/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14653538]

Critique thread, I haven't seen one in a while.

https://pastebin.com/U8bUz0aq

[Anonymous No.14653606]

>>14653538 It's awful and I can't be bothered to tell you why.

[Anonymous No.14653655]

>>14653606
That's useful

[Anonymous No.14653657]

>>14653538
industrial
white towels stained with blood
three structures, all to conform to
you don't know me
I never expected love
I get turned on from your words
outlining my existence excites no one
damn
nonsense bearer number 7
out of lemonade
losing track, splitting lanes
not the time to talk
give me harsh noise
i used to fear the drones
until I realized guns exist
I don't bare my arms when I leave
she checked for cuts one day
I didn't realize at the time
i just gave up and it worked
I've been gone four times
sometimes I think a fifth is
inevitable
there's too much structure
i barely talk
what's a family anymore
stopped posting, now i'm insecure
obsession was my name,
now i can't even exist properly
garbage in my mouth
nothing on my mind
everything begs to be recognized
people scare me
i don't deserve people
i only need my thoughts
memories
it's just coming from anywhere
i just bare what I can
i've already given up
give up and die
there's no world for me
there's no world for me
don't

[Anonymous No.14653672]

>>14651395
>>14652712

[Anonymous No.14653763]

I only skimmed it but some of the adjectives you use are awkward and ruin the flow. You don't need to have flowery prose in every sentence. It kinda reads like you were playing darts with the thesaurus or something.

But keep writing anon I am proud of you!

[Anonymous No.14655154]

https://pastebin.com/0x338tk0
It was supposed to be for a flash fiction competition where they give you prompts, and words to use and you must answer in 24 hours. Be brutal because that's the only way I will improve

[Anonymous No.14655432]

Very early days, so the names are all placeholders until I can find something that works.

[Anonymous No.14655631]

Not completely relevant to this thread, but is there a word that means "to tuck someone into bed" or that conveys a similar concept?

[Anonymous No.14655653]

>>14655631
Not really entirely the same, but to swaddle something is to wrap it tightly in cloth.

[Anonymous No.14655659]

>>14655653
Hmm I'm thinking more of the image of a child falling asleep and being carried to bed or something along those lines

[Anonymous No.14655673]

>>14655659
Yeah, I can see what you're trying to get at. I don't know of any that fit directly, could you give the sentence you're trying to write? A nice word for the feeling of cosiness that you're getting at is the German 'gemütlichkeit', but obviously that hits at the emotional side, rather than the literal image.

[Anonymous No.14655680]

>>14655631
Tuck-in, cover-up? I can't think of a single english word for it other than swaddle, which seems too specific.

[Anonymous No.14655696]

>>14655680
It doesn't necessarily have to be a single word, it could just be another way of saying it.

>>14655673
I'm making a little app that turns your computer off if you've fallen asleep (to save battery life) and I'm thinking of how to name it.
I had thought of "Nudge", in the way you might nudge someone to see if they're still awake, but it's a bit ambiguous because you might also nudge someone to stop them from falling asleep.
And I don't like the image "Tuck" conveys.

[Anonymous No.14655705]

>>14655696
Undercovers?

[Anonymous No.14655708]

>>14655705
I'm thinking I might go with Blanket
Thanks for the help!

[Anonymous No.14655716]

>>14655708
How about 'nestle'? Again, the imagery doesn't line up exactly, but personally I always compare getting into bed as returning to my own little nest for the evening. It's a cute word, too. I do like 'blanket' though, that works well.

[Anonymous No.14655725]

>>14655716
Yeah that's cute too. I'm also thinking Duvet, even softer and warmer than Blanket.

[Anonymous No.14655726]

>>14655708
Pajama, nuzzle, doze, snug, drift, wink, turn in, shut-eye. idk anon, there's only so many synonyms for this theme you have.

[Anonymous No.14655729]

>>14653538
This was a response to a writing prompt where I had to start the story with "Once, before I was born". This is definitely my most hard to read piece of work to date, but than again it might all just be word salad. Who knows but you guys.

[Anonymous No.14655742]

>>14655726
Yeah I think I have some good options now, thanks.

[Anonymous No.14655749]

>>14655725
cradle, lullaby, hush

[Anonymous No.14655770]

>>14655729
ruminate needs to be in the past tense

[Anonymous No.14655773]

>>14655770
I definitely remember writing it in past tense. There was a blue squiggly under it, so maybe the computer was a tard. Anyways, apart from that, what did you think of it?

[Anonymous No.14655795]

>>14655773
Ah well, I assumed it was a typo or something anyway, so no worries. As to what I thought of it: I think you are a competent writer. You clearly have a good grasp of language, and know when to show it, but also have that ability to reign it in when necessary. A lot of writing gets posted here that is so verbose and adjective-heavy that you feel like your brain's being pushed through a meat mincer before you've reached the second line. I didn't feel that with yours. I don't find the subject particularly interesting, but your writing did gild it in a way that kept me going. I like that you deliberately incorporate that very Hebraic style of multiple connectives and a rigid, often inflexible sentence structure. Often, as with the Bible, this can be monotonous. I think you managed to employ the style well to lend your 'I was God' shtick some added depth, but I would admit to saying that I would never read more than a few paragraphs of a work written like it. On the whole though, it was good.

