354
not the anon you critiqued, but if I may critique your critique, I think you should make an appearance in these threads more often.

This is the beginning of a fictional piece I have been wanting to write for a while.

Three thousand six hundred and fifty three. That is how many lines I have etched into the wall that I have become friends with over the years. Fourteen lines ago the guard had stopped bringing in food at the usual time. Now the boy in the next cell had stopped his groaning a while ago, Maybe he had grown tired of it like I had and fell asleep, And the crack in my wall had stopped showing me the other guards who monitored this prison. Maybe they have forgotten me I thought, oh well. I guess I will just sit here and wait for my inevitable death. I no longer remember the reason I am in this cell, In fact I no longer remember life outside of this cell. I was born in this cell, I live in this cell, and I will die in this cell.

>>7024377
thx anon! just remember: yr first spouse will leave ye & yr going to die of cancer! The odds are in yr favor!

Neither black, nor white
Neither overwhelmed with sense
Or cherished with remoteness in my core.
And I don't belong to you anymore.

>>7024173
>>7023964
>>7023962
I meant that she is reading a book called "The Giver", and I would like to giver her "my dick", as in put my penis inside of her and let her do whatever she wants with it, in a sexuall way

>>7024695
I don't get it... the explanation of the joke is joke? Am I just making it all worse? OMG

http://pastebin.com/v9tVc8yC#

>>7025135
>In the library the silence whistled across the room.
This strikes me as stupid but I suppose it could be a metaphor.
>The two were left alone, breathing heavily and looking to each other while they sat on the floor.
Weird sentence structure. To "look to" someone doesn't really mean the same as to look at.
>no hesitation could be seen in their faces
They're not hesitating but not doing anything except sitting? What's that supposed to mean?
>The sounds outside lost themselves into noise
No.
>a faint murmur silenced by the silence inside.
What the fuck
>They stood up when the main door fell... with a desk and a broom
Subject object verb what is going on here? Learn to write sentences.
>and pointed each to each other with no blink in their eyes
????
> A large group entered the room... looking for anyone who may remain alive
What is this tense?
>“Three!” made everyone stop at the sound of two shots, and silence again.
This makes no sense.
>till
A till is a verb or a thing you have in a shop.


English is not your first language, is it?

From a novella I'm working on. Intentionally trying to emulate a P.G. Wodehouse sort of style:

I have been travelling with Lyda for a good many years, and I often find myself wondering if I’m doing so as some kind of penance for past misdeeds. This theory does not quite hold water, however, as those aforementioned six words; “Horace, I think we’re in trouble,” have preceded far more misdeeds, misadventures, and mayhem than I was ever capable of in my misspent youth. It’s also occurred to me that she could be some sort of demon sent to collect the fee on a pact with dark powers I may have made and forgotten about during the days of blackout drinking and wicked scholarship from said misspent youth. That doesn’t really seem likely either, though. Lyda Namara is, as a rule, inept at everything she sets her mind to except for acts of terrific ultraviolence. As a gentleman, scholar, man-about-town, adventurer, lover, gadabout, philanthropist, and poet, ultraviolence often falls low on my list of vices, although since meeting Lyda it has become an increasingly common necessity.

But I’m getting side tracked. The events that would follow Lyda’s gruesome declaration, “Horace, I think we’re in trouble,” would, as they often did, ultimately end in an orgiastic display of ultraviolence, but there’s no need to put the cart before the horse. Even my more temperamental readers must allow that, without the proper context established, players introduced, and stakes firmly raised, descriptions of blood, guts, and swinging axes offer little in the way of titillation. Pornography consisting of nothing but the money shot would be an apt analogy. One must understand WHY the buxom chambermaid is demanding for the wizard to “blow his magic wand onto her crystal balls” for it to carry the full effect. I do not think I am being crass to say as much.

>>7025165
I'm sorry

Dublin of the heart that went by their convisiment as a fisht to be the returncted and descocrated to leather leased versics and the two cats and the spoor old duddy extens best and shakes a space as help of the ward of the short of cap and dung and that in the spot of his buckets and a whole lead of the day of the race is in the land of our later of him. And the death to bord and the passipant of the last dead pagany till he storg up to the mind of the Hooker so not engulded as that they were committed by the hillage in the sins of the following and now and a middiest and a walking regandered to last chamber and the beginning of the past up all the great garlies, made the space, in the loose of his hossism, would a middlesome spoon of the whole of the time of the breath more than the tear of the rash of the mouth and a black and person, sometimes, so drinched himself of every single from his business, the four spectoras, all the pillow of his feather of the white highloods and the world and like a sense of the lady with the birds of the same and the distort in the ward of the can good chambetor which is sub-lasting it but the foller of his head and the death and dear on him and sine to messed a lungalising his communious person; when he was feel and the man of the moons, would think of the one too blow whole of the field the perfling for the barrel in his story be smell of all the fairs of the shimming from the post of the farther of the carrieged wait with the nature of the blind to chang a since the passed particularises of the holy contrade at his hall as the henting and the allashinident as from her from a part of the past of the first servant he now begin to be wrong and the horror of the wakery teers of all the castle the page of a white chinkings and the Mommeys and the Conquest's block of the present of the boot of the cheek of the four of the gracious and four of the suntur part of the book of chief and the bracepinkey from the night which is a more parent was the first of the holy man and the homely weather for a pierce and he would solde out of her sounds and the borrower of the blue craved of a holey for the seven of the internite of the probinis of the stars and shows a strange punch of crownook the Castlecutter pick of the Park of the Potter and Prission Complemes in the chap be the seem of the third bedstone of the three come to be the present went through the lifter in his grand ends and first with the beach of his troubles for his span of his man and the first of the Spanish of the Carrier water and Lanny's learn is one of a charms of the best makes in the life of his servic should severed on the neight of the southstrone, by the first and solitars, the place through a barrane of the mainest and the two concenestions of the soord which by the static strops for the grands game and so the spengle of the provident days. It is her sons of least cure and all the first of the man and hair the corks and the least of the success.

>>7025254
/threadkiller

bump

>>7023772
Post apocalyptic setting.
Haven't quite figured out the rest yet.
I'm coming up with it as I go along. With a very general idea of where to take it.
Here's the first couple of paragraphs.
Maybe you'll have some ideas about "what it's about," for inspiration. It feels more natural this way imo rather then forcing the story in a specific direction. I have some scenes I want added but not sure when or where.
Where do you see this story "heading" with these couple paragraphs? What needs work particularly? Not trying to be the next amazing writer, I'm fine with being average. I just write because I enjoy it.

Spreading out like a tumor, the shadow falls long behind the car. The sun a slowly sinking ember, on a sky of grain. The Tarmac is hot and empty except for the lone sedan. The driver begins to slowly coast the car to a stop. With the engine off, the road is eerily empty of sound.
After several minutes, the void of sound and movement is broken by the door opening. The sunlight gleams off the dirtied chrome trim, reflecting what light is left as the jet black body of the car absorbs the rest.
The driver sniffs the air, it smells like a recently extinguished match, it smells like sulfur. He knows he is close, through a gap in the trees,where the ground was blackened by flames, the rooftop of a skyscraper can be seen. Jagged metal exposed on one side.
A horrendous groaning begins from behind the car. The mans reflexes are quick, but not quick enough. He turns in time to see a highway sign bounce off the pavement, it's mounting still looming over the road like a hangman's pole .
The driver snatches a dark object off of the dash in the car. Time and decay could be responsible. The sign is extremely rusty. Yet, if not..... He'd rather be ready in case death decides their introduction is overdue.
The wind begins to blow.
The hip high grass on either side of the asphalt whispers gently in response.
Squinting, he scans the tree line, there are no leaves nor bushes to hide amongst. The only greenery exists on the scattered pine and fir trees, yet they too are nearly barren.

hello, i haven't written anything in years, but i gave it a try.
i am struggling to write conversation. it felt unnatural to me to do the whole "jim said, bob replied" etc, so i done that sparsely, but i am unsure if it is easy for anyone else to read, if it is ever unclear who is speaking etc.

i would appreciate any feedback. it is fiction, to be sci-fi i guess.

http://pastebin.com/ESL3PjWv

http://pastebin.com/GySwiUXa
Posted this before. But I have added to it and would like some feedback

>>7029069
My first impression after reading one paragraph is that it's complete shit but I'll try to stay objective for the rest of it.

>People want to write. Everyone. Stories, histories, facts, fiction, is there anyone who says ‘No, I won’t write’, ‘No, I don’t want to write’, ‘No, I have nothing to say’? No.
Yes, actually. There are plenty of people who have nothing to say and will admit it. Stop being a presumptuous faggot.

I got up to the part where you started talking to your character after just making him up and I just couldn't read the rest.

You might think you're being clever or something with this premise but it's insufferable faggotry, tbh. I usually don't say this but scrap the whole thing and try again with something that isn't so pretentious.

>>7029118
Wow. That's brutal to hear, but thanks. I don't really understand why its pretentious, can you explain? Also what was the tipping point, where did you stop reading specifically? Did you get up to 'Old Blue'?

Thanks again.

>>7029155
"Biblical question number two" was when I just thought fuck this shit and felt like the rest couldn't have possibly been worth reading.

The whole author/narrator as god thing is just grating as fuck.

Bedrest

I counted 1337 sheep fore sleep last night,
almost all of whom were named Rufus.
The cheddar moon hung by strappado
and 26-2 spun on wax in the thin corridors.
Toe stubbed on the davenport aft the john
annihilated my opioid lack of pain, deft.
So I thanked the blessed transience, trotted on,
splashed my face, eluted the pus and tar.
The mirror reflected like scales of shad,
pleat of pajamas, meat and hide draped on bones.
Soon supine warmth, darkness recompensed;
a tip to Charon, a nod to Morpheus, nullified debts.
Silence drawn, lids lay down on eyeballs smiling.
When the ert firings of my mind expelled
more than just an arcade of electoral buzzing,
I submitted to vanishing in the supple mist
and dozed off into the zen tribunal
seated in the basilica between two temples.

>>7029229
Alright, thanks man. Unfortunately I can't just abandon this, sad to say but I've put a lot of time into it, too deep in the shithole to cut my losses lol. I'll cut the biblical stuff, its too blunt anyway.

Thanks again

Bartleby
Usurps
Moby's
Predator

Started writing a story--thinking maybe fifteen to twenty pages by the end--about a fighter. Kind of want to look at the sports-story narrative from another angle. Everyone's heard the one about the underdog who pushes themselves to beat the unbeatable. What about the unbeatable opponent though? The person who started at the top and never came down. What's it like to have that kind of record on your shoulders? What kind of person would they be?

I dunno, just fleshing out some ideas here: http://pastebin.com/kb0sw9gr

Main things I'm looking for:
- How does it read? I'm kind of playing with tenses here. Does it get too confusing or inconsistent?

- Are you interested in Nora at all? Are you invested in figuring out who she is, or just think she's a psychopath and willing to leave it at that.

- Is the writing not descriptive enough? I usually try to limit my descriptions as much as possible. I don't want to write about something unless it's important to the scene at hand, but I'm not always great at knowing what's important and what's not. I've got every scene drawn out in my head from the start, so it's hard for me to tell when I haven't described something enough.

>>7029486
Next time just post the fucking pastebin & we'll take it from there...

It is cold and I can not see. I can not lift my arms, and I can not stand up. I do not know where I am. I do not know who brought me here, or if I brought myself here.
I close my eyes in the dark, and they're brought open by the industrial sound of heavy lights being switched on. I still can't see for a moment, blinded by the fluorescent beams pointed into them. Soon they adjust, and a throbbing pain pulses through my head.
I am in a room, strapped to a chair. To my left is a stained concrete wall; to my right is a stained concrete wall. In front of me is a stained concrete wall, a windowed door dividing the obelus wall in half. Looking down, I see myself in a white jumpsuit, grayed by sweat around the collar. I'm still sweating.
Somebody's watching me.
I look back up toward the door to find the light's place behind the window replaced by a face, a dark face, a black face. Hairless, featureless but for two bulging eyes and a bright, pearly smile splitting the face, skin taught as if pulled on too tight and forced to stay. It radiated darkness, inhaling the light around it. My body is numb, tingling from top to bottom. The hairs on my arms are attempting to escape their pores. Making eye contact with the face in the window, I try to look away. I can not.
The door swings open, objecting loudly on the hinges. Behind it the face has a body, as lightless as its top, its feet hanging from its legs inches above the floor. It's moving now, getting closer, with no indication but for the increasing size of it as it approaches. Its expression does not change, its face does not flinch or twitch. I am getting colder. Sweat stings my eyes, yet I can not blink. I want to scream, but don't.
The lights cut out. I can not see, yet I can not close my eyes. I can not turn my head.
Somebody's watching me.
It's colder now than before. The pounding in my head has stopped, but the pain remains. I can not breathe.

>>7023794
Holy shit thay first paragraph is as cliche as it gets. The sudden pause to make "I was home" more important than it really is.

Like... We dont care whether the character is home or not, we dont even know him yet.

That kind of opening paragraph always makes me cringe, sorry.

Start with "call me ishmael" or some shit.

>>7029486
Possible Zombie Nouns:
quality
submission
position
version
competition
suspension
suspicion
investigation
contention
ferocity
emotion
determination


Lexical Diversity: 31.68 %
Content Carrying Words: 57.17 %

Longest Word:
uncharacteristically

Ye say 'coach' 8x

>>7029486
I enjoyed it.
Wanted to learn more.
Didn't strike me as amazing writing, but not bad either. I have read many a published book that you surpassed.
I am a fan of the simple description as well.
Everything was easily picturable.

>>7028985
Possible Zombie Nouns:
Information
Aggregation
Dissemination
facility
Station
insincerity
superiority
satisfaction
promotion
dissemination
irritation
familiarity
irritability
version
disruption
application
agitation
projection
termination


Lexical Diversity: 41.61 %
Content Carrying Words: 62.5 %

Longest Word:
uncharacteristic
[see: >>7030002]

>>7029069
Possible Zombie Nouns:
fiction
impunity
escapism
question
sanity
question
Ubiquity
illusion
activity
satisfaction
vision
depression
curiosity
attention
mention
Curiosity


Lexical Diversity: 16.96 %
Content Carrying Words: 57.94 %

Longest Words:
Uncomfortable
embarrassment
unflinchingly
[smdh tbh fam]

>>7030002
>>7030022
What software are you using for these?

>>7030036
I'm just severely autistic tbh fam. It's my own program

>>7030044
Can I have it? I've peen pushing my novel through AntConc for several months now and calculating this stuff my hand. Didn't even know that "lexical diversity" was the term for what I was looking for.

>>7025135
Possible Zombie Nouns:
hesitation

Lexical Diversity: 40.68 %
Content Carrying Words: 57.73 %

Longest Words:
incredulous
lighstreams (lightstreams?)

“I’m heating a casserole,” she said. Then looking up and seeing me in my charcoal grey suit and favorite blue tie, she dabbed out her cigarette and stood.
“Where are you going?”
Call from work, I said. She bit her lower lip, not in a sultry way, but as if she’d stubbed her toe and needed to distract herself from the pain. She’d been chain smoking while watching television, one of those stupid QVC shows always trying to sell you something. A pretty blonde examined a selection of leather bags in black, brown, maroon, teal. She was accompanied by a gesticulating older man, who combed his remaining hairs over as if it concealed his shiny head. The blonde opened the bag slightly, let the camera peek inside. She started pulling out various items, showing how spacious the product was. It occurred to me that Ellie and I hadn’t had sex in a month. I took one last look at her on the chair, but she was already glancing back towards the shopping channel.

