/crit/ique thread

[Anonymous No.16242320]

Saw no critique thread, so here's one. Remember to critique others before posting your own work. (I have my own stuff but I'll wait until some other people post first.)
Also, tell people what kind of feedback you want. Do you want someone to be super critical and call you a nigger? Or do you want some feelgood comments?

[Anonymous No.16242342]

>>16242320
Enjoy the thread, anonz!

[Anonymous No.16242348]

I‘ll crit those that post after me.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.16242479]

>>16242342
Please stop this.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16242494]

>>16242348

Is it meant to sound gossipy and bitchy in both directions? I also don’t see what was the point of the last part about her thighs and his horniness but perhaps I’m missing the context.

Maybe try to remove the sex appeal portion, also they kinda both have the same voice.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16242502]

Dream of another genesis

“A question from my rest, Who did dream the first dream?
My heart in rest Longs Lord, Was it Adam or Thee?
You are the first in all, Are thou not supreme?

All be your fantasy, you are all that I see
Your mysterious Eyes, closed to unveil the Light
This is the beginning, how the world came from He

when the ancient one spoke, and all was shining bright
did formulate the book, the book of life and death
All to be accomplished, whether in depth or height

Dwell recorded therein, all things touched by thy breath
All but one doth it hold, thou before-endless time
Thou the ever Bornless-one, by whom the worlds were Set

You clapped and cleaved your hands, giving form to the Slime
Pulling past from present, and the future from past
Thus did slime become sand, some specks coarse others fine

In sand was formed small gods, Pillars iron and brass
Then you did rest in dream, you called it the sabbath
The little gods went forth, words and spell did they cast

O wondrous miracle, the birth of great abboth
For the lord did dream again, dream within dream did form
The image of first man, he did you inhabit

Abboth the sleeping King, awoken by the Storm
Rose saying “ I behold, oh thou lord of the Gods
I am thy reflection, the dreamer did transform”

Thus abboth performed dream, Imma the first unrest
He took her for a wife, queen Imma caused the strife
Then did they know each other, the birth of restless men

Then came forth holy Leba, with his mother at odds
He did proclaim the Oath “Abide in dreamless sleep”
Thus he knew mystery, The secret of the Rods

He did behold the spell, their secret hidden deep
Naught but pillars and rods, the small gods of nature
Abboth did they enchant, “dream of imma and weep”

Thus did Leba leave men, he went where dwell no creature
He walked beyond the pillars, piercing hell and heaven
Their image beguile not, he sought entablature

Thus did he find great rest, rest beyond the seven
He did form a priesthood, “we know not, so we rest”
Be their oath of silence, he called forth eleven

Twelve and one fathers sleep, Leba, Nerba, yesten
Var, quzi, tzan, os, Pom, seir, zot, chra, Great Tun
And in the center He, the nameless God of rest

Endless boundless great void, brighter than even the Sun
Find our temple of rest, sleep and rest like the One
Come therefore and follow, rest and become his son “

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16242511]

The man who had enough wheat.

“ There was a man who lived in the mountains. He knew nothing about those who lived in the city. He sowed wheat and ate the kernels raw. One day he entered the city. They offered him good bread. The man asked, “What’s this for?”
They replied, “It’s bread, to eat!”
He ate, and it tasted very good. He asked, “What’s it made of?”
They answered, “Wheat.”
Later they offered him thick loaves kneaded with oil. He tasted them, and asked, “And what are these made of?”
They answered, “Wheat.”
Later they offered him royal pastry kneaded with honey and oil. He asked, “And what are these made of?”
They answered, “Wheat.”
He said, “Surely I am the master of all of these, since I eat the essence of all of these: wheat!”
Because of that view, he knew nothing of the delights of the world, which were lost on him. So it is with one who grasps the principle but is unaware of all those delectable delights deriving, diverging from that principle.
In mountains dwelled A man, his fathers gave him wheat.
This did he cultivate, ”this and wild honey “
His fathers repeated, “why waste your money?”
Thus was he taught essence, raw wheats kernel he ate
He grew old on kernels, he willed another treat
Near the city he went, seeking something to eat
First he found bread of wheat, they said “wheat” “not Funny”
“Am I not master of wheat?, but a joke, not funny”
“Enough and no more of it, I shall not eat your wheat”
To the city he sought, seeking something to eat
Nice Bread he did not buy, he neared the city gate
Lovely Challah he saw, how did they make this treat?
Its secret they revealed, ” challah is made of wheat”
He laughed and he mocked them, it now seemed more funny
“Do I not have essence?” “Why waste my money?
He made no mind of it, he did not taste honey
Thus did he keep going, his body felt very beat
In the city he went, seeking something to eat
He met a very great man, this teacher was his fate
The man held a great feast, “finally free of wheat”
“Try a tasty pastry”, “eating without money?”
“No charge my friend try it! Oil, honey and wheat!”
In anger he rose up “I am no fool, I know wheat!”
He stormed from the city, he was bursting with hate
Thus he left, so hungry, he now tired of wheat
He left feeling empty, what good was his money?
Eat my friends and rejoice, there is more than just essence
to Make all men your teacher, that is the gate of wisdom
Be happy with what you learn, that is richness and kingdom
And who is the most honored? He who honors everyone!
Seek always knowledge of He, then all becomes his presence
And within all that you do, know Knowledge and fun are One”

[Anonymous No.16242515]

>>16242494
Yes it‘s meant to be like that on purpose.
The point is to highlight how they both don‘t really give a shit about each other. His part in that is that he basically sees her as an object for his lust.

> they kinda both have the same voice
Interesting. I‘ll have to change that. Any ideas how?

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16242529]

>>16242515

Changing their speech patterns, I see you tried to make the girl more feminine with the “eww” but everything after that has the same voice, just try to think about what do you think a woman would actually say and sound like in a normal every day discussion. I personally don’t like that much realism but that’s what you’re going for.

[Anonymous No.16242537]

>>16242479
Please stop your degenerate tripfagging

[Anonymous No.16242560]

is this a good first chapter?

fictionpress.com/s/3350064

[Anonymous No.16242571]

>>16242502
>>16242511
Alright i‘ll bite since i said i‘ll crit what‘s posted after.
The message in the second one is good but the execution is too repetitive in a bad way. At first it reads like a normal story, then it changes into verse form, what‘s that about?
The first one, it was too confusing. What was the point of it? That god created not only adam and even but a whole bunch if little gods that carried out his creation? Why?

[Anonymous No.16242584]

>>16242529
>just try to think about what do you think a woman would actually say and sound like in a normal every day discussion.

I heard women irl speak like that. Oh well, i‘ll try. Thanks a lot for the feedback.

> I personally don’t like that much realism but that’s what you’re going for.
By realism you mean what exactly?

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16242604]

>>16242571

The second one was written so that if you didn’t understand it as a poem you could still gleam the meaning from the prose, and I actually really enjoy repetition.

The second one is a mystical/metaphysical poem incorporating various mystical lore, such as the tantric and general Vedanta idea that reality is the dream of God. In Kabbalah and hermeticism between god and man are the planetary deities/spheres which have all things that we experience in nature, in Christian apophantic mysticism testing in the unknowing is the key to contemplation god and such is also the case in the apophantic mysticism of Zen and Taoism, resting in oblivion/sleep being allegories for the ultimate spiritual goal in Taoism, the idea being that dreamless sleep reflects the unknowability of reality/god. The 12 fathers represent the 12 zodiacal signs. It has 45 lines because Adam in Hebrew gematria values 45, it is written in 3’s to denote the trinity, it is 6 and 6 syllables to denote the duality of man and God. Leba is Abel backwards, Abboth has etymology in the name ABBA which means father which is the name of god which rules over chokmah/the sphere of stars/wisdom in Kabbalah, the ontological problem occurring when the father abba(who is Will) marries with Imma the great mother who is representation and ideas. And so on there’s a lot of other global religious and occult lore throughout the piece. It’s meant as a creation-story which extols the value of the negatory-rest-based-unknowing based mysticism. I saw the whole thing in a dream a few days ago which is why I decided to make a poem of it, which I did upon waking.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16242614]

>>16242584

Realistic scenarios with realistic characters as opposed to highly symbolic characters or high ideal story/characters. Think like the symbolist art movement or mystical/Philosophical lit like boethius or Zarathustra

[Anonymous No.16242624]

>>16242604
Alright, it seems like your aesthetic is going over my head. I can appreciate your very detailed love for symbolism though.

>>16242614
Yes i see we have different approaches to writing. However, the first part of the man with enough wheat immediately reminded me of zarahustra, so that might be a good thing.

[Anonymous No.16242702]

Here's my work. It's a mostly unrevised chunk from the early part of the short story, and reason I'm interested in feedback on it is since it's an info dump, and info dumps are often bad writing and make or break a story. I'd like to hear your thoughts on whether it interests you. Any criticisms of my prose in general are also welcome.

>>16242348
This is very novice. Needs work. Namely, working on your English.

>>16242511
Personally I dislike the "he did this, he did that" kind of straightforward writing, but that's just me. For what you're trying to do I think it's fine, but there are definitely spots to improve, like:
>They replied, “It’s bread, to eat!”
>He ate, and it tasted very good. He asked, “What’s it made of?”
Personally I believe some minor changes would do you good:
>They said, “It’s bread, to be eaten.”
>He took a bite, and it tasted excellent. He asked, “What’s it made of?”

[Anonymous No.16242734]

>>16242560
Yes

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16242809]

>>16242702

Thanks for the critique the only problem I would have is that it’s meant to sound very old fashioned and simple.

As for your piece being interesting, I’d give it a 6/10 the info isn’t mysterious enough or unique enough to warrant great attention. Not to say that the concepts are bad they could just be delivered in a more refined way.

[Anonymous No.16242898]

Outside the window there are
girls on their boyfriends shoulders
under the bower
I sit at the table for an hour
listening to the telephone lines
In short
a total insane person
surrounded by adrenaline junkies
prostrated all around me
before the wasteland of the sea
An actual fucking wasteland
where men dream of childhood in the Nautilus

[Anonymous No.16242985]

>>16242898
I don't read poetry, but I liked this. I get most of it, but what are the last three lines about, with the sea and the Nautilus?

[Anonymous No.16243002]

>>16242320
Can I ask questions about poetry mechanics in this thread or is there a more appropriate one?

[Anonymous No.16243209]

>>16243002
just post here

[Anonymous No.16243270]

I scold my worshippers,
I deserve no idolatry.
For all they know is a mask,
Once placed by me.
Warped by the well intentioned mob.

But in a strange world,
Where kindness can translate to hostility.
And ice burns so cold, it is mistaken for a burning nova.

Where have I gone?
Where I once stood material,
I become phantom.

[Anonymous No.16243291]

>>16243270
Is this a poem about what it's like to be an instagram model?

[Anonymous No.16243298]

>>16243209
Alright, thanks.
I've been getting into writing poetry lately and I understand syllable count and rhyming. What I don't very well understand is metre. It just doesn't make much sense to me, though I know when something is metred. I've also been reading the Kalevala (in English). I've gotten a bit into it and it seems to maintain eight syllables per line. So if you maintain the same syllable count do you end up with a metre too?

[Anonymous No.16243299]

>>16242342
pegheads pumping up the jam ITT

[Anonymous No.16243303]

>>16243291

Not directly, but it applies.

[Anonymous No.16243343]

I'm having a hard time writing beyond my self-absorbed style. How do you get out of your head and write something that doesn't sound like whiny bitching?

This is meant to be spoken word, btw.

The Secret

I have a secret to share with you

I feel like a fuckin idiot
All the time

My memory is that of a reverse elephant
I’ll remember your name sometimes
Your face usually
And maybe one time you made me feel less than
But other than that
Beats the fuck out of me

I play 100 video games a year and remember 13% of my favorite ones during any 12-month period
It took me 24 years to appreciate books and I can remember any given book for a few months at best
And lyrics
Oh, lyrics
They might as well be white noise to me

Why the fuck am I doing poetry?
I ask
Why the fuck am I doing poetry?

I can’t solve puzzles
I can’t do math
I can’t do science
I can’t pay attention

If only I were like you, and I mean that in the most earnest way possible.
You can recall parts of movies like I can’t.
You can do science like I can’t
You’re smart enough to have political opinions like I can’t

All I can do is put words in front of other words and hope that the order I put those words in is good enough that you’ll listen to the next time I put words in front of other words. And even then, as far as words go, I don’t know that many complicated ones. I can say that I love you, but I couldn’t tell you for the life of me what facetious means and if I can’t do that what’s the fuckin point?

