CRITICISM THREAD - LAST ONE DIED EDITION

[illiterate No.11508727]

Hey /crit/, I'm revisiting some of the early stuff I wrote during my undergrad. Pic related is the ending of a short story I wrote back in the day, with some added visual elements. You can find more fiction here:

>www.larthurhunt.com/fiction/

As always, I'll crit for crit.

[illiterate No.11508887]

Bump. First post gets a full critique.

[illiterate No.11509201]

does no one write anymore?

[Anonymous No.11509215]

>>11508727
revised this after many helpful tips in a previous thread. it’s the first paragraph and yes the change in narrative perspective is intentional

[Anonymous No.11509235]

>>11509215
you've been working on that one page for like a month

[Anonymous No.11509252]

>>11509235
yeah. is it still bad? i feel it’s bad but i don’t want to delete it.

[illiterate No.11509309]

>>11509215

I enjoyed this. It's quite good for an opening segment, and I would certainly read more. I especially liked the imagery of the first paragraph, the concision of the second, and the intimacy of the third. I encourage you to keep developing this. Stop refining this page; instead, look forward and continue the story. Your style is good enough, it doesn't need tweaking at this stage.

I'd almost suggest this is a bit too "stuffy" or old-fashioned, like there wouldn't be enough action or relevant cultural commentary to sustain my attention, but the second paragraph gave me hope that that wouldn't be the case. The parts where he eyes the girl made me think there may be something cool ahead.

Your strengths are in establishing setting and bringing a clear visual to the reader's mind. I recommend being a bit more precise in your diction. I.e., how could someone only get the "sense" of a cacophony? Isn't that antithetical to what a cacophony is? Also, why must the boy assume that the girl has any "business" with the lake? She's only walking in its direction, as far as I can tell.

[Anonymous No.11509322]

>>11509252
no it's not bad, actually I like how you kept it plain, but not pretentiously plain, which I think is OPs problem in waves at bohai, but you should probably write some more

[illiterate No.11509331]

>>11509322

OP here, I appreciate you giving the piece a read. I'll admit I was concerned about the pretense but I'm glad you're the only was whose brought that up so far.

[Anonymous No.11509380]

>>11509331
it's hard not to sound pretentiously plain even if you're saying what you mean

[Anonymous No.11509388]

How did I do?

Tallking to me; talking to her:
Talking to us.
Who thought of who first?--
As if such an unproven assumption
Was definitely true.

Walking the mile and a half
From her house down to the beach,
excitement Frolicking off
Our tongues sizzling
Uncontrollably on the stove Top,
Inevetibably blushing the now intoxicated
room encircling the diameter between our eyes.
Two fixed points.
Blues and pinks, and mellowly
Subdued oranges swirling the circle
With every syncopated inhale we cant help but
Move closer toward each other, closer--Closer,
Closer!--We are, without thinking, trying to occupy
the same space While still managing to walk;
every exhale bolsters the existing circumference,
And uses the force from our--lungs?--how so matter
Of fact, darling--to largeness wider and denser.
She is all I see.
And I am all she sees.

Forcing me to ask such a lofty and pretentious question:
What is the point of the ocean when we have each other?
Those relationships in which both parties
mutually thirst for one another really beg the question.

Today was alive.
It's not very often I can remember much about
A day. It's--apart from days with you--I
Can recite a conversation verbatim, after
Telling you what I was thinking before and after
You started getting dressed so we could leave for x
Event, where I was on your bed in relation to your jacket,
What color your sheets were at that time, how many
Times your brother had interjected and opened your door
Unannounced and what he said, which way the sun reflected off your car
On that particular day because it was parked in that particular way
In your carport, and why we didn't drive it and chose to walk,
and what we ate before we left,
and what song played three times--because, well, you know why!--cringe, cringe again for recognizing the cringe and announcing it but not changing it--,
and even what we ate the night before, and
How many times we had to outbark your dog to get
Him to stop barking, and which shoes you decided not to wear--of which you cycled between four, and what your mom was wearing, and how many pauses she took in between telling us to put on sun screen In her so earnestly mother-way that you resented,
But I thought was cute--talk about role-reversals.
Today was a day eight months ago,
And it still feels like today when that memory
Springs into my thoughts. And then into my
Feelings.
Feelings may not
be facts, but, everyone
Who saw us together could see
That damn exuberant circle without
A spoken word worded.

I'm absolutely convinced of the most heinous, ugly, difficult,
Unfun, despised, tiresome, and worst of all scientifically baseless assumption:

That either of us sometimes independently talk to us, but, once one of us succumbs, the other too has to follow suit. Like inertia--what do I know about science!--that neither of truly has the will to transmute.

[Anonymous No.11509621]

>>11508727
Indent your paragraphs you philistine. You switch tenses throughout. You tell instead of showing (the whole 2nd paragraph is egregious). The gun analogy does not work for smoking a cigarette. I would use lighting a fuse ending in a bang type analogy. You also use too many words in sentences. 'cracked his bathroom window open..' - people know cracking a window is opening it. You dont need the extra word. Several instances of this throughout.

Unable to discuss subject as it is incomplete and only the ending. Too ambiguous as is. No idea what his future holds based on text given.

[Anonymous No.11509643]

kill me

[Anonymous No.11509648]

kill me pt.2

[Anonymous No.11509674]

>>11509215
>He tried imagine what

Missing 'to' after tried.

Last paragraph feels off to me. Lot of descriptive words with writing that doesn't match the rest of the page. Like you tried to be more expressive or poetic or some such. 'bottom of the drive of the parents' house' is awkwardly worded. 'Plates and silverware echoed out' doesnt sound right to me. You've applied the action of making noise directly to the plates when it is the mother's moving them that is causing it. Same thing with the cupboards. Cacophony sounds like you are trying too hard and comes off pretentious in this text. Same for the use of 'din' - using a rare word for the sake of sounding smart instead of letting your writing tell teh story. Using 'or a sense of it' removes the impact of your description and kills all momentum and building up of the noise and and the scene. Same with 'din'. You apply the same wordiness to the house after just saying it was from the mother's din. 'His mother's own din' can cut 'own' out as you've already established it is her's. Other instances of unnecessary words earlier in the text.

[Anonymous No.11509680]

>>11509621
>Indent your paragraphs you philistine
i think it's just a matter of style

[Anonymous No.11509684]

>>11509674
i'd say you could take or leave this criticism

[Anonymous No.11509823]

Looking for comments on dialogue. Not interested in grammar or formatting type critique. Want to know if it sounds natural. If both have a unique voice. Any comments or tips regarding the dialogue would be appreciated.

Context is protagonist and lead female (not sure if pursuing love interest, she acts more as guide for driving protag and social commentary) meet outside an art exhibit. 2nd or 3rd meeting between them. Work together, but never spoke before recent events. Karen gave protag a note to meet her at exhibit. Trying for a playful dialogue when she arrives before they go in. Not pictured, but after they see the exhibit and leave, they discuss events and ends with him hooking his arm and offering it to her. She takes it with a 'my, my, what a gentleman' relating back to this section of text.

[Anonymous No.11509842]

>>11509823
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22a+girl+is+she+cute%22&rlz=1C1CHBD_en-GBGB729GB729&oq=%22a+girl+is+she+cute%22&aqs=chrome..69i57.3428j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[Anonymous No.11509865]

>>11509842
>https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22a+girl+is+she+cute%22&rlz=1C1CHBD_en-GBGB729GB729&oq=%22a+girl+is+she+cute%22&aqs=chrome..69i57.3428j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

What am I looking for? 5 results. 1 page from google.

[illiterate No.11510127]

>>11509680
>>11509621

There's a line break between paragraphs. No style guides I know of endorse the use of both indenting and line breaking. Think of how ugly that'd look. But thank you for the criticism, I'd agree with most of what you said.

[illiterate No.11510177]

>>11509621

It's also worth noting that the 'show instead of tell' principle is not a hard and fast rule. The whole story is told from a removed, bird's-eye view. The point is to observe the movements and inner/outer machinations of a sociopathic man. I intentionally wrote the second paragraph that way, and within the context of the full story you would pick up on that.

[Anonymous No.11510277]

So, I was trying to make my mc a genius with poor impulse control but I ended up making her so dumb it was infuriating to read and I can't change that without altering the plot

Would it be an acceptable fix if instead of changing the plot I just played up her autism, made her a weirdo who eats candy wrappers and bandaids, and added in a joke about her mother wrestling while pregnant?

[Anonymous No.11510297]

>>11510277
>her mother wrestling while pregnant
lmao

[Anonymous No.11510368]

>>11510297
sumo wrestling to be precise. Sumo is objectively the funniest wrestling genre, plus it's the only one I can imagine a woman her third trimester practicing

I'm going to make it a lot less funny in retrospect when the reader learns later that she was taking a sumo wrestling class for self defense after leaving her sociopathic husband

[Anonymous No.11510404]

>>11510368
taking a sumo wrestling class for self defense is still pretty funny

[Anonymous No.11511090]

Excerpt from a longer story. John among the moonmen

https://pastebin.com/raw/efXJGP1p

[Anonymous No.11511246]

>>11508727
idk man. I said this last time ya made a crit thread: it's perfectly in line with what the NYcucks like, but I don't think that that's a good thing

Like what even happened in Everyday Pity?

[illiterate No.11511683]

>>11511246

Really? I don't remember you saying that. But thank you.

I suppose people have different experiences and there's a market for/ demand for representations of those experiences in art even though it may seem alien or unpalatable to some. If that's what the NY Tyrant/ Tin House cucks can relate to, then so be it imo.

Everyday Pity doesn't have much of a plot--it's about a newly married man who's obsessed with the idea of reinventing himself, making amends, overcoming his former self, but cannot. He is delusional. He is born to conflict and fuck-ups. But he is deluded, to the very end, into thinking that things will be different this time. It costs him his marriage, his tenancy, and (perhaps) his sanity. I know people like this. It is important that we create art that holds a mirror up to them.

[Anonymous No.11511792]

>>11511683
>It is important that we create art that holds a mirror up to them
why is that important

[Anonymous No.11511818]

wreaking back through some stream of consciousness stuff i wrote


hard done by, my lord
he who blackens eyes and minds
bones bruised & feet washed
in rain moreso
pooling midnight rain and biting guppies
from amber skies

idolatrous, i am, whispering
and retaking my vows
ascend me beyond sin
with your weeping
Christ, a slack in my
kneel by the one man pews

told once by pagans I a sinner
again by reborns a captive
swallowed bread and blood
twice one bleary Sunday
i repent i atone
whittling again an asceticism to the bone

[illiterate No.11512240]

>>11511792

Because I think it's sensible that we make things that other people can see themselves in. This is how people learn. Being introduced to a perspective critical of themselves can encourage much-needed self-criticism and reflection. It encourages empathy and humility. That's the effect of art on me, anyway. That's a pretty asinine question, my ese.

[Anonymous No.11512308]

>>11509643
>>11509648
fpbp

[Anonymous No.11512424]

>>11512240
you're writing fiction to set people straight?
I think art should always be affirmative.

[Anonymous No.11513078]

>>11512424
Literature isnt art nerds.

[Anonymous No.11513093]

>>11513078
well really, what is art? it’s a very interesting question. one that has never been sufficiently answered

[Anonymous No.11513166]

>>11512240
It's interesting you talk about this, because that's what I've decided to focus on with my short story anthology- different ways to examine different aspects of the human condition.

It's my first time on this board, but since I've spent some time in the summer writing, I figured it might be cool to see what you guys think of my first short. I challenged myself to see if I can get the reader to empathize with the protagonist in spite of the story's short length.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jhg5_7zGl5Vxm9fCBkn0CFKGWdWlarrCMfjaqk3biVY/edit?usp=sharing

[Anonymous No.11513167]

>>11512240
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF I WROTE A STORY CRITICIZING YOU, HUH?

[Anonymous No.11513472]

>>11513166
>those rebels that opposed him. That oppose her.
Why do you switch tenses?

>The impact of their attacks stung, even if they did not hurt or kill, but that did not stop him. The Warrior has no concept of pain.

You literally say he felt pain, so has a concept of pain.

>temporal lobe
This is such an oddly specific location of the brain. I'm not even sure if he shot him straight on as he pleads for his life or just shot him in the side of the head or even back.

> thought the final thought
Thought thought is awkward sounding back to back. I'd reword slightly.

>supine
This word doesnt seem to fit your writing style. Out of place and takes me out of the reading. Fairly unique word many will not understand and have to look up.

