New Critique Thread

[Anonymous No.12897205]

Before >>12863742 hits bump limit.

[Anonymous No.12897233]

Whence,for I am quite rich,any interchangeable person decides to pose me the vital question "What is your most prized possesion?" they expect me to respond with "my wife","my job","my house","my life".But I always discombobulate by my answer,which bynotime is replaced:
"My most precious possesion is my immense loathe of niggers."

[Anonymous No.12897240]

Two kayaks, one yellow the other orange, one rower wearing a dimpled helmet chinstrap the other with a buoy round her neck like someone’s mistake for a horseshoe. Water’s sod green, gelatin sunshine melts itself a couple yards deep. Their oars leave ruts of upsidedown and staggered Vs, the watercourse is a tireswing’s seat and it moats the summer’s shoppingvilla, domesticated waves lick along its sloping, copperrock roundwall which jaggedly builds to the walk.

“T! I! P!”

The old lady laughs, “O! V! E! R!”

Greenthrough sunvisors and thin floral waistshirts mostly blank between the flowerpatterns, some faintly pink and others milkyellow, dodging one another, so not to step on someone’s toe because of the sandals. The old lady likes some sunglasses with a skinny frame and peachgraded glass, they hide the eyes of the girl who wears them, the tops of her cheeks are pinkened by their shade. The sun is dawning a hundred times at once, on reddening nosebridges and shoulderblades, in tanktop Us, in bikini Ws or Xs, on a hundred shoppers who brush past them.

Haroldine Scampi, the old lady, lays her freehand on the picnictable like it’s cooking. Her granddaughter, Aulie “The Hermitcrab” Perrosdemaíz, uses her cattish tongue to catch the meltdrops from her aqualime icecream. The Hermitcrab snatches the napkin dispenser and arches back to hurl it towards the kayaks, like its cannonball would flush them out, but looks to her grandmother first, and cracks into smiling then laughing. Haroldine laps up her frozen dessert, almost choking on a lazily diced hunk of pineapple as The Hermitcrab makes faces.

Polarbear Bungalow, the one Haroldine and The Hermitcrab are outfront of, has its mascot on a big sign, snoozing in his unfolded beachrecliner while a winking penguin steals his frozen drink from an iceberg with a seaspanning straw.

[Anonymous No.12897737]

The encumbersome weight of consciousness can kill you, it is spiritually toxic and will degrade the psychological welfare of the most genteel individual. You have experienced it surely? It latches it’s scabbard claws into your brain and seeps menacingly down your spine conjuring an omniscient pang of terror. The most trivial of interactions become an unbearable task when you’re an overly analytic and quite frankly, scared neurotic. Lost souls trapped in futile servitude trying to appease an insatiable, nay, lustful master that relishes every modicum of insecurity and fear. That is a great irony, one may be enshackled by their consciousness, yet still not be perceptive to the malignant rot of which comprises its being, the very essence of consciousness itself. It is a tenuous entity that finds sustenance in the overly indulgent trappings of a hyper-consumerist nihilistic culture that engenders vice and smashes innocence.

[Anonymous No.12897802]

>>12897205

[Anonymous No.12897814]

>>12897802
Yes
Yes

[Anonymous No.12897819]

>>12897802
I like it

[Anonymous No.12898054]

>>12897233
Checked

[Anonymous No.12898165]

>>12897205
This is the opening to a short story I'm writing. Meant to be kind of horror/spooky/kafkaesque in tone. I'm trying to write it in second person future tense, so that can be a little wonky at times. I'm not used to writing in that way but I want to for this story. feedback and nitpicking most welcome.

[Anonymous No.12899980]

Half heaven caught, red hand over spray,
Smiles, clouds in his eye before bed,
In wooden bouys his decrepit bay
Riles, afraid of what is ahead,
Yet hearken her song over waves,
Child, remember all that is said,
And when turquoise does dampen the flames,
This moment he'll never forget.

Posted in other but it's literally at limit. Wrote this quickly about a day spent with a friend and the day felt like a date in hindsight so yeah

Will give feedback later, currently working

[Anonymous No.12899984]

I really want a fricking gf

[Anonymous No.12900099]

Short cutout from a new novel I'm working on. I know not all the context will be here, but here's the setting: A film student is showing her in-progress project to her professor, in which she is filming her boyfriend, an acting student.
The novel deals with Baudrillard's theories and an overstimulated society's sick simultaneous cravings for the hyperreal and the real. The student's project is an attempt (the ironic intent of which is never fully revealed) to ascend her boyfriend into hyperreality by filming her every moment with him. Haven't quite worked out what's important here, mostly looking for a critique on the style and conversation.

[Anonymous No.12900853]

>>12897240
Sorry anon stopped reading after you wrote that you row in a kayak with oars

[Anonymous No.12901885]

>>12900099
gotta check cause dubs

this is actually good and so far appreciate the small use of technology opposed to the wider amount we use in our lives, shit feels comfy and nostalgic so gj

[Anonymous No.12902087]

>>12900099
Positively charming. Really clean. I don't think you'll start getting insightful critique until your alpha readers, and even then they'd have to be able to go toe to toe with you on the subject matter, and be able to intuit what you're hoping to achieve. Hope you have someone special in your life to challenge you on these matters.

[Anonymous No.12902286]

>>12898165
this gave me diarrhea and i died from the diarrhea and i was buried in diarrhea and i became the diarrhea why would you do this to me

[Anonymous No.12902635]

>>12897205

I eat the cock-laden Spermsatan Cumcake
Deathfilled creamy chocholate starfish
My insides disintegrate as i'm malformed into a cock and ball torture gimp
Vaginal destruction spilling from my two handed greatsword of extraordinary damage

The crunchy soft gap between her cranial plates dilates
Fistfucking assbabies under the amputated faggot testicle of the moon
Eternal nigh-prolapse awaits escapees of my anal liberation
I masturbate as the calf's eyes roll back in neural shock
Reintegrating my seed into neural pathways, jizzombie created from the nothing unto which i cum

[Anonymous No.12902686]

1.

[Anonymous No.12902705]

>>12902686

Nevermind, I messed it up already.

[Anonymous No.12902712]

>>12902705
And the actual beginning now

[Anonymous No.12902747]

>>12902635
there we are. that’s the stuff. here we have the christening champagne, and we may now launch this thread in earnest.

[Doorbell No.12902750]

Here's mine. It's heavily inspired by true events, to the point of probably not even being fiction.

[Anonymous No.12902757]

>>12902747
Thank you for your kind words, good sir. As it is readily apparent, a lot of hard work and care went into what i duly believe to be my breakout success.

[Anonymous No.12902810]

[Anonymous No.12902890]

>>12902750
Also, does anyone know of a better website to post stories to than Tumblr? I don't interact with the community there at all, I just want is a place where I can post writing and people can read it. A little customization would be cool, too.
Most of the sites that host stories are full of teens looking for YA shit tho, it's fucking awful.

[Anonymous No.12902907]

>>12902890
Wattpad?

[Anonymous No.12902944]

>>12902907
Wattpad is garbage

[Anonymous No.12903078]

He walked and stopped at places with people both random and fixed. Individuals spoke to him and he spoke back. His parents were short but he was tall; and he was born with a full head of hair with curls of brown. He took comfort in the smallest victories: to skip a stone on the first try, to glimpse the smile of a child stranger passing by, and to push against gravity with every step. He found pleasure in the texture of brick and the feeling of cold water glass against his lips. He was imitated and mocked, admired and loved, respected and disliked. For a time he used a cane, another a wheelchair, but often nothing but bare feet wrapped in leather or suede. His face was first smooth, then wrinkled, leathery. Once he lept over a fallen tree with a single jump and impressed a woman who for a time was his only. He fell asleep almost every night except for the one on he died, and his children remembered his soft hands.

[Anonymous No.12903141]

"Mummy!" I fling a bronze lamp at her, the base of which strikes her squarely in the chin. Her blonde curls squid around it, then fan out on the floor with a crack. "Where is my copy of the Iliad!?" But mummy is down. Her shallow moans and choked sobs bubble up from the dark hallway into the living room where I have taken up the fire iron. As I brilliantly swing the black iron rod around like heroes of yore, I wonder why she can't find something better to do.
Later I find my copy of the Iliad, wedged in between the headboard and my bed. I chew it to pieces and leave it by the dog's bed. Later I make sure I am seen making an example out of him.
Father brings me home a copy of the Hobbit and I tell him how pleased I am with this gift. I use it to kill the red beetles that mate in our driveway.