>>7030060
Looks like AntConc is using similar methods. I'll post it if ye know how to use python, otherwise it won't mean anything.

I'm tryna set up a website where ya'll can do it yrselves

>>7030092
Nah I don't know Python. Thanks anyway,

>>7030073
• Whose favorite tie?

• 'Call from work' sounds like a command

• Gesticulating is just so ugly, yo... save it for metaphorical uses

Mad good bruv, would read more.

>>7029990
Yr’s self-justifications are feeble—and yr conscience devours the taboo. Yes, even Satan was a little lamb before he awoke. The imagination and the spiritual strength of /lit/ stops short at genius—because you have no ideology!

Try again P.P. Lovecraft.

Here's something from the Hypersphere collage I helped write. Critique, pls.

http://pastebin.com/WGcF7Ene

>>7027365
Pretty good. Kill:

'on a sky of grain'
'begins to slowly' → 'The driver coasts'
'eerily'
'void of sound and movement' → 'silence'

IT'S: "man's" HOLY FUCK

But, like a MOUSE in a MAZE, I didn't smell anything to pull me thru→

>>7030153
______NOPE____

>>7029990
>skin taught
pls

>>7030160
Thanks

Gossamers anent such pettifogging, grandiloquent odium inexorably engender insuperable maelstroms of crestfallen opprobrium, cant, and seething self-reproach in me viscera. Withal, quash the vocable limitations; ballyhoo all superfluity; exponentiate lexicographical progeny; extol my idiolectic furbelow; and naturally: schtup incalculable inamorata, procure plenteous verdure.

>>7030214
You're not Joyce. Fuck off.

>>7030111
Thanks!

>>7030217
You're not astute, suck me off.

Words. These are words. They form phrases that mean things. Important things, I hope. If I’m lucky, half of everything I say with these words will be important. And maybe, just maybe, if I say enough important things, I might portray the image of being someone clever who has clever things to say. If I form these little, baby words oh so perfectly in the right order, you, the reader will think I’m smart. If you find me to be smart, you’ll have no choice but to listen to me.
See, I highly doubt you have the self-esteem to believe in your own guiding thoughts. If you’re one of the select few who do, then why the fuck are you reading? Chances are the reason you’re here is because you want someone to tell you what to think and how to live. You would usually look towards toward television for this because it’s quick and easy, but you and I both know there’s never anything good on these days.
You need help forming an opinion in this massive ass parade of information we call life. It’s too hard for you to do it yourself, so you want everyone else to do it for you. You want it cheap, pre-packaged, high definition, and in thirty minutes or your money back. You want all of that and you want it original. No, authentic. The really, real deal. Yeah, that’s the stuff.
You want someone clever to speak for you. You need to blow away your friends on social media with profound thought purchased from me. You want to be the black sheep, swimming against your self-created currents in a man-made fishing pond. You’re the next great free thinker America never knew they wanted and you need me to be the platform you stand on. You need an engine for your quotes because all the old ones are used up. You know, that’s asking a lot of me. Should I give you oral sex while I’m at it, your majesty?
Or maybe you don’t care about any of the above paragraphs. That would be interesting, wouldn’t it? Maybe you’re one of the few people who have the humility to admit that they’re lost. The world is a big place. We live on a massive, thriving organism and you are but one out of six billion human beings just like you, currently living on said floating rock. The question is: how does one find any ground to stand on when six billion others seem to have the plateaus and mountain tops covered? Well, maybe you’re here looking for an answer.
That was a lot of words. For whatever reason, you’re still following along. If I managed to catch you off guard with my “cleverness” and “unmatched wit”, then as I said earlier, you have to listen to me. And that’s all that matters to me.

For the sake of the story, there’s a certain truth I should let you in on. Up until this point, I’ve been rambling. I’ve composed an introduction of incomplete thoughts, which is funny because it’s easily the biggest cliché I could have used. What’s even funnier is that you are obviously buying it.
During this time, I’ll assume you’ve been picturing a sweaty adult male, age thirty something. Or at least old enough to have been divorced and recently undergoing a round of antibiotics for a cocktail of STD’s because he had a strange, smelly night with an overweight woman he met through the casual encounters section of Craigslist. Oh, I bet I sound like a disgusting human being. Someone who comes off as hateful as me must be gross, right?
The truth is you’re wrong.
My name is Matt. My resume calls me “professional dog bather”. My roommate calls me “the fucker who ate his cereal”. Capitalism calls me a lower class citizen.
Tonight, I’m none of those things. Tonight, I’m YOU. I’m a human being, lost and floating in space. I’m looking for the next clever thought and quote worthy sentence. I’m looking for validation like everyone else.
Tonight, among all the short collections of words being shared, you chose to read this. And you’ve made it to this point. Isn’t that something? Whether you saw me as genius, ridiculous, or a total try hard, you read this bullshit to the very end. You had to listen to me.
So, where do we go from here? What happens next?
A lot more words and phrases, obviously.
You sure you don’t want to see what’s on T.V.?

>>7030296
Why are ye posting yr diary?

>>7023772
The crawling reaper felt the creeper feelings, far the fall of the beings on the rise down to abyss and to shadows where the light cannot escape.
"Have you walking too far high for no reason just because?" asked the creeper reaper to the falling human beings.
"Babel's never end in one way or other way. Knowledge, wisdom, insight, let them drip into ourselves."
Reaper soul's collector, knows what is and what is not, went down to the deep abyss hearing cries, now old, from ages just ago.
"Let 'know' be what is never conscious, misled y'all believed that reason was true knowledge."

>>7030302
It's not diary. It's about you.

Our bugles sang truce, for the night cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw
By the wolf-scaring faggot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw;
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

Methought from the battle-field’s dreadful array
Far, far, I had roam’d on a desolate track:
’Twas Autumn,—and sunshine arose on the way
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft
In life’s morning march, when my bosom was young;
I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,
And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kissed me a thousand times over,
And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart.

‘Stay—stay with us!—rest!—you are weary and worn!’—
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;—
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

>>7030296
I don't relate to this

>>7030073
I'd read more.

It tells story without telling much at all.

>>7030340
When did this turn into a "relate to this writing thread"?

>>7030358
20 min ago when some1 posted slurpee style poo poo.

>>7030340
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhT_gVh_73w

>>7030373
I guess this is what I get for coming to the internet in search of intelligence.

>>7030001
You are saying that you should start short stories with the character description rather than jumping right into things?

I was trying to establish tone and get on with the rest, and let the reader construct the character from the information given.

I don't want to be argumentative, I'm just trying to understand how it could be restructured. I like to establish tone and themes early on, should that come after a description of the protag and some small biography, setting up the scene, etc?

I was partly writing from a story by Hemingway called the big two hearted river

>>7030421
I mean the structure, not the plot btw

>>7030445
Ohhhh, in that case, ye should gg qq, wink wink ;^O

>>7030477
what? that doesn't even make sense

>>7030491
I was doin a fuckin sick kickflip over yr flailin confusion

>>7030315
edgy woah abyss so scare much trenchcoat such lightning in the night very smart wow

>>7030296
>>7030301

The meta-"Reader is a loser" thing is pretty cliche. Other than that, I like the conversational tone.

Mine. Context: Dude standing on a rock with a slanted surface:

>In his excitement to leave, Willie put one foot on the tip of the rock, meaning to launch himself in a playful leap, but puzzlingly, that foot shot up into the air instead and Willie fell back with a sound that to him was of an all too percussive and muffled quality as if occurring with hands cupped around one’s ears, that could only indicate an alteration somewhere in one’s insides that was neither expected, much less wanted. The sound was accompanied, probably not coincidentally, by a pointed pressure in the back of his neck, a brief choking sensation and the expansive view of the sky afforded to him by his momentary position in the air seeming to explode into white. As Willie laid on the ground afterwards, gathering his senses, the first thing he noted was something warm dripping down his back, which only after realizing that he couldn’t move his arms to check, he knew wasn’t sweat.

>>7030586
Teeming w/adj&adv. 1fucking tedious ¶ tbh fam smdh.

>>7030586
I was going for more "I'm a loser, like you." If that makes any sense.

>>In his excitement to leave, Willie put one foot on the tip of the rock, meaning to launch himself in a playful leap, but puzzlingly, that foot shot up into the air instead and Willie fell back with a sound that to him was of an all too percussive and muffled quality as if occurring with hands cupped around one’s ears, that could only indicate an alteration somewhere in one’s insides that was neither expected, much less wanted.

This is a huge sentence! It's so long, it's hard to get involved in what's going without running out of breath or losing interest all together.

It's okay to have short sentences. Having a medley of short and long sentences helps the writing flow.

>>7030609

What else can you use to describe a purely physical situation?

>>7030662

Thanks. I wrote that part in isolation from where I currently am in the progress of the story, which isn't completely made up of run-ons, so I could consider making it more concise when I actually catch up to it and doing so flows with what came before.

Critique pls

http://pastebin.com/DB8Vf0vx

>>7030740
>What else can you use to describe a purely physical situation?
carefully placed prepositions to orient the reader
you don't need such an abundance of punctuation and detail, remember less is more
You should tell a story communicating your points and themes without extrapolating unnecessarily

look at this sentence
>The sound was accompanied[,] probably not coincidentally[,] by a pointed pressure in the back of his neck[,] a brief choking sensation and the expansive view of the sky afforded to him by his momentary position in the air seeming to explode into white.

Couldn't that be better said as
>The sound was immediately accompanied with an excruciating pain. The man cried out in pain as his neck veritably exploded with a sensation akin to having a searing rod jammed into his brain. He stumbled backwards[,] at first losing his balance and then collapsing in a heap there where he fell. The sky exploded into a whirlwind of color with a bright flash.

See you need to stop focusing on the particulars of what is happening and start focusing on the emotion and other details.. it's like the difference between a textbook and a nonfiction piece. One just describes the scene passively, the other interprets the scene with emotion through the eyes of the narrator/protag.

Or you could just write off everything I said as just stylistic, that would be true too.
Also I wrote this >>7023794 mess so maybe I'm not the best critic

>>7030809

Well ok, you sound like you know what you're talking about. I think my trouble as a writer is I'm one of those who tend to be more excited by ideas rather than the sentence-by-sentence stuff. I might actually go out and buy one of those style handbooks. Thanks.

And that excerpt isn't too bad, as far as I know. A little too general. Sprinkle a little bit more specific details about the character and the place here and there, I think.

>>7030806

Do someone else first, m8.

>>7030850
k I'll do this one

>>7030332
I'm not a fan. You clearly tried but the antiquated imagery and language feel lifeless.

>>7030875
poem's by thomas campbell tbh fam

>>7030891
kek

>>7030875
sounds like it's time to retire as a poem critic, eh?

>>7030891
Well then he sucks too!

>>7030897
is joyce a hack too?

>>7030902
His poetry sucks.

>>7030913
a man who can't put his criticisms into full sentences is invariably bullshitting you

it's easy to say something is awful, it's difficult to string together a few paragraphs detailing the problems.
it's really what separates pseuds from intellectuals.

>>7030918
Nah. It's just too much effort to write an essay for a 4chan thread. It's not hard but it is a waste of time.

The first of the herd began to swing past them in a pall of yellow dust, rangy slatribbed cattle with horns that grew agoggle and no two alike and small thin mules coalblack that shouldered one another and reared their malletshaped heads above the backs of the others and then more cattle and finally the first of the herders riding up the outer side and keeping the stock between themselves and the mounted company. Behind them came a herd of several hundred ponies. The sergeant looked for Candelario. He kept backing along the ranks but he could not find him. He nudged his horse through the column and moved up the far side. The lattermost of the drovers were now coming through the dust and the captain was gesturing and shouting. The ponies had begun to veer off from the herd and the drovers were beating their way toward this armed company met with on the plain. Already you could see through the dust on the ponies' hides the painted chevrons and the hands and rising suns and birds and fish of every device like the shade of old work through sizing on a canvas and now too you could hear above the pounding of the unshod hooves the piping of the quena, flutes niade from human bones, and some among the company had begun to saw back on their mounts and some to mill in confusion when up from the offside of those ponies there rose a fabled horde of mounted lancers and archers bearing shields bedight with bits of broken mirrorglass that cast a thousand unpieced suns against the eyes of their enemies. A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained weddingveil and some in headgear of cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a Spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses' ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse's whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen's faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.

>>7030022
how am i to interpret this feedback? should i simplify the words you listed? are the percentages at the bottom good or bad?

i would appreciate feedback on how the piece reads and how the conversations are implemented, if anyone feels up for it.

>>7028985

http://pastebin.com/3j0vKAvY

should I continue writing in this sense or go back to basic

it's certainly a fun way to write and I tap it alot quicker but I worry it reads pretty rough

>>7024192
I thought it was amusing.

>>7024012
The dialogue is good and the names are funny, Todo Casa sounds like something out of Pynchon.

I get that you're trying to go for interesting syntax, but your very first sentence kind of falls apart - which is a shame as it's a cool premise that would grab a reader if you brought the scenario out more clearly. The writing itself is too clumsy and repetitive. I know that sounds harsh but I feel that the weird vibe you're shooting for has switched your focus from the actual sound and meaning of the words your trying to type up. Perhaps it's intentional, but repeating words like "cut" and "cheese" and "trash" in a small paragraph just hurts flow as well.

With some editing, your piece could be really nice.

>>7023794
This is just a lot of cliches with little action of substance. Cut a lot of words, you use too many adjectives and fluff. Hint at some kind of danger or conflict early as well unless you want some kind of really nice descriptive opening.

>>7025205
I never really liked Wodehouse hugely but you definitely get his tone right and contrast it well with wizard porn. Your sentences are very lengthy but read well and easily and it's actually all rather funny to me, nice job anon.

>>7025254
Thought that was a Finnegan extract for a second. Nice and crazy stuff, hard to critique semi-gibberish but it read and feels great.
>>7029069
Writing about writing is nearly always trite bullshit.

The anon's critique is pretty heavy but I think it holds slightly. You're not untalented and you can write but your subject is slightly doomed. I only however read your first few paragraphs, I'm sorry.
------

Here's a short paragraph I wrote for this thread, if any of you want to tear it apart, please do:

Sid sat down to get away from it all. The long talks on the veranda, Mediterranean styled houses, white bubbled walls textured like cave, cliff falls and sea salt air, sashays of soft skinned girls, nightly tiptoes across dry ground and unlit pools, forest fires, the chattering of insects: all of it was an irritant. Out here, outside, there was enough drink and solitude in him to move to a quiet blur of a place, the him outside just holding sobs, teetering nervously as a proud man of twenty eight now reduced to personal meditation while friends and others fucked the night into a husked memory. Sid managed not to cry or think for a long while and when he went back in, no asked or noticed where he had been. It all helped a lot.

>>7031176
You got a really nice eye for writing, your prose sounds good and even with a super abstracted format you convey images clearly.

I like your piece a lot but I wouldn't buy it. I think it's great practice to write like that however but that kind of style can only really be useful for a small paragraph or sentence not really an entire piece. As long as you're basically just automatically typing and looking at particular fragments that sound great to you, and there are a lot, then don't worry.

NAKED MADMEN IN LOVE

It all started with the need for human connection. Two tulips blooming languorously on the edge of a cliff, where past the knotted stems you could find an infinite drop into a deep dark inscrutable void. So it went that the two walked circles around each other, each trying to communicate in their own way the deep repressed unfatigable emotion that was brimming up inside them. One could only communicate by knocking his palms together in a kind of half-prayer and making erratic moans. The other could only slither on the ground and contort his body in runic appositions, or signification, whilst cruelly masturbating whatever spare seed he had into the dust. They were mute, and were stuck to these, but in all other actions they were free.