Overall, I don't see any glaring faults or problems with the writing. Some tense issues throughout, maybe a little over the top on juxtaposition of fearless, unstoppable killing machine in the suit and vulnerable man with emotions crying at the end.

I didnt like the second sergeant at the end. I'd choose a different rank just to differentiate him from the sergeant referenced throughout just to avoid that little bit of potential for confusion. He came out of nowhere and is now the squad leader when it was implied all orders came from Lauren and she was in command earlier. Could almost keep them nameless at end to maintain focus on Rankin and Lauren. Not sure. Just a thought.

I realize you list the unit numbers, but its not frequent enough to make it explicit in my opinion.

One thing I felt was that there wasnt much military jargon. It didnt feel like most war settings. The dialogue and narrative dont sound like soldiers to me. You want him to be an unstoppable killing machine, unfeeling and relentless, but then turn sappy romantic immediately. I understand what you were trying for, but dont feel it was executed as well as it could be.

Worldbuilding is solid. I'm interested in the Federation and what this war might entail. Space marines or battle armour of some kind and future tech mentioned without weighing down the story with needless descriptions. Felt natural that they were in this setting and never felt lost - just curious for more about the world and lore.

Decent short. I'd be interested in more in this world if there are stories to be told. Works as a one off as well. Doesn't feel like a soldier or unit based on dialogue and little too heavy on the 'human inside the monster' switch, but I understood your message and what you were trying to achieve.

[Anonymous No.11513476]

>>11509215
Unironically great. You might make it anon

[Anonymous No.11513582]

>>11513472
First off, thank you for your feedback!

>Why do you switch tenses?
I noticed that this is a problem I have from time-to-time in my writing- trying to work through it. In that particular instance however, it's Rankin's thought he's having in the moment, so it's written in present tense to reflect that. Honestly, I might go back and change all the tenses to the present since I don't think it would be that difficult to do.

>You literally say he felt pain, so has a concept of pain.
Good catch- I'll amend this.

>Thought thought is awkward sounding back to back.
I thought thought so too. Gonna see about changing that as well.

>This is such an oddly specific location of the brain.
I was taking an anatomy class at the time- figured I may as well reflect it in my writing.

>supine
Same as above.

>second squad leader
He's in charge of a completely different squad altogether, but I understand where you're coming from. My original plan was to actually write a second short that follows the second squad I introduced, but it never really left the planning phase.

>there wasnt much military jargon.
This was an intentional choice, since the story was mostly focused on Rankin's stream of consciousness and I didn't want to distract too much from it. It also struck me as a way to show the Federation's strength, but also the soldiers' lack of overall humanity. They don't *need* to call out to one another back and forth like you might see in other battlefield/war settings because of how confident they are, but they also don't speak much because they basically know the routine.

>You want him to be an unstoppable killing machine, unfeeling and relentless, but then turn sappy romantic immediately. I understand what you were trying for, but dont feel it was executed as well as it could be.
On further introspection, I definitely agree that the ending is very, very sappy. I might cut out the romantic elements and have it focus more on his awakening to his humanity at some stage.

>Decent short. I'd be interested in more in this world if there are stories to be told.
Thank you! I'm actually working on a follow-up story, but the setting and theme is entirely different. It's a sequel that takes place in the same world, not too long after the battle depicted in my first short, but is centered around the civilian side of things. It's going to be a cyberpunk-ish detective story that has way more world-building and goes into far greater detail on what the Federation is, how it operates, etc.

However, the main goal is the same- use the story to explore some aspect of humanity.

[Anonymous No.11513586]

I just had an urge to do some creative writing and, not really having any ideas, I looked out my window and thought I'd just test my prose.

Would appreciate opinions on the way I'm writing here. I didn't put too much thought into my wording - at least not to the extent I do with poetry. I just wrote how I felt, if that makes sense?

>>11509643
>>11509648
hahaha, I love this

[Anonymous No.11513641]

>>11509643
>>11509648
Uh...

[Anonymous No.11513663]

>>11513586
awkwardly phrased; keep it simple

[Anonymous No.11513668]

>>11513586
post some poetry

[Anonymous No.11513672]

>>11513586
>overgrown evergreen
I love that

[Anonymous No.11513699]

I guess it's experimental - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qEGZNmNIonheKw5WIBGTkobB9gXAItCgRNO5YmOP1-I/edit?usp=sharing

[Anonymous No.11513706]

>>11513586
This is great anon, really. I don’t have criticism.

[Anonymous No.11513708]

Will trade a crit for a crit. Here is mine:

The rain bore down on the tired village. There was patter against tin roofs. Teapots swayed and hissed parallel to the unrelenting wind. Those in the town center wearily looked on as the mud in the streets began to surmount their hopes of getting home.
Vincent was one of such people. He sat at the corner table of the bar. He looked at his watch and remembered something. He remembered why, in the dead of night, he had decided to buy a train ticket and come all this way. Was it to suffer in the corner of some dreary bar, on some morose day, in a town of inconceivable boredom and nothingness? It came to him like a stream, how ridiculous this whole plan was, it revealed itself to him in all its disgusting banality, came rushing in like a torrent of incredulous stupidity and short sightedness, all for what? All for money, he thought, came strolling into town with two dimes to his name, no plans for lodging, no idea of an exit ticket, not a single critical thought had entered into this process. He was a victim of himself, sitting there at the bar stand, ashamed and helpless.
The rains hadn’t cleared, but he chose to go out anyway. He made his way down the muddy streets of Byron Avenue. Bystanders sat under arcades, casting furtive glances at him as he was soaked by the downpour. Some were lively, drinking alcohol and laughing, while others stood grim with newspapers in their hands, looking like displaced refugees. He paid absolutely no mind to their glances. Vincent was apprehensive about reaching his destination. He desired an insecure outcome, because Vincent had not seen the man he was set to meet in years, and moreover he owed debts to this man. Whatever happens, Vincent thought, I’ll most certainly come out the other side.
- -
“First it started in the night. I would hear sirens and bombs. I would look down at my hands and not see hands at all, I would just peer down into the darkness of my room and see unfamiliar flesh, an inconsolate sack of rattling bones. It happens during the day, now. An old car starts on the himself I dive behind milk crates expecting enemy fire. Everyone looks at me like I’m the town idiot. I run a hardware store for God’s sake. What would it do for business if everyone thinks the owner is a raving lunatic?”

[Anonymous No.11513783]

>>11513699
You need to turn this into a rap song. Just have it recited to a nice, simple beat. Kind of like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaoFiJonjWg

>>11513708
Scifi story guy >>11513166
here. Also, gonna enable comments on my google doc.

I like it. Kind of sounds like it's the beginning to a good horror story.

>He sat at the corner table of the bar. He looked at his watch and remembered something. He remembered why, in the dead of night
I don't like the way these sentences are worded since they all start with "he" back-to-back. Maybe combine them so they flow better?

>He sat at the corner table of the bar, and looking at his watch, remembered something- the reason why, in the dead of night, he decided to...

>He desired an insecure outcome
I don't understand this part of the sentence, even in the context that follows it.

>because Vincent had not seen the man he was set to meet in years, and moreover he owed debts to this man.
This could be reworded too.

>because Vincent had not seen the man he was set to meet in years, a man to whom he owed a [great] debt.

The last part is interesting. I like stories with a 'decent into madness' theme, but there's one sentence here that needs correcting.
>An old car starts on the himself I dive behind milk crates expecting enemy fire.

I understand the second part, but not the first. Maybe...
>An old car starts by itself, and I dive behind milk crates expecting enemy fire.

Keep it up, anon!

[Anonymous No.11513830]

>>11513708
>Teapots swayed and hissed parallel to the unrelenting wind.
surely they're not hissing parallel to the wind

>mud in the streets began to surmount
mud neither surmounts nor is surmounted; it's an inert stuff that gathers on the ground and gets in the way, you know... we trudge through it or it slows us down, nothing more

>He remembered why...
>Was it to suffer...
Doesn't quite make sense to say he remembered why and then go into the rhetorical question. At least not without a resounding NO! followed by the answer

>It came to him like a stream
Image doesn't really add anything here

>All for money, he thought, came strolling into town
He came strolling into town? He'd come strolling into town? The grammar is a little off here.

>bar stand
idk what that is (could just be me though)

>was soaked by
passive voice

>An old car starts on the himself
?

>town idiot
the term is village idiot

***

I think you're overextending yourself w/r/t prose. Also, I don't see how the first division connects to the second(!) Nevertheless, I think you're on the right path—there are some truly simple, truly clear sentences in there, and it looks like you're actually on the way to telling an interesting kind of noir-y story. So keep it up man.

>>11513783
>He sat at the corner table of the bar, and looking at his watch, remembered something- the reason why, in the dead of night, he decided to...

bruh this is worse than the original sentences. the commas are all wrong...

>>11513699
>it’s blood-speckled teeth
even in the tumult... I think you meant "its"

This is good man. Usually I can't tolerate this self-indulgent experimental shit but it feels like you're paying back what you borrowed, if that makes any sense. Like, it's poetic. I wanna read it out loud.

I will only say that I doubt this kind of thing could be sustained at length—but you probably know that already

[Anonymous No.11513846]

>>11513586
thanks anon!
>>11513641
please expand. this is not a joke i swear to god.

[Anonymous No.11513864]

>>11513846
I mean, it seems like a parody. It initially came across as fairly standard homoerotica that actually flowed really well, but the part with the battery and rape really destroys any suspension of disbelief because of how ludicrous it comes across. No one stopped them from injuring this guy and dragging him to the bathroom?

[Anonymous No.11513877]

>>11513830
Thanks, that should be its! And glad you got something out of it - part of the issue is like you said, I can't really make it much longer without it collapsing in on itself - appreciate you taking the time to read it

[illiterate No.11514252]

>>11513586

Not bad for a small snippet. Unlike the other guy, I'm indifferent about the use of the phrase "overgrown evergreen" the way that it's used here. I also had trouble imagining how or why brown branches turn to yellow when they rot in a gutter. Also, the "often they, too, would end up..." doesn't require commas. All they do is disrupt the reader's flow.

>>11513708
(OP here).

>There was patter
Awkward. If you're going to keep this, revise to "there was a patter" or "a pattering".

>One of such people
I don't like this either. It sounds more natural to opt for "one of those people"

>He looked at his watch and remembered something. He remembered why...
This can clearly be merged into one sentence. Avoid using intentionally ambiguous objects like "something" or "thing".

>dreary bar, morose day, inconceivable boredom
Too many adjectives. Use them sparingly. They muddy up your prose. Find me a great writer who layers on the adjectives like this. Please.

>all for what? All for money
Good! There we go. There's the precision we want.

Keep working on your craft. This suffers from overwriting, but nearly all young writers have the same issue. I like your main character, so build him up, but use the fewest amount of words possible to do it.

>>11513166

I'm glad you share a similar take on the craft. Let's take a look at your story:

>"P-please! I have... I have chil-"
This kind of strikes me as a cornball cliche. We've heard this before 100x. I'd suggest coming up with a new plea.

I recommend tweaking the bits of inner monologue you've written in italics. "I would die for her" seems a bit overdone and cliche, again. IDK, I'm spitballing here but something like "There is no higher honour than to die for the Sergeant."

I had to end about half way down and skip to the last few lines since I'm out of time. This isn't bad at all. I don't read mech/sci-fi stuff but there's a big market for it so if you expanded this to a novel there is potential that it could actually sell, unlike anything I'll ever write.

[Anonymous No.11514332]

Half of a short story I'm working on feel free to destroy me
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LzHIRb_6I5JJocg6IgLxRbmk5B-My2BOK0emdSJFuvM/edit?usp=sharing

[Anonymous No.11514355]

Hey can someone do mine? Seems to have been lost in the fray:
>>11511090

I have attached a cute picture in a bid to excite your interest.

[Anonymous No.11514365]

If you write in 1st person the entire novel, is it alright to switch to a love interest at the very end reading a love letter from the 1st person character? Or is that frowned upon if entire novel was in 1st person?

[Anonymous No.11514372]

>>11514332
First sentence is a comma splice. Fix that & we’ll talk, Mac

[Anonymous No.11514436]

>>11514372
thanks man, i'm fixing those atm.

[Anonymous No.11514448]

>>11514332
>Everything was blurry, the last thing I remember is

Was is past tense, then you switch to is for present tense. You should stick to one tense for narration. It is alright to have dialogue in present and narration in past or all in present, etc, but narration shouldl be constant.

The first sentence is the most important, too. Yours is a jumble on information dumping and status with nothing to hook me or make me care. Dazed, confused and we crashed on planet and some Consortium and a research station on Bungula - why should I care about any of this? I just started reading and I have to parse all these random events and details and I don't even know a single character yet.

