/lit/ - Literature

>>7153397
I think this may be an example of someone doing absolutely everything wrong somehow.

>>7153397
this is really bad op
as>>7153421
seems to indicate, it's laughably bad
it would be interesting to have this as a part of a work surrounded by normal writing, though
i did read all of it to see if you would keep up the style
i actually laughed aloud. i assume this was not your intention.
one big thing is that it seems like you don't entirely understand what certain words mean. you use them in a manner that kind of makes sense, but not really, and you do this maybe 20 times over the course of two paragraphs. it's kind of impressive.
when i was 9 i had a teacher who basically told us our creative writing would be made better by thesaurus use. this reminds me of the type of shit everyone came up with
you did use a thesaurus, right? otherwise i have no idea how one would arrive at this style
anyway if you cut that out that's maybe half the problem right there

>>7153435
No, if I had used a thesaurus I probably would have faired better. I explicitly decided not to use one and what you see here is vocabulary I have accumulated on my own. This probably accounts more for why the words seem out of place than the use of a thesaurus.

>>7153437
you know i read it again and it's less about the word choice and maybe more about how the words seem wrong because you're writing things that don't make sense
"betrayed me in their irresolute composition"
"The mouth would taste rot"
"the nose, doubtless feeling discounted in its office"
"brought to bear by the poor host"

i'm sure there's more in the second paragraph

>>7153444
But... But.. JAMES JOYCE GETS TO DO IT

yeah, yeah. JUST

Good evening /lit/, anon here trying to learn how to make the reader experience a certain emotion through writing. Here's something I wrote right now, does it accomplish my goal? Any ways I can improve or any tips on writing in general?

Many people lack the basic understanding of many emotions, such as fear. No, not the fear you feel when you turn on the lights and a Daddy long legs greets you. Not the fear when a you hear a bump, I am talking about a far more intense fear my friend. The cold shiver you feel when your eyes open, to see me standing in front of you. The cold swarm of butterflies that flood your chest, when you see the knife I hold in my hand. The sweat that begins to drip down from your brow, when I bring the blade to your skin. The quivering of your lips, the panic that sets into your heart as you realize this isn't a dream; as I quickly swipe your skin with the blade, leaving but a light cut on your arm.

Oh but the pain you do not feel, as you watch the blood glisten as it seeps out of it's cut. You do not feel it, because you feel is the fear that is taking hold of your body, making you thrash and shake as you know, and I know, that I am going to leave a cut all over your body.

But of course, if this doesn't send a shiver down your spine. Cause a pain in your chest. Even the slightest bit of discomfort as you read this. Then I guess I can't show you fear before you die. Maybe when I simply just shove the blade in your neck, leaving you to gasp and gurgle on your own blood as you see me walk away. Maybe you'll feel fear then, when you realize you're going to die.

With your writing, you put a lot of unnecessary words in there. It's like a fucking mess of intelligent shit, which doesn't connect properly. While I could tell you was trying to convey something or at least pain a picture, it seemed over the top and unnecessary all together. Tone it down a bit.

>>7153484

You might as well have just written *unsheathes katana*

What you mean Anon?

>>7153527
It was the edgiest thing I've read.

>>7153558
Well close enough to what I was lookin', any flaws?

>>7153397
You need to be more sincere OP

>>7153599
Yes, the whole thing looks like something I might read on Yahoo Answers

>>7153605
In what way?

>>7153621
Its just goofy. I thought you were trying to be humorous. I still do in fact

>>7153601
oh my god im laffin

Anonymous 09/23/15(Wed)22:23:34 No.7152364▶>>7152369 >>7152547
File: image.jpg (180 KB, 800x800)

The turd in the toilet took two seconds to tear apart. My fingerprints rilled with shit. It was supposed to be inside, but it was all doo doo. I glare at grandma. 'Why?'

Next thing I know, I'm at Romanelli's Scrap Metal arguing with handless cashier over how much grandma's walker is worth. 'Wha? This is aluminium alloy—no, I don't know with what!'

Back at the house grandma beckons. 'It is in my cunt' she whispers against my ear. So I guide her in the bathroom, undo her pants, and help her sit on the toilet. With a breaststroke motion I part her knees, her skin oldwoman soft. I feel my way into her melanin drained bush, of course she's self lubricating, why not? Middle and ring finger, searching. Nothing. Has she been lying? Is she delusional? Insane?

My name is Alex Trebek, I may have all the Answers, but the real Answers are the Questions.

I was in DC all week. I got to sit next to Pope Francis today flying into JFK. Doing the NYT crossword, he turns to me, 'four letter word for a woman, ending in 'u-n-t'?'

'Aunt'

'Do you have an eraser?'

Now, in my voice: The Answers are the Questions.

And you probably don't believe I'm actually Alex Trebek. Which is just as well.

The plane passes through the morning sea mist, the mist silent, all encasing, heatshimmer off the engines. Pope wrote 'cunt' and one of us is an index of magic, tools, functions, gossip, and a nexus of tickles. And one of us lies about kissing babies while going around kissing babies.

An O-ring, also known as a packing, or a toric joint, is a mechanical gasket in the shape of a torus—it is a loop of elastomer with a round cross-section, designed to be seated in a groove and compressed during assembly between two or more parts, creating a seal at the interface. And a ring of opinions? Well a pinion: gear with a small number of teeth designed to mesh with a larger wheel. Where do you get yours?

You need to know the Answers to Questions you don't know the Answers to.

Pope wrote 'cunt' and maybe it's C-rings that are the problem. Why do women like being tied up?

My thoughts are like chewing on tinfoil.

>>7153647
Kek

>>7153397
op honestly i don't think it's as bad as the others seemed to think
it is more or less of the same quality of most of the stuff that gets posted in these threas and suffers from the same problems
with that said this is still pretty bad like it's super overwritten and the vocab is riDICulous and the plot of, i guess, madness, descent into (?) is pretty edgy and overwrought
the good parts might have happened by accident on account of ya throwing so many words together at once
>wild movements of confetti [...] nevertheless resemble a humanity
>soup of overlapping duplicates
>artifacts impressed in white....into lines, tendrils, insects
also i really like the premise, of this disease that fucks up your vision
as someone who has done a lot of drugs and suffers from migraines with visual symptoms i feel that fear

>>7153484
are you a true detective or a linkin park

>>7153647
>fingernails rilled with shit
the word rilled doesn't work here
i love the dream-association from glaring at grandma to the scrap metal place
the fingering grandma part was pretty edgy but somehow still pretty funny especially the term "ring finger"
>is she delusional? insane?
hahaha
>'four letter word for a woman, ending in 'u-n-t'?'
>'Aunt'
>'Do you have an eraser?'
this makes the otherwise edgy use of the word cunt earlier worthwhile really funny and good flow
>you probably don't believe
this annoys me
don't tell me what i think
the latter half of this sucks apart from the description of o-ring
>why do women like being tied up
shit
>my thoughts are like chewing on tinfoil
cliche, shit

I posted this in the dead thread, Probably obvious I haven't written since my teens. It's clumsy, any suggestions?

Bequeathed us a carrier of flame
By a forebear of instinct
Slogged over millenia in our name
Sowed and harvested a Nation
A way, a law, a tongue
Many hearts of congregation.

Alas contented to consign
The rights of inheritence and root
For guest of neither kith nor kin
Whether a home of roost or santuary
As arteries harden our duty to listen and hold
A bedimed crown of Pompeii

>>7153397
I would like to critique, but I feel like this is too out of context for me to really give any advice...sorry.
>>7153484
You're coming on much too heavy here. Basically trying to hard to convey your emotion. Now, if this were a comic book, and the villain were saying these lines to his victim, the fear could be better betrayed through lighting and facial expressions.

However, seeing as all you have is words to convey an emotion, you have to be more tactful.

>Many people lack the basic understanding of many emotions, such as fear. No, not the fear you feel when you turn on the lights and a Daddy long legs greets you. Not the fear when a you hear a bump, I am talking about a far more intense fear my friend.

Alright first couple of lines.

>The cold shiver you feel when your eyes open, to see me standing in front of you. The cold swarm of butterflies that flood your chest, when you see the knife I hold in my hand. The sweat that begins to drip down from your brow, when I bring the blade to your skin. The quivering of your lips, the panic that sets into your heart as you realize this isn't a dream; as I quickly swipe your skin with the blade, leaving but a light cut on your arm.

Aaand you lost me. You lost me because I don't have a reason to fear this character. He's saying I should be afraid of him, and as we all know, people don't like to be told what to do. He also hasn't given me any reason to be afraid of him. Actions speak much louder than words, and you have to familiarize the audience with your character before you can expect them to react to any major actions the characters take.

My advise is you look up and read some tv tropes, and practice describing simple scenes without 'telling' the audience anything.

Here's the first draft of the beginning of a short story I'm writing. Critique would be much appreciated.


At half past seven in the morning, Avery Lovles woke to the pealing of an alarm clock while pale light--filtering through the early fog--seeped through the window, casting the shadow of his upright form on the opposite wall. He sat there for a time, lost in antemeridian stupor: forms recognized, not understood; thoughts reduced to impressions--vague, evanescent feelings that fade without consequence; his own body foreign, alien, separate: he considered his hands with fascination, contemplating the lines in his palms, tracing them with the fingers of his opposite hand.
Firing synapses, connecting neurons, proprioceptors whirring to life: Avery

Lovles grasped the folds of his blanket, pulling it off, waves propagating across the surface while it fell, dying when it landed--still.

>>7153782

What

Meant to be the beginning of a sort of Bolaño-esque multi-narrator narrative about growing up in gentrified NYC.
http://pastebin.com/s8dqfX2Y

>>7153791
There's not supposed to a line break near the end.

>>7153782
It's good, but your focusing a little too much on the detail. There is a fine line of needing to show your audience, and then over doing it.

>He sat there for a time, lost in antemeridian stupor: forms recognized, not understood

Right there would have been a good place to stop describing that feeling of first waking up, because by that time I understood completely what the character was feeling-because we've all felt it before-and the rest was just a bit boring. If it were a book, I would be tempted to skip through it.

>>7153782
Introducing the character's name like that feels so precious. Let him stay nameless for awhile, especially for a passage as distant as that.

>>7153799

It's still a rather convoluted mess. You linger too much on insignificant details and the way you randomly insert words no one knows just shows how hard you are trying to sound like some sort of a literary genius. I would recommend you lessen the jargon and increase the substance.

>>7153782
i really like it but the name "avery lovles" is terrible, just terrible please change it to something that sounds real
the first sentence is really discordant and needs to be scrapped totally. it doesn't have the softness which makes the rest so good.
the last sentence is sublime really nice work

>>7153797
just post it ffs
also it's a "private paste"

>>7153828
Goes over the character limit. Sorry.
http://pastebin.com/4PvE6cMp

>>7153647
I'd slaughter a dolphin to laugh more of this

>My name is Alex Trebek, I may have all the Answers, but the real Answers are the Questions.

>>7153813
>It's still a rather convoluted mess
Really? It may just be because I wrote it, but I didn't feel like it was too complex or confusing.
> You linger too much on insignificant details and the way you randomly insert words no one knows just shows how hard you are trying to sound like some sort of a literary genius
The digressions and lingerings are symbolic and essential to the story. I see your problem with the "jargon", but I disagree that it is bad, especially the last part about the brain: the functions of it are a large part of the story.
>>7153828
Yeah, I'll probably hack a lot of the first sentence off. I admit the name sounds stupid, but at the time I really wanted the name to be an anagram of a large part of the story, so I mixed "love slavery" into the character's name. Thanks for the advice :^)

The breakfast time social rainbow.
It's called being confident.
Shove flakes in your eyeballs NO MILK FUCKER. Get the cabbage in the trunk. Pack your cock in it's little hood. Piss hot steam. Wash that slime off the shower now or get it under your nails later. Run your foot along the ribbed plastic mat. Keys. Hit the doorframe with your WRIST, FUCK. Lights. Time to go. But shit have you hit the j yet? Smoking in the car...Alright.
“I swear to god officer it's tea leaves, I'm a priest...”

>>7153834
no i'm sorry that hostility was unwarranted
this reads very naturally for stretches, and is often funny
the whole section about how he thinks his dad doesn't know he smokes up to the longest recorded time was 9m is gold
but i feel like being around these people and living this kind of life wasn't this sunshiney all the time like was there really this sense of camaraderie? maybe for other people
anyway captures a mood and place pretty accurately would read more

>>7153868
first sentence good
rest hit and miss

Don't fuck with me.

What's that? You want to do battle?

Psst, I've already beaten you, kid. I went to the school of hard knocks and graduated summa cum laude from Mizuki Academy with a PhD in Annihilation and a minor in Pushing Your Shit In, fucko.

I am a samurai of authenticity, a warrior-poet of unfathomable intergrity. My blade shall cut through your lies and expose you for the utter imbecile that you are. You're a mindless savage, you're a waste of air, you're a pointless fucking human being. Go ahead, spew your vile filth while you can, for soon you shall be reduced to a weeping little bitch and the only thing you'll spew then is an apology, fuckface.

You ready to die, kid? No? Not yet? Too bad. Look behind you.

>>7153807
I understand the complaint, but the entire short story is supposed to be allegory for the Sphinx's riddle, so I wanted to emphasize his infantile state and felt that "lost in antemeridian stupor: forms recognized, not understood" wasn't enough. Thank you for your input.
>>7153812
That's actually a really good idea. I plan on keeping the protagonist as distant as possible, giving no direct indication of his thoughts or emotional state, but hinting at them through tone and the description of the world around him. Not giving him a name till later would help this a lot. Thanks.

>>7153875
>but i feel like being around these people and living this kind of life wasn't this sunshiney all the time like was there really this sense of camaraderie?
Definitely for some people who had nothing else to do.
Note the difference between the first and second narrators. I want to try to get every view of this world in, and it just felt right to start with a view that's totally immersed.

Thanks, though. Really, much appreciated. I'll keep writing.

>>7153397
This is worse than Eyes of Argon.

Never use a word simply because of its syllable count.

>>7153435
I'm guessing that this isn't thesaurus soup, but instead a very poor attempt to imitate Victorian lit.