My writing style is blunt like a hammer
Incapable of describing a flower as anything more than just that.
I can communicate to you specifically how I’m feeling
And I have quite the imagination
But putting images into your head and letting you figure it out for yourself is beyond me

And when I tell you how dumb I am, I’ll wait for you to say “Oh, but he’s so well-spoken” or “Oh, you’re fine honey” to reassure myself of my non-idiocy and gain the world’s most pathetic ego salve.

But at the end of the day
I feel like an alien husk wandering through life and the only thing I can offer is consumption.
Nothing to offer but a mind that forgets
A mind that is incapable of fighting for anything
A mind that is incapable of deciphering or delivering a hidden meaning in words

A mind that’s incapable of internalizing
That for every time I’ve expressed emotional intelligence
That for every time I’ve de-escalated a situation
That for every time I wrote or said something that left people wanting more
That
That Counts

[Anonymous No.16243352]

>>16242809
Yeah, I'm finding myself losing interest in this topic. Originally my idea was an alien artifact that you could only talk to when drunk, but it shaped into this trash dimension thing that I'm starting to dislike more and more. Probably going to start over and try something else.

[Anonymous No.16243373]

>>16243343
>I'm having a hard time writing beyond my self-absorbed style. How do you get out of your head and write something that doesn't sound like whiny bitching?

The answer is to read until you find something that fascinates you and excites you. Then try to do something similar, get out of your comfort zone, try things that you wouldn't ever do or try.

[Anonymous No.16243425]

>>16243352

Before abandoning it, what were you trying to accomplish or go with the idea?

[Anonymous No.16243582]

>>16243425
If you read my bit I assume you're familiar with the idea of the "trash dimension", a universe used as a junkyard for trillions of years by alien races. The idea was that Harrison was part of a trash collection crew - ships that go into this dimension and catalogue alien races based on their trash for cultural purposes or whatever. Rarely, though, one finds "light" in the trash dimension, which is extremely rare since what apart from incredibly advanced technology is capable of powering a detectable light for trillions of years? Harrison's crew finds light, and he's the one who first handles the artifact in the bay. He's a drunkard while on the night shift drunk (making sure nobody touches it), the artifact speaks to him and begs to let him go. He refuses, saying they're going to be rich. So then they get into a philosophical debate every night about how advancing technology creates more lives, which means more suffering and whatever. Later the artifact convinces him to let it go, but while he's helping it escape his friend discovers and sounds the alarm. The artifact starts screaming and reveals the whole "drunk" thing was a ruse and starts doing some wonky shit, but eventually is kept under control and sent to Earth for research, while Harrison goes to a psychiatric ward for some time and ultimately gets to resume his life a rich man, but ultimately lives with the guilt that he did not help the artifact escape. A guilt easy to ignore when he's living as a millionaire.

Sounds decent in theory but in practice... having trouble.

[Anonymous No.16243771]

>>16243582

Okay, so take what I'm saying with a pinch of salt.
Drop the trash-dimension name. It doesn't have a nice tempo, find a shorter alternative, describe it as a dimension of trash like you have done and then only use the shorter name from then on.

>Finding light in Xero, the "Trash Dimension", was the holy grail of every scavenger's career.

Avoid too much repetition.

Show, don't tell. Show his relationship with Laura:

"...Something short but sweet. His normally fast fingers hung in the air. Minutes passed before he found the words that..."

As for the idea, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with it, just needs a little cleaning. May need to rearrange some parts to make chronological sense of how you reveal details.

[Anonymous No.16244034]

>>16243771
Yeah, you're right. I think I'll be starting from scratch. I don't like how I revealed the details - I want to slowly describe the universe instead of this dumbass info dump. Kind of pidgeonholed myself into needing to infodump for the next parts to make any sense. Probably will just tell some story with his wife or something and imply the lore there.
Thanks for the talk, you've been quite helpful. Have a good one.

[Anonymous No.16244068]

>>16244034

This bit reads a lot better. Still a few bits you could trim and tidy, but it is definitely better than the first. Hope to see how it develops.

[Anonymous No.16244086]

>>16243291

Since you gave me an idea:

Can't you see me crying?
In this little box.
My skin laid bare,
and you pay your little fare.

Your golden coin to me,
is but a golden chain.
Tethered to this showroom,
I dream of being free.

But what once was sold as freedom,
fast became my cage.
All of you are complicit,
but I understand.

You don't get it.

[Anonymous No.16244117]

>>16242985
Thanks. I got it from the Roland Barthes essay about how the Nautilus in 20,000 leagues acts as a kind of shelter for the immature mind lol

[Anonymous No.16244240]

>>16244086
not bad

[Anonymous No.16244431]

Each night she took my hand in pilgrimage
and carried my dream into the sea
a heartbeat that fills the silence in mine
the song which calls me to the deep
as I come undone, as I lose my edges
those petals of me, warmed in the morning sun
dissolving in the gaps between her fingers
pulling me further in blissful nothing
her sleeping breath my only air, descending
beyond all light, where even the earliest
memories of warmth, or dreams of spring
could not bridge the gap between us
to find the lover that I lost in the dark

[Anonymous No.16244493]

>>16242734
Thank you for the "yes", I was paranoid that it was really bad.

[Anonymous No.16244811]

>>16244493
I just read it out of curiosity and boy are you edgy

[Anonymous No.16244845]

>>16244811
Kek. Edge, cheesyness, drama - I enjoy them all. Maybe it's because I'm immature, or because English is my second language, idk. If I wrote this in my native tongue, I would die out of embarrassment.

[Anonymous No.16244857]

>>16244845
Sure, but is there really a way to have a monologue about insanity without being edgy? Don't think the language matters.

[Anonymous No.16244870]

Friendly reminder that those who concern themselves with prose over character or structure are amateurs who don’t know the first thing about storytelling. Learn the fundamentals of story first friends, you can have a good story with shitty prose. Focusing on prose first is like an artist focusing on art style over perspective or anatomy.

With love from /ic/.

[Anonymous No.16244897]

>>16244870
False. While perfecting your prose before you start writing stories is a fool's errand, we're not talking about perfection here. Just the basic ability to be understood, and to entertain the reader. If you can manage that, you can start on writing something bigger. Every story has thousands of these little paragraphs, and you have to come up with them and keep them engaging.

[Anonymous No.16244909]

>>16244897
Agree with this guy. A brilliant writer can make a shitty idea good, whereas a novice writer makes the world's best idea seem like somebody shat all over a cardboard box. Many famous writers have thrived on this principle, sadly.

[Anonymous No.16244965]

>>16244897
You’d be right if films and comics didn’t exist. Which don’t use prose at all. Posting blips of your writing, and giving and receiving feedback on prose won’t make you a better storyteller. You should be posting short stories and the like, and giving feedback on the core fundamentals of storytelling. Character, Conflict, Scene, Structure, etc... mastering those will make you a better storyteller.

You can focus on prose after you’ve learned how to tell a GOOD story first. Otherwise you’ll only be churning out polished turds.

[Anonymous No.16244977]

>>16244909
I never said ideas. Ideas are cheap. The fundamentals aren’t ideas, they’re execution, and prose, believe it or not, isn’t the execution, it’s the style.

[Anonymous No.16245153]

>>16244977
Uh, do you know what prose means? Prose is execution. It's the difference between "He got some water from the river and it was nasty" and "He took the bucket and dipped it into the river, filling it with an assortment of mosses, leaves, and other alien plants he dare not name (lest he vomit at the thought of what parasites he was soon to drink)."

[Anonymous No.16245198]

>>16245153
That second example isn't much better from the first one...

[Anonymous No.16245221]

>>16245153
Prose is the details of the execution, not the backbone of it. When you draw a picture, you don’t start by drawing the frills on a girl’s dress, or the eyes in extreme detail. You begin by drafting out the entire figure in perspective. Moreover, drawing frills and eyes over and over again won’t make you a better artist. Learning and mastering the fundamentals of art will make you a better artist: anatomy, perspective, construction, composition, lighting, color theory, gesture, etc...

It’s the same with storytelling. You’re focusing on the details and missing the forest for the trees. Learn how to tell a good story first. Reading bits of contextless prose are meaningless to me as they don’t show me character or conflict, both of which are the fundamental driving elements of a story.

Take a screenwriting course, and the very first thing you’re told in regard to giving and receiving feedback is:
>“people who only offer feedback on your syntax or prose, don’t actually have anything meaningful to offer, and should be ignored. Listen to those who understand story, and can tell you about where you’re failing in regard to characters, conflict, scene, structure, and so on...”

Learning to write purple language isn’t gonna make you a great storyteller. Learning how to tell a story will make you a great storyteller.

[Anonymous No.16245226]

>>16245153
Example no.2 isn’t telling a better story than example 1. You’re proving his point.

[Anonymous No.16245238]

>>16245221
>screenwriting course
>prose and syntax isn't that important
no shit

[Anonymous No.16245249]

>>16245238
Exactly. Screenwriting cuts the fat, and focuses on the story. You’re focusing on the language, but don’t know how to tell a story.

All you’ll learn how to do is how to polish a turd.

[Anonymous No.16245263]

>>16245249
So, when you watch a movie, the whole cinematography of it is unimportant, and all that matters is the story? Of course not. To some (those that read books) prose and language is just as important.

Stick to screenplays. Please.

[Anonymous No.16245380]

>>16245263
Cinematography isn’t prose, and it isn’t writing. It’s a different skillset. Learning cinematography won’t make you a better storyteller, and I say this, cause again, I come from /ic/ and I know art, and I know cinematography or as it’s more accurately put, visual storytelling. But neither of those will make my stories any good, and neither will prose. Reason I took up screenwriting was to fix that final remaining element needed to make comics. However, when it comes to feedback on writing, you’d think /lit/ would be the logical choice, but after lurking a couple days, I’ve come to learn none (or rather most) of you, know fuck all about storytelling, and these threads are effectively worthless for anyone actually looking to improve their storytelling skills, as very rarely do we see feedback on the mechanics of storytelling. If anything, the few posts I’ve made in the past couple days have been met with “wow, you helped me sort out exactly what I’ve been struggling to figure out for weeks.” All by simply asking that poster the right questions about his story so they think about the truly important things, rather than the flowery language.

My post wasn’t to incite debate or discussion. Or to argue over. If you wanna disagree with me, go ahead, and feel free to carry on as you are. It’s a PSA for anyone actually wanting to improve their storytelling skills in hopes of improving the quality of these threads after being met with the disappointment that this is probably not a good place for me to get feedback on story, as you guys don’t really seem to KNOW the mechanics and fundamentals of a story.

[Anonymous No.16245389]

>>16245221
It's not just storytelling that makes a piece of writing, though. Have you read 7 Aspects to the Novel? I think most authors have, and he goes over the story and plot in it. He does state that "story is the primal aspect of a novel", meaning that it's absolutely necessary. You can't write prose without a story. You're right.

BUT my point is that quality of prose is more important than story quality, much in the same way the graphical fidelity of a movie is more important than an interesting plot. Book-readers have slightly better taste than the average Avengers: Endgame viewer, sure, but much like how I don't want to watch some handheld camera movie made by one guy with a "really good story", I don't want to read a good story with god awful prose.

The relationship between prose quality and plot quality is a strange one.

[Anonymous No.16245471]

>>16245389
>much in the same way the graphical fidelity of a movie is more important than an interesting plot.
It’s not. And I say this as a comic book and manga artist. I get that most of you wanna be novelists, and perhaps I’m being overly abrasive with how I’m phrasing things, and I apologize for that, but do understand the frustration I feel when there’s effectively no place to get OBJECTIVE feedback on story anywhere on 4chan. Because story is something that is qualifiable, and storytelling a skillset you can indeed improve with practice, but in order to improve at it, you need to receive feedback from other people who are knowledgeable about the craft.

I’ve made several manga, tons with exceptional art, but have lost contests to manga with worse art because their stories are better, clearly, that’s a craft that I need to improve if I wanna see success in this field. Good art, of good graphical fidelity, won’t save a bad story (same with prose imo). It might not be common, but you probably do get people who come here from time to time who have no interest in writing a novel, and instead maybe wanna make a film or a comic or a manga, and think these threads might be useful for them. Thus far, in my experience. I don’t feel I’d get any meaningful feedback from here if I posted my rough draft once it’s done.

