/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4383707]

Alright /lit/, I'm bored.

Post some of your work and I'll give you a crit.

If it doesn't fit in one single post then put it on fucking pastebin. Anyone who posts more than a single post worth of their work will be ignored. Keep excerpts/shorts to a reasonable length. The longer it is the less in depth my commentary will be; if it's shit there's no guarantee I'll read more than the first passage before telling you that you suck. Provide context if you like. Put your thick skin on. If you are shit I'm going to say so in as many words.

No poetry. I know nothing about it. Poetry will be ignored.

I reserve the right to abandon thread at any time.

[Anonymous No.4383954]

The room I enter, sickly sweet.
The air that sweats, smells such a treat.

The source of which, a lustful shame.
Upon last week’s socks, I duly came.

[Anonymous No.4383956]

I ARE DAT NIGGA WIT DA TRIGGA
WE MAKE FIGURES NIGGA WIGGA
UH UH
I ONCE MET A BITCH NAMED KELLY T
ME AND MY MUH NIGGAZ HEV HER STD
UH UH

[Anonymous No.4384023]

The coffee shop felt too cold after the heat of the july day, and Casie fumbled four of her last thirteen dollars out of her Tyvek wallet and into the hands of the timid puerto rican lesbian behind the counter who was afraid to meet her eys. She took her vente mocha to a table near the wall. She had been stupid last night: very stupid and very hurt, and now Vance would probably never be able to bring himself to talk to her again, or maybe even remember her without succumbing to awkward sighs and that sad ironic smile she loved so much.
She leaned her face into the steam from the dark aromatic beverage before her, holding back tears.
Something blocked the sun. A shadow fell across her battered copy of "For Whom the Bell Tolls".
"Excuse me, is this seat taken?" Drake Palladin bent forward in a mocking bow,


"Milady?" the black borsalino shading his face did not hide the piercing gray eyes or the look of ineffable loneliness upon his youthful, yet grizzled visage. He leaned lightly against his ironwood staff, His sand colored duster almost touching the tiles.
"Oh, shit." she said. "Is this Urban Fantasy? I thought I was the protagonist! You're not going to start sparkling or something are you? Fuck!"

A wave of disquiet passed over Drake's manly face.
"Ma'am? Isn't that language a little...out of character? For YA, I mean?"

[Anonymous No.4384025]

>>4384023
"YA? Oh fuck it, fuck this shit, I did NOT sign up for Young Adult! Look, over there, behind the counter! That's a dyke! a lesbian! See the spiked hair, the neatly trimmed fingernails, the look of determined wistfulness when she glances at my cleavage? That look like YA to you?"
Drake became uncertain. "She might be...a shapeshifter? My brother Lance and I have encountered many such in our quest to rid the western world of the hidden evils that pass among them unnoticed. It is a lonely life..."

Casie put her head in her hands.
"She's a dyke. A fucking rug muncher. For all I know, she's going to be my best friend or my new love interest or my resentful stalker in a few chapters. Sit down, you'll make people stare."
Drake pulled up a chair. His black dragon skin boots seeming to coil out from beneath him into a languid posture almost touching her pink stitched Doc Martins. "I assumed you were MY love interest." he said. Thsi is about where they usually show up, sitting ostentatiously in the shadows, sighing without hope and staring into the middle distance, as though remembering a secret sorrow."

"I was staring into my coffee."
"I assumed the author was getting creative."
Casie almost spat. "Like that's ever happened."
"Hey be careful what you wish for: There was a while there where I was enslaved by this Wolf-demon in ancient Mexico. Everything was going all Cormac Mcarthy for about eleven pages. You know how hard it is to get bat-shit out of a fedora?"
"Look, don't try to relate to me. I'm not your love interest. I do not have time in my life to be sodomized by zombie bikers in an alleyway in order to motivate you. I'm here to go through some ennui, a little post-relationship angst, meet a troubled urban professional, bring him out of his shell, show him my human side, and then get all Shades of Gray with him for a few chapters before the crisis, resolution, denoument and happily-ever-after crap. No. Fucking. Wizards."

Behind them, the swinging doors creaked open, reavealing a dusty and torpid New Mexican border town, as well as the weather beaten yet handsome form of El Paso Slim.
"This here dude botherin' you ma'am?"

"Oh, Lord. He's drinking again."

[Anonymous No.4384036]

snow falls
like petals from a tree
too high to be seen

[Anonymous No.4384085]

The Swallower moved through, the darkness, driving its small bubble of perception before it like a man wandering through an endless cavern, with chambers so vast
and hollow that his lantern could not even penetrate to the walls or vaulted firmament of it, to send back a glimmer to his eye. The Swallower was far below the level any mere cavern could have penetrated, and if it had lived a thousand lives it could not have explored a tenth of the vast space in which it spent its entire existence. Ninety nine percent of all the life on earth, ninety nine percent of all the energy harvested from the sun and cast into forms of air and water that had names like protein and carbohydrate, the making-stuff of skin and flesh and tooth and scale, was here, in this great empty place, where the water was like frozen iron and was squeezed so tightly that it was almost gelid,
The darkness that had moved upon the waters lay there still
This was the World. And the name of the world was Ocean.

[Anonymous No.4384091]

>>4384023
>>4384025

Dude keep this up it's refreshing

[Anonymous No.4384095]

http://therenaissanceofreason.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/godel-numbering/

Be gentle with me anon ;~;

[Anonymous No.4384160]

op pls. 674 words
http://pastebin.com/SExvB9fJ

[Anonymous No.4384217]

Sitting in the sweaty folds of my dressing-gown in the blue fuzz swivel chair I considered with clarity the stained-glass window above the altar at the church I regularly attended. Mattheus, Markus, Lucas and Johannes. With a towering, beaming bling Jesus in the center. How much more beautiful it would be if they replaced those 1370s wetcoloured glass figures with the Beatles circa 1969. John, Paul, George and Ringo. Paul big-eyed and boyishly handsome in a Tommy Nutter suit. John peering like a hawk through an oppressive wall of glasses, nose and beard. Curious and ironic to sainthood them in an era when Paul McCartney giftwrapped himself in Scotland and John Lennon climbed into a chimpanzee's womb and consequently they were at each other's jugular apples tooth and nail and song.

[Anonymous No.4384241]

Some time in the night a great upwelling of warm salt water from the Gulf caught the frail raft, and swirled it into an eddy, and the rising tide finally raised it above the low shoals and oyster slutes and receded, leaving it it the maze of mangrove and salt pine and deep black water of Bayou Marseux. The smallest of the men, wrapped up in the prow in a cloak made of damp prison blankets shuddered as the dawn breeze found his thin exposed shoulder. The monster, passing beneath, caused the boat to rock in its wake, but none of the men stirred again until dawn found them.

[Anonymous No.4384242]

Throughout my city I was known as the Executioner. Although I was not the actual beheader of the unlawful, my reputation for approving of the executions granted me this title. My official title, however, was the Autarch of my city. Absolute power was granted to me through the passing of my father. This specific day, the beginning of my story, I was advised by my council to view and judge the many appointed - by myself - positions of the city. An accountant, the servants, the guards, the cooks and the executioner.
Not once through the thousands of executions I had allowed, had I actually witnessed one myself. The prisons on the north side of town as well as the execution yard were open to the public. The cells were full this day; men, women and children. The women and children were no exception in my eyes, for, what was the use of a beggar or idler whether woman or man. An eye for an eye is what was thought to be proper punishment in my city, yet, I do not believe there are enough eyes in the world to account for my atrocities.
A pentagonal courtyard circumscribed the decaying wooden platforms which the executions took place. A gallows, a guillotine, a table - with tools - for those deserving of a much more precise punishment. Generations of unwashed blood and rust covered these grotesque contraptions dispersing an atmosphere which attracted an especially macabre crowd. My decision was to watch while upon these platforms for an especially up-close viewing. The gathering consisted of men tattooed with angels, devils and the familiar Six-Raven piece. Shaved heads were covered in modifications which looked to me almost as painful as the third platform itself. Many of the men, however, most likely experiencing this third platform at some time in their life were most likely oblivious to the pain of the modifications.
The first execution of the day was of a thief. This thief, after avoiding any authority for months of burglary and smuggling, earned the reputation being immortal, or at least unattainable. But here he was, led up to the platforms fettered in shackles and chains, crying out as if his body were already marred. Not immortal, just a coward. The guillotine would be sufficient for this one. Unwilling to kneel, his legs were kicked out from behind as he was pinned into place. A pull of a rope and it was over. Some of the gathering chuckled while some shuddered as if a chill moved briskly over them.
A child, who was caught pick-pocketing, lost the fingers on his good hand. A woman spreading disease through a wealthier part of the city would no longer find her talent of persuasion so simple.

[Anonymous No.4384249]

part of a (troubled) love poem i'm working on:

and in this brief moment
when the window creeks and sleeps
i am a thumbtack bundled up
in your car seat blanket sheet
push too hard and you'll feel me
colliding with your battered feet
and so the streets we grew up to see
wrap themselves around us until we meet.

[Anonymous No.4384263]

"The Island of Gramarye was raised out of the sea by a trio of demons at the command of Merlin. Supported on three hundred thousand tremendous pillared arches of polished black basalt and white crysolite, the body of the island was more or less a hollow labyrinth of caves and adits, passageways and halls, some new and raw as though hewn crudely from the living rock by the adzes of giants, some having the appearance of great antiquity and ornamented in ways that might have been said to express at times awe, at times profundity, and even a forlorn charm. Others were as straight and level and evenly and logically spaced as though laid directly from some masterful draughtsman onto the naked substance of the island by thauamturgic edicta.

This was in fact not accident or whimsy, as Merlin had chosen the three daemons for this work for exactly these qualities. The conflicts and contrasts which steered the force of their cooperation he hoped would result in a varied and aesthetically surprising set of compromises that would delight and edify the senses. All in all, he was not displeased. Future scholars, observing the conditions and .... that made up the topology and indigenous character of the inhabitants and environs of the island--essentially the roof of his cyclopean workrooms-- are more dubious, or perhaps merely less sophisticated of perception.

[Anonymous No.4384266]

>>4384263
The three demons, Vanille, Vermithron and Diarc, had affected in an early stage of the their coalescence, to embody and thus manifest concepts roughly corresponding to Utiliform dynamism, nostalgic sentiment, and theoretic exactitude. Their cooperation in the construction of the internal arrangements, to conform to the specifications, idylls and whims of their great master, were carried out with straightforward diligence and attention to all forms of proper engineering, design and style.
The surface of the island, the roof of his domain, Merlin was less concerned with, and there the demons natural aesthetic tensions held greater sway, resulting in the contrasts, compromises and outright impossibilities that so many lost travelers have commented on.

While it is not exactly accurate to describe the place as "the fevered death bed hallucination of a perverted and misanthropic children’s book author" or "the horrific masquerade-fair idyll of some repressed pedantic Caligula, gradually expiring from gin.", one can, upon, an extended exposure to the island's unique venues, at least comprehend the genesis of the images, and of course, of many others."

The Chronicles of Ebenn Pfazz

[Anonymous No.4384274]

>>4384242
>Although I was not
>although

>My official title, however,
>however

cut this shit out. completely unnecessary.

[Anonymous No.4384288]

>>4384036
>trees have petals now, eh?... Fuckin amateurs

[Anonymous No.4384299]

>>4384036
Jokes aside, this is beautiful. How did you come up with it?

[Anonymous No.4384311]

"Listen to me: success is a fraud. It will lie to you, mislead you.
Maybe not deliberately, but every time.

Those guys standing beside the podiums? Telling you how to get rich? They don't know: they don't even really know how they did it. They have stories about working hard, about seizing opportunity, about staying focused. Listen there's fifty guys for every one of them that worked like dogs, that seized every opportunity that passed, that had the focus of a laserbeam, and where are they? Where's their self-help book and their stock portfolio? And fifty? Shit: Try five thousand.

And they're the ones that should be talking, they're the ones you need to hear from. The guys that staked their fortunes on a dream and watched it wither away a day at a time. The ones who suffered through nights and weekends driving a dead end business deeper into the red every month. The ones that lost.

Because you can learn from failure, you can learn from the losers, the bad guessers the guys whose impossible dream was just a little too impossible. They can teach you what not to do, what fool's gold looks like, when to cut your losses. When to quit.
Because success is a liar: when you're a success, you tried and you won. If you won, you didn't step in enough traps, didn't fall in enough pitfalls. You can teach nothing.
If you want to learn how to live, talk to the dead."

[Anonymous No.4384325]

I found Uncle Morris's tyrannosaur today.
I was pulling up the carcasses of the late summer tomatoes from the old front bed where my mother used to plant her marigolds and mums, and it surged up with the roots like some grey plastic revenant of lost childhood, both my own and the world's, I guess.
"Uncle Morris' Tyrannosauriss" my brother Bobby used to call it.
For ten years it had stood beside Morris's picture on my bedroom shelf, and then, when I came back from college, both it and the picture were gone, boxed up in the attic or sold in a yard sale I assumed. It must have been out there, dodging tiller blades and trowels for sixteen springs at least, the brother to earthworms and companion to grubs. I cleaned it up in the sink in the potting shed, the slight patina of dried earth seems to limn out the scales nicely, so I forbore the nail brush. He regards me now, from the edge of the mantel, gazing in ignorant defiance across sixteen year of my life and sixty five thousand millenia of the earth's own. When the firelight flickers just right he almost seems to stir, and I almost hear again the sickening train-whistle warble of his death-wail. But it's too early to talk about that: let me tell you about how I came into possession of him the first time, and about the ocean.