[Anonymous No.12903322]

Which would make a better intro:
>A: start at childhood and then spend 10 chapters establishing characters
or
>B: start at teenage years and then work with flashbacks
?
or C: start with Teenage and then do 10 chapters of childhood flashback
One pastebin contains both.

https://pastebin.com/6wQTTA13

[Anonymous No.12903468]

You’ve heard of above-above top secret, right? Well then there’s above-above-above-above top secret or in other words, 4A top secret. These are programs so secretive its against the law to even reference them. You can’t even mention it to someone you know is in the program or you’ll be arrested. The thing is, you can’t mention the programs to the courts or the police so the arrests don’t really count for anything. What you have is top officials constantly arresting and releasing each other because no court can be established to judge these cases. To establish such a court would be to acknowledge the 4A top secret programs and that is highly illegal.

[Anonymous No.12903604]

>>12903141
Highly based.

[Anonymous No.12903752]

Sérgio the psychomancer

Finally, after reading so many Sartre books, I, Sérgio, have come to a complete understanding of the human soul.

Now I'll set up a psychology consultory and have a normal life.

[Anonymous No.12903938]

>>12897737
I would avoid words like encumber-some. Especially in the first line. Also you are embodying all of the things you're describing, which you should only do one or the other. It for shitty and boring writing. Basically it's too abstract to be a story and too unspecific to be an essay.
>>12897802
Pretty good but you haven't taken it far enough. Go all out.
>>12898165
Second person is very hard to pull off. Unfortunately you don't pull it off. The fact that nearly every sentence starts with "you" makes it impossible to process any of the information you are putting out. The "you"'s are overpowering.
>>12899980
This is really good if the reader engages with it the right way. It really should have more replies. I can't articulate the mood that you were going for. Something about moistness, wood, death and consciousness?
>>12903078
I like the detail at the end, about how his hands were soft. I wish there was more of this, a focus on texture and what others thought of him, instead of each sentence following the same formula of "He did this," "He did that," because it grates instead of unfolding.

[Anonymous No.12903950]

This dialogue leads to rape.
(1/2)
The Garden of Regrets
John and I walked across an embankment flattened into the ridge of fertile ground. We set ourselves at the pond edge and looked out on the birds and the trees.
“...I had free-range parents as I’ve said before. They let me loose in this place, toys in hand, going mad in the mud puddles. I guess you could say the parenting philosophy backfired, because I came down with some infection a few weeks later. Some parasite. I don’t know. That’s the only real regret I have. Not alot of skeletons in this closet,” he pointed both thumbs back at himself and smiled, then he straightened his face up and said “Have I ever told you that you’re beautiful, especially out here in this…”
“Matt, he was like a few grades above, and he was a really funny guy. Made me laugh all the time. I liked talking to him. It was okay for a while. He helped me out with my work and stuff like that, I’d see him around from time to time. He had a girlfriend. Really pretty Indian girl, named Priyanka. I gave him my number things were cool we would chat about school and stuff like that, until a few months went by he started saying weird things.”
“Weird shit?”
“Like that I had a great body and that he wanted me. I asked him about his girlfriend, and he said ‘oh she doesn’t matter to me,’ but I just didn’t know what to say, so I messaged his girlfriend everything and turns out they had just recently broken up which was troubling to me because what else was this guy saying to me that wasn’t true? For real. Well for one I knew that it was true that he wanted me, because why else message me those things? So I told him not to message me anymore and we sat on opposite corners of the class, and he gave me hostile looks for the rest of the year. It was a real shame. I would have loved to have remained friends with him. If he hadn’t sent those messages there would be no hard feelings, but he cast that dice and that’s that.”
“Ah,” he looked down with a scowl on his face, as if to process every bit of complex detail I had just laid down, analyzing with his hand drawn on his chin and cheek like a mask of self-reflection, “I have a similar story.”

[Anonymous No.12903959]

>>12903950
(2/2)
“What’s that?”
“I knew this one girl. A few grades above us, maybe one. I don’t know. She had this Indian boyfriend. Really handsome guy,” he laughed a little, “and when she broke up with him I was the one she chose to confide in. Really. Me, the guy who helped her with her work. After weeks of doing that she came back to normal. A little. Still a little off, loopy and overemotional, but functional. This was when she began to heavily rely on me for work. Copying homework, tutoring hours, and all that fun stuff. I was thinking to myself. I was putting in so much effort, almost as much as if I were in a relationship. So I thought to myself might as well you know, reap the bounty of my work, right? But guess what. She wasn’t into me, ‘not like that,’ so what I told her was just honest. Not mean. True. I said I couldn’t help with her schoolwork if there was nothing in it for me. It sounds brutal. It sounds selfish, but what the fuck? I am a human. I have to balance my transactions, I need social capital as much as she needed to maintain her grades. It’s a shame, you know, because I would have been great to her, but she, what was the phrase you used?”
“Cast the dice,” I shrugged.
“Yeah exactly, she cast that dice and there was no turning back.”
He got me with that stunning riposte of words and stories. The bold-facedness of it all killed me. She had an Indian boyfriend, too? It’s like it was all a game to him.

[Anonymous No.12904038]

>>12903752
I like this premise. Make Sergio have many foreign sensualist quirks. Like "I like-ah to have-ah cognac and eat-dah raw oyster out of woman pussy. I run out of oyster and it make ah-pain. Big-ah-pain in my-ah ass. I must go to mountain and make reflection. Big reflection."
Just an idea.

[Anonymous No.12904130]

Wrestling with three other boys on a patch of rough, spotty grass near Co-Op City, my father had an out-of-body experience. His head was tightly sandwiched between the ground and some lean, bony torso. His arms were knotted so complexly with the limbs of the other boys that he was unsure whether the fingers tensing and squirming inches away from his eyes were his or someone else’s. In the fading light, my father began to feel further detached from his body. His field of vision broke away from his eyes and suddenly he was watching the mass of brawling boys from ten feet above the ground. Even from this privileged vantage point, however, he was unsure which body parts were his own.

The sun set and the moment passed. My father was back on the ground, staring at the sky through his own eyes, breathing heavily and sweating. The wrestling had stopped. The three other boys were also lying on their backs recuperating, but they soon got up and ran back to their apartments to listen to that night’s Yankees game. My father remained, contemplating what had just happened.

Ten years later, before she had ever met my father, my mother had a brief moment of cosmic consciousness while walking down a dirt road in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. She noticed a slender branch, which, as she passed, seemed to resemble a human finger. In a flash she was mutually aware of the branch, the tree, the forest, her own finger, the fingers of all women, the houses beyond the forest, and the vast, vibrating ocean surrounding her from all sides.

Her consciousness and body remained connected the entire time, but in the process of tapping into the universal psyche her sense and understanding of self was greatly diminished. In fact, because of its mysterious brevity, the experience proved to be more of a nuisance than an enlightenment. She spent the majority of the next few months in her dorm room agonizing over which major to choose. Out to dinner at an expensive restaurant with a friend’s parents, she even took twenty minutes trying to decide on an entrée. The friend’s exasperated father finally ordered her the Chicken Cordon Bleu.

They married three years after meeting at some protest or counter-protest in Trenton, NJ. There is a picture from their wedding hanging in our living room. It’s shot in ultra-sharp late-70’s color. You can see the most strikingly bright-pink plate of smoked salmon on a table behind them. Their arms are wrapped around each other and they are both looking directly at the camera as if some mutually adored film were playing on a tiny screen in the center of the lens.

[Anonymous No.12904215]

"That feel when GF."
My professor turned from the whiteboard to look over his shoulder. "Excuse me?"
"That feel when gee eff." I said again. Proudly.
His eyes scanned the other students, as though they might clue him in on this matter. "Are you interrupting my lesson?"
I lunged atop my desk. I had them all now, they were in my arena. My world. "That feel," I shook and showered spittle, "when gee eff!"
Mr. Ludlum capped his marker "Get him down from there."
Pallid, flexile hands reached at me, got hold of my shirt, but I let them know: I let them know, again and again, that feel.
As I was pulled through the crowd of plaid button-ups and hoodies, I saw, the professor. His eyes told me everything I need to know. They said, "He cannot be here. He can no longer be with us. He knows."
After seven hours of detention I changed my mind about the whole matter. The next essay I wrote for him contained "MISTER LUDLUM IS AN OLD FAG" in the capital letters of the opening sentences.

