/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1720152]

I finished my first short story.

Who wants to read it?

[Anonymous No.1720157]

You should already have posted it.

[Anonymous No.1720162]

>>1720157
It's too long - about six thousand words too long for one post. But I'll post it the best I can.

[Anonymous No.1720165]

Want to read it.

[Anonymous No.1720167]

Near a dark village surrounded by trees which held no leaves, barren from the cold autumn chill, two young men sputtered along, lost, in a Volkswagen beetle while driving through the countryside of New England. The skies were gray streaked with dark inkblot swirls and somewhere nearby ravens groaned like old men in dismay. It was cold, though not exceedingly so for autumn. The road they took winded against dull green grass which was waist high and looked tired and beaten. Hills rolled along in either direction before opening up to what perhaps little more than four or so dozen buildings reminiscent of the Victorian era. Smoke rose above several of the houses, and only a handful of the windows were illuminated; most were dim and cold, and felt empty. The faded yellow bug pulled to what must have been the town square, as its flagstone tiled center looked like something out of a magazine, and stopped near where a monument once stood, but no longer.

[Anonymous No.1720168]

A door swung open, struggled against a rising wind, and a lanky young man – perhaps nineteen or twenty – stepped out. His hair was chestnut brown, as were his eyes, and he was handsome. It was the genuine friendliness, the animated expressiveness about him that made him handsome, not the way his face had been formed. He wore a black hooded sweatshirt, a red cap, and navy blue jeans. In this moment, as he scanned from left to right looking for the right road that would take him home, his face was the image of resignation. He exhaled and let his shoulders sag. The other door opened: a young man, shaggy brown hair, green eyes. “Hey Mark, I’m sorry – when the directions say to stay right and take the left exit, and there are three lanes and each one has its own off ramp…” He said this without being defensive; he said it earnestly, helplessely. “I’m an idiot.” He stood there, feeling like an asshole. He fucked up pretty bad this time; this skeleton of a town was the first thing to resemble a town in the last two hours, and there were low on gas. His name was Jeff Hill, and his forbearing friend was Mark Sandoval.

[Anonymous No.1720172]

They went to New York State, and had been on their way to Marks’ uncles house for a holiday weekend, and had taken a wrong turn and wound up here. It was a town which had no name, or perhaps it did at one point, but that point has long since passed. It was a shell. It’s a little bit of a town if there ever was one – a place where no one seemed to have any relatives. familiar on the tongues of men in conversation, unless it is spoken in dark whispers by those who may or may not have heard a story from a friend about strange lights in the sky and tales of strange noises in the countryside from those who border too close to this jilted little village. Mark turned around, grabbed the collar of his sweater and clasped it close to him, wind licking his sweatshirt and carrying the burnt smells of autumn across the air from some long forgotten fire. “It’s okay, I guess. Let’s just find a phone or something, I feel like a storm is coming and I’d like to be on the road and out of here before it hits.” Mark said, working his hands against his arms trying to fight off the biting cold.

[Anonymous No.1720179]

Jeff looked from dark spired building to dark spired building, looking for something that was open, a store or a supermarket or, well, anything. Down one of the wide streets, just over Marks’ shoulder, Jeff saw sliver of yellow light behind a thick gray curtain. “Someone’s here, at least.” Jeff said and nodded in the direction over the house. Mark turned around, and as his eyes settled on the small one story home the curtain closed, drowning the image of inhabitance. “Maybe we can use their phone for a second, call 411, or give your uncle a call for directions out of…” Jeff paused momentarily “wherever this is,” he finished, unsettled. His skin broke out in gooseflesh as he thought how creepy it was that someone had been watching them; that once their spectator realized the sliver of egg-yolk yellow light which traced the outline of the window drew the boys’ attention and shut it, in this goddamn weather… and he left those thoughts aside. “How many others are watching us right now?” He thought to himself, momentarily, and then this too faded to the back of his mind – not forgotten – but subdued for the moment like a promise. “Well, let’s go then.” Mark said this uncomfortably, but pushed on toward the small Victorian cottage. Jeff thought, for a moment, that he could smell cotton candy on the wind; some distant fair which had not realized that summer had long since died still had its carousel twirling endlessly to the looping organ.

[Anonymous No.1720181]

So frigging thesaurus'd.

[Anonymous No.1720194]

>>1720167
Read the first paragraph. Try cutting some adjectives. Every sentence should be interesting. You don't want to ever have your reader easily bored. Keep working on it though OP.

[Anonymous No.1720195]

>>1720181
Sorry. There aren't any extravagant or otherwise uncommon words in any of this, I don't think.