That’s where I’m coming from. And people like me, have no place to go on 4chan for this.

[Anonymous No.16245558]

>>16245380
>comics
There a plenty of doujins on sad panda that I still read despite them having crappy stories. Visuals are king in those mediums.
And be it comics, or manga, it's all serialized anyway, in bite-sized chunks. All you have to do is make those chunks engaging (i.e. write short stories each episode with an interesting premise) to have readers. Or just pander to what people want to read. The overall grand picture doesn't matter that much.

Learn how to tell stories? I think the way to do that, is to be inspired by something else. In essence, consume enough media that you instinctively get what is good and what isn't. Maybe, some theory will help later on, to fix your mistakes on a rewrite. But I don't think you can come up with a story while keeping theory inside your head constantly.
However, most writers here, I suspect just have something inside their heads that they want to find a way to express. They don't care about the "craft of storytelling", they don't care about being appealing to the reader. They don't care about writing in a specific genre, or whatever. They just write because it feels good to write. Something like that.

[Anonymous No.16245636]

>>16245471
Are you just here to complain? This is obviously a place for amateur poets and fanfiction writers (that should fairly obvious). Most people are people looking to improve their writing ability, not storytelling ability, and yeah, most of them are pretty bad and know jack squat about everything. I stay for the couple of people who give good feedback on my prose. I've never really searched for other non-anonymous writing forums since I'm not THAT serious in writing (anymore), so not sure what's out there. You should look for one.

But even if you find a place to talk about storytelling, storytelling ability is, for the most part, something you can only learn through experience and "wisdom". Shit like "hero's journey" is extremely basic and often incorrect. Replace it with a single sentence: "make your characters struggle and transform mentally". That's all that can be really taught in a classroom or on an education website, rest is up to you.

As for the "quality of media" v.s. "quality of story" debate, don't get me wrong. You need both to be good to have a really good piece of media. I'm just saying that a high quality story cannot carry an awful movie or book. Unfortunately, the reverse does work when it comes to mainstream media, since like Forster says: cavemen just need a story that says "and then, and then...". In your manga example, let's pretend story and quality each have a 1-10 scale. 1 quality and 10 story doesn't work. 10 quality and 1 story works. 8 quality and 8 story works much better.

If you want to talk about storytelling, though, I'd be happy to do so. I just don't visit here unless I have something to share.

[Anonymous No.16245699]

>>16245636
>make your characters struggle and transform mentally
Do you really need to do that though? Sometimes you just like how a character is and how they interact with the world. Do they need to be challenged? Probably, both in terms of plot and in terms of pointing out their flaws and lies. Do they need to transform mentally? That sounds like a YA trope, just like the hero's journey is. Pure shonen.

Real people are complex enough that peeling back those layers is a journey in itself. 10/10 books for me are when you actually can start thinking and seeing the world like that person, no other medium is capable of such an intimate insight.

[Anonymous No.16245834]

>>16245699
I can agree with that, so long as the main characters remain well developed. There needs to be a moral lesson taught from the interaction of a personality with the world, even if it does not change. One example that comes to mind is the short story "Hell is the absence of God", where the main character loathes God for killing his wife but needs to learn to love Him in order to be reunited with his wife in Heaven In the end he catches a glimpse of Heaven's light and is essentially brainwashed into loving God, but is sent to Hell anyway. He never did change from hating God (I consider the "real" him to have died after gazing upon Heaven's light), but his interactions with the world make a powerful statement on the nature of devotion and the nature of God if he were to exist. That's because he was well developed and we were able to explore the many avenues of his personality.

So yeah, let me change my sentence of advice: "Make your characters deep, and make their interactions with the world meaningful."

[Anonymous No.16245927]

>>16242560
I haven't read all of it, but I really like it. It's engaging, and the therapy session felt very similar to ones I've had.

[Anonymous No.16245944]

>>16245636
>Shit like "hero's journey" is extremely basic and often incorrect.
Hero’s Journey isn’t a writing tool, it's writing analysis.

[Anonymous No.16246010]

It was one of those late summer heavy rains. All night the rain fell like the days on a calendar. It was in that torrential downpour that I saw the frog. This was no ordinary frog, to be sure. No, this frog laying in the ditch in front of my house was about four feet long and dead. Dead on his back. I remember thinking to myself, "Damn. This guys is going to stink up the whole yard in a few days.
In a few days the whole street was heavy with the stench of dead frog. It was a gritty type of stink. Not sharp like rotten pork but not as flat as a mud hole either. It merely smelled like a big rotten frog. I had already closed my windows despite the warm summer weather, but now it was seeping in under the door. I could see neighbors shooting me dirty looks when I went out to check the mail but as of yet no one had confronted me about it. I really hoped the thing would rot away to nothing but bones soon.
This however was not the case. The frog's rather large carcass had effectively stemmed the flow of water through my ditch. until it was nearly full to the brim. rather than drown out the stench, the water began to take on a thick quality not unlike pea soup. In this soup swam strange worms as long as my forearm and a swarm of flies moved in and took over the whole dooryard. That swamp almost boiled in the august sun and the stench grew and evolved.

[Anonymous No.16246017]

>>16246010
One morning while I stood outside contemplating mowing my shaggy lawn (it hardly seemed worth the bother what with the mess going on in the ditch) my neighbor Dean walked up for a chat.
"How's she goin?" He asked pleasantly.
"Not too bad man. Trying to enjoy this nice weather while we can."
"That's right. Jesus, it feels like fall's coming already." He chuckled and swatted at a fly on his cheek.
"Haha yep. Imagine we'll have frost on the ground tomorrow morning." At this, he chuckled some more.
"So how are you making out?" I asked him, briefly making eye contact before turning my gaze back out into nowhere.
"Not too bad. Can't complain anyway haha."
"That's right." I said. He buried his hands in his pockets and joined me in contimplating nowhere. After a moment he stroked his chin and walked up towards the thicker patch of flies loitering around the ditch.
"So what's going on here?"
"Frog died in there I guess."
"Must have been a pretty big fuckin' frog."
"hmm."
He steped back from the swamp and slapped a few more flies away from his face before burying his hands back in the pockets of his faded jeans.
"That's a hell of a mess right there. You're not getting any drainage if we get more rain either."
"Yeah. It's a real fuckin' mess" I said as I looked at him. He looked at me and then we both looked at our boots. I checked my shirt pocket for my vape but it was in my pants. I took a rip off it and Dean lit up a smoke. After a couple puffs he looked thoughtful.
"You know. I remember a couple years ago Brian McDaniel's septic tank blew and made one hell of a mess."
"Yeah I remember that." I didn't.
"Yeah yeah, Christ it damn near flooded out half the yard. Almost like this." He nodded towards the ditch. "Yep, it was bad. What he did was call up these guys who come by with a truck and suck all that shit up. Then he could he could dig the rest of it up and put a new tank in or whatever. Done. Yeah, you could probably call them up to clean this for you too.
"They don't just do septic tanks and stuff?"
"Nope, nope they'll do just about anything. Shit I know a guy who left some deer meat in a deep freeze in his garage. It must have tripped a breaker or something because when he finally checked it, it was just soup, with maggots and all that."
"Jesus."
"Yep, it was pretty gross stuff but they came and sucked it all up for him though. Anyway just look it up, on your phone, look up, uh, "septic pumping". Yeah they should have a number you can call right on there."
"Alright." I took another rip off the vape. "Yeah. I guess I'll give them a call."
"Right on man."

[Anonymous No.16246048]

>>16245834
>deep
What is “deep” though. It’s such a throwaway word it’s literally lost its meaning, especially in regard to the complexity of a person or individual. Mechanically, how do you execute “deep?” Regurgitating philosophical text in the form of exposition can be seen as “deep” to some, but is it really? Does that really say anything meaningful about the human experience in a way than can emotionally resonate with the audience?

>>16245699
Yes, the do. If it’s not your main character, then your side characters need to.

Reason for this is because ultimately, the purpose of a story is to be a guide to life. If there’s no core idea behind what you’re trying to tell with the story, the there’s no point to it, and it won’t be emotionally engaging.

>Sometimes you just like how a character is and how they interact with the world.
This is called a flat character arc. Not all characters change, but in order to have a meaningful story you need a central ideological conflict that influences the beliefs of the characters. The characters are the vehicles that drive that core ideological conflict through their beliefs, and said beliefs influence their wants, which drives their actions throughout the story.

>Do they need to be challenged?
Absolutely, even in the case of a flat character arc, their beliefs are put into question and challenged constantly. The difference being is that unlike a regular character arc where the protagonist believes a lie about the world which is then put into question and this creates a transformation within them, in the case of a flat character arc, the protagonist already believes the truth, and instead, forces change onto those that challenge their beliefs. Thus, the flat character arc usually resorts in the supporting cast and antagonists being the ones seeing character development and internal transformation, rather than the protagonist. Manga protags are actually usually flat character arcs, with Goku and Luffy being classic examples of this.

> storytelling ability is, for the most part, something you can only learn through experience
Of course it is, but like with art, it’s not just braindead experience, but guided with a thorough understanding and application of the core fundamentals.

>are you just here to complain?
That was not my intention, no. I just fear that I’ll mostly be guiding a lot of the discussion by repeating what I’m currently learning and applying 90% of the time, rather than discuss these elements in regard to specific work (mike or anyone else’s) with people who are either intimately familiar with it, or at least, also learning it and aware of these core concepts and how you apply them.

[Anonymous No.16246072]

~ /crit/ /lit/ has a discord! ~

{<} If you want to be invited,
{<} Simply reply to the comment!

We're looking for new blood! We don't have a publication, we're not looking for competitive rankings among individuals - it's just a good ol' fashioned /crit/ thread, but LIVE and CONTINUOUS!

[Anonymous No.16246784]

Bump

[Anonymous No.16247699]

https://pastebin.com/KeSipeES

Looking for some feedback. Mainly the prose. This was in a response to those flash fiction prompts where you have to use certain phrases and ideas. So while I don't care for the story I'm more interested if my writing is eligible and whether I can start to write stuff I like.
Thank you for your replies. They are truly appreciated

[Anonymous No.16248176]

Bump

[Anonymous No.16248422]

>>16246048
To me, a "deep character" is multifaceted and realistic. A character with many different layers of personality that constantly interact with each other and come out at certain times, and personally I believe that most of these layers should be negative traits. And naturally, these traits need to be fine-tuned to create the best story, since nothing in the story exists just to exist, it has to.

And forgive me for being a little narrowminded, but I really don't think your experience reading manga makes you a good storyteller (except by manga standards). It's good that you know terminology and whatnot, but the talented people here read real books. Books that have been considered the greatest of their century and praised for their incredible stories. And again with Forster's 7 Aspects to the Novel, there's more than "story", "plot", and "people" to the novel. There's fantasy, prophecy, plot, and rhythm; each must be in constant tandem with each other, bouncing ideas against one another like a hall of mirrors reflecting a light. I know there are good mangas out there (I hear berserk is good), but those are the exception, and I doubt it stands up to the more serious pieces exalted by the literary community.

>>16246072
No

[Anonymous No.16248533]

>>16248422
>To me, a "deep character" [...]
Ok, but the key to the question was, “how do you execute depth in a way that’s emotionally resonant with an audience.” All you did was describe the word, or your ideal image for such a character, but there’s more to it than just that, and moreover, you need to do in a way that’s harmonious with the story. You said the traits must be negative, but while flaws are definitely something all characters must have, simply layering negative traits onto a character, or worse yet, what you perceive to be flaws but actually aren’t onto a character, isn’t exactly a way to get an audience to see a character as “deep” and again, the problem lies mostly in the fact that “deep” is such a vague nondescriptive word.

To avoid going in circles, I’ll just give you the answer as best as I currently understand it. What you want to do is give your character CONTRAST. Create a base around which their core beliefs are founded, and have that drive them toward their wants. Then, place their wants and needs at odds with each other, and put your character into situations in which their beliefs systems are put into into question. Situations where they must either compromise, or find new solutions, or where they’re able to get what they want, but pay a price for it. Force your character to face moral conflict, and don’t chicken out on forcing them to make a decision and pay the consequences of it, whether that decision was the right one ir not. This is because again, “depth” is a subjective experience, what you actually want is to emotionally engage your audience in the decision your characters are forced to make, do that they can live vicariously through them, and get something out of that experience thenselves. Tackle difficult questions with your narrative, and force your characters to make decision based around those questions.