[Anonymous No.12904485]

>>12903078
he was born with a full head of hair?

[Anonymous No.12904657]

>>12902750
I cannot write well but here is my criticism.
The first 3 sentences of the
>I hear my brother getting up to the sofa to answer it
paragraph felt bland.
>sheer power of willpower
This seems redundant.

[Anonymous No.12904698]

>>12897737
too many adjectives, you're speaking without telling
>>12898165
owie my brain
>>12904130
pretty good desu, lose the first two sentences of the 4th paragraph

here's mine: https://pastebin.com/5Px071TU

[Anonymous No.12905063]

This is what I have so far for a short story I'm writing. Be gentle, its just a draft.

[Anonymous No.12905175]

Incorrigible nature, taking a child in springtime. We dressed her in her baptismal linens, set her down on the coffin raft on ponds edge. April showers roared pitch tents carried away by the gossamer winds, the gale, the rage of elements. Crops eaten to the core by pestilence. Inveterate God at the masthead of our malaise, show me the canyons of sorrow, because I have seen my mountains of misfortune pile up two dead children tall and the stars are arrogant when they tell me it’s not even winter yet. My wife she a banshee at night, the screams of a spirit possessed. I wake at sunup unwholesome a doublet and a pale sash a hat of coonskin and the children are still asleep among the dying embers of predawn. I set a wolf trap among the dead land littered with trapdykes. I find a bite among tracks. The she-wolf perished in the night. I unfasten the metal teeth girders between inches of fleshy fingers and I reach for the pin and it snaps back into my place my leg and forearm pinched by the brutal unrelent. I scream for help, the echoes answer back in silence and the hills and ponds look as if expecting my unwelcome exit into the next life. Sundown comes and I feel nothing.

[Anonymous No.12905187]

>>12905063
i can't finish it. and for that reason, i'm out.

[Anonymous No.12905210]

>>12904130
this good player, I would lose the adjectives Complexly in the first paragraph and strikingly in the very last paragraph.
could even just lose the ly I think it would sound punching as fuck dawg.

[Anonymous No.12905225]

>>12905063
I don’t care

[Anonymous No.12905228]

>>12897205
>first page of my first booky wook

Time travel tickles my womb, says the pregnant lady to the black phone, at the heart of the room.

The first thing you notice about this life, is the echo’s, the squeaks, and the silent sobs of lifeless laughter.
Before that you notice that all there is, is blurred faces of distinction, floating in front of your foggy eyes as you try to remember decisions of your past, that ripple effect your future.

Your mind grinds with a constant hum of sedation, you think back, you think far back, and why you’re here.
You can remember the fear that has escalated like the spark of a match.
You think deeper why are these faces that you follow thoughtlessly through walls of linoleum white.
You can only recognize noises as you sleep artificial, through the walls. Isolated.
Everyone is more real than you, everyone has bells that ding the doors open.
Everyone is at least a meter taller than you, everyone is staring down on you like you’re stuck in the boot of a truck.
Everyone is wearing blue gloves that make your stomach ache.
Everyone is wearing name tags, that must be tricking you.
Everyone is repeating do you have any allergies?
Everyone is repeating do you remember your name?
Everyone is repeating, this repetition of your mind causing an aching drone echo, within you, with that pinch of cyanide that fluorescent lights are made of.

Everyone slows. Stuck.

Colonies of names are barricaded at you, tubes are sucking blood from one arm, the other is sticking ice cold pharmacokinetics in the other, each arm is strapped to the metal poles that are welded to the bed with wheels.

Your pants have a black line that highways down to your shoe’s, one of them of which is half burnt, exposing your static socks.
Around your Achilles tendon, is a black tight grip that has a red dot inside the middle of it. This clamp, this grip is as tight as a babies hand wrapped to a mothers finger.
It has a black snake cord that has coiled itself around the metal poles that is welded to the bed with wheels.
Hours or minutes ago you were in a motel room, happy as Larry, now you’re in a large artificial satellite used as a long-term base for manned operations in space.

[Anonymous No.12905291]

>>12905228
shit nigga i ain't gona read this i am retarded e-n-u-f-f already! knawamsain?

[Anonymous No.12905603]

>>12905291
nah dawg i dont know what u r sayin??

[Anonymous No.12905606]

>>12905063
Imma give you pointers because all your other editors are being faggots.

>In the dark underground of this city... Here among the crowd stood David DeMitt
Right off the bat in the first column I have serious problems with all of this. Is DeMitt the subject of your story, or the club? Unless you're a masterful writer writing about a well-known, interesting place (which itself is going to have to have some deeper meaning to be the SUBJECT of your story), don't start off with it. I think the safest way to start is always with the subject (and this isn't to say you can't emphasize the setting). You could even have a starting line as simple as "David DeMitt considered the crowd" and then everything you want to say, and your story would be immensely improved.
>The endless description
Your paragraphs are impossible to get through (this problem stacks hard with the above point--see why other anons won't even read?). You need to break them down, and cut out the fat (Average should be what, 7 full sentences at most? Do research, the contemporary reader is retarded and needs white space). Furthermore, if you want to keep all this description, you need to relate it to the subject character. DeMitt is experiencing this, isn't he? Try breaking things into subjects. The music. The women. The men.
>The unlikable narrator
Third person narrators should generally take it easy on being judgmental in their descriptions. Trust me, I hate degenerate whores more than you, but it's not the proper disposition to begin a story with. Either save it for the emotional climax of the story, or do the "show don't tell" and punish your characters for their lifestyles. If you don't you'll turn most people off (including me, even) at the first glance.
>Logical flow
This ties in with my first and second points. Think about the subjects and how they flow. DeMitt's Behavior. DeMitt's view of women. DeMitt's experience with women.
>The Alley scene
Why is the beer-in-the-alley scene reported on halfway through your sample? Already this scene (if it's necessary at all--another thing you need to seriously ask yourself) would be a better start to the story. Otherwise, DeMitt needs to be the one recalling it and connecting it to some emotion (and not the narrator)
>The Prostration
This is hard to follow, and I'm not sure if it's merely your wording, but I can't imagine the difference in my mind between Ped's position and the rest. Also, why is this so unusual? Is this not what typically happens at these types of things (if many are doing it, it must be common, right?) If it isn't common, there needs to be better context. What is provoking all this. Why is DeMitt simultaneously surprised with Ped, yet seeming very nonchalant about being here at all? How can he be "worried," and yet leave for a smoke?
>The Pacing
What is the instigating action in your story? Is it Ped's prostration? Already this takes too long to get to. Most have lost interest in the first paragraph, already.

[Anonymous No.12905656]

>>12900099
the prose is nice and clean, the subject matter is easy enough to follow even with no background, very readable overall. it totally doglegs with the prof telling her she's schizo, and her crying, completely out of left field for me. try it more delicately and see what your alphas think?

[Anonymous No.12905688]

>>12905656
Thanks for the feedback. To clarify, Costin and the Prof are two separate characters. Costin is the one saying that she is insane (as the conclusion of his discussion on her rule to not watch contemporary media). Costin is the boyfriend in Cecilia's film, the prof is with Cecilia watching the film.
The schtick with Cecilia is that it's often hard to separate her emotions inside her films and outside of them (I imply in the writing that she is wiping her eyes both IRL and in film, for example.). I need to do a better job of not muddying the plot with this, but this is why she cries both in the film and while watching it. The professor and the driver are third-party observers to their discussion, parallel again behind and in front of the TV glass.

With this in mind, does the section make more sense? Any other suggestions or ideas of where it lost you? I think it's probably disorienting without the context of the rest of the story (as well as the setup of this particular scene, where Cecilia sets up the VCR and the professor walks in as she starts playing the tape). Always happy to get feedback.

[Anonymous No.12905719]

>>12903141
>I use it to kill the red beetles that mate in our driveway
Frankly, the piece does not come alive until this point. I did not take the piece seriously; now I want to reread it to find what else I might have missed.
tldr; nice

[Anonymous No.12905723]

>>12903322
I have the same problem.