Both of them had no articulate notion of what they wanted from one another, since they were primarily dealing with an abstraction or a hazy mood that could not be expressed directly, so the first means they had was to translate succinct behaviors into their language. They had to broach at the notion of a kiss, or a hug, or a mutual fellating, and they had to find the grounds in common actions that they could use to construct a direct means of communication.

One could only communicate temporally, since his actions were heavily limited to noises in distinct time. A slap and a moan. A moan and a slap. A moan and a moan. A slap and a slap. The space variation between these became his only form of language. The other, you could say, was more flexible, in that he had a wider range of possible configurations, but one of his arm’s was incapacitated, and he had to rough it out through his primal function before he could get anything said or done.

The one on the floor kissed his palm. There was a something that could be conveyed. The action was primarily there, and all the other had to do was to express his mutual interest in the matter. He realized he could convey excitement or positive reinforcement through a sudden rigor of action, so he began frantically clapping and moaning, almost to the limit of screams. The other, to return the conveyance, began to do the same with the motions he was limited to, by twisting and turning like a desiccated eel and stroking himself much harder than before.

>>7031608
The one on the floor kissed his palm. There was a something that could be conveyed. The action was primarily there, and all the other had to do was to express his mutual interest in the matter. He realized he could convey excitement or positive reinforcement through a sudden rigor of action, so he began frantically clapping and moaning, almost to the limit of screams. The other, to return the conveyance, began to do the same with the motions he was limited to, by twisting and turning like a desiccated eel and stroking himself much harder than before.

A limitation. The act of ejaculation left him with his breath knocked out, and shuddering on the floor in a refractory coma. In this state his motions reached a point of sluggishness and seemed to make notions of a slow interpretive ballet, but previous bouts of vigor could no longer be replicated in this state. By then the other had probably lost the original notion, being taken on a bout of his madness, so as to be dazed back into his clapping-sputtering without any sensible exchange. His self-pleasurement had a discernable upper and lower limit, so his notion of a language was depleted only to single highly regulated sentences with a long and drawn out climatic full-stop. In other words he had to get straight to the point, and ensure that the notion was fully brought out. For they were mad, and they had to fend off the constant slour of nonsense battering their skulls.

The kiss of the palm again, and the mad clapping and knocking and screaming, but this time he had to make a less vigorous affirmation of the act, and then they could continue into preliminary courtship. Thus he decided to make it known spatially, and with gradual nods. A slide forward, a nod. A slide forward, a nod. He had to ensure that the motions were carried out in strict timing to the rising peaking pleasure in his genitals.

And finally he reached the feet of his paramour, and kissed it, and gently committed the sin of Onan onto the ground. In that languid state he had to wait for the recognition of the other. His eyes were bitter with longing and angry at destiny.

The clapper mounted him, with the knees at his sides and the crotch at the center of his chest, then leaned forward and tore at his face with jagged broken teeth. Alas who could have known! That our actions of intimacy would have diverged so thoroughly!

>>7031599
That's really great to hear, thank you a lot.

Yes I lost stamina by the end, I cannot imagine how to intertwine the style into a longer story, best I could do is a few pages I think

Thank you again

>>7031628
Think drugs.

It's a drugs style.

Wait until a character is drunk, follow there thoughts and hit the reader with some loose pure poetry. Keep writing though, hopefully I'll see you again on one of these threads.

>>7031631
word up, I like it

thank you my man

>>7023772
Ding dong! The school bell rang and everyone was excited to get out of their seats. They got their bags and hurried to the doors. They ran outside and laughed and talked to each other and smiled because school was over. The sky was bright and sunny, it was a great day. However it was going to rain soon.

As the crimson sun began to die across the sky, I turned back to look at him one last time. It was no great surprise to see that he had already turned away, headed back towards the scrawny trailer that he called home. I suddenly felt the urge to sprint back there, to demand he return my dignity, a prize he didn't deserve, and then I would tell him words I had held inside for years.

Instead I turned once more, the process of burying and swallowing having already begun. This would be the last time. Just as it had been before.

I should have felt free. Or happy. But I felt as I always did, perhaps a little fuzzier in the head, but nothing that would last into the next day. I swallowed the crisp air, my mind unable to stop on a solitary thought. I was totally wrapped around myself, enough so that I almost stepped on him.

Maybe "It" would serve better. It was some desolate bastard, probably a man, wrapped up for the cold, head down and hand out. As I looked down at him, I found myself almost envious. He had everything and nothing, no one to love, no one to hurt him; nothing except the clothes on his back, so nothing left to be cruelly pulled away from him. In that moment, I wanted to toss my wallet in the street and sit down beside him.

I was home by midnight. Everyone else had faded from my weary mind, and I thought of no one but myself until the sun rose again.

When I rose to face the next one, I cleared my mind and left the house. Today was different from all the days before, except that it wasn't.

>>7031176
Very good, and while it would be very difficult to use that style on a full-sized piece, if you pulled it off, it could be a masterpiece. But then again, I've always liked that raw, stream of consciousness type of prose.

>>7031022
Blood Meridian. I read that paragraph yesterday. Sweet shit.

>>7031608
parts of this are good
>masturbating whatever spare seed he had
ha!
but this is really wordy for no reason and doesn't feel very tightly edited and some of the metaphors run on too long clunk up everything like the dessicated eel part . also
>the act of ejaculation
ejaculation isn't really an act and again too wordy, the sentence would function equally well starting on ejaculation

>>7031022
mate joyce was writing fucking ages ago this is not fresh or interesting anymore
with that said it being what it is good stuff nonetheless i like it a lot although please edit it wall of text is draining to read

>>7030586
so wordy fuck
you don't need to be in a rush to pull out all of your tricks from the bag at once
save some words for later
also
>somewhere in one's insides
>one
no
also this is really vague, despite/due to the wordiness i guess. what actually transpired here? he went to jump off the rock, missed and fell and hurt himself ? what was the sound ?
this needs to be condensed into way less sentences

>>7030332
is this how you think or speak irl
have you been in any sort of comparative situation to this
no you haven't had this experience and it feels forced and stale as the rehash of cliches it is

>>7030315
being oblique doesn't always sound wise
also using religious themes and mythical figures is pretty tedious unless you're doing something really whacky with them

>>7030301
>>7030296
pointing out how obnoxious your writing is doesn't make it any better
it makes it worse
>whether you saw me as genius, ridiculous or total try-hard
>you had to listen to me
holding readers hostage to your shitty writing is all you've got.. ?

>>7031874
this
>>7030332
is a famous poem by thomas campbell, lad

maybe you should rethink how you criticize others

>>7030214
look at all those words you know

>>7030141
this tbh
so much of the stuff in these threads is empty experiential accounts using borrowed techniques without the ideological context they made sense in originally

>>7030073
this has a lot more narrative in a much shorter space than any of the rest posted here you know how to move it along without over description and the account feels honest
a bit of crudeness in places
>Ellie and I hadn't had sex in a month
there's definitely a way to communicate that without saying it like that

>>7029990
this works as a creepypasta breddy gud
but as an honest critique not a lot of this works it's very dramatic and the content is all cliches
>hairs attempting to escape pores
very forced metaphor

>>7029486
i didn't read it because i'm not following any pastebin links but "psychopath" as a character type is really overdone and not usually done interestingly or honestly

>>7029242
read this aloud - it doesn't flow

>>7027365
this is actually pretty atmospheric but your descriptions tend to be pretty blunt
>spreading out like a tumor
>jet black body of the car absorbs the rest
>like a hangman's pole
these aren't necessarily bad but in context come off very forced expression of "this setting is post apocalypse" being stated at readers rather than unfolding naturally

>>7025254
my kneejerk is to hate this because of the blanket joyce aping but at the same time it actually reads pretty nice but like find your own style you can go beyond this

>>7025205
i hate this effort at "sophistication" like are you writing an essay or a story because it works as neither. you're telling the reader things and nothing more, and doing it in a roundabout way doesn't sound fancy it just takes longer to read
>one must understand
>one
fuck ya

>>7031912
>famous poem by thomas campbell

i stand by my critique
maybe i just don't understand poems

>>7031874
You've rubbished a famous poem and an extract from Blood Meridian.

>>7031937
You probably don't, then.

>>7031874
Please do not offer critique here ever again.

>>7031938
Also do mine because no one has yet and it's short:
>>7031577

>>7031938
>>7031940
>>7031941

i do not like cormac mccarthy sorry
i did not realise critiques had to be representative of popular opinion (?) and just gave my own opinions.

>>7031816
Fantastic to hear, thank you a lot for your kind words, this is certainly reason to write more

>>7031946
I don't care man but really when you hold an opinion that contravenes scores of people who literally spend their lives appraising literature then people will side against you. Not saying you're wrong, I don't dig McCarthy either but both pieces were good.

>>7031930
>>7031938
>>7031941
Meh.
He gave my piece a pretty positive review.
I don't care.
lol.
Maybe that is a good sign, maybe it isn't.

>>7031944
>>7031944
that's not fair
you know that my criticism is now cast in a different light by the mccarthy and campbell post so whatever i say you think will be a response to that, not an unbiased response

but anyway this is obviously well above the average i don't know why you hid it at the bottom of a set of long critiques the word "sashays" doesn't work, "unlit pools" is real nice

>>7031962
>>7031962
Yeah, I thought sashays was off but liked the sound of it a lot.

I'm glad you liked it, you're right that knowing a price has prestige gives it unfair benefits though.

I hide them because I like the anons I critique to respond and also because it's more of an afterthought and just something I wrote for fun.

>>7031959
reading and judging something is very different when the context is one amongst many on /lit/

if you think the words have value regardless of who's saying them ok but reading something like the mccarthy excerpt amongst many similar /derivative pieces sort of devalues it

also my critique of the poem was exactly that i didn't think the author had had those experiences, and that the writing was cliche. the poem being famous a lot of that stuff which was fresh then most likely is pretty cliche by now...

>>7031803
The best years of yr life are folding past—yet yr posting shattered shit prose when ye should be squirting juice onto & into inanimate objects & fräuleins in strained balletic 2nd positions, all under the cracked open sun.

>>7031608
>>7031610
Humiliating read. Stuffed with ghosts. Understand that while you BELIEVE yr mind is a pitch black theater, when ye open up with prose the whole id makes a guest appearance, flying us into a weird pixelated map of what's behind yr eyes—low quality furnishings fed on tv and mental voices that won't stop chattering... Ashamed of yr skin? An awkward skeleton? It's going to sting until it's gone.

>>7031176
Is that the curtain closer? Get it all out—ye don't want the best of ye buried with yr rotting, makeuped head (or burned up in an oven or w/e ye hippies do nowadays). \m/

>>7031577
Too short to really say anything of substance about. I don't understand what kind of mood you're trying to impart -- your language suggests I'm supposed empathize with this guy but I'm mostly drifting between apathy and contempt. Repetition like "Out here, outside" bogs it down in a pretty big way.

>>7031608
>>7031610
At first oddly touching, then meandering off into inconsequential horseshit. You use several adjectives incorrectly (desiccated, refractory, among others), and there are some which I doubt are words at all (unfatigable (should be in-)).

>>7031803
Trite trash, too many words in service of too few ideas. Also romanticizing the homeless is a shitty thing to do.

>>7029486
>What about the unbeatable opponent
Literally One Punch Man. Outdone by a mango.
Apply yourself anon.

>>7032059

this critique is good writing

>>7032079
>romanticizing the homeless is a shitty thing to do
why though
Most people just spit on them or insult them or ignore them

>>7032043
That makes little sense, so I'll take it as a compliment.

>>7032079
With >>7031803 did you pick up on the underlying narcissism and self-importance? Because that was the point, a person filled with enough self-pity and thoughtlessness that he would envy a homeless person and not realize how stupid that is.

>>7032090
It's patronizing and short-sighted, showing a serious lack of perspective. I guarentee, any homeless person would rather have trifling romantic problems than be living outside, dressed in rags. Would you, in real life, walk up to some toothless bum and say, "You know, even though you eat trash and risk freezing to death in the winter, at least you're FREE. You don't know the crushing weight of having responsibility, and having real live people who care about you..." and so on. I imagine you'd get about that far before he started choking you out.

Like, I understand the sentiment, but it's misguided, and comes across as particularly odious in that paragraph above because the starry-eyed idealization is juxtaposed with calling the guy "It," and a desolate bastard.

>>7032109
Yeah, I did, but with /lit/ (and such short samples of writing), I always find it difficult to tell what's satire and what some moron thinks is profound.

>>7032133
>>7032109

>>7032139
Fair enough. It IS a very short piece, I'm trying to build my shit back up to what it once was.

The Manlet

He pulls his chin upwards, stretching his neck slightly, perhaps even involuntary taken by the tension on his back, on his thighs, calves, all the way to his pinky toe muscle, twitching claustrophobically inside the deepest core of his black man heels lifting him up to more than one fourth of his own height, a knee lenght of his inaptitude redeemed. Only to stop short his opponents by the height of a forehead, calling for a dash of synthetic hair previously plugged in to bring it up a little bit (the world is bound by contract to not mess with his hair). Meanwhile, his eyes are pretending they are looking straight or looking down, when they are constantly looking from his upper eyelids, now completely droopy from high usage, desperatelly hanging on to internal stiches of pure concrete botox, and growing long eyelashes that serve as a cap to hide his iris, years of traumatic encounters in a world of tall people, a myriad of chests and stomaches to cross his horizon, bullies, women. His entire confidence is put there in the stretching up of all his internal muscles, projecting himself in his mind, pretending, believing, acting up as a tall person, even if it is all so obvious to everyone and including himself that it is an act. I pity them.

Spoons are also widely used in cooking and serving. Occasionally flat-topped containers, they were most frequently either rod-shaped, or tall and narrow with a sloping top necessitated by a series of raised veins for exhibiting the handles of knives and the bowls of spoons. The surprise was 13-piece diamond-encrusted accessories and toilet articles, he developed an interest in drawing at an early age.

Addition has several important properties. It is commutative, meaning that order does not matter, and it is associative, meaning that when one adds more than two numbers, the order in which addition is performed does not matter. . At the age of 15 the teenagers go to Ensino Médio (Mid Teaching/School), which is equivalent High School in other countries, but it is only 3 years long (grades 10 to 12) and can either be a regular or technical course.

Vitamins are essential for the normal growth and development of a multicellular organism. Using the genetic blueprint inherited from its parents, a fetus begins to develop, at the moment of conception, from the nutrients it absorbs. It requires certain vitamins and minerals to be present at certain times. These nutrients facilitate the chemical reactions that produce among other things, skin, bone, and muscle. There is a teaching among the Orthodox that the "Two Witnesses" referred to in the Book of Revelation 11:3-13 are Enoch and Elijah who will be sent back to earth to preach the Gospel in the time of apostasy, and will be the last Christian martyrs before the Second Coming. According to Revelation, they will be resurrected and ascend again to heaven.

First Kiss

Outside Amanda's stoop, Tim compliantly moved his lips and tongue, thinking of lamp plugs yanked from sockets and of sport utility vehicles crumpling beneath the hydraulic press. Amanda would step back and perform a certain blink, tucking her chin and widening her eyes, perhaps alluding to does walking on sprained ankles or other vulnerable prey. Then she'd dip back in for kisses. What was it Tim missed? He'd never once considered the upturned kid's tryke knocked over in the far corner of Amanda's yard, or the hive of splintered plastic cups breeding by their fogged-out basement window. Her breath packed the punch of a glass of bourbon, yes -- just like his lips reeked of pineapple rum. What was his problem? Why couldn't the silhouettes moving against orange stagelights up and down this street feel benignly reflective? Why did Tim imagine them waiting 'till his back was turned to clamber over rusty sills, weird implements clutched akimbo in one hand? Why did astrology feel so bright and unhinged?