[Anonymous No.4384345]

"When the final ship had sailed, and the last of the Noble Race had departed for the Blessed Shores beyond the horizons, where living men may not tread, their mighty castles stood empty, and their great libraries untenanted, their mighty stone edifices, the palaces, the granaries, the forts and halls and pavillions stood abandoned: empty of all but the scurrying inroads of mice and the silent sweep of the pinions of lone owls, their mighty silhouettes etched against the moon like deathless monuments to the lore and enchantment that had now been lost to the world forever.
Things persisted so for about three weeks. Then a family of vagabond tinkers, prostitutes and cardsharps happened upon the deserted campus of the White College of the Eld. Finding the cellars stocked, the larders full and the storehouses unlocked, or at least poorly secured, and with winter fast approaching, they decided they might do worse than to roost there for a bit. By the time spring had thawed the last ice from the great marble fountains, revealing the tremendous pile of empty wine bottles and ale tuns that now resided there, they had come to the conclusion that they themselves must in someway be descended from the elder race and therefrore entitled to at least stewardship of the premises indefinitely. By the time three generations had passed, Delvon Halfelven the Wise was farting and fucking his oldest granddaughter in the Hall of Wisdom itself. Much the same situation persisted in similar locations."

[Anonymous No.4384349]

By the time the colonists at Jamestown were setting up their pallisades and digging their entrenchments, the wolf of England was a memory. The soot ghost shadows gliding beneath the pines and tamaracks of the tidewater Virginia were creatures out of legends and fireside fables: winter night goblins to frighten laggard children home from the fields. The last of the Grey Shepherds of the Kentish chalk ponds and the Durham uplands were become bone and tooth in quarrys and ratty pelts peeling on the sides of stone barns. The things that stalked the returning American hunter through the twilit autumn woods, as silent in the leaf littered forests as a breath of tobacco smoke, was to him only a monster. He had never known it as a beast.
But the wolf as a monster was well known to him indeed: They called him Isengrim. He was a buffoon and a glutton, easily fooled and cozened by the wilier animals in his fables, but also fierce and ravenous and relentless. He was the picture of ruthless hunger. The very image of famine. The medieval shepherd, finding his tracks in the snow beneath his thatched eaves would scratch bark and mumble a paternoster with freezing breath. The called him "feet in the night" and "hungry brother" for his coloration like the grey woolen robe of a strolling friar.
In the forests of America they met him again. And this was in his world: it was wolfland, cold and raw, and there he held dominion. The Iroquois were not herdsmen or poulterers: they did not quarrel with him: It was to the white settlers that he became the enemy: haunting the coves and glens and woodlots and trailing across the frozen rivers to take lamb and calf and trembling foal. His howls followed the traveller home through the moonlight, and his gaze, green as foxfire loomed out of the bramble and hedge and deadfall, following the lantern's progress between barn and byre and stocklot, seeking that which he might devour.

[Anonymous No.4384401]

Bit by bit, heart to heart. Left-right-left, we all fall down.
Bit by bit, torn apart, we never win. But the battle wages on for toy soldiers.

I'm supposed to be the soldier who never blows his composure. Even though I hold the weight of the world on my shoulders - I ain't never supposed to show it. My crew ain't supposed to know it.
Even if it means going toe to toe, with a Benzino, it don't matter; I'd never drag them in battles I can't handle. Unless I absolutely have to. I'm supposed to set an example.
I need to be the leader, my crew looks to me to guide 'em. If some shit ever does pop off, I'm supposed to be beside 'em. That Ja shit I tried to squash it, but it was too late to stop it.
There's a certain line you just don't cross - and he crossed it. I heard him say Hailie's name on a song and I just lost it.
It was crazy, this shit went way beyond some Jay-Z and Nas shit. And even though the battle was won, I felt like we lost it. I spent too much energy on it, honestly, I'm exhausted. I'm so caught in it I almost feel I'm the one who caused it.
This ain't what I'm in hip-hop for, it's not why I got in it. That was never my object for someone to get killed. Why would I wanna destroy something I helped build?
It wasn't my intentions, my intentions were good. I went through my whole career without ever mentionin' Suge. That was just out of respect for not runnin' my mouth and talkin' about something I knew nothing about. Plus Dre told me stay out, this just wasn't my beef.
So I did, I just fell back, watched and gritted my teeth while he's all over tv down talkin' a man who literally saved my life. Like fuck it I understand this is my business, and this shit just ain't none of my business.
But still knowin' this shit could pop off at any minute 'cause.

[Anonymous No.4384438]

This is the opening for a story I'm writing and I need to make sure it's gripping for obvious reasons. Any help appreciated.

"How am I blind?" were the first words that escaped her lips, slow and measured, bearing only a hint of a tremble. She shuddered, recoiling slightly into herself, wide blue eyes staring blankly ahead. "Why is the world so flat?" she begged, quietly; unmoving.

I remained silent. This had been the first time she had awoken without crying herself into exhaustion. I still wasn't sure whether I should have regretted the decision to rescue her or not; some insane mis-creation was bound to be an omen of ill fortune. The thought echoed in my mind as I studied her bloodied wingtip poking out from the bedsheets, limp and bedraggled. She obviously wasn't human, nor was she a golem.

[Anonymous No.4384485]

>>4384023
>>4384025
totally enjoying this. put a smile on my face.

[Anonymous No.4384545]

“Come in.”
Ivis entered, shut the door behind him, and shuffled around his seat before facing Raighley. As before, he wore his suede brown jacket, his metallic shoulder plates, his smug grin, his dishevelled hair. Laid back in his seat, he had his hands behind his head, puffing smoke from a University approved pipe. “Ivis, Ivis, Ivis. You were right on time, very punctual. I imagine your mother’s the same, never missing a deadline”, he remarked.
“She is punctual, yes”, Ivis responded, although why this man had thrown her into the conversation eluded him. After the words left his mouth, the idea of Raighley observing his mother from her the mouth of her doorway was a disturbing one.
“Now, now, not to worry Ivis. We have an arrangement, you and I. Or at least, we will do. She’ll have her home back soon enough and your sister, of course.”
“My sister won’t be living with us come summertime,” Ivis said, “She’s going to Coral Bay. She’s off to University.” Informing Raighley of such things was uncomfortable. Everyone knew of that University’s reputation. It was not known for its hard work.
“Ah. A party girl, is she?” Raighley mused. The room had become quite musky, and Raighley diverted his attention to the grey lingering smoke.
“No, yes. I suppose you could say that.” If anything it was an understatement. Ivis did not want to know what gruesome activities his sister would get up to. It would involve boys. Maybe multiple boys in singular periods. His mother had mourned at the potential loss of her daughter’s innocence, possibly too blinded to see she was grieving something long gone. Luzie was a forbidden topic of the dwindling household. Pointing out her flaws was a painful act, often leaving her undisciplined and coddled.
“Just you and your mother then. Morglane, was it?” He didn’t let Ivis answer, and drew in with a boyish jerk, hands clasped on the table. “Well, then, Ivis, we have a bit of a problem then, don’t we?”

[Anonymous No.4384550]

>>4384545
oops, said mouth twice.

[Anonymous No.4384709]

"To slay a god is no simple task, and should not be entertained lightly For one thing, there is so much of him, and the forces that brought him into being, and that continue to sustain and edify him, that marshall his growth and temper the espalier of his divinity across the fabric of the worlds men bring into being are constantly at work.
When the Green Man fell, bursting open upon the high stones of Kol Brannir and spilling out the mass of rotten fruit, lambs entrails, bones of virgin martyrs and the hopes, fears, prayers and resignations with which he had been fortified for battle, and after the hundred seers had sat upon this augury and chronicled the myriad portents, omens and prophecies (some frighteningly specific) which were thus shown light, there was still much work to accomplish.

Shrines must be profaned, temples thrown down, fanes broken and icons made ludicrous. Doctrines and rituals had to be distorted and parsed into meanigless allegory, and the Great Doxology must be amended, edited, reconciled and commentaried into useless aphorism and recondite obsolescence. Such was the work of a thousand professional Obscurantists and Blasphemers: in three generations it was nearly complete. When the Ultimate Syncresis was at last published to the waiting public, no hint of divine inspiration remained within its infinitely collated and compendiated columns."

[Anonymous No.4384799]

I farted deeply and proudly. From my anus, I emitted a thick gas that smelled of cauliflower and Cheeto. While the gas left my secret crevice and filled the air, I turned to my classmate Courtney who was staring at me in horror. No doubt she had heard my buttocks flapping against one another and was just now processing the terrible consequences of my flatulence. I had spent years sniffing and inhaling my noxious farts, this was but a trifle for me, but for her... I smiled into her frightened blue eyes.

"Taste me," I whispered, "Taste me."

I farted again and watched her choke. She writhed in her seat and behind me I heard someone retch. I laughed at them. It was a good fart, low and manly and smelly and pungent. They were unprepared for its strength, they had not expected such power to assault them so suddenly and cruelly. Slowly my scent spread and the entire class became trapped in my odor. They moaned and vomited, but they could not avoid me now and at every breath they had no choice but to inhale and to accept my strength. I farted once more, and this one was not low at all; it was high and soaring and melodious. My fart sang above the professor and the frat boys and all heard the song of my anus, and all bowed to it.

"Stop," whispered Courtney, "please."

I remembered how her strawberry blond ponytail had bounced away from me after she turned her back to me and rejected my advances. She was so pretty and so soft and so kind. She was a timid girl with small hard breasts and a body that curved ever so slightly yet so dramatically to my eye. How could she have refused me, how could she have refused my power? Did she not know of my strength and of my song? Was she so ignorant that to her I was merely a sniveling outcast, begging for a crumb of her sympathy? NAY! I had my song to sing and I had the great muscle of my ass to flex! She could not turn away from me now, she could not ignore me advances now, I am strong and I am King and she will respect my gas.

"No," I replied, and I farted again.

[Anonymous No.4385302]

>>4384349
i think i'd keep reading.

[Anonymous No.4385331]

>>4383707
>I would very much appreciate critique from anyone willing.

Peter struggled to his feet, legs shaking and arms straining under his mother's weight. He stood, staring at his feet and fighting his buckling knees. Slowly he turned and walked away. The storm was all around him, and he passed the vague outlines of trailers on either side as he splashed down the muddy gravel road. He may have heard his father call out and it may have sounded small and desperate but he kept walking forward, even as the storm closed around him. Cold rain stung a cold face and the roar so like the voice of God or the other one had torn it's way into his ears and ran through his head smashing vases and shouting vulgar monologues in the language of rocks and rivers.

[Anonymous No.4385814]

>tfw you're so focused world building you don't move along with any form of plot for the characters

Anyone else get stuck in a rut like this? I've been tweaking and changing this world I made so that it makes some form of sense, but it never seems to be going anywhere.
Maybe I should talk to /tg/, they're familiar with world building over substance.

[Anonymous No.4385822]

i think the reason there isn't more critique in this thread is that a lot of the stuff is actually pretty good, and whats not is obvious trolling. There's not much to say beyond "keep it up"

[Anonymous No.4385827]

>>4385814
all you need is a story. pick a plot and shove some characters through it. and don't play tour guide: worst thing you can do is show your work.

[Anonymous No.4385843]

If you're posting something, leave at least one critique of another work. Otherwise we just get an avalanche of mediocrity with no one making it better.

[Anonymous No.4385964]

>>4384311
I really like it. Seriously, I'd like to give you advice but I can't think of anything I'd change. If you want to post more I'll read it.

>>4384325
>I was pulling up the carcasses of the late summer tomatoes from the old front bed where my mother used to plant her marigolds and mums, and it surged up with the roots

Not bad but there's a whole lot of action going on at the same time. Pulling, planting and surging are all happening at once, and not even at the same time. That's a lot to put on the reader for such an early sentence.

>it surged up with the roots like some grey plastic revenant of lost childhood
>like some grey plastic revenant

Haha, the McCarthy "some". I've found myself using it in my writing too.

>grey plastic revenant of lost childhood, both my own and the world's, I guess.

Very cool, with it being a dinosaur. I see you do that later on to:

> gazing in ignorant defiance across sixteen year of my life and sixty five thousand millenia of the earth's own

I like this piece but I think you're inconsistent stylistically. The mix of epic description (some gray plastic revenant of a lost childhood, both mine and the world's; He regards me now, from the edge of the mantel, gazing in ignorant defiance ) and casual first person (I guess; But it's too early to talk about that: let me tell you about how I) is kind of jarring. Not terrible but it feels a bit choppy.

Overall good though, I would read on. I particularly like the vague bit at the end about the ocean.


I'll do some more later. And everyone please if you post something of yours here take the time to critique someone elses.

[Anonymous No.4386136]

>>4384023
>>4384025

Most entertaining thing I've read on 4chan in a while. Tighten up the first few lines. I'd keep reading this if you've got more.

>>4384217
You are using too many descriptive words, especially in the first sentence: "sweaty folds" :blue fuzz swivel chair" "considered with clarity" "regularly attended." Makes the first sentence drag.

>>4384241
Consider breaking up the first two sentences, though I understand that the first one runs on intentionally, Intriguing, but too short to give you much feedback.