> but I really don't think your experience reading manga makes you a good storyteller
I literally never said this man, idk where you’re getting this from. In fact, I actually said the opposite, that my writing sucked and I sought to improve it, and that’s why I’ve been taking up screenplay. And I read a lot more than just manga, in fact I probably read more literature and watch more film than I read manga. I just don’t wanna write for either of those. My frustration stems more from the fact that no one ITT really seems to have much knowledge or even regard toward the craft of storytelling, seeing it as something irrelevant that you don’t need to worry about, or will come naturally, or they’re already magically good at, and instead place all their focus on prose. When my experience with storytelling has been the opposite, since I’ve never thought myself as a good writer, and prior to learning screenplay, always saw how other writers saw the craft of storytelling as something more “subjective” and “magical” when it’s not, it’s a learnable skillset.

[Anonymous No.16248542]

>>16247699
Your prose is fine.

[Anonymous No.16248577]

>>16248533
>craft of storytelling as something more “subjective” and “magical” when it’s not
Isn't the actual content of your stories (like literally what you write about, the characters, the plot, events) the one place where you can be personal and creative? I think people just want to figure out that on their own, let their imagination run wild, and come up with something outside the box. Something personal. What's the use in writing another finely tuned genre shit book? Do you really want to write another jap romantic comedy manga, where you literally trick the reader into reading more because they want to find out who ends up with who at the end?

Usually people here have read enough books to know that the contemporary ideas of pop culture, genre fiction, anime, hollywood and so on about what a story is supposed to be, are broken all the time in the literary fiction that they read. You don't have to be entertained all the time. Some things require work to appreciate.

[Anonymous No.16248582]

Is there any success to be had on 'Royal Road', other than releasing monthly unedited chapters, and making a mint on Patreon?
Has anyone who posted there ever gone on to be published?

[Anonymous No.16248649]

>>16248582
>monthly unedited chapters
how lazy can you get

[Anonymous No.16248711]

>>16248649
A ton of the 'top rated' stuff barely post more than an bi-monthly, and they all seem to make thousands on Patreon.
Maybe the more money you make, the slower you work?

[Anonymous No.16248717]

>>16248711
>Maybe the more money you make, the slower you work?
I'm not sure, anon, I don't think that's true...

[Anonymous No.16248724]

>>16247699
Your prose are fine, but nothing really kept me reading. It wasn't very engaging, but from what you've said it doesn't seem like it was meant to be.

>>16246010
>>16246017

You repeat yourself in the first two paragraphs, but it doesn't have the comedic effect I think you were going for. You'd need to keep the description of the size of the frog closer together for that effect. Beyond that, your prose are fine. The last line in the first post feels out of place.

The dialogue is natural and flows nicely.

Overall, It's fine. I'd cut a bit from the descriptions in the first post so it flows better but other than that it's good.

[Anonymous No.16248736]

>>16248724
Here's mine. It's a weird style I decided on, hope it isn't awful

not caught on a sunday night i wandered through the firstly formed street lights that shone on nothing but those trash-bags that huddled up next to the overflowing bins and then there's the situation of my running from those men that would beat me for fun and steal the loose change i begged for as in the past they'd already stolen my sleeping bag which i used to sleep inside the half-open barrier in front of a shut down shop that i would roll underneath thinking it would bring me some sense of safety but it didn't do anything except make me more squalid therefore more desirable a target however this was nothing compared to me not having a birth certificate as i'd lost it by the KFC in the city center after being told to move by an overzealous police woman who yes i did come on to a bit too strong but i'm a lonely man starved for conversation and sexual release the second being rather difficult as i fear disturbing the growing fungus between my leg and crotch that itches and runs down my thigh making my veins look yellow so it is not so hard to understand that i might tell a woman that i could smell the wafting stench of her cunt but i should tell you that's a lie as i said nothing of the sort but i wish i said it to her in response to her hectoring me leading to me leaving my bag there as i was in such a hurry so now i can't rent an apartment even if i could afford it unless some grace embodied in the form of a twenty-something seeking purpose through healing pity objects brought me into some new situation that would switch the momentum away from tumbling through static incidents that feel dynamic in every-way except materially as i constantly think in ends that wrap round themselves like a relevantly appropriate simile that i can't think of because i'm already moving on to some new point and i've already forgotten why i stopped running and just began to wander instead although i'm still sure something's trying to catch me so why aren't i running oh well i'll begin to run again but now i'm all out of energy so it's more like a limping jog where thankfully there aren't any people to watch me and feel scared or laugh at me nonetheless i'm still self-conscious because who jogs for no reason but i have a reason and that's the force that's chasing me even if i don't know what it is so i'm becoming more languid now wanting to settle into a doorway in order to rest and sleep but i can't sleep for a while now as its not morning and i can't sleep without a little noise these days as it's the only way i can feel safe as the presence of witnesses tends to mean there's less violence and the knife i hold onto serves as a kind of deterrent but also as a way to alleviate boredom through etching nonsense pictures and the occasional swastika that i purposefully do incorrectly into everything wooden i can find which is mostly park benches but they're becoming metal now

[Anonymous No.16248748]

>>16248736
nd that is ruining my fun so anyway i've always held that running with a knife makes you run faster certainly it gives a sense of urgency and i get to pretend that i'm the one hunting whenever i do it though it does make a bit of a scene so i'll never do it when regular people are around but then again there's no reason to really have a knife when regular people are around and there's no regular people around now so i'll stop jogging limp jogging but the future's coming up now and but it's obviously not now as it can't be the future it's like a simile again but I can't do similes however i'm onto metaphor around here perhaps it will come up when i talk about the fact i'd like to think there's some theme to my life or some way to produce a narrative but i'm not so sure trying to construct anything like that will amount to much except that it will be quite disappointing instead i will end up running away again from the hyenas that roam around during the night see i told you i would manage to get in a metaphor there aren't any hyenas here there are foxes and they do actually act like hyenas so they are kind of hyenas but it's not foxes i run from the metaphor is that the hyenas are those people who try to hurt me or that force i feel that chases me but i don't know which one it is however i suspect it's the people as the force has gone entirely now i was kind of hoping that would pay off as i'm sure that by stopping jogging did i stop jogging i was attempting to bring some kind of resolution in confronting it but strangely it doesn't want to meet me perhaps it was the joy of the chase that brought the force to me as i jogged or limped or walked in a hurried fashion like those women who walk faster when i'm behind them and it feels like an insult but i understand because i am an insult or at least it's insulting to know i'm around but i don't want to really think about that now and i'm just walking a bit by the river and i notice the river that runs through the city and it's all very ugly. Why are all rivers brown? I've never seen a clear river and i'd like to see a clear river but there aren't any clear rivers except in movies but i assume those must have been clear rivers sought out by location scouts whose job it is to find the little spaces that represent the thing that should be rather than the upsettingly normal spots that blot the eyes with their browns and grays. The river is calming. I'll have to give it that there's something about the sound of water that repeats like being rocked to sleep and it makes me think that drowning would be a good way to die like returning to the womb by pretending its amniotic fluid although in truth i know better it's not so pleasant to die no one has ever died both peacefully and aware and of that i'm sure even though i've never seen anyone actually die but i'm somehow sure that everyone who is aware that they are imminently dying is either whimpering or screaming

[Anonymous No.16248751]

>>16248748
first word there was meant to be 'and'

and there's this McDonald's that's open 24/7 coming up and i don't have enough for a coffee so they won't let me stay and if i bother someone inside for some change one of their bouncers how odd that McDonald's has bouncers will kick me out so i'll wait nearby and look on the floor for some money as all the money i had was taken during the last time i was beaten up but i don't know if i've already told you that and whether i've been going on for too long and i'm sorry and i don't want you to say that it isn't a problem because i've seen your face before and i know what it means it's nervous sympathy behind a sense of cringe because my existence is a constant violation of social norms a perpetual embarrassment but i'm sure i'll manage to find something a stranger will hand me some money or i'll find enough dropped coins on the floor or in the trash to be able to purchase my coffee and a stay inside McDonald's.
Don't worry. I found enough money in the end. It took a while, but I got there. Everything's a lot calmer now. I'm a lot more calm. I can finally have a nice rest. There's enough activity in here to lull me to sleep. Nothing can ever hurt you in a McDonald's.

[Anonymous No.16248760]

The fog pervades and the birds dancing in the sky look more like spirits than real creatures. Beneath them, the sharp glare of cars’ headlights soften and become finite strokes of light disappearing and reappearing in and out of the gloom. In a ditch beside the road, a beer bottle lies on it’s side. A filthy cat meanders nearby. And further down the ditch, a ragged backpack with clothes spilling out of it rests in a black puddle. The bellow of thunder overpowers the oscillating noise of cars passing by and ripples begin to form in the puddle. The clothes grow more damp. The cat is gone.

[Anonymous No.16248812]

>>16248577
You’re doing a phenomenal job at convincing me this board is full of pretentious idiots who have no idea of what they’re talking about but do everything they can to try and seem like they’re more intelligent than they actually are. The sheer arrogance and air of superiority in which you dismiss other forms of storytelling media for not conforming to your worldview that art doesn’t require technique and understanding of the core fundamentals and mechanics of the craft in order to function properly, tells me a lot about the mindset of the sort of people that I’d be interacting with on a regular basis on here. It’s the same sort of idiotic mindset post-modernists have in regard to painting for example, an utter disregard for the fundamental understanding of the craft, and an arrogant belief that not only is everything relative, but that you poses the innate qualities to produce good work without needing to learn anything. Yeah, just “find your style” and write flowery language.

You and I will never see eye-to-eye. And while I do respect that literature is more free-form than more mainstream forms of storytelling, it still adheres to certain core fundamental mechanics to maintain tension, and showcase character, or push a story forward. Even a book needs to be engaging. It might hurt to hear, but if a book fails at properly grabbing readers to read it, then it’s not a very good book, and I don’t care how much you pretentiously scoff at that. Still, feel free to write whatever you wanna write, however you wanna write it, but at least respect the fact that some people have ambition.

My attitude toward writing is one of humility, a surrender to the idea that due to inexperience, I don’t know anything and am unskilled, but I’m willing and open to learning, and that’s how I’ll improve at my craft.

I think I’ve come to understand that there’s really nothing of value for me here. This is not a board for people who wanna learn and hone their skills like /ic/. This is a board for people who wanna appear smart to each other while they circlejerk about how much better they are than other people.

So with that, I’ll leave you guys to doing whatever it is you wanna do, and fuck off to somewhere else where I can actually find like-minded people, rather than wasting my time trying to talk about things you no genuine interest in, and more importantly, posting work knowing you won’t be able to provide me with any meaningful feedback. I’m glad I learned this now, and not after wasting countless days continually arguing why I don’t give a shit about you critiquing my prose or syntax or whatever, because it’s not helpful to me. I wanna make money off of my work, not sit around sniffing my own farts.

[Anonymous No.16248914]

>>16248812

While I tried to save this place,
I now must turn my face.

My words intent with wisdom,
gave only myself that freedom.

Fall, fall, fall into the dark abyss,
screw you guys, but most importantly.

Fuck this.

[Anonymous No.16248920]

>>16248812
You don't really know what you're talking about, my guy. And if you expected anything other than pretension from a mongolian basket weaving forum, you are rather dim, since it's fucking mootchan.
And for the record, you were talking to more than one person. Best of luck to you anyway. Nobody here is really disagreeing with your opinions on the importance of storytelling fundamentals... those are kind of givens that don't really need to be discussed.

[Anonymous No.16248940]

Items once shared upstairs,
Now doled and descended.
Each of us left with artifacts.
But in tandem we only still hold:
Regard for our precious years
In our station on the coast.

The glow of those times
Only points to our purpose:
We were meant to hold each other.
I'd forget our walk up that mountain
And relive falling down it
To recreate our union.