[Anonymous No.12905727]

>>12903468
You fail to address the probable final outcome; something so secret that its root is extragovernmental.

[Anonymous No.12905739]

>>12904215
I want to read the finished work. It needs a polish but I like it.

[Anonymous No.12905741]

>>12904657
>This seems redundant.
I agree.
>“We fire the whole bullet, thats 65% more bullet per bullet”

[Anonymous No.12905749]

>>12905063
When anon said:
>I don’t care
I believe he meant that he was unable to care because the story has no life to it. Everything is milquetoast.

[Anonymous No.12905910]

>>12903959
pre-sophomoric. you're literate enough, but the situation and writing are a bit thin. the best I can say is keep going, keep working, but I mean it, there's potential there, or at least potential for potential.

[Anonymous No.12905931]

>>12905688
yeah, once you pointed out that most of what's going on is on the vcr, it's fine. I like it. whether it ends up being any good will depend on the rest of the novel, of vcourse, but it's certainly boding well

[Anonymous No.12905946]

Critique my cringe

"Besought I thee,
you answered not
There's neither peace
nor love about.
Our chance has come and gone.

The sound of wings
as you depart
leaves neither room
nor cause for doubt
that chances came and went.

And here I sit
despondent, low
in neither joy
nor cheer, but woe
as chances come and go"

[Anonymous No.12905964]

>>12905946
Very interdasting. Is this based on real life?

[Anonymous No.12905967]

>>12905946
Very narcissistic, lacking depth, delusional poem.

[Anonymous No.12905981]

>>12905964
I'm gonna assume you're being ironic based on what this >>12905967 anon added, but thanks.

[Anonymous No.12905998]

>>12904215
so it has come to this: internet culture left the youth unintelligible, and even worse, covered with an indefinite number of layers of irony like a sentence with too many negations for anyone to find its true meaning.

[Anonymous No.12906027]

>>12904657
>>sheer power of willpower
>This seems redundant.
That was intentional, but thanks for the other one

[Anonymous No.12906033]

>>12905998
I forget the rhetorical terms that means to deliver the explanation of a rhetorical term in a manner demonstrating it, can some supply it?

[Anonymous No.12906145]

>>12906033
Explanatio ad demonstrandum?
Self-referential pragmatic explanation?
Exemplum rhetoricum?
No idea, really, just uneducated wild-guessing here

[Anonymous No.12906362]

>>12905606
thanks

[Anonymous No.12906369]

>>12899980
Unironically best in thread, even better if written in such a short time

[Anonymous No.12906397]

Was that someone calling his name?
He knew it wasn’t.
Just a bird or a child somewhere.
Caw, caw, caw. Ha, ha, ha. Jack, Jack, Jack.

[Anonymous No.12906438]

any advice on pacing? I start a story with a sentence that I like and then I begin, I realise that within four sentences I'm already entering an introspection of the character, getting personal, exploring who he is, but we don't even know who the character is or why we should care. But then I end up just mindlessly describing the scene waiting for the right moment to begin. I need to flesh things out more but everything that comes to me is personal.

[Anonymous No.12906453]

>>12906397
hell yea

[Anonymous No.12906496]

Really pleased with this desu, think it might be one of my best so far.

Streets Upon Streets:
I confront each dawn with an apathetic gloom
That engulfs my soul in a wave of dreary grief,
As I long to quit this forlorn life entombed
Inside this woeful crypt of no relief.
Near eighteen years I’ve spent adrift, ensnared
Within this labyrinth of somber streets,
Forever populated by the doomed
And cursèd souls, those lingering defeats.
So close at last, I can feel my due escape
To further glorious Edens, to cultured lands
Of dialogue and wines, where women drape
In robes of silk, with apt and thoughtful hands.
I swear it now, that God may smite my soul
If I ever dare return to this wretched, miserable hole.

[Anonymous No.12906511]

>>12905228
>more real

[Anonymous No.12906550]

>>12897240
Hello Joyce

[Anonymous No.12906771]

>>12899980

bumping this in case anyone else can give feedback since im wondering if this writing thing should just be quit

[Anonymous No.12906836]

Finally got it right, I'm sorry for the last fuck-up. This should work much much better.

[Anonymous No.12906853]

The air hung coldly, such that the innards of his coat pockets provided no warmth, but still he held them there. Just as his hands halted pointlessly so did his mind twirl on the spot, floating in and around the same nagging thoughts that besot him with anguish. Only a minute remained before he would enter again through the doors that he had passed by seemingly an infinite amount already. another wasted walk of fruitless thoughts for fruitless memories and fruitless endeavours. At least soon he would feel warmth.

[Anonymous No.12907016]

>>12904698
otherworldly anon good job

[Anonymous No.12907383]

>>12905723
that looks more like you got too many toeses

[Anonymous No.12907387]

Believe it or not, it's gonna be an urban fantasy epic set in a semi-post-apocalyptic Ottawa. But first the Vatican gets destroyed by a time travelling space laser.

[Anonymous No.12907396]

>>12907387
Finally, John XXIV called the cardinals to Rome, and shocked the world as he, in front of a hundred television cameras quietly arranged for this moment, admitted to God and mankind that he was a sinner of the very lowest order.
Standing on the famous Papal balcony, John XXIV confessed, without the intercession of the box, nor the shield of the screen, that in his many long years as a man of the cloth, he had personally abused dozens of children. Children who had trusted in him, and who could never again trust in God. Children whose lives he had utterly ruined, for the sake of gratifying a deep sickness of the soul. The Pope went on to say that he could not blame Satan or Beelzebub for these many, these monstrous, crimes, crimes against nature and innocence and humanity and the Christ Child Himself. For though he was beset by temptation at every turn, every indiscretion had been his own choice to make, and he accepted full responsibility for his crimes.
John XXIV repeated the confessions in Italian, in German, in Spanish, and in his native French. Then he took off his white mitre and said, with tears glistening on his wrinkled cheeks, “Je renonce! Je renonce!”
Conclave was held, and for three days, the Sistine chimney only spewed forth black smoke, the mark of the indecision of the Princes of the Church, so greatly fallen. Finally, on the third day, white smoke ascended into the bright June sky, and the call went round about: “We have a Pope! We have a Pope!”
Now John XXIV waited, penitent prisoner of his own making, clad in a drab grey cassock, like the attendant nobles of the Holy See, with ashes on their faces. Those assembled were a fraction of those that he had protected from the light of truth, shuffling the problems from parish to parish. Else they were those whom John hadn't personally reassigned, but he knew who had, and gathered evidence, and waited. Each man represented dozens, scores, hundreds, of betrayals, abuses, lives destroyed. Each one would face justice today. He prayed that the fires of judgment would would be the chemo, if not the cure, to what ailed the Bride of Christ. And he prayed, hoping against selfish hope, that in admitting his wrongdoing, even at the midnight of his life, he might earn even a fragment of forgiveness.

[Anonymous No.12907399]

>>12906853
I've never got a response to my writing on /lit/ JUST

[Anonymous No.12907428]

>>12906853
>>12907399
Starting off with tying an adverb to the air is a bad pitch. Coat pockets are themselves the innards, they don't have innards themselves. His hands halted pointlessly? What were they doing before, walking down the street? "Just as ...halted, so did... twirl" do you see the contradiction here? Improper choice to make a comparison. "besot him with anguish" is telling, not showing, and is a bit pretentious since we haven't gotten to anything meaningful yet. "An infinite amount" indicates an amount, whereas passing by is a count (think about counting water or measuring the number of attendees at a cocktail party-- should be the other way, measuring water, counting attendees, discrete vs continuous). A wasted walk implies he was supposed to accomplish something on this walk--was this not to reach his destination? Rethink this.

Apologies for the terseness, on my way out the door. Hope this was helpful.