>The environment around me and my crew was completely strange to us, giant green towers with yellow bulbous growths as far as the eye could see, the skies were blue with what appeared to be nimbus formations, the ground was ridden with a brittle brown substance, it appears solid at first but crumbles with touch into miniature copies of itself to return to the floor once more and fuse together again

The second sentence is ridiculously long and full of details on a planet I have no interest in and I have no idea what I'm reading yet. It should be cut up into separate thoughts. Your comma use is too liberal.

The first paragraph adn introduction to your story is the most important in the whole book. Many will open it and read it and quit. It has to hook them and give them a reason to care. Some might give you a page to wow them.

Dialogue attribution is outdated style and uses mannerisms. Also uses incorrect punctuation. Put action before the words and in their own sentence.

>"Lieutenant!" I called to my wrist communicator, not a minute passed before he came running towards me from the crash site

I called into my wrist communicator. "Lieutenant!"

>"Sir" the officer saluted

Not a moment later, the officer came running towards me from the crash site. "Sir!"

This could be done a little better, but I just used your words to show basically what I mean. The actions for the Lt should be attributed to him, not shown with the narrator. They should be given in order. I dont think the salute is required, but you could put it before the 'Sir!'. Most will understand he salutes, especially when the commander puts him at ease afterwards. You don't have to tell us in this case.

You seem to have a habit of using commas at every opportunity. Many should be periods making concise statements. At ease soldier is an example. This is a sentence. The comma shouldnt lead into a completely different thought and action. Same with the perimeter statement. These are officers with obvious military training - they give orders, not run on sentences.

[Anonymous No.11514482]

>>11514448
yeah the comma use is bothering me now that I'm rereading it, I'm correcting them as I type thought.

Well I wanted the info dump to be a little tongue in cheek, but I think the descriptions are to vague to get the point across. it's a description of a cornfield as seen from a small alien perspective. I think I have to change that

[Anonymous No.11514496]

>>11514355
>https://pastebin.com/raw/efXJGP1p

First thing to say is that I enjoyed the offbeat humour, and you write with some wit. It's really difficult to write something consistently comic in tone whilst also addressing serious narrative ideas, so good luck to you on that. A few things to point out:

'The moon-caves, however, were so underlit and dark' - underlit implies dark so you can get rid of one of them.

'the abominable white fur that marked out every element of that savage race of moonmen.' - this is clunky and I can't quite make sense of it. The white fur marks out the elements of the moonmen? By elements, do you mean their features?

'John felt an obscure fear crawl up his spine. He swallowed it' - not sure the mixed metaphor works. The fear crawls up his spine, and then he swallows it?

'John did as he’d bade' - don't think this makes sense. Maybe 'John did as he'd been bade' but it still sounds wrong. Maybe just 'as he'd been instructed'?

Overall, enjoyable. Keep it up.

[illiterate No.11514554]

>>11514355

Pretty entertaining read. I'd continue had you written more. It's a refreshing, lighthearted style that we don't often get to see a lot of around here. The only comparison that comes to mind is Vonnegut. I encourage you to keep working on this piece.

[Anonymous No.11514621]

>>11514355
I like it my friend, you should continue it

[Anonymous No.11514749]

>>11514252
Appreciate your input, anon! I'll be revising the short, probably change out the ending as well so it's far less sappy and melodramatic.

>>11514332
A scifi story? I'm on it.

Right off the bat, you've got several grammatical errors. A lot of your commas are superfluous and don't belong, and there are some run-on sentences that need a period as opposed to a comma.

I was going to go line-by-line in this post, but with 11 pages, you're probably better off enabling comments so it's a lot easier for you to see where the grammar problems are, and what else needs fixing.

In general, it seems clear that English isn't your first language, and that's okay. Writing is important, but in the case of stories, I personally think the plot is the most vital element. Which is a great segue to my next point.

>common inorganic matter and strangely in organic configuration
This needs more explanation, but preferably revision, because matter is organized the same regardless if its organic or not- atoms linking together to form molecules and so on. Kustlof, which you should change to carbon since it isn't an English word, can exist just fine in inorganic matter. Carbon dioxide being the first example to come to mind.

>"Enough doctor" I interrupted before I lost him "Is there a way to get off this rock?"
A question for an engineer or mechanic, not a doctor. And a question he would already know the answer to- fix the ship.

>the science team had gathered in the hours after the crash
This is also an issue- you need to provide a little bit more detail on the crash. All we know is that the crew crash landed, and not what they did afterwards. Like, I didn't even think they were wearing protective equipment until you mentioned it way too late.

All I can say is- work at it.

>>11514365
I don't really see anything wrong with it- you would just need to make it really clear to the reader that the perspective changed to another character.

[Anonymous No.11514773]

>>11514355
>moonman.jpg
Good. I was a bit confused at first since "our Hero" was mining without much context, but after the King of the moonmen explained the situation, I have no other real complaints that haven't been mentioned here.

Otherwise, keep going!

[Anonymous No.11514799]

Scifi guy here. Started on a sequel to my first short story. Still a work in progress, but I have all the plot details worked out already. Once again, comments enabled on the docs page. Enjoy.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19gJJlVYU-A4o_ilrAYvmdMvuq0p0FSa-pmX7vBvj6Ng/edit?usp=sharing

[Anonymous No.11514813]

>>11509215
Read the first paragraph. Seems good so far. nice.

[Anonymous No.11514820]

* Hall of Fame (feat. will.i.am) starts playing*

[Anonymous No.11514830]

>>11514820

[Anonymous No.11515070]

The silence as we arrived at the station carried that usual weighty sentimentality. We knew we weren't satisfied, but we didn't know what to do or what to say. We were also very tired of the whole conundrum.
He says something positive, thankful. It's been a good stay. I don't suppose he's lying, I believe him when he says he hates being lonely more than fighting. There is an awful lot of fighting, though. One would think human beings could go a few lines of dialog without shouting, recent evidence pointed to the contrary. He's never satisfied with our mother's performance. He feels the need to criticize her most minute action. Mom on the other hand, escalates any conflict to it's furthest conclusions. They're so insistent, so proud. It's hard to maintain hope that one will budge at any point.
We clasp hands. His feels so small in mine, it immediately triggers that awful self-serving pity, me wondering if he feels badly about being so much shorter than me. Then he's out of the car, before driving off I turn to catch my last sight of him. He's a lean, handsome, serious-looking young man. Outwardly, he's so much more adult than I. I feel a warm pride, I already miss him.
On the drive home, the world seems full of significance. Signs from heaven are everywhere about me, their meaning just beyond cognition. How does the acronym on that license plate fit into my relationship with my brother. The song I hear describes with so much accuracy the urban landscape I'm driving through, so what can it tell me about the future. Me and my fellow drivers spontaneously arrange into an intricate motorcade formation which holds solid for hundreds of meters. I am utterly convinced of a higher order in this universe. I just wish it would tell me what the fuck I have to do.

[Anonymous No.11515083]

>>11514830

[Anonymous No.11515098]

>>11515070
Really touching for such a short series of paragraphs, but the first paragraph is written in a different tense from the rest. Otherwise, really good. I'm a big fan of compositions with a good amount of 'white space' like these.

[Anonymous No.11515131]

>>11511090
The ideas are a bit too directly expressed, the king doesn't sound like a high and mighty monarch but rather like a research paper.
Is "John among the moon men" the title? Because I think just "Among the moon men" would sound a lot snappier.

[Anonymous No.11515228]

My mother's firm brown arm
Tentative and slow, set
A rustic kennel on the rug
With a red scarf hung over its door
Like a rose petal over a beehive’s mouth

Inquisitive, a pink nose slithers near
Sniffing the changed air
The molested air, drizzled with immigrant smells

The white fuzz attached to the nose
Halts at the crate's curtain;
His fine whiskers meditating

Our anxious human eyes gleaming above
Like fairy lights floating in a supernal ring

My mother lifts the scarf exposing
Two weak yellow eyes
In a vortex of shadowy fur,
Hesitating.

[Anonymous No.11515825]

>>11515098
thanks for the thoughts. about the tense, yea, the transition was botched. it's supposed to be the thoughts happening in the car, so the first paragraph is actually that instant-replay of the parting moments.
I was gonna pivot at "then he's out of the car", should be "now hes out"
Would that make sense that way?
did you post any writing?

>>11515228
I like this. A striking mix of domestic and ominous heheh. Is it a finished piece?

[Anonymous No.11515870]

Stepped out of the Union meeting, 12 trucks ANP wanted for a 13,079 dolla a year paycheck, with health, priorities, and a way out of the darkie neighborhood, oh well the days are days and the nights are night, I come out of my job happy and light and exhausted, waiting to read the funny papers to my kids (that Abigail is a top student), but I know on the turnpike I get the nasty looks, but who gives a damn, I sweat enough to afford a slice and a Coke, not like those Jews in the garment shop, but enough to keep a smile on my little Abigail and a little tonic to shut my Sally up when the sun goes down and to keep the noise and the burning trash in the streets far away from me and mine. We had our own domicile, so to speak, but the neighborhood was black like Danny says in the cigarette shop, a coffee in the morning, blast of cold water and a copy of the papers for the toilet, yeah we have a tap, clean water, too, but the milkman gets robbed by his bosses, wish that fine boy had a girl to call his own, well I came around to the corner store, saw him in there with little Sally, pulled up the pleats on my plants and knocked him in his kisser, looked stunned, and real red eyed with his bloody nose and his nasty cry. I turned out the door all confused. Too confused to be at my age. That’s how things went. Sally won’t talk to me. Oh well. Girl has a stutter anyways. Nothin’ I can do about it. Nothin’.

[Anonymous No.11515894]

>>11514749
thanks man, it's only the first draft so the critique is well appreciated. and yes english isn't my first language (althought I've spoken and written it since I was 4) but I haven't seen any spanish speaking sci fi magazines that aren't pretentious as fuck to submit my story to

[Anonymous No.11515914]

>>11515894
also the word "kulstof" and such are just for denoting the aliens crashing to the planet, same as the name Bungula, which if my memory serves me well is just another name used for Alpha Centauri, but probably I need to stablish that these guys aren't humans in the first place and that well, the planet they crash landed is Earth the setting is a corn field in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, probably north america because it's what I know.

[Anonymous No.11515996]

Here's a post-apocalyptic horror story I've been working on. Would like to (maybe) expand it out into a novel at some point.

Tear it a new asshole, if you wish.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TImpLsuFeqzizLyf_AQZqgPDaizXV-PS/view

[Anonymous No.11516015]

>>11515996
I don't have the writing chops to crit this. Just wanted to say this is really good. Have you been published before? Your work feels pro.

[Anonymous No.11516103]

Inspired by a letter thread. Do your worst.

[Anonymous No.11516106]

>>11516103

[Anonymous No.11516222]

>>11513783
Thanks for the critique I'm >>11513708
>>11513166
>felling the rebels that dared stand in his way
This seems cliche and has too much of a unidimensional tone to it.
>Even as they fired upon him, the Warrior’s armor held fast
This sentence just feels awkward. What you're describing is an action sequence, but in order for an action sequence to work in a narrative, it should be told through difference perspectives and affect characters in different ways. The effect on one character should cause another character to be affected in some other way, making the sequence feel more three sequential, and less "he shot them, and they shot back.". A good example of this is The Sopranos.
>The Warrior has no concept of humanity.
I read stories to relate to other characters. I don't relate to this one at all. If I wanted a story like this, I would play Halo.
>>11513830
Thanks for the pointers, man. You helped me clean up my opening paragraphs quite a bit.

[Anonymous No.11516415]

This is a snippet from my first attempt at poetry (a narrative poem trying for romanticism).

His twin, the man with whom he met each night.
For, while in the realm of the sleeping,
He was a king of kings, even Xerxes
And Alexander, both had kissed his feet
And relished to give him their friendship.
Each morning, our man inside the dream awoke
To a world of his mind’s own invention.
Entwined within the legs of his lovers,
Laying on top a bed of goose feathers
In a great manor built of finest gold;
A world of excess, wonder, and whimsy.
Each afternoon, he would leave his manor
His body: that of a man far younger in years.
All the great monsters that lurked in the clouds;
Dragons, Wyverns, wonderful Chimeras,
Would fly down to do battle with this man.
None of these beasts had stood a chance, of course,
Our man wrestled them all into the dirt
And each beast, before its death would exclaim:
Congratulations, and paid good homage.
For this honour, to die at a great hand,
All should be thankful, at least, in his dream.
This was to be always the way of things.
Until this night, of course: he was awoken,
Untimely, unjustly; it was not fair!
O’ cursed alarm clock, ‘tis no creature
As dutiful, yet so despised as you.
The man woke. This time, as the wretched thing.
Cold sweats about, chilled in the moonlit air
The window, left slightly ajar. The blinds
Possessed by some wind spirit, they fluttered,
Waving, cruelly, “Good Morning!” to our man.
And everywhere, the incessant beeping.
Our man knew what business had to be done.
Before he was to return to his dream,
The clock, furiously flung to the wall,
This cheap, Chinese plastic could not withstand
The righteous rage of a man vexed from sleep.