It reads like a Clickhole parody of a Brontë novel.

does anybody have the fantasy sample that "is basically a Bill Cosby fanfic"

There was a pic of a curly haired knight attached to it and the first line was about the "red river" or something

worst writing I've seen in a long time. this is bad, guys. I am surprised by how bad this is.

adjectives/adverbs are not your friends. good writing is narration, not description.

Neils looked up from his feet, staring hard at such an angle that the sunlight caught his glasses rim and shattered into a fan of white rays.

He wore a stylized seriousness, like a movie scientist whose grim meditation on human folly precedes the end credits.

She wondered if he expected, having reached his revelation, to see helicopters slowly crawling the horizon, come to save them.

>>7153647
I help the Poop's hand to help him stand when we deplaned. I don't need help standing up. Francis is 3 years older than me, Alex Trebek. Turns out his real name is Jorge. Mine is George. And I didn't gain any Mysto Powers from touching him.

His parting words: 'You never actually own the Answers. You merely look after it for the next generation.'

That is not true. Understand that the Pope is an idiot. You have to hear him speak to understand what I mean. Much like how you need to see my wife to understand what I mean when I say: 'You need to know the Questions for the Answers you don't know the Questions for.'

I meet Jean at The Plaza Hotel and we tattoo the bedsheets in hectic red.

Right now, we are sitting, looking out the window, watching the chaos of Central Park preparing itself for the Poop and all the crazies that will try to grope him in hopes of gaining Mysto Powers.

Jean and I are discussing the Freemason principle of control. That is, the chessboard with snails as the chesspieces. It is carved above the doors of their lodges. It's ok, Jean never noticed either.

i'm so fucked up, she grunted, tearing the ill fitted dress off, exposing that ultra-pumped pussy, the clit as big as an plastic gumball and wet with dew

They've turned me into a fucking slut, she thought, waves of heat thumping in her ears and cheeks

there was no coming back from this she thought, now groaning and heaving while publicly milking her hard black teats and rubbing that clit, as onlookers gawped, kids and their young mothers.

a hot stream of piss erupted from the flesh clefts of her swollen pussy. at that moment her human side couldn't hold on any longer. She moaned deeply, sucking hot breaths in and out of those big fat O-shaped lips gasping as her heavy sagging udders poured milk down the rolls of her belly to her cottage cheese ass

grunting, occasionally bellowing, she felt so slutty and degraded she could find no greater pleasure than to grip firmly the heaping flesh of her buttocks and deposit a steaming turd on the pavement right there in public. In that mind-rocking major orgasm she accepted her new role.

out of her throat came a low long "MooOOoo", pushing itself out as warm and soft and natural as the boa constrictor of a dump that was coming out of her like a tube of brown toothpaste.

She went wide eyed, for one brief moment realising what had happened, before bellowing it again, and again and again

"moooo" she thought happily.

The fresh cow fell on it's all fours, its hanging udders vein-engulfed balloons of pink flesh from which stem the lengths of eight fat teats, each slick with milk. Her thick back legs spread out flanking a wide open ass, wet with shit

I want to be pretty like the rest isn't that a sad thing that some have decided to never love again closing the doors of life and the sun dropping far far away out of sight far the sun went away dropping past the hill with no wind I was sitting there all alone I watched the sun disappear I want to be pretty where did everything go when did it slip away back then I was a girl I was fifteen looking in the mirror I was so happy I could not breathe he called me he sounded so nervous he thought it was pop hello Jane is that you yes it is me Jane Jane is my name I was Jane and I am Jane my name is Jane but I was Jane in a white pullover and socks and I didn't sleep talking to him looking out the window at the stars wishing he was there the sky is always there it is big and purple it was made for those things and the words died in my throat i was so happy and looking in the mirror and will he like this or maybe that and let me wash again just once and I opened the door and he smiled that way he did he was standing in the dark the street crickets he looked at me hello hello I said would you and he took my hand he said my name Jane it sounded so nice to hear him say it my heart jumped and can he hear the excitement in my voice and that was the time the far time before the sun dropped over the hill where I watched it disappear and walking on the beach I tossed my sandal the surf under my feet and the stars trembled blue and I yelped the way he grabbed me falling on the sand with no sound no birds no one to see no sound but the water and his heart dear God I was so happy I touched his fuzzy chin and his arms were so big around me so big when he smashed my face I wanted to please him I just wanted to please him but I was his darling fucktoy and why is it always like that it seems you think it will be different why is it why and my heart is a barren plot nothing grows there and each time it takes so long to uproot the weeds would you have a walk with me Jane ok the band was playing and the strings sang through the heat and his skin was warm and capable did John Keats have a fucktoy too I want to be pretty

>>7154075
Reads like a bad Faulkner imitation.

I rewrote the beginning of the plane scene
I had been waiting outside the plane with my men for several hours. We were a long way from home, a clear field in Uzbekistan that turned hazy from the bugs and the heat… forced to collect a person of interest… not of interest to any of us, but to men much more important than ourselves. We were accompanied only by our thoughts and the stench of goat shit, and villagers that kept pestering us… they wanted us to buy this or that, they would have sold anything really, but the answer was always no. A green blur appeared in the distance, and as it grew closer took the shape of a jeep. The driver parked 3 meters from us. The driver, three hooded figures, and a meek, sneering man exited. Although none of them looked particularly desirable I recognized the whelp as our imperative, and began to introduce myself, “Dr. Pavel, I’m League of Nations”. I rewarded his captor with a briefcase of francs, and then he began escorting the other prisoners toward the aircraft behind us. “Uh, you don’t get to bring friends,” I explained. “They are not my friends,” Pavel interjected. “Don’t worry, no charge for them,” the captor said.” I kept trying to explain that I didn’t want them on my plane, while he continued to insist that I should take them. He referred vaguely to a masked mercenary working against the League of Nations. “Bane,” I asked. He grunted at this question, and walked toward the jeep. The heat was intolerable… Without the energy to go on haggling with this man, I ordered that these mysterious prisoners board the aircraft.

>>7153989
>exposing that ultra-pumped pussy

>>7153484
You are laying it on really thick. Instead of telling the person what they fear, you should draw them in, make them feel close to the protaginist, then interject a scenario of grasping fear into the experience of the protaginist

>>7153989
What the fuck

>>7153989
Io?

>>7153989
This has inspired me to come out as a transbovine. Finally I can express who I truely am. Thank you 4chan!

The problem with being Sheila Baxter was that you couldn't be anyone else. This is a common enough problem for most people, but for her it was particularly upsetting. She found it very difficult to complain to others about being her, a common respite for the self challenged. Sheila had been cursed with a sort of extreme normal, being not ugly, dumb or unskilled but neither particularly beautiful, intelligent or talented. She fell somewhere in the middle of all things by which a person may judge their character. She was just shy of 5’7, with brown shoulder length hair with the shape and consistency of spanish moss. She had blue eyes that had no need for glasses. If she had ever by chance stepped on a scale, the scale would ponder for a moment, shrug its shoulders and declare her ‘so-so’. All in all on the report card of life, she had been given a C+.
This was unfortunate, because like all people there were many things about her life that she hated. The problem being that when an abundantly average person complains to non-average person, they tend to give them the look that someone with stage 3 cancer gives listening to the complaints of a hypochondriac who just knows this time its serious.
She lived with her boyfriend who, by her own admission, was out of her league. He was handsome, had a job that paid well enough to support both of them comfortably, and never argued with her unless absolutely necessary, and even then did his best to be as reasonable and understanding as he could. He was intelligent and caring, and everyone liked him in that default way that feels more like a lack of things to hate then genuine admiration, but he got along with anyone who still called sheila ‘friend’, and he truly did, from the bottom of his heart, love her. He was also incredibly boring.
It wasn't his fault, not really. He was the kind of person who knew the names of each of his coworkers children, held up office meetings to discuss some minor problems he had noticed since the last meeting, and really meant, with feeling, his holiday wishes. He took sheila out to dinner every Thursday to the same 4-and-a-half star restaurant, and always ordered himself the lemon salmon and steamed broccoli. He also ordered for sheila, (as he believe this is just what gentlemen do for their lady), and always picked her favorite dish, one which he may have been surprised to learn she actually never really cared for. He found every movie he watched fun and exciting, and was always quite surprised when he was informed of things like subtext and underlying themes in films which he thought were simple summer action blockbusters.
Sheila had a sneaking suspicion that if she had decided one day that she never wanted to work again, that she only wanted to stay and look after the homestead, that he probably wouldn't argue much and, in fact, might even welcome the idea with open arms*4. She came to this conclusion after losing her 3rd job in 2 years.

>>7153989
Jacked to this thanx anon

Most of these are way too flat, too "pop." It doesn't sound like any of you are writing from your own voices.

>>7154242
That was pretty bad. Give up any aspirations of becoming writer.

>>7154332
thanks for the input

>>7154242
It's well-written enough. The scale part made me think of Gogol. The opening sentence is also good -- succinct, straightforward and it grabs you; and Sheila Baxter is a great name.

But without any further context I really don't know what to make of this. Sheila's average, a C+ in life, ok, her boyfriend bores her but has a good job and keeps Sheila and himself fed. Alright. So what? There's no ''movement''.

Also, watch out for cliche phrases like ''sneaking suspicion'', ''from the bottom of his heart'', ''with open arms'' etc.

>>7153880
>with a PhD in Annihilation and a minor in Pushing Your Shit In, fucko

kek

>>7154356
thanks for the input, I notice I have issues with those cliche phrases. I've started cutting them out but this part is about 50 pages earlier. It get to editing them later. Maybe Ill post more of it later after I look through the thread.

Monologue from a larger piece I'm writing. The character is meant to be obnoxious.

Ladies and gentlemen of the council, you are no doubt eager to judge me. You consider me a liar, an egomaniac, a megalomaniac, a scumbag, a villain, a bully, a rotten scoundrel, an asshole, whatever. And, since I’m indulging myself in such honest speech, I’ll say, honestly, that I have to agree with you. I am all those things and then some. But allow me to open your eyes to the harsh reality.

What I am is a necessary evil. That’s right, I am necessary. You despise me, and as far as I’m concerned go ahead, but this place would fall apart faster than a fucking Ikea bookshelf if you didn't have me. Who got you Lublow? Huh? I did. Who got you Russo? I did. Who got you Mahler? I did. Who got you Gallow? I did. Who got you Eprowicz? That’s right, I did. I could rattle off two days' worth of names. Do you want me to? ’Cause I fucking will, I will stand here and I will go from A to fucking Z. But I know that you know that I don’t have to.

You ask who am I, exactly. Who am I... I’m a sorcerer who waved his staff, said abra-ka-fuckin’-dabra, and turned this place into the powerhouse it is today. That's who I am, a goddamn magician who saw a sinking boat and turned it into a luxury yacht.

Now, what I am going to leave you with is a promise. And the promise is this: If you fire me, this business will collapse. And when there's nothing but rubble left, you will come crawling to me. You will then kneel before me and you will beg me to come back and save you. And as you are kneeling before me, I’ll say three words. Three simple words: Suck. My. Cock.

Thank you.

>>7154469
It's really, really annoying. You better have a good justification for it.

>>7153397
Long-winded, by the end of the first paragraph the feeling of dread and anxiety is replaced by boredom. Everyone else is right re: your vocabulary.

>>7153484
Fucking awful, about as scary as said daddy long legs. Main issue is you're just saying, "This is why you'll be afraid." No suspense, poorly paced. Never use "oh" to begin a sentence.

>>7153647
Occasionally funny, but you kill the jokes through repetition. Anybody with half a brain would realize "the Pope wrote cunt" after he asked for the eraser; saying it twice just lessens the joke. More often than not it's too lolsorandom for its own good.

>>7153750
Don't try to sound poetic for the sake of it. Also read some poetry before you try to write it.

>>7153782
Good shit. Stupid name for your character (Pynchon fan?). Riding the em dash a little hard here.

>>7153834
Obnoxious stylistic choice in the first paragraph, could be made more tolerable by introducing it later rather than right off the bat.

>>7153868
Why do people still write stuff like this? It's not the 70s anymore.

>>7153880
Nothing personnel, etc.

>>7153927
Best so far. More?

>>7153948
Like a less funny version of the first part.

>>7153989
Bad literotica.

>>7154075
Simply dreadful. Stream-of-consciousness with none of the dreaminess that makes it enjoyable.

>>7154129
At least it's not masturbatory. Use paragraphs.

>>7154242
Who wants to read such boring language about a boring person? It's trite, epitomized by the "report card of life" bit.

>>7153691
Its not really a disease. Partly it could just be looked at as a man who overdramatizes everything. I meant to explain things like tinnitus and floaters as a deterioration of the senses. All he has experienced is basic degeneration of vision.

>>7154505
>Pynchon fan?
Very much so. I even tried making the character's name an anagram, which is probably why it sounds pretty stupid.

>>7154505
I'm >>7153834.
I considered moving it further along, but I'm not sure how I would ease into it, especially since it's so expository by nature.

>>7154505
this guy
>>7154242
thanks for your input. My intention was to make her abundantly average as it becomes a plot point later the god of luck tells her shes the only person in history to have had and equal amount of bad and good things happen to her but it takes a long time to get to that point and i've heard a few people say things similar to what you did. Perhaps I should find a way to make her seem more likeable earlier.

This is Paul.

Paul is 5’8” and gaining decorative pounds everyday.

Paul eats Wendy’s on MWF and Chik-Fil-A on TTR.

Paul works as an operational specialist at the Mio Corporate office.

Open Mio, Open Fun! Paul says to himself as he logs on to his company computer.

If Paul had kids, Mio would reimburse them $1500 a semester for good grades in school.

If Paul was married, Mio would provide his spouse with health insurance.

If Paul wanted a raise, Mio would pay for him to take classes at night.

If Paul ends up getting diagnosed with diabetes or high-cholesterol, Mio will pay for a gym-membership.

Be you! Be Mio! says the wallpaper on Paul’s company computer.

In the break room there is a TV that plays Mio!TV.

The TV is on the same switch as the lights.
When the office is on, so is Mio!TV.

Mio!TV shows members from Mio Corporate offices around the world that have won the internal company lottery.

Everyone gets one ticket in the lottery.
If you win the lottery you and one other person get to go on a Mio!TV adventure.

Mio!TV’s slogan is Excite your water! Excite your life! Be Mio!

Mio!TV takes employees to exotic places they’ve never been before.

Mio!TV shows employees parts of life they’ve never experienced before.