[Anonymous No.12907623]

>>12907428
Hmm, I see how terrible I am at the moment. Only one of my first attempts so hopefully I improve

[Anonymous No.12907758]

It was a day like any other. At least, it began that way. There was a toy my smaller brother had just gotten for Xmas, abandoned there on the window sill in the January sun, talking to itself in gibberish since the large switch had been left to "ON". I don't know how long it took for him to get bored of the toy, until finally, the process of dreading it came (actual dread, like how people feel when they're beyond bored). Rays of pale light entered those dusty portals, which our parents barely cleaned, spreading out into our living room and illuminating the entire space. I heard something like "cappuccino zucchini pika" or some such from the vibrating toy, which was toxic with laughter. It had black boots on and overalls wrapped round its a strange, yellow body. I imagined myself when I was a baby, newly born and suffering from juandice, in an oxygen tank that was more like a steel coffin. But not even I was as yellow as the toy perched on the window sill, whose bald head swiveled back and forth, brandishing a set of goggles (or, rather, a goggle... It had a single cycloptic lens). "Dave ukelele tutu," it said to me, even though its back was turned, when I crept closer to it and noticed how it swayed forwards and backwards on its feet whilst it guffawed. The overalls, which were a deep blue, covered most of the arse. But, I could still see the outline of the cheeks beneath. Whenever the toy swiveled back up, or was bent over, I witnessed the fleshy cheeks gyrate. It was shaped almost like a peach, which I began to hunger for and resulted in me salivating like a dog. My blood began to rush faster, my heart thumped harder and harder; my cock began growing and thumped harder and harder inside my pants. What was happening? I didn't know, but I knew I liked it. I liked the way the toy was doing its sex dance, toing and froing on its black boots, as it yelled out things like "aloha coconut szhe-szhe". It took just another instance of that toy bending over, as if touching its toes in a yoga class, for me to pull out my erect pant-noodle. I was bent, which to my dismay made it resemble a banana, albeit one made of skin. It pulsed in my hand when I began to stroke. Shuffling small shuffles towards the object of my desire, with my corduroy pants round my ankles, I reached it by the time it rose back up. Still giggling, I turned it round with my other hand and made it face my skin-banana that must have seemed monumental to the tiny, yellow sex-freak and his one eye. "Yes," I groaned in great ecstacy as a thick white load - like a batch of fresh mayonnaise just whipped up - spilled onto the cycloptic creature. In response, almost as if an act of divination, maybe just a coincidence, the minion said: "Banana Ciao."

[Anonymous No.12907783]

>>12905998
>doesn't know that feel

[Anonymous No.12907895]

>>12903950
>>12903959
>>12905910
I disagree. The sophomorism is deliberate and charming. Both of the characters are in high school. It’s also jarring as an excerpt because there has been so much build up and it’s lacking context.

[Anonymous No.12908082]

as a discovery writer, how do i not cry when i am sat at the precipice of act 2.

[Anonymous No.12908409]

>>12907623
By giving it a first attempt, you've already accomplished more as a writer than 99 percent of the people on this planet. By accepting the criticism graciously, it's certain that you'll improve. Give it another shot and post your second draft when you think it's ready.

What's the story in those five sentences? Answer that question and you'll have a better idea of how to rewrite it.

[Anonymous No.12908431]

>>12908409
Thanks a lot for the advice, Anon. When I've got time I'll give it another attempt

[Anonymous No.12908506]

What do you guys thing about the idea of a website that’s structured exactly the same as 4chan but you can only reply with video messages of yourself?

[Anonymous No.12908602]

>>12908082
Take your feelings out on your characters.

[Anonymous No.12908777]

>>12908409
It was evening time and fog dominated the streets, floating through like vagrants searching for a spot to rest. Alone on the outskirts of the city roamed a young man with an awkward and hurried demeanour, his eyes concentrated on the grey slabs moving under his feet as he strolled. A particularly cold day, The air stuck to his lungs and pierced his coat and bottoms as though he were naked. He had taken time out of his day to simply walk around the square and think through his present troubles, but time passes quickly when moods are low, and half an hour had burned before he had a moment to think at all. By now he believed the whole plan to be a wasted effort, an exercise in pointless mundanity, and as he approached home he almost felt ashamed of himself.

Btw this little piece was in response to an OP where we were supposed to respond to a picture with some writing, that photo I posted with my first attempt was the photo I had responded to. I'm assuming my attempt still feels pointless? Like a piece of a larger story taken out of context perhaps? I think at another time I'll post a complete short story or poem in a critique thread rather than a writing exercise. Does anyone see a modicum of talent in my writing?

[Anonymous No.12908795]

>>12903322
Still looking for insight on this one, btw

[Anonymous No.12908843]

>>12908795
then don't pose complex structural questions when your writing can't hold in a fart.

[Anonymous No.12908853]

>>12908843
then why did it take you this long to answer?

Also, general's rules.

[Anonymous No.12908865]

>>12908853
i was washing my vagina

[Anonymous No.12908884]

>>12908853
>general's rules

wut

[Anonymous No.12909004]

>>12908884
I see they don't add the copypasta in the OP anymore.
Basically, don't be a dick and give actual incidental feedback

[Anonymous No.12909191]

>>12909004
i gave you valuable advice that you did not understand or take to heart and you brushed it off, making you the dick. etiquette is a two way street, dwarf. there are lots of polite people asking for critique in this thread without dumping shit into people's lap and telling them to smell it.

[Anonymous No.12909346]

>>12897205
This is the first bit of a really short story i wrote

“You can give it to someone else’s kid or something, don’t give it to me.” I
tried to refuse it.
The old man had bought a happy meal, for lunch. He told me all about it and
he was fiercely excited. Apparently, he’d gone to MacDonald’s and gotten it
without thinking. He hadn’t been thinking, and he didn’t know what to order. He’d
even been rushed a bit, he’d felt. Maybe he’d liked the name, I think.
He insisted on me keeping the happy meal toy, to have on my desk. I didn’t
mind because it was a nice toy. It shoots a little disc that spins as it falls and as it
spins the colors merge together.
“Did you like your meal?” I wasn’t asking maliciously but I could tell that he
wasn’t comfortable thinking about whether or not he’d had fun or felt fed at all even.
“It was really something else! You know, I’d never been to a place like that.”
“That is crazy, Gus. You’ve never eaten fast food before today?”
“I suppose I did, now that I think of it,” he seemed to have been reminded of
something he’d forgotten a long time ago, “back in school, me and two friends, we
would cut class every now and then. Near our school there was a lamb chop
sandwich shop, managed by some Arab. We dared each other to eat the
sandwiches the first time but they were very good so we kept going.”

[Anonymous No.12909423]

>>12909191
You gave neither incidental feedback nor constructive criticism you twat.
Just because I didn't magically know what exactly you meant by "your writing can't hold in a fart", doesn't mean I brushed your aadvice aside.
Hell I ASKED you to be more specific and yet you don't follow suit.
I advise you just lurk some moar to learn the rules of the board and the general

[Anonymous No.12909460]

>>12909191
>there are lots of polite people asking for critique in this thread without dumping shit into people's lap and telling them to smell it.
You realize noone forced anyone to copy the pastebin into your browser's address bar and read it, right?
Compared to that, dumping everything in a huge text wall or image is actually more obnoxious to the thread and Pastebins are preferable to that.

[Anonymous No.12909705]

>>12909423
look at you hiding behind the rules. examine the previous thread's OP. it specifies "do what you want." it even invites off-topic posts. perhaps you should learn the rules, rulefag. now shoo, little poo-poo, shoo!

>>12909460
i'm doing this mong a favor. i'm the only one who answered his pompous call to pore over this pathetic prose. everybody else ignored because they knew it did not respect its reader's time and that what it offered in return was garbage. he needs to write something worth reading at a reasonable length like all the other posts in this thread. now, shoo, little poo-poo, shoo!

[Anonymous No.12909762]

>>12908777
Bump

[Anonymous No.12909785]

>>12909346
>thinking thinking think thinking think

[Anonymous No.12910320]

Half heaven caught, red hand over spray,
Smiles, clouds in his eye before bed,
In wooden bouys his decrepit bay
Riles, afraid of what is ahead,
Yet hearken her song over waves,
Child, remember all that is said,
And when turquoise does dampen the flames,
This moment he'll never forget.

