/Crit/ - Critique Thread

[Anonymous No.15691627]

Post a piece of poetry, prose, or something in-between, to have it critiqued.
You must post a critique before or after you post your piece. It can be derisive or constructive. Google docs and images welcome, but text is fine.

Last thread: >>15645450

[Anonymous No.15691692]

I'll start us off.

[Anonymous No.15691703]

>The water slapped as if the moon had dropped it on the beach, its very same freedom dragging it away.

I'm not sure about the pronoun ambiguity. I usually hate this but it feels intuitive here. Alternative:

>The water slapped as if the moon had dropped it on the beach, the very same power dragging it away.
>But as the water was loud, the moon was bright. It was not peace the nightsurfer was here for. It was waves.

[Anonymous No.15691729]

>>15691692
I'm actually not sure what's happening. It shows tearducts on top, but reads like a metaphor for giving birth and her water breaking? And then it goes back to the bebop song which I recall as just straightforwardly sad.

[Anonymous No.15691751]

>>15691729
Thanks for the reply. I think I was playing around with different mediums unfolding in the poem, rather than caring about coherency or linearity. I think it cheapens the work, really. So thanks for pointing out its incoherence.

I'll be happy to respond to your work in a timely manner, anon, if you so choose to post it.

[Anonymous No.15691767]

>>15691751
It's the only other, but I think it'd at least be better without the image.

[Anonymous No.15691774]

>>15691627
I WANT TO BUT I CAN'T KNOW IF YOU'LL STEAL IT

I SEE THIS THREAD OFTEN AND I NEED FEEDBACK BUT I DON'T TRUST Y'ALL ONE LITTLE BIT

[Anonymous No.15691787]

please rate honestly, everyone thinks i'm being silly but I worked really hard on this:

(1/7)
Rain hitting thin panes of glass. The office is filled with an unsettling ambience that ripples silently up your arms, into the sleeves of your shirt. You can hear the doctor’s words-- can even parse some of the convoluted medical jargon-- but it all comes out muddled by the din outside. All the careful research and planning means nothing now. Something drastic has to be done. To be present in the room is to accept tacitly the horror to come, like hearing enemy bombs drop from under thick concrete ceiling.
“--dissociative coprophagia--” “--delusions of constipation--”
Professional timewasting; a dozen labcoats and thousands of dollars in philanthropy couldn’t do more than put a series of names to the condition you have come to know in person. You can sense the doctor’s concern, but it is all too late now: why else would you be sitting here, receiving this briefing?
“-- baconator fries---” “-- just can’t get her to listen--”
They need help; they always do. You wait for the cue: head-drooped, pulling glasses off with one hand to raise and reveal learned frustration: “what we’re trying to say is, we need your expertise.” He forgot to say “again.”

[Anonymous No.15691796]

>>15691774
If it's good enough to steal it shouldn't really be posted to this place.

[Anonymous No.15691801]

>>15691774
Post it as a google docs and timestamp it, at least that way you have evidence that you posted it here if someone steals it.

You can also make it so the docs can't be accessed again after the thread is gone, meaning that there's a smaller window of time for people to steal it. That being said, you only lead people on to steal it if you say they will.

[Anonymous No.15691802]

>>15691787
(2/7)
A stroll down the aisle of padded cells. Deranged blubbering and passionate discussions with the imagined overtake the white noise of the rain. She’s back there waiting, probably downloading .gifs of Jitka Cerhova, finger stuck obliviously in dry cunt. Maybe she’s bathed since the last time. Maybe she’s changed into something other than pippi-longstocking footy-pajamas decorated in those murky, technicolor stains. Maybe. As you draw closer to the door, you become aware that the good doctor has left you, unable to bear what will be your sacred duty. A keyboard clacks slowly within, timidly, behind the heavy oak. She knows, but she plays coy. She let’s you knock and ask politely to be let in.
“Come in, anon…” forcing her voice into something sweet and smoky-- betrayed of course by the acrid stink somehow permeating the door.
One, shadeless fluorescent dangling from the ceiling casts a flickering stale light over the scene. Back to you, her typing has now slowed to sporadic pokes at the keyboard. She pretends not to notice you, or the gurgling soreness in her colon. Her stage is set.
“So…” she clicks ‘post.’ “you’ve come back to see me…”
She teases you, and elucidates her demented narrative (she is an internet activist of sorts, plagued endlessly by neo-fascist /pol/-tards and garden variety neoliberals-- an entirely complex lore underlies it all) and applies more foundation. Your stomach proceeds, unconsciously, to secure itself, as an erection begins to coalesce in your pants. The familiar feeling of interrupted pleasure-- a nonsexual copulation about to begin, in which no feeling will ride the nerves of your penis and spine up to the brain (god forbid…)-- of which your genitals are grimly familiar. She spies the chubby devil, and pretends she doesn’t notice yet. Clumsily she proceeds from her desk chair to her hands and knees. She is careful not to give away her hidden discomfort, the project she has been working on for almost a month now. Only a pink flush and the sweat of an upper lip betray the cool air she has been practicing.

[Anonymous No.15691809]

>>15691703
now that I think about it, the first one works either way, so it isn't really intuition

[Anonymous No.15691810]

>>15691796
Ive been published twice in the past few months. But now im stuck. So idk. Maybe you're right

[Anonymous No.15691812]

>>15691802
(3/7)
“I’ve needed you so bad.” She plants her bottom on the floor and a fart sneaks out. She’s thought only of you, she explains, firmly grasping her dense ankles. And of the flood to come, and the need for release. Delicately, and in one sure motion, she flings her legs up and rolls onto her back. Struck by the effort of her maneuver, it is only after a beat that you see she is, in fact, not wearing panties. Her crotch, taint and asscrack-- even the underside of her belly-- are coated in an immense and tangled pubic forest. You continue to stare, unable to pull your eyes away, and see the distinct folds of labia and angry clitoris-- erect, standing an inch tall somehow-- just barely veiled by the dark brillo-pad nap. Her splayed vagina, held tightly in wiry black hairs, conjures images of paralysis and decay: a canoe stopped by a tar pit, coxswain frozen at the bow, remaining here, lifeless, only to deliver some forgotten warning to passersby. “lasciate ogne speranza…”
“Please anon, I can’t wait anymore.” The staccato flatulence interrupting her pleas only confirms the urgency. Make no mistake: she will not shit without your penile heroics. But should you turn and run now, the putrid stink of her other ‘shit’-- the fecal remnants of virtual logorrhea-- will only drive you back, her punisher and savior, to the dragon you must slay. With closed eyes you unzip, and settle to your knees. Taking her by sweating ass cheeks, you pull her taint to rest in your lap, against a tightened scrotum.

[Anonymous No.15691813]

>>15691787
>words-- can
Stopped right there. Reads like a first draft.

[Anonymous No.15691823]

>>15691812
(4/7)
“I’m too dry anon, I need your tongue,” she whimpers through tightly closed eyes. A resounding belch from below, as if confirming this to be the case. Screaming will not help, you remind yourself as you lower your opened mouth. Pubic vegetation must be parted, and watering eyes must be shut tight. This will take over a minute as the sprawling weave absorbs drool nearly as fast as it is applied. Soon: breakthrough. Tongue caresses and soothes puckered anal lips, rose-red, quivering in desperation. Pungent, brie cheese-- but is it flavor or scent? You suppress the urge to vomit with expert skill.
With more saliva the maw cracks open, releasing tainted fumes into your eyes. Whipping your head back, aware now of the dripping sweat of manual labor collected on your shoulders and forehead. You try scattering your thoughts, returning to the requisite mindlessness of the task-- it will only be open for so long. Luckily your hand is somehow already preparing, vigorously jerking your dry cock until it stands up straight.
“Anon, p-pleease…. oh, oh god, oh…” giving little angry infant kicks in the air, she needs you in her asshole. You grab her haunches and plunge-- spear in the belly of the beast.
So used to clenching, holding back, her sphincter fights you, squeezes hard on your swollen helmet. Drive returning and eyes on your prize, you push through and enter her rectum.
Indescribable sensations: soupy, gritty-- the feeling of fillia and colonic ribbing-- hot as fresh stew, but, wait, what was that so cold and syrupy? A pained silence on her flustered face, broken sporadically by tiny yelps and the unwilled trembling of the lower jaw, it is unclear whether she is working with or against you. You want to strike her-- and she may even let you-- but the job isn’t finished. There is no time for indulgence. The sensations align and agree; soon it is all hot, all spicy, and your urethra begins to sting. Impossible to tell if this is a good or bad sign, but some chemical reaction is taking place inside butterflies anal petri-dish. The task just became about your own safety.

[Anonymous No.15691824]

>>15691810
Published where? We can't steal something that has been copyrighted.

[Anonymous No.15691832]

>>15691810
I don't mean for safety's sake so much as thinks having a limit to which they can be crit. I post stuff here when I think somethings wrong, not when it's something I'd be willing to show my face on anyways.

[Anonymous No.15691836]

>>15691823
(5/6 [sorry, not 7])
Just then it hits you: divine inspiration possessing the artist. You see your maneuver in an instantaneous out-of-body dream, and, placing the balls of your feet on the floor, prepare yourself.
Needing moisture, you cram your fingers into her mouth-- she gags on them, but quietly trusts your judgement and squeezes her right breast. Wet fingers at the ready, you increase the speed of your pumps. Penis screaming in pain now-- don’t give up on me… deftly you slip index fingers in alongside your tired cock. Once in place, it is a matter of one swift and complex motion-- god willing.
Throwing your pelvis back, your penis, now freed, immediately deflates. All the tension of her sphincter now bears down on your fingers, and you fight it. Pulled tight like a rubber band, it requires all your upper body strength to keep her anus open. She’s yelling, cursing you, and in the opening you can see the neon pink lining of her colon give a few dry heaves. Too soon?? Your heart plummets as you crouch lower, still holding butterfly’s taut butthole agape. Peeking in with one wide-opened eye, you gaze into the abyss… somewhere in the depths, you’d swear it later, a satisfied smirk. A job done all too well...

[Anonymous No.15691840]

>>15691832
>thinks
things

[Anonymous No.15691843]

>>15691836
(6/6)
With a dancer’s elegance, the tightly wound prolapse dilates: goopy waves of brown, yellow and green fly out-- crash into stinking mist on your cheeks. Hard pellets, some as big as thumbs, pummell your open eyes and mouth and a select few, like victorious sperm, manage to lodge themselves in your throat. Your open eye is bathed in some acrid tangerine oil, and one prophetic red pepper flake, as big in your vision as a falling comet, smolders in your cornea. The peculiar alchemical properties of this fecal stew become clear through the smells and flavors leaching into your skin. Mushy peas have become hard as bullets and shards of chicken bone (chicken bone??) are spongy and limp. The otherworldly phenomenon responsible for this change in state still hidden away in the recesses of intestine.
Heels planted, letting the gallons of oily shit pool around her ass and back, butterfly whimpers and paws at her sagging asshole, still yet to retain its shape. Her pussy, now glistening with a thin coat of slime, visible even from under pubes, she ignores. You pity her cunt, but understand that her deep psychological distress forbids her from achieving orgasm vaginally. Only this purge of excrement will settle her fetid libido. She is a levee, lasciviously craving her own destruction. Her deflated-balloon farts have ceased, yet her belly clenches in attempts to force out more. You haven’t yet taken a breath in, afraid of aspirating more fluid shit.
She’s thanking you, but the furrowed brow tells you she is already thinking about your next visit. She’s thinking about your swell new move that she will need to see again, and about the drive-thru at burger king, and a new double-patty hamburger with pickled jalapenos smothered in pepperjack cheese. She’s thinking about a dream she had in which you were tied down, blindfolded, and jaws wired open as she lowered her big white ass over you and poured a gallon of nacho cheese out from her shitbox. You are thinking about screaming now, but a green fiber of broccolini has you too choked up. There is no more din outside, and no more tumult in the distance. It’s all inside you now, and the calm of absolute terror and shame consumes you.