Amanda took his hand, shut her door, and helped Tim quietly welcome lightless night.

shahadat in Punjabi) is a fundamental concept in Sikhism and represents an important institution of the faith. The Sikh Gurus and the Sikhs that followed them are some of the greatest examples of martyrs who fought against Mughal tyranny and oppression, upholding the fundamentals of Sikhism, where their lives were taken during non-violent protesting or in battles. The house where Anton Fausner’s wheelwright and wagonmaker’s shop was located is on Grand Avenue just south of I-495. Later, an auto shop, Maspeth Auto Parts, was located in that building. In 2006, that house was torn down and replaced by a bank.

>>7032059
I was chasing three ideas, mainly the meanderings of Beckett, the language philosophy of Wittgenstein, and the logical consequence of Borges.

Please critique purely on the terms of the prose. This kind of psychoanalytics is not of any help whatsoever. Its like what Nietzsche does when he attributes Kant a moral flabbiness because he sees too much rigor as a bad thing. Let me assure you though that I had the greatest joy writing this, and that, contrary to your idea, I was not 'ghost-haunted' in the same way a Plath or a Sexton or a Hughes or any other confessionalist poets are ghost-haunted when they invoke their febrile psyche to create over-mutilated symbol-orders that correspond to their inane grievances.

At least >>7031874
and >>7032079
try to critique the language properly.

As for your prose, it has that high po-mo feel of a person who wants to invoke too many disparate ideas into a single sentence. 'Yr' reminds me of DFW. The overall feel reeks of the paranoia of a DeLilio or a Pynchon. But its very gothic as well.

The imagery is conflicting because the whole first part has feelings of a transience, whereas the latter part seems a condemnation of the material. For example you use 'ghosts', 'flying into a weird', 'pixelated', 'furnishings fed on tv', and 'mental voices'. These create a language order of the simulacrum, of a being haunted by transient scores of things. But then you equate the ghost to the skin. The skin haunts. The ghosts come from the material. When Yeats writes about the destitution of the mortal flesh, he does it in such a way

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,

He uses tatters as an invocation of the transient nature of the material. You can use the same word order in order to set your point. Skin and skeleton are contrary. You want to give the idea that the writer is ghost-haunted, but you say he wants to shed his materiality. Keep to a language order to make your point, or swap it around to turn the previous metaphors to bloodied ones. For example you can keep the order of 'skin' if you had used boils, sores, cuts, evisceration, avulsions, or any rich vocabulary indicating the damnation of the material, yet you chose to invoke the call of spirits and specters. Are you saying that I'm haunted by a ghost-like id that fades in and out of my head like so many weaves of silk, or are you saying that I'm inflicted with the true over-materiality of the Freudian eros? With all its steamy, bloody, and fecal connotation.

This is my correction:

"Humiliating read. Stuffed with ghosts. Understand that while YOU believe your mind is an empty stage, when ye invoke a scripture, the whole host of spectres entreats a diagram of that fogged up map behind your eyes, bred on white noise and mental strain... A tattered weave? An awkward sapience? It's going to sting until its gone."

>>7032301
Lol bro, you're not doing yourself any favors. There's nothing of Beckett, Wittgenstein, or Borges in your piece, which (despite your best efforts, I'm sure) reads as an extended exercise in "masturbating retards lmao." It was on those grounds I critiqued, and it is on those grounds that it deserves to be critiqued.

>>7028985
>>7031155
bumping my posts, please forgive me /lit/

>>7032400
Well why didn't you just say so? That makes so much more sense on /lit/ than that psychoanalytic pseudo-poetic bullshit. If you're going to shitpost might as well do it properly instead of trying to feign some kind of faux-Freudian critique.

>>7032412
I'm not the incoherent guy, I'm >>7032079.

>>7030153 roadbump

I tried to find your face today. I find myself glancing up to look out across the sprawling expanse of sputtering, jittering cavities in hope that your lips will leap out at me and suck the insects from my throat. They’ve gotten comfortable. They must have moved in while I sat staring agape at these aluminum colossi reaching for the moon. The moon is ours. Maybe they want to take it from us.

I tried to hear your laugh today. I strain my ears so that I might hear the smoky thunderclap whenever I cut through with a one-liner or joke. It’s never there. Even if it were, the cacophony around me would drown it out. The cicadas are the closest I’ve got. Did you know the cry of a cicada is loud enough to cause permanent hearing loss in a human should they let loose close enough to your ear? That’s pretty loud. Just loud enough that maybe all of the cicadas across these one thousand three hundred and sixty four kilometres are translating for us. Maybe their wail is the best they can do in letting us hear each other again. Maybe those are what the insects in my throat are. If I could speak with the voice of a thousand cicadas, maybe you would be able to hear me from the moon.

>>7031577
'Writing about writing' anon here. Yeah, I'm going try again without gimmicks. I'm going to cut the writing part (re-reading it now and it doesn't fit with the rest). I'm also going to cut 'author is god' stuff. I'll post it once I'm done.

>>7032301
Considering yr consideration: ye missed th point. Are ye familiar w/Hard to be a God? Consider yr answer, it will be more layered than ye think...

>>7032568
So mysterious!

>>7032412
That wasn't me fgt. I'll FIGHT BOTH OF YE. I wonder what made ye take the word 'id' so srsly? WHAT ARE YE RUNNING FROM

Sometimes I feel my struggle will be never ending
My life is temporary, but I've doomed generations to come
Ruined life un-started--contemplation of the diseases
It all revolves back to by this happened to me

I wish I could be a success and looked upon with approval
Perhaps I am--but it's all a lie-- to scared to feel true emotion, but still can cry

It's so hard not to drink--so close, I had bottle in hand, smelled the toxic fumes, but then a face looked at me so I put the bottle down in shame. I'd like to move away from that staring face, and I did, taking my first drink in 40 days, 40 days after I promised myself I would never drink again. MODERATION. moderation never lasts.

To go back to simple days-- I'm already set in my ways-- Some things never change. I run from my obligations and don't know why-- I've failed myself and everyone around, can't wait till I'm underground-- better yet, burn me! I'd burn myself, I have been for quite some time already.
One thing I write out of 100 is worth a penny-- they say this is where my talent lies, I say it's been asleep a long time, must be dead not unlike my mind

>>7032762
If the best thing you can think to do while tripping is shitpost, you're probably a dull person

Go to bed Colin

>>7032568
I really liked the first part of this. I don't think the second part did it justice. I was extremely disappointed that you started focusing of the cicada. That sucked. In my opinion the first part should lead you in to writing so much better rather than giving facts about a specific insect not many people know about.

>>7032301
yeah i'm the third guy who critiqued your original thing and this is a mindblowing response to one internet person who didn't like your thing wow

you actually "corrected" their critique
that's outrageously poor sportsmanship

>>7033000
Yr so right & I'm so sry!

& my name is Colon (ye were close)! ;^DDDD

>>7033035
no wait shit, can I give you something wack I wrote?

>>7033019
Let me correct my own critique, now that I actually read that boy's post. It should have said:

A lovely example of the glass closet.

She set the scene, casting her feautureless clit in every role.

" that slut," he said, grabbing her belly.

He did three burps, one after another like sneezes, which smelled of charcoal.

The girth of her thigh tightened up and out like a stem of toothpaste in his palms, forcing out her ovaries in a burst of cum and piss.

he felt a burgeoning tide of urine building in his dick, ready to push out the gelatin caterpillar of cum that blocked its path

Her tongue worked the air like a nipple, frozen piss frosting her pubes

He pulled for the sprawl of her breasts, her oil sanctuaries, and thought dumbly about the chambered sun of his body-parts.

in the cold, the cum on her thigh quietly hardened into a jewelled worm.

>>7033049
'casting her clit in every role' might be genius...

&

'hardened into a jewelled..." too.

It's actually Burroughsy w/o being stale. I'd read more.

She had me meet her at a friend's house. She wrote a shirt that said Giver and her face was freshly washed without any makeup on. It was then that I became in love with her. The natural beauty of her face had a radiance...

I was rereading the letter you sent again, it takes on a different tone now that you are single. Sorry he was an asshole by the way, you didn't deserve that. Fuck. I wanted to avoid that subject, figure you do as well. I've told myself I have one shot at this, otherwise it'll just end up with my finger on the delete key. It's happened before, its why this reply is so late.

I don't remember when I met you, you were around for a long time but we never spoke. Then we did, we certainly did. I miss that. Hopefully this letter can bring us back to that. Back to the time when those photos were taken. Back when we thought we would have forever. I know things won't be the same, we're older now, and you are even better for it; I hope I have aged half as well.

Neither of us have left yet and I miss you already, I hope we can keep in touch. You know, I've taken a liking to letter writing. Maybe that could be our thing?

With friendship and love,

Anon

>>7033002
Good stuff, thanks.

Part of me felt that way before posting. There's just something mood breaking about the "Did you know..." bit.

Good looking out, anon.

>>7033459
Cliched and doesn't really accomplish much.

If you wrote this to get laid: go for it.
If you wrote this for any other reason: put your finger on the delete key.

>>7033709
I just rolled my eyes so hard it caused ineffable pain.

>>7033727
If you can't even describe the pain in your eyes and if you were serious about this post, it's time to drop the pen.

>>7033735
>2015
>pen
>more awkward cliches

>>7033737
Wanna know how I know you know nothing ?

>>7033709
I spent a lot of time censoring it, replacing specific references with vague suggestions

it would have felt dirty to actually post it online

When the room was empty he poured a large glass of wine. It was poor quality stuff brought in after the blockade but he hardly noticed. Wine was officially forbidden on Levant, which meant that the hordes of wine sellers foisted off anything alcoholic on their customers, even wealthy ones like the Bury family. Horace Bury had never developed any real appreciation for expensive liquors. He bought them to show his wealth, and for entertaining; but for himself anything would do. Coffees were a different matter.

How casually living hearts announce themselves. There is no death in prim green lawns or the glinting crowds at night. Ten of them for one of us. Sometimes I believe we are the survivors of some great shipwreck, washed up on the shore of reality. A flutter of waking and we are asleep again. How the dead watch.

>>7033898
Its not that bad, but give some kind of description of the wine itself unless that deliberate omission serves a thematic purpose

When the room was empty he poured forth doodies from his poopshoot. It was poor quality stuff brought in after the blockade but he hardly noticed. Doodoo was officially forbidden on Levant, which meant that the hordes of shit smellers snuffled up anything foul off their clients, even wealthy ones like the Bury family. Horace Bury had never developed any real appreciation for expensive excrement. He released them to show his wealth, and for entertaining; but for himself anything would do. Diarhea was a different matter.

As Adam scanned the crowded café looking for a place to sit. He made his way towards the back of the cafe, weaving through crowded tables, unable to find an open table

"Adam" he heard from a woman in the corner table alone.

Adam gave a nervous wave and made his way to her. He gave her a smile and head node before he sat down across from her. She was the type of woman that even though her hair was grey and her skin was wrinkled you could tell she was a beautiful woman. Neither person knew what to say. She swirled the creamer in her coffee while he watched other people as if he was looking for someone.

http://pastebin.com/XKbL2qvL

On his walk home a rock struck Jim in the head. His thoughts muddied and his brain bloodied, he continued on his way home, not bothering to treat his injuries. He opened the door to his cheap house, and was greeted by his wife, Djml, who he considered to be only somewhat attractive.

"Ô, Jim, what has happened to your head!" She cried out in shock.

"Ah, 'tis naught dear, but a rock of fate à la tête, thou seest!"

"Jom, we must get thee to a hospital for to treat your wounds!"

"Like I said, O Djml, It's nothing to worry your qouynt over, dear."

"But Jam, there's a cut on the side of your head, and it's bleeding much!"

"I admit that to be true, Ac, twas an act of fate; This would not have happened were it not meant to, some fremdmiht willed it to be, and so it is, and, while tis not the most desirable of things, I shall live with it."

Djml grabbed a rock of the coffe-table, and took it to Jim's head rather forcefully, leaving another rock-mark on his head, and an unconscious Jim on the ground. She grabbed his body, and dragged into the car, to take him to the hospital.

>>7033970
This is good. The first four sentences I felt were stronger than the last two .
>A flutter of waking and we are asleep again.
Sounds cliched. It's a fairly interesting play on the death=sleep and living=wake thing, with death, "sleeping", being almost our more normal state, and I think there's something there, but this reads as weaker than everything before it.
>How the dead watch.
This is actually fine, I just feel like this could have ended far more strongly. There's such a passivity to this, which if it's what you were going for, cool, I just didn't think it worked.

Hope I helped!

>>7034540
This is funny, odd, and quirky, however there were some sections that came across as "LOL RANDUM xD" more than kind of unique and charming.

>Ah, 'tis naught dear, but a rock of fate à la tête, thou seest
This entire sentence really did not set well. The word choice was almost painful to read.

The antiquated language just really needs to be drawn back a bit. Yeah, all the dialogue has it, but here, reading it, it just seemed so blatant and in-your-face it was painful.
Honestly, if you trimmed the sentence to just
>"Ah, 'tis naught dear, but a rock of fate!"
It would work much better.

Unless there's a real reason she keeps saying his name differently, cut it.

>fremdmiht
Out of curosity, was the inclusion of the German "fremd" in this word here deliberate? Because it almost instantly stood out to me, and if it was I can't say I'm too certain of why.

Ending is the best part imo.

>>7034480
>sand-covered, desert plain
>She smiled and tilted her head in the most delightful quirkiness
bbbbbruh...

Possible Zombie Nouns:
fragility
inhalation

Lexical Diversity: 38.19 %
Content Carrying Words: 53.08 %

Longest word:
expressionless
[and lo! it is terrible]

not sure if it was a joke or yr a woman or what

Imagine yourself in a box; A tall, confined area with barely enough room for you to move around. It’s dark, and you can’t see a thing. You’re tired and worn out. Your hands are pressed against its walls to hold yourself up.
The darkness is warm, almost hot. It’s relaxing in a strange way. The air is thick, almost suffocating, taking up space in your box.
Wait. Stop, don’t think. There’s no time.
Imagine water pouring into the box. It’s raining down on you at a steady pace and you feel it puddle at your feet. Your body drenched, your muscles unraveling. You just want to shut down, because that’s what every fiber of your being is telling you to do. Give in and let it go, but you can’t.
You wonder why you’re in here and how you got here. Did you put yourself here? Is someone getting revenge on you for something? Is anyone going to save you? Does anyone even know you’re in here? Is someone looking for you?
The more you think, the more it seems like the walls close in around you. The deeper you go into thought, the deeper the water seems to get. Your toes are submerged.
Maybe you’re dead. Is this the core of unconsciousness? The essence of non-existence: a mind without a body. Lost in oblivion but still functioning at full capacity. The mind convincing itself it’s trapped in this box to comprehend and fathom the abyss you exist in. It’s true, we can’t understand infinity. This is merely an illusion you’ve created. A false sense of security to give form to the void. No heaven, no hell. Only darkness.
No, you’re very much alive. You have to be. You still have a body
You can feel the warmth of the water wrapping around your ankles.