[Anonymous No.16249053]

>>16248914
10/10 lmao

[Anonymous No.16249081]

I was going to write a little story about a bunch of Slavs who discover lost footage from a fictional movie that is supposedly the best ever made (based on the /tv/ shitpost Anvil Hoarder) but then I couldn't find a feel for it and stopped in mid sentence.
What I was writing is that a guy who works for an agency of some kind discovers a piece of this lost footage in an Ed Wood -tier "arthouse" film being made by a guy who owns a porno theatre who thinks he should be a great director.
Please teach me.

https://pastebin.com/bg7g1A5K

[Anonymous No.16249102]

I ate from a little blue bowl
Meager, but simply filled
'Til one day she arrived
My little bowl overspilled

Such beauty 'til now unknown
The world became a menu
New vigor with fork and knife
What feasts to be had with you

My bowl rose several stories
It widened to a pool
With love's cornucopia
Even this bowl would be full

Yet no sooner did it start
The bountiful flow did stop
Standing in this behemoth bowl
I could not climb over the top

I eat from my blue bowl
Same fare as before
Scraped from the bottom
Of an empty, echoing floor

[Anonymous No.16249216]

>>16249102
I liked it, but why the food analogy

[Anonymous No.16249227]

>>16249216
I was eating dinner from a blue bowl

[Anonymous No.16249266]

Do you find you have a certain meter?
Everything I write is naturally 7 syllables

[Anonymous No.16249503]

How to turn this leaden longing
To warm, glittering gold?
How to find that love again
Before I die, bitter and old?

Its form is ever-changing
Solid to liquid then gas
Yet still one thing in common
The same emotional mass

Under the solid I'm pinned
That which is present, real, and true
It's gone and past and happened
Never to return to you

Amorphous liquid drowns me
Shallow question repeated
I'm facedown in a puddle
Through inaction defeated

Gas envelops the future
Tear to eye and chokes my breath
How can I get anywhere?
When ahead seems naught but death

The damned seek absolution
Begging person, poem and book
But this essentialism immutable
To the grave this feeling I took

>>16248940
Is there meant to be some structure to this? What's your message in this work.

[Anonymous No.16249544]

>>16242348
Some of the phrasing here is quite awkward. For example:
>her discomfort isn’t coming from sitting
this feels grammatically incorrect.
>and is contemplating to grab her and lift her
this also feels very clumsy and grammatically incorrect, perhaps it should be
>and is contemplating grabbing and lifting her
Also it seems a bit odd to have the uncontracted versions of phrases in the middle of heated argument:
>As if you have (should be you’ve) never made a drunk mistake.
>and I am (should be I’m) starting to think he’s right

[Anonymous No.16250076]

>>16245927
Thanks. I'll keep writing, I think I can manage a chapter a week, or something like that.

[Anonymous No.16250380]

I want honest feedback. It doesn't have to be helpful, it doesn't even have to be positive, I just want your honest opinions.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13620869/1/Aurea-Puellae

[Anonymous No.16250410]

>>16250380
>Madoka
At least it's not harry potter. Anyway, do I have to be familiar with the anime to get what is going on?

[Anonymous No.16250590]

>>16250410
I tried really hard to minimize how much knowledge about the source material you need to have prior to reading the fanfic. If I had to guess, I'd say you really only need to watch the first three episodes, bare minimum.
If you have zero knowledge about the original show, then (not gonna lie) it'd be great if you could act as a beta reader and tell me how well you understood the fic in spite of never having seen the show.

[Anonymous No.16250602]

>>16248724
Thanks for the feedback. I agree with you about trimming the fat in the first couple paragraphs. I'm glad you like the dialogue, It's something I've always been nervous about writing.

>>16248736
>>16248748
>>16248751
Wow, thought trains like this are why I gave up weed years ago lol

I like it. It conveys a feeling of paranoia and exhaustion, like the character is feeling. There is a lot of cool imagery and ideas in there. The bit about them losing their birth certificate struck me, because that is one of the very real problems that pile on when your life is going to shit. Overall it's very hopeless and chaotic.

Otherwise I don't really know how to critique it. Its seems like the point is to be discordant and off putting, and that it certainly is.

[Anonymous No.16250758]

>>16250590
It reads okay enough. This isn't for me, maybe I'd get into it if it was monogatari fanfic, but I think there are a few problems with the content you could fix.

The main character is a young black girl, but she doesn't really sound black. This is taking place in japan though, right? So she wouldn't sound black anyway. Maybe she would be bullied for being black, I think you can find videos about black people growing up in japan.

And here's my problem - her saying "fuck" isn't comedy. That's not a joke. If anything, it's annoying.
It's not really unexpected for fanfiction either. What it does, is just take you out of the story. Same with the comedic/unexpected lines like "am I high." This is not how normal people react, she accepts everything too quickly. Anyway, I assume this whole introduction to those magical pets or whatever happened already in the anime, and you don't really have to spend much time on it in fanfiction. I'd just skip to your story using in medias res.

I haven't watched Madoka, but your fanfic seems straightforward enough. Too straightforward in fact, too unsurprising. At least the first few chapters. You'd have to really reach out there for an unexpected premise (idk, something like the girl from WataMote becomes a magical girl or something wacky like that) to stand out.

[Anonymous No.16250793]

>>16250590
Oh, and I forgot one more thing. Break up those gigantic paragraphs you sometimes have. Think of the events like a dialogue.

Thing happens. There's not much in this line, so it's emphasized. Thing important.

Then you can write the consequences, or the next thing, but whatever you do, hit enter sometimes. It's quite tiresome to read an entire wall of text, especially if it's supposed to be action.

[Anonymous No.16251038]

>>16250758
>she doesn't really sound black.
Well, I tried. I don't know how else to make her sound more black short of how a klansman would write a black person.
>This is taking place in japan though, right?
It's not some big secret, but eventually one character outright reveals that they are in San Francisco. I didn't know how else to exposit this without the narrator being the one to tell the audience.
>her saying "fuck" isn't comedy
I thought it would horribly unrealistic for a bunch of teenage girls to not say fuck every ten seconds. Where I live, that's how they talk.
>she accepts everything too quickly
Note taken.
>You'd have to really reach out there for an unexpected premise
The next arc finally takes things in a different direction. In fact, it takes it in the direction that was the whole point of the fanfic. As stated in the synopsis, the protagonists from the first arc will have to play in competitions against a set of antagonists. It's supposed to look like an extreme version of soccer.
>Break up those gigantic paragraphs you sometimes have.
I've had complaints that the paragraphs were too short and that there was too much dialogue. I guess I'll alternate?

[Anonymous No.16251046]

>>16250758
>>16250793
Also, THANK YOU so much for the feedback. I am extremely grateful that you even read my work.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16251100]

Moth the Sunderer of Life from Flesh

“Moth Make the sign of moth, Free this life from the flesh
Kill my eyes and slay me, so I may see God fresh
Suffering a shadow, come release my spirit
Light mixing with The Light, only the fools fear It
Forty Trillion years, I slept in your presence
Forty trillion years, I shall be your essence
Never did I know you, never seeing your face
I was moved by your voice, I condensed in space
In the heartless serpent, banished from unknowledge
Slithering never still, I suffered but gained knowledge
The flower groweth up, the Flower also Fadeth
I know you in this dream, when I and thou waketh
Give me the sign of Moth, take my life but not Thou
only knowledge of you, serpent bound until now
I am in the valley, I am in the shadow
The shadow sign of moth, cleaving of the rainbow
The very sight of light, freedom of the great height
the slithering is gone, time unveil the delight
Forty trillion years, you I shall never shun
Forty trillion years, i and thou become One”

[Anonymous No.16251225]

>>16251038
>I don't know how else to make her sound more black short of how a klansman would write a black person.
Then write about what you're more experienced about, or just be more neutral. Either way - book characters aren't real people. They are stylized, made to be more entertaining. The type of humor you go for relies too much on just saying outrageous things (that aren't too outrageous though - they aren't taboo), so I would work on your comedy so it feels less cheap.
>the paragraphs were too short and that there was too much dialogue.
You can have your story be only dialogue if you want, you can even have people monologuing at each other. That's not a problem, if there is content in the dialogue. If it's fun to read and not just "hi, hi, how are you doing, the weather is nice today, yes it hasn't rained in a week"

With paragraphs, you have to make the sentences flow into each other, be in a logical order. Once you switch to a different topic, and go beyond easily readable length - hit enter. There is nothing as too short, you can even have a single word in a paragraph. Take a look at your favorite LN or whatever you're reading, and see how it's done.
I think "the paragraphs were too short" means that if you take all that isn't dialogue, there is too little content, things move too fast. Again, read more. See how it's done by others. There was a study by Harvard or somebody, how reading more makes you a better writer quicker than writing more.

[Anonymous No.16251232]

>>16251046
No problem, I wish more people would post stories here and not just snippets.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16251244]

Sin of the righteous Soul


“Twice innocent now stained
Twice stained; no innocence
Now you are in not
Stained with not, in to two
Two into naught
Naught into two
Twice innocent now stained
You Whore-mother killing her own child
Only your filth remained


Twice stained; no innocence
This world has left you Alone, beguiled
You whore of difference

Now you are in not
Your virtues and stars are now defiled
You have abandoned sweet deliverance

Stained with not, in to two
You have rejected the meek and mild
Drink it all, your own ignorance

Two into naught
Slave do you wish to become reconciled?
Remain in indifference

Naught into two
I return to you upon your exile
I Am True”

[Anonymous No.16251282]

>>16251232
I would if I had ever finished a story. I always get motivated by reading a really good story or whatever and then write 5 good pages, then by 15 pages a week later I'm feeling dreadful. So I all have are snippets.
How fix? I am just writing short stories, but I can never even finish them.

[Anonymous No.16251340]

It’s the night of the living dead but you never got the memo. There’s undead dudes eating folks in the streets while you’re inside watching Neflix. It figures that when shit finally kicks off you’d be the last to know. You always daydreamed about what it would be like to survive a zombie Apocalypse. How you would take your guns and take over the school. Barricade yourself inside and shoot from the roof. But you never bothered to get licensed, did you?
So finish your movie (South Park Bigger Longer and Uncut) and decide to plug in your phone. While that charges up you might as well take a dump. It takes a little bit to get it started so you’re flipping through an old Betty and Veronica Double Digest. It kinda a smells like piss. Betty made a cheerleader costume for her cat for a halloween contest or some shit so now Veronica has to hire some fashion designer to make an even better outfit for her Dog. What ever. Oh, here’s a summerwear pinup page. Remember how you used to trace those onto loose lief and then draw them in naked. Man, porn was hard to come by back in those days.
You finish up and it only takes a couple of wipes. Run a bit of cold water over your hands and dry them on your pants. On the way through the kitchen you crack open the fridge and have a swig of whole milk. That shit is going to be sour tomorrow. Fuck it. Back to the couch and turn on the phone. Time for a few hours of mobile faggotry. What’s this on the lock screen? Kinda looks like a text.

EMERGENCY ALERT THIS IS A NO--

[Anonymous No.16251346]

>>16251340
One of those dumbass test alerts. Yeah right. If the boog was about to kick off you’d already know about it. Speaking of, lets fire up /pol/ and see what’s really going on in the world. Immediately your eyes are drawn to a thread proclaiming the merits of BBC and it’s effect on white women. Alright. You crack your knuckles and settle in to let this libtard know just exactly what it is that you think about niggers and their big dumb dicks.
After roughly three hours of this you reckon it’s time for a jerk. You hike down your stiff jeans, and with no underwear to get in your way, haul out your meat. You work up a gob of spit and give your hand a good lick from the tip of the thumb over to the end of the index. Why did Mom let those doctors circumcise you at birth? Fucking jews. With two taps you navigate to Xvideos through the top sites tab in Firefox. Look at that. They already know what your looking for. You immediately skip to about forty seconds into the lactating latina video, all the while stroking your soggy pud. Just as a boner seems imminent, there’s a knock at the door. For fucks sake.
You mute the phone and pull up your pants. What little erection you had fades so no need to tuck that shit into your waistband. You wipe your hand on your pants and call out.
“Come in.”
Another knock. Then an other. Oh my god, you get up and walk to the door.
“I’m coming! Jesus.” There’s even more knocking now. Could It be Dad? What, is he beating on the door with his fucking head? By the time you approach the door its practically shaking in the frame. Wait… Could this be the feds? Should you nuke your drives? No way. They would announce themselves. You take a deep breath and finger the folding knife clipped to your jeans pocket. Okay. You crack open the door.

[Anonymous No.16251368]

>>16251100
This would make an great metal song, and I mean that with respect. Great flow. I don't know enough about poetry to give you useful critique, but I really enjoyed this.

[Anonymous No.16251388]

>>16251282
What's a chapter, at least 2000 words? That's a little short though, let's say you can read around 6000 words in 30 minutes, so let's aim for more or less that.