THE END

[Anonymous No.15691844]

>>15691824
Magazines online.

>>15691832
Yeah im just too schizo I think

[Anonymous No.15691851]

>>15691801
Microsoft Word documents have all edits and any information ever entered into a document saved in its data. That should be safe too

[Anonymous No.15691856]

tssdf

[Anonymous No.15691864]

>>15691813
what are you thinking, commas? I won't lie, I'm a big fan of the em dash...

[Anonymous No.15691868]

>>15691692
overall I'd say not bad, some interesting imagery and decent flow. I would definitely get rid of the Cowboy Bebop OST bit as I feel that that instantly dates the poem and just doesn't really work with the rest of what you're saying. Also last line really doesn't do anything for me, might just be me tho so I won't have too much of a go.

And as for my worthless twaddle, I've been fannying around with structure a bit, so now rather than having weak observations poorly made in two or three equal stanzas I can now have them in a stanza and a couple lines after. I doubt they'll be much good to anyone, but at least I'm trying out summat new out and what have you.

Also, lovely bit of plagiarism in the third one so big ups to anyone who gets wot it's from.

[Anonymous No.15691880]

>>15691868
also I've just seen that I've absolutely embarrassed myself with that comma after Besides, so please try to ignore that, I don't even know how it got there myself.

[Anonymous No.15691925]

>>15691836
>Just then it hits you: divine inspiration possessing the artist.
I'm so happy this was the first thing I saw

[Anonymous No.15691972]

>>15691868
>hithering and thithering
Virginia Woolf? Only thing that springs to mind.

Good simile in the second line.

>quixotic icon of Man's disease

Superb line in an otherwise zirconish stanza, it seems too dull other than that part. It's also strange you're using the Shakespearean 'e' - not sure what it adds other than some inflection. These rhymes are also good, it doesn't seem forced or boring like other anons seem to do.

[Anonymous No.15692007]

>>15691868
This comes across as a lot of disjointed imagery. And please find a different fucking way to say it's raining than "the heavens weep," it's embarrassing to even read something that played out. Honestly the line would be better if you actually just said "it's raining."
Also I really hope that "these fouls things" is a typo.

I tried to make this piece not sound mopey, I don't know if I succeeded. It feels like it needs to be longer on the fore end, but I was having trouble coming up with any more than the two images I went with when I wrote it at 4am.

[Anonymous No.15692027]

>>15691925
ok but r u being srs or sarcastic? pls only bully a lil

[Anonymous No.15692035]

>>15692007
Enjoyed this thoroughly, but I am hung up on the last line. It adds an ambiguity that isn't really that special or interesting. Also telling us that there is no closure near the end is kind of jarring, especially when it is one word. Regardless, think about submitting to somewhere from submittable. Here's a cool journal you might get something out of (feedback or getting published)

[Anonymous No.15692075]

>>15692027
I wouldn't know because I can't tell while reading your piece. It sounds like this man is consciously trying to figure out how to orgasm while some rapid piano music is playing. Like he leans back into a high note as the camera spins clockwise and the math spins counter, and then instead of him letting out the tiniest little cum into her you shit on him.

[Anonymous No.15692089]

>>15691843
>You are thinking about screaming now, but a green fiber of broccolini has you too choked up.
I fucking lost it. One of the very few times that something in these threads has made me actually laugh.

[Anonymous No.15692126]

>>15692007
Thanks for the crits lad, the heavens weep thing isn't meant to signify rain, although tbf there's not many other ways you can take it, so that's still my fault anyways. I didn't think the these foul things was too bad, gives a bit of ambiguity and gives me a rhyme, but then again it is pretty general and doesn't add much. Thanks for bringing all that up, I'll definitely keep that in mind going forward.

>>15691972
No not Woolf, although it is also an author of a Modernist persuasion. I'm glad you seem to generally think they're alright, although I've got no idea what zirconish means. And the accented e is just there because I thought it sounded better than having it with a regular e.

[Anonymous No.15692131]

If you wish to kill yourself, why do you not wish to kill yourself?
Ah, show your approval! that I, loving death and life so dearly,
If I dared to kill myself, I would also kill myself . . .
Ah, if you will dare, dare!
What is the successive frame of external images worth to you
That we call the world?
The cinematography of the hours represented
By actors of determined conventions and poses,
The polychrome circus of our dynamism without end?
What is your internal world that you ignore worth to you?
Maybe, killing yourself, you may finally come to understand it . . .
Maybe, ending it all, you may begin . . .
And in any way, if you grow tired of being,
Ah, grow tired nobly,
And don't sing, like I do, the life of drunkenness,
Don't greet like I do death in literature!

[Anonymous No.15692150]

>>15692035
Oh cool, might check them out. Thank you.
I was aiming for a kind of jarring but definitely pessimistic ambiguity after the slight optimism of the previous two lines, and thought that the repetition of "maybe" would be a decent way to do it, but in hindsight it seems like a bit of a letdown and not harsh enough.

[Anonymous No.15692163]

>>15692126
I was just talking about the random 's' on the end of foul. That line in itself is alright.

[σκυτιον No.15692204]

came up with this while drunk:

Beer: be near.
Ever close, forever dear.
Not a ‘bev’ like Everclear,
Much more refined, more worth a cheer.
I’ve made it clear
Don’t dare besmear
But if you’d like to give it cheer
I’ll back you up— I will not sneer
The song my stomach longs to hear
Let’s drink to now: now give it here!

[σκυτιον No.15692210]

>>15692204
fuuuuck; last line should be:

Hip! Hip! Hooray! Hooray for beer

[Anonymous No.15692222]

>>15692163
Oh right yeh I've just seen that now as well. Yeh that is a typo again, should really start proof reading and going over my shit more before posting it so I don't have egg on my face like this again.

[Anonymous No.15692287]

Summer's late sunset drifts behind the horizon,
while nature's decorations fill the ground and air,
great sentimentality and nostalgia abound,
my fated place of return is where?

[Anonymous No.15692298]

>>15692204
I put your poem under the magnifying glass, anon. I do hope you enjoy my eagle-eyed critique.

Most structurally sound line is the third to last one, since it incorporates a break halfway neatly in the line. Enjoyable line, good line. The rhyming is great and doesn't feel forced or cloistered, but it does feel like the content runs thinly across the poem, this is only about getting drunk on a certain beverage after all. Good effort.

[Anonymous No.15692364]

Thoughts?

[Anonymous No.15692447]

>>15692364
I liked it, but is medical weed that easily used? My grandad had a bong, I don't know if he got it (the bong) from the doctor or it was just secondary.

[Anonymous No.15692479]

>>15692364
This has a self defeating attitude towards the grandma, that’s stupid.
It’s hard to tell much else about this though, it’s not really shown to the reader that the grandma is losing it, just described passively. What does her onomatopoeia look like? How do we know she hasn’t noticed him smoking her weed or reflected on Elliot treating her like she’s senile? How do we know Elliott really loves his grandma? How do we know if the grandma really needs all this help Elliot is giving her? Good exposition though

[Anonymous No.15692540]

OC, please be kind.

>24/6/2020 2:11AM hello butiful priyamvada?
>24/6/2020 2:16AM hi butiful wiman?
>24/6/2020 2:29AM u like desi cok?
>24/6/2020 2:42AM u sukc it cock?
>24/6/2020 2:59AM bautiful priyamvada?
>24/6/2020 3:02AM u fukc thisdesi?
>24/6/2020 3:07AM i h8 white man to
>24/6/2020 3:10AM u like desi?
>24/6/2020 3:12AM bitsch u anserr
>24/6/2020 3:28AM bithc u fuk u turnip

[Anonymous No.15692589]

>>15692364
This looks good, I like it. I few changes I think would make it flow better
>She gripped the colored pencil with ragged and bandaged fingers because she had a habit of chewing them until they bled
I think this would work better if it was "She gripped the colored pencil, fingers ragged and bandaged from her habit of chewing them until they bled"
>The page was filled with blue and brown scribbles because those were the only two colored pencils that she hadn't whittled down to oblivion
The pacing feels off. I'm not sure this is better but try: "The page was filled with blue and brown, the two survivors from a set that had been whittled down to oblivion"
>and other deliriums
I don't why this strikes me as wonky, but it does. Maybe I'm imagining it.
>delirious onomatopoeia
Take out delirious. Too soon after "deliriums", and it's not necessary.
>stopped seeing grandma as a real person
>but her condition had made her humanity twisted
I'd replace "grandma" with "her" and balance it by replacing "her condition" with "dementia". If you want Eliot to be especially nihilistic, you could even replace it with "old age".

I really like it though. I know this is a list but really, I'm listing everything I noticed. If I did that with a worse passage it could easily be a fucking essay. This is really good.

[σκυτιον No.15692736]

>>15692298
Lol thank you

[Anonymous No.15692945]

>>15691627
not my work, but i wanted to share a youtube short which i thought had amazing writing and is very lighthearted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhloQFe5Efs

>>15691692
no narrative in this one, feels like a string of text going nowhere. the ambiguity of the text makes it such that i feel as if after every line break you are talking about something else, which makes it hard to comprehend.

compare with the spy video, where there is a consistent momentum of directionality in the text

>>15691787
this is ok, but the problem is that its written from someone else's POV. the description is flowery, but without an implied subject, its quite hard to relate, and the flowery lang complexifies what is already a bit vague

compare with the spy video, its not filled with fancy language, but because everything directly relates to the TF2 spy (in a narratively coherent fashion), it comes across as very powerful

>>15691843
you are using more complicated language than you need to describe something that is relatively simple: complex emotions are conveyed via context and situation, not by words. again the spy video works very well despite its simply language because it is very vivid....

>>15691868
this is fine but i don't get what its trying to say, and as pure flower-lang i don't think its that super great.

i think the benefits of non-rhyming verse is that it allows you to be more expressive, which IMO is MUCH more important than rhyme

>>15692007
the best so far but the last line ruins it because it doesn't "resolve" anything....

>>15692204
nice-o,
good-o,
...but not quite...
an oreo!

>>15692364
this is fine/good as a hook, but you need to deliver on your promise. a bit pointlessly morbid 4 my tastes

[Anonymous No.15693169]

>>15692540
Through the use of restricted vernacular and internet timestamps, this piece really stands out as something bold and convincing.

>>15692364
>, but ...
>But his uncle...
Using two buts is a bit jarring so close to each other. Good prose though, reminds me a bit of DFW for the weed reference.

[Anonymous No.15693208]

>>15692540
"Turnip" seems more like a Central/Eastern European insult, try to find something more fitting. It's always shit like "fak u son of 1000 rats" or along those lines.