>>4384263
>>4384266
Lay off the filler words ("more or less" "in fact" "not exactly") and also lay off playing with the thesaurus.

>>4384311
It's in quotes, so I assume this is a guy monologuing. If so, its great for establishing someone as a certain type of character- jaded and cynical, bitter at those that are successful because he isn't, thinks that life is governed by luck and that he's terminally unlucky. If it's not dialogue though, the message has been done to death (which is why it's so good at characterization- we all have heard someone talk like this in our lives).

[Anonymous No.4386141]

>>4384325
>>4384345
>>4384349
Is this all the same guy posting? Because they all read very similarly. If so, post some critiques of your own before you dump a whole pile of passages.

[Anonymous No.4386151]

>>4384023
>>4384025

Hahaha excellent man, post some more

[Anonymous No.4386155]

>>4384799
Cheeto singular? I don't think that works. Also, the story in general doesn't work. It isn't funny, doesn't evoke any particular emotion, it's just a depiction of a guy with really smelly farts. If it was meant to be shocking it failed as well, it's completely forgettable. I can tell you had fun writing it, though, so I'm glad it wasn't a total waste.

[Anonymous No.4386163]

>>4385814
The world should be in service of the plot, theme, message, or at very minimum the character's relationships. The world has enough shitty fantasy and science-fiction books where the author goes on and on about the magic system without bothering to write three dimensional characters.

>>4385822
You are lazy.

[Anonymous No.4386169]

Just got home from work, so I'll critique after I relax. The excerpt is in google drive instead of pastebin due to formatting issues. A girl helped me write this.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1enpucur8J25_CHYvtWIhoexumM8_ABF7gCD_Q5dNsAk/edit?usp=sharing

[Anonymous No.4386170]

>>4386163
>You are lazy.

No, just wrong. The real reason there aren't any critiques ITT is because /lit/ has fallen to crippling narcissism.

[Anonymous No.4386175]

>>4386170
>/lit/ has fallen to crippling narcissism.
But don't narcissists like shitting on other people? That's actually useful in a critique thread.

[Anonymous No.4386178]

>>4386170
> /lit/ has fallen to crippling narcissism.

Idk, its seemed better lately to me. Now let's stop shitposting and continue with critiques

[Anonymous No.4386181]

Everyone go to critiquecircle.com

[Anonymous No.4386185]

>>4386175
>But don't narcissists like shitting on other people?
Narcissist don't care enough about other people to "shit on them."

>>4386178
>Now let's stop shitposting and continue with critiques
You mean "posting our work in a silent echo chamber."

[Anonymous No.4386242]

>>4385814
I've done the opposite and feel like people won't understand what the fuck is going on.

[Anonymous No.4386501]

>>4384025
>>4384023
This seems kinda neat. I'd totally read more.
>Do you know how hard it is to get bat shit out of a fedora?
That's a question /tv/ could answer.

[Anonymous No.4386505]

Here's something I posted in a short story thread a little while ago, and someone in there seemed to enjoy it.
>http://pastebin.com/itdZGiUV

And here's something I wrote during the first snow of Winter.
>A freezing December’s eve, just before the sun’s set. Your coat hardly seems enough to shelter you from the temperature. You walk down the sidewalk, heading home, neon lights painting your path, when a comforting, familiar melody catches your ear. You turn towards the sound, and notice that a group of singers has gathered in the square. They sing Carol Of The Bells, and you smile. Almost as if on cue, snow begins to fall on your town, in thick flakes.They finish their rendition, when another sound comes from behind. It’s a cry unlike anything you’ve ever heard, or will ever hear again. Atop the building in front of which the performance had just taken place sits a winged beast, with flames licking the sides of it’s nose and spikes lining it’s spine. The dragon has come for the town again, after so many years. You hear panicking citizens in the streets, but your eyes are fixed on the merciless creature. The mere sight of him has brought upon a fire inside you, an incredibly sharp sense of revenge. You race towards your home, not questioning why you feel the need to be the hero.

[Anonymous No.4386548]

"Don't forget what brought you here and made you see the truth. That there is work to be done and you've done nothing but catch shadows all around town. You haven't eaten for days. Your face has gotten older, Erol. Your teeth are done for."

[Anonymous No.4386571]

Bumping.

[Anonymous No.4386614]

not a formal piece of writing but an outline for a short story I've had on the backburner for a while
>science fiction
>about four hundred years before the start of the story humanity had colonized hundreds of planets, but some cataclysmic event disrupted all the "lanes" used for FTL travel, so no lane went where it should have
>without communication or support from earth, the many planets, especially underdeveloped ones, splintered
>eventually the more developed planets united and began a campaign of rediscovery
>most planets have been rediscovered, one is still found every few years, and a few months before the story begins a new one is found, whose people have never spread out from the equator and have a culture and technology similar to medieval arabia
>main character is a soldier/diplomat in the new federation sent to this arabic planet
>bandit raids have been increasing on the city of "Al-Safed".
>the local Emir has locked himself in his palace surrounded with guards, public order is being disrupted, etc
>The Caliph of the region has asked the federation to prove their good nature by resolving this problem
>Federation wants to win over the people and formally annex the planet
>There is also a war going on in another part of the galaxy, so very few resources are allocated to this particular planet
ANYWAY
>MC is a soldier/diplomat sent to the planet to investigate and resolve the issue. Fairly green.
>Situation in city is tense, Federation guards are patrolling the streets but the people don't fully trust them, whispers of revolt. Federation guards are almost constantly on edge, but mostly bored. Prose will emphasize relationship between conqueror and conqueree - like Orwell's shooting an elephant
>MC is told that a hermit living near a federation outpost in the desert has more info.
>MC and local guide venture out into the desert. A lot of emphasis on surviving in harsh climate
>local guide is wary of the Federation but sees annexation as inevitable and knows resistance is pointless.
>points out that some local soldiers were even talking about joining up with the federation because their technology is much more advanced
>hermit points them towards mountains. A bored soldier from the outpost decides to come along because there's fuckall to do

(con't)

[Anonymous No.4386618]

>>4386614
>The three travel to the mountains, ambushed at one point by well trained and well armed bandits
>Eventually upon arriving to their lair, beeg tweest.
>The Emir himself has taken some of his honour guard and joined up with the bandits, arming and funding them
>Why? Coming of Federation, he knows his rule is at an end. Rather than hold power over his people in name only (whilst being a puppet of the federation) he decided to take whatever true power he can for himself
>MC points out the hypocrisy as he is attacking his own people, Emir says that attacking the federation is suicide, all he wants is to feel authority
>Eventually local guide kills the Emir
>The news gets out, people of Al-Safed are disgusted in their leadership
>Turns out the monarchy had been getting unpopular on the planet for a long time
>People of the planet move much closer towards federation,
>In a double beeg tweest it turns out this whole move was planned from the start by the local consul of the federation, who encouraged the Emir to do what he did
>Consul says end justifies the means, the federation has a mission to civilize the people of savage worlds, and they need their loyalty to do it
>MC is conflicted, feels subterfuge is wrong but is still loyal to federation
>Bored soldier encourages MC to spread the word, however, local guide argues against it, saying it is against the natural order.
>With mission complete and the war in the other part of the galaxy still going on, MC is recalled from the planet

Will this work as a short ~3000 word story? Is the plot interesting? Is the first tweest obvious? Is the second tweest obvious? I understand that the whole "The good guys were the bad guys all along!" shtick may be commonly played, but is it always bad or can it be redeemed with good prose?

[Anonymous No.4386628]

>>4386614
>but some cataclysmic event disrupted all the "lanes" used for FTL travel
Didn't this happen in Cowboy Bebop? Maybe it's not uncommon in sci-fi. I wouldn't know.
>Will this work as a short ~3000 word story?
Try 30,000 haha. Your pitch alone was 626. It would literally have to be an expanded version of your outline to fit into 3000 words.

Even so, it sounds better than most sci-fi outlines I see posted here. My only advice is that you try to inject a little "humaness" in the main character. The best sci-fi with a central character always has that.

[Anonymous No.4386851]

>>4384799
>>4386155
I found it pretty funny. No emotion? I say there's at least a whiff of emotion lingering in there somewhere.

[Anonymous No.4386887]

>>4386851
pun acknowledged

however, this kind of lowbrow humor is just about the hardest kind to do in a written medium, The sniggering behind your hand stuff really only works if what you're sniggering at actually has some dignity, especially undeserved dignity. And for that there needs to be a very specific parody target. Even that doesn't always help: the Seattle rapist, Kevin Coe, published a book that is still used as an example to show the poor understanding of humor that a sociopathic personality demonstrates. Coe wrote tons of puns, toilet humor, etc, that were apparetnly not what he himself found amusing but what he assumed would be amusing to "normal"people. Said quite a lot about how he saw others. If you can find it, it's called "Sex in the White House". a classic example of parody and humor in general gone wrong.

[Anonymous No.4386921]

>>4386628
Dirupted Lanes happended at least once in Perry Rhodan.

[Anonymous No.4387010]

>>4384799

That was pretty good

I can empathize with that guy

[Anonymous No.4387040]

>>4387010
I wonder if that's what the author is goind for though? Petty evil, especially unaware evil, is usually written to show a lampoon villain, or to throw a snide dig at a stereotype the author sort of believes in ( like the stereotypical jew in antisemetic literature) Here the viewpoint character is sort of cartoonily impotent wish-fulfillment, and the author seems to be usuing the fart idea as a variant on the spanking thing you used to see. a sort of pathetic, embarassed dominance behavior.

[Anonymous No.4387169]

>>4386242
not knowing what the fuck is going on in a broad sense is one of the ways of involving the reader. the action of the plot may seem unmotivated, or there may be deeper reasons for it. you see way too many books where the reader is supposed to understand stuff just because of embedded conventions. (good guys wear white hats, bad guys wear black hats, black guys wear good hats). You get a lot of informed attributes like elves that are supposed to be wise and sensitive but never actually do anything a carnival fortune teller couldnt for instance. Let the characters and plot drive the story, and try to use a character who doesn't know any of the world or the backstory and has lived in seclusion from it as your protagonist. this has happened in a lot of awful stories, i know, but in a lot of good ones too.

[Anonymous No.4387197]

>>4386618
You'll struggle to fit all that into 3000 words. I don't think the twist is obvious but I do think it's a bit stupid.

[Anonymous No.4387204]

Sputtering whizzbangs shot the fractious supe of craven wahalians from their hideyhole out to the streets beyond, windows shattering in the wincing dawn. Withers leapt down the nubile passageway but was abstracted ad absurdum by the blues' riddling and danced to the big gun music until he fell, dead, juiced. His compatriots lay prostate and scattered throughout the road, under cars, under fire. McAndrew's head, punctured by a selfshot bullet, fell to eyelevel with the boy under the car. The boy stared into the middle distance and strained to scope the blues with a Smith & Wesson Model 36 revolver. The Smith & Wesson Model 36 is a powerful gun, chambered for .38 Special cartridges. It is big and the johnnies use them. They sell real well, even stiff-thrift ones. Somewhere, a jukebox played Ray Charles. McAndrew's body was still bleeding. The kid was called Hudson. He was going to die in eight hours from injuries sustained in the shootout. Life is a precious thing and it is sad that Hudson died. Here lies Hudson, seventeen years old. Jakes came running at the car and their kneecaps were popped. Jaime the Spaniard ran towards the wave of blues like a schizoid Cnut and he was capped in the chest but he was all strapped with the gelignite and the street was aflame and blazing redwhite. Hudson's name was not Hudson. His father had called him Ehud, but he did not like the name Ehud, so he called himself Hudson, like the fellow in pictures. Endless trails of blues swelled the street as the guerillas fell and curled up or lay on their backs with their eyes looking up to the skies.
It was raining.

[Anonymous No.4387209]

>>4386887
I think it's interesting that many people who spend their time analyzing and explaining humor often have no sense of humor themselves

[Anonymous No.4387211]

>>4387204
Could be okay but you misuse some words.

[Anonymous No.4387222]

For wisdom I've laid down
These old things that I've found
But it's worth it just to see
How your smile changes me

Seeking to understand
Fearing the world's demands

Never will I ever see the end of it
I never said that every single second
of my life would make sense

So without simplicity
We seek the only certainty

What promise is this?

Numquam Fidelis!


Undaunted, unbroken
Uncertainly I stand
On the edge of "I don't know"
Kiss my hand and let me go

Wandering far form home
Fear fear of the unknown

Never will I ever see the end of it
I never said that every single second
of my life would make sense

So without simplicity
We seek the only certainty

What promise is this?

Numquam Fidelis!


Time rewinding
Pain reminding
Love unbinding
I am finding

Life's imperfect
Make it worth it
You deserve this
Find your purpose

Although you will never
understand or measure
the reasons for every single second of a life worth living
Answers aren't absolute, remember,

Numquam Fidelis!

[Anonymous No.4387242]

>>4387209
i usually find the opposite is true: people engaged in humor and appreciative of it often spend hours analyzing timing, allusion, context, style, anyhting that makes a joke work or an anecdote memorable. I assume people who don't have a sense of humor wonder what all the fuss is about. Come to think of it, I don't know any humorless people who spend much time analysing humor at all. can you give some examples of types?