Mio!TV gives people a new thirst for life.

Paul goes into the break room and fills up his company water bottle with plain water.

Paul looks at the complimentary Mio selection.
Paul thinks about Bombastic Berry! or Cherry Crush! or Citrus Blast!

Paul started the summer with Citrus Blast! but wore himself out on it.

Paul then took two weeks drinking plain water, in hopes of reinvigorating his interest in Citrus Blast!

>>7153484
Writer of this here, all your advice was helpful Anons, thanks
>>7154505
Especially yours

>>7154689
KEEP FUCKING GOING

>>7154689
Praise Paul.

>>7154759
Will do after french class

http://vakinc.com/ilmora/ch2.html

Working on long form stuff. I legitimately cannot tell if it's any good. Would greatly appreciate if someone would take the time to read even a few paragraphs and give feedback. Not too worried about grammatical errors, I've checked for them so there shouldn't be any, but nonetheless I'm more concerned about content and style. I'm worried it's too purple right now. Be brutal.

In the mean time I'll be reading stuff from this thread and giving feedback.

>>7153782
starting with a waking up scene is really trite but for some reason i really like this. got any more?

>>7154845
It's decent, but you have WAY to many adverbs.

>>7153397
As others have stated, the vocabulary is completely overwrought. To be fair, it actually thematically fits because it makes the writing as layered in obscurity as the vision you're describing, but it's just painful to read. It's too dense, not to mention writing anything long form in this style would be incredibly difficult and, in the end dry. You want use this type of vocabulary sparingly, to give it impact. There's something to be said for the value of minimalist writing.

>>7153484
As a general rule, it's bad to approach the goal of making a reader feel an emotion by reflection on the emotion. It's like a young girl writing in her diary "What is love? Love is..." Horror, honestly, can be pretty well compared to comedy. If you're telling a good joke, generally you do some set-up, you mislead the audience to expect one thing, then you subvert those expectations. Horror does the same thing, on a basic level. More or less the biggest problem here is you're telling the audience they are afraid, and not actually scaring them. Blood, violence, gore, etc. That's not actually that scary. Fear, especially in a novel, is based around setting up an atmosphere.

Here's a good example from a Murakami novel I just read: "I'm not a complete idiot. But my mind got scrambled when that big black dog bit me, and it hasn't been quite right yet." The line isn't innately scary, but it's just slightly off enough that, when that dog shows up later unexpectedly, it seems like a genuine threat. Something about the dog seems surreal, how can being bit by it scramble one's mind? The dog is never described as something out of the ordinary, but this one line hints so vaguely at dog being something unnatural, that it's enough to scare the reader when the dog does show up.

>>7153647
Pretty good, no complaints that other anons haven't brought up.

>>7153750
I'm generally not a good judge of poetry, but there's more to poetry than rhyme. You lack meter.

>>7153782
Pretty solid, one anon said you dwelled too long on the feeling of waking up, but I don't know I think it's fine, especially for the first couple of lines of a story. Focusing heavily on the character awakening while also bringing the reader into the scene with the detail is a great way to start a story, I personally think. As one anon pointed out though, you don't need to name your character here. If there character's name is important, it will come up naturally somewhere else, like when someone talks to them. If it's unimportant, then just let them remain nameless.

Gonna post this so I don't lose it then keep reading the rest of the thread...

>>7154914
As of yet, no. I have it all planned out--the story, symbolism, themes--but I haven't written anymore than you've read. I'm glad you didn't mind the fact that it began in the morning: it couldn't be started any other way.

>>7154953
Thanks, anon. I'm still struggling to decide what to do with the name, but I will, for sure, change it to something else: Avery Lovles is admittedly an awful name.

>>7154999
noice trips

I'm probably the only one who doesn't mind the name all that much. Avery is totally fine. Lovles draws too much attention to itself cuz it looks like you tried to write Loveless but in your haste forgot a few letters. I also thought of McLovin', though the connection there is weaker.

>>7155017
Sounding like loveless was intentional, as I wanted his name to have obvious and hidden meaning (the hidden meaning being the phrase the name is an anagram of: love slavery).

>>7153834
I really like the tone of the first section, the character's voice, but the lack of punctuation and capitalization doesn't really add to it, and just makes it hard to read.

In a small dose, that style would be fine. I'd actually like it. It would have to be a later on though, not the very first thing.

>>7153880
ayy

>>7153927
Minimal, yet conveys perfectly the image we're supposed to see. Great metaphor, immediately gets the point across. Well done.

>>7153948
Kinda feels like you lost the plot but impossible to tell without knowing what you're going for and maybe that's the point anyway.

>>7153989
Excellent body horror, horrible erotica.

>>7154075
Average writing that I can't even judge properly because I'm so distracted by the lack of punctuation.

>>7154129
On par with the film's writing.

>>7154242
This style of character introduction is something you see a lot of in YA fiction, that I always pretty much hated, but even I'm guilty of. Writing something like this can be useful for you as the author to feel out your character, but it is far better for you to just write out a scene with the character to convey these same things. Do something like introduce her during one of these dates her boyfriend takes her on. Have the character be nervous about her appearance, and describe how she fretted over herself in the mirror before the date because she felt that she was inadequate for her boyfriend. Instead of telling us he orders for her, have a scene of him talking with the waitress and suspiciously placing the order without consulting Sheila. That type of stuff.

>>7154469
Sounds like he's smart, nihilistic, and has a wicked sense of humor.

No but for real this monologue, on its own, is utterly cliche. Character seems like your typical doucebag business man. It's dialog, so it's hard to judge without knowing the character, but it didn't impress me. It feels like the same douchebag speech we've all heard a million times before from this type of character.

>>7155051
Anagram names are pretty hard to pull off, and sound natural. I use a couple in my writing, and they range from things I think are passable, like Dan Burmen, and Chi Todokide (which is a name that works within Japanese phonetics) to awful stuff I need to fix like Dora LeWynd and Ted Puggit.

>>7153421
What about "show, don't tell"?

>>7155068
thanks, that helps alot. this guy >>7154242

its funny you say you see it a lot in YA novels, because that's what it is, a comedy YA novel. Thanks for the constructive feedback.

The bathtub was filled with a viscous black goo. Avros, sitting in a rickety old chair, his bowlingball-smooth pate shiny under the orange glare of the lamp above, was stirring the goo meditatively, having reached a kind of zen rhythm. He was using a huge wooden ladle. A snub-nosed revolver and a cup were sitting on the edge of the sink.

''What are you doing?'' Mark asked.

An unexpected voice. Avros jumped up from the chair. ''Mark... you--''

''What is this? What the fuck is that in the bathtub?''

Avros looked at the bathtub, then turned back to Mark with a smile. ''It's my brew. Oh boy, just wait'll you taste it!''

''What the fuck are you talking about? Brew, what? How am I gonna take a bath?''

Avros grabbed a cup from the sink and dragged it over the surface of the goo. The goo ran thickly down the sides of the cup. ''Here,'' Avros said, ''It'll clean your soul. Your body is insignificant.''

Mark smacked the cup from Avros's hand. It flew against and cracked the mirror. ''Fuck you and fuck your brew, Avros,'' Mark said.

''Hey, that's seven years of bad luck.''

''And that,'' Mark pointing at the bathtub, ''Is god knows how many hours of cleaning work, so fucking get to it.''

''Now look here,'' Avros said with a quivering voice, ''You have no right to disrespect my brew, my dream, like that.'' Avros grabbed the gun from the sink and pointed it at Mark. ''What the fuck are you doing?'' Mark asked.

Avros's eyes were wet now, a few tears already making their way down his cheeks and disappearing into his wide handlebar mustache. ''Please drink my goo, Mark, please... I'm begging you!''

''That gun isn't loaded.''

Avros shot into the ceiling.

''Oh God. Please no, Avros. Please--''

''Mark, drink my goo!'' Avros crying hysterically now. ''Take that cup, fill it up, and drink it. Do it, Mark. Please.''

Mark did just that. Took the cup, filled it, and then... ''Do it, Mark.''

Mark drank the goo.

>>7155114
Honestly, if you're writing for YA it's hard to say, a lot of teens, or people in general, really do not have the patience for exposition, and so they want it all done in one chunk like you did. People just want all the story given to them at once, and want to know everything from the outset. I wish I had a link to that article about why trailers sometimes spoil the entire movie, it's because focus testing showed lots of people feel uncomfortable going into a film if they don't know how it ends.

>>7155146
well im not trying to do all that, but then again im writing with the experience i picked up from reading an unhealthy amount og YA novels so while it may not be correct in a literary way, it feels correct in a YA way which is fine by me, because thats what im going for. I do have a problem with pacing, ill admit. My writing goes from point a to b to c fairly quickly to just 'get to the good parts', and I know that terrible. I figured after i finished the novel itself I could go back and edit in the shit that needed to be in. It's my first real attempt at a story thats longer than 10 pages.

http://pastebin.com/MP96D0Qw

I turned this in for a creative writing workshop

I think it's kinda shit, and it's a first draft, but what can I do.

>>7155163
I had a real problem with pacing too. Best way to solve it is just to write. By the end of my first novel I had written so much trash that I understood exactly why what I was doing was boring and wrong. The actual novel is an irredeemable mess, but it taught me a lot of good lessons.

>>7154689
At first, Paul didn’t understand work at Mio.

Paul had to work hard to get his degree in college.

Paul had to study an hour a day in college.

Paul worked hard and studied an hour a day and graduated with a 3.3 GPA.

Paul liked the days when Mike had closed-door conference calls.

Closed-door conference calls meant an hour and a half for lunch.

Closed-door conference calls meant going inside Chik-Fil-A.

Paul thought Chik-Fil-A was the best.

Everyone works together at Chik-Fil-A, towards a singular goal.

Paul stood inside Chik-Fil-A on a closed-door conference call day, watching the Chik-Fil-A workers in their pressed white polo-shirts.

Busy bees, Paul thought.

“I bet Ole Adolf is rollin’ in ‘is grave seein’ this, huh?!”

Paul looked up at a bearded man in a long-sleeved polo-shirt.

“If Ole Adolf had these kids runnin’ the show, shit! we’d be eating sauerkraut sandwiches!”

Paul looked around at the busy bees and imagined little ‘SS’ pins on their pressed collars.

Paul looked at the bearded man.

“Ha, I’m sorry son, just can’t help being myself, old and talky.”

Paul curled his upper lip a little and gave a close-lipped smile to the bearded man before looking back at his phone.

Paul was looking at the Mio!TV app on his phone.

A Chik-Fil-A worker buzzed over to him at the sauce-bar.

“Sweet Tea for Paul!”

Paul looked up from the Mio!TV app, Excite your water! Excite your life! Be Mio! was on the screen before Paul clicked the sleep button.

The Chik-Fil-A worker smiled big with her white teeth in her pressed white polo-shirt with her arm straight-out, holding Sweet Tea.

Paul took his Sweet Tea and curled his upper lip a little and gave a close-lipped smile to the Chik-Fil-A worker.

"Have a great day!"

a short passage I wrote and somewhat revised yesterday. hopefully engaging without taking itself too seriously.


The corner store was across the street from the Ichiban, out of place between two larger and uglier buildings. If you were to imagine the corner store as a person, it would have been rather uncomfortable in its position, as if it had chosen a seat on the bus between two fat and unknown men. Of course, there was also a possibility that the corner store had sat down first, only to have to grudgingly make room not once but twice. It was of little consequence in the end. The painter pushed open the store's shabby door and made his way to the counter.

"Blues or Reds?" asked the attendant, who was a small dark boy and knew the painter well.

"Today? I'll have the blues," replied the painter.

The dark boy was clever and found this most entertaining. He laughed.

The painter was not clever and only half understood but laughed with the boy anyways. He told the boy to keep the 17 cents left over from his 5 dollar bill and put the Palace Blues in his coat pocket.

>>7155168
i'll be honest, it felt very cliche, but it ended strong which I wasn't expecting. Theres a lot of that 'im attracted to something thats killing me, btw that thing im attracted to is an analogy for a girl' going on in these threads. I've seen worse, i've seen better. All in all, i'd say you stretched the metaphor too far, and considering the entire piece was seemingly written to make that metaphor work, it comes off as... inconsequential. I think is salvageable though, if you drop the metaphor earlier and start talking in a more literal sense

>>7155168
>http://pastebin.com/MP96D0Qw
I really like your descriptions, pacing, and vocabulary. Maybe throw in some vague details of specific events? Just to explain the whole sinking bit- not that it doesnt make sense, but it's just very generic "oh no things went bad"

>>7155226
huh, kind of neat. mentioning the specific app is definitely too much, but I loved the line about SS pins.

>>7155261
Sorry, this was only for fans of Paul, not newcomers.

>>7153883
Ah, that makes sense. Have you gotten very far in it so far? Is it hard to write?

I try and stick with stuff I know how to write, but I want to be able to branch out and try some different styles eventually.

>>7154075
You didn't use one fucking period or even a comma

Has anyone here posted their writing on any other websites? I'm trying to find a place that I can post my short stories but I don't want to end up on the literary version of deviant art.

I haven't had a chance to do any editing on this yet, and obviously I'm not done with it, but here it is:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15zw-rFWhsJNXN4Wu-dJSPRu3HMc_gmkAokL8ZWo3PUM/edit?usp=sharing

>>7155381
I found this site a while ago, haven't really used it yet though.

http://www.writerscafe.org/

If you post any completed stuff, you might want to get it copyrighted before you make it public.

>>7155395
thats pretty funny, im actually on that site right now, looking over someones cliched sci-fi novel.

>>7155403
lol. Ya it was just the first one that popped up when I searched writing sites, so it must be kind of popular.

>>7153750
Your imagery is getting lost in your word-choice. I get the feeling that you're using words that 'sound' poetic instead of just getting to the meat of your subject matter. It has a jarring effect that makes you sound like a foreigner approaching English as a second language. 'Alas contented to consign/ the rights of inheritance and root ...' What does this even mean, man? I'm not sure what to picture in my head or what feeling to take away from it. Confusing your reader with absurdism or surrealism is fine, but confusing them with awkward word-choice isn't. At the risk of sounding self-congratulatory, here is a poem of mine for context and comparison -
-

Slender maiden garbed in black bedecked with green,
panther's prowling grace
and hair of deepest copper sheen
I see you with mine open eyes
and when I close them, in my dreams
From deep within my cistern heart
a reservoir of feeling
that babbles effervescently,
so full of sound and meaning.