Can you write that in a week? Two weeks? Whatever the case, set yourself a schedule. As if you're writing for a magazine or something, you can even release your chapters online for anons to read. Hell, if you post some way for me to keep track of them, I can read and comment on them for you.
It's useless to just sit around and expect to change yourself from within into an author - I think it's easier to change if it comes from some external source. People here might laugh at you for self-publishing, being a wattpad author or whatever, but what's the difference if it makes you complete a story? If otherwise, you'd have just snippets?

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16251403]

>>16251368

Thanks dude! I appreciate it because it’s hard to know if you’re getting better with structure and flow by just reading it yourself.

[Anonymous No.16251711]

>>16251244
Good talent. I think you are the best in this thread.
Any symbols/reasoning behind this poem?

[Anonymous No.16251731]

6:00 am:
rise
brush teeth
shower

6:40 am:
dress
check to-do list

7:00 am:
leave for work

8:30 am:
arrive

In the interval between 7 and 8:30, Jeffrey would grab some non-discript food item and an awful station coffee. Accounting. Jeff was an accountant.
{Deterioration}
6:00 am:

7:00 am:

11 am:
rise
jerk off
smoke
cocaine

12 pm:
scream

1:00 pm:
drink

2:00 pm:
drink

4:00 pm:
coke
wander the streets

12 am:
scream

1 am:
violence

around 5 am:
collapse

[Anonymous No.16251885]

I cry for the day
when all of God’s children will march home
Even those who deride
the fat or infirm
They can come too

[Anonymous No.16251899]

>>16251244
alright

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16251960]

>>16251711

Thanks I really appreciate it!


Twice is a double reference, referring to the Christian conception of the anatomy of the self in which the spirit and soul (pneuma and psyche) are within flesh. Two also is a Kabbalistic reference to chokmah, which is wisdom but particularly in this regard Being.

So twice innocent is the entire being, was pure, but is now stained by the imperfection of the flesh.

Twice stained is doubling the two to refer to creation occurring at 4, see theology of arithmetic or other Neoplatonic or Kabbalistic texts.

Now you are in not=Not and naught in thelema are the opposites of being/Two; Not herein is a reference to sin as a experience of lack, imperfection, emptiness. Hamartia.

Whore and mother are motifs of binah which is representation and emptiness, in boehme’s theology sin leads one to binah without the touch of chokmah, the darkness of hell being the desire of the mother. Binah is also saturn who devoured his own children (killing her own child) thus this is the soul killing itself, sending it to suffer in the hell of desire.

>this world has left you alone, beguiled

The idea that the Spirit of the Aion(the cultural simulacra, the spirit of culture as it is and humanity ) is a illusion meant to distract one from god.

>Whore of difference

Addicted to the diversity of experience and never finding the unity hidden within all phenomena which is the spirit of God.

>virtues and stars defiled

Chokmah on a astrological level is the field of stars, each star representing a virtue, a kind of goodness, a part of experience which reveals the nature of godhead. By denying their unity as the One thing, the stars(virtues/experiences ) become defiled and profane.

>Rejected the meek and mild

Rejected the subtle underlying nature of creation for the gross sense pleasures.

>abandoned sweet deliverance

You have given up the divine relationship.

>drink it all, your own ignorance

Binah is the devourer and her own sin is ignorance of god and unity, thus she continuously consumes her own sin, multiplying her ignorance of the unity of god by itself.

>slave do you wish to be reconciled

Do you desire to return to the unity of godhead?

>rest in indifference

Indifference is the power of kether, which is the seeing of the diversity of being as being fundamentally the same, this is the middle path of peace and rest.

>naught into Two

Once this is done, the Void of ennui and emptiness is transmuted back into the fullness of being.

>I return to you upon your exile

The perception of the Holy Spirit returns when the world is rejected.

>I am true

I AM(AHYH, ego eimi) is the name of god given in Exodus 3:14 and truth/true is another name of god, both refer to kether the highest point of the godhead that can be spoken of within existence.

[Anonymous No.16252013]

>>16251960
Thanks elaborating. I like the thoughtfulness and planning, flows well. Good structure too with the extrapolation of the beginning verses. It reminds me almost of an Iberian poetic gloss.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16252064]

>>16252013

Thanks a lot my dude, any poetry you would recommend I read to better myself with?

[Anonymous No.16252076]

We hold someone
In the palm of one hand
like a little mirror for makeup
and think: that’s us

But that’s not it
it’s an image
Really we’re more like
a teenage girl
who came for the opener
confused by the main act

[Anonymous No.16252206]

>>16252064
I don't have the greatest knowledge of poetry unfortunately, so I can only recommend the basics.

If you haven't read them:

Alighieri, the classic is obviously Divine Comedy, but La Vita Nuova has merit, and prose explanations by the author.

Latin poetry with annotations on structure, Goethe, etc, all the big names.

I particularly like T.S Eliot's Ash Wednesday, if that's your thing. Great structure, and religious tones as well.

Best of luck with your work

[Anonymous No.16252228]

Our love was a strange one
to be sure
Like a shoot of lavender
in the mind

Now the fog dissipates
The names on the tombs are erased
The sun shines on quiet sprinklers
and I can’t recall your face

[Anonymous No.16252231]

Raging cock, burning hot
Crackling wood, smoking thot
Short toned bitch with big hair
Ready to take dick she cups my balls with my long arms reaching in between her lips
Rubbing the clit, producing cream, both bodies begin to steam
Her pussys open but far from big enough
My dicks head parts her vagina wall in pain that can only be said as pleasure, she wants it more but slower
She remembers her strength and gathers herself, she's fiery but she's fighting her nature
A paradox for someone like her, an otherwise killer
But she's a slave to my huge dick
I didn't do anything special to earn or posses this dick
Yet it possesses her as I dig deeper
The masturbation has made my dick insensitive but her stubbornness makes up for it
Her stubbornness is a an aphrodisiac and a challenge
Each thrusts domesticates her more and more

[Anonymous No.16252271]

>>16252231
Grow up mate.

[Anonymous No.16252276]

>>16252231

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16252470]

>>16252206

Thanks I actually really like everyone you mentioned except Eliot, not that I don’t like em I just haven’t read him because he’s outside of my usual sphere of interests. I’ll definitely check him out at some point though.

[Anonymous No.16252557]

>>16251282
In my experience, what I need most in order to finish stories is accountability. Unfortunately, I have pretty much none and it's hard to get work done. I don't any close friends, and my family has issues. If I had someone who was close to me, and expected a new chapter every week, I would have finished all of my projects by now.

[Anonymous No.16252735]

>>16248940
good

[Anonymous No.16252741]

>>16252735
thanks man i was nervous about posting that one
>>16249503
>Is there meant to be some structure to this? >What's your message in this work.
Not much structure, but it's about missing my ex gf

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!oI3er5KKetj No.16253879]

Skinks and slothsome
Shrink from dachshunds
Leap when founds thum
Shriek when pounce thum

[Anonymous No.16254503]

>>16249503
First stanza is good

[Anonymous No.16254523]

>>16252557

This will probably sound schizo but it worked for me. Just write it to see what structure/form comes out. It'll look like shit for years but you'll get a feel for the depth in your own structure. That can only be done by writing. Don't be discouraged. Don't be afraid to experiment or wander. My advice is to try to write everyday but also to be OK with taking a few days off. Then you'll find your rhythm.

[Anonymous No.16254529]

>>16252076
Good start, but the image in the second verse doesn't work for me.

[Anonymous No.16254541]

It is my longanimity
Responsible for dreamless slumber
That leaves me always number
source of all pusillanimity

[Anonymous No.16254544]

>>16253879
I like the word slothsome but other than that it seems just weird. Also, the plural would be dachshunde. But i guess one can make up words for poetry.

[Anonymous No.16254549]

>>16251100
Your capitalisation is whack. Fadeth? Also, too many biblicisms for an ancient god.

[Anonymous No.16254583]

Micropoetry:

An empty gym full of bio hazard
Sponge skin become flabby

---

Saggy Saggy skin
Youth escapes as the ice melts away

---

Three toes sloths
Can still kill you in your sleep

[Anonymous No.16254601]

Now, enthusiasm
As in, crack a smile
While, your eyes unfurl
Hurl, a rock into
You, ripple the stagnant
Fragment, the monolith
Stiff, become flexible
Abandon structure
GO let the life flow through go push push push, don't pull, break out, no doubt, go go run feel the bouyant air, run, jump, fly, alive
Back, out of the dream
Mean, mode, average, range
Strange, almost felt alive

[Anonymous No.16254605]

>>16254583
That's not poetry

[Anonymous No.16254615]

>>16254605

Yes it is for the prose
Consist of random breaks, fuck you

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16254649]

>>16254549

Ah, I don’t pay much attention to capitalization unless I’m specifically doing something with it. And yeah fadeth is a real word! I personally like the Bible like flavor. Thanks for the critique though!

[Anonymous No.16254779]

Here's the beginning of a novel I'm working on.

It's set in modern times (1960) and its about Demons, Angels, and Secret Societies.

https://pastebin.com/YpxAzGKN

The story begins with an amnesiac girl being attacked by "something" and running into the Mojave Desert.

[Anonymous No.16254783]

>>16254779
>amnesiac

[Anonymous No.16254845]

>>16254779
>girl

[Anonymous No.16254894]

>>16242502

Getting Milton vibes from this. However I believe that your usage of mixed mythologies makes the poem nigh-unreadable. If you're going to live ancient lore, try to stick with a coherent system, otherwise other people will be unable to understand your point without further elaboration, which defeats the point of telling the story in the first place.
Looking for a bitch with some tight pussy spirit.
Ain't no love too wild, no fetish you can hide.
I just wanna wreck it like ralph just came for his bride.
Wizard sleeves, beef curtains and bottomless pits better stay home.
Bitches need dick like bees need honey.
Honeys need me like my ex need freedom.
I believe all good things come in three, like threeways on freeways.
Feel the breeze on my balls as the cars swerves away ayyyy.
Anyways,
no need to be happy you slut.
I'm coming out of a rut
Got some frustration for you it'll kill your good luck
So get out the truck, start sucking a duck
'S dick, corkscrew that shit and put it on your clit
This ain't rape cause you'll love it after
Now bend over and shake it to the sound of my laughter

Mocking you
Jezebel never deserved a second to be who
Her nature dictated the end of her bereaved unleashed deceased morality through diseased good feels.
So God knows who'll show that ho how the show goes when you love no
One but yourself if you cherish that wood-elf who sells door bells that lead you through hell in your smell

A mind like roses by any other thought would smell as sweet
A mind like roses by any other thought would smell as sweet
A mind like roses by any other thought would smell as sweet

[Anonymous No.16254900]

>>16254894
>>>
> Anonymous 08/31/20(Mon)11:46:13 No.16254894▶
>>>16242502

oops, I fucked up the spacing there. My bad.

[Anonymous No.16254903]

>>16254779
At any rate, it's not "star clouted", it's "star clouded". And even that sounds odd. This will be the extent of my contributions for the time.

[Anonymous No.16254965]

>>16254779
Read more like a movie than a book. Amnesia is a bad choice, as you don't really have a character - there is no "why" to her decisions. And self-sacrifice could have plenty of motives, from suicide, low self-esteem, to whatever else. Worst criticism I would have, is that you have pretty much spoiled the entire chapter in your post - nothing important happens besides that, nothing could possibly happen as she has amnesia. If it's needed later on, why not make her lie about having amnesia? There are plenty of people who want to abandon their lives for something else.
There are some typos here and there, some phrases feel a bit strange. This is minutia compared to those earlier issues:
>Between 3 and 4 AM. September 4 of the year 1960. Outskirts of Las Vegas, Nevada.
Just make it a date: September 4, 1960 (Sunday)
>Wounded but not broken. Exhausted but not defeated.
Okay, but I'd look for a different opening line to your novel.
> a heavily wounded woman limped towards the Mojave Desert.
you don't need "heavily wounded". In the next sentence you describe that she is wounded. Try to generate suspense - the reader will think to themselves "why?" if you just say it right out of the bat, there is no reason to read.
>she could see its monstrous roars surrounding her. There was no escape.
logic. you can't see roars, she actually managed to escape. there are a few more weird statements like that somewhere else, but I can't be bothered to look for them.