[Anonymous No.4387279]

>>4387242
actually you're totally right, i was just annoyed because i was told my story was bad. i'm a very petty person (which was the point of my story) but honestly i didn't do that much thinking about it and i wrote in about twenty minutes after seeing the thread. i'm not trying to invalidate the fact that i spent time and energy and my own emotion on it, i'm acknowledging that I really shouldn't get so upset just because somebody didn't like my two paragraph story about farting. you can't get better without criticism but i'm very sensitive about this sort of thing and unfortunately i cannot help but to emotionally relate to my own writing. anyways thanks for criticism and sorry for being a dick

[Anonymous No.4387312]

>>4387279
I've reread some of the attention your work got an I don't think you should be too upset. As you say, you took a shot and spent twenty minutes trying to give the impression of a some petty fantasy wish fulfillment with a sympathetic victim and a sleazy, weak protagonist. you got that across. The jokes just didn't work. I don't see why they couldn't though: you just need to make them more surprising. The essence of the fart joke is that it comes out of nowhere in awkward circumstances. Just ask yourself:"when is a fart the funniest?" that ought to help.

[Anonymous No.4387396]

>>4386628
Well the universe this takes place in is actually inspired by Bebop and Firefly, a real space western kinda feeling. But in Bebop it was a gate that exploded and destroyed the earth, here the lanes just switched for some reason and earth was lost and hasn't yet been rediscovered.
This story would actually be a spin off of another story I'm nearly finished writing set in the same universe (the MC of this story is a secondary character in the other one) which focuses a lot more in the frontier stuff.
Shit though, I didn't realize how long it was getting. I really wanted to make it a short story instead of a novella because the longer I work on something the greater chance I have of dropping it.

What if I cut out some parts, and frame the story as the MC recounting her adventure to a friend a couple of years later? That way I could summarize some parts and save space.

>>4387197
What specifically makes it stupid? Cliché?

[Anonymous No.4387416]

>>4387396
A short story needs to have a central idea. and the idea needs to inform most if not all of the action. you sort of have a saga going here. pick one event that defines what the characters experience and lesson was, and make that the central point. then you have a story and the trite and cliched type setting won't matter.

use the twists to force the main character to do something that betrays her allegiences and it turns out to be just what was expected, and why she was chosen in the first place for example, and so she became cynical or whatever. And go read "Scanners Live in Vain" and "The Spectre General" and "Gunpowder God" to see how these things are done well.

[Anonymous No.4387503]

http://pastebin.com/9nPtWRyT

[Anonymous No.4387514]

>>4387503
>http://pastebin.com/9nPtWRyT
Purdy dece.

[Anonymous No.4387517]

>>4387514
What does that even mean?

[Anonymous No.4387521]

>>4387514
>>4387517
Oh, dece as in decent?

[Anonymous No.4387534]

"What are you up to on there?"
"Looking for women"
"On the internet? You'd have better luck looking for a power saw at a coffee shop"
Wynn did that thing. His retorts didn't have the zest of improvs nor the eloquence of composeds. He stood stiff: if his posture existed in a vacuum one would extrapolate that he wore oversized button shirts and jeans that ran perfectly vertically without any of the eighty dollar crease marks. But he wore a birdhouse on his head and feather fur as sleeve lint. An awfully contradictory guy, in lotsof ways.

Let's stop for an eighth. I don't like to do that and it's not for my own accord. Getting explicit like that is bad form in some schools but I don't have Jake Barnes' narrative restraint. I'll hold back on that and stick to deflection, but be generous and eat it up as meta. Onward?

Wynn left for groceries and I drank mandarin oranges in a spoonstraw. The canned peaches/oranges/mango complemented the glows of the room's blue screens to created an iridescent effect like those late 2000s superhero movie posters. The wall noises turned to sea foam and I blinked for twelve hours.

[Anonymous No.4387537]

They found the dead girl under the eaves of the old whitewashed dairy at the corner of the long pasture. they saw the broken dasher and the shattered churn, the torn dress and the vacant eyes.
The red riband binding her throat they did not see, nor the golden arrow clutched in the pale. cool hand. Those were meant for us.

We passed among them, unseen and unfelt, working: gently binding despair here, lifting up hope there, smoothing out the seas of grief and loss and fear. Before our minds always the passive, loving face of the Awful God. For as his eye is on the sparrow, so it is always upon the wings of his greater messengers.

Above us the Unseen City cast it's radiant shadow, welcoming us, calling us back from the dominions of decay and pain, and we would have taken flight. But beside the old well my companions saw a creature in the guise of a tired old man, and seeing that he saw us, and knowing by that what he must be, would have fallen upon him with the always ready blades of righteousness.

But I bade them hold, and approached him alone, for I knew this one of old.

"Hail Idorloo, Child of the Fallen."
"And health to your mighty self, Shaddaiel. Is this a business for the Detective Angel?"

[Anonymous No.4387557]

>>4387537
I sat down beside him on the lip of the well and he assumed an aspect more in keeping with his nature and origins.

A white-eyed golden toad with a ruby jewel upon its forhead passed me a Camel Crush from a beltpoke out of which faint cries of lamentation emerged periodically. He lit it with a flick of a thumb.
"Well, a golden arrow and a red ribbon." He said. "If I were Saint Valentine I'd be thinking up an alibi right now."

He was blind, as must all those of his kind must be, that creep out beneath the sun. yet there was for him the darkness visible, and he knew,as we all did, that which was the truth. The better to spin his lies.
"Valentino died a martyr, and sits at the Right Hand." I could not waste time here, but i felt that he might have something to say that might help. "The Golden Arrow is a symbol of Eros, and the red strangling cord of Kali of the Thug. Why not suggest them?"

He chuckled in a deap, croaking way and his gular sack fluttered.
"Because I was with them last night: at Geaepalooza. Pan, Kokopeli and Krishna have started another band."

I had known this, and yet I asked:
"What? some new school of depravity? Do they think to impinge their own rites upon the souls of the Lost Sheep?"

He nodded. "It's always worked before: Wine and the Water of Life, the burning of fragrant herbs, orgiastic practices around bonfires long into the night, and music. The kids would be doing it anyway: why not get some good out of it?"

"Because it deceives, it misleads, it distracts them from the hope of Paradise!"

Again he nodded. "Which is technically my job, yet you don't see me jumping around in a ruffle over it."
"Because you've lost hope." I'm afraid I sneered.
" There is no hope in Hell." he said. "Your boss made sure of that."
I sighed and breathed out the fragrant smoke into the mists hovering above the well.
He chuckled. "'The angel blew out a long breath, for his heart was full with care.'"

"You are here to distract me, i believe." I said to him.
"Not so. Though I might wish it. I am here to assist and to learn: Hell is as surprised by this as you are."
I snorted. "Hell is surprised by murder? By evil?"
"Hell." he said, "Is surprised by the absence of her Guardian Angel. And I am wondering why you are not?"
I am afraid then that I covered my face. Though I knew I could not hide it from Him.

[Anonymous No.4387560]

(OP) you act as if anyone gives a crap about what you think.

[Anonymous No.4387565]

>>4387560
>I can't write for shit and I know it, so I'll shitpost instead.

[Anonymous No.4387590]

>>4387521
Yar.

[Anonymous No.4387597]

>>4386169
I'm back. I'll get to critiquing.
>>4387534
Be careful with the punctuation at the end of dialogues. I see people use the word 'composeds', but do you mean 'composers'?

"He stood stiff: if his posture existed in a vacuum one would extrapolate that he wore oversized button shirts and jeans that ran perfectly vertically without any of the eighty dollar crease marks."

Is too runny for my tastes, I don't think simple punctuation would fix it; I'd say the sentence needed to be re-crafted.

Actually, I think the structure of your sentences is the main issue, generally, when I read the rest of this excerpt. It's a bit choppy.

[Anonymous No.4387608]

>>4386505
Sorry, just drawing some attention to this little thing. I'd appreciate some critique on it.

[Anonymous No.4387617]

>>4387503
The structuring of your sentences are competant, but there's something about the words you use that makes them watery; I can't get a handle on the flow of your prose in a significant way, like an inconsistent drawl.

[Anonymous No.4387632]

>>4387617
Yeah, it was just kind of made up as it went along and submitted the moment i reached a decent word count. Might account for the poor flow.

[Anonymous No.4387648]

>>4387416
not the guy you were replying too but I also write sci-fi
the prose in "the spectre general" seems like something /lit/ would bash endlessly

[Anonymous No.4387652]

>>4387597
Nah, I meant composeds, as in the opposite or improvs. And yeah, it's a little syntactically stilted. But that's, like, on purpose. I know that's a shit excuse that applies to everything but whatever.

[Anonymous No.4387654]

>>4387648
probably. but the storytelling is what makes it work. and the prose is actually pretty workmanlike.

[Anonymous No.4387657]

>>4384025
>>4384023
Fucking wonderful stuff. I was afraid it'd be a typical 4chan parody of a verbose fedora-donning loser trying to talk to a girl but was pleasantly surprised by how creative this was.

[Anonymous No.4387662]

>>4387222
Wrenched rhymes. Clunky, uncertain and jarred rhythm. Full of unintelligible lines and rather facile ones such as "Kiss my hand and let me go". Pointless latin refrain, possibly to mask your lack of knowledge of poetry, I dunno. You got a long, long way to go buddy because I suspect you don't know a thing about writing poetry. Yet.

[Anonymous No.4387664]

>>4387652
Looking at it again, there's something grassy about it. It's reminiscent to what you would find in a Harmony Korine novel, even though it doesn't use the same devices.

[Anonymous No.4387668]

Fret not your failings. fledgling heart
If sin weighs heavy, truth atones
Live life in ease, in ease depart
And weigh your words for truth alone.

A man is most himself alone,
And pain's embrace is living art
In smearing sin about the soul,
Fret not your failings, fledgling heart.

Temptation plays a martyr's part
In evil flames all good is forged
So stay unburdened, as you start-
If sin weighs heavy, truth atones.

And vital too, the seeds you sow
As unto me, your joy impart
Since God awaits your coming home
Live life in ease, in ease depart.

Brief waking is a listless march
Time's a taste of the unknown
Fret not your failings, fledgling heart
And weigh your words for truth alone.

[Anonymous No.4387685]

>Battle in the middle of the story where the main character chooses to overthrow his brother, who's mind has slowly been poisoned by the Tynan character.
The room fell silent. The eyes around them starred, and no one dared to intervene. For now this was their fight. Patrick stood at one end, Connor on the other with Tynan at his side. Caitlin was the sole member of the crowd to move forward, but remained just as mute, unsure what to say or do. Connors eyes lit with a fire and began to form a light red.
“I am with you” Troy whispered to Patrick. “We are all with you”
Patrick held a hand to stay them and began to slowly advance down the hall towards Connor. Connor gave a look to Tynan, mimicking the command to stay. He began down the steps toward Patrick, their steps echoing along the stone room, and their breathing picking up.
“Please” Patrick said with a frown, never slowing his steps.
Connors pace quickened. “Begging got us nowhere before it certainly won’t now”
Patrick matched Connor pace, “Can’t you see what he’s doing!” his voice was coarse and filled with despair.
“All I see is a coward, who has long despised his family, but now has a power fantasy to motivate his anger into treachery.”
“Then I’ve lost you”
“I was lost” Connor broke into a run, “Now I’ve found the light. “
The two ran into a full sprint and met in the center of the hall. Patrick threw a fist, Connor effortlessly moved around it and drew a knife from his sleeve. He slashed low at Patrick’s stomach. Patrick blocked Connors wrist, elbowed at the stomach, used a heel kick to separate the two, and drew the axe at his waist. Connor extended his knife arm outward, and used his free hand to slowly draw the sword at his back waist, pommel side up; the sound of sliding steel rang in the hall. And as tip of the weapon was drawn, he charged with an inhuman speed. They met again and blades began to collide and sing in the air. Connor sliced and spun with his sword, Patrick would block with his axe and strike hard with his fist.
Beyond them Tynan smiled a demented grin. The crowd began to make noise as sides were taken, arguments and cursing amongst them turning to pushing and shoving.
Connor swung the sword evenly planed at Patrick’s neck. Patrick held his axe just in time to block. A smiled crept along Connors mouth, and the hilted rock of his sword pulsed with a purple black glow. Patrick’s vision warped and in the next moment he was thrust by invisible hands across the floor a quarter length of the hall.
“That was magic. My brother just used magic. Not manipulating it through a medium, but the real thing! Only women can use magic like that…. What has that god damn snake been teaching him?”

[Anonymous No.4387722]

>>4387664
Grassy?

[Anonymous No.4387753]

>>4387722
Earthy, or grassroots, though I'm not saying the vocabulary is adolescent. Like a bizarro Southern Gothic.

[Anonymous No.4387951]

In the beginning, and there is always a beginning, never doubt it, even in eternity.
In the beginning, god found the earth, walking in her footsteps through the voids. And with her he made a son: a bright and radiant boy he named Byelovog. Around his brow there was a burning, like a single light,
bright and pure and stainless, upon the fields and gardens of the earth. For him was the green and pleasant spring, the noontime sweat and the joy of sowings and harvestings, and the ripening of all things. But god held up his hand and there was a shadow cast, and this shadow was Czernovog: soveriegn of night and darkness and the weirds of magic, and of hot blood shed upon moonlit stone. and when the light fell upon him he was hurt, and vanquished by it.
And so that one of his two sons might not rule above the other, the father of the stars made night: so that half of the day his fair son might rule the fields and farms and half they might be beneath the dominion and sway of his darker brother.