>>7034644
Maybe you’ve always lived in this box. Maybe this is your home, but you’ve just now realized it. Trapped, like a prisoner. Every movement and motion limited. There’s nowhere to walk to, and no place to go. A constant yet stagnant life, day after day, hour after hour; every single day becomes an exact replica of the one before. The walls are slowly enclosing on you. So slow, you don’t even notice. You just go with the flow, never questioning things because no good would come of it. No one is around to listen and frankly, no one would care what you had to say. Perhaps at some point, you had a lot more space. Perhaps it wasn’t always so dark.
And perhaps your box wasn’t always filing with water.
How long do you have before the water consumes you completely?
And how long can you hold your breath before your lungs fail and you drown?
You can’t swim. You know this. So, why let yourself wind up in this predicament?
Why are you here?
Suddenly, the water turns freezing cold.
Adrenaline forces my eyes open and I realize I’m in the shower at home, lingering somewhere between cognition and REM sleep. It’s a weird combination of being wide awake and mentally exhausted beyond function.
My foot’s been blocking the drain and the water has filled up the tub to my ankles.
And I just ran out of hot water.
How long have I been in here, I wonder? Long enough for Alex to be banging on the door worried that I died or something. “You alright?” He asks.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I yell over the wall of sound created by the shower raining down on the puddle at my ankles. I lift my fit off the hole and watch the water spiral down into the drain and create a small whirl pool as the now freezing puddle slowly diminishes.
This is the point where you realize you’re no longer in control of any aspect of your life.

>>7034650
What do you guys think of this? I wrote it last year while I was still at my shitty job.

Anything will do typing typing typing thinking no expression, no inspiration, desiring something profound to chew I rummage through mountains of garbage that rob and bite and scrutinize and belittle. Jesse gave me that slug and its name is 4chan, grotesque, wriggling, mutated and covered in slime. I tried flushing it but it clogged the toilet, just like that time he shit himself. I wonder if he remembers. I wonder if he thinks about me at all.

And i can Change
who I am
to suit what the oak needs

I know it’s strange
but i can
even as i approach the reeds

and I may float my way back home again
from coast to coast, from poem to poem again

and I was green
when you came
but my color let me down

I am orange today
and tomorrow I’ll be brown

>>7024454
Loved it, except for
, oh well. I guess I will just sit here and wait for my inevitable death
brakes the flow.
The rest got me intrested really quickly.

>>7024695
Why limit to sexuall way.
What is the signifigance of giving her liberties only with that, and what do you consider sexual. I think you should explain a bit more before you try to get it published.

>>7025205
Lul. Hard Lul. Actual lul. Keep at it.

Something I wrote to be to be an intro to my novel.

I look through the peep hole in my hotel door to see three people wearing blank masks exactly like mine. At first, they politely knock. When I tell them to go away, the knocks turn into bangs.
We know you’re in there, they say.
Three masks like the one I used to wear, their empty expressions seemingly staring at me from the hallway. They think they’ve got me cornered.
We’re going to break down this door, they say.
“All the others threatened the same thing,” I reply. “The door is still standing.”
Not for long, they say. It’s time to come out now, they say.
This has been happening since 3 am this morning. I can’t so much as take a shower or watch some T.V. without someone standing outside my door and demanding I come out.
We’ve got a lot of work to do, they say.
They keep punching the door. They’re a persistent bunch, I’ll give them that.
“Go away,” I yell. “I’ve got a gun! I’m ready to use it.”
I’m wasting my breath. I know they aren’t scarred of guns. Each and every one of them is ready to throw their lives away.
You’re going to open that door, they say. Or we’ll make you open it.
I put the barrel in my mouth and turn my back to them and lean against the solid door. Their kicks shake and rattle my exhausted body. My mouth wraps around the gun and my teeth grip the barrel. I’m ready, I say. This is it.
But I know that a gun without bullets is next to useless. It’s merely an empty threat or wishful thinking. I know myself well enough by now to say that I couldn’t squeeze the trigger even if the gun were loaded. I’m certain they know that, too.
You should look out window, they say.
I lay the gun on the table and pull my curtains back just enough to see outside. Standing in the parking lot are easily a hundred people, men and women alike. Each of them is wearing a mask. Some of them are wearing masks like mine. Others wear animals, Halloween masks, or something original they made at home. They’re standing outside my hotel looking up at my room holding gasoline cans and torches.

>>7037000
I run to the door. “This needs to stop now,” I say to the people still standing there. “This shit is over. I’m not coming out, end of story! I’m calling the police.”
We’ll do whatever it takes, they say. The police won’t help you.
I saw the riots happening on the news. Buildings were set on fire and violent crime is happening all over. The National Guard we’re called in early this morning to help control the situation. No, they’re right. The police are occupied. They can do whatever they want and no one cares enough to stop them.
You have five minutes, they say. We have a lot of work to do, Ayden.
“That’s not my name!” I shout, but I can hear their footsteps trail down the hall. Finally, they’re gone.
I know they’ll be back though. It won’t be long before they try something stupid. With a city under martial law and a bunch of lunatics running around, anything can happen. No one is safe anymore, not even me.
I want to take full responsibility for this. After all, I started a movement, however unintentional it was. Like all things, it was innocent fun at first. I ran around the city in a mask a night, having a good time and winding down from adulthood. Other people thought it looked fun and joined in.
It mutated into something beyond liberating yourself. Social media has a tendency to shit on anything decent.
A couple of people having a good time and playing dress up turns into a news story about a street gang committing small acts of vandalism. Then more people show up, some wanting to join the fun and others needing to spectate, to see it with their own eyes.
The more people that got involved, the more opinions got added to the mix. Soon, wearing a mask at night and acting like a fool becomes a banner for whatever social or economic issue that’s going on. Having a good time morphs into a movement representing whatever you want.
Cops are shooting black kids. Religion is trying to bring science back into the shadows. The countries wealth is controlled by a handful of people. Whatever the case may be, it’s not fun anymore. Now, it’s about large group of angry people with one thing in mine: Change.
It’s a revolution now.
It’s lead to arson, riots, and destruction of public property. A lot of people have been injured and a few have died. Masked fools are running around inciting anarchy and chaos. And the person who started it all, their chosen leader, has locked himself in a hotel.
There’s another knock at the door.

>>7037007
“I’m not coming out,” I say.
“Let me in, Ayden,” responds a familiar, soft voice.
I look through the people hole to see a friend of mine, someone whom I thought abandoned me a while ago. She’s wearing her usual fox mask.
“Is that you, Fox?” I ask.
I open the door for the first time in a couple of days and let her in.
“What the fuck is going on?” She asks. “And why are you still wearing your mask?”
“In case someone managed to get in,” I say. “I didn’t want them to know who I was.”
“You have to get out of here,” she says.
“I can’t leave,” I say.
“They’re going to set the hotel on fire,” she says. “You have no choice.”
Sure enough, the fire alarm goes off signaling everyone to evacuate the hotel.
“I’d rather burn,” I say.
The hotel sprinklers go off.
“Quit being an idiot,” she demands.
“I’m scarred, Fox!” My voice shakes. “How did things get so serious? What went wrong?”
“If you take off your mask, they won’t recognize you. I’ll take off mine, too.” She says.
We promised each other that we never would.
“Desperate times and such,” she says.
Fox and I we’re the first to wear the masks. We made a promise that when we wore the masks, we could be our true selves and not the fake human waste we pretended to be during the day. We also promised to never reveal ourselves to each other.
“I would be lying if I said that I haven’t figured out who you are by now,” I say. “I thought you we’re a stranger, but I’ve known you all along.”
“I know, Ayden.”

>>7034543
Thanks for reading. It did.

What I was going for near the end was the idea that it's tragic you have to be alive in the first place to take life for granted. you need to have the gift to throw it away. But it just came across as just another p cliche sleep = death metaphor.

well whatever guys here is a poem

2208

I had quarreled with monks of Corrientes
down the street where in the 60s
James Vercetti knocked his front teeth in a slugger years before he ends illustrious doing adverts for the movies
choking on a piece of salmon one day late my 20th birthday
I’ve accused of bad faith
those three foreign perfect friars, scourging talk –
for we spoke no common language
pleading that the oiled fuzz does not suit the One Appointed
nor the blue striped robes that they wore over their jumpsuits –
I have cried with the affliction of a deeply wound apostle
dump the rags into the cauldron
so then don your dark kasaya
I turned up my velvet collar starting onwards to New Haven
with the rope around my shoulder holding incisors and crickets
sweated off the squares to plant those
brick upon another for communal family tree
I decide to carry up my passed down marbles
to spin in new soil
oh the Lord shines even brighter when He walketh down the mountain

>>7033898
I'd read more.

>>7033459
Didn't feel real. Too forced, too cliche.

>> You know, I've taken a liking to letter writing. Maybe that could be our thing?
This part made me cringe a little.

Try again except with some real emotion.
Stop telling me that you have a deep connection with someone, make me feel it.

bump

Was away from my laptop for a few months so I decided to buy a notepad and start trying to write without any distractions. I found it much easier to write this way, but I still wasn't entirely happy when I read back what I'd written. I'd appreciate any constructive criticism.

I was basically trying to write a few passages for a story idea I'd had about a man whose marriage and family breaks down after he finds out about his wife's affair, but is offered the chance to deal with it by creating a virtual reality. Below I'll type a bit of what I came up with so far.

>>7024012
were you trying to make a "cut the cheese" fart joke

>>7037499
With fondness he remembered the first time he had been with her. He thought not of her breasts or her sex or the way she had moaned beneath him, but was instead consumed with all of the details which had seemed so irrelevant at the time but were now everything. The soft skin of her bare back as he traced his fingers lazily around her body. The shine of her flowing hair as she pulled it loose from her braid, and the smell of her shampoo as he kissed her neck.

He had felt no greater contentment in his life than when her body was pressed close to his and they cuddled and bathed in the afterglow of a perfect night. He doubted whether he would ever feel that content again. Time had stood still, he completely lost in her perfection and dreading the arrival of the morning where the dream would end and reality would come creeping back in.

Just let this last forever he thought, as he played with her hair and listened to her recounting some adorably directionless story, her voice still coated with sleepiness. Let this last forever because I AM IN LOVE! I finally know how it feels to share my most intimate self with someone and have them share with me too. I want to do it again tomorrow night and the night after that and every night after until they put me in the ground. I could NEVER tire of sharing this with her.

>>7037544
He entered the void and the world began to take shape around him. An assortment of swirling colours and textures began to settle in meaningful form as he focused his conscious mind on the scene he wanted to create. A warehouse shrouded in a dim light. A hospital bed in the middle of the floor. The figure of a naked woman chained to the bed by her hands and feet, crying into a gag. The face morphed and distorted until it settled into his design, a helpless Alice struggling to escape her bonds, as youthful and nubile as she had been the first night he took her.

He looked over her as she pathetically failed to free herself. The tight feeling in his chest got even tighter and he realised just how much he hated this woman that he loved. What was about her that had tormented him so much in the past? She was just a lump of meat like the rest of us after all. Did he love that ungraceful and uncoordinated body as it flailed in the chains like a dying fish? Did he love that stupid face and those stupid eyes all red from tears?

He allowed his fury to dictate his actions and delighted in the rush of power that it gave him. Reaching over her body, he strangled her around the neck and laughed as she choked and struggled for breath. She was nothing, she was truly nothing. He had the power and how could she hurt him when she was as weak and useless as this?

(*1)

>>7037575
Her constant thrashing about beneath him began to turn him on and so he released her neck and removed his trousers and underwear. He pushed her legs apart and entered her roughly and inwardly chuckled as he remembered the months she had withheld sex from him as a punishment for some bullshit reason, all the time while she was probably fucking that smooth bastard in the Mercedes. Bob what get what he deserved now, oh yes he would, and so would she.

She fought as fiercely as she could at first, throwing her body this way and that as she tried to escape, but the bonds were inescapable and there there was no way to force her attacker off her and there was nothing she could do but let her body go slack and her mind go blank and allow the inevitable to happen.

After a while he realised that she had become a bit too vacant, and Bob found that his excitement was quickly dissipating and the tight feeling in his chest returned and he was mad again. He raised his arm and struck her face hard with the back of his hand. She cried out in pain through her gag and a stream of blood erupted from her nose and splashed all over her face and Bob was contented again. For extra measure he closed his fist and punched her again and again and again until he felt the bones of her nose break and the fight leave her completely, battered and bloody and swollen and powerless.

She was his. She had agreed to that at the fucking wedding. She had hurt him in ways that he had never been hurt before, had made him feel like he was nothing, had even made him feel like he wasn't even a man. This was his revenge and she fucking deserved it.

He thrust into her limp and unresisting body over and over and the excitement built and built as he looked at her broken face and he could feel his climax soon approaching. With a grunt he lifted his eyes to the heavens and came inside her and did not move until he was completely spent. Once he was done, he collapsed on top of her and felt completely at peace for the first time in years. He cuddled her closely and enjoyed the smell of her hair and the softness of her body against him as he fell asleep and let the world fade away around him and return to black.

(*2/2)

How does the following "flow" as a sentence?

"The right of all lawful citizens to bear arms and form a militia for national defence."

Either it's my lucky day, or Regis sent you," he said unsurprised, eyes still closed. The spectator swiveled in Phoebus's desk chair in the far corner behind him. He heard the wheels stop with a damp of a foot on the hardwood floor. The figure rose, and crossed to the kitchen in front of Phoebus.

"The boy in the lobby let me in."

"Did you blow him, too?"

"I told him the firm hired me to entertain you." She ran fingers across the granite island, her blonde hair curled over her shoulder. She crossed to the refrigerator. As she rummaged through a container in the bottom Phoebus lifted his head, and said,

"Did you talk to Regis?"

"I haven't talked to your dad since the divorce."

"I don't believe you."

"That's probably for the best," she said from deep within the refrigerator, "You've really gone bachelor here, Phoebe. Where is all your food?"

"You took half, and the rest went bad."

"Well, we'll have to order in. Your treat?" Her blue eyes entreated him,

"Let's do Chinese."

"I thought he was Italian."

"Hush. Are you hungry or not?"

Phoebus jumped from the cushions, and moved quickly to face her from the other side of the granite top.

"Why are you here, Elizabeth?"

"Why are you talking like-"

"Answer the damn question - I paid the alimony last month."

Elizabeth blinked at him, and smiled. She pressed her thumb against the back of her hand. She smiled less, but still smiling said,

"Your dad asked me to talk to you."

"Of all the damn people-"

"Let's order out."

Phoebus turned to inspect the whole of the studio, expecting his father to be nearby. He looked as far into the loft as he could from the angle of the kitchen, and at the desk where Elizabeth had waited. He turned back to the kitchen, and examined the strict, modern lines of the walls, relieved only by Elizabeth's soft figure, standing brightly in a loosely-knitted tan sweater barely covering her shoulders. His face reddened, and his eyes scrutinized her contours. He could feel the memory of her hips in his palms, and an impulse sharply replaced his palms with that of her lover's. He shuddered.

"You've lost your mind. We talk in bank transactions - please leave."

my name? earthlings can't pronounce it. it's philip. My name is philip. Thats what it sounds like to earth people. I am a yellow alien. I look like Homer Simpson. But around you I am black. I sympathize with the black people of America. They have suffered greatly. I am in favor of what you call reparations. MLK is my hero. Philip is my earth name. my real name is unpronouncable to earth people. MLK was also an alien. In fact all black people are aliens. They were forcefully taken to america to work as slaves. I call them aliens because of that. They just want to live in peace with the white man. I am yellow IRL but i am also black. I have a beard like Homer Simpson. Black people are aliens like me.