-

My word-choice and structure here gets a little antiquated in places, old-timey for sure, but the imagery is crystal-clear throughout: a skinny girl, lithe like a jungle cat, her reddish hair, my feelings like a deposit of water. You come away from this poem with understanding and at least some degree of clarity of the subject matter at hand. You want to strive for that kind of concrete image, Anon.

>>7155289
What you read is all I have written. Everything else, however, has been fleshed out.

This is an excerpt from a fictional book I'm writing based in WW1. Rate?

Lying on the floor of the flat-car with the guns beside me under the canvas I was wet, cold and very hungry. Finally I rolled over and lay flat on my stomach with my head on my arms. My knee was stiff, but had it had been very satisfactory. White had done a find job. I had done half the retreat on food and swum part of the Cygne with his knee. It was his knee all right. The other knee was mine. Doctors did things to you and then it was not your body any more. The head was mine, and the inside of the belly. It was very hungry in there. I could feel it turn over on itself. The head was mine, but not to use, not to think with, only to remember and not too much remember.
I could remember Victoria but I knew I would get crazy if I thought about her and when I was not sure yet I would see her, so I would not think about her, only about her a little, only about her with the car going slowly and clickingly, and some light through the canvas and my lying with Victoria on the floor of the car. Hard as the floor of the car to lie not thinking only feeling, having been away too long, the clothes wet and the floor moving only a little each time and lonesome inside and alone with wet clothing and hard floor for a wife.
You did not love the floor of a flat-car nor guns with canvas jackets and the smell of vaselined metal or a canvas that rain leaked through, although it is very fine under a canvas and pleasant with guns; but you loved some one else whom now you knew was not even to be pretended there; you seeing now very clearly and coldly - not so coldly as clearly and emptily. You saw emptily, lying on your stomach, having been present when one army moved back and another came forward. You had lost your cars and your men as a floorwalker loses the stock of his department in a fire. There was, however, no insurance. You were out of it now. You had no more obligations.

>>7155241
this is not awful at all. I don't mind the description of the store, but the explanation of the red or blue cigarettes could use some further work. im not going to tell you how to fix it, because I don't know myself, but try to rewrite that part... something seems off.

Reading you is like stepping into an alternate dimension where Melville sucked.

>>7155660
reading who?

>>7155668
that was a free-verse post-post-modern poem, you dolt.
way to not appreciate his art.

>>7155674
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

ok i get it yeah

>>7155241
I know writing only changes when people break rules and all that, but I would highly recommend you spell out the numbers unless it's something like an address, street number, time, etc.

Unless you have some artistic, purposeful reason to break rules, then it just comes off as lazy and sloppy.

>>7155644
I'd change the line 'My knee was stiff, but had it had been very satisfactory.' I think that's just a typo, because it doesn't make any sense. The scattered nature of the protagonist's thoughts are interesting, and I think you've got a good image on your hand with lines like 'alone with wet clothing and hard floor for a wife'. I would read more of this, definitely. Just be careful that it doesn't get too esoteric and stops making sense. Here it makes a warped kind of sense, but still sensible; don't lose that.

Short passage from something I'm writing, a horror story.

Joe woke up in the middle of the night. The TV in front of him slowly unblurred -- white noise. Then he saw the three men, standing at the edge of his couch.

Except for the slit of pale face between fedora and face mask, their bodies were covered entirely by black clothes. Shadows. Two of them grabbed him and held him down while the third ripped off his pants. A hand covered his mouth. The man looked at his exposed penis, cocked his head, then shifted his gaze to Joe’s face. His eyes were completely white.

The man reached into the inside pocket of his coat. When his hand came out, there was something between his fingers, something that wriggled. The man lowered the thing toward Joe’s penis. It wriggled in the air until it was wriggling against the forehead of Joe’s penis and then it slipped into his urethra. Joe felt it slither inside the shaft, moving toward the stomach, and then the feeling disappeared. A little blood spurted from his penis. This was too horrifying to be a just a nightmare.

>>7155716
This sounds like something I would find on Literotica in the nonconsent story section.

I don't know if that makes it great or horrible.

>>7155685
it's supposed to be that the knee was in satisfactory condition after his surgery (despite the stress on it and not being finished healing), it had lasted a long time

>>7155420
Thank you for the post, it's hokey and the more I look at it the more I am unsatisfied but I will conitnue to work on it, I'm struggling with how to tackle it. I'm inspired by the mysticm and nationalism within Yeats work and much of the imagery I've tried to allude specifically with Karl Emerich Kramer's celebratory "Mein Lied fur Europa".
>Old Europe has many hearts,
>Has many crowns,
>That never dedim

What I'm trying to convey with 'Alas contented to consign/ the rights of inheritance and root .. is the fatalistic feeling of contemporay Europe, we're being uprooted and losing our sense of identity and belonginess with modernity. Which to me is such a pernicious concept, I want to make it catasphoric/pessismistic of the future, like in how John Montegues " A lost tradition" he describes the pure emotional loss of identity
>The whole landscape a mauscript
>We had lost the skill to read
>A part of our part disinherited
>And fumbled like a blind man,
>Along the fingertips of instinct

Revised from last thread, I meant to reply to all the kind anons who gave me some great pointers and advice but the thread 404'd before I got the chance. Really took the advice to heart, that well thought-out reply from the tripfag and the one anon who talked about the ejaculation metaphor was particularly useful. I'll take an hour or so and critique a few others work before I go to bed.

http://pastebin.com/m0DtkQdq

can we post ideas in here? i have some neat ideas and i want you guys to tell me they aren't shit

She was tall, or it at least looked like that to a kid like me, and wore black track pants with colorful pink streaks running down the sides of the legs. There were pockets on both sides of the hips, twin pistols being half-heartedly shoved into each pocket, using the pant’s pouches as makeshift holsters. Covering her torso was a loose hoodie. It looked like black was its original color, but the garment had obviously had one too many run-ins with spray paint, making it a bright and colorful neon mess. As she presumably heard my rather loud footsteps and turned around, I had caught enough of an eyeful of her hair to be able to describe it accurately. For when I saw her hair in this very moment, it had been neatly fashioned into an elegant bob-cut on the shorter side of the bob-cut spectrum.
She turned to face me. She looked very boyish, and I admired her for it. If it weren’t for her voice, I would’ve been hit with a tad bit of confusion. She opened her mouth, as if to send me a reminder.
“Hey there, kid!” is what she welcomed me with, as she flashed a huge grin my way. When someone has a great smile, people often describe it by saying “they have a smile that could brighten up a room”, but here it felt quite different. This girl’s smile was just the kind of you’d need to dim the room with when someone else’s smile makes it a little too bright.
A troublemaker’s smile. One hundred percent mischievous and just a little more.
In that moment, as I examined her toothy grin, I noticed that the teeth she showed off so proudly were extraordinarily sharp to the eye. Almost like shark teeth. I wouldn’t be surprised if she could cut diamonds as if she was chewing food. Sparkling white – sharp as knives. Forcing myself to stop describing the lower part of her smile, her eyes seemed to be the most normal part of her appearance, while still being notable. This is because her eyes were open wide, pupils dilated from the dark of the night, intimidating me so. If looks could kill, I would be at her mercy.

Ryan wasn’t really my friend at this point, not for any particular reason, but just because of inevitable drifting apart. I didn’t have any other friends so I remember clearly I tried to talk to him between acts without much of a response, and I remember clearly the back of his shining Magritte black head stepping up back to the front on the false stage from the stars’ centrifuge, and back into Egypt, up Joseph’s ouroboros earladder areolated, leaving myself back in the blinded purple house of bondage and sausaged into an armored Superman corset back of the stage minotauros, looking back at my own head, infused with winedark purple mercury, longtemps, a metaphor for what you like.

>>7156197
they aren't shit

>>7155660
>>7155685
by the way >>7155644 was a passage from a farewell to arms by hemingway, so you have passed the litmus test
congrats, your opinion isn't shit

>>7153750

read Hart Crane a bit closer next time aight my dude?

Berlin finally became visible to him from 5000 feet above the earth. The plane had descended through the cloud cover and a sprawling city emerged below. It was Adam’s first time seeing Berlin, and it would soon be his second time setting foot in a country outside of the United States. The first time was at an airport in Amsterdam while he was moving from one plane to another. He felt his pulse quicken after he looked at the city for a few moments. Bakur, his cousin, awaited him at the Berlin airport. The last time he saw Bakur, they were both children on the eve of adolescence. Eleven years ago, Bakur’s family had moved to the United States and stayed at Adam’s house for over fifteen months. Adam and Bakur had grown close over those months; it was a bond that was not easily broken, even after more than a decade. Adam was nervous, but not because he was going to be seeing Bakur again. He was nervous because he knew what would come after he saw Bakur.

Bakur waited for Adam with two train tickets to Cizre, Turkey. From there, they would cross the border into Syria during the night and be picked up by Bakur’s uncle, who would then drive them to the Kurdish city of Kamishli. There, Adam suspected he would go though a makeshift bootcamp and be trained as a Kurdish soldier to fight the Wahhabists to the south. Adam was only half-Kurdish, however. His mother was a Christian Kurd who emigrated to the United States and married an ex-Marine. Adam didn’t look much a Kurd. Throughout his life, most people thought he was Sicilian because of his slightly darkened skin tone. Before his mother died, she taught him Kurdish when he was a child. He was able to converse fairly well with Bakur during his time with him, but after his mother died when he began high school, he slowly began to forget the strange language. He went to college for a few years after high school without declaring a major. Eventually, he realized he would never know what he wanted to become and chose to drop out because the debt had been piling up and it began to weigh on him. Adam spent the next few years travelling around the United States and working to pay off his college debts. The monotony of real life creeped in on him during those years. He wanted nothing more than to escape that life and embark on a sort of wild adventure that would actually make him feel like he existed for a reason. At this moment, as the plane descended towards the Berlin airport, he wondered if that had been the right choice.
le generic thriller novel intro. good enough?

>>7155651
Ah, the cigarettes are explained in the paragraph just before what I posted. Thanks for the feedback.

>>7155681
Sloppy on my part. Appreciate the reminder

OP here. I am trying to write something less bloated. I am not sure if that was the only problem with my original work. However I am not sure how to avoid "over-writing" something. I guess, being a pseud, I naturally gravitate towards this sort of writing.

>>7156459
God damn it all just give up OP. Were we not clear?

>>7156459
overwrite then edit out the overwritten bits
it's not hard

>>7156484
Be nice, op is trying to better himself

>>7154658
Just cut to the chase, we don't need so much info on how average this chick is. I know the common platitude is "show don't tell," but there are instances when telling is perfectly adequate, and clumsy, obvious showing is just long-winded telling anyway.

>>7154689
>>7155226
Great concept, killed to death by repetition.

>>7154845
In general, if you're worried about your prose being too purple it probably is. Extremely redundant throughout. Also get rid of that fake paper-looking background.

>>7155128
Is this some kinda joke? Some of the worst dialogue I've read on here.

>>7155168
A bundle of cliches. Your writing is well-paced and elegant. Pick a better topic.

>>7155241
Good. Fragmentary. Don't have much to say.

>>7155382
I hope Anon is just a placeholder name. Cliches like "quick as lightning" should be avoided like the plague. Also, using rapidfire sentence fragments to build tension (Light. Any light. Etc. And numerous other instances) is a tired gimmick, and loses its efficacy when used so much.

>>7155644
Littered with typos, and the occasional non-sequitor. Otherwise very good. Sometimes your sentences go on for too long and lose themselves (see: the sentence beginning "You did not love..." Clumsily worded throughout, and it just keeps going and going...). Abrupt shift to 2nd person is strange, but not entirely unpleasant.

>>7155716
Cheep scares that aren't even scary.

>>7153397
It's like you're ripping off Poe, if he were brain dead drunk.

>>7155226
KEEP FUCKING GOING

>>7156557
Was waiting for this. Give me an hour

>>7156535
I was pretty drunk when I wrote it in all fairness

>>7153397

Is this an alien invasion?

>>7156681
No, its a hypochondriac imagining his future since he has tinnitus, sees double and experiences floaters. I guess he also has an acute sense of smell and bad dental hygiene

>>7156510
Ya, anon is only a placeholder. I actually have the name, but I've always felt uncomfortable posting names to public places unless it's a common name.

Alrighty, thanks for the feedback.

>>7156459
>>7156484

Its not that bad really. You painted a solid picture and have some ability with creative language. The problem is the prose is Barney purple. You seem to be writing in a state of extreme self-awareness and you are trying too hard to sound smart. It sounds like a shitty Poe, but I wouldn't give up like this guy is suggesting. Not only because it is a bad principle to live by but also because I can see some definite potential here. Its just drowned out in flowery prose and some phrasings that don't really make sense.

>>7156510
>littered with typos
I misspelled white had done a fine job, but other than that the only other thing that is incorrect is some one rather than someone.

it's hemingway anyways (farewell to arms), yeah I think it is a very well-written piece and in context it is very powerful
He is really good at that, using the environment and basic scenes to really tear apart a character

he had one of my favorite quotes too, which is attatched

>>7155226

Paul dipped waffle fries in yellow sauce with his right hand while scrolling through the Mio!TV app with his left.

Paul looked at this quarter’s Mio!TV Adventure options:

Challenge Your Limits in Cambodia!

Learn Personal Sacrifice in Scotland!

Quench the Power of Quiet in Qatar!

I would like to challenge my limits thought Paul.

I could learn personal sacrifice thought Paul.

I need to appreciate quiet thought Paul.

Paul looked around again at the busy bees.

I could be like them thought Paul.

I could work hard and for a purpose thought Paul.

Paul drove his Ford Focus back to the office and walked past Mike’s closed door and sat back in his chair.

Paul opened his company computer and opened his browser that automatically connected to the Mio Corporate homepage.

The margins of the homepage filled up with water simultaneously, like a cup.

Paul moussed over Bombastic Berry!

Paul seriously considered letting Bombastic Berry! paint the margins purple-blue.

Instead Paul moussed over the My Life! My Mio! tab.

Paul went to the bottom left corner of the tab and clicked MioTV! Adventures!