[Anonymous No.4388093]

Where should I draw the line between improving my writing and defining my style? It seems like "improving writing" almost always relies on mimicking established trends, so..

[Anonymous No.4388208]

>>4388093
Improvement is about learning the rules. Style is about breaking them.

(Just being contrived.)

[Anonymous No.4388210]

http://pastebin.com/5ED0zepm
Newbie writer here, so this thread is just what I needed. Wrote this up quickly to have something coherent to post.

Sword and Sorcery novel(la). The woman is a noble from a very honour-bound society, and has according to her customs been defiled after a rape by bandits. Her captors on the other hand, are a stoic Hun-esque prince from the north and a troll.

I'll try to find something to criticize, to keep the thread alive.

[Anonymous No.4388269]

We've Got Your Doctor

Yeah, I know it's weird; we couldn't get anyone else. Anyway, ten million or he's dead. Haha, just kidding. Try fifty thousand.
We've watched you. You've never been to his house, you don't really know him or his kids or his future-widow or his right-now-crying brother-in-law who does charity stuff in the Peace Corps or something and would just kill himself to bring him back but doesn't have fifty thousand dollars. (We tried.) They don't know you either. You don't know his other patients. None of them have fifty thousand dollars to give either. Do you even have fifty thousand dollars? Probably not, but here's what you could go and do: make a little collection for him. Get all his other patients and family and what-not and ask them each to give a grand. There's gotta be fifty of them. You can do it on Facebook. Come on, please? Don't contact the police or he's dead.
Or is that just too much to ask? Do you care about others' survival, even if they're not family? Do you have human dignity, charity, good will? Do you want to go looking for a new GP like a fool? It's the holidays dammit, and you've got a mole. You might get a mole. You could get a mole.
Look, you're the last bet. We told his family that we'd kill him if they didn't pay, but they didn't and he's still eating grits on a tray with a plastic fork every five hours. You, and only you (and really you, this time, not that can-prevent-forest-fires generic “you”, but you) can fix this shit.
Look, they've done tests showing that when there's a bunch of people near an emergency, that it's less likely for one of them to help than if it were just one person there. You're like in that bunch of people. But—no, you're like that one fucking person. We've tried the bunch of people. It doesn't work. You're the one fucking person left. Also, we sent this same letter out to his other patients and didn't get any responses back yet. Technically, you're not the one person, but you could be. You could be.

[Anonymous No.4388667]

>>4387668
b-bump? I critiqued a few other pieces. I don't like tying my critique in with my stuff in case it diminishes my critique.

[Anonymous No.4389319]

Typing, I hear the clicks
Broken fingers, can't type for shit
I wear a hat, cold outside
Gif, jpg and png are all the supported files.

[Anonymous No.4389421]

>>4383707
“You look fierce!” said he, his eyes agleam
“But tell me, what are you really?
A beast magnificent?
Or something quite so silly?

“Does your roar strike fear
Into the hearts of man
Or do YOU cower in fear
Your head buried in sand?”

The tiger turned its paper head
Brilliance of orange and black
“Do not tempt me, child,
For I may attack.”

“Well, do not dodge my question!” said he
Answer me this!
Are you a mighty predator
Or can you be crushed inside my fist?”

The tiger laughed a knowing laugh
And answered next with glee
“You are a naïve one
Full of purity.”

“So then you admit, you are so fierce,” Said he
“So bold and undefeated?”
“I will surely die,
If wounds from your paper claws are left untreated?”

The tiger shook his head sadly
And answered he thusly
“I must impart to you some wisdom
If you are to trust me.”

“I look deadly as dagger
Sinister as an assassin’s cloak
But if you are to bring me close to the flame
I will go up in smoke.”

[Anonymous No.4389442]

>>4388210
Why not just historical fiction?

[Anonymous No.4389447]

>>4388210
It's kind of overwrought. The similes are nice, but they're kind of obvious.

[Anonymous No.4389451]

>>4387534
>you'd have better luck looking for a power saw at a coffee shop
It's 2013. Jokes like this have to be suprising in some way.

[Anonymous No.4389552]

So I'm thinking of making a series of sci-fi short stories in an effort to get a kickstarter going for a novel. So far I've been doing some world building by writing out descriptions of how the universe works etc. The way I see it though, if nobody finds the universe interesting or everyone sees some kind of major flaw with it then there's no point right? So if anyone wants to read my terribly formatted text wall and give some feedback, that'd be great. http://pastebin.com/Mv1Z2bjP
It's just one world's basic info (of 8). If you think something should be added, or if you have any questions about what something means or about something I didn't mention, ask.

Also I'm not going to force this down a reader's throat, I'm not that retarded. This is here so I can maintain internal consistency.

[Anonymous No.4389560]

>>4389552
>kickstarter for a novel
uh...what? Does this exist?

[Anonymous No.4389568]

>>4389560
Apparently there's no rule against it. If not Kickstarter then indiegogo or another knockoff. Basically if I can get some funds and self-publish the first book I feel it'll be easier to convince a bigger publisher to sell it and any future ones I make.

[Anonymous No.4389573]

>>4389552
It looked scientific until you got to sentient races. We have no way of speculating as to what those might look like, OP.

[Anonymous No.4389589]

>>4389573
>sci fi
>as in science fiction
>also not OP
Sentient races logically must have large brains or sufficient communication capacity to make up for it and a reason to need such capacity or to utilize it (basically the ability to interact with their environment somehow other than walking on it, eating it and shitting on it).

So basically they need hands, manipulating tentacles, something like that. They also would need to exist somewhere were that kind of thing is actually advantageous (harsh as fuck environment, area with tons of predators, etc). Additionally, tetrapod life produces the best locamotion-per-unit-mass of large land-based life forms, so it's logical that in an environment where that kind of thing is a concern that life would be tetrapod. The fingers are just a holdover, it doesn't really matter but making them have human hands serves the potential plots better if humans have to use their stuff. The entire internal physiology is specifically designed to be strange and alien, but also functional.

[Anonymous No.4389690]

>>4389568
No, it won't. Don't kid yourself into thinking that--it'll just cause more stress in the long run. If you want to get a book published, write a book worth publishing, and have the balls to deal with getting rejected over and over again until someone publishes it.

[Anonymous No.4389692]

>>4389690
I think you're trying to dig a bit deeper than I provided there. I never said I had any intention of half-assing a book, just that showing a publisher that there is interest for a book would make it easier to get it published widely.

[Anonymous No.4389693]

Another sleepless night. The rattle of ancient bones getting out of bed filled the silent hallways. Slowly a cacophony of kettles boiling and small talk began to build. It was probably time I got up anyway, I used my chin to push a button to signal a nurse. Soon enough a young nurse came into room. she was my age, she would have been in high school at the same time as me. These were all painful reminders of my past life. She rolled me onto my side and then lowered my bed to move me into my wheelchair.


As I moved into the kitchen I exchange several “hellos” and “good mornings” mixed with unenthused undertones.

A deep slurred voice came from behind me “need a hand mate?” It was Lez. a tall, broad bodied man with scraggly grey hair and a face defined by dark beady eyes. A former athlete and Vietnam veteran who had slowly lost his independence due to the effect of Alzheimer’s.

“just a couple of working ones, and throw in a pair of legs and you got yourself a deal” Lez let out a slow laugh as he realized the joking nature of my retort.

“what about just a coffee”

“sounds fine, thanks”

As Lez and I exhausted topics for general banter, I realised what it was that made me feel so uncomfortable. It was not the obvious age difference between me and the elderly residents here or a lack of human interaction with other twenty young. It was simply the atmosphere that engulfed this building. It was a atmosphere of futility, the people here had been left by their families and forgotten by society, the pain of that alone removed any hope for a sunny retirement. They had given up on themselves. As I concentrated harder on the asphyxiating atmosphere I began to feel distant from it all, the some optimism I had left was slowly being warn away. It was becoming to much, a lump formed in my throat as I prepared my self to talk.

“What am I doing here” I murmured

Lez let an uneasy breath and acknowledged my handicapped state with a movement of his eyes.

“This place is breaking me. There is no hope here, I’m not ready to give up, but I don’t what else I can do”

Lez softly locked eyes with me. “if you cant change yourself why don’t you change the world around you”

The mood in the room became even more tense as the building sensed our conversation breaking the usual monotonous topics of daily life.

I racked my brain for ways to answer or to even comprehend his statement.

Noticing my internal struggle Lez said “just do it, it will come if you try”


Lez took to his feet and left me to ponder his words. I became lost in thought.

Breaking my daze Gladys asked if she could take my cup

“im right thanks” I said slightly embarrassed that she caught me so off guard.

I followed her to the kitchen, we made small talk as I handed her my cup to wash, as we continued talking I realised that this conversation was missing the struggles and unen

[Anonymous No.4389694]

>>4389693
have at me

[Anonymous No.4389705]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jmyCrD1FzeOzQk3-jr6K1YFdzJYOO2-v__Lzi7jk0b4/edit?usp=sharing

[Anonymous No.4389724]

>>4386169
>>4387597
>>4387617
>>4387664
>>4387753
I'll continue, but I'd like if someone would critique mine. I've moved on from it, but it was the last thing I wrote.

>>4389693

"Another sleepless night. The rattle of ancient bones getting out of bed filled the silent hallways. Slowly a cacophony of kettles boiling and small talk began to build. It was probably time I got up anyway, I used my chin to push a button to signal a nurse. Soon enough a young nurse came into room. she was my age, she would have been in high school at the same time as me. These were all painful reminders of my past life. She rolled me onto my side and then lowered my bed to move me into my wheelchair."

Your phrasing is off. This excerpt is structured in such an even way it plods--no movement. I think you wanted to convey monotony, except I think there's still room for the prose to be sharp; I can hear the voice of a high schooler in this, but I think there are more delicate ways to manipulate the syntax so it isn't messy.

[Anonymous No.4389736]

>>4389705
i liked this. there were a few editing mistakes here and there. it has a nice flow. it's not really long enough to make me sad at an emotional level (which is the same with any sort of parable), but it has a good conceptual sadness.

[Anonymous No.4389747]

>>4384274
I agree with this guy. Unless you're trying to make your character sound colloquial DFW style, then abstain from those.

[Anonymous No.4389754]

>>4384160
last ditch attempt

[Anonymous No.4389759]

>>4389754
>http://pastebin.com/SExvB9fJ
There isn't anything really wrong with it. I think your intended audience would like it.

[Anonymous No.4389770]

>>4386851
are you just genuinely unfunny or is your character supposed to be that way?

>you'd have better luck finding a uncircumsized jew
>you'd have better luck finding a place to hide in hiroshima
>ud ave betta luck findin a unused condum at yur mum's house

[Anonymous No.4389771]

>>4389770
this was supposed to be directed here
>>4387534

[Anonymous No.4389784]

A tree scraped up against the window closest to him, and the wind pushed more twisting and screeching branches into glass. Somewhere off in the distance, a train's whistle wailed over rushing creeks and stagnant ponds. The sound echoed over rooftops and streetlights.

He could tell it was cold outside. Frost crawled up the windowsill from the outside, and the grass outside was iced over, reflecting the sun as it moved between clouds.

A quick glance back towards the game board. Peter passed "go" without landing on Boardwalk. House rules brought up his earnings to four hundred dollars. Peter stashed the four slips of flimsy paper underneath the game-board, organized in with a small pile of four or five other bills. A roll of dice never seemed to count for enough.

[Anonymous No.4389794]

>>4389784
Oh man, reading over that, I just realized I used "outside" three times in the second paragraph. I'm tired...

[Anonymous No.4389800]

http://pastebin.com/3EFFzKG7

I just wrote this, give me some criticism

[Anonymous No.4389804]

>>4389759
Who is my intended audience?

[Anonymous No.4389808]

>>4389759
>>4389804
Sorry, I should rephrase that. Who do you think is my intended audience?

[Anonymous No.4389875]

>>4389692
If you aren't going to half-ass it, then just get it published by someone else. By showing a publisher that you've had "success" publishing your own book--which, keep in mind, would be negligible in their eyes--you're only showing them that you wouldn't/couldn't get it published by a real publishing company. There's plenty of self-published fanfic that "successful," but it wouldn't actually make it in the real world--and publishing companies know that.

[Anonymous No.4389884]

>>4389442
>Why not just historical fiction?
Well, as someone stated earlier (but maybe it wasn't in this thread, since I can't find the damn comment) Fantasy often becomes to focused on world, resulting in bland and clichéd heroes travelling around the world in 80 books so that the author can indulge in descriptions of his Tolkien ripoffs.

But I do believe that the world is in fact the very point of fantasy, so rather than to make an epic hero's journey to fit it all, I decided that it would be better to write a few novellas that can give a description through the eyes on the people in it. So rather than having the all-american farmboy be horrified over human sacrifices or honor killings, we should see it in the eyes of those partaking in the act.

>>4389447
>It's kind of overwrought.
This is expected, lately I've mostly read the pioneers of s&s (Howard before all) and mythology, so my style might have become a bit old-fashioned. I should probably read some modern writers.

>The similes are nice, but they're kind of obvious.
Care to give an example? I've tried to incorporate some of the style found in the Odyssey (sometimes nearing a Homeric simile) since the story should actually not focus on the moral dilemmas of the heroine, as much as the Hun's submission to wilful deities (in line with the Hellenic ideals).

[Anonymous No.4390498]

>>4386505
Alright, last try. Quick critique? It's unfinished, but I think both of them have some sort of potential.