[Anonymous No.15693356]

>>15693169
You have some really good similes. "His voice fell on all ears like soft butter" and "like a discolored placenta"
I might try going through and sniping out any words you can get rid of and leave implied. For example "after the birth of dawn, which was fresh and rosy fingered" -> "after the birth of dawn, fresh and rosy fingered"

>>15692364
The joint description cracked me up but in a good way. Overall this is pretty good and feels real, dark but not grimdark.
You have a technique where you do [given description]->[meta-explanation] inside of a sentence. For example "...ragged and bandaged fingers -> because she had a habit of chewing..." and "...blue and brown scribbles -> because those were the only two colors..." I don't hate it as a device but I think using it too often close together starts to feel like telling me things I could figure out.
Also, similar thing with word-sniping that I mentioned to previous anon, and also in your case I would do it with commas too.

[Anonymous No.15693498]

>>15691868
I never quite understand the hatred for these sorts of poems. For me, poems are either awful, fine, or sublime; this, as of now, falls in the "fine" category. One could say it says little (in the way of a "deeper" message), but not all poems need a deeper message. Unless the entire poem is a metaphor, it seems like just a description. Now, I'm just providing minor, quickly-made suggestions. Implement them or not, it's all up to you.

The sun alit upon his fiery bough,
Eyeing with yen the pox of snails
Studding my walls, and the hill's brow,
Where swoops the kite and quarry quails

Life returns...
Fleeting souls forever adieu

The wizened desert scorched my feet
I felt my caged (with Shakespearean e) heart slack its beat
My eyes of smoke-glazed glass passed over
Enslaved majesty atop dried seabeds-
The worn cenotaph to an empire's closure,
as vast as the sun's wingspan spreads

Anointed lance
Pierced sky
The heavens...
Dark and...

etcetera

[Anonymous No.15693505]

>>15693356
>What is known by all need not be said nor should be
Kind of repetitive near the end there. Cut the sentence shorter. Only major flaw that stuck out to me. The rest of it flowed quite well and no one can fault that opening with Stockton blowing smoke out the shell hole, which was very well done. It flawlessly characterises him and sets up the scene/setting.

[Anonymous No.15694777]

>>15692204
I loved this except for 'besmear.' The tone is casual and conversational except for that choice of word.

>>15692364
First paragraph I would change >But his uncle to: >Still, his uncle

In general I think several short sentences read better than one long one (I'm a pleb I suppose). IMO, first sentence, second paragraph, would flow nicer like this: "Elliot knew that Grandma has been modest. She was one of the many shy and repressed women of the twentieth century. Her life was steeped in shame in submission." The first sentence of the last paragraph: "this all seemed to serve as a sort of epilogue to a narrative" I'd drop entirely.

>>15693356
This anon gets it

//

I just self-published 666 Haikus about Love and Crime and BDSM Degeneracy. Here's 6 of them. The rest are downloadable for free at KRSayers.com

[Anonymous No.15695194]

>>15694777
>I just self-published

[Anonymous No.15695443]

>>15694777
I like the shape and form of this, as well as the content. It's a good piece overall. I wouldn't have gotten any of the wider oeuvre of your work from this though.

[Anonymous No.15695480]

>>15693498
Alright thanks mate, yeh that is probably my biggest problem when I write, in that I can never come up with anything to write about. There's almost never a deeper meaning or message, or even just an interesting idea, so they are all exactly what they look like. The first one is just me looking at a bird eat some snails, the second one is a fella in the desert looking at a pyramid although I know I've not exactly made that clear, and the third one, well I don't even know what that one is supposed to be desu.

[Anonymous No.15695488]

LMAO HAHAHA HOLY HSHIT ROFL ROFL LOLOLOLO OMGOD AAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAHAHAHAHA LEWLEWLEWLEWLKEKEKEKEKE LMAROFLTK HOLMOLEE SHITTY TITTY. All of these are so fucking hilariously bad, thanks for the stitches faggots aHA.

[Anonymous No.15695534]

>>15691692

paraphrasing the lyrics of an anime soundtrack and using words like bairn is way too jarring

you'd be better off avoiding language that could be interpreted as pretentious if you want to include pop culture themes

[Anonymous No.15695657]

>>15695534

but I have no literary education so you can take that as you will

[Anonymous No.15695669]

>>15695657
Depends on your definition

[Anonymous No.15695705]

>>15695657
I liked something about it
I got an impression of a sensory divide where women imagine a still-life world of total silence absent real feeling or imperfection or struggle or something

[Anonymous No.15695732]

>>15695669
I just know that I don't know very much, it's not modesty

>>15695705
thanks

[Anonymous No.15695745]

>>15695732
You didn't write it, goober. If you did you'd be able to post proof. I said "depends on your definition" because I have been at a top 1% uni and did workshops in poetry there, but I still feel like that isn't really literary like Oxford. Stop pretending to be me, people can see who posts what in the warosu archive.

[Anonymous No.15695787]

>>15695745

i'm very confused by your post, I think one of us misunderstands something but I am too smooth brained to figure out who

[Anonymous No.15695798]

>>15695787
The other anon critiqued the first piece in the thread, and you jumped in pretending it was yours. Either you're being ironic or you literally thought a reply to another post was intended for you somehow. It's probably the former.

[Anonymous No.15695843]

>>15695798

can you go and do that warosu thing, for your own peace of mind?

[Anonymous No.15695881]

>>15695843
You're not very bright, are you? I literally have the (you) on this end. You do not.

[these are just notes No.15695885]

Crazy to think beauty has died completely
We will never be able to erase all the horrible nightmare shit of this world
We can’t get rid of the factories or ugly suburban scrawls
We can never get rid of the nightmarish freeways
Gone forever are the pristine city plannings, now it’s all traffic signs and ad billboard’s
You will never live in a beautiful world, and even if you did go to nature, the city would come crawling in like an Akira blob
The worst part is it’s all done with this face:


“Hey there friend, me and some other folks wanted to know if you’d like to come and get your FUCKIN nap time on with us? You seem like a cool cat”
Reality can’t even do me the dignity of robbing my sanctity with a soldier or some warrior. It’s just some pop funko collecting faggot with adult onesie pajamas and hipster cereal restaurants
At least early 1900s communists were drunk rapists that would fuck my wife and daughter before or after beheading me. These guys petition for gun emojis to be turned into water pistols. Partly for their fear of something stronger than them solidifying their innate and undealt with fear of death, and also because water pistols are fun for gay babies.

One time I was ask to leave a fabric store for asking “do you guys have one of those long arm guillotine things for cutting big swaths of paper?” Apparently “guys” is like holding a pocket knife in public. Not dangerous enough to be arrested, but enough to be removed from polite society. I eventually found a long arm guillotine paper cutter thing by walking into the nearest community college shit hole Muslim and Chinese breeding ground. It had a rubber cap on the blade to prevent it from cutting your finger, as well as paper. Fitting torture for the hell im stuck inside of.

Sometimes I daydream of running at a cop and grabbing his gun just to see what would happen. Suicide by cop? Or local folk hero cop killer in the making? Who knows or cares, that’s the spirit of Russian roulette. Except Russians have a disgusting Eurasian phenotype that reminds me of the teens who rape elementary school kids, but not in a gay way.
I think we might be 4th dimensional entities that got punished and were sent to the third dimension to suffer for our crimes.
And happy successful people are just caretakers to watch and taunt us.
To add some perspective to our suffering.
Every yuppie fuck who rides around the bum infested shithole that is modern day Seattle and thinks to himself “these houseless folks are much smarter than me” while they smell their dried cum fingers and steal cords from the trash, all while fag funko here keeps listening to the newest Steven universe vs Scott pilgrim rap battle mix his friend TJ made. Unbeknownst to him, an amazon delivery van barrels right into the young faggaladuciono and he is creamed. Smeared across the road, his body dragging across the rainbow crosswalk that cost the city $600,000 per crosswalk to paint seven colored lines.

1/2

[these are just notes No.15695888]

>>15695885
Definitely not the pedophile mayor Ed Murray’s way of laundering money into his bank account.

Surely kshama sawant didn’t learn from him and abandon her Trotskyist roots to launder money from the city by conflating social and homeless issues to the point of absolute nightmare tier, to gain public support for policies needing enormous amounts of tax dollars to be razed off the top from the nearby tech conglomerate spouting off neoliberal CIA psyops through Whole Foods loudspeaker announcements. Surely Kshama Sawant wouldn’t partner with the bill and Melinda gates fohndatikn and pyramid communications (a pr firm in downtown Seattle) to enact a fake agenda and disinformation campaign across all the nearby newspapers and universities, spreading false statistics about homeless people being the fault of amazon. Surely she wouldn’t ignore the data showing the bums were more than 90% from out of town and didn’t get priced out. Surely she wouldn’t need $20 Billion dollars to make the homeless crisis three times worse in 2 years. I mean, what would she need money for? She only works directly for an organization that sends people across America to inject their members into small city councils to slowly shift the Overton window into allowing trotskyists into public office.

Trotsykists definitely don’t live in Leschi, the most expensive lakeside neighborhood in Seattle, where the median home price in the city is ~1million, so a mansion would cost much more. But a public servant would never have enough money to get a mortgage on a mansion on the water, after all, she would never devise a plan to tax all big businesses in Seattle $550 per employee to pay for bums to fuck up our city and leave cum and needles everywhere. Nobody would be accidentally stupid enough to advocate for city funded heroin vans and free needles. This couldn’t possibly be a concerted effort to keep her career in place by offering a wya out by penalizing the local workers. Kshama Sawant definitely doesn’t work downtown and have to go to a physical location on a regular occurrence where she doesn’t wear a bullet proof vest or have much protection at all. She surely would never just do a speech in public where a lone gunman could charge the stage and stop her from ruining a major city for career moves.

She certainly wouldn’t be asking for it.

Leon Trotsky was assassianted by a lone young man with a single blow from an ice pick in his office in Mexico.

2/2

[Anonymous No.15695951]

So easily You let Yourself be seen ,
Amidst the balmy beating of the rays
That brought Your Sacred Fire. Warmth has been
A solace and a refuge all my days.

How can with frozen fingers I entice
That glow henceforth? How sinned have I to be
Condemned to wither, suffocate in ice,
To share the fate of Judas, scorned by Thee?

Perhaps I waste my words. Perhaps You died,
Else been by cold usurped. No hoar-frost God
Has sympathised with me when I have cried
Ice-salt into the barren blue-black clod.

A touch of sacred fire would serve well,
Yet I am rendered numb in this white Hell.

[Anonymous No.15696218]

>tfw can't even upload an excerpt because my story would make no fucking sense.

[Anonymous No.15697189]

>>15695951
Kino. But rate others

[Anonymous No.15697257]

>>15695480
That's fine, I often have the same problem. There's no harm in it, just write what you will, and write it well. Be your first and greatest critic, and then post to crit threads, and you'll be on the way to success eventually, hopefully. And don't ever let assholes get you down- they never contribute to the threads, anyway. If they do, and their work is better, avail yourself of their work and see what they did well. That way, they unwittingly help you, while their original intention- to hurt- goes unfulfilled. Godspeed

[Anonymous No.15698111]

https://pastebin.com/FKJAzQyZ

[Anonymous No.15698234]

>>15697257
Cheers bossman, obviously going to carry on writing, and hopefully improving as time goes on. You've gotta have your critics so I don't mind too much if someone starts slagging it off, it only makes me want to write better stuff, gives me a bit more drive than if I was just getting praised all the time.