Paul had not cast his ticket into any blind lottery in his first quarter.

Paul feared making the wrong decision.

That anxiety gave Paul a terrible stomach ache.

Paul suspects that his stomach ache from fear of making a wrong decision is what wore out Citrus Blast!

Citrus Blast! makes Paul nervous now.

Paul has dinner at home and his right leg shakes involuntarily when he thinks about Citrus Blast!

Paul imagines what it would have been to put his vote into the wrong lottery.

Paul would have Tested his Inner-Strength in India, missing out on Facing his Fears in French Guinea.

Paul thinks maybe he should go work in the shop.

Norm will eventually come into the shop.

Norm is good with making choices.

Norm would know where to cast his ticket.

Paul would bet that Norm has never gotten nervous about casting his quarterly vote.

Paul would bet that Norm has never ruined Citrus Blast!

Paul would bet that Norm’s right leg doesn’t shake at home while eating dinner.

>>7153397

Here is your problem, OP, in a nutshell.

You are unread. You have not read cannon; you have not read the classics. You are unfamiliar with the rules and have not earned the wisdom necessary to break them successfully.

I suspect you have read a lot of shitty stuff or some hyper-experimental stuff that you thought was cool but were unable to correctly appreciate.

Start with this book: "The Art of the Short Story" from Gioia and Gwynn. This is a great text because, in addition to the many stories of cannon, it includes a biography from the author and an essay or interview from the on the subject of craft.

Read a story a day. Look at the common lists of the top hundred literary novels and pick the ones that appeal to you. I can't recommend Hemingway enough, not because he's a great writer, but because of what you can learn from him.

Also, look into some craft books. Ayn Rand a solid intro called "The Art of Ficiton" that covers the fundamentals. A fun craft book with a lot of energy is Ray Bradbury's "Zen in the Art of Writing."

The "Best American Fiction" annual collections are also a good read for finding out what people are doing today. All of the stories in there can teach you something, even if you don't enjoy them (it's not possible to be a critic and a student at the same time.)

Now, OP, here's another hard fact to face: you're a lazy faggot and you're not going to do any of this, you're going to get discouraged and quit, and you're going to end up doing some shitty clerical job or whatever.

You can't be a (good) writer because you lack the one thing necessary to be a good writer: an interesting mind.

So why did I write all this out?

Because I suspect there's someone else here, someone ambitious who might find a little wisdom in this, will digest this, and it will help them make good art.

Rate me short story please

Twas was booty that was quite jiggily, it shook and bobbled all down the road, as Shane-qua shook her hips erotically. Causing every Nigga who saw here pass, to stare in amazement at that ass. One brave nigga stepped up heroically, an envy to all of the other niggas who watched on with anticipation.

"Oh dat ass, oh dat ass, where have though been all my years, when it jiggles and wiggles it seems to make my very soul giggle. Dat ass is what I need, please Shane-qua, let me eat the booty," every Nigga was caught a gasped by such deceleration of love. A Nigga who stood six four and stern, tattoos covering his body, broke down into tears as he heard such sweet words.

Shane-qua looked at the man with a faint smile, a smile that in essence was a smirk as she stepped closer to the Nigga. Unbuckling her belt as she let all clothing on her legs fall at once.

The Nigga was shocked, the Niggas were distraught, the sight of her ass may have brought glee, but this sight they have seen has shaken this Nigga and all his homies.

"Only if you can swallow this dick," oh what a task she has given, her dick that stretched long and proud, a veiny monstrosity of meat, that in all measured at least ten inches and the thickness of it greater than it's stench.

The Nigga contemplated, would he attempt to swallow that Dick? Would he take on such a task, only to get a taste of that ass. Would he? Would you?

>>7156510
>Is this some kinda joke

yes, if you imagine Zach Galifanakis as Avros it becomes funny. it's spooky alien goo that starts turning Mark and they go on a road trip to cure him. done kind of in the style of Shamalan's worst movies.

what specifically is wrong with the dialogue?

>>7157083
Assumptions the post

You probably think listening to a lot of music makes you a composer as well

>>7157083
What fresh hell is this? Go and breathe into something, christ. Let me entertain your unfounded conclusions for a second. Well suppose I remained a shit writer. I am still accomplished as I am a published game designer and probably the greatest one currently working today. It sure beats the hell out of tripfagging on /lit/ and being an antagonistic little shithead. Thank you

>>7157332
Oh hey Gabe! When is Half Life 3 coming out?

As he sat roosted over the console, I stood slumped against the racking's bend and I heard the air hang for a minute and then rail against the dividers threading behind the empty racks and gently wave off the roof where it met me peacefully while I held up, waiting. In the distance, there was in fact the chattered static of the radio inching through the room's edge faintly in tongues and drying finally against the cream dividers in a quiet hum

>>7157338
No, not video games asshole, board games. Anyway its telling that this tripshit thinks everyone who writes is ultimately pursuing the almighty dollar. In fact he probably imagines getting wealthy off of his short story collection or whatever it is. These are hobbies for me. I make a very very modest amount from board game sales, I do not design the games with money in mind. I quite honestly had no intent of becoming a writer in any meaningful capacity. However, I can say I am far more of an artist than he will ever be.

>>7157358
>board games

Who gives a shit?

>>7157083
lmaoing at your life bitch lol

will that bird shut the fuck up jesus fucking christ
what am I thinking
I'm fucking bored
this is really stupid and uninteresting
automaton writing stupid shit
this is caused by the compulsion of automation
all behaviour is causally automated and you're deluded by dogma and false arguments if you think otherwise
stupid retards who believe in free will are the ones who individualise blame and prevent us from removing the causal factors which led to blame in the first place
collectivism and revision of moral agency are necessary for any progress to be made since morality presupposes determinism
you are wrong

>>7157706
epic I like it

>>7155128
although this was very bad it made me remember the sequence in the twitter simpsons marijuana novel where they make a big grav bong out of the bath and convince Apu to get in it after it has become full of ash and bits of skin from their dry lips thank you for triggering that memory anon

>>7154689
>>7155226
one-note

>>7154469
please never redeem this character
>meant to be obnoxious
succeeded

>>7154129
the scene didn't make the place appear hot
otherwise this is genuinely good novelization :D

>>7154075
worst

>>7153948
not as good are you the same person as 1st post

>>7153989
literally my fetish

>>7154242
this is super boring

>>7154633
my vision does not often "degenerate" what do you mean by that ??

>>7154845
does not need to be this long, over half of this is unnecessary explication there are a few pretty jarring cliches and the last sentence is one of them

A slight departure from the usual.

This is actually for a cover letter I wrote just now. It's been a while since I've had some genuine expression in my writing so I have no doubt that it is overly emotive, basic and cliched (a big no-no). Thanks to anyone who gives it a glance.


If you were to look at my university transcript you would find a string of failures and bare-passes. My degree took an extra year to complete and one subject took me three full attempts to complete; by no stretch of the imagination an example of academic excellence or first class honors in my discipline. This was a crushing departure from my great success in high school. It is unprofessional to speak in such a personal tone, but I bring this up so that you know I have experienced costly failure in my discipline; it stung every time and still does. I have never allowed this pain to stop me from working at a problem I knew I could solve. I would like the chance to take on your problems in working with you to inexorably overcome them.

>>7157967
If you have ever tried to speak passionately about something to someone that clearly doesn't care and shamelessly dismisses you, expect it to again happen every time you send someone that.

>>7157973
You would think that employers would seek someone who is personally touched by the business of their discipline

>>7157977
Wearing your heart on your sleeve is not a smart move in any context. Save yourself.

Is there any demand for This Is Paul Pt. IV?

Linking parts 1-3:
>>7154689
>>7155226
>>7157002

Also, what does >>7157922
mean by saying, "one-note"???

>>7157985
Why shouldn't I think that this is just the usual jaded and pessimistic reaction to risk one expects of /lit/?

>>7157997
Because deep down you know it's true, not just because I'm telling you it is.

>>7158002
back to /brit/

>>7153927
>He wore a stylized seriousness, like a movie scientist whose grim meditation on human folly precedes the end credits

Good shit anon.

>>7157348
a lovely journey some wonderful moments
>cream dividers quiet hum
really nice

>>7157106
if your white this isn't really appopriate butits pretty gud tbh would read a longer piece
was "twas was" a typo because i kind of like it

>>7157083
o good lord

>>7156235
>sausaged into an armoured superman corset
fucking brilliant i love this so much
the rest is hit and miss, way too much word soup, the mythological references are pretty bland and don't suggest anything but that one sentence is really promising

>>7155716
everything about the worm being put in his dick is really good stuff, its pulpy and weird and creepy, reads like something from Barker. but definitely, definitely remove:
> This was too horrifying to be a just a nightmare
that's such a weak ending and the word "horrifying" in a horror story is so cringey. and it being nightmare like is also insanely cliche. this guy also wouldn't be thinking something like that
the other two paragraphs are too fast paced, need to set the mood brah.the description of the baddies are too descriptive of specific things. you need to convey their general presence in terms of threat and uncanniness not specific pieces of their outfit
overall promising

>>7157996
>one-note
repetitive in writing and theme

>>7157967
haha oh wow

>>7158013
thank you

“Coffee at a time like this?”

“Any better ideas?”


Of course there was an outlet here, and of course Bill had found a coffee maker.

“After the coffee?”


He shrugged in the dark. Eight hours in now, and I had to admit coffee wasn’t the worst idea. My shoulders were crampin at the point, a product of standing in a room shorter than myself. Bill was at ease, it seemed, he had no fear of the encroaching walls, he had even taken a nap.


He gave me a warm aluminum mug, too hot to hold, and said something that was muffled by the walls. There was some kind of moistness to the air, a pipe broken somewhere. At the point we had taken off ties and suit jackets, both already slept on and dirty thanks to Bill. Around us were the remnants of the office break room. From the lack of twisted limbs, my term, we found no casualties, Bill’s term, or any other survivors and aside from a bruise and a scrape on my arm we had made out okay all things considered.


Bill had managed to find, along with the coffee maker, a single desk lamp now half burnt out. The light projected itself onto the ragged walls of insulation and ceiling tiles and served only to show us how small our enclosure was. A single roofbeam sat at a sharp incline which agitated my already bad back. Bill had suggested I sit, like he had, but I had been hesitant. Here, at the eighth hour, I had given up and sat in the dirt and rubble. He had made himself comfortable, a seat composed of suit jackets, and had made coffee. A cabinet had fallen at some point, as well, and provided us with a few packets of sugar and napkins. The whole situation had given me indigestion.


I just spit this out while eating lunch. Worth continuing?

>>7158042
It's almost as if that's a technique used to reflect the masturbatory nature of society; taken to the extreme one finds that it is no longer maintainable and we find ourselves unable to experience any meaningful stimuli...but hey, that wouldn't fun or exciting or entertaining. Be Mio!

>>7158046
>>7158046
>shrugged in the dark
nice
>encroaching walls
confusing consider removing
>he had even taken a nap... He gave me a warm aluminum mug, too hot to hold
nice
>the light projected itself
personifying the light breaks the flow
>whole situation gave me indigestion
this was a good touch

i like the idea and the delivery is nice love how it's become a story of exploration and transformation of the environment of the office into this lost world of rubble where things take on new meanings

>>7158056
right but it only reflects it, never applies any disruptive or exploratory lens so it never rises above the level of the family guy culture it critiques

>>7158066
Sorry for deleting the original post
>>7158053


I wanted to fix this formatting. Thank you.

>>7158033
i'm >>7155716

thanks man. I've been watching a lot of Cronenberg recently so there's that influence, and it's definitely supposed to be pulpy.

I posted it yesterday. I looked at it today and even before you had commented, the faults were obvious. It's amazing how so little time can give you a better perspective.

>>7153484
I'm torn between mild amusement and disgust at how bad that was. If that was your intention, then good job.

Otherwise, you should probably stop writing.

>>7158069
I will try to take this into consideration. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "Family Guy" culture? None of the stuff Paul experiences on a daily basis in his wageslave life could be, even tangentially, akin to what happens, or is made fun of, on Family Guy.

I suppose I have a longer vision for Paul's life than just 3-4 parts, and it seems to me that the banality of Paul's life has to be established before it can be altered through another lens.

>>7155783
Hey, >>7155420 here again. I've never read Yates or Kramer, but let's work with that excerpt of Montegue that you posted. His imagery is great, very distinct - 'a manuscript/ we had lost the skill to read', as if the once-familiar land has become unrecognizable to him. 'Fumbled like a blind man,/ along the fingertips of instinct', again you get an immediate image and feeling for what Montegue is trying to convey. These are the goals you want to work towards as a poet, to impart a vision or a feeling on your reader. Think of it as painting with words; colors are lovely, but a riot of them just makes a mess. Let's analyze another, much different work. Here's one by Joe Wenderoth, a favorite of mine.

-

July 18, 1996

Today I felt like a cup of soda that had been sitting - full - for too long. Watery, sides melting, barely able to be handled - but *there*, so very very *there*, and simply demanding proper disposal. It is my suspicion that, however persuasive that demand, there can be no such thing.

-

This is a weird one, isn't it? A prose poem, no rhyme or meter, you might look at this and say 'this isn't poetry at all'. That's a matter of opinion, I think, but let's see what's going on under the hood of this one.

Wenderoth crafts a great image here. A bulging, sweating cup of soda - that's something you can picture, right? It's a common thing, mundane even. But read carefully - watch as the metaphor blurs and shifts from referring to the cup to referring to the speaker. You can read this poem either way, really, couldn't you? Wenderoth's clever phrasing, combined with clear imagery, makes this a piece worth reading and studying.

I posted a shorter version of this in the former LCT.