[Anonymous No.11516567]

>>11515825

Thank you! Ya it's basically done but I've been tweaking it a bit with the criticisms I get. Thanks a lot man.

[illiterate No.11516734]

>>11515996
>https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TImpLsuFeqzizLyf_AQZqgPDaizXV-PS/view

Didn't have time to finish this but I would've otherwise. This is fairly 'cool' in presentation/style which is a rarity around here. Some bits were a bit overdone, and I especially didn't like the seemingly arbitrary italicization. Other than that, it was a good, natural-feeling piece. However, the last line of the first page felt corny to me and was the first disruptive bit of the piece. I suspect there's more segments like that later on. I encourage you to continue with this.

[Anonymous No.11516760]

>>11516015
Thanks for reading! No, I haven't been published yet. I sent this story around to a few competitions, but haven't heard anything back yet. Most places just want literary fiction so it can be hard to find a place at the table... but thanks for the encouragement.

>>11516734
Thank you for reading, and thanks for the feedback!

[Anonymous No.11516969]

The tiredness relaxes me
My feet scout for the rejuvenating sand

The quiet paradise of cool water expands
Like a great net thrown over a hidden kingdom

The slender music of smoke
From burning wood
Is twirled by a cunning ghost hand

I am drunk with the performance
I could drop into the lake

[Anonymous No.11517016]

>Consistently get best grade in Creative Writing university course for everything I write
>Show my stuff to friends and anons, everyone says it is shit

Should I be confused, or should it be obvious that a CW course would blow smoke up my arse?

[Anonymous No.11517064]

>>11517016
This depends. Your friends and family may have their literary comprehensions stunted by a lifetime of airport novels and fan fiction or your university might be so far up its own arse with academic stagnation that it became limited to churning out standardised drivel and using its authority on the matter to call it brilliant.

[Anonymous No.11517070]

>>11517016
>>11517064
But take my opinion with a grain of salt. I'm in the opposite situation where my peers enjoy my writing but my tutor calls it cliched.

[Anonymous No.11517094]

>>11517064
>>11517070
You got any writing, anon, I'm sure it's not cliched.

[Anonymous No.11517097]

>>11517016
Anyone that critiques would tell you Harry Potter is a steaming pile of shit from a literary perspective. It switches narrative mid fucking scene all the time for fucks sake. It's also one of the most successful novels/franchise ever written.

In the end, critiques are representative of who is reading it - masses want junk food like James Patterson, Danielle Steele, etc. Anything remotely wordy or philosophical or requiring effort to read will be boring and terrible in their eyes. You submit your CW to a single person. Maybe not even the professor - could be a TA grading it. As it's CW, it likely has no true criteria and is a matter of opinion. You write for the person you want to read your work.

[Anonymous No.11517224]

>>11517097
Well, I think the marker is an idiot. I've read his poetry and I did cringe the first time I saw it (before I took the course). I'm probably ignoring how shithouse he is because he gave me good marks.

I would post his poems but I'm scared someone would use his contact to tell them I posted this on 4chan.

[Anonymous No.11517248]

>>11517094
It is a bit cliched, I think. He didn't like my references to the muse and soul. Something I wrote is slightly above these comments next to the pic of the crusader.

[Anonymous No.11517405]

Wasn't sure which one, so I'll be librul and critique these two. >>11517248

>>11516969
It wouldn't hurt to add more line breaks in there because the 'breath' of the poem seems to be too strained without stops. Enjoy the rhyming of "sand," "expands" and "hand" - which is good in its subtlety. The simile of a kingdom being netted is interesting, but it's a bit confusing - keep it if that's what you're going for. Quite like the image of a ghost hand twirling smoke, and it would be great if you described it in more depth. Best lines are definitely the last two. They are vague but somehow profound because of it.

>>11516103
>>11516106
Even though I've been in this boat very recently, I don't think anyone *truly* wants to read about a correspondence with an e-lover. It's just personal jabber to me, sorry. Yours is well-written - perhaps too much so; maybe take a more conversational tone. You should see my manic ramblings over this one girl (no, don't). I did have to stop at the David Foster Wallace thing because it feels like a joke now. Do you really break out into DFW talk in an apology?

[Anonymous No.11517516]

>>11517405
It's neither of those it's this one:
>>11516415
I meant next to as in the one attached to the pic, an error on my end.

[Anonymous No.11517571]

My first attempt at anything vaguely resembling literature in a long time:


Boxes. Two feet high, two feet wide and two feet deep. A lot of them. Some back-of-the-envelope calculations yielded an estimated one hundred and seventy-two in total, cardboard crypts for books, old clothes, magazines, crockery, toys, cassette tapes and assorted tat which had spent most of a lifetime collecting dust in the attic of my now-dead mother’s house. The oldest could have been there for as long as fifty years, excess possessions and housewarming gifts stowed away for safekeeping and scarcely remembered above the chaos of the two, then three, then four lives being woven together below.

The newest had been interred nine years ago, when four became three. Photographs and souvenirs which evoked memories too raw for lonely contemplation were sealed away under the pretence of decluttering and the promise they would be reinstated in time. Now we were two, tasked with exhuming those memories and destroying any which did not hold sufficient value to us or the bidders at eBay.com.

[Anonymous No.11517605]

>>11516415
>>11517516
I don't know much about Romantic poetry (is that romanticism?) apart from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, so I wouldn't be the best for criticism. I think you certainly turned the long narrative poem into something that is simple and accessible, while retaining its form. It's interesting you use Xerxes and Alexander together, but seems a little misplaced, and it may make more sense to pick a more successful emperor than Xerxes. It might benefit from you reading some Arthurian legends, which are very good at harking back to older poetry for romantic nostalgia. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is my favourite, and it's very silly in its heroic descriptions.

>None of these beasts had stood a chance, of course
I do this a lot as well, just add in 'of course' because it sounds good in my head. But it does seem redundant and sticks out in length compared to the other lines. Take it out, I think.

Overall, the poem is well done and it never feels jarring or overdone. Even though narrative poems now do read a bit too flowery, yours is great and simple. You've utilised humour in a great way, but I think it would benefit from being subtler. You could describe a battle with a beast that begins to chime like an alarm clock, rather than tell us outright, and then slowly awaken. It's up to you, but I think the poem is too afraid of being properly ironic and subtle. Regardless, you did do well in the speech of the modern-day "beasts", e.g. "Good Morning!"

But if you are to hone it, I suggest you slowly reveal the joke. No need to very clearly lay bare the joke, as you do. But it's not a catastrophe; the poem still works.

[Anonymous No.11517633]

>>11517571
I love this but I would add a semi-colon, full stop or colon after
>in total
since it's too long.

>eBay.com
This is funny, I love people being so camp by saying "dot com". Not sure if you were going for that.

I'm a little disappointed you started with a great, short voice and then trailed off into long, run-on sentences. It would be okay for a while, but go back to your very short bursts - you do it well.

[illiterate No.11517686]

>>11517571

I'd agree with the other guy and suggest modeling your 1st paragraph in whatever forthcoming stuff you write. It's a lot more visual, and grounding for the reader than the run-on stuff that is only very rarely done well and even at that is tedious and taxing to read after a while

[Anonymous No.11517761]

>>11513699
Can I get some more on this?

[Anonymous No.11517770]

>>11508727
>Crit
There were a few times where I was very confused by your descriptions, but they get better if you think about them for a bit.
>milky streaks
Does this mean white brushstrokes? Very strange but I like it.
>goofy, pop-eyed smiles
But, smiles do not have eyes! I do like this because it reads jarring, at first, but becomes apparent you're speaking about a entire facial expression.

Another expression I liked is
>red-bleeding colours

The last thing about a lighter or cigarette being a gun borders on the cliched, but you draw it out to an exaggerated yet pleasing place.

In some way, it feels like your writing is good but being contained by a formulaic way of writing. Particularly, you seem to begin too many sentences in "He" without it seeming like anaphora. It just reads a bit too thoughtless, rather than interconnected. The rest of the sentences are great though, and you've certainly shown a good skill in writing while maintaining clarity for the average Joe.

[Anonymous No.11517781]

>>11517770
Forgot to attach.

[illiterate No.11517967]

>>11517770

Hey, thanks!

The milky streaks refers to the white streaks that run down unwashed medicine cabinet mirrors. He's looking into a mirror.

In the updated, full draft of the story on my website you'll notice that I've replaced the gun-cigarette cliche with an explosive one. I reduced the sentence to simply: "He put it in his mouth, readied it, then lit the fuse." For now, I think that has a more potent effect on the reader.

Now, onto yours.

I like the first sentence a lot. Right off the bat, I'm in it with the eery visual.

Second paragraph is a worthy successor to the first. The door to death bit looks the slightest bit off. Not a fan of sentences that start with "So,"

Your visuals are on point throughout this whole opening section. I would remove some ambiguities though, like how it took "a while" for the fish to finish its arc. In fact, that whole sentenced can be condensed so it isn't multi-clausal. That's something worth considering. I.e., describe how the fish slowly whizzed overhead and into the dirty waves.

>to feint the bait like an enticing morsel would move.
This sounds clumsy to me.

"In fright" sounds like a more unnatural variant of "out of fright"

>A leviathan, it was
Can't decide whether I'd like this more with or without the comma. I'm leaning toward without

>I think I thought it was, at least.
Come on, man. I get what you're trying to do but this line is a clear misfire imo.

The descriptions are starting to degenerate the closer we get to the end. I want to hear more about mother. Tell me about her, and pepper in the context throughout. I may be ignorant of the larger story being told but it seems like much of this is not at all advancing the action.

>I went as far as to lean
avoid wordiness such as this.

>I exclaimed at its sheer weight
Misuse of the verb exclaimed, it seems.

>because it was a treasure
this bit is completely unnecessary

You have a lot of potential with this. I encourage you to continue with it. However, the excellent descriptive in the beginning gradually deteriorates until the end. There is some evident overwriting which I've tried to point out at times. Ultimately, I feel like this needs some more central action. It feels like a wanton episode of a strange boy at a beach. Nothing feels 'on purpose' or like it's happening to set up for something larger to happen later

If you want to exchange excerpts again in the future, shoot me an email. I wouldn't mind reading more

[Anonymous No.11518068]

>>11517633
>>11517686

Thanks for the feedback anons! There's definitely a change in style and I agree that the first section reads a lot better than the second. I will revise the later section and try and adhere more to my 'short voice'.

[Anonymous No.11518102]

>>11517967
Sure, where's that email at buddy? I checked your website but couldn't find it.

[Anonymous No.11518224]

>>11517781
I think this is pretty good. It kind of loses itself in the second half a bit--too many compound sentences and too much wordiness for your own good.

>The seagulls expunged from their guts and bowels white shit, which dashed across the soft sand
That's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. You spend 16 words to say "The seagulls shit all over the beach." Your story is getting buried under your writing.

Also
>Holstein's my name; fishing's my game.
This line is extremely corny, cliche, and I don't feel like it fits the tone of the story well. It also doesn't fit well with the preceding or following sentences. The story would lose nothing by cutting it.

Overall, I enjoyed it--though I enjoyed the first half much more than the second. Just revise it and make it a bit more readable.

[illiterate No.11518230]

>>11518102

It's on the homepage (www.larthurhunt.com) at the bottom

[illiterate No.11518238]

>>11518224

FWIW, I didn't mind the "Holstein's my name..." cliche. It was intended to be corny, if I'm not mistaken. The character is an oddball. I think that was the point. It was effective, in my mind, and made me smile a bit

[Anonymous No.11518442]

>>11513877
If you don't mind, I'd like to put it on a site where I host various works I like. Is that ok? If so, how would you like me to credit you?

[Anonymous No.11518472]

Rip me apart

[Anonymous No.11518554]

>>11517781
Whenever you get close to the vernacular it gets good and whenever you depart from the vernacular it gets bad.

Lots of little things...