[Anonymous No.14655907]

>>14655729
I like the picture you are painting but I think some of the wording is a bit awkward and holding it back.
>nothing not lived
bit awkward

>that [...] which was few
few as a noun is plural and needs an article before it (the few)

>for it gave me also
I would either drop the also or put it after "it"

typo on "than the ages"

>I looked into it
>who gnawed
stick to one set of pronouns :^)

>unlighted
unlit

Also it uses a lot of "big words" in ways that sometimes feel self-serving, so it definitely needs some editing.

Anyway kinda cool

[Anonymous No.14655948]

Writing a crime thriller wherein the killer is driven by what you lizard brains might call “doomerism.” This is the protags monologue the first time he meets the detective.

[cunt No.14655993]

>>14653538
https://pastebin.com/wMut9nQU

I know it needs work but here you go.

[cunt No.14656250]

>>14653538
this thread needs a bump

[Anonymous No.14656649]

>>14656250
Another one

[Anonymous No.14657574]

>>14655432
Enjoyed this, what's it an introduction to?

[Anonymous No.14657773]

Something I wrote last semester for a political theory class that I got a very high mark on.

[Anonymous No.14657962]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcbBkxGL7iU
Monologue written by me in the style of BG Kumbi if you are familiar with his work.

[Anonymous No.14658047]

>>14655948
These are mere suggestions

Define the madness that the character has run out of. In this case I'm inclined to believe that it is the madness of his unrewarding efforts. A simple declaration tacked at the end (sorrows. Madness!) ties up all the previous sentences in a package. Also the exclamation serves as a punch. Prose is musical and follows musical conventions. Accents go a long way to defining a good monologue.

...to the ends of the Earth... This sentence sucked and this was the cause. The distance imagery is at odds with music and repetition. Everything prior suggests that the character is going nowhere. Their youth has not gone to the ends of the Earth, it is imprisoned by a mad routine.

Putting in the distance descriptor made you lose all thread of what you were building. You don't define truth for us. You don't sell us that truth is death. It gets lazy and makes scantily supported claims. You need to explain the key terms in this monologue. You did an excellent job with madness, but you can't do a half assed job on truth. Define truth in the sense the character is using the word and it also gives us his understanding of lies.

Where... him? If I'm understanding you correctly the destination is death. You do such a piss poor job of getting that idea across that it took multiple leaps of logic to get there. You need to nail down that life devoid of madness leaves a man with only death as a way forward. Then you transition to explaining how the character cannot tolerate the madness of their routine and also cannot embrace death out of fear so they have embraced a newly created from of madness. On the grounds that living requires madness so anything that inspires living is fair game when the alternative is dying.

General typos like founders-flounders and serves.

[Anonymous No.14658118]

>Urban man stands astride a boulder made slick by the washing waves of the ocean. He sights through myopic eyes an Atlantic atoll, nests of sharper eyed fish people dotted on the seething plain, circumvallated by their vast workplace. Green with sad envy, red with the gales chill, he retreats to a trails path, knowing some realities require a thicker knitted wool than his thin and expensive merino, and a rougher membrane than a clerk's thin skin.

trying to write a meme short story on the teacher of my course who is an older version of a reddit bugman tech geek sort of guy, but he tries to break free of bugmanism in his twilight years
it's given me much amusement thus far, this is the first paragraph what do you think frens

[Anonymous No.14658210]

>>14658118
Circumvallated-cut this shit out. Do not disrespect the ocean like this ever again.

Otherwise, a little dense for my liking, but gets the point across. That last sentence alone has like 3 ideas worthy of their own dragged out descriptions. It's a meme story so the point is hammered home within 2 sentences. Something like this lives or dies not on the point it is talking about, but in the experience your prose can deliver. Otherwise it is bound to be boring because the reader can already deduce what this 0.5D character will think, feel, and react to in any given situation.

[Anonymous No.14658254]

>>14658210
Would circumscribed work instead? I thought you could probably tell that I really wanted to use the word circumvallated there, I really like it but it's syllable-y and obnoxious I suppose

thanks for the feedback famalam also I love the ocean

[Anonymous No.14658298]

>>14658254
I'd just use surrounded, but it's none of my business. If you hadn't used "work place" I would have said embraced. Whatever you choose depends on what comes after, you know? I really like Urban Man though. Makes for a good meme.

[Anonymous No.14658506]

>>14657773
What is the reason for the long-winded sentences in English and American academic writing? To be clear, I am not criticising the content of your paper, Anon. I am just curious about this tradition or style (whatever you call it).

[Anonymous No.14658619]

>>14658506
Tbh I don't really make a deliberate style out of it. That's basically just my internal monologue up there. It just passes as writing, I suppose.