***

Night of August past the day of the ruler. Between the woods and the whistling wind, gently blowing between the leaves in the cold of the night, nine Claro's traveled from shore to shore carrying the dead body of the newly born baby, dead before seeing his five year of life.
The rattling wheels of the carriage awoke the twins of the family, Cherry and Maple, sleeping at the back since they departed from house three mornings ago. Cherry and Maple, twins of opposite sex, raised their heads at the very same time to see how far they had traveled since the time the fell into slumber. They were disappointed when what they saw that outside was nothing but black with no moon nor stars to be seen anywhere. Their eyes soon got used to the dark, telling apart the shades of the black of the darkness outside – the forest they entered the morning before, they were still in its core.
“How much more until we get out of here?”
“How much time until we reach the far shore?”
Asked Cherry and Maple to their father in front, who was holding the straps of the carriage to keep the guide of the horses.
“Don't be loud. Your mother sleeps. Your brothers still sleep.”
“How much time is left?” asked both at the time in one voice and even louder.
“Don't be loud I just said. One day or two and we will reach our graves land. One day we stay, then we come back.”
It was the same answer they heard two days ago. Their worry increased, “are we lost in the forest?” they thought for themselves without speaking a word.
Their father was thinking of the odd of the events: “I have traveled this road all my life without losing the path once.” But the habits of experience hard to beat by appearances. He knew the road well gazing the stars and the moon to guide his way through the woods. The moon that he believed was somewhere in front was no moon but a light from a different source.

>>7156425
This is good stuff, Anon. You've got a good balance of backstory, exposition, and explanation going on. I know enough about Adam and his situation to get invested, but not so much that you've got nothing left to share with me. Keep at it.

>>7157997
Anon, there is a limit on how person you ought to get with a stranger, and you are way over that limit. Real life isn't a movie where the underdogs win at the last minute and the crowd goes wild. Nobody wants to hear your unsolicited sob-story. Don't embarrass yourself.

>>7158053
Interesting start. Great technique here in the line 'From the lack of twisted limbs, my term, we found no casualties, Bill’s term, or any other survivors' by the way, that was a stand-out goody. You might want to re-word 'Here, at the eighth hour' to sound a bit less 19th century, but it's not going to kill your story to leave it as-is. Some little grammar errors, but I think you just typed it up quickly. Maybe change 'encroaching walls' for 'encroached walls', encroaching gave me the initial sense that they were sitting in a room steadily decreasing in size, like a trash compactor, rather than occasionally collapsing further. I would read more of this.

>>7158286
Not the Anon you're responding to, but I like the general idea of Paul. If you're going to establish his banal, moronic corporate-culture life and then move on to see it through a different point-of-view, I would limit yourself to a page and a half, two pages at most, before you switch POVs. Writing the entire story in that way is okay, just be careful not to get pretentious about it. I think you are on the right track for now.

>>7158399
I like the feel of it, but your word choice and structure are off in places. 'seeing his five year of life', 'since the time the fell into slumber', etc, I think those are just errors you'd catch on a proofread, but I would reconsider a few phrases such as 'since they departed from house' and 'the whistling wind, gently blowing between the leaves in the cold of the night'. You're getting a little repetitive in there. Some of that can be restructured or removed, try like this - 'Between the woods and the wind's soft whistling in the cold of night...'

Every so often, your sentences seem really jumbled. 'Night of August past the day of the ruler' and 'But the habits of experience hard to beat by appearances' don't make much sense to me. I would reword those. It's a good start, I think, but it needs work.

>>7158401
This Is Paul speaking, I was thinking of having Paul evolve as a character through dream sequences, not necessarily changing the POV. The idea I had for the narrative would be that the banality of the narrative voice makes the reader yearn for Paul to interact with other characters, but his social limitations don't allow him to do so in a very meaningful way, e.g., not saying a single word except for Be Mio thus far the entire story, not even to the bearded man in Chik-Fil-A.
I have a few ideas how I can develop him through dream-sequences.

He was sitting on the couch watching a war movie on TV when she came over and sat down next to him. ’’Is that Lee Marvin?’’ she asked. ’’Yes,’’ he said. ’’The Big Red One. It’s about World War two.’’

She was wearing nothing but a blue shirt (no bra underneath) and sheer black panties (pubic hair visible). He had always seen her as more of a motherly figure, but now she put her feet in his lap in a very unmotherly way. They were ruddy as if blushing, the nails painted a milky white, and slightly plump in that cute kind of way. These were feet that would make Pope Francis slobber and howl and shove Jesus Christ down on the ground.

’’You wanna get laid, kid?’’ She smiled as she said this, revealing immaculately white teeth straight out of a commercial. The big toe of her right foot started wriggling against his cock, and before he knew it, both feet were involved.
The kid was paralyzed. He looked at the TV, but even the sight of men getting their guts blown out couldn’t weaken his erection. Her toes were gorgeous. He wanted to suck each and every one with equal thoroughness and love; as a footie he would institute a strict policy of No Toe Left Behind. He would then press her soles in his face and sniff as passionately as a man who has just regained his sense of smell in a garden of exotic flowers. Coming closer, she put her pale arms around the kid and started kissing him. Lips so warm and soft, oh God, and they taste vaguely of vanilla. Her loose stawberry blonde hair fell in front of his eyes and obscured the TV. She enveloped him completely. ’’Call me ’Mommy’ while I fuck you,’’ she whispered.

Dominic Toretto once said, regarding racing, that for ’’those ten seconds or less, I’m free.’’ For those minutes or so, between going and coming, he was free, as if he had been transported to another world, one of pure ecstasy. She looked at him with endless love in her eyes and said, ’’We’re going to do this regularly. I’m not asking, I’m telling. Now say, ’I love you, Mommy.’’’

’’I love you, Mommy,’’ the kid said.

’’I love you too.’’

>>7158447
You're taking on a unique set of challenges by forbidding Paul to interact with other characters meaningfully. But I think it can be done, absolutely. What were your ideas for these dream sequences, and how would they push Paul forward as a character?

>>7158478
That's pretty creepy, anon. Nicely done. I shy away from using parenthetical interjection in my own work and generally recommend that others do too, but you pull it off here.

>>7158488
Chik-Fil-A recalls thousands of buns from the Midwest. Paul has fever dream, Mio playing a significant role. Paul has a revelation. Paul's co-worker's ask him if he heard about all those Chik-Fil-A's that had to recall buns b/c of ergot.

Something like that. Still pondering.

>>7158401
>>7158053


I wrote this. Thank you so much.

Grammar isn't my strong suit, but I go through finished stories 1000 times

>>7158399
>seeing his five year of life
Fifth year of life
Much of this is stacked strange, sentences seem to repeat information, some of it is muddled. I would expand on what you already have and complete the scene with more detail.

>>7158053
This is pretty interesting, has a good concept of pacing and giving out crucial details at good points. Without too much there it's hard to give any big pointers but I am definitely invested.

>>7157967
Don't focus on your failures, if you're writing a cover letter you want to instead cover what you're great at. Starting out on the defensive is always a terrible thing to do as it makes you look like you wouldn't even hire yourself.
>>7157002
This is definitely interesting, and would be great in a short story collection, but on it's own it's just kinda of there. It's an excellent display of technique but there's much more than that.

Now for my own

The raw gloom of night serves as a cloak for Jeremy as he sets off from his un-humbly owned humble studio apartment. Most cities ignore sleep as the sun creeps down under the horizon, yet Easton devolves from a screaming college town into a quiet cramped farm side hamlet. Where cars, during the day, would roar past Jeremy lunging out Starbucks and other corporate waste, belching out engine clunks, and spewing out tremendous plumes of midnight black exhaust, they now are driven by old locals who know you go nowhere fast; fast. The streets are cracked pale grey asphalt, the sidewalks look as though they’re miniature recreations of the moon’s surface, the houses are in dis-repair with small groups of underpaid underpraised civilians, few of which Jeremy could recognize if he would lift his head above the two block walk ahead of him, gathered in front. This is the bad part of town, but even then it’s not a ‘bad’ part, there are no drug dealers, the only shooting Easton had last year was in the suburbs between a battered wife and her dog, and the worst that’ll happen walking through this part of town are overwrought feelings of paranoia or a proposition from a working lady. While the city had calmed from its Adderall high the lights above Jeremy still blazed in white agony throwing their energy into the sky, blocking out every heaven fall light save for the best and brightest, and of course the ever present moon, much like the opposite of the kiddy land gang territory that Jeremy lived in.

http://pastebin.com/fUFBWe50

Link is for the rest

>>7158478
refering to the character as "the kid" doesn't work well with you merging your perspective with his in descriptions.
i mean like this:
>Coming closer, she put her pale arms around the kid and started kissing him. Lips so warm and soft, oh God, and they taste vaguely of vanilla.
using "the kid" distances yourself from him while describing her lips from his perspective puts you closer to him. it doesn't read well

July 1, 1961
The shoes I ordered arrived today. I knew straight away something was amiss. The package was much smaller than expected, almost comically so. But I still felt a rush of anticipation as I cut the packing tape and opened the box. I had been looking forward to a good pair of boots for weeks.

Laying in the box was a pair of shoes so small they defy description. Lilliputian is a word I've avoided my whole life, but it seems appropriate here. I picked them up and found I could hold the entire pair comfortably in the palm of my hand. For a moment I wondered if this was a mild DT and set about to find my whisky.

I have no use for these things. The longer they stay here, the more they mock me. My age and frailty.

Perhaps tomorrow I'll call the classifieds.

>>7157922
>please never redeem this character
>succeeded

did you think it was good? well-written?

http://pastebin.com/66zTp6dP

a fragment of a short story I just started writing about an unstable couple.

Gonna head out and grab some breakfast real quick, will critique when I get back :-) though, it's worth noting that I already see a lot of good shit in this thread

Excerpt from an account of opiate addiction. Have not proofread, but any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

http://pastebin.com/XP7ncc3B

>>7158589 Here

>>7158611
Did George Lucas need to make the prequel films to Star Wars for the original trilogies story to be complete? Did anyone have to make a prequel to the Six Word Story to add in depth?
The answer to both of these questions is no, because whatever explanation that would be given would not match to the swirling head canon of thousands of people and you'll end up disappointing more people than pleasing.

>>7158640
So far it seems alright, but it's a bit plain. General advice, avoid using the any word than said, and ad-verbs in general as they suck the life out of a story. Jim needs a bit of description, it's very important to describe characters as they enter a story, as many people will add in their own ideal of what a character is and then be disappointed if they're suddenly described down the road.

>>7158647
Has a very nice narrative, and it is pretty rough. But I do like what is being said and it is a nice set up to a short story. As a longer story though you would need to add more character setting for further building. At the moment the biggest problem is simply how fast it's going, but that's to be expected with just the exposition. I would like to read more of this and if you continue as you are I'm certain it'll be great

>>7158640

I couldn't read it all because I'm drunk and I really don't like dialogue heavy stuff, but you did a decent job at it. You made a surrounding outside of the basic back and forth.
I can't say that I liked it though because I hate dialogue, so really it's me, not you.

>>7158611
How cheeky of you, Anon.

I've been working on a rewrite of a short story I recently finished. The end result wasn't what I wanted at all, so I'm starting fresh with a new direction. The protagonist, Lagom, is an adult with a childlike mind, full of knowledge but utterly lacking in worldly experience. Reus, Lagom's tutor, has a limited amount of time to give Lagom as close to a lifetime's worth of experiences as possible before their world collapses. Here's the first page of my second draft - http://pastebin.com/FYmdQG3q

I'm looking for feedback specifically on the tone, the atmosphere, and the narrative voice. What do you think their surroundings look like? Are Lagom's thoughts convincingly childlike?

>>7154689
>>7155226
>>7157002
something about this is just endlessly interesting to me. Amazing, amazing, amazing stuff anon. I don't think I've ever read something on /lit/ that was so effortlessly soul crushing, and so effortlessly unique, all at the same time.
>>7155241
Not much to go off of, but I like what I'm reading. I especially like the personification of the store as a man on a bus.
>>7156231
This is neat. I like the aesthetic of it, it feels very hip, very 'cool'. Like a Place Beyond The Pines style of cool, with some flare thrown in. I'm definitely digging the narrative/prose too. Feels like young arab american kid wearing a sonic youth t shirt that smells like shitty weed and is soaked in bleach. Good stuff.

I just wrote this.

Emmanuel fought down the urge to take a quick look behind him as he unlocked the door. Without his usual security detail he did not feel like the legendary Emmanuel Robles. But that was just as well; tonight, he was not to be the ruthless drug lord whose name was spoken with awe and fear. Tonight, he was to be a man.

Cold air struck his face soon as he pulled the door open, a welcome reprieve from the dry evening heat. It would be a good weekend, he thought as he stepped into his secret home. The next three days held no pressing matters, and his presence would not be missed thanks to his body double. Emmanuel would take this time to better know his children, to talk to his dearly beloved Maria, and to reconnect with his sense of humanity; God knows ordering car bombs placed and journalists beheaded wouldn't do that.

His family did not rush to embrace him as usual. In fact, they were not even in the kitchen area. His instincts should have suspected foul play immediately, but nothing appeared to be out of place; every vase, flower, painting, and rug looked to be perfectly undisturbed. His ears heard nothing save the loud hum of the air conditioning. Somewhat confused, Emmanuel walked towards the living room. Upon reaching it, he stopped.

Naked and crucified upon the brown wallpaper was the corpse of his beloved Maria. Her long black hair was streaked with blood, the crimson liquid having dripped down and formed a pool. There were dozens of huge nails piercing her arms, legs, and body, and most of all her once-beautiful face.

>>7158867
thanks man, i don't know what to think about the arab american kid thing though, weird that it sounds like that. the narrator is just supposed to be a normal sixth grader

>>7158597
you're right. I was unsure about that part when I posted it. I'll get rid of it.

>>7155644
knew immediately it was hemingway or a damb good imitation of him

>>7156231
>I would’ve been hit with a tad bit of confusion
too complex when compared to the rest of the passage

>>7159043
ah, what would be a good thing to use in it's place?

I had sex with Trent Reznor. I asked him afterwards how he got a name like that. ''I don't know,'' he said.

Someone called him. Trent told me that he had to go because Fincher was making a new movie. ''Film, Trent. He makes films.''

I messaged Neil Young. ''i had sex with trent reznor.''

He responded in six minutes. ''really? wtf! was it kinky?''

''no,'' I wrote, ''i said maybe we should use buttplugs and whips but trent said, 'hey, who do you think i am, john fogerty? taylor swift?''

''lol,'' Neil Young messaged back, ''never woulda thought that. i must go now and have sex with daryl hannah.''

I put my iPhone away and ate cereals. I took an anti-depressant and then thought about stuff.