>... sent one large silver ...
verb doesn't fit here

>now slimy, now bloody hands
I think you could drop the 'now's

>... whizzing as it did, and flying into the dirty waves
Something grammatically off about this. Maybe drop "as it did,"

>beckoning the pain instead
I don't think that works. Waving birds away doesn't look enough like waving something else forward.

>waiting for this dolt
not quite right... I can't say why. Maybe because it goes too far to anthropomorphize them for a moment...

>only ever slightly
I think the phrase is "ever so slightly"

>A leviathan, it was.
Egregious yoda speak, this is!

>smoky stench
Why would it be smoky?

>... it was an old thing
... it was very old.

>depths, which
think you should omit comma

>lovely eve
I think can be dropped. I don't get a vibe that the narrator is being ironically saccharine anywhere else, so it doesn't really fit

>If this is what the sea spews ...
There's something here, but I think you need to polish it a little more

>I exclaimed at its sheer weight
What did you exclaim?

>the seagulls expunged...
Besides my usual bafflement at how many people in these threads seem to get a kick out of being disgusting (there is nothing mature about it, I promise you...)—of that grievous ersatz latin this another instance is!

>It would have rolled off ...
I don't understand this.

***

Allow that I may know nothing; discard everything I've said if you like. I suggest (although again not vehemently—everyone has their own process, more or less) that you open a new document and rewrite the passage from memory; I think this will preserve only the essentials... kind of a natural selection process. Nobody wants to do that, but consider—doesn't your reluctance show a lack of faith in your own powers? Isn't it true that literary talent, something which you obviously have some quantity of, is more like a river than a pond? I mean it seems to me that you can draw from it again and again without your actions ever lowering the water level. That is, it is like Aristotle's "potential infinity."

[Anonymous No.11518584]

>>11509388
So is this terrible, or just too long?

[illiterate No.11518791]

>>11513699

There's definitely a lot of readers out there that enjoy this kind of stuff. I remember seeing some on Fluland back in the day. It's probably still up there. I think this piece in particular would benefit from paragraph format, though. I've written something eerily similar in style and tone and it received very polarizing reviews, like 50/50 love hate. Expect a lot of people to also hate this

[Anonymous No.11518864]

>>11518472
>air was warm to touch
you don't touch air
>cooled as it passed through the boy
....?
>Chin titled
>his head bounces off flies
you need to into physics
>known for adj. adj. adj.
>in which he tucked his loose shirt

dude this makes no sense

[illiterate No.11518868]

>>11509388
>>11518584

Both. Littered with spelling errors too. Comes across as terribly juvenile to me, even by spoken word standards. Read more poems.

[illiterate No.11518878]

>>11518472
>>11518864

Seconding this.

Write with more clarity. More precision. Read more contemporary stuff. You've been influenced by writers far beyond the level you're currently at (which is true of most young writers on here).

[Anonymous No.11518923]

Feedback on this short piece i've written?

[Anonymous No.11518979]

>>11518864
Thank you for the feedback.
What is it that makes no sense? The lines you've pointed out or the whole thing?

[Anonymous No.11518992]

>>11518878
This is great, thank you.
Did you feel as though the piece was juvenile or lacked substance in any way, or do you think that my writing doesn't match the style it's written in?

[Anonymous No.11519003]

>>11518979
Not that guy, but my honest opinion is that it seems you're trying too hard to make everything metaphorical and poetic. Often, simplicity is more effective.

[Anonymous No.11519032]

>>11517605
Thank you for the criticism. I plan on writing in this style again for a small writing competition at my university. The "of course" was to keep it the metre constant but ill look into using something less redundant with the same number of syllables. I'm glad that you didn't consider it too purple, although I wanted the language to be colourful and archaic to a certain degree. I'll take to heart what you said about subtlety.

[illiterate No.11519043]

>>11518992

Whether it has substance or not I can't tell based on this excerpt alone. But it's terribly overwritten and frankly pretentious from start to finish. If I could go back to see what I was writing when I started out a few years ago it would probably resemble what you've written here. I recommend either excising much of the text and correcting each line carefully to make it more concise, visual, and palatable for your reader, or starting over altogether. And seriously, read more contemporary literary fiction. Don't risk being an anachronistic hack. Immerse yourself in a variety of styles, and you'll learn how and where to adopt the best of each.

[Anonymous No.11519291]

>>11509215
Too much redundant description. Too aware of what it is. This is the kind of piece that someone who considers themselves a "good writer" produces in an undergraduate critique course and then never touches again, smugly satisfied with the mediocre nothing they've leaked into the world.

[Anonymous No.11519450]

Send h8lp

[Anonymous No.11519529]

>>11508727
>and, to his judgement, the depths of winter had come and gone

This sounds a bit off. I'd leave the "to his judgment", or show in a different way it's solely what the narrator believes.
You mention the cracking of the bathroom window and the light of evening breaking through in the next paragraph. Make it into one, or show that the light has only crept in due to the opening of the window.

It's not bad and I'd read the whole story, but there is something missing to give it more essence and complexity.

>>11509823
>doesn't deny the cute part
>is flustered

Don't know of this works. She's the one calling herself cute first, so why would she be flustered if the protagonist repeats it?

>I thought I had invited a gentleman
>So, it is a date
She isn't saying it's a date. A closer connection between her invitation and considering it to be a date is needed.

From those lines I do think the two characters display a unique personality, though. They speak in their own style.

[Anonymous No.11519535]

>>11509388

I'm not much for poetry but I really enjoyed it.

I think I have felt something close to what you write.

[Anonymous No.11519549]

>>11518868
When has 'proper' spelling ever been a proponent of poetry.

As far as I feel, poetry is one of the few literary means where 'alternative' spelling is widely accepted.

[illiterate No.11520401]

>>11519529

Thanks for the read. I agree with your criticisms and I appreciate them a lot. If you want to read the whole thing, it's up on my site (link in OP) under the name "everyday pity". It was my first short story and it hasn't aged all that well, I'll admit.

>>11519549

A proponent? Do you mean component?

The spelling errors are not alternate stylings or creative tweaks on words. None of them seem deliberate. They look like blatant errors. I mean:

>Inevetibably

I stand by my critique. The whole thing is awful, and was evidently written by someone who is beneath the rank of novice as a poet.

[Anonymous No.11520473]

Here's a poem I wrote five years ago that I just dug up. Some say that I still don't understand poetry, to this very day:

Dr. Dre is a better poet than me
It's so obvious, can't you see?

He rhymes about things that are real
Like the streets
I rhyme about things that are not
Like love in the abstract

He makes all the cool beats
I don't even like to eat beets
I'm so beet-less

But let's imagine for a second
That even if I rhymed about something
That was real
With the sweet beats that the kids love
There's one more reason why Dre
is still better than me
at poetry

Dre's rhymes rhyme
My rhymes don't
I guess I just find it a little too
mainstream
for my liking

Because of this my newfound business
In the manufacturing and selling of headphones
Is not quite living up
To the bass-laden Dre namesake

So in the future I promise
To try and make my rhymes rhyme
I think its about time

In return I only ask
That you please take the time
To help my bottom line

These headphones aren't selling themselves, you know.

[Anonymous No.11520565]

>>11519291
you should kill yourself

[Anonymous No.11520742]

I am surprised by how well anons write. I especially like >>11509215

I just wrote a short story and it is an absolute dumpster fire, but I will share it anyways. Not like I will get anywhere if I don't know what to change. Help me out anons.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13gbs89Vhntucd9t9bk6zs2yIwzSIwVB1iy6zYaTWLEU/

[Anonymous No.11520754]

>>11513166
here.

I took in your suggestions and revised the short a bit. I excised some of the more cliched parts, I got rid of the frankly unnecessary and far too sappy romantic undertones, and overall I think it's a little bit tighter and more subtle now. I appreciate the input! I really need some good criticism, a fresh perspective is very helpful.

>>11516222
I get what you're saying, but it's all intentional. The action is important, but it's only important because it provides context for the internal workings of the character's mind, and what I really tried to relay through it all was that try as we might, we can't run away from the thoughts and feelings that make us human.

[Anonymous No.11520937]

>>11520742
The dialogue is the best part of this, it has a nice flow and the exchange between Frank and Mary kinda reminds me of my own grandparents getting into quasi-bickering matches over nothing at all.
However, I think you could benefit from a greater use of descriptions, for instance Frank is wearing clothes that 'should have been changed before he ever set foot outside the door' but the reader doesn't get a sense of what those clothes look like and why they're unfitting. Is Frank standing out there in his pajamas, what he's wearing?
Same deal with the apparently empty neighborhood he's in, you mention the houses are dark but aside from that what do they look like? Are there fires? Is everything normal aside from the stillness and lack of human presence?
A regular application of description can alleviate a lot of those questions that the readers are going to be asking when they read your work.

[Anonymous No.11520970]

>>11519535
Nicee!

[Anonymous No.11520985]

>A thing I wrote [1/2]

“It is very important you tell me anything at all you observe over the next couple of days. Any changes in mood or appetite, blurriness in your vision, sudden aches or pains, fluctuations in heart rate…that sort of thing.”

“Yes, doctor.” Lisbeth said, though she did not move her lips. The sound seemed to emanate out from the very center of her, shivering the air, making the fluorescent lights flicker in their tubes.

Yet the doctor hardly seemed to notice. His hands were steady as he handled the little syrettes, each seeming to hum in place, rattling against the stainless steel sides of the little case he was filling. The syrettes were made of tinted glass and their contents vibrated restlessly, a dull scarlet glow throbbing impatiently through the dulled sides of each syrette, staining the inside of the carrying case with muted flumes of light, like the sun carrying through a stained glass window.

It seemed to Lisbeth that if she were to snap one of the syrettes in half then all the colors in the world would be made drab and uninteresting by simple comparison. That in the tiny window before complete annihilation.

“And, Lisbeth,” the doctor paused in his task, a syrette held in one hand, jittering slightly, the plastic needle sheath working slowly loose, “only one per day. Otherwise the side effects…”

“Are not survivable.” Lisbeth finished, words vibrating through flesh and bone, carrying from some unknowable place. She’d heard the warning before. She knew.

“Precisely.” The doctor snugged the last syrette into place and shut the carrying case, the little catch clicking shut, the half contained light emanating from the medicine cut abruptly off.

The case rattled against the doctor’s glass topped desk, turning a slow half circle in place. The doctor paid it no mind, just folded his hands over top of the desk and smiled pleasantly at Lisbeth.

“You’ve progressed well,” he said, “I’m sure this higher dosage will suit you well.”

Lisbeth regarded the smooth, unblemished skin that covered the doctor’s face, stretched taut over the gentle dips of his eye sockets and the little triangular hollow that had once held a nose.

He was getting better at breathing through his mouth without making a racket, though Lisbeth somehow knew that he was still self conscious about it. This in the same way she could tell what each station was playing whenever she strayed close to a radio, each band of noise and signal playing simultaneously within her. The doctor’s thoughts were like that, the present ones and the ponderings more well hidden.

[Anonymous No.11520988]

>A thing I wrote [2/2]

He was frightened of her, she knew that. Frightened of what was happening to them both. Scared at how he could see, but only from above himself, like he was a puppeteer controlling a marionette.

She could understand this, but only in a clinical sort of way that didn’t allow for sympathy.

The doctor bid her farewell and Lisbeth managed to let the right signals out of herself, enough to craft a polite reply, keeping the rest tightly wound within the hollow at her center that housed all of the rest.

He was wondering when his mouth would seal tight as well.

Lisbeth floated from the doctor’s office, a half foot above the ground, carrying case clutched tight to her chest, little beams of crimson light beginning to work loose from the seams and cracks.

The fluorescents shorted out above her, one after the other as she passed. Her eyes were closed. She stroked the case and listened to the medicine.

It was singing.

[Anonymous No.11521946]

>>11515083
No one wants to take these?
Real interested in what people have to say about them, actually.

[Anonymous No.11521957]

I wrote this while drunk as hell.

The strings and drums were thrashed, barely on beat, out of tune and nonsensical but the crowd was cheering along. Throwing, kicking, shoving, pushing; anything to get the pent up frustration and anguish out of their system. He screamed and yells tortured and painful words that served no lyrical purpose. It was a riot.

This continued for some time, the crowd and band nearly tore the abandoned warehouse apart like they had done many times before that. And as the last song came to its end, he fell back, worn, covered in alcohol, sweat and tears. The tips of his fingers were shredded and bleeding, he panted and slowly opened his eyes to reveal nothing except the hollow shell of a decrepit and depressed warehouse. No one stood before him, no band stood behind him. Just a guitar on his chest and a couch beneath him.