:)

[Anonymous No.12910337]

>>12897205
“With the rising sun behind our backs, we make our way home, boys,” Bill “Oaf” Madula, in his most uproarious voice, proclaimed to the crew of the mess hall as they piled a mound of flavorless, textureless, marginally-edible scrambled eggs on his plate.
Behind him, Robert Hall watched the mess attendants give a half-hearted hurrah to Oaf, who strolled on to sit down. They already knew it, but Robert told the attendants, “he’s a sandwich shy of a picnic.” They nodded in agreement, as did the man behind Robert, one Ned Engles, a boatswain. Each of them knew Oaf’s reputation - for drinking, womanizing, and, most importantly, making an ass of himself. In Guam he had, by some measure, smuggled a chicken on board the ship and hatched a plan to take it back stateside so that he might start a chicken farm when he settled down. As he crossed the gangplank back onto the destroyer, the chicken became terrified and jumped from inside his coat into the water below. It was then found out both that Oaf hadn’t the hands of a smuggler and that a waterlogged chicken sinks like a cinder block. For days after, the men in his immediate trade, boilermaking, had asked why Oaf had not stolen a cock as well, and presumed he did not know that two chickens come before one egg.

[Anonymous No.12910470]

As I staggered my way up the defunct escalator to arrive at the 6th floor, I was immediately affronted by a CHANEL storefront gutted in various ways. (followed by descriptions of storefront)
The signband displaying the logo had its "EL" chiseled off and preceded by cardboard cutouts of the Japanese characters - "オナニーCHAN", it was called. Hanging there dauntingly in its silicon softness was a pair of swooping breasts glued to replace the two eclipsing inverted Cs.
The front door was guarded from both sides with mannequin sentries in slutty latex, polyarticularly treated to peacock in various flaunting poses, one chained to the wall with legs akimbo, revealing the pink slit of an onahole forcibly screwed all the way in — adjunct to the featureless female archetype, the other tattooed with body graffiti of obscenities and tally marks, accompanied with two of their male compatriots, hooked with strawberry-pink strap-ons, faceless in pleasure. Behind them, walls of television-broadcasted pornography, edited to an eternal loop of a poor mistress banged readily by a hung bodybuilder in various precarious positions that likely offered more pain than pleasure: starting from a Triple Lindy, cut to a pile driver, a reverse cowgirl, the pogo stick and end with the mistress hauled overhead, her cunny tongued and drained; the bodybuilder a thirsty brute gasping for rain, soon replenished, and resuming his backbreaking thrusting with all the same positions, locked forever in predetermined fragments on an endless script; tireless gauges thrusting defunct flesh on a wheel treadmill, spasmodic convulsions of entrails and jittery gyrations of her generous bosoms, moments forever synthesized and destined to repeat her most undulating orgasms.
I watched, unable to peel my eyes off it, entranced by the repetition, the seamless transitions and the selected content that was enough to arouse one's desire to want more, to break himself free from the repetition and glimpse into the full scope of their intense lovemaking.

[Anonymous No.12910492]

>>12907895
the writing is deliberately infantile and doesn't flow? It's meant to stand out as being written by someone who doesn't know what they're doing?

that's an exaggeration, it isn't that bad, merely leaning in those directions. there's no issue with context that I can see, the problems I have are nothing to do with that.

[Anonymous No.12910549]

>>12910470
I fail to see why Fifty Shades of 4chan wouldn't sell.

[Anonymous No.12910693]

>>12897205

I just spent 40 minutes writing a scene where a man shoots at a tree feller to protect his sanctuary woodland and accidently closed the tab.

Goodnight, lit.

[Anonymous No.12910811]

>>12897205
Hi, I wrote this short "horro story".
I would appreciate some feedback.
Please keep in mind english is not my first language.

The Inquisition

Maybe you've noticed, down the miry ol' road, that one desolated field where once still roamed a few sheeps, picking their scant food amid pebblestones .
Not a single tree nor shrubbery of any kind was in sight anymore; only the hardened mould on the loose stones and a few blades of grass that make their rare squallid appearance.
That was the designate place where criminals had their punishments inflicted based on the severity of their faults.
They made it into a recurring spectacle for the town's folk, some were even sorry when no manslaught or theft took place in months.
To everyone's delight the family that had recently moved in, scotsmen they were, carried out their quirky superstitions enough to gain undesirable attentions from their neighbors.
Little it took for them to be brought in front of the Jury, and even less than a few ambiguous accusations to come to the conclusion that the couple was indeed apt to ungodly practices.
They were to be put to the stake, and die after prolonged, torturous pain and excruciating sufference.
All was set, the jury men stood like a phalanx around the helpless couple, tied back to back in the highest spot of that miserable lawn.
When a considerable amount of people were now set in small selected groups of a dozen individuals each, the show could start.
Cries and inplorations were uselessly shouted, prayers so loud that you would have thought the Saints were deaf for not earing them.
As it reached their feet, blisters and and swollen bruises would spread all over their lowers body, and by the time it reached their bust, they were covered in crusts of blood and tumefied fat .
The fire went on, doing its dreadful work and at last descended into the court.
Delirious shrieks raised from the roaring fires as well as clouds of smoke and pestilential smell of burnt flesh.
You could not take your eyes away from the pitiless stares of the Inquisitors as they stood still, carrying their stern heartless duty, now their only motive, single principle of their existence.
The night was intensely dark but you could tell every single wrinkle on the sweat covered forehead of the merciless elders; one of them stood out, the one with is hands crossed on the far right.
Althought not because of his seriousness in carrying out the ungrateful duty or because he showed some kind of compassion.
It was the absorbed lustful look in his eyes as he followed the dancing human figures swallowed by flames and with luciferian merriness started singing a popular motif at first, then as he grabbed a young woman by the arm forced her into a grotesque dance.
"Let them dance"- he screamed, and the crowd followed.

[Anonymous No.12910912]

>>12910811
give other people feedback first

[Anonymous No.12911024]

Do you think writing a novel from the view of neo-nazi (but not endorsing their views as such) would be in principle publishable?

[Anonymous No.12911092]

>>12910912
I'm not capable.
But I might give some to three random anons, I don't bave much time either.

>>12905175
I would have started with a description of the kid, the family, their lifestyle, maybe the surroundings too.

The burial, the setting of the trap and the character getting stuck were my favorite parts.

Maybe avoid such meme worthy close lines like "and I feel nothing"


Could only do one I'm sorey

[Anonymous No.12911144]

>>12899980
Pretty good but don't use words like hearken its not 1600. Keep writing.

[Anonymous No.12911183]

>>12905175
Jeez God damn. Really liked it. Except for yeah the last sentence is pretty cliche

[Anonymous No.12911191]

>>12905228
I like it. The last sentence is a little jarringly plain and direct. I mean it could be a good thing to be jarringly direct in contrast with the preceding verbosity, but the plainness just makes it falll flat.

[Anonymous No.12911210]

>>12908777
I like the first sentence. Really it's all about practice. No one just poops out a masterpiece first try, so I think it seems silly to talk too much about "talent". Read, write, try to figure out what makes something enjoyable for you to read and try to use elements of that. Try to write every day, even just a few words, and then look at the results after a month.

[Anonymous No.12911213]

>>12909346
You move through different times effortlessly. Nice. Kinda wooden dialogue, maybe say it out loud. "that is crazy, gus" yowch

[Anonymous No.12911244]

>>12911092
I'll follow up with 2 more since I found the time.


>>12906496
Work on your riming game, it lacks simmetry and the word choice is poor.
An old trick is startimg with simple words then looking up their synonyms or expressions that come close to the term.
I believe reading more poetry would do you good, maybe stick to a single riming scheme like ABAB or ABBA.

>>12907387
>>12907396

Really liking this one.
The narration is surreal yet hilarious, just mind mispellings and avoid words like unflashy..

[Anonymous No.12911272]

>>12910492
Define "knowing what you're doing."
Here's the update
https://pastebin.com/yAUivRHC

[Anonymous No.12911327]

>>12910470
(2/2)
It brings me back to my teenage days roaming through the web with those pop-up ads displaying clips of porn that pursue me in my scrolling, stalking every move of maneuver with its lusty display; its dogged pursuit unrelenting unless I either managed to click on the close toggle (often obfuscated with decoys or designed only to be engaged by a pixel-perfect click) or fell victim to its lures with its 'click here for mores' or 'hot singles in your areas.'
In a trance, I stumbled through the doors and was surrounded by even more display screens, a dozen fixed to the walls over patches of haphazard cables, twines and threads slipping and curling like pool full of snakes. 3 fellows on voguish designer chairs, face strapped with boxy displays, heads tilting and swiveling from simulated spatial maneuver, move and twitch from their perverted fantasies. Tubes like mouths of vacuum cleaners extending from members, caressing with the softest materials pulsating like wiggly sea cucumbers, adjusting in intensity according to level of glanderous stimulation; refractory periods short-circuited: plateau —slow, sensual rub, hyperbola—violent, visceral upheavals, building up to the peak—relaxed, resting stasis.