[Anonymous No.4390875]

My son, my son, my beaming sun
Take boys steps towards a man
The vice and virtues of the world
Are out of your command

The seven seas are poisoned now
The fields are choked with sand
All outstretched arms you run towards
Are held in Satan's hand

The clocks are slow and flagging now
The wind has petered out
The axis grinds upon us soon
And time is slowing down

What strides you take pave death my son
Beyond my breast's abyss
Inferno traced on every step
A seraph's Judas kiss

The light lies down to sleep tonight
The sun takes leave of Earth
The God's renege on human gains
Our prayers tamed by our hurt

The universe has lost her shine
And tears drench nature's face
The past has come to claim her price
But you still have my embrace.


But you still have my embrace, my love, you still have my embrace.

[Anonymous No.4390917]

I know it's shit, but knowing exactly why would help.

>Ahhhhh, three more days until her wedding. Could time pass any slower than this? Of course not.

>Everything had been planed and planed again to make sure that day would be MAGICAL. Nothing but the best for her beloved. He lived far, far away, but thanks to her tireless help, he had managed to travel ever closer into her arms. Even separated by such distances, he always kept in contact with her, his words sweet and full of love, telling her stories that no one knew and giving her advice she didn't realize how much she needed.

>She didn't quite remember how was it that they found each other, but she didn't think much of it. He was coming, and they would finally be together, forever. And nothing would stop her from marring the love of her life. Her kingdom was under siege by people who didn't understand, her subjects had either fled or pledged themselves to him and her, the land had grown black and lifeless, and the sky glowed an eerie green. But that didn't matter.

>Three more days, and all her dreams would become true.

[Anonymous No.4390930]

>>4390917
You have a concept for this excerpt, but there isn't much content to fill it with; without content to play with, wrangling techniques and variety becomes more of a hassle. So then, you're left to fill the holes with needless repetition, trying to gain momentum towards something without much grounding.

You can probably write better than this, but you don't have enough ideas to hold all those words...or at least it isn't showing.

[Anonymous No.4390939]

>>4390917
>Ahhhhh
Don't.
>planed
planned.
>far, far away
no.
>she didn't quite remember how was it that they found each other
how it was. Also, she would remember unless this is some kind of magic or hypnotism or something. All women fucking remember.
>forever. And
get rid of And or combine the two sentences
>marring
apt word, but I think you meant marrying.
>didn't understand, her subjects
you need a period there, not a comma

It's mostly grammar and spelling shit, but the main problem is that you're going about this in such a roundabout way that you end up repeating yourself over and over again. You could have summed all of that up into about 4 sentences.

[Anonymous No.4390950]

>>4390917
too many commas.

[Anonymous No.4391048]

“Everything is in its right place,” said the old man. A smile grew on his weathered face. Overhead, the carrion birds signified he was close to the road. Not long now.
–
The road was a dangerous place to be alone. Highwaymen infected it like a poison in these times. As the young man thought of this, he was momentarily comforted by the fact that he had nothing worth stealing. A twig snapped in the distance and the young man froze. Why did he have to conjure these damned thieves by thinking about them? An old man exited the brush some distance ahead of him and collapsed. He was dressed in the robes of a priest, but the young man did not recognize the order. The odd priest did not seem to be wounded or bleeding from where the young man stood.

The young man cautiously approached the odd priest, darting his head back and forth like a prey animal ever watchful of the predators that surround them. As he got closer he saw that the priest was still breathing but it labored and wet. “Are you alright, priest? What can I do to hel-” The odd priest leapt from the ground and lunged at the young man, grasping his head in his massive gnarled hands, digging his fingertips into his flesh. The priests eyes were as white as eggshells and a beastly grin deformed his face in such a hideous manner that the young man's body seized in pure dread, unable to move or speak.

The priest was screaming. “YOU MUST! YOU MUST!”

[Anonymous No.4391864]

Jesus, is my writing so bad that it killed the thread?

[Anonymous No.4391876]

>>4391048
>>4391864
It's actually not bad. The only thing that annoyed me was the repetition caused by the overuse of 'priest' and 'odd priest'. Not that it ruins your writing, but you could free up your sentences a bit.

[Anonymous No.4391884]

>>4391876
Yeah that's understandable. I will try to vary it a little more. The old priest isn't going to be in it much longer anyway.

[Anonymous No.4391886]

>>4391048
reminds me of radiohead

[Anonymous No.4391890]

>>4391886
I was listening to Kid A before I started writing it....I honestly thought it was a common enough phrase that it would go unnoticed

[Anonymous No.4391911]

>>4389451
The point isn't that it's a funny joke, the point is that it's a strangely stilted phrasing. The narrator comments on how that guy was always talking in this weird way that's halfway between too clever and randomly non-applicable to be off the cuff but not clever enough to have been pre-written or rehearsed. The inanity of the joke is the whole point.

[Anonymous No.4391916]

>>4389770
Yeah, I guess it looks stupid in such a small context. That's just the beginning. It sets up his whole character.

[Anonymous No.4391922]

>>4391911
The problem might be that it's humor that doesn't crossover into parody. It seems more like the 'writer's joke', than characterization.

[Anonymous No.4391927]

>>4391922
The whole thing is a writer's joke. The narrator stops off after a paragraph to apologize for breaking the rule of show don't tell.

[Anonymous No.4391938]

The last time he’d spoken to Blue was the next year, on the last in a series of favour collection runs to pick up Gretchen’s stuff, including a complex and terrifyingly fragile ant farm, which he'd thrust in Joel’s direction, ants around the tunnels in frenetic discourse over this exchange of leadership, some positing that Gretchen was, in fact, long dead, or that she was never truly there in the first place, or that perhaps they are under the creative influence of a moron, which, by sheer happenstance, they were of the afternoon. As it was placed in the back between the seats like some triple decker wedding cake, he and Blue were rather at odds for something to say, since Joel was neither saboteurish-boyfriend material, nor particular entrusting best friend material (close, but not quite), until he spoke up with something that he may very well have mulled over at some point between sickly rugs and bookcases stuffed with cardboard back in the old England days:

“Now, I’m to understand you’re one of these aspiring Rutherfords, aren’t you? ”

“Well, I-“ Not realising there was a specific genre of physicist.

“Yes, well, that’s a thing to be proud of -“ At this point a handshake morphed into more a palpation of the forearm “- proud of, yes. The thing about Gretchen, you see: she’s a rather impressionable girl; gets rather shabby notions of things when around certain types. Not a born follower, mind, but easily distracted... it would mean a lot, you see, if you might keep an eye on her, just while she’s settling in, keep her eyes forward, yes?”

“I’ll do my best, sir.” Bobbing from all parties. Joel got in his car while Blue invaded head-first through the window. “A wonderful thing, Physics: my father was big on physics, for a time. It’s a hard enough thing, an occupation of status - there’s this self-loathing about it, you know what I mean, son? It’s an important thing to have. Flair’s just well and fine, but complacency, you see? There’s always you and someone better. I’ll wish you luck.” What was once a habit of being concise had led to a habit of tailing away. But Joel nodded, as if to say that yes, he saw, as he was continually asked if he saw, and the bobbing continued for a moment until Blue extricated his head from the driver’s window and, with a brief, unwavering lift of the hand, saw Joel drive away, looking for the last time onto his Daughter’s life spread out in the back of a car.

[Anonymous No.4391958]

>>4391927
I understand what you're saying more, re-reading it. Still, he's saying the joke was dead on the page. There's ways to make parody more animated, without relying on act/react/etc. with narrator insertion. The action should speak for itself.

[Anonymous No.4391968]

>>4391958
I see what you're saying, but that's just another layer of meta/sorta. He didn't have to point it out, but he did and then apologized directly to the reader for how unnecessary it was. It isn't so much a parody of bad jokes or bad writing so much as it is an affectionate parody of self-conscious writing. It's sort of post-Tao Lin.

[Anonymous No.4391971]

Just passed the 10 000 word mark for my book and it feels like I'm rolling.

Feels good, man.

[Anonymous No.4391984]

>>4391968
My God, you're a visionary

[Anonymous No.4391997]

>>4391968
I like the concept.

I did something similar about a half year ago with the narrator concept, although I wasn't layering the metanarrative aspects as much as you were, but after returning to it from a break, I found the narrator started to clutter the action. It's different in your case because your story seems more stripped down from what I see (Mine was a sci-fi), so there's less of a balancing act. Is this your first draft?

[Anonymous No.4392006]

>>4391997
Yeah, I'm kind of stuck at a point where I know exactly where I want to go with it but the actual prose is clunky as hell. For something this meta and stripped down, the specifics of the style are really important and I'm having trouble getting "on a roll" with my writing without breaking too many layers of narrative character.

[Anonymous No.4392008]

So did you guys join critique circle yet?

[Anonymous No.4392009]

>>4391984
No, he sounds incredibly douchebaggish.

[Anonymous No.4392014]

>>4391938
Try changing the first use of stuff to "things." Triple decker wedding cake is great.

[Anonymous No.4392028]

>>4392006
Are you try to mesh Tao Lin's style with something more flamboyant?

[Anonymous No.4392034]

>>4392028
Yeah, yeah. Like Virginia Woolf on Twitter.

[Anonymous No.4392050]

there was a
room

I spent many
nights painting
it dark
without the use of a paintbrush

the walls were stained
nude
and so was
my bed

it reeked.

and I spent many
days
nailing painted
distractions

because the bareness of it all reminded me too much of myself
and it was
hard to handle

but the paintings reeked
too.
of people,
of family,
of visitors:
of living.

and that was hard to handle as well

so I crawled into the
ventilator
and watched for someone
to worry

no one came

and being me became
too hard

and I had no choice but to crawl into
God

[Anonymous No.4392053]

>>4392034
Since the narrator plays an interesting role in your story, you can give him idiosyncrasies parodic of himself (Psychological unawareness), so that qualities you're trying to give your prose don't need to be done deliberately by him, but rather projects through him.

[Anonymous No.4392060]

>>4392050
Explain to me why you have structured your poem in such a way as this.

[Anonymous No.4392131]

>>4383954
8/10 thought you were going to be fucking a man or a relative.

[Anonymous No.4392139]

>>4392060
what do you mean?

[Anonymous No.4392144]

>>4392139
it schucks

[Anonymous No.4392150]

>>4384160
9/10 transitions in the dialogue could use work (but I'm pretty harsh on that anyways so don't take it to heart) and the story sounds fantastic.

Keep it up.

[Anonymous No.4392156]

>>4392144
oh, thanks. that helps a lot.

[Anonymous No.4392158]

>>4384249
faggot/10

[Anonymous No.4392159]

>>4392139
That it sucks response wasn't me. I'm interested to know why you have chosen to insert line breaks where you have. Your poem doesn't really scan very well so there would want to be a reason for your structure.

[Anonymous No.4392165]

>>4392159
I wrote it how I thought it to be said in my head. guess I should work on the line breaks, though.

[Anonymous No.4392170]

>>4392165
Well yes, you should 'work on the line breaks' because what you have posted is not poetry at all, it is lazy prose with arbitrary line breaks hammered into it.

[Anonymous No.4392174]

>>4392170
>>>r/classicism

[Anonymous No.4392177]

>>4392174
This the same guy? You're cute. You know nothing about poetry yet buddy, and you've got a long, long way to go before you can even think of calling that bile poetry.

[Anonymous No.4392180]

>>4392177
Not the same guy. That guy didn't know what like breaks are, I doubt he even knows what classicism is. I know more about poetry than you, pal.

[Anonymous No.4392182]

>>4384799
Why is it the best writers always write the stupidest shit? Enjoyed it anyhow, if it's what makes you happy keep it up.

>>4386155
>Hurr you write better than me so I have to pick apart your use of plural words
>Hurr it's a story about farts thats just dumb xD
>Completely forgettable
Says the faggot posting criticisms on /lit/.

[Anonymous No.4392188]

>>4392180
I doubt that you do, I sincerely do, but since we have nothing to actually debate on the subject of it..

[Anonymous No.4392197]

>>4392177
that was not me. but, y'know, I appreciate that. thanks.

I never called it poetry, stop assuming things. it understandable you would assume that, but don't attack me with baseless knowledge.

I don't think it is lazy. I tend to work hard on my poetry and revise it many times. you don't know the work that goes into that piece. yes, while the product can reveal the process, you still do not know enough to say that what I posted was "lazy" in such a terrible way.

[Anonymous No.4392199]

>>4392182
>Best writers
Well, yes, the language is solid, but it's far from being the work of a great writer.

[Anonymous No.4392200]

>>4392197
>I never called it poetry

Well what is it then?

[Anonymous No.4392205]

>>4392188
I just don't like the fact that you can take the piss out of an interesting poem and call it shit because it doesn't follow your idea of what a poem should or shouldn't be. Why not focus on its themes, its effectiveness in communicating its themes, its emotion evocation, or its intertextual thesis rather than how unkempt you think the lines are? There are no rules.

[Anonymous No.4392206]

>>4392197
it's*

also, how was it lazy? how were the line breaks arbitrary? if you're going to be giving critiques, you need to explain these things. otherwise your critiques are nearly useless.

[Anonymous No.4392212]

>>4392205
but in the
end,

does it even
really
matter?

[Anonymous No.4392213]

>>4392200
It's just writing. you could call it prose. but I don't care about labels very much.

[Anonymous No.4392217]

>>4392212
How can mirrors,
be real,
If our eyes aren't.