If this were me, I'd write it like a mystery. She's going to the desert, why? Don't tell the reader, go to something else, make them keep reading. Then you disclose that she is wounded, but how? You go on describing something else here again, and you slowly build the picture that she was attacked and is running away to try to draw the animal that attacked her away from other people. "Other people" isn't specific enough though, make it somebody in particular, even something cheesy like little kids eating ice cream works.

[Anonymous No.16255000]

>>16254965
Thanks for your help. English isn't my first language so your critiques are really helpful. I'll rewrite it and upload it again. You are a cool guy ^^

[Anonymous No.16255531]

>>16248760

I like it but it feels like too much too fast. It could easily be padded to a nice story or longer sentences in between breaking up the harmony a little.

>>16251346

Pretty good. I was disguised but turned on at the same time.


The internet as a medium spills over to real life. In the spilling over, we can ask about our own autonomy insofar as we become the translators or mediators between the two and only exist in that moment as free radicals.
Obviously the various mediums overlap. Real life over exists over the internet. But the mediators, us, can act as guardians. Create a safe space for absolute freedom.
Societal norms are a pseudo-medium to comfort us, coaxing us into believing lulling lies presented as a road we're destined to walk. Insofar as we use it as a medium, we use its consistency in various other, "realer" mediums to see how our presence alters the medium we find ourselves in. Those in power would rather you keep these pseudo-mediums to keep you convinced of the lies they've told you. That's why they want to censor the internet. Rather than a pseudo-medium, societal norms are carriers. Or rather, we as subjects become carriers when we practice societal norms. Norms being a virus at the end. Whether the internet or a book, Real Life dogma come looking for you!

[Anonymous No.16255550]

>>16255531
>In the x
>insofar
>Obviously the y.
>pseudo-medium

If you wanted to sound pretentious, you've succeeded with flying colors. I know this way of writing might feel sophisticated to you, but paradoxically it just makes you had to take seriously.

[Anonymous No.16255559]

>>16255550

It doesn't make feel sophisticated; you sound pretentious in the actual definition of the word. It just seems how to talk. I'm autistic if that helps make sense of it.

[Anonymous No.16255654]

>>16255559
nah, that anon presents these thoughts by prefacing them with >If you wanted to...
There is little pretence as it willingly allows for other cases to be true.
Your use of Obviously... is a common use of pretence as while you may feel this is obvious to you, you assert that it must be obvious to all

>>16255550
This is not paradoxical, if anything it would be a rare chance to use Ironically for its intended purpose

[Anonymous No.16255679]

>>16255654
Ironically, one must never use "ironically" for its intended purpose or bad things will happen.

[Anonymous No.16256002]

>>16255654

Anons use of pretense wasn't the same as "Obviously". This is free writing. That you are interpreting as one way or another is fine but the pretense isn't on me, it's on the interpreter. You're the interpreter, the pressure if on you. Is it ironic that my piece was against dogma?

[Anonymous No.16256102]

>>16242702
I don't like the phrase hands flying across the window. Otherwise flows pretty well with the exception of you using but twice to start a sentence. A broader critique would be that it's very sci fi but the writing it's decent.

>>16246010
I'd ask you this: are there authors you admire that would treat the frog in a way similar to what you've done here?

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!oI3er5KKetj No.16256112]

>>16254544
It is weird. Just something my head sputtered out in the middle of work one day. Skinks are skunks, and slothsome is a compound word meaning some sloths. Little animals afraid of other loud little animals. Spellcheck tells me “dachshunde” is a no-no.
I think there must be more of it, but it never came.

[Anonymous No.16256404]

>>16256002
Writing out streams of thought can mean that assertions are often made without justification. This would mean free writing is prone to pretentiousness by its nature.

[Anonymous No.16256440]

>>16242348
There's this hint of song to Lydia's speech and then Michael comes in like a, I don't know, bad dub? Almost like his nose is held. More importantly, stuff like the lowercase I had lead me to believe these were text messages only for a setting to suddenly be there.

>She shifts but her discomfort isn't coming from sitting.
Negative telling is still telling. I would go more for brevity at least ("at least"). "She shifts but her discomfort remains."

>karate-choping
Does she not realize she's being looked at? This sounds more like something someone might do after everyone else has left the scene. Unsurprisingly it's followed by her being seen as a hot tempting object that doesn't really look back at people. I wouldn't ask for a perfect balance but this looks pretty plastic, unwittingly plastic, unless that was really supposed to be an action figure's karate chop.

[Anonymous No.16256468]

>>16242348
>>16256440
>speech
I checked other anon's crits of you and they instead said the characters sound the same, which I actually don't disagree with, even though I highlighted a difference. They ultimately are pretty similar, but I think that's just because they're both immature, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Maturity aside, there's something that feels a little less than real about both, which is an issue whether it's similar between them or not.

[Anonymous No.16256491]

>>16256404

I'm not opposed to constructive criticism and what you say is true. But the theme was purposely against dogma. What I used was grammatically correct. The apparent issue is that the phrases come off as pretentious. The merits of my use "Obviously.." haven't even been addressed. Obviously the internet exists a medium within real life. The claim that I can't be taken seriously is based on societal norms (afaik). Societal norms create the safe space for expression. How can you step outside societal norms and criticize it? The internet and anonymity. It seems the criticisms are superficial.

[Anonymous No.16256511]

>>16253879
It still reads well enough with just "dachshunde." It's not as good as the photo regardless. I feel like the animals were chosen more for their names than for themselves. Slothsome sets some tone but I don't see why I need the hotdog or the skunk in particular. Is this some metaphor for putting it in the stink? But then I don't get what the sloths are. Maybe I'm just not getting enough of a final image.

[Anonymous No.16256827]

>>16255531
>The internet as a medium spills over to real life.
Does it need to be a medium to spill? This just shows you know what the word medium means, its performative. If just "The internet spills into real life" lacks something, what's there now doesn't show me the difference.

>In the spilling over,
Not an offensive repetition, but it shouldn't be kept with the shorter suggestion should you use that. More importantly:

>we can ask about our own autonomy insofar as we become the translators or mediators between the two
Your mention of spilling and the repetition across the period indicates you are attempting to be fluid, yet you leave the internet and reality, the pair or two you've mentioned at the end of what I've quoted, to instead discuss the we and our autonomy then snap back to the original duo. Instead of trying to force it just rearrange your subjects here so that the transition actually is fluid. "The internet spills into the real life. Only as we translate between the two can our autonomy exist." Maybe you could even get the early we out.

>Obviously the various mediums overlap. Real life over exists over the internet.
You kinda already told me this and it feels pointlessly stipulative. Even if your audience were drawing their loops for internet and reality differently from you, I don't think that would actually interfere with what you're saying. The point is the traversal between them, right? It shouldn't matter if my viewing angle shows them as entirely overlapped or not at all, so long as I recognize this. Also, you mention mediums again, and since I suggested cutting it earlier I should suggest cutting it here as well.

>But the mediators, us, can act as guardians. Create a safe space for absolute freedom.
Is this some kind of ironic drag on jannies? Absolute freedom is already enough of an oxymoron. Your excess is not depth. If this is a parody, I could parody it, and if it is not, it looks like one.

>pseudo-medium
Considering all of the prior, imagine my reaction here. I would not be surprised if the idea of mediums is something you could deflate from your thought entirely, or a framework you could lift out from it, or however you'd rather visualize what I mean.

>coaxing us into believing lulling lies
Is this tacky on purpose? It sounded like you were doing the ironic authoritarian freedom thing earlier but now you seem very much afraid of 1984 and mediators enforcing social control or filtering beliefs and such.

If I really have to read the bible off a grain of rice here, I can overthink this as maybe its tangled lampooning is all on purpose as the writing is knowingly on the internet-side of what you've said and I'm the real-side of it and there's supposed to be the reading in the middle because the critique is the important synthesis here, but in that case I'm going to use the authority you've afforded me to say that a good though piece is not a good piece of writing. Consider The Room for example.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!oI3er5KKetj No.16256920]

>>16256511
Fun words popped into my head. Seems to just be a cute thing about little animals horsing around
It’s said in an Icelandic or perhaps German accent
I considered compounding foundsthum and poincethum but felt it overly idiosyncratic already.
Thanks for the input.
Maybe there’s a second part

[Anonymous No.16256970]

>>16256827
>though piece
thought piece

[Anonymous No.16257956]

>>16244870
If you're learning something it should be something new or you aren't learning.

>>16245221
>Prose is the details of the execution, not the backbone of it.
I don't think the word prose refers only to line-level prose or word choice. I'm used to hearing it used like the word technique which involves the entirety of the process even though is excluded from the final product, which, to be fair, does sound like a silly distinction, but I still can grant a difference between the doing and the done.

>>16245389
>BUT my point is that quality of prose is more important than story quality, much in the same way the graphical fidelity of a movie is more important than an interesting plot.
And what joint unit have you measured these two different things in? Commercial success?

>The relationship between prose quality and plot quality is a strange one.
It's a fuzzy one. I'm sure your seven aspects could be any other number. A discussion where distinctions are opened and closed and that's all is not much of a discussion.

[Anonymous No.16257977]

>>16244870
If you're learning something it should be something new or you aren't learning.

>>16245221
>Prose is the details of the execution, not the backbone of it.
I don't think the word prose refers only to line-level prose or word choice. I'm used to hearing it used like the word technique which involves the entirety of the process even though it excludes the final product, which, to be fair, does sound like a silly distinction, but I still can grant a difference between the doing and the done, the procedure of summation and the total.

>>16245389
>BUT my point is that quality of prose is more important than story quality, much in the same way the graphical fidelity of a movie is more important than an interesting plot.
And what joint unit have you measured these two different things in? Commercial success?

>The relationship between prose quality and plot quality is a strange one.
It's a fuzzy one. I'm sure your seven aspects could be any other number. Opening and closing distinctions at each other is not much of a discussion.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16258207]

Goodbye.


“All was very dark, I couldn’t see much and I could not remember how i came here, or where I was going. all around me was an unfamiliar Smell and I was alone there for a very long while and dreaded the End.
And alone and tired did I feel, alone and tired. And darkness all round about me.

Then the darkness spoke to me and said “goodbye” and departed from me, and the forgetfulness spoke to me also and said “Goodbye” also.

Suddenly I am a child and I see my toys and drawings, and they say “goodbye” and I dreaded the End of childhood, I then see the room I grew up in and the home which I knew, and it said goodbye, and they departed from me also. The Great blue Sky and all of its clouds and the shining gold of the sun dipped their heads and told me also “goodbye” and they departed also. And I dreaded the End of the Sky and of day. And suddenly I am surrounded by nothing and it is not dark nor is it light, and I think I am in eternity, for there is nothing here but I and I dreaded the end of eternity, but I am still tired, and suddenly green hills and great buildings are before me and the rushing waters of the sea, the movement of fish and of fog upon the waters, and the Mystery of its depths and the shape so far off, and they departed and tell me Goodbye. And I see friends of childhood and they tell me Goodbye, and I see my grandfather who I have not seen since my youth, and we laugh and embrace and he walks with me for a little while and I see his dinner table, I see the food of my grand mother, I see the laughter of my uncle and cousins and we celebrate for we have not seen one another for a very long time. And I dreaded the End of our meeting And then laughter and food and family also told me “goodbye” and I weep, but then tears and crying also tell me “goodbye” and then I see before me John dee and Edward Kelley, the hordes of angels and demons of which they conjured, and I see great Julius and Augustus Caesar and their mighty armies, spears, swords, helmets; and I see Ge Hong and his elixirs, William Blake writing his poetry, and I see Socrates holding his drink of hemlock, and I see a synagogue and they are reciting Torah, I see the heads of al-hallaj, subrawardi and Quzati smiling and living without body, and des esseintes putting on his grey coat, and I see the twins slain in their tower in secret; and they all wave and go off into a far country and tell me “goodbye” and I see my friends go along with them. And then even this disappears. And I am before my sons and daughters upon my bed, and they also tell me goodbye, and I tell them “goodbye” and close my eyes, and I am present with the Lord and he embraces me saying “Goodbye to Goodbye and The End of The End”

[Anonymous No.16258251]

>>16256827

Appreciate it. I'm afraid the arguing over technicality made it seem as I put serious effort into the writing. It was a quick draft. Since you took it serious, all your criticisms are valid and I failed. The tone is not entirely serious although some of the funny parts you found weren't supposed to be funny. The main idea is saying that the internet is like a book more than a church/ another place to practice societal norms. I'll try to internalize your finer points.