[Anonymous No.15698301]

>>15698111
>since he was the age of six, when he was laid off.
This reads like he was laid off at six.
>a parcel of land that totaled about forty acres of scrubland in the backwoods of Oregon, as a wedding present.
a parcel of land as a wedding present that totalled about forty acres of scrubland in the backwoods of Oregon.
>I didn't know at the time, but it was a bit of both.
Cringe, just cut "I didn't know at the time". When DID he know, anyway? The narrator says his father only told the truth once, so it can't be after the narration. Does the narrator mean he didn't know back in that time, when he was a baby? No.
>and we're arranged
and they were arranged
>in obscene patterns
What is an "obscene" pattern? Show, don't tell.
>Marsha has wanted
had wanted
>It was then
Cringe. Cliche.
>June 9th, 1955
This is so confusing, since it continues the flashback narration in 1929 instead of 55. Why even have this framing device? And combined with the melodramatic hooves reveal, the date is too much. I'll stop here.

[Anonymous No.15698373]

Please /CRIT/, am trying to work on my prose.

>>15694777
what's the longest story you've written in Haiku form? I've experimented with something like that but it was long ago when I didn't know wtf I was doing.
Needless to say I like it, though "agonizingly slowly" does bring out my autism a bit.

[Anonymous No.15698932]

>>15695443
I like this a lot. I have a bias for saying as much as possible with the fewest words.

>>15695888
I like your style, and the run on / rant fits the tone well. my only piece of critique is that the phrase "gone forever are the" doesn't read naturally, I think it works against the stream of consciousness (for lack of a better term) that you're achieving with the rest of the piece.

>>15695951
this is excellent. It's a personal stylistic preference that i would replace Amidst and Henceforth with more modern vernacular equivalents, but I enjoyed this front to back and the structure is immaculate.

>>15698373
This first piece, which is 666 haikus, is the longest I've done. they're all in groups of 6, so to my mind it reads like 111 short chapters- but there are themes and metaphors that play out across the piece.

>>15695194
What else do you want me to say, my man? I wrote a thing, got a cover, and am marketing and selling paperbacks on amazon. Nobody else published me, but I'm not just throwin shit up on the internet. Feel free to suggest a better term than "self-published" (and I say that with no sarcasm- if there's a better way to say it, let me know)

[Anonymous No.15700140]

>>15695951
mmmmm

[Anonymous No.15700330]

>>15698932
the word chokefuck in your work inspired me to excrete this, thanks anon

I really think you start out strong with the first stanza. The sense of corruption with the 'which was heroin' is nicely pithy and sets the tone for a more cynical pattern, which I was expecting.

I'd drop the 'blonde' from the girlfriend bit, feels a little over-descriptive to my eyes.

Full disclosure I think the shovelling dirt on graves imagery is a little trite but that might be because I've used similar before. Similarly 'it was an honor' doesn't make sense to me-- even at a funeral for someone considered a 'burnout', shovelling dirt would still be honorific no matter who it was for. Funerals tend to bring out the maudlin and forgiving aspects in people, so maybe try to tap into that sense of appropriation wherein some attendees try to characterise their relationship as deeper than it actually was. Just spitballing but hope you see what I'm getting at.

Otherwise I liked a lot of it, good sentiment

[Anonymous No.15700350]

>>15700140
Good mmmm or bad mmmm?

[Anonymous No.15700417]

>>15698373
Be careful with attribution, for example when you say "smashing the boy's right wrist and bringing the revolver in its grip forth," that's a bit confusing because we don't think of wrists as having grips and also because revolvers do have grips.

There's a few times where you use "then" and could probably snipe it to tighten things up. "Carrol then drove" -> "Carrol drove" etc. The best place for "then" is usually if you're doing very long sentences and need to space out actions inside them.

Some of the vocabulary is stilted in my opinion, like saying the bullet "eviscerated" the jugular, I think something simpler could have more impact there. Ripped, tore, dug into, gauged, bored through, etc. I'm not against the word eviscerated but the connotations feel wrong there, to me.

If he sees the gun, it's not unseen. I get that it was previously unseen but I think there's another way to say it

Be careful about loading backstory into dialog. It strikes me as weird that the kid would specify the town where they both know the father was killed, for example. "Dead in a puddle" is a nice phrase and I'd probably clip it off there

I hate semicolons, it may just be a taste thing but I would replace those with periods.

One more thing that might just be taste, I would drag this out a bit more. It all happens very quickly.

Good work anon, keep writing!

[Anonymous No.15700435]

Join our pro review group
[e-mail]

[Anonymous No.15700811]

>>15700330
I like the excetion! I'd like to see you expand on it.

Burnout was his name as well as an apt description. It's all I ever called him. And I did get to shovel some dirt onto his grave, and felt honored that I got to do that for him (jews refer to it as the only favor you can't repay).

However, I can appreciate that the image and the wording are both trite, especially with literary interpretations. All i can say in response is: They're true.

[Anonymous No.15701161]

>>15700417
>I hate semicolons, it may just be a taste thing but I would replace those with periods.
What terrible advice.

[Anonymous No.15701246]

>>15700435
What do you guys do? Just publish stories or give feedback?

[Anonymous No.15701261]

>>15701246
We give each other feedback. We've got a couple of published authors and professional editors, it's cool.

[Anonymous No.15701353]

>>15701261
I sent an email. Do you guys just email or have like ZOOM/Skype meetings?

[Anonymous No.15701462]

this bread has inspired me, here we go fags
>>15698111
You started off really shaky imo with the repetition of certain simple words inciting muh 'tism.
Your description of the dilapidated cabin was great though. Keep it up!

[Anonymous No.15701512]

>>15701161
Fag.

[Anonymous No.15701739]

I struck headlong into the darkness
Beautiful sinister symphony, sing me to sleep.
A temptress of sanctity,
almost had me sane.
Let me be shackled selflessly.
Glowing embers glow keenly,
fire burns too quick.
And why would I risk it all,
when I could burn out.

[Anonymous No.15702315]

>>15698301
Oath man. I'll keep working on it.
>>15701462
Same goes from before. May have to do a top-down rewrite.

[Anonymous No.15702421]

>>15702315
>Same goes from before.
>May have to do a top-down rewrite.
???

[Anonymous No.15703003]

[Anonymous No.15703383]

>>15698111
This needs a thorough re-write. I made it to the part about "arryone knows de hoss haz got emmselvfl a fower of dems dere hooffies" afores I dun got taird of tranz-a-latin' dat der dialeck'. Which is a shame, because you have a good mind for solid, visceral detail and the set-up is really good. You have provoked questions in my mind, which I would love to see answered if it weren't such a chore. Also, your sentences kinda run on a bit. As another anon mentioned, I don't see the point of the framing device or the backstory. People live in backcountry cabins all the time for no particular reason, you don't need to justify that. If I had to pick one major flaw it's that you're packing more detail into the story than it can hold. Cut out some of the downhome country aesthetic and cut to the chase.

Anyway, here is a story which I originally posted as a greentext on /x/, but which I decided to develop into a longer form. For whatever reason, it was deleted from reddit dot com's nosleep subforum shortly after posting. Reader beware: you're in for a scare!
https://pastebin.com/WBpdX82x

[Anonymous No.15703872]

Sodomite puritans play poker
in a Detroit automobile factory
turned speakeasy, hard and loud.
A geology speaks up,
down from the dais—
"North is South, magnetically."

"Okay," no one coughs
and the pot fattens to TLC proportions.
The signage encircling the city outskirts
spells out a parable, old and mutated:
there is no linguistic translation.

But the urbanites, there solitary bundling,
sneer here, there, and hiss a smelling tongues.
No grass, no snakes, the park closed to walkers
buckles tectonically and the DOW shoots down dissent.

The language of citadels compresses into sound-
bitten by serrated canal, lamprey's lighting the grid.

All bets are off; back in five.
Triple your money, we're live.
The amoeba pundits punt a fieldless goal
and miss, the melanoma is the mole
(naked and afraid, Hobbes rolls
a lucky number seven, extols
the virtue of—well, you know—
simmer down, ye boiled shoals).

[Anonymous No.15703894]

She was a geisha
prim nose and bound feet
her parole officer gives her her due
the family denounces—who?
such a life, lived, loved, lost.
How much does a hooker really cost?

[Anonymous No.15704008]

1/2, will give criticism afterwards

Prayer drifts faintly across the valley from multiple sources. I don't really see them as individual human beings anymore, but I'm not particularly aware of it. Maybe that's endemic. The immediacy of war provokes different reactions from different people, but I'd come here to find something to suffer for, some kind of material justification for a privileged malaise. I'm just biding my time. I'd done my research (people die in war, fact) and, lacking the courage to inflict it upon myself, resolved to let someone else do it. Any step you took here could be your last. That much I'd been able to independently verify. Nobody would be able to tell me anything about apocryphal Hollywood basements without first assailing my confidence in the full five senses. Violence is very far from abstraction for me.

I am not in good graces with my fellows. I've managed to internally separate myself from the violence, but the disapproval of the men (children, really, like myself) around me is something to which I am forever vulnerable. There's a simple chain of causality to an IED. There's a man who made it and one who emplaced it. There's a surprising amount of ingenuity to the well-compensated grassroots industry around bombmaking which rarely gets any credit outside of the men doing the fighting and dying. For all the high minded Western derision of the local combatants, when it comes down to it, they aren't that much different from us. War is a business for them as well, and individuals have widely varying, specific reasons for engaging in it which rarely reflect external assumption.

It's widely parroted that there are no atheists in foxholes, but there are no theists either, in my experience -- there are only men in foxholes. To experience a bullet's snap as it passes close-by is to experience the melting away of anything other than instantaneous existence as you touch on something fundamental. The Queen is at Buckingham, your mother is asleep, your wife gets fucked by a guy in a rear-oriented snapback with tribal tattoos who doesn't take his socks off before he cums early and unsatisfyingly inside her as the economy crashes, and none of it matters. It's predictable. It happens every time.

I can't predict the next point at which I will invite the cruelty of my peers. In a space where fucking up gets people killed, I am a fuck-up unrealized. I understand why I am disliked, but I'm seemingly powerless to change. I want to change, but I'm weak. My reasons for being here are not strong enough. I endure for the sake of enduring. I accept it all implicitly, but I am overwhelmed. My mental limit in this place is to accept and endure. When I fuck up, it comes as a surprise to myself most of all. Where I should see simplicity, I create for myself a labyrinth in the heart of Byzantium, where indecision inverts and no roads lead to Rome.

[Anonymous No.15704010]

>>15704008
2/2
It's only been two months, but those two months have come and gone slowly, punctuated by endless patrols under a hundred pounds of gear, with the threat of death intermittently pushing itself through to a messy manifestation. It's only been two months, but between two hours' stretches of sleep (don't they know that REM cycles are roughly 45 minutes long?) in a cramped longhouse, I've been thinking of accelerating the whole process.
"I don't know how much longer I can do this," I say to myself out loud, internal and external worlds colliding.
"Why's that?" he asks, interested but without compassion -- thank God for that.
I'm fully jolted out of my reverie. I'd completely forgotten I wasn't alone atop this rammed earth hut, overlooking the valley. I know his name but we've never spoken. I don't know what to say. The truth comes out instead.
"I don't understand any of it. I don't want to fuck up anymore. I hate myself for it."
He laughs at me as if I've made a joke. I reach for his eyes and find only mirth.
"You fucking dumbass," he says, and lets it sit for a while. I scan the treeline for contact in the interim. I'm halfway lost within myself again before he continues. "They think you don't care."
This surprises me, but immediately makes sense. Earlier that day the QRF had pushed out in response to an IED. Two men had died. When the QRF had returned, I'd sullenly and silently opened the gate to our compound without a word spoken. The Camouflaged Visitation's tireless Pavlovians trigger nothing but the desire for flight. Insight is cheap and solves nothing, but I'm grateful.
"I do care," I say softly, "but…"
A jagged emotion wedges itself in my parched throat, looks for grooves grown calcified in misuse.
"Look," he starts, "I really don't care what you do. It doesn't affect me. I watch people -- there isn't shit else to do out here -- and I'm telling you what I see. What you do with it is on you."
I don't see any malice in him, just the blunt honesty of a combat soldier. He didn't have to say it. He could have just pretended he didn't hear me. I didn't mean to say it in the first place. Realization lurks below the surface as we lapse back into silence, but I still descend the ladder feeling lighter underneath my armored vest.
"Legs behind the head," a man says to me. He's talking about fucking my sister again. Defending her imaginary honor is a hill I've died on many times. He's a flexible guy, a former ballerino, and draws his own legs behind his head as I enter the makeshift barracks. He pantomimes orgasm.
"You want to fuck my sister? Go ahead, I don't give a shit. You're gonna fly her out here on your dime though."
The resulting laughter is panacea.