Despite the ringing in his ears, it was silent like a graveyard. About as dark as one too.

Sweat dripped down his face and you couldn't tell, but tears did too.
I'm not great at writing, especially when I've been drinking.

[Anonymous No.11522011]

>>11521946
Sorry but the way you've formatted it strains my eyes. Try to use larger font if you're going to use a page that large.

Anyway, I'll critique it:

>say to random girl
Who said that?

>I've seen of
Take out of

This entire sentence that it's from is run-on, and would benefit from you breaking it up with full stops. Off-the-bat, your strange faux-highbrow way of speaking doesn't match the "Tolkien" or "DnD" shtick.

>Was heaven always this cheery?
I imagine so... I have no idea what this turn of phrase is trying to convey.

Anyway, I don't really want to read the rest, I can tell it's going to be saturated in Anime cliches and pop culture, of which I am not a fan. Your use of em/en dashes are very annoying. Use full stops instead. You're really afraid of ending a sentence.

[Anonymous No.11522254]

Wrote this an hour or so after waking up today:

Cat tongue flicking in warm water
Humid air approaching my skin
As a goddess might draw a sleeping village
To her breast

A wish to write poetry with my eyes shut

The birds song through blue air
The jewelled hand of the tree's branch
Poured with green
But blushing an orange-red
At the head of each set of leaves

Cat trying to connive his way
Into a ripped bag of food
That I've guarded with a blanket

[Anonymous No.11522511]

>>11520565
It is the desire of the pleb to eat the flesh of higher beings that it may elevate itself.

[Anonymous No.11522615]

Shat this out yesterday. Tell me why it sucks.

I feel so alive
in the wake of your waste
If you turned to love me the smell
of shit would be crushed by flower petals
and I would lunge at your throat with my teeth

The stems erupting from manure
Your thin lips upon me
That final place, death awaiting
But in the cage of your shadow
there is darkness eternal
A projection room of
space awaiting matter

The moving pictures in my head
are far more beautiful
far more painful than
you could ever hope to be

[Anonymous No.11522783]

>>11522254
humidity surrounds, it doesnt approach. the goddess sentence feels like it ends and then has the awkward to her breast on the next line. I find it hard to read it as one coherent thought or sentence in your format and I don't see how humid air compares this goddess metaphor.

bird's, not birds. and air isnt blue, the sky is. it doesnt make sense to me as written since it implies we are surrounded by blue.

I like the jeweled (it's one L for this word) hand of the tree branch. Your best line, but then you change metaphors to a pouring/water motion from jewels. I would use a green vein (like gold or silver or mining vein) flowering into a topaz and ruby starbursts. This isnt great, but you could work on something to continue the jewel description of the tree.

Last part ties back to the cat, but seems out of place with the rest (you speak of goddess and flowery writing of jeweled trees, etc, but the last stanza is so plain and lacking.

I would rework the goddess metaphor and touch up the last stanza.

[Anonymous No.11523381]

>>11521957
I think you should focus more on evocative imagery for this piece. Don't tell us he's yelling tortured or painful words. Show us the dilation of the blood vessels and arteries in his neck, the red flush of his face, his sweat, the profusion of saliva into open air as he yells, etc. Show us more violence in the audience and the rest of the band. Even a few very evocative images will do, rather than telling us the audience is kicking and punching. Maybe move away from the audience as a whole and focus on only a few people in the audience; let the intensity of a few represent the intensity of the whole. Detailing the entire crowd leaves things general and superficial.

Also, the guitarist just passed out and everyone abandoned him and left him alone in the warehouse?

[Anonymous No.11523398]

I'm >>11523381 - just proving I'm not a leech.

Here's the pastebin if the image comes out too small: https://pastebin.com/2ydvk4PE

[Anonymous No.11523485]

>>11509680
No, it's the industry standard.


>Double-spaced lines of text (set in a word processor as 24-point or 20-point line spacing).
>Paragraph indentation of 0.5 inches.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_manuscript_format
> Indent fives spaces for each new paragraph.
http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/what-are-the-guidelines-for-formating-a-manuscript
>Indent new paragraphs and each new section of dialogue, with the exception of the opening paragraph of a chapter or scene break. Don’t do this by hitting the tab key. Instead, set indentation to 1.25cm in Word through Format->Paragraph->Section.
https://www.scribophile.com/academy/how-to-format-a-novel-manuscript
https://firstmanuscript.com/proper-manuscript-format/

[Anonymous No.11523524]

>>11510177
>He swigged...
>He chucked...
>He cracked...
>He made...
>He smiled...

These are the beginnings of sentences you used in your shared work. Because each sentence starts the same, the reader gets a feeling of being told what is happening rather than being shown what is happening or even reading a re-telling of a tale.

YOURS:
>He swigged the mixed contents of a Coke bottle, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and looked himself square in the eyes, gazing through the milky streaks of his medicine cabinet door mirror.
MINE:
>The contents of a Coke bottle swigged in his mouth. After he wiped his lips with the back of his hand, he looked himself square in the eyes and gazed through the milky streaks of his medicine cabinet door mirror.

[Anonymous No.11523553]

>>11511818
I really like this. There's just enough imagery to allow the reader to come to their own conclusions and similarly enough religious references to provide guidance.

This is my favorite section because of the references.
>told once by pagans I a sinner
>again by reborn a captive

If I had to squabble, your last line reads weird and breaks away from the ascetic of the rest. Maybe too many syllables. Having a line or two stand out from the rest isn't necessarily a bad thing, though.

[Anonymous No.11523609]

>>11522011
Thanks for the crit, mate.
And yeah I am afraid, lol. I'd like to think drawing out a sentence makes it all flow better.

[Anonymous No.11523855]

>>11523398
>ternary of decades

Jesus christ, why?

>lapse in thought

Memory? You dont lapse thought in regards to remembering the last time you had seen your mother.

>languor
>memories transposed
>ambience
>supine
>diaphanous

Ok, thats enough. You are way too fucking pretentious. This isn't high level prose. It's annoying as fuck to read and makes me hate you for having posted it with honest intentions. Feels like you just went to the fucking thesaurus as they are all out of place and your prose is like reading a child's essay with wikipedia articles and random words changed to be 'original'.

[Anonymous No.11523923]

>>11523855
What kind of books or authors do you like if you don't mind my asking?

[Anonymous No.11523954]

>>11523923
It's not a matter of liking or hating authors or books. Your work doesn't read like you understand the words being used. It reads like you are trying to sound like you do though.

And for my readings, I focus mostly on philosophy and history. In terms of traditional novels, I've read most classics, such as Moby Dick, all of Jane Austen, Count of Monte Cristo, 1984, Brave New World, Gravity's Rainbow, and even fucking abominations like Finnegan's Wake. I also enjoy cyberpunk like Neuromancer and Snow Crash. Neal Stephenson and Neal Gaiman are two of my favourite authors for modern novels. Baroque Cycle, Cryptonomicon, Stardust, American Gods, etc.

But what I've read doesn't matter in regards to what is written in that piece. Or more to the point, how it is written.

[illiterate No.11524154]

>>11523524

Thank you for the critique. Honestly, of the example you chose I prefer mine but I will apply your suggestion to other segments of the text. I appreciate this, anon.

[Anonymous No.11524450]

>>11523381
thanks for the critisism

it's hard to point out what the story is supposed to be with that little introduction
but essentially the whole 'concert' was just in his mind, he was pretending for whatever reason
it's something I used to do a lot as a teenager to get angst out
thrash a guitar and sing, pretending I was actually playing in front of a crowd for some reason

[Anonymous No.11524469]

>>11523381
>>11524450
I didn't even explain the story, sorry hungover.

The kid lives in the warehouse on his own and lives in an 'alternate reality' in his mind when he's high on drugs.
When he's at work or outside the world is dull and boring, but when he gets home and gets high his imagination goes wild and lives in 'alternate realities'.
Hence why the second he sat down and opened his eyes there was no one in front of him. It was just his imagination.

[Anonymous No.11524500]

>>11520937
Thank you for your thorough critique, anon, I appreciate it. I will work on my descriptions for my next writings. Cheers!

[Anonymous No.11524671]

You never realised just how much you liked the black jellybeans before now; you're picking them out of the bag, watching that same stupid movie again with the lights off and the sound down low and casually messing with the passed-out-unconscious, too-cute-to-live girl on the couch next to you. You don't remember where exactly you found her - somewhere in the Valley is all you can remember just now, though for some obscure reason you keep getting an image of Chinese dragons - and you don't know what kind of drugs her friends must have been feeding her, but you do remember when she collapsed on you in the street and when she asked you - stared pathetically into your eyes and asked if you could be her friend. And then suddenly the two of you were back at your house; the place was empty because both your parents were away at that conference until next week. While you were slipping that two-sizes-too-big Calvin Klein sweatshirt - red, with the hood and all those zippers in unexpected places - over her head and she was swaying ever so slightly and mumbling something about her friends and how pissed off they would be with her for ditching them, you found the bag of jellybeans in her pocket. Damn jellybeans.

[Anonymous No.11524730]

My eyelids are heavy. The inside of my chest feels warm, and my head rests on this pillow perfectly. I look for pictures in the dots on the ceiling, like staring at clouds except nothing moves. There are probably millions of them up there, those grainy specks of drywall peppered across the whole thing, and just as many that resemble animals or faces or whatever else it is people see when they do this. Fuck I'm bored.

[Anonymous No.11525434]

The boy took this girl home. She had been a stranger. In between kisses he told her that he had been waiting for this since the moment he had first met her earlier that day. This was in fact not true. In fact when he had first met this girl she had made so little impact on him that he hardly even remembered having a first impression of the girl at all. He only said this to her because he thought it was what she wanted to hear.
During the actual sex - the whole point of the encounter, the whoring of himself, the lies - he could not get the word fraud out of his head. His thoughts were short and jagged. Fraud. Here was a girl, finally, who adored him, wanted to please him, wanted to fuck him, and he was a fraud.
She left early the next day and he felt hollow. He doubted he had said a single genuine thing to the girl all night. Everything he said to her was reactionary - every response was tailor made to what he believed the girl most wanted to hear. So when she had proclaimed how great it was that the two had met and bonded that night, he agreed enthusiastically. When she wondered out loud whether or not he would be interested in seeing her again after this night - whether or not this would be a one night stand - he exclaimed of fucking course they’ll see eachother again, that he’ll take her out to lunch later this week. The thought of following up on this promise made him feel queasy. He felt like he had a hangover. The shame was unbearable.

This boy and this girl did meet again, over lunch, a couple days later. The encounter was sad. She seemed oblivious to the fact that the boy was not really eating lunch with her at all. He was far away, deep in his head, trying to find a way out of this situation without deeply hurting this girl. He knew it was impossible. Her obliviousness only made the whole ordeal sadder, for him.
The time came at the end of lunch when the girl invited him to come home with her. He said no. He sputtered out more lies, vague notions of recently recovered feelings for a girl he had no intentions of following up on. He could see in her eyes the way it crushed her. He silently lamented himself, not for the first time, for being such a desperate, cowardly fool.
The two split ways that day and never saw each other again.

[Anonymous No.11525490]

pretty sure i'm about ready to abandon this flash fiction, it's been rejected from everywhere that i've sent it. as far as i can tell, editors of lit reviews just love to discriminate against gamers.

>>11508727

sup illiterate, i'm the guy who got a poem in maudlin house a few weeks back. i appreciated the little story in your op, it's substantive flow was more clear than a lot of the other stuff i've read of yours though still felt in line with your snark. my big criticism is that describing the feeling in him that day as "something" is somewhat cliche and would be better oriented with a metaphor. my little criticism is that ending a story with a character lighting a cigarette is kind of annoying.

>>11522615

it does suck anon. you're lineation does nothing and you use only the most basic bitch images to project a generic theme of solidarity. projector rooms are cool though. if you wanted to shake things up you could try extending the projector room beyond metaphor into a full blown conceit.

[Anonymous No.11525722]

>>11523485
>industry
what industry

>>11523524
The updated version is worse

[Anonymous No.11525735]

>>11525722
>the updated version is worse
He turned the first sentence passive to avoid repetitiveness but that just made it sound weird. I also don't care for the "square in the eyes" cliche.

[Anonymous No.11525916]

>>11523553
Thanks mate, glad to hear someone enjoyed it enough
streamoconsciousness definitely could be reworked into something more structured and easy to read, might work on tightening it a little more, also the post format fucked up my own spacing a bit but thanks for your comment!

[Anonymous No.11526520]

>>11518864
>for adj,, adj., adj.
Holy shit you're retarded. Those are nouns.