It is a Thursday and Im sitting here drinking a cup of coffee. Black gold, I call it. All black people are gold, like me. They just want to live in peace.

"Hey, Philip." It's my landlady Bertha.
"Yeah, Bertha?" She's talking to me through my front door.
"Rent's due."
"Okay." I open the front door. I invite her in for some coffee. Because that's what yellow people do. Black people do it as well. We are all in this together. Black, yellow, not silver people though. Silver people destroyed my home planet. Silver people are not welcome in my apartment for coffee. In fact a couple of silver agents are after me, Matrix-style. They want to take me to the prison camp. I look black but I'm really yellow. I don't know it yet but Bertha is really a silver person. She doesn't want my rent -- she wants my life. I look at her at her right in the eyes for the first time as she takes a sip of coffee, and I know she's silver.

I high tail it out of there. My trainquil life is over. The Silvers know I'm in Detroit. I'm running. I don't stop running until I'm completely out of breath in an unknown part of town. All around me are buildings and vacant lots. Detroit's seen better days. I've seen better days. With the Silvers on my tail I'm fucked. F-U-C-K fucked. I'm out of time, nowhere to go. Bertha was a silver. I should have known. I should have known. . .

>>7023794
Lakes don't bob. Things float in lakes (or other bodies of water) bob, but not the bodies of water themselves.

>>7037833
Why is the impulse to open yr mouth stronger than making sure yr correct? See below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_HefhiwioE

>>7037915
nice music

I'm still right though. The issue isn't the physics of how waves form in water, but the correct usage of the verb 'bob' which generally refers to the movements of objects floating in water. In fact, this is how it is used in your video.

I get how you might say that the water particles within a wave are moving up and down in a 'bobbing' motion, but it would be somewhat strange to say this.

The main point remains that the way OP used the word bob is very odd and should be revised.

>>7037950
bobbing is a verb
I meant that the boat was bobbing, the lake was bobbing the boat.
you can secure something against the bobbing (which is being exerted on it)

yes it's clunky to explain but it's a common enough usage of the verb, at least in american literature
although if some readers don't get that immediately it probably does need to be changed then

I didn't write any of the other responses by the way

>>7037950
It's OK if ye want to limit OP's extension but ye don't have to limit mine—or yr own! ;^DDDD ⱭⱭⱭⱭ^;

>>7025254
pretty good imitation

>>7037625
Fragments don't flow, brah. Allow me.
>"The right of all lawful citizens to bear arms and form a militia for national defenSe, is quite an outdated notion, and only the faggiest of retard would think otherwise."

>>7038172
That isn't really the point. I understood what you meant in the sentence. But it sounds bad and imprecise. It is not a common usage at all in American literature, or any English literature for that matter. I'm reluctant to say it is a flat out misuse of the word, but it's pretty bad dude.

>>7027365
I've done some edits to this and wrote a bit more.
Tell me what you guys think, both as expanding on the previously, and in general.

Spreading out like a tumor, the shadow falls long behind the car. The sun a slowly sinking ember, on a sky of grain. The Tarmac is hot and empty except for the lone sedan. The driver slowly coasts the car to a stop. With the engine off, the road is utterly empty of sound.
After several minutes, the crowding silence is broken by the door opening. The sunlight gleams off the dirtied chrome trim, reflecting what light is left, the jet black body of the car sponging the rest.
The driver sniffs the air, it smells like a recently extinguished match, it smells like sulfur. He knows he is close, through a gap in the trees,where the ground was blackened by flames, the rooftop of a skyscraper can be seen. Jagged metal exposed on one side of its twisted form.
A horrendous groaning begins from behind the car. His reflexes are quick, but not quick enough. He turns in time to see a highway sign bounce off the pavement, the sound rolling over the asphalt like thunder. The mounting still looming over the road like a hangman's pole .
The driver snatches a dark object off of the dash in the car and vicily clutches. Time and decay could be responsible. The sign is rusty and red. Yet, if not..... He'd rather be ready in case death decides their introduction is overdue.
The wind begins to blow.
The hip high grass on either side of the asphalt whispers gently in response.
Squinting, he grimly scans the tree line, there are no leaves nor bushes to hide amongst. The only greenery exists on the scattered pine and fir trees, their dark silhouettes fawning upward are yet almost barren.
A last glimmer of light between the tree's illuminates his features, a hawkish nose imbedded on a wide set face. Gray eyes that look deliberately into the shadows and see past. Surrounded by a lions mane of dark hair and an unkempt beard.
A twig snaps. He stops moving. Another crack. From the other side. He tightens his grip on the iron device. Turning in a circle, he assuredly makes his way to the door of the car.
A shriek begins in the distance. Somewhere between a train whistle and a scream, it grows in volume. Another shriek starts, closer. Another, and then another. Soon the grotesque howl is echoing everywhere among the dead forest, grasping and clawing his ears.
He gets in the car and slams the door in one motion, moving quickly, gracefully and sans panic. He turns the key. The engine purrs to life, barely heard over the doom cracking the atmosphere. A large snap over the left. His eyes follow. A tree begins its descent into the dirt, embraced by the earth and hammer fallen. He doesn't stop to look for what caused it. He doesn't have to. It's shadow is already growing in the tree line, approaching.
He puts the car into gear and takes off. Leaving only the sound and smell of seared rubber in his wake.
Part 1/2

>>7038722
Part 2/2

Streaks trail with all the emotion of mussed mascara.
He glances into the rear view mirror above him, only to find it staring back at him. It's dark eyes piercing and singing even at the distance. It smiles, acknowledging his gaze and eye view, and waves before disappearing back into the woods.

>>7038722
Overwrought. It's like you used Word's thesaurus in every sentence.

>>7038767
Really?
I would have though the contrary. I'm worried my writing comes off as too simplistic.
I only use words that I know and come up with off the top of my head. I'l, often read something else, see a word I know and realize a perfect place I could have used it. But I don't go that far. I will however sometimes I'll borrow a phrase or likeness from another author (hammer fallen for one) but never anything else.

It's warming how the sun melts and pours over the horizon, how the divorced chunks of red, orange, and gold trickle down the sky and pool beautifully on the hilltops. The feeling of uncut grass, slightly itchy, as I recline against a bare oak tree carries me. I remember when my dad would take me here, Zjeuse Park, that glowing little common by the city's post-office. Dad was a veteran. He was not the shaky type with a piped up tone, yelling at kids crushing his fresh-cut grass, or the stern, wobbly man spilling drops over the edge of his over-filled coffee mug. Dad was different, I'd say. The man came home sane, functional, a murderer by technicality. "Yeah, we we're pinned; Robert had this look in his eye -- a man is something above animal, he just has to be. Nothing else could summon something like that in their eyes. I looked right at him, I heard him, you know? Them bullets flying left and right, hitting so close you get dirt in your eyes sounded like a child dropping pebbles in a puddle. I heard this 18 year old, hard-working recruit beg for life with a look, and seeing that will to survive just pushed me over, it was all I could hear." According to multiple first-hand accounts, Dad was pinned in a dirty trench deep in German territory. A squadron of enemy soldiers fired heavily from the front and back grounds from lower ground at least 300 yards away. Robert gripped his gun, what he knew was his very improbable tool to survive, tight to his chest. It had been his first violent encounter, and it was do or die. Dad said a bullet flew right over him and struck a sandbag. Any courage, any direction, anything that had supported Robert poured from his pale face like sand from that bag. Robert pulled his weapon even closer, looked at Dad one more time, and laid face down in the trench. Several men had already fallen during the encounter. Dad and an incapacitated 18-year old occupied a hazardous war-trench alongside 6 dead soldiers. Death, laughing beside them already, moved closer every passing second. Dad jumped up and forcefully pulled Robert's gun from him. "You stay right here, do you understand me, goddamnit!? "Okay! O-Okay!" Robert was worthless at this point. Inherent cowardice, intense fear, the disintegration of his pride, whatever it was had him rolled up and weeping. "You've got a fully-loaded pistol right on your waste, if you see one of those ugly bastards' faces, you don't hesitate to turn him into a lead statue, got it?" Okay." It was unclear whether Robert would have even acted in that situation, but thankfully it wasn't imposed. Dad always got uneasy when he recounted the following. He left Robert at the far east-side of the trench and ran about 100 yards slightly crouched as bullets whistled and crashed around him. He stopped mid-way through the trench and knelt beside Pvt. Korvin, his best-friend from 7th grade, through boot camp, and until now as blood dripped from his cheek like water from a leaf after a refreshing rain.

This is the first thing I have written in literal years. Please rate and help me improve myself.

The paved asphalt shimmered in the beating sun as I drove down the city street. I put on my left blinker and proceeded into the left turn lane that would take me home and came to a stop. It was in this moment that I noticed a boy, no older than ten, riding his bike on the sidewalk that lay adjacent to the road. At the same time, a blue car that looked like it was straight out of the late 90's pulled up to turn right. The girl driving couldn't have been over seventeen. .She pulled up just far enough to see whether or not there was any oncoming traffic and stopped. She hadn't noticed the young boy riding his bike towards her car, just mere meters away. I felt trepidation come over me as if I knew what was about to happen. The boy, thinking that she had seen him and that she was at a standstill, crossed her path. He was all but a back wheel past her car when she, completely unaware of the boy who was directly in front of her car, pushed down on the gas and pulled out into the street, knocking the boy off of his bike onto the busy road. For a split second she was unaware of what she had just done. I saw her face of shock as she put her left hand over her mouth as she pulled over. The boy jumped up and gazed directly into my eyes and gave me a look of pure terror and confusion, wondering what had just happened to him. I looked back. He fell.

>>7038838
This is total shit.

>>7038845
Holy fuck that was awful

>>7038863
Thanks for the reply. Could you tell me what exactly is wrong with it?

>>7038852
Hey someone replied? Do you have any works of your own because I would love to read them.

>>7038838
>beautifully
>According to multiple first-hand accounts
>not spelling out numbers
>O-okay
>waste
>okay without !
>best friend 7th grade
>boot camp, implying they ended up together
It's a bit dense. Fix the things I have greentexted.

>>7038867
>>7038893
Not them, and I don't have a critique of my own (I quite liked them both), but I wouldn't take too seriously any half-assed troll attempts like those.

/lit/ hardly has any worthwhile criticism.

>>7038951
this is true, but >>7038845 is actually bad for good reasons too
for one it's written as ishmael is when describing a new situation. completely analytic and detached. but it doesn't have any of the other positive characteristics, it doesn't use this to create a mental image but just describes things as they are not as they are interpreted. it doesn't create a character or a scene, in other words, but points out chief characteristics in both.

and just because people give bad advice doesn't mean that you are right in going the opposite direction, lad. it is fun to think you're so superior though, I'm sure.
the other one does look pretty ok though, haven't actually read it.

>>7038987
>>7038845
It's supposed to be a moment of tension for a 10 point assignment in my creative writing class. How is it in that context?
How would I go about improving it? Teach me, anon.

>>7038997
>10 point assignment in my creative writing class
you could submit any bullshit for that..
just put in some big words
I was surprised by how retarded my literature professors were, when I took writing.

just rewrite it and this time try and be honest. be honest about the feelings and emotions, about the suddenness of the accident, describe in detail the experience as it shifts from calmness to the surprise of the accident to the horror in its discovery. don't be so detached, and if you are detached use it to further your narrative. by that I mean describing the particular details then tying that into a small allegory. the more you read the more you will be able to model your writing in a way that engrosses your reader and brings out the important bits. don't just say they are horrified. make the reader feel it in the gory details.

as for homework purposes do whatever the hell you like; professors aren't looking for writing ability, they're looking for luscious detail and lots of words.

>>7039032
Alright, thanks for the tips. I rewrote some of it. Please critique.

The paved asphalt shimmered in the beating sun as I drove down the city street. I put on my left blinker and proceeded into the left turn lane that would take me home and came to a stop. It was in this moment that I noticed a boy, no older than ten, riding his bike on the sidewalk that lay adjacent to the road. At the same time, a aquamarine sedan pulled up to the intersection and came to a halt, waiting for a gap in the traffic. The girl driving couldn't have been over seventeen with her hazel hair pulled into a bun. She hadn't noticed the young boy pedaling his bike towards her car, just mere meters away. I felt trepidation come over me as I clenched my teeth and toes. The boy crossed into the road, blissfully unaware of the stopped car and proceeded to drop off the sidewalk, into the road. The girl put her foot on the gas. For a split second she was unaware of what she had just done. I saw her face of shock as she put her left hand over her mouth as she pulled over, her face bunching up into pure consternation and terror. The boy jumped up as if nothing had happened and turned his face to me, looking directly into my eyes as if I could help him. But it was too late. His stance looked like that of an animal holding on to dear life, with it's being held awkwardly and out of place. I looked back. He fell.

I like this one.

>>7039119
Ignore the multiple uses of the word face.

Mark’s wife died two months ago and he’s become extremely depressed and unable to function in his everyday life with one exception: he still works at his monotonous job. Mark decides to visit a psychologist because he is desperate to figure out how to be a functioning adult again. The pressures of society have begun weighing on Mark and he doesn’t know how to deal with them. Mark’s wife is the only woman who’s ever said the words “I love you” to him in a way that wasn’t platonic or familial in his forty-two years on Earth. Mark has no concept of maturity or adulthood. He is inept at communicating with other people and considers himself extremely lucky to have found his wife. Mark considered himself happy while he was married and was able to be productive and fulfilled, but now that his wife is gone he has fallen back into abject lethargy.
Mark’s psychologist is younger than Mark. He has a wife and a daughter who provide him with enough emotional security to be a functioning, mostly contented person.

>>7039157
Mark: I don’t have time for calisthenics.
Psych: They don’t take much time and I think they would help you.
Mark: I know a lot of things that would help me. Calisthenics is probably one of those things. But I don’t have time.
Psych: What about the time that you do have? What do you do with it?
Mark: I work. Then I drive home, which takes time. Once I get home there’s only a little time before I have to sleep. I use that time to relax.
Psych: Exercise can help you relax.
Mark: Exercise takes energy and motivation. I don’t have those.
Psych: Exercise can also provide energy and motivation. The first few times are the most difficult.
Mark: The first times are also the most exciting. They’re the times when you start to feel a change. You start to think that you’re capable of making a better life for yourself. New feelings come, good feelings. I know how it is to have those first few times, but they go away and soon you’ve just added something else to your routine.
Psych: You have a habit of condemning your future self.
Mark: …
Psych: … What about earlier in your life?
Mark: When I was with my wife?
Psych: Yes. How did you feel about your future self then?
Mark: I never considered the future when I was with her.
Psych: What did you consider?
Mark: Nothing, really. I considered how to make good use of my time, I guess. But it seemed to come naturally.
Psych: Motivation did?
Mark: I was motivated.
Psych: What did you do with your motivation?
Mark: Well I worked harder. I got more things done. I read books sometimes. It was just easy.
Psych: Well you had someone motivating you. Someone was encouraging you to be better.
Mark: She didn’t really do that.
Psych: What did she do for you then?
Mark: She liked me enough to marry me.
Psych: What about your relationship? How were you together?
Mark: We were okay. We liked each other and we enjoyed spending time together. But it wasn’t some crazy love thing. I don’t know if we were soul mates.
Psych: Crazy love isn’t always desirable.
Mark: We enjoyed spending time together. Especially when it was cold and rainy and we would bundle up and go to the store. Then we’d get home and put all the bags on the counter, and sometimes she’d reach over me to grab one and I’d feel her weight against me. I really enjoyed those times.
Psych: Well I think we’re at the end here for today, Mark.