Real.

[Anonymous No.4392222]

>>4392205
My personal opinion is that it is not an interesting poem at all and engages with its themes on a superficial level, and its ultimate message of a kind of emptiness or loneliness.. well, it does nothing for me. I admit to being a bit ignorant to the writer earlier on though.

Emotional evocation goes hand in hand with the rather cloying manner in which the message is communicated - there is none, for me. There is a brief interest in the first stanza. And the manner in which the poem is laid out (personally my feeling is that poetry with no decipherable feet or scansion should justify that in its degree of craft) is simply arbitrary.

>>4392206
The line breaks were arbitrary because you refused to expound on why you put them where you did. It seems pretty obvious that these lines are not broken up because of an attempt to emphasise certain parts or to communicate any kind of artistic element, but rather to add a facile aesthetic element to the work.

[Anonymous No.4392227]

>>4392212
also, now that I think about it, I put those line breaks in because it helps break up the tone of the piece. I wanted the voice I wrote in to be broken, and the line breaks helped me communicate that.

[Anonymous No.4392232]

>>4392227
>now that I think about it

So this little realisation has come after the fact. Which again illustrates that you put no thought into how the poem was structured.

[Anonymous No.4392233]

>>4392205
I didn't like it myself, but it has the type of angst that could've improved with a formatting change...like those posters where cut-out pieces of paper are taped together.

[Anonymous No.4392237]

>>4392232
Subconscious does not equal arbitrary.

[Anonymous No.4392241]

>>4392237
Hahaha. You are funny, I'll give you that.

[Anonymous No.4392243]

>>4392237
Why on Earth did you post in a critique thread if you're totally unwilling to accept criticism?

[Anonymous No.4392249]

>>4392232
when I go in writing, I don't think to overthink it. I just go in and do it, then revise it.

I did put thought into it, I just couldn't put my finger on it at that moment. some things take time to figure out.

[Anonymous No.4392250]

>>4392243
I'm not the guy who wrote it, I'm just rusing with some of you. I haven't even read it, tbh it looks like shit.

[Anonymous No.4392252]

>>4392243
Well, I give up on attempting to analyze the guy's work. I pretty much gave him a completely normal analysis of his work and he resorts to claiming his mind was secretly at work unbeknownst to him to hide that his work was just lazy as a structural poem.

[Anonymous No.4392253]

>>4392243
that post wasn't me. but I appreciate his responses.

[Anonymous No.4392255]

>>4392250
uh huh honey ;)

[Anonymous No.4392258]

>>4392255
Jerome in the house, watch your mouf

[Anonymous No.4392259]

>>4392253
>>4392252
>>4392250
Who are you people? Why are there so many of you?


Where am I?

[Anonymous No.4392265]

>>4392259
I'm a repo man.

[Anonymous No.4392266]

>>4392252
>I pretty much gave him a completely normal analysis of his work
eh, I agree and disagree. you first just told me it was lazy and shitty, but then you explained that, which I appreciate.

>claiming his mind was secretly at work unbeknownst to him
that's not what I said.
what I said was I just go in and write, then revise it. I write things as they are said in my head. I never said there is some "esoteric force unknown at work whilst writing."

I'm done here. thanks for the criticism.

[Anonymous No.4392272]

>>4392266
Thanks for the
memories,
Even though they
weren't so
great.

[Anonymous No.4392278]

>>4392272
Stop being a dick.

[Anonymous No.4392294]

>>4392199
Makes sense.

Although stupider things have been considered great literature (Atlas Shrugged, Catcher in the Rye).

[Anonymous No.4392302]

>>4392050
The line breaks are completely fucking unnecessary. They add nothing to the poem and make it hard to read.

Not capitalizing also indicates you're a hipster faggot trying to be cool and different by not following rules that are there simply for practicality's sake.

[Anonymous No.4392307]

>>4392213
>You could call it prose
No, you couldn't.

And now watch all the hipster fags jump out of the woodwork and defend this homo saying it's wrong to define words or some shit.

[Anonymous No.4392320]

I found a horse in the wall
his neck broke through dry plank
a few hooves stomped on paint
so I took a live wire from the hall
and shocked brown equine ass
until he couldn't breathe at all

[Anonymous No.4392326]

>>4392320
>Horses
>brown equine ass
>>>/mlp/

[Anonymous No.4392330]

>>4392326
If I wanted to write about ponies,

I would use the word "pony".

[Anonymous No.4392343]

>>4392330
Duh. No one wants to embarrass themselves.

Make sure to wipe the rainbow glitter off your dick.

[Anonymous No.4392346]

http://pastebin.com/syx4rVm2

i am writing about jews

[Anonymous No.4392347]

>>4392343
>no writing about horses allowed!

We have /mlp/ as a quarantine board for a reason...

[Anonymous No.4392353]

>>4392347
Yes, I know.

[Anonymous No.4392397]

Zach arrived first. I was riding the metro back from the dermatologist when he called. The office is only a couple miles from my place, but without a car it is, as always, a long trip home. It was sunny and nice outside and he waited for me in a beaten up Acura outside my apartment complex. His dad had sold his truck as part of some desperate arrangement Zach hammered out the winter before. Crystal was in Shanghai and he needed to get to her but he didn't have the money- he never did. The trip wasn't going to be free and he was willing to sacrifice his truck. So he sold the truck and his dad slighted him and replaced him with this car and Zach went off to China where him and Crystal tore each other to shreds in a hotel highrise. That was a year ago. Now he has a slender jewess he found on tinder and a dying Acura that can get him to Houston.

He was exhausted. He declared that he hadn't slept in the past twenty six hours and was slightly apprehensive of an acid trip that was guarenteed to keep him up for at least twelve more. His tenure back at his parents house had done him no favors. He dodged their insistance that he bounce between petty jobs and tried his best to keep the opposite hours as them. So he stayed up til dawn distracting himself with games of league and snuck off to the city where he spent his time with his new fling. With this schedule, he couldn't risk catching a quick nap if he wanted to get to Houston and enjoy the waning hours of daylight during the acid trip. As we waited for Dillon he scratched his unshaven chin and asked if I thought he had enough time for a nap. I told him he didn't, and prepared us a couple salads for lunch.

im going to try and crank out a couple more paragraphs in this, then will do some critiques.

[Anonymous No.4392450]

>>4392397
>Zach arrived first. I was riding the metro back from the dermatologist when he called. The office is only a couple miles from my place
You're skipping around in locations too much in these first three sentences. Why do we need to know that Zach arrived first as the first piece of information in the story?
>he sold the truck and his dad slighted him and replaced him with this car
Isn't clear how his dad slighted him, especially if he gave him a car for free.
>Zach went off to China where him and Crystal tore each other to shreds in a hotel highrise
Isn't clear if they tore each other to shreds in a good way or a bad way, don't know if you meant to leave it ambiguous.
>Now he has a slender jewess
What does describing her in that way add? Unless you're trying to depict the narrator as vaguely anti-Semitic.
>His tenure back at his parents house
Misuses the word "tenure."
>He dodged their insistance that he bounce between petty jobs
Line reads that his parents are insisting on the bouncing, which they're not- they're just insisting on him getting jobs and he's bouncing on his own.
> and prepared us a couple salads for lunch.
The story never transitions from outside the apartment where Zach is waiting to inside the apartment (I presume). Therefore when I read this line I'm picturing the narrator making salads in Zach's car.

It's old advice to start a story in the middle of the action, and maybe you were trying to do that. The problem is, this isn't starting in the middle of the action, it's starting with multiple balls already in motion and it doesn't quickly and effectively communicate where they are. These first couple paragraphs just read as a bunch of random snippets mushed up, and though you can piece together what's happening fairly easily the story doesn't earn me spending that modicum of effort. Establish that they're meeting to go on an acid trip sooner. Move the shit about Zach's car and relationship from the opening paragraph. Work at making clear transitions between locations.

[Anonymous No.4392458]

Watching the man you love fade away in front of you is hard. It was easy for me, though. Seeing his breath slowing, bearing witness to the final suspiration as he tried to croak out a final goodbye and tried to request his last rites… that was priceless. He was weak in life and weak in death. He couldn’t even tell me he loved me before he was about to die. It’s fitting that it was so slow and agonizing. He did not deserve to explode like a star. He was mediocrity. And what does that make me? The wife of one of the millions of J. Alfred Prufrocks out there? No. I was much more than that. If he only knew about the many men that I fucked behind his limp-dicked back, maybe he would have done something with his life. Maybe we would have gone somewhere for vacation. But no. He was a scrivener and narrator to life. We both deserved what we got. The only difference is that I’m dead and he’s alive. Or is it the other way around? I can’t quite remember.

[Anonymous No.4392467]

I want to write a story, this is what I have:

Owen and Marlon walk out of the theatre


Native American man tells racist jokes and has trail mix

[Anonymous No.4392479]

>>4392150
Th-thanks
What exactly do you mean by transitions in the dialogue?

[Anonymous No.4392498]

>>4392458
You don't provide much here to critique, the passage only conveys a couple thoughts.
>Watching the man you love fade away in front of you is hard. It was easy for me, though.
These sentences are contradictory. The first line is stated as a truth from the narrator's point of view (she doesn't say the sentiment is something she heard, she conveys it as her own). The second sentence is at odds.
>behind his limp-dicked back
Awkward imagery.
>maybe he would have done something with his life. Maybe we would have gone somewhere for vacation.
This goes from big picture to very small picture in a hurry. Was that intentional?
> The only difference is that I’m dead and he’s alive. Or is it the other way around? I can’t quite remember.
Is this an attempt to add complexity or ambiguity to the narrative? Because if so it doesn't really work. There's nothing in the text to suggest that the wife is the one dying, in fact if that were the case a couple of the lines wouldn't make sense. I would either scrap the closing two lines or do something with the preceding ones.

[Anonymous No.4392516]

What am I to do? I have no discernable talent, I can’t write, I just see the cursor on the typewriter blinking away, mocking me, I can’t write, I can’t read, I’m oh so bored. What else is there to do in life? If I didn’t wake up tomorrow, I’d feel a lot better. I don’t want to die, I just want to go to sleep… What else is there left to do? Clean my room, go out with my girlfriend, but it’s all just so boring…I don’t hate it. I’m not some depressive little shit. I do seem to be a little self-absorbed but I just don’t feel anything when I go out. Am I supposed to? I like it better when I don’t. It’s like sushi, I don’t feel strongly either way, but I prefer not to. Going out is a bit bland and repetitive. Fucking doesn’t interest me either. But I love attention. Maybe just not one on one. Maybe in a group. Maybe I would be a great dictator.

[Anonymous No.4392523]

>>4392516
I find this boring. I wish I could give you more creative criticism, but I can't find anything in particular to change. I guess I just don't care for the concept, and the closing line does nothing for me either.

[Anonymous No.4392556]

Ser Arthur entered the room with nary a knock to announce it.

"M'lady, what is that smell?"

Princess Gemma turned and cast a gaze down. She was anxious about the answer. Her monthly curse had visited her this week, and her flow was exceptionally heavy.

"Oh brave knight, do you know what a menstrual cycle is?"

"Of course I do. Few things give me cause for joy such as burying my face into those bloody loins of newly minted women."

"Well, I must confess that mine own loins are quite bloody, and the smell of fish abates any proper etiquette."

At that moment, a whisp flew through the maiden's dress. It was a small thing, but the knight knew exactly what had happened. The curse visited upon women many things, among them a noxious odor that would only leave her through the devil's door. He smiled, walked towards the embarrassed girl, and lifted her dress. The delicate pink panties were now as red as the face above them.

"It seems, my dear princess, that you are in desperate need of a cleansing."

The knight was firm now, both in his grip and in his pantaloons.

[Anonymous No.4392598]

The unsettling introduction of
stones, regaining their impermanence
by the mercury-sea, under the twilight
stars, the half-formed moon, sunk in silver...

[Anonymous No.4392609]

Idiombending

A rock is a hard place if it’s big enough, but only a hard thing if it’s little. So instead of being stuck between a rock and a hard place, you could be stuck between a big rock and a little rock. Well, a little rock can be a place too, like Little Rock, Arkansas. So, you could be stuck between Little Rock and a little rock. If we go a little deeper, we can assume that in the world, there is another Little Rock somewhere.

It might not even be a place, necessarily, but even a ship or a song or something else that is entirely not a place. Therefore, in the phrase “stuck between Little Rock and a little rock,” we can add one tiny little letter to improve upon the phrase significantly: “stuck between a Little Rock and a little rock.”

[Anonymous No.4392612]

Birch trees grew, feeding on the blood of the fallen.
Spiders crawl on bodies
to collect their trophies.

[Anonymous No.4392619]

>>4392598
I like it.

>>4392612
>feeding on the blood of the fallen...
Just no.

[Anonymous No.4392623]

>>4392619
yeah, i thought it was 3edgy5me when I was writing it

[Anonymous No.4392626]

>>4392556
What the fuck? This is ridiculous

[Anonymous No.4392646]

Jill walked down the dark alley when all of a sudden a pack of niggers appeared blocking off both exits. The tall fat one stepped forward and said, "You's a pretty bitch. Imma rape yo face."

Jill took a step back trembling. The niggers were closing in on her. She screamed for help. Her pleas were answered when a light from the heavens blanketed the area. Descending from the skies was Hitler and George Zimmerman holding the constitution both riding white stallions.