[December !!TY0+NRMplWe No.11526539]

>>11525490
It has inklings of ingenuity and creativity evidenced by the fact I actually read past the first two sentences, which is an accomplishment in itself compared to most of what's written here, but, you definitely invest time into understanding the science behind modern day many-worlds-hypothesis relevant experiments.

There has to be context. That's really what's lacking. You're giving a wiki style condensation of a larger scale universe instead of constructing the universe itself.

[Anonymous No.11526552]

>>11523855
Neither diaphanous nor supine is used wrongly though.

[Anonymous No.11526565]

Any semi-literate person should know what 'supine' means

[December !!TY0+NRMplWe No.11526583]

>>11509215
Too many adjectives. The color scheme is muddled and difficult to discern. Focus on describing things pertaining to the experience of snow, and ice. The way sound shuffles off the sides of houses in that peculiar, muffled yet sharp manner indicative of the compressed, cold nature of the air that hangs over snow and ice. The inarticulate disquieting of the lack of ambient wildlife. The white. The smell of midnight, and indigo, at noon.

If you want to convey that a home is "stagnant" effectively, enjoyably, you'll need to visit a "stagnant" home and practice writing what you see, and what you feel.

You've got potential though. Experience is all you're lacking, but the latent talent is there.

[Anonymous No.11526938]

>>11526552
He didn't say they were used wrong. He said he was pretentious. Youd be hard pressed to find people that know what those words mean or understand ternary of decades. Somehow almost the entire post is using dozens of extremely rare words and phrases. That's not normal, even for the best writers and well read people.

[Anonymous No.11527095]

>>11526938
>Feels like you just went to the fucking thesaurus as they are all out of place and your prose is like reading a child's essay with wikipedia articles and random words changed to be 'original'.
You didn't read this and get the impression that what he was saying was the anon didn't know how to use the words? Furthermore, pretentious means that: making a pretense—giving an impression of knowing something you don't.
>ternary of decades
Out of the two words I didn't know like the back of my hand, I can easily guess its meaning as three decades, i.e., thirty years.

[Anonymous No.11527327]

I've been struggling to edit for 8 months and have made no progress

I finally gave up and decided it's time to get professional help. Now I'm learning editors will reject your manuscript if it isn't edited

in other words, I'm fucked, my work was wasted and I'm seriously considering deleting the entire 88,000 word file and then killing myself

Any ideas /crit/?

[Anonymous No.11527557]

This is a speech from a play I’m writing. Here’s the context: it’s a Taliban warlord, captured by American soldiers, ranting against their technology and modern warfare techniques.

The original is in Portuguese, written with metrical 12-syllable verse lines, but without rhyme (blank verses).

MULLAH AZZAMI: You hide yourselves in the skies, inside your jets,
And thus, disinfected and pasteurized,
Concealed among the cold clouds, as safe
As in the diapers and comfort of your homes,
Just as if you were playing video games,
You launch your rockets, cauterizing the earth:
The spawning of hell made amid yawns.
We merely hear the screeches of your F-18s,
We do not even see your metal lizards
Sliding in the air, but only hear their sonic scream
Eviscerating the skies, the thunder of an invisible
Storm, an earthquake in the heights,
And then, in the blink of an eye, the explosion and the blood,
Bellies foaming off their intestines,
Arms and legs ripped off, the stench
Of human flesh, bones, skin and fat burning.
You, however, do not even see all that from the comfortable
Loins of your steel dragons. The only thing you glimpse
From high above is a cloud of fire, dust and smoke,
And not the horrible hemorrhage beneath it.
You rule the coral language of the flames,
You know the complete orthography of extermination,
You have put leashes in the tridents of the lightning,
You have squeezed the infernal heartburn of volcanoes
Inside cans – your bombs and torpedoes –,
But all this majestic witchcraft
Is at the same time a manifesto of cowards.
You fight with joysticks, you do not nail eye
In eye, you do not even see the color of the blood you shed,
You are not honorable as those who force themselves
To dissolving the white knot of fear in their guts
Because they well know that they might die. You kill
With the ardor of those who make chess moves,
You kill as one that scratches names from a list.
Oh, I wish all wars were from man to man,
Just a knife against a knife. It is then that we would see
Who is brave, embattled and bold and who is just
A mere bureaucrat of fire and rumble.

[Anonymous No.11527569]

>>11527557

This is the original:

MULÁ AZZAMI: Vocês se escondem nos céus dentro de seus jatos
E assim, desinfetados e pasteurizados,
Ocultos entre as nuvens frias, tão seguros
Quanto nas fraldas e conforto de seus lares,
Tal como se estivessem jogando videogame,
Vocês lançam foguetes, cauterizando a terra:
O desovar do inferno feito entre bocejos.
Nós só ouvimos os guinchos de seus F-18,
Nem mesmo vemos seus lagartos de metal
Deslizando no ar, só ouvimos seu grito sônico
Eviscerando os céus, trovões de uma tormenta
Invisível, um terremoto nas alturas,
E então, num piscar de olhos, a explosão e o sangue,
Barrigas espumando fora os intestinos,
Braços e pernas arrancados, o fedor
De carne, ossos, pele e gordura humana ardendo.
Porém nem isso vocês veem do confortável
Lombo de seus dragões de aço. Só o que vislumbram
Lá do alto é uma nuvem de fogo, pó e fumaça,
E não a horrenda hemorragia que há sob ela.
Vocês regem a linguagem coral das chamas,
Conhecem toda a ortografia do extermínio,
Encoleiraram os tridentes dos relâmpagos,
Espremeram a azia infernal dos vulcões
Dentro de latas – suas bombas e torpedos –,
Mas toda essa majestosa feitiçaria
É ao mesmo tempo um manifesto de covardes.
Vocês guerreiam com joysticks, não pregam olho
No olho, não veem a cor do sangue que derramam,
Não são honrados como aqueles que se forçam
A dissolver o branco nó do medo nas vísceras
Por saberem que podem morrer. Vocês matam
Com o ardor de quem faz jogadas de xadrez,
Matam como quem risca nomes de uma lista.
Quem dera toda guerra fosse de homem pra homem,
Só faca contra faca. É então que nós veríamos
Quem é bravo, aguerrido, ousado e quem é apenas
Um mero burocrata do fogo e do estrondo.

[Anonymous No.11527580]

>>11523855
This is really really really bad criticism
>You are way too fucking pretentious.
You have a shit vocabulary.

[Anonymous No.11527934]

I’m mentally retarded and a Jordan Peterson fan. My dick is small, too. Fuck you.

[Anonymous No.11528150]

>>11527934
so the fact that your final line is centered around saying nigger indicates to me that the speaker views racism as a point of antagonistic gravity, like "oh ho, to really drive my point home i'm going to strip away the pretense i'm working with and say nigger, the word that makes people angry, i am an epic troll." and that last minute cry for attention ultimately cheapens any racial commentary you're going for in the preceding piece. if you're going to say nigger, get it out of the way early so the shock value doesn't deflate everything else.

i don't really wanna comment on anything other than that.

[Anonymous No.11528162]

>Will trade a crit for a crit:
I couldn’t tell you what is wrong with me even if I tried. I hate the creeping feeling, that I can’t hope to run away from, or seek to puncture a loophole through the monument of suffering, a painkiller or a meditative exercise, because the claim of it all rests right on: “things are the way the are.”
Maybe it’s the normalcy of everyday life. Walking to the bus station, I like to imagine that all of it, these streets, the buildings, the energy of the city, were all once clean and society was “set right” in some bygone age that I was unlucky enough to be born outside of. Likely the “truth” is different. The ugliness around us is immortal.
On the bus, I get a solid twenty minutes of screen and headphone time. The phone is a handy tool. It can solve every problem. On a particularly bad day, I’ll get the sudden urge to rush into oncoming traffic, to lay flat in the road in the face of all that machinery and heat and let it claim me. I do not know what causes me to desire suicide, maybe some vital element of me has been neglected, or perhaps it is the natural byproduct of the long deluge of modern daily life. There is no way of truly knowing the cause, or the reason. All I know is that the feeling evaporates as I look at my phone, by that familiar narcotic flow of information, of pictures and videos. I like to laugh. I like the things that make me laugh. I like laughing at our president.
My favorite pastime is watching pornography. At twelve years old I was locking myself in the bathroom with the cracked iTouch, clearing history, reclearing it, going down that rabbit hole of stifled breath and anxiety.
There comes a moment in a man’s life when he has found his niche, his livelihood. It could be religious devotion, employment, or philosophical enlightenment. The meaning of my life is to watch interracial porn.
I love it. Especially when the black man is a little bit overweight, covered in tattoos, and the white girl is eighteen years old, a body free of blemish or excess, and she enjoys it! Or at least appears to enjoy it. No doubt she was paid for her services, and that her and the black man have a sense of professional camaraderie.

[Anonymous No.11528193]

>>11527934
made me chuckle
10/10

[Anonymous No.11528241]

>>11527095
>>11527580

This is >>11523398, whose critique - >>11523855 - you're discussing.

I was just wondering if you had any remarks about my style or anything beyond the fact that I used certain words since you seem to have read most if not at all of my piece. I'd appreciate it.

[Anonymous No.11528335]

[Anonymous No.11528340]

The ballroom usually filled with music and dance is silent. The Duke’s court stands gathered in an arc. Murmuring into each other's ears, but not one daring to raise their voice. In their centre is the Duke himself. A large man, known more for warring than painting. But even he bites his tongue and watches D’Invercio work. His wife stands next to him, hiding the tears that swell up from the corners of her eyes.

[Anonymous No.11528715]

>>11508727
The guy seems completely retarded. Stop please stop.

I am imagining some idiot just unable to get his thoughts together.

[Anonymous No.11528753]

How the fuck do you edit a plot responsibly?

I'm stuck in a loop where I rewrite a chapter and before I'm half-way done I think "there's a better way" so I start over and try again. Before I'm half-way through with that I think "there's an even better way" and start over again ad nauseum

[Anonymous No.11528795]

>>11528753

here's what I do

1. Basic grammar check ( run that shit thru grammarly even) read it through carefully and make sure there's no dumb mistakes lurking.

2. Format it in the standard format. There's a reason slush-readers want to read size 12 monospaced fonts with double spaces. Editing a hard on the eyes document is just a chore.

3. If I get stuck at something at think " there's a better way to do this but i just can't grasp it" I put down a little note like <NEEDS MORE EMPHASIS ON THE REACTION> and then tackle it the next day.

Hope that helps.

[Anonymous No.11528819]

>>11528795
I'm talking about editing the plot, as in changing what happens in the story, not just the formatting and grammar

[Anonymous No.11528894]

>>11528753
>there's a better way to do this but i just can't

Just work through the draft, my man. Don't get caught up in what's not working when you're in the tangle of things. My drafts are full of unresolved plot holes, loose ends, and characters who never appear in another chapter because I haven't yet figured out any greater purpose for them.

Once I'm finished with the draft, I read through it and leave bracketed notes like the guy above when I have ideas for certain plot elements I didn't quite flesh out the first time around, or that need changing.

Just finish a comprehensive draft. I can't stress that enough. Don't revise before you write the next paragraph/chapter. Read through what you've finished so you can process the entire scope of the work. You're trying to make numerous puzzle pieces fit. Sometimes you need to distance yourself and get a feel for the entire portrait you're trying to put together.

[Anonymous No.11528907]

>>11528894
Adding on to this, once finished, you can do ctfl+f for all the brackets you left - ctrl+f "[" - and go through and revise everything. Then once THAT is done, that means I have now developed a sturdier blueprint for a much stronger architecture, so I use that as a reference and I rewrite the entire draft from scratch. Besides, I find that by the time I've worked through a 40k-100k draft, what with the reading and writing on other projects I've done, I've developed my style or my voice to a greater degree.
It's exhausting, but I think it's worth it.

[Anonymous No.11529462]

hello lit. haven't written in a year or 2 but i sudden;y had an urge to add to this but i ended up only adding a sentence, i don't know how i even found it.

first time i post here in 2 years


https://pastebin.com/AyPXHEaT

[Anonymous No.11529476]

>>11529462
>https://pastebin.com/AyPXHEaT
i know it;'s long and pastebin's format is shit but i want to know if i should continue writing sometimes

[Anonymous No.11529684]

>>11525490
actually pretty good, I'd read more

[Anonymous No.11530290]

>>11527327
Chill dude. Save copies each edit section and keep hackin' at it.