>>7158871
It's a good start, but a little too clinical. Shorten your sentences up, use more contractions, get closer to your protagonist. Your description of his crucified wife is too distant to convey how appalling the scene is, either in general or to Emmanuel. Try something like this - "Beautiful Maria, nude and crucified, hung from the wall. Dozens of nails pierced her slender arms and legs, her body, /Jesus Cristo/, even her face, her /face/." A description like that gives your character a closer tie to his cultural roots, as well as giving your reader an up close and personal taste of his fear, disbelief, disgust, and rage.

>>7158478
no fakin, I like it.

>>7159053
just stahp

>>7159066
thanks fam.

>>7159051
"If it weren't for her voice, I would have been confused."

>>7159080
thank you, good man

Now, thought Tatomo. Now is the time.
The soldier was barely six inches before him, reaching to his belt to pull out an anamnesistor to extract the thoughts from his head. They always went for the human first. It would be over in seconds, the earthman thought.
Before the device could be brought forth to his forehead, Tatomo turned on his cutter with a metallic buzz and thrust it into the node that supplied the soldiers with the strength they possessed. He could hear the snap of protoplastic grids, then piercing vibration of the plasma reinvigorating the material ion projectors that lined the inside of the suit. Struggling to bypass these fields, Tatomo listened as the stunned soldier’s spine crunched and snapped in two with the force of the cutter, then was instantly welded to the insides of his chest cavity; lungs, heart, and stomach were seared as layer after layer of plasma energy bombarded them, turning them black as the suit the man wore and then severing the internal tracts and arteries as well. The soldier let out a soft moan, then collapsed in a heap on the dirt floor of the clearing.
The sound of their comrade’s death directed the attention of the other two soldiers to Tatomo and his friends. Nodding to Vex, Tatomo paused to regain his breath as the pair of antagonists steadied their weapons, lightweight and balanced in their augmented hands. Before either could unleash the power of their guns on the trio, Vex dashed forward at speeds approaching ninety miles per hour, average for his particular subhuman species. Having received a quantum instantaneously from Tatomo about the soldiers’ weak spot, the boy pulled a cutter from his equipment pouch and drove it into the hole that had previously spelled doom for the first hander. The soldier sighed, and, dropping his B-80 to the ground, spasmed quietly before death.

>>7159071
''no,'' I wrote.

I wondered whether Ridley Scott made flicks, movies, films, or cinema. Gladiator was definitely a flick. Alien was easily a film, perhaps even cinema.

I drank wine straight from the bottle. Someone phoned me. I picked up the phone.

>>7159091
It reads like an instruction manual. You have neat ideas, but you are getting bogged down in Technobabble and not blocking the action well. Setting the stage is just as important as what the actors do on it. Break this up, give it some elbow room. And find a new name for 'anamnesistor', please. That shit is illegible.

>>7159105
The voice on the other end said, ''The ends justify the memes.''

I wondered what the phrase ''I am the Metaphysics of Pain'' meant exactly.

Seth Rogen sent me a message. ''DUDE WEED LMAO.''

''you're a zionist kike,'' I wrote, ''stop pls, israel is eveil. dolan trump for president.'' He took a picture (a pic) of what I wrote and retweeted it.

I then wondered why Herzog's most recent film sucked so fucking hard.

>>7159113

Thanks for the input. I must have written this nearly a year ago, it's an excerpt from a few chapters of a story that I never got around to finishing. I haven't written much recently, but I've been considering picking this up again, albeit with a lot more prior planning and heavy editing to what I've already written.

>>7159132
I like ye

so /lit/, what would you think of a book series where it's really wacky, and a lot of crazy things happen, and the characters are very diverse and different from each other, and by the end of the (first) book, you have no idea what the fuck just happened

BUT, the next book is the same story (or slightly different story in the same time frame) coming from a different character's point of view, and the next book, and the next book.

and with each book, and each point of view, you understand the story a bit more. with every part where the characters meet, and the stories overlap, it would go a little differently, because the narrarators would be less reliable or lie, or have trouble remembering exactly how something happened or was said

good idea?

>>7159155
I woudn't like it but i'm unhappy in general. There are many who will like it by virtuous means

>>7159155
Probably not, anon. How many times can you read the same thing before it stops being interesting to you? You will be hard pressed to find an audience willing to read three, four, fifteen, however many different interpretations of the same state of events. After awhile, no matter how insane the events were, it will read like a police report. Don't squander the good will of your audience. There is about 3000 years of literature they can read at their leisure. Give them a compelling reason to read yours.

>>7159184
well, not TOO many, i was planning maybe five or so

i really like time loop stories, or parallel worlds, where you're told the same story over and over in order to solve something or other.

i got the idea from a quote in a book: "people often think that there's only one story in a story, but there's as many stories as there are characters"

>>7159192
have you ever seen source code?

>>7159199
no, i think i might have heard of it though

>>7159200
it's basically what you described
the same scene over and over but it's done very well and you might learn from it

>>7159206
okay thanks. also, i forgot to add, the reader's motivation and incentive to keep reading is to understand the story. how great of a reason that is will depend on how it's done

>>7159155
so, Rashomon?

>>7159221
just looked it up. i guess it would be like that, but more modern, more complicated, and different enough to distance itself from Rashomon while still giving a distant nod to it

>>7159230
I think that every shitty tv show, and a number of decent ones, have already done it. But you sound like a hack, which just means you want to be popular and are not a creative type, so go for it, w/e, just do it, why not?

>>7159243
what? i love these kinds of stories. i'd never write something that i don't want to, and if i did i don't think i'd write it well either

>>7159132
I felt vaguely that I had gotten meme'd on by Life.

(Idea for thread on /tv/. ITT: Times you got meme'd on IRL, then tell greentexxxt story about someone expressing a retarded opinion about films.)

I'm still drinking the same wine from the same bottle. Pinot Grigio.

I am a sex pervert.

I got another message, this one is from Pope Francis. ''eyyyyy cunningham'' he writes.

Oh, I'm sorry, it's from the Fonz. ''you have just inspired me to rewatch happy days. thank you,'' I answer.

What greeted him was what a 13 year old teenage boy’s fantasies were made of. Legs that went on meeting a form fitted black dress with a hem line that looked at modesty, gave it the finger and went on with its business.

This one is called: "Life With an Xbox"

Ever since I bought a used Xbox, it has been sitting proudly right next to my old television. It is one that I had gotten for free at a yard sale. Square, heavy, with a glass screen that starts inwards at the edges and bends outward. Beside my television resides my play station 2, lying right on top of a DVD player. On top of all of those aforementioned trash, stands the newest edition to my collection. The king of the castle, at the top of the pile, the Xbox.
An Xbox 360?
No.
An Xbox one?
Sort of.
It’s the one that came out from the nostalgic era of the early 2000’s. It is a console with hardware making it possible to graphically surpass both of its prehistoric competitors, making it one of the best platforms for multiplatform games, and the platform exclusive games it harbors, however modest they may be.
I am now a proud owner of one, yet, I have never used it. Not even once. When I had bought it from the second hand store it came from, it came with no cords, games, or controllers. Despite this, I have found that my life has significantly improved, having my Xbox sitting in that corner of my bedroom. I also ended up finding a multipurpose power cord around my house that fit the previously mentioned machine, so I plugged it in. Because of this, every once in a while I will pretty the eject button, and the disk tray will open, reminding me that it still works and has a purpose.

>>7159465
Then you shot the xbox and nothing changed

>>7159522
but then the xbox he acts nonchalant about will be gone

>>7158589
>un-humbly owned humble
Don't do this.

>you go nowhere fast; fast.
Why is the last fast there?

Regarding of the content I have nothing to say, I like it.
The prose sounds a bit dry to me.

>>7159525
The day he lost it was very hot

>>7159546
Thanks for the advice anon

My mother bought me a rape-whistle for my last birthday. I keep it zipped into a pocket in my bag and pretend it isn’t there, all that owning it has done is make me more scared of rape. Who even knows what a rape-whistle sounds like, and would anyone come to my aid if I blew it? I’d probably come out worse off trying than if I just blew the rapist. Although I don’t think rapists go for oral sex, you’d have to trust the victim not to try and bite your cock off – I don’t think I could do it though, I detest the taste of blood and I’d feel like a cannibal. They would definitely deserve it, that much I can say for certain.

She took me aside and gave it to me in private, away from the family, telling me about how she fears for my safety given that I’m little and a little lackadaisical. I said ‘thank you’ but I had no idea what I really wanted to say; ever since then I’ve thought a lot about it when I’m alone and surrounded by silence and trees and pathways converging and diverging through light and dark and shooting off to places unknown where less-known horrors await for little girls and their innocent preconceptions of how terrible it would be to stumble upon a lone male in the woods. Thanks again mum. I’m fairly sure that I never so much as gave that sort of thing a thought before all this. Why did I have to become a sexual object? Damned pervert paedophile rapists and their sick desire to fuck anything with two legs and mosquito bites. Can’t they find some other girl to not rape so I don’t have to be so scared all the time?

She was right about the lackadaisical part though, my dear mother, I may be scared but I’m always ten times more focused on my exceedingly important inner monologues than I am on potential threats in my immediate environment. She should have bought me a jetpack, something I can conspicuously escape with at the touch of a button; I don’t think anyone who ever got raped was wearing a jetpack. Not that it’s particularly convenient to wear a jetpack around everywhere, it would be so much better if people just kept their sick urges to themselves, I keep my (not so sick) urges to myself and keep contented in masturbation, why can’t they keep themselves contented. People really do suck at being happy, worse they have to ruin happiness for everyone else, even people you least expect will take their unhappiness and fear and darkness and hate and share it with you when you least want it.

Woods are supposed to be a place of magic where fairies and unicorns and trolls and spritelings and elves and a whole host of unimaginably wondrous creatures roam free and live secret lives hiding from humans who venture into their home. I wish I could be five again – it all went downhill from there. What happened? Something, I’m never quite sure what. I can’t remember when I became aware of my own state of being either. I was carefree and happy and blind and unaffected by the world, then I wasn’t.

>>7159206

Source code is a terrible example, it's not what he's describing at all.

>>7159210

What you need to watch is Rashomon. That's exactly what you're talking about.

>>7160009
did I fuckin give you permission to reply to me

Suddenly, something amazing happened.

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

>>7160257
this is hilarious
more

Fuck me hard, /lit/. Just to give the gist, a young man is witnessing a car crash in New York.

We are here, all. And all a gyrating helicopter skyscripter. We feel, all. Breathe in the smokescreen dull summer air. And out the exhaust, fit into a black pipe like a mole. Put sirens on him and he’s a terror(ist). Don’t get poetic here, though. It is too late, though. Evacuate, now! now! now! Runyourcape. Get some spring in your. Sprung. Drink that in, water of death, stranger in a grey land. No ladies, now. To Spring a Spaniard! And get your head out of the asphalt gutter, young man. Splat. On the asphalt. Spllghck. No coughing, if you please! And into what? Don’t close your eyes. Close your ears for once. Skyscript, o come to me. Come...
And with that a great blaze of final flaming, two rams of tinfoil, a metaphor for everything. Trumpets on high! Erect! Too-too-toodle-toot! Deconstruct! Derriduct! EEEEEE goes across the ground and around, in crystalline (AAAAHHHH) spheres. For lo, Einstein hath foretold it all, o resourceful wizzer that he is: the crumpling rotating buttery crumpeting slipslap draining of gravitation who wailed to keep her Janissary electromagnetomechanical children, but had them torn! torn! away, and the little red round fire engines who go beepbeep little Bo to save her, save her plasma. Yes, he had said it all, young’uns, in The Book of Erdős. Feel it krrrrrshhh around you. Great heavenapples! Splat. Runrabbit!
Pffhoo. Hold on to your. Pfff. Hold on. Onetwothree. Keep your Ecuadorian hat as the Fuck Himself would. Subjected, pobrecitos, to the deep down dank dark mines. The maddening flattening damnaning mines! The Cruel Redeemer! (hush)
And flowing from here out to there, the great Miserippi, stretching most half this continent from the Big Heavenapple to Rub’ii Be’ach Zion ben Israel. The silver city in her shroud of excessed gloom: the silver forest in her shroud of memory. Just to go back there...
But not yet. Not ever yet. For what, dear children, we have just recently seen is the great play, great tragedy, of life, or anyway life as it pertains to federal, corporate, and private and mobile and stationary and, above all, publicofficehome transportation. A big KRRRSHRRRKKSCHKKAABOOOOM went across the ground. O yes, even here, in the Capital of the Wasteland of the Free. Even here, playpin of the steel-framed Giants, the Primordial Postmodern. Even here! Sing about it, for the sake of Pete! Chant, o Gabriel, thou slightly effeminate angel thou! Cast the tidings into the great whirlpool whitestreaked asphalt beach unto nothing! O, the streets! The streets that never sleep! Bring the light over the waters upon the land which bore the trucker who beat the brow which signalled the steering wheel which turned the cables which flung the puppet which screeched the street which crossed the taxi (depending, of course, on your perspective) which drove straight forward which went crashbang. Raise it, Petey!

>>7160328

And by the way, it is supposed to be somewhat pretentious, though hopefully still enjoyable to some extent. This style only goes on for a couple pages before I move to another character and adopt a style suitable for her.

>>7160286
i kind of wanted it to be sad, but did you get the idea? it's an old guy getting an erection for the firs time in a while

>>7160359
no, i didn't get that. honestly, i thought it was a couple from the victorian era who never went through sex education and were completely innocent, and they had no idea what an erection was

>>7160371
oh wow. i guess it lends itself to multiple interpretations

Vignette I wrote:

Through the window rain was coming in sheets. She was lying on the bed, crying.

“This again”, he said.

He was sitting at the edge of the bed, looking at the floor. She had her arms folded, and she was staring at the ceiling. Her eyes flitted back and forth and looked almost lost in their movements. He looked at her.

“You can tell me”.

She shook her head through tears. A crown of gold leaves brushed the window, waving gently up and down. He shook his head.

“Why are you so guarded?”

She wiped her face with her sleeve.

“Please, go away. It’s not your fault.”

“Anne.”

He looked down at the floor. Rain was tapping gently on the window. He grabbed his shirt and buttoned it slowly. His eyes looked heavy and almost cynical. When he opened the door the dronish sound of the corridor lamp seemed to fill the room. A rectangle of light shone and fell into a long triangle on the floor. He closed the door gently.

As he left she could hear him walking down the hall, his voice hiccuping in secret, where he thought she couldn’t hear, as she lay there alone, thinking about something that had happened so long ago, though it seemed recent enough, until the sound of the door closing gently, she knew that he had gone.