>>7023772
Haven't written in a while but:
Pain throbbed in my chest, and I felt as if the very essence of me, which resides within my ribcage, was being crushed by the turmoil that I had been feeling. I could only barely focus on the road around me: the stormy gray cement, littered with potholes and, in its center, a feeble attempt at road stripes—a faded white line, which continued for no more than two feet before being cut out by the depressing gray of the rest of the road. The sidewalk stood next to the road on each side ominously: it was filled with cracks and covered in refuse. Blacked-out figures moved monotonously on the sidewalks and across the road; each of their faces no more discernable than the next. My hands trembled on the jet-black, leather steering wheel; beads of sweat trickled down from my brow and slid down my pale cheeks until reaching my chin, where they dripped down onto the ugly, beige console. I slowly allowed more weight onto the gas pedal, closing my eyes as I did so. I get my foot fully-pressed to the floor, and just as my eyes shut completely, I hear a siren.

In the spring the drinking man leaned
his face to the broken and myriad reflection
of his own drinking. When he rose up he saw among them the scattered reflection of
Popeye's straw hat, though he had heard no sound.
He saw, facing him across the spring, a man of under size, his hands in his coat
pockets, a cigarette slanted from his chin. His suit was black, with a tight, high-waisted
coat. His trousers were rolled once and caked
with mud above mud-caked shoes. His face
had a queer, bloodless color, as though seen by electric light; against the sunny silence, in
his slanted straw hat and his slightly akimbo arms, he had that vicious depthless quality
of stamped tin.

Behind him the bird sang again, three bars in monotonous repetition: a sound meaningless and profound out of a suspirant and peaceful following silence which seemed to isolate the spot, and out of which a moment later tame the sound of an automobile passing along a road and dying away.

>>7039197
Good flow, I like it.

One nitpick:

>his slightly akimbo arms
should be
>his arms slightly akimbo

>>7037544
>>7037575
>>7037618

bumping these

>>7039189
>Pain throbbed in my chest, and I felt as if the very essence of me, which resides within my ribcage, was being crushed by the turmoil that I had been feeling.
This first line kills it for me. Why do we need to know about the very essence of him or where said essence is located?
Don't tell us about the turmoil, makes us feel it. This is first person perspective. Make ME feel like a guy on the run.

The whole thing is written passively. Make it more active.
In a situation like this, where someone is running from something, it needs to be happening RIGHT NOW, otherwise the reader gets bored with it.
If it's happening now, it's interesting. If it already happened, it's not important.

Edit it and try again, anon.

This is the start of a novel I'm writing. It's inspired by Infinite Jest. I started it a couple months ago, but haven't been able to make much headway due to various distractions and stuff. Any and all critique is appreciated.

I've gone through this so many times now though that I can barely see what's good and what's bad any more so if anyone feels like picking it a part for it would be a great help.

It's only short: http://pastebin.com/jcDB8BDP

>>7039355

Being inspired by something doesn't mean imitating it. I'm reading IJ now and I'm about half way through so it's all still fresh in my mind this just feels like you're doing exactly what he does but worse. Use your own voice.

>>7039359
I don't have a voice. I can only imitate and blend, crudely. I'm like James Struck: I'd sooner plagiarize than work on my own prose and ideas. Guess I've got to hit the books again, but the years are passing by, and I'm getting tired of these pages and authors and everything to do with them.

>>7039378

I just don't think that will work out for you. For what it's worth I think you imitated him well enough so it's clear you're not hopeless in terms of writing ability, now apply that to thoughts and ideas of your own. It wasn't bad just very obviously derivative and people will notice, if you're set on imitating I would suggest making it less obvious at least.

If you could give mine a read I'd be greatful >>7039358

>>7030072
what is a good amount of lexical diversity?

>>7039826
or any of those stats

>>7039826
>>7039865
It's all up to ye. Diversity is the range of vocab. CC words are more or less the words that don't overlap w/the most common ~100 words.

The longest words are usually a good place to look for idiocy (yrs are OK) & Zombie nouns are verbs that were turned into nouns.

Jerry Seinfeld woke up one day and went to work. His coworkers were a bald gentleman (not of the shaved head variety, of course, but of the cool-guy doesn't shave the rest of his head variety), a young woman, and a silly, lanky man. Jerry sipped on his cappucino and let out a small fart. Farts aren't that funny, thought Jerry.

"Yo Mikey?"
"Yeah?"
"What's up?"
"The sky, Marty."
"Chocolate rain."

Marty and Mikey were brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and aliens and monsters and kings and peasants. They were everybody in the world. They sat down at the table and feasted on cat food. Fancy a feast, Marty? asked Mikey. Why yes, their glasses clinking together. This is a great meal, said Mikey. I agree, said Marty. The two were lovers and they sang poetry. Cosmic American music, bluegrass, hillbilly funk. Chill out and smoke a doob my man. Nah that's ok I don't want to get fried. Mikey was a big guy; he lived in Japan. Japan doesn't exist in real life, said Marty. Nobody really does any thing independent of anyone else said Marty. OK corral the corral reefs were dying and nobody wanted to save them. I'm a whale said Marty. I'm the biggest animal that has ever lived actually dinosaurs never existed either. God is everybody's mother and father.

Cold, biting wind sluiced over and around the bike and rider. The current ebbed as his speed slowed, but before it was still, the engine roared. In the next instant he was gone. Again the asphalt, grass, and half melted snow blurred into solid colors, sliding away into the background. Jax raced on, against no one, for nothing.

He sped on, automatic movement, without processing sight or sound. All he could really sense was the metallic taste of chilled air as it flowed into him. The danger didn't worry him, what fish worries about drowning? What bird think he's going to fall from the sky? He rode with surety.

But as all eventually does, he slowed, and the landscape returned, splotches becoming shapes once more. It had to happen. The winter was bad this year, worse than last at least, and his hands had numbed under gloves. Town and home was over the next crest anyway, the thought warming him better than the jacket.

The bike's roar turned into a rumble.

[I'll leave some crit for other people after I take my dog out]

Alright I'm back and about to drop some amateur as fuck crit

>>7041192
I feel like you're trying to do a disjointed stream of consciousness thing, but to me it doesn't "fit" together at all. While I'm big on experimental styles and prose, internal consistency is a must have in 99% of cases, and it seems like the writing isn't sure if it wants to tell a story or focus on the flow of the prose. The last line feels like it has nothing to do with the rest of it, other than keeping rhythm.

That said! The flow is really nice and I like it a lot

>Mikey was a big guy; he lived in Japan. Japan doesn't exist in real life, said Marty

This is my favorite line by far, it has a beat to it, if that makes sense.

>>7030153 bumpside

>>7041550
i read the first few sentences and didn't understand them.

>>7037544
>>7037575
>>7037618
one last bump for these

Here's a poem for the frenchfags on here

Les plaisirs quotidiens, ne sont-ils pas pâteux?
Aucune fraîcheur et des saveurs trop communes
Abandonnez donc les robots libidineux
Pour qu'il reste que leur grise et sépulcrale urne

Ce n'est pas un conseil, mais un ordre formel,
Venu du plus profond de mon coeur rouge et rude,
Celui qui n'est libéré que par l'hydromel
Et non par la révélatrice Solitude

"Les plaisirs doivent être rares et succincts" -
Voilà ce que me dit mon coeur un jour d'automne
Il faut que je propage son message saint

Ainsi, j'aime cette vie vaste et variée
Je l'adore, la longue et sanglante épopée
Cependant, je l'aime peu de temps à la fois

http://pastebin.com/vPgKqpD2

Rough rough rough rough not-even really complete or even spellchecked probably draft of something I'm working on. It is about a dictator who discovers power is not what it is cracked up to be.

>>7023794
The prose is pleasing to me, but it gets off on a tangent that sort of tells instead of shows stuff about the character.

http://pastebin.com/4CUxLUUQ

Have this one with a minor correction, and also have a brief excerpt, since no one is going to read all that shit by me.

>
“How did it go sir?” My Bodyguard asks as I push past him. He follows behind me, saying nothing. The labyrinthine hallways leading back to my office seem to twist and contort, and choking nausea makes me stumble.

“Premier…?”He asks, looking placing a hand on my shoulder to steady me as I begin to wheeze.

“I’m just feeling a little dizzy, Legrand.” I say, looking at him with a pained smile. He looks at me with smug disbelief, narrowing his eyes.

“Perhaps I should call a doctor?” He asks.

“That won’t be necessary, my boy!” I say, nodding at him and continuing to smile, stepping haphazardly towards my office, the door now only just down the hall.

“Are you certain, Premier?” He says, pressing after me.

“Yes!” I snap, not even looking behind me as I fumble with the doorknob, swinging the door open and stepping inside. Inside I see two workers, pounding away with tools at my window, installing bars.

“What the hell is going on here!” I shout, my nausea seeming to burn away with my rising rage. “Only government officials are allowed in this room without my permission!” I stride towards the grimy, dirty workers in my beautiful room, disgust now starting to boil within me. They turn around, looking at me with brief surprise that soon gives way to terror.

>>7042303
Wish I was well-versed enough in prosody to comment.

Well...the verses' lengths seem to be uneven, which sometimes gives a nice rythm to the poem, but mostly makes for an awkward reading. For instance <<"Les plaisirs doivent être rares et succints">> is 10 syllabas if I count right, while most other verses are 11 to 13 syllabas (and are meant to be 12 I assume ?). In this particular case it somewhat works (breaks the flow at a point where you're making a quote, and the verse shortens at a moment you're talking about plaisirs being better short-lived). But it is strange nonetheless, and it's less fortunate in other parts. Likewise with "coeur rouge et rude/Solitude", both verses have 13 syllabas, and they rhyme, so perhaps it's intentional ? But it disbalance the poem more than anything else.

I guess my issue is I can't tell wether the irregularity is deliberate. It feels half whimsical or experimental, half involuntarily clumsy, when it should be only whimsical (or deliberately clumsy).

The same applies to the way you handle the césure. For instance in the first quatrain the verse is cut this way (if I'm not mistaken):

>6/6 (standard césure)
>4/8
>5/7
>5/7

The pattern is strange, and isn't reproduced in the second quatrain.

Perhaps it's what you're aiming for ("et non par la révélatrice Solitude" resists the tongue, but not in an unpleasant way, and that seem in accordance with what is being said), but playing with césure is for writers with some experience, here I sometimes feels you simply haven't paid enough attention. On the other hand it gives an interesting bend to the poem, like those coins that have special value because of a fabrication error.

Same again with the vhoice of vocabulary and the metaphors. They're surprising in a refreshing way ("pateux" is funny here, in a good sense, "coeur rouge et rude", "longue et sanglante épopée" make a good counterpoint to "jour d'automne" I think), but often a bit awkward or mishandled ("que leur grise et sepulcrale urne" sounds very forced, makes a weird rhyme, there should be a negation -but that's the least important here; the "robots libidineux" seem to come out from nowhere).


Simply put, I have trouble parsing your poem, sometimes it makes me linger on an important part, for good effect, but sometimes it's simply weak and threaten to make the whole thing collapse.If you were being deliberately uneven, then good, that's something Baudelaire and Verlaine used with great fortune, and I can see you achieving nice things, but you'll have to exercise and experiment further until you've got a firm hang of it. If not, you should pay closer attention to the length of the verse, but also the way it is parsed by the voice, and aim for a greater regularity at first. In this latter case Racine could be a model or yardstick to you.

Keep in mind that this is only my personal opinion after a couple readings, and that I have very little experience in measuring and weighing verses.

>>7042507
The elision only occurs after the "e", even if it sounds like an "e". Here's how I would scan the line:

"Les/ plai/sirs/ doi/vent/ ê/tre/ ra/res/ (z)et/ suc/cints"
I am unsure whether I should respect the traditional rules (-ent and -es must be pronounced and counted) or just writing it according to how *I* would pronounce it. I've been trying out both ways.

Every line *should* have 12 syllables, but I might have made a mistake or two. Also, two consecutive vowels might be pronounced in the same syllable or in two different syllables.

The césure is a mess. I tried to make it 6/6 all the time, but I didn't care enough to spend more time to fix it.

Thanks for the great feedback. I don't normally write poetry, but I'm starting to like it.

>>7042342
Possible Zombie Nouns:
interruption
frustration
expression
conviction
reaction
impression
assumption
transgression
tension
destabilization
attention
permission
supervision
curiosity
extermination
dissatisfaction
action
reception
mechanism

Lexical Diversity: 25.52 %
Content Carrying Words: 57.05 %

Longest Words:
destabilization
dissatisfaction

Ye have imagination, but Fucking Christ—ye can't just pass ppl unfiltered shit like this. If ye can't re-read it yrself, why should we? Overall though: its not terrible.

>>7041244 here

I'm going to bed but when I wake up I'll leave more feedback for other people, and read any that was given to me ofc

>>7042810
Thank you for the advice.

He was thanked for killing. By those spirits who hoisted and swung white flag and walked peacefully across the lines to death. They had fought and they had fought hard, they deserved their choice of peace. Their bodies riddled and plagued with cancers and lungs full of fluid. Joints creaked like the springs of their bed they shriveled up upon. The hardest decisions were those made by the others. The lovers who once saw them virile and beautiful now gave acquiesce to fill their bodies with the final sleep. Daughters and Sons who nodded with wet eyes and twisting hands. But it was sometimes the body on the bed who looked up with fear, acceptance, or happiness. Doubt was never an issue in the final decision.

>>7039358

Or maybe just a quick scan and a comment on how it reads?

>>7038801
It is very obvious from your writing that you are worried about it coming off as too simplistic

>>7043159
What would you suggest?
Does it take you out of the story?
Is it more "bad" or "annoying," or is it just obvious and fine beyond that?
What would you change? Examples of such?
Trying to figure out the details of what to do with your advice.
Thanks ahead of time.

>>7023772

The well is empty. It has always been empty. The digging began in July 1, 1919 during the draught. It stopped November 4. Mainly Seth and Pa worked on it, though Donny’d help before the accident–that was when he fell of his horse riding through a thunderstorm to go meet Mary Lou, the town whore–but anyway. They’d taking turns digging and digging for hours, 25 feet down in the Earth, dark and cold, but never damp. The hope in striking that first water gushing gash of Earth eventually evaporated almost invisibly as the months passed on by. It was only after our second cow died–all leather and bones, she was–that we understood the futility; that we had to reevaluate our options; that we had to do something that blessed folk might call drastic. And I really must remind you, winter was knocking.

The well is empty. It has always been empty. The digging began in July 1, 1919 during the draught. It stopped November 4. Mainly Seth and Pa worked on it, though Donny’d help before the accident–that was when he fell off his horse riding through a thunderstorm at night towards the Wilson’s barn to go roll in the hay with Mary Lou, the town whore–but anyway, they’d take turns digging and digging for hours, 25 feet down in the dark,cool, but never damp ground. The hope in striking that first water gushing gash of Earth eventually evaporated almost invisibly as the months passed on by. It was only after our second cow died–all leather and bones, she was–that we understood the futility; that we had to reevaluate our options; that we had to do something that blessed folk might call drastic. And I really must remind you, winter was knocking.

The well is empty. It has always been empty. The digging began in July 1, 1919 during the draught. It stopped November 4. Mainly Seth and Pa worked on it, though Donny’d help before his accident–that was when he snapped his femur falling off Thunderbird riding during a new moon towards the old Wilson barn to roll around in the hay with Mary Lou, the town whore–but anyway, they’d take turns digging and digging for hours, 25 feet down in the dark and cool–but never damp–ground. The hope in striking that first water gushing gash of Earth evaporated almost invisibly as the months. It was only after our second dairy cow died–leather and bones–that we understood the futility of it all. We had to reevaluate our options, do something comfortable folk might very gladly call unholy. But again, winter was knocking.