Make sure you have a definite goal in mind for your story. You should be able to sense if things don't work as well as when there are certain things missing

[Anonymous No.11530293]

>>11527557
Toice man. Holds up even in translation. Are you the same guy who pposted that portugeuse poem here a long time ago about makin love or something? Dam I don't remember it but it was good and this is of similar quality. I think that guy used to post english/portuguese too

[Anonymous No.11530297]

>>11528335
so much piss talk. wherefore? whither?

[Anonymous No.11530310]

>>11528907
yo post some shizz man

>>11529462
dam I get such strong mediterranean vibes from this. It's weird man. Rough and unpolished but still good, something good beneath all that.

[Anonymous No.11530689]

>>11530310
>>11529462
thanks man. i wrote this a long time ago i forgot what i was aiming for but it's something like italy early 2000s, something about how countries are progressing with americanization and how people are getting, the main character is retarded but he's different. It's also mainly trying to be subtly funny, i wanted to make myself laugh. I'm from ME so that figures.

[Anonymous No.11530982]

>>11511683
the antique idea was that all art was imitation. but the problem is you want to be imitating something cool, not something gay. With your powers united to your efficiency/complaisance... you should write about something cool and amazing. Make a big book that your fans will tear to pieces because they love it so much. Each page in a reliquary. In my experience life isn't as boring as its depicted in literary fiction. Neither is it as dark bleak dreary and gloomy. Literally Hitler's life wasn't that grey, let alone someone living in the US in such a wonderful interesting age and life. Except psych bitch they all are. Every life contains everything, big to small. KAPICHE?

[Anonymous No.11531269]

>>11530310
I did: >>11523398

[Anonymous No.11531271]

Do you anons believe I have any hope writing poetry I want to learn, I will attach something I wrote earlier. Thanks

[Anonymous No.11531374]

>>11508727
https://pastebin.com/THwKFbGi
the introduction to a high school essay. yes, i like memerson's ideas. no, i am 18.

[Anonymous No.11531378]

>>11531271
How old are you? it reads like a 16 year old's nihilistic outlook on life despite not having any life experience and limited knowledge and world view.

if you really want to do poetry, try to format into stanzas and follow some general guidelines for poetry (some will say anything is poetry, blah blah blah, they are the same that think anything is art - follow some basic formatting standards starting out).

The writing isnt terrible, but the content is derivative - you can find millions of old myspace or tumbler posts relating the same message. I don't doubt you could write some worthwhile poetry, but this is more like a blog/journal entry than poetry as written.

[Anonymous No.11531393]

>>11531378
Okay thanks greatly appreciated, will do that. Sorry if it was cringy to read

[Anonymous No.11531453]

>>11509215
Too much passive voice and too many adjectives.

[Anonymous No.11532126]

>>11528335
>>11530297

[Anonymous No.11532409]

Opening to a dystopian future (2060ish, not a set time) where social justice and equality is taken to an extreme under a Democratic Socialist America where they've instituted socialism (health care, free college, etc) and follows a protagonist working at SocCred, the government funded social credit program modeled after China's sesame social credit program (get scored based on participation in government programs/surveys, your job, debt, friends, single or married, have children, etc and score gives privileges like riding subway and so on).

Unfinished chapter. Likely going to make excuse to separate from girls and add some world building. Chapter 2 when they get to work would detail more on SocCred, how it works and so on. Didnt want to overwhelm with infodump in chapter 1.

[Anonymous No.11532450]

>>11532409
It's a bit heavy-handed so far. We get that the author doesn't like the hyperegalitarianism in modern society, but he lays it on too hard. "Oh my god, Samantha god misgendered. Is she okay??¿?"

[Anonymous No.11532462]

>>11532409

it's too smug for me senpai.

>It's almost like people were dropping out of society in response to our work.

This line doesn't sit well with me at all, it's just so smarmy.

Also the second paragraph

>the city was overrun with homeless as of late
>the number of homeless kept growing

don't tell me the same shit twice.

[illiterate No.11532471]

>>11525490

sup man. out of town right now so I can't spend a lotta time on it but uhhh

>i like the title
>I dont think the theme is sufficiently played out here. you're vaguely touching on a multiverse idea but not really committing to it enough to fully substantiate it or make someone unfamiliar with the idea feel like they know what's going on
>I like the ending, ends on the right note
I'd go back and fill in the first paragraph with a bit more context-setting information

feel free to DM me or shoot me an email if you want something more detailed later on

[Anonymous No.11532476]

>>11532462
>>11532409

also I really can't see any respectable publishing house touching this with a barge pole. Maybe some right leaning indie might but I can't see it making penguin.

[Anonymous No.11532535]

>>11532450
>>11532462
>>11532476
Thank you for feedback. It seems I took it too far to the extreme end and stereotypes of modern SJWs, feminists, etc. I'll have to tone it down in my rewrite.

If you have the time, can you let me know, aside from the smarmy/heavyhanded approach, do you think the dialogue and characters feel unique and clear who is speaking? Is the general tone and style okay (beyond pushing to far to extremes)? Do you care abuot reading more or you've seen enough (not that I'll post more right now, but as a potential reader, does the opening interest you at all in this type of story. also, it is much more extreme in this opener to drive home how far the world has gone and acceptance of anti-white rhetoric, it's less focused on that and more on the social credit program and socialism as the plot progresses).

[Anonymous No.11532543]

>>11531453
Wrong.

[Anonymous No.11532552]

"So?"
She watched me, cigarette perched in the corner of her lips.
My mouth was dry.
I'd never been propositioned like this before.
"Its pretty simple man. I'm horny. You're horny. You wanna fuck me or not?"
I flicked my own cigarette away, cheeks burning. I stood up and walked away.
"Well fuck you too. You fucking pussy. I'll find somone else. Someone who'll do me right."
I glanced back.
She threw her drink at me.
"You tiny dick motherfucker."
I walked back.
Marched back actually.
I grabbed her and pulled her to her feet. I shook her.
My eyes were wet now.
I couldnt stop myself from talking.
Fuckin' diarrhea of the mouth.
"What the fuck is wrong with you huh? What is your malfunction bitch? You dont think I wanna fuck you? Ive wanted to fuck you for the last 10 years for Gods sake. I fucking love you. Always have. So dont fucking ask me to fuck you against some trash cans behind this fucking dive of a bar. You are so much better than that."
I dropped her to her knees.
She was crying now too.
I turned and left.
"Tommy." She cried.
"I love you too."
Okay, enough is enough bitch.
I stormed back and pulled her upright again.
"Oh you love me? You fucking love me? Get the fuck outta here. I've been pining after you since we were kids. But no, not Tommy. Never Tommy. I just wasnt enough for you Mandy. You fucked my best friend. Did you love me then? You handed out blowjobs to half the football team. Was Tommy on your mind then? When you had that 3 way with my cousin was I in your heart? Fuck you Mandy. I would have done anything for you. You were all I wanted."
I drew out and slapped her cheek hard.
She reeled back, collided with the trash cans and went sprawling.
I froze in shock for a moment.
She stopped crying and just looked at me blankly.
"Thats okay Tommy." She stuttered.
"Its okay. I deserve that. But we can fix this. Let me make it up to you."
She started to hitch up her skirt.
Her once fit legs were now too thin, heavily bruised and bore track marks.
Heroin. Shouldnt be surprised.
Anger gave way to grief.
Sweet Mandy was gone.
May as well be dead.
"Please, Mandy. Don't."
I lit another cigarette.
"I cant bear to watch. You sicken me."
Her tears came again. Hot and fast.
"Dont say that Tommy." She wailed.
"Its true. You're gone. You're lost. You're a fucking mess Mandy. I always thought we'd be together in the end. Some divine justice would grant my deepest desire but nah, you fucked that up. Look at you. You're a junkie. A whore. Well, no, whores get paid. You do it for fun or validation or just to feel something, i dunno, i could give a fuck. But fuck you Mandy. Fuck you for hurting me. Fuck you for making me hate you. Most of all fuck you for what youve done to yourself. Its truly tragic. Have a good life Mandy."
I stamped out my smoke and left.
I could still hear her weeping and calling my name as I turned out of the alley and pulled my collar up against the late night fog.

Its from a book of intertwining stories similar to Sin City.

[Anonymous No.11532665]

>>11532535

The smarmy complaint guy here yeah technically it's not bad. I appreciate you not info-dumping chapter 1 as you said and if it had been less heavy-handed i think it would have been an enjoyable start.

[Anonymous No.11533382]

Not really looking for a critique, just passing by. Here's a piece you can all comment on if you like:

Unwrapped, rode on Saturn with a ring tilt, ill and careening out of orbit,
with the washup wet upon his Cacophony went, and on riding hex of the world, still bleeding.
World’s wrong apart: bird still not star, dote met no antidote. The pond licks a little over
the edge in a wandering love, rushed like essays in the rain, odd winds send in new apostrophes.
And vast is agony, there’s no surveying it. Wring the sun out and hide in a basket.
You cannot hear beyond the nonsense your song. To all else in the dark you don’t truly belong,
Saturn. Say it, else stay out of it. What drowning in gin makes what matters the matter true?
Why carry in grief? Life is smothered cake, printing in the hooves of hers Cacophony onward
a mess of space, to burn us colorless. Her flyby is the joy of clueless children.

[...]

>>11532552
This is the sort of perfunctory narration that almost always fails to immerse the readers, you frame your characters as stereotypes and rush through the story with no finer detail of the tension, it's just a snippet of small events and factoids lined up as a story.

>>11528335
>>11532126
I like it. A comical twist on Poe, would read more if it had a better conclusion.

>>11527934
You jump from one social commentary (violence against blacks) to another (child abandonment) without a coherent transition, and I'm not sure there's enough of a reason in reality to justify the logic in your poem. I like the first three lines, they can set up a lot of probable scenarios. I won't comment on the subject more.

>>11527557
I've dealt with religious extremists, and some of this sounds like pretense. I think the last four lines really exemplify the mindset of a Taliban warlord, but I think you make an unconscious stretch by framing them as Luddites (e.g. "metal lizards, steel dragons - notice that "dragon" may not be a word in the Afghani's lexicon, majestic witchcraft). What you would need to know is that often the dangerous individuals are also very dangerously reserved people, quiet and methodical, they would not break character for a mere rant.

That's my two cents on the matter. I cannot comment on the Portuguese.

---

[Anonymous No.11533764]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yagTJ7yPpeHIqGW-NKMhNAOX4fs3c0ly2iM2MBy4Bm4/edit?usp=drivesdk
Should I keep writing this?

[Anonymous No.11533822]

>>11533764
I'm a little bored. I dont know what its about after an entire page nor do I know who the main character is or what type of story I'm reading. Unless absolutely essential for whatever plot you have planned, I'd cut some of the lecture/have her trail off for the narrative. If I read this off the shelf, I'd put it back after this first page.

[Anonymous No.11534147]

https://pastebin.com/szJLTUWu
Part of a story I started writing, critique would be much appreciated as I'm new to this.

[Anonymous No.11534269]

>>11534147
Dialogue sounds wooden, especially the father's. Excessive use of exclamation points. I doubt any father would 'scream' about rain. Maybe yell or raise his voice, but I don't see a father shouting non-stop about rain and furniture for every sentence to be !. He also 'sighs' after closing the doors and didnt slam them shut or any other action of anger that reflects his screaming.

Little bit too much telling, not enough showing.

>Just our fucking luck we get caught in a storm on our way here!” the father screamed.

You've detailed the storm and mud already. "Just our fucking luck" or some variation would be enough. You also end the previous paragraph focused on the father, his sigh, and closing door action. I dont think you need to attribute the dialogue to anyone as it seems obvious the father will be the one to speak first in this instance.

More of a style critique. I dislike when dialogue is attributed all the time and especially in obvious cases. Character speech should be unique to differentiate and only attribute when necessary (someone enters scene or wasnt mentioned, ambiguous who would have said it, etc).

> The father then returned to the front of the house.

This is a prime example of telling. You are giving precise text detailing exact motions of the father. You could add more emotion or impact to it if you are going with the yelling/angry father - "The father burst back into the room." This gives readers the ability to imagine him coming back in. Burst evokes an image in their mind of the motion and state the father is in. You can probably find a better way of showing this than my quick rewrite. I hope it illustrates what I mean by telling instead of showing. I feel like your narrative is holding my hand and on the point - telling me every step in painful detail.

[Anonymous No.11534491]

Hoping for a critique on the style/voice of this piece. I tried to make the setting seem pretty dreary and grim. It's a relatively short piece. I'd appreciate any feedback.

https://pastebin.com/2ydvk4PE

[Anonymous No.11534575]

>>11508727
It's shit. Cut it down to two or at most three paragraphs.