The flagstone was wet and cold, a dark gray which looked black under the swirling skies. To their left, as they walked down what was once main street, in this forgotten, nameless place. It was a simple Victorian cottage, one floor, with a large bay window which overlooked a juniper bush. The juniper looked like it was just hanging onto life; Mark noticed this, and couldn’t decide if it was on the fringe of life, or if whatever gave it the spark of life had been long decayed. It sat nestled against two brown stone buildings; one looked like a furniture store, but all it held was dusty floors and imprints of its past, and the other looked like a fire had gotten to it at some point; there were dark and silent licks of some charcoal flame coursing up from the windows. As they approached the house, walking its short unkempt path, ash yellow leaves fluttered by Jeff’s right arm. Goddamn its cold, he thought to himself, and began to rub his arms with his hands. His inner voice had been trembling, but not with cold – with fear. Jeff Hill was scared, near shitless, and he had no idea why – but he did not want to go in that fucking house, and that he did not want to meet whoever it was behind that door; not if it meant they had directions, or if it was a super model with a million bucks and a fucking Mercedes.

[Anonymous No.1720198]

>Near a dark village surrounded by trees which held no leaves

Use 'that' instead of 'which' here. This really bugs me every time I see it

[Anonymous No.1720205]

>>1720198
I use "which" far too often, annoys the shit out of me, too.

“Mark, man, I think that’s Route 2 man, we don’t need to ask for directions,” His voice was distressed, and he was not far from panic. Mark turned to him, and it was apparent he could feel something too, but held himself together with a guise of minor annoyance. “It’ll take a second, and then we’ll be out of here,” Mark said and finished with brevity, no longer wanting in discussion of this unnaturally silent place any more than he wanted to be there. His knuckles nocked solidly against the old wooden door. Each knock was an exclamation, exaggerated by the silence, the drone of wind, and each seemed to ring endlessly. They could not hear movement, but they could feel it. Like when you enter a public bathroom, searching for an open stall, and knowing which are occupied. Condensation marked the four corners of the large bay window; thick gray drapes, which seemed more dust than cloth, did a poor job of blocking out the light from here. They could see light leaking out from certain points where the curtains had not been flush with the wall, but no more. “It’s obvious she doesn’t want company,” Jeff began, but his words died in his throat. The drapes had flinched like skin away from a flame.

[Anonymous No.1720207]

In the heavy folds there was movement, like someone lost in cloth hills and valleys. Mark turned around to watch, and time began to slow for the both of them. A hand with papyrus like skin had emerged from the moth eaten depths; it was frail, old, and had blue spider web like veins. “Holy shit,” Jeff heard himself in disbelief, his stomaching arching in mild terror. Mark was rapt in the moment, eyes glued to the large frame and the miniscule hand which was emerging like an iceberg; there was surely more to come. It began to rain. Fat heavy droplets lazily descended from the tumultuous sky above. Marks balls felt iced – in a vice, being squeezed by some kind of ghost fist with an iron grip. A small woman emerged from the ropes of gray; clouded eyes, and an equally clouded expression took her face. Her skin was ash-yellow and looked dry – taught – as if movement alone might rip it, and the dust of her life spilled in its entirety. Her eyes, wandering, sequestering the boys, outside – the idea of outside, Mark found himself thinking – and her trembling old hand extended a finger, and tapped the glass three times with a split brown nail.

[Anonymous No.1720208]

[e-mail] We'd publish it

[Anonymous No.1720210]

It was the sound of hard picks against thin ice. The vices tightened, and the gooseflesh spread across both of their bodies. Like an animal that has heard, yet not seen, an invasive noise she began to sniff the air, and lightly rapped at the window again. This time, she left her nail against it. She smiled for a moment, if slightly, and Jeff swore there was something vulpine; something crafty, about her face, as if through some haze was laid a trap. They dare not move, even to blink, as she did this. Mark felt a tugging in his mind – something urgent and wild; he felt, quietly, the urge to help this poor old woman, to come inside and give her a hand like a nice little… and he pushed it away as quickly as it came, and the woman – as if smelling the thought as it dissipated into the air, withdrew into the house, into the folds of the curtain and into the dull light within. “She’s setting the fucking table,” Mark thought, and despite his attempts to comfort himself, he felt as if part of it were true.

[Anonymous No.1720216]

“Let’s get the fuck out of here. Let’s just take one of these roads, there’s ‘gotta be something else out here, how far can your car get us?” Jeff, spell broken, began to move toward the car, half waiting for Mark to pursue. Mark said nothing for a moment, caught in lucid speculation on what would happen if they were to be caught in the outer lying area, what else might be waiting for them?