[Anonymous No.12911376]

Where was I in the years between? I drank wine alone, at eleven in the morning. Often I lauged. In the deep of night I once walked up the stairs to the family dinner table, and sat at the head. I wept for I felt my life was passing by in the turning of seasons without hope or purpose.

Night, alone, walking, thinking. Thinking now it is night, of me walking alone. Alone and walking, thinking of the night. The night is mine. The empty sidewalks of towns belong to me, they are mine to rule and reign. The puddles gathered in the slopes of cement ripple like blood in the moonless sky.

An owl hoots, and I alone hear it. My owl sings to me and I know what he means by it. I would tell you and by saying for him what he spoke to me in his midnight twice hoot, I would grasp your hand and lead you fast down the alleys, through the clouds of fuming smells from basement kitchen basket fryers, through the long corridors at wide buildings, beneath telephone lines now defunct and presuming still to stand like trees though a hundred years have passed since they were cut as logs. I would hurry you and I past the bars where shaddowy figures huddle hooded and smoke cigarettes in the fog, past dumpster bins in colors of blue and green, some overflowing with flattened cardboard boxes. We would wander away, I would say, "Come! Come and I will show you something wonderful, something you are looking for!"

Pulling you along we would cross the little bridge over the creek, rushing forcefully in the swell of three days' ceaseless drizzling. "Not much further!" I would say as we entered the damp cavern of the overpass, where the creek runs beneath and the lanes hold the sky away and everything smells damp and the gravel next to an abandoned piece of furniture is sifted by tires and holds a pleasant shape like scattered gemstones as they gleam in the light of a steet lamp opposite, and the stream besides carries a light spray along, arterial, lymphatic vein of an earth awash in a secret life. How like a lung beneath the overpass will be! Nearly running we catch its breath and see the vapor it exhales in the torrented air of the lone sedan has come to break apart the stillness of our solitude and flash the lights everywhere, we run like rats to the safety of the sidewalk covered by a little layer of even mud as if spread by flood.

The car will fade away, its radio music will return to the far off well spring exeunt. A brief, we look at one another in the repose of the time between times. Then we will hear the church bell ring far off, and I will say in haste that we must go, for there is no time. The little winding footpath beyond will carry us past the guttering rocks of the inclined road beyond the trees panning thick and darker and darker until at last we see a bench, and sit quietly. And then i will point an outsretched finger upwards at a tree, and you will strain your eyes when at last yoy hear it: Hoot-hoot.

[Anonymous No.12911516]

Something was wrong; His head was not as it should be. The woman recoiled. Her mouth was open, but nothing came out. He locked eyes with her and attempted a smile. Finally, she screamed.

God, I love that sound, he thought. His grin widened as he crawled toward her, bits of dried viscera falling from his lips.

[Anonymous No.12911725]

What can I rhyme with pious?

[Anonymous No.12911809]

>>12911725
what is the line? don't just rhyme for the sake of it

[Anonymous No.12912082]

>>12911725
Dionysus

[Anonymous No.12912123]

Short story. Will probably edit once more. Sorry if it's bad.

[Anonymous No.12912161]

>>12906836
Bump I guess.

[Anonymous No.12912231]

>>12911244
But it's a sonnet...
I know what you mean though, didn't mean to reuse the 'doomed' rhyme and have changed it to rhyme with 'ensnared' my bad

[Anonymous No.12912232]

[Anonymous No.12912240]

>>12912231
doomed and ensnared as a rhyme hahahahhahahahahhahaha

[Anonymous No.12912241]

>>12906836
give others feedback idiot

[Anonymous No.12912244]

>>12912240
I honestly don't know how I missed that, think it's because I replaced one of the words later baka

[Anonymous No.12912248]

>>12912241
I'm sorry...

[Anonymous No.12912292]

>>12911725
Bias

[Anonymous No.12912333]

>>12912241
>posting writing and critique in the same post

[Anonymous No.12912531]

>>12912232
Is this fanfiction of Holden Caulfield?
>>12910811
Your grammar is an atrocity and you don't know pluralization rules. Just stop writing in English. As for the story it's pretty plain and /gurochan/, relying on shock value. What are you actually trying to say about the field? Make your point shine through better.
>>12908777
Wording is rather clumsy but it's not bad.

[Anonymous No.12912546]

Crappy little thing I wrote when I was bored in class

My face unstrangely feels numb.
There is but one thing it could be.
To a malady, I fear I shall succumb.
I wish for none to see.

Life flashes by in a second,
For me, it lasts but a fraction.
There was nothing to note, I reckon,
only unfortunate dissatisfaction.

There are no golden stairs that shall descend,
for those like me who meet such a deliberate end.

[Anonymous No.12912589]

>>12912531
>Is this fanfiction of Holden Caulfield?
I only write fanfiction about real life

[Anonymous No.12912639]

>>12912531
I wanted to start with a lenghty description, and in all fairness I wasn't sure what I wanted to make of the story.
I thought : " Ok I want it to have a description, some torture scenes and a burning at the stake".

I expected to make some errors but apparently I really fucked up with the grammar.
I doubt I'll work on it anymore, writing was never my thing even in my language.

[Anonymous No.12912662]

>>12911210
>>12912531
Thanks for your feedback

[Anonymous No.12913024]

>>12912639
Don't give up

[Anonymous No.12913184]

>>12912241
nobody is obliged to give critique. stop being a cop just because you posted something and nobody wants to read it.

[Anonymous No.12913545]

>>12910470
>>12911327
Just wanna hear from you anons
A simple question
Is it SHIT?
This is my first time actually dedicated to writing as a creative output and I want to know where which part of my writing needs more work, just testing the waters a bit. The story is supposed to be set in Hong Kong after the economic collapse and balkanilzation of China. The part is specifically about some masturbation cult arising among the ruins of the city.

[Anonymous No.12913838]

>>12913545
you definitely have talent, but in my experience talent is a double-edged sword. first off, because it's so elaborate it's difficult for a lot of people to identify what works and what doesn't. it's also hard to tell someone talented that they need to spruce up their fundamentals, and equally difficult for a talented person to stoop to working at a fundamental level. finally, a person with no talent will doggedly self-publish eight books about dragons at a loss while a talented person might give up because it isn't paying off.

[Anonymous No.12914142]

>>12913838
Thanks, anon.
I'll continue to post on those threads for upcoming updates of my draft and try to give feedback to other anons, feel free to eviscerate me and put me back in place.
So far I have a friend editing for me and may or may not be co-writing the draft with me. What are your experiences with writing collabs? Good idea? bad idea? I apologize if I went off the point of these threads.

[Anonymous No.12914215]

:(

[Anonymous No.12914534]

>>12905228
A few odd choices of wording, 'escalated' like the spark of a match? It's OK I guess, just seems slightly off to me. 'Everyone is wearing name tags, that must be tricking you' could be reworded to make it slightly more coherent, surely it's 'they' must be tricking you? Or if 'that' refers to all the stuff mentioned collectively, maybe '...it must all be tricking you' or something. Also, 'colonies' of names being 'barricaded at(?)' someone? Idk what you're going for and this is all nitpicky/autistic, but again just seems slightly off, when you could choose something else that flows better to make an easy improvement. The piece is engaging though, just needs some editing imo.

[Anonymous No.12914745]

Just written this short introductory description for a new short story I'm working on. I tried to make it as interesting as possible, while also keeping an oppressive feeling, a scene reminiscent of an ex-communist bloc Orthodox drenched evening. Hopefully I pulled it off.
And a zephyr was worming its way past the sprained skyline and its sickly nightlights, scraping and scraping against the inanimate concrete blocks of the city. Shrieks in the pale cement hues that were encircling each other into austere diziness ― an arrangement of watercolour-spattered streets.

The cadence had gone all splish-splosh, splish-splosh, end-fractured before any trace of human soul made its way out on that drenched evening. It was all just the trill of ants crazying about after an autumn torrent accompanied by the sluggish Vesper tolling in the far-off.