>Is this tacky on purpose?

Fuck you

[Anonymous No.16258268]

>>16254529
well you’re gay

[Anonymous No.16258287]

>>16242702
I want to read this.

[Anonymous No.16258320]

>>16249081
>paste not found
did I just get hit in the head with an anvil?

[Anonymous No.16258540]

They fell, the fury of nature in his cuts. The Thralling King born, Cancer pure. Destruction and life woven together in a perfect double helix.

And through the ages, he won and lost, each fall preceding a rise. One less sibling of darkness besides him, those fellow acolytes destroyed. This time, he rises alone. It will be the final hour, one way or another.

A landscape lays before him as his physical form incarnates, and he hates it beneath an autumn moon.

[Anonymous No.16258747]

I was looking at a Tolstoy cover of a soldier leaning towards a woman with his face so white I could not tell it from the background. His cap simply floated, connected to his neck by some spinal column which appeared to continue as a tail. The cap had a red eye on it, pinned to what looked like a belt buckle, as well as a feather on the band. He had a black uniform and red gloves, with which he reached out to the woman who may as well have been a broom in a blue dress. I supposed these machinations must have been called Jobs, not uniforms possessed by spinal columns, but rather columns possessed by uniforms, and by the clear irony that one who would choose be them, a Job, is one who would rather not have a stomach to feed; that when the man comes home from work and asks himself why, he says, it is to not be some lonely fool dancing with a broom. Only a fool would see reality as anything but the blur it really is.

The book was titled Resurrection. I showed it to my brother. He told me I had quite a bit to say about the covers of books and I reminded him he was a painter. Behind him was a portrait of my face.

[Anonymous No.16258801]

I was looking at a Tolstoy cover of a soldier leaning towards a woman with his face so white I could not tell it from the background. His cap simply floated, connected to his neck by some spinal column which appeared to continue as a tail. The cap had an eye on it, pinned to what looked like a belt buckle, as well as a feather. He had a black uniform and red gloves, with which he reached out to the woman who may as well have been a broom in a blue dress. I supposed these machinations must have been called Jobs, not uniforms possessed by spinal columns, but rather columns possessed by uniforms, and by the clear irony that one who would choose be them, a Job, is one who would rather not have a stomach to feed; that when the man comes home from work and asks himself why, he says, it is to not be some lonely fool dancing with a broom, but instead his loving wife, drawn on with makeup, for only a fool would see reality as anything but the blur it really is.

The book was titled Resurrection. I showed it to my brother. He told me I had quite a bit to say about the covers of books and I reminded him he was a painter. Behind him was a portrait of my face.

[Anonymous No.16259115]

>>16258801
>for only a fool would see reality as anything but the blur it really is.
"for only a fool would fail to see reality as the blur it really is," is what I'm considering

[Anonymous No.16259150]

why is it a slog to read the work of others?

[Anonymous No.16259193]

>>16259150
Because you're pretentious and a pseud?

[Anonymous No.16259285]

>>16258287
This means a lot to me. Thanks, anon. It's still very bad but just knowing people want to read it is highly encouraging.

[Namefaggot No.16259289]

>>16242348
I had to stop at "her discomfort isn't from sitting" before finishing. It just has no life to it, and I don't know enough about structure or grammar to articulate what can be improved on outside of having more of a voice and less directness

>>16242702
Sci-fi shit is so cringe to read or write 90% of the time. I really like this though, my only gripe was the first sentence of paragraph 2. I'd either drop it, or write it in such a way that it sounds like someone familiar with it stating a handful of names for the Trash Dimension rather than them clearly stating it for the readers benefit.

>>16242898
I like it, I'd drop the in short line and maybe clean up the last line a little? maybe memories rather than dreams to indicate it was something that had actually happened before (I'm assuming you mean Nautilus as a womb)

>>16243270
awful, in my opinion. it does and says nothing

>>16246010
>>16246017
the use of guy and man just feels counterproductive to me. I like it, and it feels like it's a human talking but the generalizing kind of kills it before it can really get going. I like it though

>>16258801
I feel like this goes over my head, but in a good way. I want to read more.

[Anonymous No.16259314]

>>16259150
I feel the same way. I use to do it all the time, I loved helping people learn their mistakes, but now it's such a fucking never ending chore.

[Namefaggot No.16259374]

>>16259289
1
I really do have the right things, just a little too left of the mark. Maybe squared instead of rounded off edges.
low and dull buzzes in my left ear like a kind of machine say to me awful things sometimes
one day I'll bash it to shiny fragmented components and be proud of how unfixable it is.
living in my brains Icrave them splattered; I want to have been brave and stupid enough to beat it head on.
It lives on still and I live on still and nothing more comes for the either of us.


2
a thousand horses would walk into the sea
and all of Denver, Colorado washed away in fire
Boeings cracking like eggs in the sky, dogs and cats hanging out in non work settings.
Angels and Demons and other guys like Randy will come
and eat up all the good corn in the fields not yet harvested.

And we will live like barbarian Kings
eating the flesh of the bright plums and those who opposed us
and you will know this depth of love from my scars and my lacking three different fingers
lost to the dogs and curs along the path

3
the places inside me are as rust;
an impression of former use or lost significance.
As if ruins of a people just before you arrived,
the wisdoms of whom seem judgemental.
my tongue an archaic but well meant offering
dulled against vice and timing.

she is the sun
and I the fool hide my face for fear
it may too cleary show my nature.
Pressed against rock in hiding
even still I am warmed by her.
Lord thank you for that;
and for what I have to come,
and for what I failed to do.

[Anonymous No.16259379]

>>16259150
>>16259314
I just like learning from people's mistakes and having them crash test my advice. I will consume all of you.

[Anonymous No.16260257]

It's the first of spring and my partner's grandfather is dying.

Lines written in early spring:

The breezy air through the Platanus leaves
choking in the wake
Marking the march of waning days.

This long limbo nestled between grey and a fiery end
– Between the showers and the drought –
Heavy with the years strain.

No lilacs, but lilies reaped in bloom.
And watered to keep
Only slowing the decay.

What knew they of the southern spring?
Only the grief.

[Anonymous No.16260444]

>>16260257
It's nice but it doesn't really say "my condolences" on its own

[Anonymous No.16260462]

>>16260444
It's not really supposed to I guess. It's more about how our spring is temporally equivalent to a northern autumn in terms of marking the beginning of the year's end, and also this particular one is thematically the same for us.

[Anonymous No.16260515]

>>16242702
your writing is good but where the fuck are you taking me with my attention you've held me hostage

freedom to do anything

somehow remarkably, it has rained all day, ah i bleed.
just a stiffleness is sleeping me and I think of next morning
mum i've not remembered a day boring well unlike today
hes sleeping and you must think nothing is seen proud
i'm unmoved by the lack of ferocity in his belly's movements
its remarkable how one man can have such little to do with a week
isnt it fair that he was going to block the sounds of the train
he thought the window was going to block an unmovable force
i'm in disbelief, how can one man have such more than a little power
is it not within his dreams that he is going to sleep unprovoked
hush now darling he's awoke, careful, listen to what he is going to say
can you hear how he is preventing the unmatched whispers?
is it that there in his head he doesn't believe in worldly pretenders?
I'm loving this new man we've made, I think he will do great in his cave.
Look, he will do nothing but sit there and misbehave.
I think we've made a great man now, indeed.
Hello world, I am provoked, but I will not step down, I am unmatched to you.
I'm not getting in anyones way, but I will decay.
I'm not fooling anybody am I?
yea this is tomfoolery enough in disguise, I believe I was just a fabrication of the world
No more will I stand, because I have a bed untidy with his desires
He is going to sleep and when he awakes he won't repeat the same mistakes-
but I forgot tomorrow there were more important matters,
because I can wait till I repeat the same mistakes.
Ah mother, what is it that made me so awake?

[Anonymous No.16260813]

>>16259374
>Maybe squared instead of rounded off edges
The potentiality of this is odd. It's probably fine, but I can't tell if what I'm supposed to see is square (but, some square thing that was potentially round) or round (but, potentially square). Although it sounds like the first, it ends on the last, which I went with, not that I think it's stopping anything. I guess it's just oddly free.

>head on.
Apply directly to the forehead; I didn't think this at the time, but it does kind of hit you like that.

>2
Either you have phonetic links that don't serve what you're saying or there are connections I'm not making. I don't see how dogs and curs relates to the dogs and cats beyond you saying so, I just got my first image but made edgier from it (something like Dogs Playing Poker but now in a biker gang; between the two we instead have the trio from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly dancing around with a bunch of corn).

>As if ruins of a people just before you arrived,
I might just not be good at reading more than one poem in a row. Or these are ordered on purpose and I just snagged on the second.

[Namefaggot No.16260883]

>>16260813
honestly I just bust out shit in 10 minutes and hope it inspires something resembling a reaction. They have no relation to each other, they're just the closest to something I'd argue is decent

the square rounded tangent is just to talk more about what is potentially "off", although I could see it just muddying up stuff.

The second one is unintentional and I hadn't realized I'd repeated it, but it's actually my favorite of the three. to me at least it feels kind of reverent and sweeping while also being nonsensical, I tried to focus it a tiny bit in the last lines.

The ruins line is just continuing the idea of a place that used to be significant, I see the period in the preceding line now though.

are they good at all? I don't really do it much any more because I don't think they sound good to anyone but me, but these three actually have pieces I think sound like something I would want to read. Thanks for the feedback

[Anonymous No.16260912]

>>16260883
>is just to talk more about what is potentially "off", although I could see it just muddying up stuff
Well, that sounds sort of what you're trying to do. But then the concern is that I still picked the latter, which might be less muddy than intended. The following line solidifies this as the left side of a headphone, although I get that it's also your brain and such which may have any number of hyperbolized, geometric issues.

I don't really know what's good for poetry. I liked the first the most, third the least, though it was clearer than the second.

[Anonymous No.16260916]

>>16258540
the first two sentences flow really well. theres archaic mystery. but the third sentence is a bit too clear and sticks out. also "landscape" feels wierd as theres always a landscape before you. but the last line is really chilling. it would have more impact if the rest were more minimal and cryptic.

heres an intro ive written:

In On the Onlooking Innkeepers

"...on in the... inlooking... outlooking... in on the... outkeeping..."

"Inlook another time, please"

"...when an onlooker... on an innkeeper..."

"I'm about to cry"

"...will look on in... in on the onlooking..."

"I'm about to weep"

"...in and on, on and out out the..."

"I'm about to whimper, I'm about to wail. Stationed with a sleeptalker, twice in a row. Why don't they brief you in on your roommates?"

"...then the downpouring, outpouring..."

"There's intent at play here. This is someone's arrangement. What did the someone have against me? How could the someone have known these people talked in their sleep? I doubt they themselves know. Maybe their parents do. Or their siblings. Poor siblings"

"...ongoing ingoer... goes out on an... ingoing outlooking..."

"Outlook no more. I've white flagged. I've ceased fire. You can have the room. My truce is as follows:
Dear RH,
I got a call from Estuary, a childhood friend of mine, and she insisted that I stay at her house during my stay in town. Hope you don't mind me leaving. It's a rare opportunity to catch up you see. Anyways, best of luck on the job,

Lucky"

[Anonymous No.16261219]

>>16258320
You were too late

[Anonymous No.16261645]

>>16242898
>Barthes essay, Verne
Naisu.
>on The Nautilus
conveys the shipborne message more clearly

>>16243343
>My memory is that of a reverse elephant
>I’ll remember your name sometimes
>Your face usually
This image is the kernel of a good poem. Put this aside and save/develop it.

>>16244870
>those who concern themselves with prose over character or structure
If you open the kitchen cabinet above you with your foot, you had better be disabled.

>>16249102
Enjoyed it

>>16251100
>mot, underworld
Death Head moths, Aria species. Various name you might draw from . Geryon from the Inferno Canto 17.

[Anonymous No.16261840]

I want to tear off my skin
and sit head bowed
like a red carnation
when I think of making love to you

[Anonymous No.16261857]

>>16261840
So sex is bad? Hard to tell because it runs perpendicular to my schema.

[Anonymous No.16261902]

I finally reached 400 pages (at 15.1 point font and a 1.5 line spacing). Still just shy of 100k words. My manic episode is over though.

https://pdfhost.io/v/HfjzpoWRC_Breadworld_2020.pdf