[Anonymous No.15704051]

>>15703872
>But the urbanites, there solitary bundling,
This is a fantastic line. Really enjoyed this.

[Anonymous No.15704983]

>>15704008
>>15704010
>Where I should see simplicity, I create for myself a labyrinth in the heart of Byzantium, where indecision inverts and no roads lead to Rome.

I really like this part. As for the rest, I think it's pretty boring, anon. You should probably cut off on that long soliloquy and avoid tryhard imagery such as the snapback guy

[Anonymous No.15704999]

>>15691627
COUNTER

[Anonymous No.15705310]

>>15704999
Pretty good. But not good enough. ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORAAAAA!

[Anonymous No.15705596]

>>15705310
H-he's fast!

[Anonymous No.15705628]

>>15695951
I enjoyed this a lot, but had to think a bit to realise the narrator has left a warmer climate for a cold one. I would perhaps alter the first quatrain to make this more obvious, or else commit to the theme of bleak coldness.

Either way, that's just my preference. I think this is one of the better poems I've ever seen posted on /lit/. Well done.

[Anonymous No.15705832]

The shit has dried around my ass hole, forming a shit-wafer which might be eased tenderly off living flesh, observing carefully the delicacy of the substance clinging clinging clinging then slowly releasing its hold on a bare-again sphincter winking into Turds' End, a recursion of sorts, a fecal fractal. I clean the dribble from my cock and hand with paper towels first, and then in the sink with an extra moment's attention paid to my finger. Paul's been paid, and Peter had nothing to do with it.

[Anonymous No.15705921]

>>15695657
When the sun and her body align, a show of ephemeral fireworks can be seen on the surface of her heart. Through the violet ridges, scarlet threads of glitter shine like an abundant waterfall. Despite being invisible with the cloud cloaked sun, these candied webs of irridescent strands are eternal; an everlasting imprint on her most primary organ.

[Anonymous No.15705993]

>>15703872
this is almost perfect, one of the best things I've ever read on this board...

my only complaints would be these minor things

the redundancy of " linguistic translation"

"lamprey's" should have no apostrophe since this seems plural

"hiss a smelling tongues", can't have the "a" article with the plural "tongues"... make it "the smelling tongues

[Anonymous No.15706119]

>>15704983
>tryhard imagery such as the snapback guy
I really like the snapback guy though. Snapback guy is the one thing I'm most proud of. Also I'm still very much work in progress on first draft so far. I'm writing the entire thing as basically one long soliloquy. I've never done this before, but my plan for now is to just let it all come out and edit heavily, with expansions of ideas/scenes that need more to be fleshed out, or even just rewrites. I think I'm kind of expecting to spend at least as long rewriting as I do writing.

[Anonymous No.15706170]

Just wrote this now, let me know if you like it or not pls

Her beauty is like a hot summer’s day
Overbearing and uncomfortable
If I go inside to cool myself down
Her heat will only return inside me
To burn into my mind, holes in my eyes
And a vengeance in my desperate heart
To quench the fire that she stokes in me

[Anonymous No.15706305]

>>15706170
There's not much to it. It's very plainly written and the emotion it wants me to feel isn't exactly uncommon. I'm not convinced enough by it to feel anything. Your usage of language is very linear and doesn't flow well. Try reaching for something outside your comfort zone.

[Anonymous No.15706404]

>>15706305
Thank you for your input

[Anonymous No.15707467]

>>15705993
Hey thanks man this means a lot

and yeah sorry about the typos I kinda just pumped it out drunk last night

I like your suggestions and will def implement

thanks again, lmk if anything in the thread is yours, id love to return the favor

[Anonymous No.15707521]

>>15706170
I'd condense it from here; I like the idea in the first two lines, but they can be smushed together in some way and once you do this for the rest you can start incorporating more complicted themes
>>15704008
>>15704010
aside from the occassional awkward word, the flow is good here and I'm definitely intrigued, but it's not subtle, like, at all.
if you're going for an ironic distance, or a kind of sardonic "tropeyness" then it works, but if you separated a lot of the points being made by description and a little ambiguity it would come off as a lot more mature. just my thoughts.

>>15703894
I actually really like this. tight, poignant, with a good rhyme sceme.
yeah, this is good.

if anyone could read my passage and just tell me if the joke near the end about Henry being invisble is cringey or not, id appreciate

[Anonymous No.15707818]

>>15707521
>but it's not subtle, like, at all
Yeah, see that now. The idea with these flashback passages is to ground the story concretely, but maybe I'm going a little bit too hard. I'm dealing at the very least with two interwoven time periods, and the other one (or two) goes way off into abstraction la la land. The overarching idea is that the present is an unknowable morass and the past is as concrete as your memory allows it to be, and I'm playing around with having two writing styles for the whole thing, one which is mostly stream of consciousness and another which is blunt, military frankness with as little ornamentation as I'm comfortable with. If it comes off as immature, that's alright I hope -- I was 19 years old and immature for my age when this shit happened, and I'm kind of just writing what I know. Can you clarify what you mean by it being tropey though? I don't really understand I think.

The joke in your passage just reads cleverly to me, no cringe. Thank you for your input.

[Anonymous No.15707860]

>>15707818
I think you can be a little more unclear, desu, and impart a sort of confusion to contrast the conreteness of your story/military narrator. it'll probably take a few reqrite to see what is approriately 'mystifying' and what ends up just being obfuscating, but the benefit of having it so clear now is youve got a good base to get weird and expiremnt

by tropey i think I just grasp the idiom immediately: grizzled, war-weary cynic coping with a loss of hope. it is something that COULD BE corny, if it were just spit out without any thought but to emulate others before it, but it;s like your concrete frame: you're working within a pretty well established idiom, so you can get creative and weird and I think people will still identify what you're saying.


also, thanks man, thats good to hear

[Anonymous No.15707979]

>>15703383
>Anyway, here is a story which I originally posted as a greentext on /x/, but which I decided to develop into a longer form. For whatever reason, it was deleted from reddit dot com's nosleep subforum shortly after posting. Reader beware: you're in for a scare!https://pastebin.com/WBpdX82x
Bumping my post because I haven't gotten any feedback yet.

[Spanish-phone anon No.15708109]

“”Me fui al puente Saavedra” decía una nota de cuaderno a rayas, escrita en lápiz, en el frente de la puerta. Era un día frio y seco, sin niebla pero aún así oscuro, casi como una preparación para astronautas en una agencia espacial. El joven inquilino, de sólo 17 años, se había puesto sus mejores zapatos, los había lustrado, hasta acompañó su camisa Hilffiger con una corbata negra, y se había asegurado de tomar una mezcla alcohólica que casi violaba la convención de Ginebra. Un par de viajes en colectivo después, estaba sentado al borda del puente, con su mochila aún puesta y el cuerpo temblando, tratando de mirar hacia arriba y no hacia abajo. En su mochila sólo tenía más alcohol, el cual empezó a consumir ante las súplicas e historia de una pequeña muchedumbre que se había congregado.
Cuando estaba por incorporarse, notó a un niño al lado suyo. Era un niño con la cabeza rapada, vestido de negros, con botas tácticas, y unas cadenas colgando de su cintura.
“Vete a casa, niño, ve con tu mamá” le dijo el joven entre hipos de borrachera.
El niño solo untó su dedo en un frasquito y con una sustancia negra marcó un punto en el piso.
“Este es el tiempo. Es un punto. Todo sucede al mismo tiempo; si estas a vivo ahora, es que nunca estás muerto, pues si estuvieras muerto ¿Cómo podría el tú que esta en el punto estar vivo? Y, apenas hubo terminado de explicar su razonamiento, el niño le dio un empujón.
Había esperado disolverse en el vacío, o mejor dicho, no había esperado nada, aguardaba la completa extinción de sus sentidos y cognición. La física demostró que el vacío existe, pero el esperaba la no-existencia. En cambio se encontraba en su habitación, la única de su departamento, con las cajas apiladas llenas de revistas, su colchoneta en el piso con las sábanas sin tender. En frente suyo, ahí estaba: el niño que lo había empujado. Ahora tenía un punto negro entre las cejas.

[Anonymous No.15708273]

>>15708109
When small-minded people suffer, they say pic related

[Anonymous No.15708359]

>>15708109
>>15708273
>posts mexican sounds
>posts picture of a looboy
What did he mean by this?

[Anonymous No.15708394]

>>15708359
i DEFEND mexican superiority over anglos and i DEFEND indian defecation culture

[Anonymous No.15708839]

When I die.
They will analyze my hide.
find the makeup of my perfect skin.
It will be nothing but porcelain.

[Anonymous No.15709196]

>>15691627
Laying in long gone lips
whose smile, my absinthe,
my mind tickles with her tips.

So a poor soul was found
In her red bed, so dead!
Laying now beneath the mound!

I am prince of those hills,
Arcadia's king, yet buried alone
Once long gone into the mouth.

[Anonymous No.15710567]

sa • tis • fac • tion

it has been
two years

out of practice
out of motion

an object at rest
will tend to stay at rest

i yearn for salt –
for press

lips have never been
simple things

your lips made some
sense, then

words are only ever
precursors to hurt & love

blue-electric nights
red eyes, white flashes

flags flying for
opposition and surrender

push, pull, go, stop,
dance, stay still, my stomach is –

it only ever was a
little brown nest of twigs –

cruel nature;
dividing gradients, then lines

i am not the one to tell you
but you beg me

while i looked away
a quick and silent exit;

suppose any answer
would've done it…

now, alone, a kind of
cold peace.

[Anonymous No.15710579]

>>15708839
yuck sorry man

[Anonymous No.15710620]

>>15710579
fuck you

[Anonymous No.15710695]

>>15708839
>>15710579
>>15710620

if anyone was wondering, this is generally how you should conduct yourself in a crit thread.

[Anonymous No.15712380]

bumpe

[Anonymous No.15712414]

Georgian skins abound in the meadow
Taking their fill of the nocturn pool
Each moondrop devoured
Casting off their gold

[Anonymous No.15712447]

Five years had passed since he left me. I pulled my bra off and settled in the chair. Cool leather on my warm skin. A relief from the toil of the day. I hold down the PlayStation button to be greeted by the familiar opening tone and welcoming light springing to life from the controller. All the time he spent on his stupid games. Work. Game. Sleep. Never enough time in the day. And here I was. A controller slippery with tears.