The well is empty. It has always been empty. The digging began in July 1, 1919 during the draught. It stopped November 4. Mainly Seth and Pa worked on it, though Donny’d help before his accident–that was when he snapped his femur falling off Thunderbird riding under a new moon towards the old Wilson barn to roll around in the hay with Mary Lou, the town whore–but anyway. They’d take turns digging and digging for hours, 25 feet down in the dark and cool–but never damp–ground. The hope in striking that first water gushing gash of Earth evaporated almost invisibly as the months. It was only after our second dairy cow died–leather and bones–that we understood the futility of it all. We had to reevaluate our options, do something comfortable folk might very gladly call unholy. But again, winter was knocking.

>>7033019
Wow this thing actually surfaced again.

In the realm of prose there is no sportsmanship. But if I were one of the true megalomaniac writers like Proust or Nabokov I would have written a worse critique.

>>7032079
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/unfatigable
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refractory_period_%28sex%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiccation

In the case of Refractory, the combination still applies, even if the adjective is not as the original definition, the link is still there, and even if we use the proper definition (hard or impossible to manage), it can still be attached to stupor.

In the case of desiccated, you can make the case of why a dry eel would move, but I can make the case of why not? In this case the word fits the rhythm, the image of deprivation combined with a fishlike flopping is still present, that is to say, within a logical realm, and so I see no contradiction or mis-usage.

>>7039358
Some of the sentences, like the one about his mother, seem to ramble on quite a bit. Perhaps break them up a bit, or showing them in other ways. Many of your descriptions go on for far too long and become hard to read. I think the problem is that you often begin a description of something and then it trails off into a character's thought, and then finishes, instead of being all in one thing.


Other than that, it seems fine.

She handed him the crumpled pack. “Matches?” he asked, parking a smoke in the corner of his mouth.
“That was the last one.”
“Well, hold still, then.”
He put his hand on the back of her head, thumb against the base of her skull, and leaned in to kiss the tip of his cigarette gently against hers, looking into her eyes as the paper caught and began to glow.

>>7045927
good shit matey

>>7045935
If you're not being sarcastic, then thanks, man.

He hooked his knee upwards and fell heavy on the swinging bed. He sprawled out his legs and arms, feeling the downy thick of the blanket catch on his hangnails, and his head sink in the center of his pillow. He lay there, thinking. Thinking all the time. As he rocked gently into the morning, he could see the pale light of the moon squeeze through a slat in the blinds carve across the room and he began to weep silently. His tender wails squeaking, sharing the quiet only with the pull from one of the chains of the bed. His room was saturated with a creeping death, a slow dying. The room had in the mid-day summer been lit to the ceiling with amber vitality, and the heat could score across his white walls with the notion of bounty, of life. Where he would soak up the air with the overflowing peak of his pacing and musings of Hegelian doctrines of Being and the like. And in the falling evenings, dashing out poems of erratic themes: from rest to work, glorious to pastoral, earthbound to sublime. But in the shade of the night, there was nothing but the solitude of thought, the hum of a day's ending silence, and he feared his sleep, and did not want to greet the morning. And so he wept at the thought of her, that inescapable box of consciousness where every detail of its disintegration was tasted with every spore of the tongue, and every turn of mind, he fell in a pocket where the scent of the past was as fragrant as to have burst open above the bridge of his nose and slide down and hold easy, but firmly against his nostrils.

"Did you see the guy that came through 'ere yesterday?" asked quint, with a hint of a smile on his lips.
"Na, was out in the grange, scufflin' for something," she replied, pulling back her straw hair.
"Well I tell you what, you should've seen 'im. I took 'im for a raider, with 'is gray eyes and the mussed up look he had on 'im," said quint. Cleaning a cup out with water. "So, did you find anything out there of interest?"
"Eh, found meself some scrappins, along with a book."
Quint gazed at her with an inquisitive look in his blue eye. Raising a grey eyebrow, he asked, "So, you got it with you I take it?"
"Yeah."
"Want me to take a look?"
"What'll you give me for the privilege?"A hint of snark behind the question.
"Now don't give me that, we both know you can't read. You want me to tell you if it's any good or not?"
She looked at him, begrudgingly. "...yeah"
She produced the book from inside her jacket, in an unseen pocket adjacent her Breast. She tossed it towards him.
He caught it one handedly, "Now let's see what we got 'ere." He slapped his free hand dry against his pant leg while studying the outerside. "Well I'll be damned," he muttered.

bump fer critiques

God dammit Charlie, said Susie.
What is it.
You ate the rest of Cheez-Its.
It's Cheez-It. There is no 's'.
Damn it Charlie you know what I meant.
More than one Cheez-It is still Cheez-It.
God damn it Charlie.

tfw no one will crit me
tfw crit'd someone else and they didn't respond
;_;

>>7047322
Which is yours?
I'll critique yours if you will mine.
>>7047001
I struggle with dialogues. Or at least feel like I do.

>>7046972
nigga that some good shit wow A+ 100 bruh

>>7047001
cant tell what accent thats supposed to be tbh

>>7047454
It is set in the post apocalypse. Some years after. It is an "evolved" southern (American) accent.

>>7047334
Sure! Is the one you quoted yours? if so (forgive me for being amateur):

The thing I would say is most awkward to me is the word choice doesn't match the dialect you've made in my eyes. It feels like you didn't commit to making them uneducated.

"Eh, found meself some scrappins, along with a book."
could become
"Eh, some scrappin' 'nd a book"

That said, I think if you're uncomfortable with dialogue it might be best to skip accents entirely in text and imply them solely through word choice

"No, was out in the grange you know? Scruffed around a bit"
"Found a bit of scrapping, book too"
"What'd you give me for it?" (to me saying "for the privilege" sounds awkward from someone who doesn't even know myself vs meself)

Also, avoid "..." in speech, unless you absolutely can't find another way, and even then consider rewriting. It looks awkward and slows the flow of the text not just internally but to the reader (which you can take advantage of if you want to deliberately use it of course)

All this said I liked the tone you had going and overall thought it was well done, the text made me interested in the characters and the world.

>>7041244
Is mine

Something I thought about last night. A memory of my childhood hastily written to play around on that Hemingway editor thread.

It was weird. Almost gross. Everything he did annoyed me. Yet here I sat, sharing a smoke with him. He held it in his hands clumsily as he raised it past a stretched out neck. It only got worse as the cigarette found his lips, both stretched out and puffed away from his teeth. He takes the tiniest little draw. Pulling the cigarette away with a strange flourish of his wrist and a smacking of the lips. Blowing it out without pause, the smallest whiff of smoke. But that was it.

“That’s three”

He hands the cigarette over and I immediately take my first draw. No non-sense, fast and practical. The smoke rushes down into my lunges. Satiating my desire for now and ruining my hopes for longevity. I glance across at my accomplice. He’s staring at me with the same contempt and greedy eyes that I wore only a moment ago. Another drag. There’s a moment of clarity that strikes far too rarely. It always seems to happen mid exhalation. This boy, my friend - my best friend hates me in this moment. I take one last drag, drawing in the smoke savoring it. Without blowing it out I turn from my adversary and walk away. Flicking the cigarette over my shoulder as my last act of friendship.

>>7047548
Some errors:
>non-sense
>lunges
>"mid exhalation" should have a hyphen
>"drawing in the smoke savoring it" should have a comma
Also, not sure what you mean by "hopes for longevity." And "greedy eyes that I wore" sounds awkward, if poetic.

>>7047562
Haha, lunges. Fuck me.
>hopes for longevity
Smoking decreases your lifespan. At least for me, I hope to have a long life. It was always a strange dilemma. I wanted the instant satisfaction of smoking, but hated the fact that it was slowly crippling my chances of a long life.

>greedy eyes that i wore
Yeah, sounds a little off. Any suggestions on how I can over come that? I'm trying to write about the adversarial nature of two people going three ups on a cigarette. Each person taking three draws and then passing it on. You get so annoyed with how they smoke, but then you see them becoming annoyed with you a moment later.

>>7047543
Thanks. It is kind of a mix of uneducated and a an accent.
>it's post apocalypse
So knowing some rules and not some others is fine by me. But I get what you mean with some of it.

As for yours.
I like it. I enjoy the way it's written both in third person, but also with some insight into their thoughts and presenting the environment from his perspective.
The only bad thing I would about it is that nothing stands out. It is all of equal calibre and similar writing.
I don't know if that makes sense at all. But there is no "finer points," that stand out. Like you described. The colors all blur together. Pretty. But a detail, something as insignificant as the warm feel of the leather jacket, or a memory crossing his mind, would liven it a bit. In my mind.
But that's just my opinion.
Good though mate.

>>7047606
>>7047543

Also an addition. One part does stand out slightly more then the others.
"Metallic taste of air"
Good mental sensory item there.
Stuff like that.

>>7047606
>>7047616
Thanks! I'll try to add more lines that stick out, I normally overdue "hooks" but it isn't good to swing in the other direction either I guess.

It probably won't get any easier, but it can’t get any worse. When you have nothing left but reckless optimism and a false courage, there really isn't a lot else to think; facing true reality would only leave you fucked and broken.
Sing the same song, move along quickly, and wait for it all to pass along as it always does. Life isn't for the faint of heart, but at least you have the gentle reassurance of the backway out, a ticket standing only seconds from your gnawed fingertips. Briefly considered but not dwelt upon, a renewed zeal can't be far away.
Harold, at the age of seventy-nine, has stopped taking his vitamins. His wife, Sarah, has no idea that he has been secretly keeping them under his tongue, pressed against the bottom of his loose dentures until her back is turned, when they are quickly spat into his napkin, which is folded and stored in his front pocket. Harold has had enough; living has lost its luster, and he's taking as many steps as he can to slip away unnoticed. Sarah would be upset; but her disappointment would be far worse. She won't know, and what she doesn't know can't hurt her. Each day, he pictures a growing deficiency deep inside of him, eating at him, taking him down like a spider wrapping a gnat in its silk. Wiping yolk from the corner of his mouth, he closes his eyes and smiles.
Stories like this seem to be becoming the norm, and it has been carefully noted that our brittle-boned brothers and sisters aren't the only ones trying to escape the cage. There is no exemption for age, race, sex, or even wealth. Even the lower animals can sense it, leading to roaming packs of dogs, escaped from tranquil homes in hopes of reversing evolution and transforming themselves back into the wolves they once were. They howl and snarl upwards, barking their domesticated fury at everything around them.
That's the last option; before you take a final plunge back into the ground, take off all of your clothes and escape back into nature. A primal scream and no weekend plans are the only requirements, and you might surprise even yourself at how quickly you can forget all but our original charge: Survival.
But whatever you ultimately choose, be reassured in the fact that it is meaningless. The mud-covered savage and the prince of Monaco are the same in a hundred years, as they will be forever. Wrap yourself in that last slice of comfort and take a plunge. It can only get easier from here.
Contra vim mortis non crescit herba in hortis

>>7023772

I'd "give 'er"

get it?

>>7047904
>Latin
Pretentious af tbh fam.

How is this as the end to a chapter? It's meant to be a journal entry, with the next chapter beginning with the character waking up.

It was cold in the north, even under a bear-skin blanket. From my bed, I could see the snow falling through the balistraria in the stone wall. I had been sent to the northern frontier by Emperor Pelagios himself to make peace with the barbaric northerners. For centuries, the North had been known as a peaceful land, but that ended two decades ago with the arrival of a raiding party. The savages overwhelmed the limited number of soldiers garrisoned at the coasts and pushed inland, sacking countless holy temples. Thousands died, including my...

It ends on a bit of a cliffhanger because the character's parents died in the attack and he still hasn't come to terms with.

>>7047921
If that's the worst part of it, I'll take it. But I like the sound of Latin, so I'm not sure what would be a satisfactory replacement.

>>7047927
Written fine, but it doesn't sound like a journal entry, more like text from a memoir/the opening narration to a video game or movie.

bump

>>7047921
Monolingual pleb detected

>>7047904
>When you have nothing left but reckless optimism and a false courage, there really isn't a lot else to think;
The end of this sentence is unclear.

>The mud-covered savage and the prince of Monaco are the same in a hundred years, as they will be forever
>are
Do you mean that they *will* be the same?

Otherwise, the text is quite interesting, I enjoyed reading it.

The smell of piss is so strong it smells like decent bacon
Kevin's getting footloose on the overspill under the piss-station
Two pints destroyer on the cobbled floors, no amount of whatever is gonna chirp the chip up
It's the final countdown, by fuckin' Journey
I woke up with shit in my sock outside the Polish off-licence
"They don't mind" said the arsehole to the legs
You got to be cruel to be kind, shit man
Save it up like Norbert Colon
Release the stench of shit grub like a giant toilet Kraken
The lonely life that is Tory
I got an armful of decent tunes, mate
But it's all so fuckin' boring

Tied up in Nottz, with a Z, you cunt
Black t-shirts and state toss
Nobby's nuts, the rule of rough cuts
A to Z of nothing gets all the shiz
We are real, we are lucky, 20p in the 10p mix
Crab eyes, another lonely little DJ with no fuckin' life
Weetabix, England, fuckin' shredded wheat, Kelloggs cunts
On bleak shiz, on our cock, the green light don't stop
The shit homegrown dealers of Berlin begging for lolly
And it's beautiful how the privileged still let 'em in

Tied up in Nottz, Shit!
And then the dealer's tipped up!
...Big up the riots!

>>7050777
yo
kill urself

>>7050777
That's deep, man. *takes a large toke*

And in these moments of being beside oneself, not in way of anger or hostility, but of detachment, as if having sprung from the earth and seen the true dimensions of one's circumstances that one sees the horror of their loss. And it is here that I knew that drunkenness or any state of not-of-sound-mindedness is never a release, but a method of conceding just how grave the attempt of letting go really is.

Gale opened the door and saw a thin young man with tears streaming down his face.
“Oh!” he said. “Um, can I help you?”
The kid said nothing, and Gale noticed his hand was tucked behind his back. Before he could think to close the door, the hand was out and up, a black pistol pointed squarely at Gale’s nose.
Gale, looking at it cross-eyed, tried to breathe. The lights in his apartment had never been so bright. Quartetto Cetra sang Crapa Pelada from about a thousand miles behind him.
The kid still hadn’t spoken, no Gimme your money, no nothing. He just stood there in the hallway shaking.
“P-please,” Gale whispered. “You don’t have to do this.” He couldn’t think of anything to add.
I’m sorry, Jesse wanted to say, but couldn’t force a sound past the lump in his throat. His hand wanted to drop the gun. He used his other hand to steady it.
Gale’s hands flew up and Jesse shot him and flew down the hallway, past a door that slammed shut as he went by, down a flight of stairs, out into the parking lot and to his red Toyota.
As he drove to the laser tag arena he listened for sirens, heard nothing beyond his own jackhammer heart. When he could finally stop, he opened the driver’s door and heaved until nothing came up but sour drool. This was totally fucked, he was fucked, and Jesus, the way that guy’s face blew in, and it was all Mr. White’s fault, Jesse never should’ve listened to him in the first place, in fact after this Jesse was done, get his cut and bounce, never look back.

Heart burning hot and full, insuppressable lightning and flame leaping into his throat in a racket of unlaughed laughter that only he could hear and for a moment for a moment for the finest moment he felt a tear well in the corner of his eye and stay, never to fall and never to know the soft flesh of his cheek.