[Anonymous No.12914779]

Is it appropriate to post film script excerpts here

[Anonymous No.12914899]

>>12914745
Formatting correction and a minor change:

"And a zephyr was worming its way past the sprained skyline and its sickly nightlights, scraping and scraping against the inanimate concrete blocks of the city. Shrieking drowned in cement hues that were encircling each other into austere diziness ― an arrangement of watercolour-spattered streets.

The cadence had gone all splish-splosh, splish-splosh, end-fractured before any trace of human soul made its way out on that drenched evening. It was all just the trill of ants crazying about after an autumn torrent accompanied by the sluggish Vesper tolling in the far-off."

[Anonymous No.12915513]

>>12911272
I meant that you're not reading what you've put on the page, you're still hearing a few things that are left in your head. put those on the page too, and look more objectively at how the scene flows, because right now one dialogue doesn't flow into the next, it's like each character is ina bubble, but not because you intended it that way. and the dialogue itself isn't my favourite, feels like teen writing, not like an actual teen speaking, but that might be me.

or, if you're too close to it and don't want to come back in a month, find someone you trust to read it

[Anonymous No.12915537]

>>12915513
>>12911272
and I don't have time to read the update right now, but I'll post some of my stuff later for you to rip into because it far worse :/

[Critique Thread No.12915560]

The Protector
In the dark green grasslands of Eastern Canada, a vigilant guardian stands and watches over many shapes of life. It carries the entire sky on its shoulders to shield those living underneath. The sunlight is brought to a halt by its broad body and countless hand like leaves, lodging the sleeping bats and rescuing the cold blooded salamanders from the sun's wrath. It will bloom acorns to eventually drop onto nature's dinner table for the neighbouring critters. The fabric of the birds nest is made from the flakes of its body, as it holds the nest out of the way of danger. An indentation forms in its chest, where young foxes will be raised, a home that repels the whipping wind. Farther along its arms, the fingers cup to become a crook for squirrels to make their homes. The leaves will become the bed and blanket of those who reside with the guardian. Everyday it expands its sanctuary, offering its protection to the young plants growing below, it stands unwavering even under the load of the rainfall or the threat of the thunderstrike. The air surrounding around it was coated with moisture from dew; the air was refreshing to breath. Even the raindrops chose it to be their home, soaking into the hard skin and eventually fueling the growth of moss patches. It bore the moss like a medal, to illustrate the extent of its service. Nothing could bend its confident posture, there was not a blinding blizzard, a monstrous monsoon that could loosen its grip on the earth. The strength of the tree is its devotion.

[Anonymous No.12915901]

https://pastebin.com/fdppUiCF - This is my first attempt at writing. I sat on it for about two weeks and then did some pretty extensive editing before I posted it here.

[Anonymous No.12915907]

>>12915560
yeah, nice. it's cliched and in one or two places the wording is clumsy, but as a set-piece you handle it deftly enough. would read more.

[Anonymous No.12916476]

>>12915537
Honestly yeah I agree that it doesn’t flow. Link me your work and I’ll critique it

[Anonymous No.12916535]

>>12915901
You kind of remind me of a writer version of Makoto Shinkai early in his career when he had no idea what he was doing.

>Defeat could only come from failure, and appeared in his mind’s eye as nothing more than an ideological void that forbade the activity necessary for progress, and was thus unworthy of consideration.

Basic errors like some instances of pretentious and overwrought diction and telling instead of showing (esp. that really awkwardly handled exposition starting at paragraph 5, yikes). I think that you think some of your conceits and rhetorical devices are way more cleverer than they actually are, and some could be simply cut because of their superfluousness.

>It seemed that the sheer mass of the steppe was forcibly dragging the sun towards the earth.
Pretty serviceable cleverness. Make a promise to yourself that every single conceit will at least be as clever sounding as this, and if it isn't, then cut it. That discipline will do you good.

>It encouraged a cyclical, eternal view of the world, governed by the seasons and faith.
So this criticism depends on what level of "meta" we're talking about here if that makes sense. I'm going to assume that we're doing J.D. Salinger shit where you're at the same level of "meta" as your characters and this character is essentially your voice.

In my humble opinion, an abject statement like this is giving away too much of the symbolism for free my dude. It doesn't matter that (I think) this is supposed to be in the character's voice? You're being very anvilicious with how you're repurposing him into a tool to convey ideas. Use some subtlety. This is a danger with using characters that are too insightful and canny about the fictional universe they're placed into. This is why many people dislike Holden Caulfield, but I know from reading some of J.D. Salinger's other work that he's a perfectly fine writer when he's not using the Holdenvoice. You haven't really proven that yet.

>The posters depicted the future.

This sentence feels as though it was taken out of a better version of this passage. It feels as though it belongs to a good idea. The worst case scenario is that you finally toyed with the possibility of wielding a very short sentence for effect. I think this is my favorite sentence out of the whole thing.

>The posters promised concrete

I wish that this, and then the entire rest of the conceit that it belongs to, were rewritten. See the above autistic rambling on Salinger and "meta". It's not necessarily a bad thing to do this though since the response from a reader will vary wildly, but it definitely does not receive universal appreciation.

>He luxuriated in the dirt
Thesaurus syndrome. I'm someone who thinks that even all obscure and pretentious words can have a time and place if the situation is appropriate, and doesn't force myself to not use them if they really need to be present, but yeah. This is just a really unambiguous case of thesaurus syndrome.

[Anonymous No.12917309]

>>12916535
Thanks for the criticism my man, figured it woulda been too long for anyone to bother reading lol. The comparison makes me curious, I've no idea who that is.

I think youre right, its overwrought in a lot of places, the first draft was embrarassing lmao, and yeah the character was just a blank slate for me to write about what I was interested in at the time (why I kept it at a single char as well), I think if I were to continue writing I'd try and put more work into subjectivising characters.

Re the posters line yeah I'd actually written a separate paragraph or two (I think?) where I spent time in the town tryna develop that sorta stuff, deleted it though, and the bits you see there were repurposed, I'd thought it felt disconnected, and didnt really have any way of makin it flow with the 'plot', such as it is lol FeelsBadMan

The only disagreement I really have is the word luxuriated, is that really so specialised/uncommon/ornate a word choice? I hadn't thought so, but maybe I'll err on the side of caution in future, just to be safe lol

Appreciate the advice man

[Anonymous No.12917580]

>>12902750
One of the best in thread, really, really brilliant anon. You've really managed to capture the dynamic between brothers, and the interaction feels very natural. Your prose is great, very sharp and fast, and your humour is genuinely funny. A real pleasure to read. Is this going to be a book, or a short story or something?

Whatever it becomes, keep it up.

>>12902810
I'll admit, this has perplexed me. I find it hilarious, though I don't know if I'm supposed to. It really taps into the whole cult-of-the-feminine that women obsessed with the vulvic buy into, and you capture the tone brilliant (e.g. practises such as feminising words, like 'fempire'). I would say that sometimes your sentences do drag on a bit too long, and at times it feels like this is perhaps stylistically deliberate (there does always seem to be a comma or full-stop to save the day whenever you're about to run out of breath). I particularly loved the detail around the extra-dimensional feminine beings, and the idea that female women have to share the female astral plane with not only human females. All very mystical and cool to read about.

>>12906496
You're right to be pleased, this is nice. It communicates well that you're a 17-year-old (I think?) who's champing at the bit to get out of his hometown and see 'further glorious Edens'. I would argue, however, that you could present this desire in a much more exciting way. At the moment, your poem has the significant problem of lacking imagery - your lines all follow the same pattern of (I don't want to [verb] in this [adjective] [noun]) and I feel that this gets a bit boring after the 2nd or 3rd time you use it. Try to write more in metaphor - obviously a common one here is a bird-in-a-cage, but finding one more conducive to your own spirit would be even better. You want to be establishing a dialectical relationship with the reader - have a conversation with them. You need to make them work for the meaning, and not just slap it down there on the page for them to ingest and forget. The greatest poets obscure the meanings of their poems behind stories, allegories and metaphor, and part of the joy of reading those poems is playing that linguistic puzzle-game in your head. I do think you have potential though anon, and it's special alone that you're a young man writing poetry, so absolutely keep on improving.

Now I'm going to try not to render all that criticism completely useless by posting my own work, and hope that I don't embarrass myself too much. Here is just a small extract from my novel, which is still very fledgling. It's only in a very, very early draft stage at the moment, but critique would be accepted gratefully. Thank you, anons!