[Anonymous No.15712493]

Old father bones
Shook up the stove
And sweet mother nose
Up inside your clothes

Is It in there?
You get used to hell
Hello farewell
A greetings spell

Oh so well grown
It can hold their own
Learn to oil your tongue
Keep that ego numb

The speech turns to tell
You get used to hell
Oh my oh well
Blind like a skill

Everywhere you look
You see spots that move
Minor pricks and pulls
Little crawling rules

Then it rings a bell
“You get used to hell!”
Every rip you weld
Is a hole you fill

Pull the picture frame
Coat it in a paint
Wrap it in a shade
Keep the picture safe

Focus of fell
You believe in hell
Songs of love and lack
Enacts a cushion forborne

[Anonymous No.15712501]

Old father bones
Shook up the stove
And sweet mother nose
Up inside your clothes

Is It in there?
You get used to hell
Hello farewell
A greetings spell

Oh so well grown
It can hold their own
Learn to oil your tongue
Keep that ego numb

The speech turns to tell
You get used to hell
Oh my oh well
Blind like a skill

Everywhere you look
You see spots that move
Minor pricks and pulls
Little crawling rules

Then it rings a bell
“You get used to hell!”
Every rip you weld
Is a hole you fill

Pull the picture frame
Coat it in a paint
Wrap it in a shade
Keep the picture safe

Focus of fell
You believe in hell
Songs of love and lack
Enact a cushion forborne

[Anonymous No.15712527]

>>15703872
good shit

[Anonymous No.15712591]

>>15710567
>cold peace
haha it's a poopie

[Anonymous No.15712609]

>>15708839
double end rhyme
all the time
put my dear
cliche right here

[Anonymous No.15712626]

She, bawdy, billowing, bellowing, beckons to a stillborn man "Just a step closer" and retreats.

[Anonymous No.15712635]

>>15712626
Is this every time you look at the new calvin klein model?

[Anonymous No.15712650]

Day today:
>walk dog
>think about story while walking
>have everything I need for a story in my head
>sit down after walk and write 700 words in one sitting
>show friends and family, "hey this is good anon"
>eat lunch
>go back and write 500 more words and finish the prologue, as well as the first line of chapter one
>1200 words exactly
>all in one day's work. Lie down and begin reading an academic piece of literary criticism
>bored go on the Chans
>need to repay myself for a hard day's work
>yep it's cooom time
>open /gif/

[Anonymous No.15712804]

“And I’m not saying he’s guilty, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if he is, and I wouldn’t shoot him if he were, but I wouldn't bring him back to life.” He handed me a gun to punctuate the chronological imagery. He’s guilty. He is. Shoot him. Bring him back. Not alive.

“Understood,” I replied. He handed me a receipt.

>turns out he's actually just imagining everything
Is this too cheesy? If I made it clearly apolitical and just had him barge into a chuckie cheese would people still get the wrong idea?

[Anonymous No.15712882]

>>15712804
>this probably just makes it a jew thing

[Anonymous No.15712909]

>>15691868
embarrassing, could you imagine reading this in front of an auditorium? or even in front of your parents? It'd be the end of your social life thats for sure. I'd be elbowing the man next to me to heckle you before the thrid stanza was over.

>>15692007
An improvement, but it was over before I got endeared to it. Still, second poem in the thread that has "the sun" in the first line, this whole fucking board... I swear to god you fucking neets haven't opened your curtains in so long you don't even remember how it looks like.


>>15692131
Milles ahead of its predecesors, cant belive im the first one to reply to you, don't know about your intention, but it works better as a theater script than as a poem.

>>15692945
the spy video is great, first time I laughed at something in days.

>>15695657
I liked it anon.

>>15695951
The beginning and the end are on a whole other level, but perhaps the whole "hoar-frost" "ice-salt" and "blue-black" shebang was used one to many times as a device to set the pace.

>>15708109
>una preparación para astronautas en una agencia espacial.
What does this even mean tho. It doesn't evoke anything.
>una mezcla alcohólica que casi violaba la convención de Ginebra
gave me a chuckle.
All and all, it's like a 5/10, not insulting but not particularly talented either; my final score is "you write like and argie, I can tell you are a degenerate IRL, stop hanging out with people with no future."
>>15708394
Ok, pic related is for you then, hope you enjoy it.

[Anonymous No.15713199]

>>15712447
>I pulled my bra off and
May i plz see ur boobs my queen

[Anonymous No.15713786]

Clutched from the archives once more.

[Anonymous No.15713808]

>>15712909
Hey, thank you for your critique. I'm
>>15695951

I did wonder if I had overused hyphenation in that third quatrain. Do you think if I got rid of hoar-frost, the other two could stay with it working? What made that quatrain weaker for you in comparison with the rest? Appreciate your feedback.

[Anonymous No.15713895]

>>15705832
Beautifully written , it made me vomit.

[Anonymous No.15713907]

>>15705832
Felt like I was reading Nabokov. Real sick shit, anon, but good job.

[Anonymous No.15714181]

>>15695657
My only complaint is rhythm. Remove “the” from the second line, as including it makes the rhythm feel off. Other then that, it’s pretty good. This one’s an introduction to an old fairytale I’ve been writing for sometime now. I wanted the mood in this first paragraph to be calm and comfy, so hopefully I did that.

She slept beneath a sea of stars. It was well and good, that rest, but to her, each night seemed to blend together. When the moon rose, men of the wood closed their doors, animals would come out from the thick brushel, and giants waded through trees like tall grass; such as it had been since anyone could remember. But when she first saw the stars come dancing across the sky, beautiful and numerous, she thought this to be a night in which a most wondrous thing would come to the forest.

[Anonymous No.15714398]

Been struggling with continuing this story. The beginning and end feels clear in my head but the in-between isn't piecing together.

As for this, I think I'm still trying to emulate Lovecraft too much, which I've been told (when I was doing it intentionally) was a slog to get through.

[Anonymous No.15714516]

>>15714398
The flow is really poor, and it felt as much a slog to read it as it probably did to write. Of all the things Lovecraft to mimick, the prose should be the last. He just wasn't that great a writer, or even an uncommon one. His vision was what was uncommon. So to ape Lovecraft's content as well as his voice is to really just miss the mark entirely. Lovecraft is only something you can be influenced by if you want to be taken seriously. Channeling him just doesn't work. Ever.

[Anonymous No.15714536]

>>15714516

Figured as much. Back to the drawing board.

[Anonymous No.15714545]

>>15714536
I'm not saying quit writing it. Writing anything is an opportunity to learn. Not everything needs to be published, or even publishable, in order for the author to get something out of it. Now, I'm not saying that you should keep writing it either, so take from that what you will.

[Anonymous No.15714558]

>>15714545

I took it more as a "take another look at how to write this." I have a real disconnect between how I visualise a scene in my head and how to put that into words.

[Anonymous No.15714559]

>>15691767
>>15691809
>>15691840
>>15691844
>>15691851
>>15691856
>>15691864
>>15691880
>>15692075
>>15692089
>>15692150
>>15692210
>>15692222
>>15692287
>>15692447
>>15692479
>>15692589
>>15692736
>>15693208
>>15693505
>>15695488
>>15695881
>>15696218
>>15697189
>>15698234
>>15700350
>>15700811
>>15701353
>>15701512
>>15701739
>>15702421
>>15703003
>>15704051
>>15705596
>>15705628
>>15705921
>>15706119
>>15706404
>>15707467
>>15707860
>>15707979
>>15709196
>>15710695
>>15712380
>>15712414
>>15712527
>>15712591
>>15712609
>>15712635
>>15712650
>>15712882
>>15713199
>>15713786
>>15713808
>>15713895
>>15713907
>>15714181
>>15714536
sneed

[Anonymous No.15714566]

>>15714545
>>15714536
You could try editing what you've got extensively and see if you can keep going at some point if you quit writing it entirely. Very few authors (if they exist) can just write a first draft and have something worth anything on their hands. The best authors you've ever read are also likely the best editors you've ever read. Editing is a skill arguably more important than writing, and it is a skill to be able to see your own writing and work with it as if it were someone else's.

[Anonymous No.15714573]

>>15714558
I personally take it from the other direction and from the words let the scene emerge, for the most part. But I'm nobody, take what I say with a grain of salt.

[Anonymous No.15714575]

>>15714566

I think it would make more sense for me to throw everything down so I have the story completed, take a break and then go for the extensive editing route. I don't think there's necessarily any thing wrong with the idea, but the current execution is sub-par.

[Anonymous No.15715011]

>>15713895
>>15713907
These are two of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.

[Anonymous No.15715945]

[Anonymous No.15717060]

>>15713808
>Do you think if I got rid of hoar-frost, the other two could stay with it working?
I think hoar-frost works the better of the 3, but then again, I think you have a broader use of the english language than I do.
> What made that quatrain weaker for you in comparison with the rest?
II don't think it has any glaring weaknesses, is just a matter of contrast, the first line just immediately sucks you in and the last ones are the perfect farewell.

[Anonymous No.15717832]

>>15713808
hoar-frost is fine, but you could substitute it with frigid or rimy or something like that. I'd personally remove one of the hyphenations in the last line. Add a comma after barren and replace ice-salt with something like "icicles" or change it to crying upon his feet while he, the unsympathetic, hoar-frost god stares on, impassively (which would be redolent of the sinful woman washing Jesus' feet with her tears).

[Anonymous No.15718457]

[Anonymous No.15719568]

>>15710695
fucking lol.

>>15710579
nah but I'm with this guy

[Anonymous No.15720119]

Quiero enamorarme de algo y amarlo tanto hasta el punto que literalmente me muera y deje de existir; hasta el punto que me disuelva completamente en Amor y Belleza.

Quiero enamorarme de la vida, quiero enamorarme de algo, sentir tanta hermosura que no me quepa en el cuerpo. Quiero que mi corazón se desintegre en un millón de pedazos!

Que la barrera entre el yo y el otro se vuelva tan absurda, como un ciego enpalmando las páginas de un libro.

Anhelo el día en que el Amor y el Odio se den la mano, se vean en atravez de una ventana que se transfigura en un espejo.

Qué tajante el sentido del humor de la Creación, haciendo arder cuanto ser le cruze!

Contando los segundos, minutos y horas, hasta que fulminemos en el infinito sin dejar atrás ni una sola palabra y mucho menos un suspiro.

Qué filosa es la daga bendita de la impermanencia, lacerando sin discriminación alguna.

[Anonymous No.15720333]

>>15691627

Flag of AmeriKKKa? I burn that
Mayo ass bitch ass white bwoi? I cap dat
Mo money an bling thang? I git dat

Pay repatashions nigga,
are those the reeboks or the nikes nigga,
reddit onions man say yikes

[Anonymous No.15720466]

>>15720333
Very insightful and emotionally poignant. I'd like to sign you for a three book deal. Can you count that high?

[Anonymous No.15720499]

>>15710579
Hahahah

[Anonymous No.15720501]

>>15714559
"Look, Mom, I posted it again!"

[Anonymous No.15720503]

Georgian skins abound in the meadow
Taking their fill of the nocturn pool
Each moondrop devoured
Casting off their gold

[Anonymous No.15720561]

Returner
Bursting Universal
Violation of the law

Renamer
God destroyer of a God

Returner
Violation of the law
Plant toxic bombs in marble tombs

Redeemer
Stream the universal us
Through optical ISP transmission lines
Crack my fathers' spines
And sail me to Chimera

Lay down a long leg
And elegant toe
And let me buckle your sandal

[Anonymous No.15720725]

>>15720561
>God destroyer of a God
Very clunky line.