>>7157320
>makes you a composer as we

You can't be a competent one without listening to a lot of music unless you're name is Beethoven.

>>7157332
>published game designer

But that doesn't matter here.

>the greatest one currently working today

And now you're lying. And why would you lie unless you know I'm right and I hit a nerve, root canal-level.

You're an unread fool.

There was a certain obscurity in the way he felt as he ran his hand under the water, impatiently anticipating that temperature where it’s cool enough to wake you up but warm enough to keep you comfortable. As he undressed he came to the unfortunate conclusion that what he experienced last night had been a dream and not, as he had hoped, a memory. There had been too many of these lately. Sure, the people and places had familiarity, but the events that transpired were too wacky for his admittedly mundane life. His optimism was snuffed as he stepped into the water.
So today was the same as the rest; starting with the promise that it would be different. He reached for the shampoo and squeezed out its last desperate mass of goop. It was way too much and half of it met the drain without ever fulfilling its lifelong goal of greeting his hair with a circular motion. As he began rubbing he pondered what exactly shampoo did. The bottle said it was full of Vitamin E and other nourishing chemicals that would revitalize his apparently dull hair, but to be frank all that he noticed from it was that he spent the day smelling like a coconut. Maybe tomorrow he would skip it.
It was about this time that he snapped out of this thought and realized he had spent too much time contemplating the nature of shampoo. Today the water had been too comforting, allowing his inner monologue to venture into absurdity. It was not cold enough to jar him into that active state he was hoping for. Maybe tomorrow he would change that. Regardless, he was late, and in a rush he threw on his polo for work. The polo that his boss told him not to wear again because of the mustard stains. The one with the mustard stains that his boss was convinced were the reason that business had been so slow.

>>7159155
https://vndb.org/v3144

>>7158589
Hey anon, author of This Is Paul here, I really appreciate the kind words. I'm not sure if you're familiar with George Saunders, but he's a big influence on me, short story wise; check him out!

I'm a junior right now, majoring in English & History, and my dream is to get into a fully-funded MFA; crazy, I know. Every thumbs up from you guys--the toughest of critiques--is an aesthetic pat-on-the-back for me, so thanks a lot! I will keep writing, expect more Paul tomorrow!

>pic related to George Saunders

>>7160939
Just read your stuff. Original as heck in my opinion. I think I see what you're trying with the each sentence being a new line, but I think bunching some of them up at certain points could be really effective.
example:
I would like to challenge my limits, thought Paul. I could learn personal sacrifice, thought Paul. I need to appreciate quiet, thought Paul.
Maybe not, but I think at certain points it would be more effective to group certain lines together.
Where do you go to school? Im a junior in english minoring in history right now.
George Saunders is real good, btw

>>7160972
Going to Northwest Missouri St., small school life. I agree with your thoughts on bunching at points. It can definitely be refined, /lit/ is just where I get the first feel. Thanks for the kind words!

>>7161002
Good luck. Northwest Missouri State sounds like an awful location in general but I hope it's decent

>>7161006
I suppose it's alright for writing about banality. Quiet place to write. Is any of your stuff in this thread?

Kwame stood in a cheap grey suit in front of a microphone on a stand, a guitar strapped to his shoulder. Through a glass wall in the soundproofed recording booth there was a lanky, longhaired sound engineer lounging back on a comfortable chair. Behind him, in a powder blue suit, stood the plump producer. He resembled something like a toad— with two bulging eyes and a snout. The other executives wore white suits and stood smoking near the far wall in a neat row, watching intently. Doubtfulness was outlined on the contours of their pallid faces and Kwame thought he glimpsed one muttering contemptuously to another. African guitarists, they had seen plenty of them.
Inside the recording booth it was cool and smoky and dim. His cigarette sat in an ashtray under the glow of a green desk lamp; it sent wisps of smoke like burning incense that only somewhat soothed his apprehension.
“It’s hot time, big boy,” the producer said in a grating voice, looking at him and sending a signal with his finger.
Kwame heard a click; it was the doors of the studio closing behind him. He glanced up, the RECORDING lights were illuminated, glowing hot red and searing his eyes. It was no longer cool in the room, in an instant he felt he was roasting within the four walls of his booth. He dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief to find it soaked with perspiration. He paused and noticed everyone was watching. He didn’t know what to do.
At this moment Kwame took a long, slow drink of fermented palm wine that was sitting on the desk. He closed his eyes and imagined himself on a dusty road, strolling along. Solemnly, he took the guitar pick between thumb and index finger, raised it in the air, and turned slowly from the light of the desk lamp into the gleaming, silver microphone. He quietly cleared his throat and began to play. In lurid hues, he sang his tune and his fingers never moved so easily up and down the fretboard.
The warm, soothing tones of his voice slipped forth from his lips, drenching the studio and drowning all in his song. An odd sensation filled the executives, a sensation they had not known lived inside of them. Pleased with what they heard, some had their thoughts on fame and fortune, but many of them were simply riveted, unable to speak, unable to comprehend what they heard, and had given way to an unforeseen euphoria. Kwame was expressing himself in the vague language of music, and it was a language that had stolen over them completely.

>>7153484
It made me laugh.

Living, lovely faces talking out to the quiet. They move their mouths but the screens are mute. Men walk past with an armani arm around serious-faced girls, talking. The lights are still on, they wash the empty stores white. I sit on a bench and watch people come and go. I am alone.
As it usually happens, I wonder about where it all went wrong. In youth I imagined singular defects of the body and mind blooming like tumors, virulent but consolating in their visibility.
In adulthood I learned fear coerces us to only itself. I was afraid of the quiet streets and now I am a walker of them. In some higher place I see the outline of my self made in a thousand small cuts.
It's true that sometimes it is not so bad. There is a deep sweetness in loving one's exiling country. I always knew that. But if I am still I can hear the breath hissing out the blue lips of my life.

>I've posted forms of this passage a couple of times before, but I've changed the voice from first-to third-person now. Appreciate any and all feedback, and will do my best to return critiques.

The rain was relentless and the street was deserted and the stranger’s hand was edging ever closer to his wife’s breast. Their kiss was filled with the sort of passion that Bob Jensen had always felt but was never able to show. He watched as she gripped her companion’s head and hungrily pulled him in for more and it was at that point that he realised that the perfect life he had dreamt of for them would never come to pass and that he now had nobody he could trust and he was painfully alone.

He felt the urge to cry or to vomit or both but managed to resist and simply continued to watch the scene unfold before him. The stranger was tall and handsome whereas he was not. The stranger was dressed stylishly and expensively whereas he was not. The stranger was able to make his wife squirm about in pleasure with his kiss, whereas Bob’s sex life had been so joyless and conventional that to look back on it now filled him with shame and regret.

Why was he so unable to have that effect on her? Would things have been different if he’d worked harder and was able to take her to hotels like this? Would he be enough for her then? It was pointless to even ask these questions, because the love she once had for him was now clearly somewhere else. It was in her thudding heart as the stranger pushed her firmly against the wall. It was in her body as she yearned for his touch. It was in her eyes as she stared into his. Bob realised that he was already a memory she was starting to forget. And how could he expect to feature in her consciousness when all her sensations were overcome with lust?

(1/2)

After what seemed like hours, the couple finally broke apart. Bob was too far away to hear what was being said, but the mood was obvious even to him. The stranger brushed the rain from her hair with a comfortable tenderness, and they whispered and giggled together in the hushed excitable tone of lovers. She caressed his strong arms and tousled his mop of golden hair and sunk her head into his chest with a deep exhale. She was remembering his smell and the way he felt and breathing in every last bit of him before she had to return to her boring life with her boring husband. He gave her one last peck goodbye and they finally turned away from each other, and the spring in her step as she walked away betrayed the fact that she had fallen for this man completely.

She turned round the corner and was out of sight, and the scene that Bob knew would change his life forever was finally over. He cracked and began to weep in a way that was so unexpected and uncontrollable that he felt like a helpless boy once again, abandoned by his mother to be left alone on his first day of school. This was not the way it was meant to be. This was not the way it was meant to be.

(2/2)

>>7161220
I like that this isn't standard /lit/-fare, but I have some qualms

Too much -ily adverb usage

Too much build up with too little pay off, I didn't hear Kwame's song playing, just like the executives, I couldn't comprehend what I was hearing, because nothing had been given to me to hear. Bone up that prose son!

Why would Kwame, in a sound booth after the record button has been pushed, take a swig of palm wine? Just doesn't make logical sense to me for someone who is nervous and trying to impress.

Refine, refine, refine!

The Writer

—I'm gonna work in my hometown, teacher
—I'm gonna go fuck myself, it's cheaper
—Grab a pen and get writing, it's cheaper

>>7164267
try not to use profanity in your writing, it is very uncouth

>>7164298
"I'm gonna go fornicate under consention of the king myself, it's cheaper"

Better?

>>7164327
sure

>>7164249
Wow, thanks for the critique, dude. Yea, I try to stay clear of /lit/'s pretentious word-vomit-drivel and go for more standard-story-stuff.

>Too much -ily adverb usage
Really? I mean I have a few in there, but it's too much, huh?
>Too much build up with too little pay off
You have a good point. I'll even that out.
>I couldn't comprehend what I was hearing, because nothing had been given to me to hear.
Yes, you're right. I should add more of the singing for the reader to "hear".
>Why would Kwame, in a sound booth after the record button has been pushed, take a swig of palm wine?
Haha, yea, that was totally a last minute add before I posted. I thought it should be the palm wine that allows him to enter into a different state (especially since he is a palm wine musician).

I shall refine and beef up the prose. Thanks!

>>7161220
is good, clear movement not bogged down
clear economy of words

>>7160401
the last two sentences set a very soft, twinkly scene which is nice
the dialogue reads naturally

>>7160328
it aint ulysses

>>7160257
simple and sweet

>>7160002
some of this is cheesy but there are a few real zingers in there, and the sense of encroaching darkness is tangible.
but who would give their kid a rape whistle on their birthday..?


>>7163504
>>7163495
return of the cuck
comparing wife to mother is a freudian nod near the end or something?
its better than before still think the subject matter is pure soap opera

>>7161983
really nice imagery last sentence
overwritten and rough sounding elsewhere not much fow

>>7164267
basic

>>7164998
Cuck story here. Yeah that was an attempt to make a bit of a Freudian link, do you think it worked?

Also, it might help if I told you what I had planned for the rest of the story. After seeing his marriage and family disintegrate, Bob gets given the chance to try out a new type of therapy where he can use a machine to create a virtual reality in which he can do whatever he likes (a bit like lucid dreaming). As he loses control of situations in the 'real' world, he becomes more and more reliant on his virtual reality and becomes increasingly depraved as he tries to get his power back. So the subject matter I'm trying (and no doubt failing) to deal with are things like the nature of reality, morality, and what is needed to be happy.

With that in mind, do you think the subject matter of this opening passage is ok? And do you think it's a good plot idea?

>>7165067
thats an interesting premise, the piece you posted works better in that context

>>7165243
Nice, thank you. I've still got loads of stuff I need to work out regarding the plot, but it's encouraging to hear I'm at least working on something interesting.

>it was supposed to be shit
poe's law etc.
walks like a duck talks like a duck etc.

This seems the best thread to ask, apparently I am supposed to analyze a poetry, which would be ok if I was not given a long list of things that supposedly make up such analisis.
Which comprehend
>Reading and comprehension
>literal meaning
>text analysis
>deconstruction of the text
>content of the strophes-technique-poetic comment
>paraphrasis
>lexicon
>text integration
>personal interpretation
>general interpretation
>interior comparison
>inter-extra textuality

Has anyone ever done such analysis?

>>7164998

I don't think anyone would buy someone a rape-whistle for their birthday, but if life is stranger than fiction, someone no-doubt has.

Thanks for the feedback, I'm trying to balance the cheese out properly and I was unsure whether I'm doing a good job of it, is there anything that particularly stands out as bad or out of place?

>>7164731
Very welcome, I find about 1/4 of the critiques I get on here actually really do help, so I try to give it back.

Re: hearing the music, this may be difficult, but, I want the prose to be musical in my head when I subvocalize it...maybe stay away from cliche descriptions at all and take me somewhere I've never been? Make that prose sing to me motherfucker.

>>7165489
what are you having trouble with? I highly doubt this is a checklist, probably more of a suggestion-list of things that you could possibly talk about re: the text.

>>7153397
The subway doors closed in front of me with a muffled click, and I desperately waved to her from the window. Time decelerated in those last seconds. I experienced each of them slowly and tenderly as they one by one dismantled me from the inside. Even so, they went by in an instant just as the summer had. It had been our last together. My heart sank as the enveloping darkness swept away her image, and I understood, with the sort of alarming swiftness that comes with this type of agony, that it was over. My stop wasn’t for another hour and a half so I shakily slumped into an empty seat. I knew that I couldn’t come apart in front of everyone, but I was quickly reaching my limit. I clenched my fists and stared at the filthy floor of the train. After several seconds of struggle, I slowly angled my gaze upwards. It wasn’t until then that I truly noticed the faces of the other subway goers. On that dismal afternoon, I discovered that they all seemed mournful. I imagined that their lives must have been like that summer at some point: where time is presumably frozen, permitting you to dance for eternity in the dazzling rays of life, only to be abruptly cut short and reminded that it had simply marched on without you. They must have. Why else would someone look this severely heartbroken? I began to realize that I, too, was one of those somber faces. It was there, in that dimly lit subway train, that I felt the gravity of it all.

"ahhh, these are really lonely times y'no jimmy, jimmy the only interaction i had all week was a chinese pizza man. I ordered a pizza after dinner and i spoke to the guy and i told him i couldn't finish the pizza on my own, y'no i told him..he should stay and eat it with me. i'm pretty fuckin' lonely these days, jimmy." a muffled response buzzed after a brief delay, it skipped and fragmented "i'm your friend". Delicate; a nice voice, a clean one. A child's voice, unaware of the tribulations of later life; high pitched on the other end of the mic. Pat winced at the filth of his mentality, he felt the corrosive sickness that bound him to failure, to reclusiveness, to a parasitic vicarious life lead by a ten year old he met on an online role-playing game. "how was your day jimmy, sorry for the swears my friend"