Jeff and Mark moved rapidly toward the Volkswagen eager to leave this place. The sun was now visible through broken clouds on the horizon, and it shone through in a brilliant but somehow foul red. “Just get in the car, and let’s drive.” Jeff said, uneasily. Mark thought it sounded like Jeff wanted to throw up. Mark was right. Mark opened the driver side door, and Jeff, nearly frantically, opened the passenger. The gooseflesh on their skin now felt like stinging nettles, alive with painful electricity. Jeff wanted to scream start the fucking car, you dumb shit! Just start the fucking car! But he saw Mark trying – twisting the key – but nothing. The car didn’t turn, didn’t even try – it sat there dead, like a stone. Mark began to twist faster, furiously “Goddamn thing! Goddamn battery! I just bought a new battery; I just spent sixty bucks on a new one! It can’t be dead –” Jeff interjected “- shut the fuck up, there are people coming.” Jeff said this urgently, deadly.

[Anonymous No.1720219]

ark raised his eyes from the steering column, and in the now quickly setting sun saw four, maybe five – six? Six people, he counted them now, their shapes, Six. They came from the dark, coming from somewhere south of them, behind one of the larger clusters of houses, silently and toward them in a slow inquisitive haze. The air filled with a foul rotten – wet and musty, the smell of vegetation which has gone wrong – it was a cloying smell, one which Mark and Jeff recognized as death. “We gotta get out of the car, maybe find an empty house or something,” Jeff was speaking, terrified, but his voice sounded distant to Mark “- it doesn’t matter where else, not really, just that we can’t stay here? Can’t you feel that something is just wrong here? Christ, can’t you feel it?” Mark could. He could feel it in the bottom of his stomach, and in the pit of his heart. Like milk which has gone sour in his mouth, he tasted it. Weak at first, but now it was strong. Something has woken up, he thought, questioning nothingness. And almost immediately, he answered himself. The town has woken up.

[Anonymous No.1720221]

>>1720208
wow you dudes will publish anything evidently.

Keeping working on it OP.

[Anonymous No.1720231]

>wet and musty, the smell of vegetation which has gone wrong
lol

[Anonymous No.1720232]

I wrote this in a single sitting, and haven't gone through and edited it aside from glaring shit. It's got a long way before I think it's done, but to get the idea out of my goddamn head felt great.

I'll keep working on it - but for those who have made it thus far, how is it as a whole? as a bare idea / rough draft ? Just wondering if I should revise this, or drop this and use it as a learning experience and move on.

[Anonymous No.1720260]

[Anonymous No.1720282]

>>1720232
>I wrote this in a single sitting, and haven't gone through and edited it aside from glaring shit
Then why did you post it on /lit/? You fucking asshole.

[Anonymous No.1720306]

>>1720232
I can go right now to any number of online journals and, for free, read something somebody has spent hours editing directly and probably years on indirectly due to their study of craft.

[Anonymous No.1720331]

>>1720306
Is this to say the act of editing is more important than the story itself?

Perhaps I should have said "This is the first revision.", instead. Just because I haven't spent weeks editing it directly doesn't directly mean it's going to be shite (which it probably is anyways).

I think I sat for like 14 hours and went over it a couple of times while it was fresh in my mind, but I haven't done much heavy destructive editing yet.

I never said buy my book which does not exist, and right now you're not losing a dime reading this - so unless you've got a better point that has yet to be made, your comment is irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.1720731]

jesus christ, people, NOBODY READS SHORT STORIES. NOBODY BUYS THEM. NOBODY PUBLISHES THEM. they are like the crusted semen on the inside of that sock under your bed. NOBODY WANTS TO TOUCH THE SOCK.

[Anonymous No.1720733]

>>1720731
>Doesn't know about literary magazines.

[Anonymous No.1720742]

>>1720731
lol, there are plenty of places that publish shorts. I prefer reading shorts to novels since I'm so busy these days and I know there are plenty of people who do mainly read shorts

[Anonymous No.1721455]

>>1720742
I mainly read shorts, too. There are actually quite a few magazines which will publish short stories, and I could see something like this in Strange Tales or one of the niche Horror Mags. Keep working on it op. It's not very good, but I finished what you have and I'm interested in moar. Repost when you've edited.

[Anonymous No.1721458]

Purple prose much?

[Anonymous No.1721461]

>>1721455
>>1720742
>>1720733

All of this, & also there's been a trend of authors putting out collections of short stories or essays & having them be wildly popular. Look at that bitch that just won the Pulitzer.

[Anonymous No.1721470]

>>1721458
Cut down on adjectives. Part of the illustrative nature of reading a story is that our minds should fill in the blanks. Cut out some of the descriptors and unnecessary adjectives and I think you'll have a stronger story.