>Plant toxic bombs in marble tombs
Made me think of Ozymandius by Percy Shelley.

Overall, a very interesting with some parts that made me want to roll my eyes. Lay off the edginess. I like the line
>And sail me to Chimera
Try to keep up with that kind of musicality.

Here's a link to my work, please comment on the doc, not here. It's much easier for everyone.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r836-9kYLP_ZkM7saHuNNJl5Ehnd8iBzPf3hCg7QJrk/edit?usp=sharing

[Anonymous No.15721726]

>>15720725
I can't comment on the doc so I'll do it here.

I have some issues, but I'm not sure what you're going for, or if you're even "going for" anything in the first place, and that would probably and significantly change the way I look at it. I feel like you're reaching really hard for a quirky tonality and it ends up reading to me like YA. I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with YA, but that's my impression. The prose is a little jarring. It's pretty minimalistic and simplistic except when it breaks into simile which feels unearned, like you're searching for literary credibility. For me, it's a miss. For this style of writing, where the writing itself isn't really enough to draw me in on its own merit, I'd want to see a little more action and/or world building in the opening passages. It needs a hook. The ideas are cool, but you don't do enough to interest the reader with them. They just kind of "are" in a way which makes me go "oh, okay."

[Anonymous No.15722332]

>>15721726
I was going for speculative fiction, so I didn't really want 'literary credibility'. That's just how I write. I usually never write genre fiction, so that's why it's probably awkward.

I tried to make the action begin near the end of the piece, which is itself an opening passage. I haven't written it yet but it's supposed to be a giant battle with a big monster, so I thought that would be plenty of action.

But thanks anyway, your comments have helped me.

[Anonymous No.15723105]

What do you do when you're 10,000 words in and realize that you need to rewrite most of it? Keep forging ahead and rewrite later? Rewrite before continuing on?

[Anonymous No.15723270]

>>15723105
Accept that the first 100k words you write will be garbage and never think about producing a finished piece until you've gained some actual mastery in writing.

[Anonymous No.15723521]

>>15723270
I don't see how that'd be helpful for me personally. I understand that what I'm writing probably isn't going to do anything but sit around on Google docs for as long as they host it, but I don't see how you're going to improve without recognizing the parts which aren't garbage as well as the ones that are. I think I might just be a little burnt out. I've been writing and thinking about writing and reading the greats with an eye towards their actual writing pretty much all day every day for months. I'm balancing Beckett with Joyce with Pynchon at the moment and reading Murakami on the side. It all seems kind of ridiculously intense in hindsight.

[Anonymous No.15723675]

>>15723521
nice time digits

Also are you taking notes as you read? Dissecting the structure, characters and prose? Pulling out quotes and seeing how you would write or rewrite them? Asking yourself why a particular decision was made at every step? In other words are you deep reading or just consuming?

Also wrt your rewriting question. You can either just continue as if you'd done the rewrite already (meaning just write the rest with the rewrite in mind) or go back and rewrite first. I use the former when I feel reluctant to do the rewrite since by the time I'm finished with the rest, I'll have enough incentive to now rewrite the beginning. That's assuming I know how I want the rest of it to develop. If I don't, then rewriting the beginning is a good way to get ideas.

[Anonymous No.15723759]

>>15722332
>>15720725
This is interesting, like the other anon mentioned it’s akin to YA writing but it’s like that could be seen as a device where these other more complex ideas (which seem like they could use some fleshing out more than being only mentioned and moved on from, although the sparse quickly shifting delivery is also a fascinating approach to keep working with) are given form with the YA format. I’d be interested to see what could be made of something like this

[Anonymous No.15723787]

i'm posting in this thread because i don't want to make a new one, but does anyone find it difficult to read something they actually enjoy? i'm not talking about any post in this thread. actually what i find is that, upon reading short stories in magazines and websites, that most of the time i don't enjoy them. maybe i am not reading the right magazines, but it's just difficult for me to get into the story. is it because i've spent so much time reading good books that everything else pales in comparison? yet when i look at a painting done by a professional and amateur, i still get enjoyment out of both, so what's the deal?
the reason i mention this is because i wonder if it means that i shouldn't bother writing, because i can't even appreciate what others make, if that makes sense.

[Anonymous No.15723972]

From my sci-fi novelette

[Anonymous No.15723977]

[Anonymous No.15723983]

[Anonymous No.15724233]

>>15723521
>>15723105
For everything except spot editing (ex: "wow that sentence is bad I'd better change it"), you should give yourself time to sleep on your writing before revising it.

As >>15723270 said, your writing will be shit until you have practiced and honed your craft. You can read the greats all you want.
>I don't see how you're going to improve without recognizing the parts which aren't garbage as well as the ones that are
But anon you just did recognize that most of your 10k words were garbage. This is a good first step, but you'll gain more by finishing a project and then starting from the top with revisions than you will editing these first 10k (which you will go back and edit anyways)
>I might just be a little burnt out
tbhfamalam if you're burnt out after 10k words you need to either put the books down or the pen. Only saying this to encourage you--you aren't getting as much out of your efforts as you think you are.

[Anonymous No.15724271]

>>15691774
Your work is protected by copyright from its inception. The ideas behind it can absolutely be stolen, of course, but the text itself can't be copied in another work. Just make sure you have good documentation of it's creation, timestamped files, (if it's in google drive you're fine) screenshots, etc.

[Anonymous No.15724277]

>>15712909
very offensive, but chad shit nonetheless. Good work.

[Anonymous No.15724288]

>>15723983
Avoid passive voice, also shake up your sentence structure, you start a lot of the second paragraph with "he," "his," etc. Otherwise looks cool. Good job dude.

[Anonymous No.15724314]

Sup kings... as some of you already know, I’ve been writing my first book in the trilogy I’m making. It’s called Kid Demiurge, and it’s a cross between Persian classical epics and a modern spy novel, set around the tale of a mysterious singer who headlines an illegal rave in modern-day Tehran. Since I love you autists, I’m sharing the first quarter of the book with you. Feedback would be appreciated, I’ve never written a novel before

https://www.docdroid.net/7jhsIhG/kdmocknovelwmaps-pdf

[Anonymous No.15724362]

>>15724314
I couldn't even get past the first page. Simply awful. If it were anymore purple it'd be an eggplant.

[Anonymous No.15724363]

>>15715945
i like how four colored shapes can evoke such a crystal clear picture its meaning and even make me laugh. same with the laughing jew with lines for his nose or pic related

[Anonymous No.15724369]

>>15724362

Do tell, and define purple

[Anonymous No.15724418]

>>15724369
pur·ple prose
/ˈpərpəl prōz/
noun
prose that is too elaborate or ornate.

If you need an example, pick literally any sentence on the first page (and I suspect, any from your entire novel). Never have I been so eager to read something from its description only to be so massively disappointed by its execution.

[Anonymous No.15724488]

>>15724362
I skipped to halfway or so through the thing just to confirm my suspicion, but the purple prose likely doesn't last much further than the first page. It settles down quite a bit.

[Anonymous No.15724522]

>>15724418
>>15724488

This. The first pages of the book are the main character being trapped in himself and his thought processes, as he always has been. When his lover interrupts him in his preparations for the reception, the prose calms down and becomes more action- and dialogue-driven. I wrote the beginning that way because I liked how the Decadent authors did it

[Anonymous No.15724565]

>>15724522
>I wrote the beginning that way because I liked how the Decadent authors did it
Show me one (1) excerpt from a decadent author that reads like what you wrote.

[Anonymous No.15724635]

Waking Wem discovered an Abstract Mode had been placed upon his Metaphysical.
"This is most peculiar," Wem spoke, "While my faculties align with my overall perceptions of the room, I cannot help but feel askew to the under-meaning."
Wem peered around the room to observe the end of the bed, the bedside table to the right, the bedside table to the left with the modernist cubist lamp, the vanity which stood opposite to his body, and the large wooden door criss-crossed with defensible iron.
"While I look at the objects, I see them as before I slept, however now there is an absence of reaction within. Whereas once before I may look upon my lamp and feel nostalgia, I now feel nothing."
Wem sat for a moment and reflected upon each of the fixtures in the room, attempting to arise an emotion. Wem tried in vain.
"Within me is a great cavern. My life is forever changed. How will I cure this mysterious ail? Is there any hope for poor Wem?"
Wem returned to the Land of Nod, dreaming of a large crystalline castle filled with the objects of a thousand years. Clothed naked.

[Anonymous No.15724792]

>>15724565

Not a debate, friend. In A Rebours, for example, I liked how the protagonist drowned himself in a bunch of random luxuries, describing them for entire pages as he did when he was wondering which type of stone to inlay in the tortoise's shell, going over each option in detail. It emphasized where his thoughts lay, how he couldn't focus on the central meaning of it all because nothing really mattered. My character had gone through this in his own way, before the start of the novel. He starts to snap out of it to adopt his role.

[Anonymous No.15724909]

>>15712909
>imagine calling someone's poem embarrasing only to reply to it with ironic nonsense doggerel

[Anonymous No.15725040]

>>15724369
Purple prose is when the author's word choice overwhelms whatever visual he is trying to create or whatever idea he hopes to express. In your other posts you mention that this is an intentional act of characterization. You should be aware that the narration does nothing to imply that the writer does not condone this jackassery. You come across as an active participant. You might be chuckling at your own private joke, but no one is laughing with you.

[Anonymous No.15725171]

>>15725040

Thanks for the clarification. I guess the main thing I wanted to do with the first 27 pages of that document was show an exposition of the main character and his inner processes in solitude, getting rid of the last decadent thoughts he entertained from his life before: first the sun exposes that he exists, and then his eye perceives the details around him, piece-by-piece, because he'd retreated so far into himself that he had to come out slowly, like a prisoner has to adjust to light once he's let out of solitary confinement. The Persian classics often use physical features and flowers to illustrate God's properties in their characters. Showing the main character as some beautiful boy can sound faggoty, because it kinda is.

The writing style shifts in certain parts of the work, from mythical-style writing (as the first 27 pages and his later dialogue with his lover portray, because the character becomes a mythical figure in the passage of the story) to snide, snappy dialogue between pissed-off characters that live in a harsher reality, where they actually make fun of the two characters.

The biggest question I face then is whether introducing external action to those first 27 pages would detract from what I was trying to convey, because I do recognize that this would make the introduction more lively. Quite a dilemma for me.

[Anonymous No.15725176]

>>15691627

[Anonymous No.15725230]

>>15725176
What is this shit?? Awful meme

[Anonymous No.15725237]

>>15725230
>mfw

[Anonymous No.15725241]

>>15724314
Who wrote this?

[Ghazy Loon !J1TB7Gv1WM No.15725277]

>>15725241

I did (I'll tripfag myself, don't like normally doing this)

[Anonymous No.15725393]

>>15725171
If your goal is to write something which will only be read by a few people, and understood by less, than go right ahead. Maybe there's an audience for this sort of thing, but as a midwit American reader whatever obscure reference you're making just doesn't scan for me. You have obvious talent but you're punching above your weight here. These types of games can be played by an author with an established following (because the reader trusts that they know what they're doing and where they're going), but an amateur must stake his claim on our attention quickly or risk losing it altogether. I doubt anyone would have gotten to the good parts of East of Eden if it was John Steinbeck's first novel. Your metaphor about a prisoner adjusting to the light would be quite brilliant, if any of that was in the book.

27 pages is a lot to read without anything actually happening. I think if you could really work in that prisoner metaphor earlier then it might compel the reader to carry on through the rest. Is this a book about a character who romanticizes life as a substitute for actually living?

[Anonymous No.15725577]

>>15723787
to add onto this: i think my own writing is shit.

[Ghazy Loon !J1TB7Gv1WM No.15725701]

>>15725393

The romanticizing that the character does is deliberate, because he uses the motifs in it to transcend reality, integrate into Iranian history, and become a resistance figure/martyr for his supporters, who value martyrs highly as Iranians, after which he'll become a postmodern type of shah. He's never "lived" in a stable way.

Some spoiler stuff, if you want it:


> the main character was a former US military linguist working for the NSA, on the entry-level side (this isn't revealed until the end of the book)
> asperger's syndrome and antisocial, he was taught Arabic by the Army, and through that avenue, his aspie obsession became Persianate cultures and history, along with Middle Eastern politics
> becomes isolated in the military in a job that doesn't matter, he came on as part of a recruitment quota for a war that was getting wrapped up
> can't make meaningful relationships, draws further into himself
> his only escape is singing and going to underground parties to dance, realizes that he has a talent in performance, and that people film him and get more energetic once he dances
> a plan starts to develop, connecting raves and some Iranian elites' participation in it as a revolutionary activity
> his obsession turns into research in NSA archives at his workstation, learning who's who in Iranian politics and the elite
> studies physical borders for vulerabilities as well so he can smuggle himself across
> disillusioned with normie society and faced with existential crisis after one of his mentors kills himself, he decides to take action on his own to curb what he sees as America's warmongering, fights with his narcissism in this regard
> plans to become a lone-wolf, using his performance skill to find a place in the Iranian rave scene and to coordinate knowledge of the regime's vulnerabilities to destabilize Iranian society as an accelerationist of sorts (the method's too long for this)

[Anonymous No.15726235]

I know too well the fate of those whose flaw
Is excess love; in shame and fear compelled
To render what is tender wholly raw,
Their pandemonium is never quelled.
Such searing creatures' sensual deeds betray
Their mutilated souls. For each is rent
By Eros, and quite hopeless to allay
Their ardour, kept in others closely pent.
To roam with diabolic thirst imbued,
Both burnt and burning, robbed of cool retreat,
Desire no sooner sated than renewed
In cinders, carnal heart prevailing meat.
Though shame and fear mark those who would debauch,
How heady is the fire! How sweet the scorch!

[Anonymous No.15726713]

>>15724909

Ikr

[Anonymous No.15727110]

>>15724909
>>15726713
what, was that wee lad? Was I too crass in my approach? Did I make lil timmy wet its crib? being passive aggressive with a misuse of greentext is more your speed that openly, sincerely taking a dump on a bad poem?

thank god we have studies that prove correlation between intelligence and having a sense of humor, accurately laughing at dumb people would be that much harder without those around.

Come on now, dont be shy, I had already posted it here but whatever, If you wanted to learn how to write proper you needed only to ask.

[Anonymous No.15727728]

>>15727110

Woah bro, I was actually agreeing with you kek. Looks like there’s a study that indicates a positive correlation between comprehension of sarcasm and insecurity level XD my young squire

[Anonymous No.15727746]

I think I've fully regressed into my reptilebrain now.
A triskelion of lagamorphs enveloped by the cosmic serpent.
I feel the pulse of the hare begin to slow in the snare of my teeth.
Compassion has become a luxury.

[Anonymous No.15727759]

>>15726235
nigga we get it you're good. I prefer this one to the cold one. Publish dat shit (if you aren't already)

[Anonymous No.15727767]

>>15726235
I'd replace "pandemonium is" with "pandemonium's." I don't think that would diminish the grace or seriousness of the tone.

I'd also replace "sensual" with "sensuous" (which, to my ear, conforms more to the rhythm).

>>15727110
You're probably a rap or slam poetry apologist, or else you'd be disgusted by what you just wrote. Otherwise, the subject matter is fine. If what I said seems affected or angry to you, just know it's the laughing of a man at another's dumbness, and nothing but.

[Anonymous No.15727932]

>>15727110
every one who has replied to this so far is in fact the same dude samefagging, you cant convice me otherwise.

[Anonymous No.15728004]

>>15726235
I get poe vibes (in a good way) from your writing. I appreciate poetry that incorporates rhyme without sacrificing the raw meaning behind the piece. in short, good job, anon.

pic related is my own take at appalachian gothic.

[Anonymous No.15728011]

>>15727932

[Anonymous No.15728014]

>>15728011
Are you 14?

[Anonymous No.15728239]

>>15728014
Seeing that paper nearly made me cringe badly, but I remembered reading my teen poems as an adult and finding them okay. Wanky but not this wanky.

[Anonymous No.15728301]

https://file.io/c36uirLT

[Anonymous No.15728435]

>>15728239
Yeah I was 12 when I wrote that about using the swing set

[Anonymous No.15728530]

another one

[Anonymous No.15728614]

I've asked this awhile back in a previous thread but I was just wondering if I should keep pursuing writing when I feel like I am better at drawing/visual art. Drawing comes to me much more easily, since I find it difficult to write, but the idea of never making stories makes me depressed.

[Anonymous No.15728676]

>>15728614
You can tell stories with visual mediums too. Comics, concept art etc.

[Anonymous No.15729454]

>>15724233
>tbhfamalam if you're burnt out after 10k words you need to either put the books down or the pen. Only saying this to encourage you--you aren't getting as much out of your efforts as you think you are.
I don't know, I feel like I'm advancing pretty quickly even if the amount of words entered is small. I consider every sentence I commit to paper carefully. I don't know if that's the "wrong" approach, but it produces SOME passages I really love. I'm not trying to become a Koontz or a King and make millions off writing. I just want to eventually create something that's very well written and authentically expresses who I am.
>>15723675
>In other words are you deep reading or just consuming?
I'm not sure. I've never been big on notes since I'm uneducated. I like to understand things intuitively rather than intellectually, and trust myself to recognize things which are exemplary. This naturally relies pretty heavily on the ability to do so, which may ultimately be overly optimistic of my natural "talent" as a reader. I'll probably have to reevaluate at some point and figure out if it's working or not. Again though, I am reading carefully in a general sense, with an eye towards the big grok.
>>15724233
>But anon you just did recognize that most of your 10k words were garbage
I don't think they're garbage in the sense that they're written poorly, but I don't really like the content anymore in the context of where my writing has taken me as I've learned to kind of let the presuppositions melt away a little. Even if what I'm working on ends up being unpublishable (which is probably close to a certainty, I know) I still want to finish it, if only to prove to myself that I can. I think the actual usage of language is pretty good though, and I can almost watch myself developing in real-time as I reread. The things that unequivocally suck are things like pacing and plot (there isn't one really). The characters suck as well, but that's probably because they just exist as objects. The narrator is supposed to be the only real character in the book. It's probably way over ambitious for a first project.

I'm just venting at this point, sorry for splooging all over the thread.

[Anonymous No.15730681]

"You're born, you love, you work, you die," the radio tells me. It's an affront, directly attacking my presidence over peasant realms of pith and truism. Will I fight? Or will I perish like a dog? Discretion is… a significant consideration in the face of all deaths big or small. A sage thought noddingly, bearding even, lacking perhaps in erudition or accuracy, but one I find I can stand by.

INT. NARRATOR, CONFUSION -- INDETERMINATE

Inside narrator, accompanied by confusion. Interior in unconvincingly disorganized state. Radio menaces within center console. Truck rumbles. Disembodied twang.

The narrator puffs himself up, expanding to fit the empty space around him and avoids eye contact while adopting an imperious tone.

NARRATOR
I'm not only entirely unconvinced, but in active disbelief. What you're proposing is so entirely bereft of rationale and justification in its near-absolute reduction of the human experience that a reasonable person can but only recoil from it.

If the radio has heard him, it gives no indication. Its digits stare at once in every direction by which light can pass unimpeded.

RADIO
You're born, you love, you work, you die.

NARRATOR
(faltering) I'm not trying to say that these things aren't potential components of a human life, but they're far from universal. If we're in a reductionist mood, why don't we further reduce it to a matter of just living and dying? By what metric do you exclude the entirety of subjective experience between the absolutes yet include loving and working?

The radio maintains its singular dedication to its philosophy. It continues steadily in its resolute emissions, meeting now the narrator's growing exasperated eyes, which are plain to see. The radio adopts a slightly conciliatory tone.

RADIO
You're born, you love, you work, you die.

EXT. NARRATOR -- INDETERMINATE

Narrator finds himself outside himself, his expansion driven him across the margins. Twisting spires in motion of concrete and metal extend inwards onto themselves, rootless atop static fields flickering.

The narrator's body expresses a tangible deficit of ataraxy, recomposing itself.

NARRATOR
(coughingly) Into and onto and but if for to which and and and Upanishads up up up the ante, forthwith and forgotten slavery of the midtown uptown girls screeching cloying from sloughed boughs with intention with cognizance but if and only and only and only if to say that the escrutcheons of their youth borrow madly from the sins of the father, no intention possible, in absentia decrees of the lingering lingering lingering state of absentia, abstention from a dereliction of sacred biological ordinance, breeding an incomplete ploidy of internal machines, necessary machines, vital machines, the machines from which spring the standards of measurement of all machines, and not least the machines in question.

The narrator

RADIO
RADIO
RADIO
RADIO

????. ???? - ????

????
????.

I want to kill myself.

[Anonymous No.15731738]

I watched a squirrel kill himself today. I’m not particularly sure why he did it, but I do know that he did it. I was outside, and so was the squirrel, obviously, and he was standing or sitting I suppose, on the branch of a tree, just looking down. Looking down. It was chilly, it was June, it looked like it was going to rain, the clouds and the sky were a light grey mixed with hints of a dark blue.
Suddenly, the squirrel jumped. He stretched his arms and legs out as he fell, like a big ‘X’. He landed with a squeak and I rushed over, but he was no more. His breathing had stopped, but his black bead eyes were still open. I wasn’t too sure what to do after that, I didn’t think I could save the poor fellow, but I knew that I had to do something. His body was a dull grey with tints of white spread throughout, and a brown almost yellow yellow underbelly.
I wasn’t the most proud of what I did but it had to be done. I took a shovel from my shed, and gently scooped up his fragile body. Then, I approached my fence, cocked my arms back, and flung his lifeless body over the fence like a catapult.
Looking back on it, the whole affair was rather gruesome, and I suppose I was rather callous in my handling of the beast, but is it not a better fate than many of his brothers? He could have been roadkill in another life, squished by an automobile driven by a reckless teenage driver, or a mother going to a job interview after months of being cooped up inside.
Still, at the end of the day I don’t think I particularly are about all that, no, what really quirks my curiosity is why. Why would a squirrel do that? What could be so horrid in a squirrel’s life that it would be better to end it by his own paw? Did his nuts get stolen? Did his squirrel wife and child die? Does he have cancer? Is he atoning from a life of thievery? What, what could possess him to do this?

[Anonymous No.15731774]

>>15728004
damn I really liked this
kind of reminds me of toni morrison when she talks about the south

[Anonymous No.15731787]

>>15730681
>radio suddenly starts talking to driver
That’s actually a really cool idea, there are a lot of ways that could be a cool thing
>>15728530
Sounds like this is written from a hypothalamus-challenged mind

[Anonymous No.15731799]

>>15731787
Yeah I'm gonna flesh it out eventually, the original idea was to have a discussion with the radio but I ended up hating it before I was halfway through.

[Anonymous No.15731800]