Every Jew in a 5 mile radius was immediately transported to a furnace. Hitler's job was done and he rode back to the heavens thinking of how much chillin' he was going to do.

Zimmerman touched down and drew a shining revolver. The niggers were scared something fierce.

One of the scrawnier ones said, "We didn't mean no harm."

Zimmerman saw thought his welfare taking nigger lies and glared at him, his glare turning the nigger into a small-dicked Asian.
His revolver fired 6 times each shot hitting the niggers and former nigger between the eyes.

Jill looked at Zimmerman with awe in the eyes and dampness in the pussy and asked, "Mr.Zimmerman, whatever can I do to repay you?"

"Nothing, I was only doing what was right." Zimmerman said as he ascended back to the heavens.
The words, You can't flim flam the zim zam, echoed through the air.

[Anonymous No.4392757]

Shlorp

That’s what I get for an alarm

Of course I get up, wiping the mud away from body with more mud. In all honesty I should not have gotten up, yet I did. I rundown through my kit, do the morning duty’s and prayers. If I had two brain cells to rub together I should have run straight for the commissar and fellated his bolt gun. But alas by the end of the day I shall have stabbed a man in face with a harmonica, watch a legless Officer lead a charge on an equally senile space marine, carry 3 pounds of warp infused vomit through 5 klicks of wasteland being fired upon by a very miffed xenos, and shiv one of the most powerful warlords in seven sectors to death.

By about this time, I choose to take a colossal deuce. There’s enough lull in fighting that I can finally release 2 weeks of pent up IG rations. And just as that unholy bastard crown’s, I hear the tell tale clarion of a Bloodpact attack.

[Anonymous No.4392937]

Get Rich Or Try Dying

[Anonymous No.4392963]

On a visit to Edinburgh with his father when he is nine or ten years old, Andrew finds himself climbing the damp, uneven stone steps of the Castle. His father is in front of him, some other men behind—it’s a wonder how many friends his father has found, standing in cubbyholes where there are bottles set on planks, in the High Street—until at last they crawl out on a shelf of rock, from which the land falls steeply away. It has just stopped raining, the sun is shining on a silvery stretch of water far ahead of them, and beyond that is a pale green and grayish-blue land, a land as light as mist, sucked into the sky.

“America,” his father tells them, and one of the men says that you would never have known it was so near.

“It is the effect of the height we are on,” another says.

“There is where every man is sitting in the midst of his own properties and even the beggars is riding around in carriages,” Andrew’s father says, paying no attention to them. “So there you are, my lad”—he turns to Andrew—“and God grant that one day you will see it closer, and I will myself, if I live.”

Andrew has an idea that there is something wrong with what his father is saying, but he is not well enough acquainted with geography to know that they are looking at Fife. He does not know if the men are mocking his father or if his father is playing a trick on them. Or if it is a trick at all.

[Anonymous No.4392997]

It was a dark and stormy cock. Thrusting in and out of Nancy so hard she couldn't help but scream- "Ohh, Tyrone! Oh Yes! Christ Almiiiiighty! You make me feel like the prettiest stuck porker at the Pickensville pig farm"

[Anonymous No.4393028]

>>4386169
Bumping this.

[Anonymous No.4393037]

>>4386169
>A girl helped me write this.

[Anonymous No.4393042]

>>4393037
Eh, it was okay. I hardly get help with my writing, anyways. It's just that it's tone is now foreign to me after returning to it, so I was looking for other opinions. It feels so melodramatic.

[Anonymous No.4393066]

>>4392346
hopeful bump

[Anonymous No.4393140]

>>4392353
And yet you are posting horsefucker pics.

[Anonymous No.4393143]

>>4392623
>when I was writing it
It still is.

[Anonymous No.4393144]

>>4393140
Uh...

[Anonymous No.4393152]

The key still of bigfoot turning to face the camera mid-lurch, arms swinging on both sides retains an immediate popular recognition, an enduring image that captures all the qualities of an archetype.
Why this particular snapshot, frame 362 exactly?
Is it because it's the only time Bigfoot turns, acknowledges the camera, looks toward its audience and dismisses them?
Maybe, but it's no coincidence that this image most clearly exposes Bigfoots jutting tits. This is the finishing touch. The real mark of a blockbuster, great big titties and all. It doesn't matter if they're fake or not, they're all-American. Unmistakable.

This is it.
The "This is it" moment: The American fetishism of the illusory manifested in one still.
The collision of pornography and mystery all at once. Isn't pornography just the transient will to believe in, or to project belief in, a fantasy? A fantasy which cannot ever be fully realized, for it would otherwise lost its power?
Just as with the mysterious, sexuality in America exists in a twilight zone where it is imagined in terms of aesthetic stills, like frame 326, the woman broken down into parts, goods which must remain bare and texture-less like the fine plastic handle of the razor they must use to trim all her natural body hair.
In the media sphere we are increasingly bombarded with sexual imagery that has the hysterics up in arms, but it is all fantastical, always designed to push bodies like commodities.

The Patterson-Gimlin film represents a less artificial/more artificial sexuality, the return to wilderness matted fur and heavy breasts of a prehistoric matriarch. Raw sex drive stuff, and raw fantasy, briefly bubbling through the surface of mundane reality, before trickling back into the forest and fading out, never lingering so long that it would cease to become fantasy, never leaving behind definite proof of physical existence.
The creature is an actualized Venus of willendorf, mass-marketed out in the California woods.

Isn't the peculiarly American breast fetish an infantile fantasy spawned from a masculine nations furtive efforts to re-imagine a mother?
In his work on flying saucers, Jung concludes that mysterious encounters often express a desire for psychic wholeness. The video definitely contains a sense of wholeness, as if by creating a suitable bride for King Kong we might unify the male and female aspects of a societal psychology.

[Anonymous No.4393172]

>>4393152
I laughed

[Anonymous No.4393235]

Quite a few
Orbs falling
Through my eyes

Wondering
If my eyes
Are broken

If people might
Stare at me
Un nicely

Reflecting
The absence
Of Kindness

Could spheres mean
Great saintly
Affection

Maybe I
Am lost in
Angel orbs

God will clap
Beardily
Jump around

And give me
Snuffely
Great god hugs

To kill tears
Flushing from
Broken eyes

[Anonymous No.4394148]

One evening in the fire, as I traced down solitude
I met young Séan Dell Tracy, who was carrying a lute
And putting down my heavy plough I prayed the boy a tune
So he sang there through the evening, to the rising of the moon

"Where green eyes lie in Southlands, when God puts out the sky
They rise there deep as lushest fields
Shining brightest in the light"
I sat there in entrancement, and my mind danced to his hands
And he sang me then another tale, of green-eyes from the Strand:

"God gifted us with roses
He placed them in her pearls
And when I see that same green hue
Out looks a perfect world.
For all the Godly graces
Dealt out among mankind
She must have cut our Lord a deal
For there's twice more in those eyes!"

My weariness was growing, for green-eyes of the Strand
So I asked the poet Tracy, to sing verse of God and man
And the young bard cocked his nose high, with all an infant's hate
But still this songbird crooned to me, as the morning light came strait:

"For all the Lords above, and all my friends below
I'll play this song long as time goes on
And it's from their words it's grown"

Then a tear fell from the poet, and the moon shone in his eyes
And I asked him to relay the pain, that could drench this songbird's eyes
But the poet Treacy stumbled, and his tears did quench the ground
And I realised the bard had sang, since the clock's had spun once 'round

So I thanked the poet treacy, and I went to grab my plough
But the fearless bard gave rise again, and said "One more song for now"
And I stood there washed in reverance, as Seán Dell strung his lute
And he sang once more his reveries, as the moon gave rise anew:

[Anonymous No.4394150]

>>4394148
"Those green eyes walked out on the strand
Far out into the waves
And no loving verse nor singing lute
Could stop them as they came
And after monstrous tides had swept
And after water's feast
The green eyes of my loving girl
Came swept in from the East
So now I look upon my lute
My life, my soul her keep
And everything reflects the green
The strand had deemed to keep."

[Anonymous No.4394170]

>>4393235

How Can Mirrors
Be Real
If Our Eyes
Aren't Real?

[Anonymous No.4394357]

I felt myself against the malworn desk, felt same way from each coast in the heart of the false kingdom. The boats now kept steady, I bet, but not long ago they rocked and rolled and all the shipwrecked were worth the tradition.
Rolled out of comfort and risen from lethargy, awoken by alarms and kept awake by sirens, I kept myself comfortable in that inner retreat. Horses and streams were no match for the intrinsic lodgings, “Which way down the road to Motel Six?”
I skipped past broken assumptions of what a room should look like and burst through the windscreen panel out to seek the lowly depths from my heavenly highrise.
The elevator made no squeak, only the digital hum of a faraway scream. The hum stopped at floor 6 and a woman edged in that shapely figure bore quite smooth.
“Where are my manners? They’re in my outstretched hand and curved smile. Nice to be met by a neighbor such as you.”
Densely packed, my head rocked as she remained motionless. The digital hum became a worried scream and the woman edged to the corner as I held my head between my knees. I sweat and cracked my veins through my screams. I held back my painful stream. The stream was an inaccuracy, it was not a stream, it was forcing steel through a bottleneck. The edge of this all was the only thing released through a painful and subtoned sigh. She looked at her phone still. I was impressed that I had contained my explosion internally.

[Anonymous No.4394460]

The velociraptor's penis entered Susie's vagina as it uttered a high pitched kaa! It piecred her vaginal cavity as swift and agile and skiled as its hunting game. It made a low gurgling noise as it stared into Susie's eyes. Its bright green eyes shone. It was as if it was saying: "I've got you trapped now! You thought you could get away! You thought you could outsmart me!" Susie lay naked on the foliage of the forest. She was sure no one had been near. She hadn't heard anything, she hadn't seen anything. She didn't even hear the rustling of leaves or the snapping of a twig. Then, out of nowhere, the great beast lunged at her out of a pair of bushes. She wondered how long it had been stalking her before it chose to strike. The raptor's penis was long. Thin, but long. It pushed against her wet G-spot, she couldn't help herself, she let out a soft moan. The raptor humped swiftly and strongly. Her lower body was being pounded by its power.

[Anonymous No.4394475]

She was snoring again, and this time the shuddering of her nostrils were not fake. There would be no awakening this time, no perchance intervention. He peeled the bedclothes back, fingers trembling and threatening to send ripples of incriminating fear onto her bosom. Her hair fell softly to one side and hung lamely over the bedside. The sight of her bare navel tempered his courage, and he drove on. Unseaming her from just beside her belly button, he revealed her internal organs to the air for the first time. The scent both aroused and nauseated, and the sight of the bodily fluids bubbling and coagulating in the air accentuated this. Still, he had a dream to fulfill. He squatted over this new orifice, pleased to be actualizing his desires. She was oblivious to both her mutilation and his naked scrotum hanging just a foot above her, still in the throes of an endless sleep. Finally he began. Squelching first, the feces came sliding down his small intestine. It reached his rectum after a minute’s suspense, and he felt his arousal heighten. At last his child slid out. A perfect, 10 inch turd slid into the hole in her stomach and sat cosily between what looked to be two vital organs wrapped around each other. He patted it lovingly into place, as both bile and blood bathed his creation, and he saw some of the feces break off in the surrounding blood and be carried off into the unknown frontiers of her body. Soon he would be all over her. He swallowed the saliva that had built up in his mouth, and sutured the wound up. Sweeping the hair back under her pillow, he left her there in the night, unknowingly tampered.

The next morning she arrived at the breakfast table. “I feel a most unusual sickness in my abdomen, father,” she said.

[Anonymous No.4394512]

>>4394475
>turd
You ruined it.

[Anonymous No.4394516]

>>4394512
What would you have preferred?

[Anonymous No.4394538]

>>4394512
>>4394475
>at last his child slid out
I'm sorry, what exactly did he ruin?

[Anonymous No.4394547]

>>4394538
n-nothing, because my work is a masterpiece?

[Anonymous No.4394550]

>>4394547
I agree.

[Anonymous No.4394554]

>>4394550
Hey, thanks. Old buddy ol' pal.

[Anonymous No.4394687]

Dark sky, clouds skirted across it a hiccup in the brain neglected to inform my open eyes. Dry mouth and a headache, sweat that's gone cold touched skin. I curled my fingers and scooped my pick of regolith. Raised my head a little looking for a bright patch as my waypoint. Something off in the distance, vertical like an old telegraph post. The few hours spent in this ditch bear my marks in the ground. Excavated mounds of dirt lay either side, finger marks trailing off at the ends. Footsteps from my journey are tightly spaced and how far they stretch I'm uncertain. Sitting up my limbs weak from the outback I stretch my neck and wait for the crack, a helping hand tilts my head further and I get what I need. Limber enough to stand I close in on the pole and then rest a hand on it.

[Anonymous No.4394781]

Here's some stuff I churned out late last night (at like 3:30 in the morning):

The sound of my mother being fucked is the worst of all. It's always at some point of my nightly relaxation. Sometimes I'm trying to get lost in a novel's world with a cup of mint tea to keep me company.

When I was a kid, this was amid sneaky attempts to watch PG-13 anime. The nauseous blend of real-life moaning and scantily-clad cartoon girls was only cured by an increase in volume (on the TV, thankfully)

In superstition, if I didn't mash my remote's "+' button, the truly paper-thin walls would tear open and I'd see the act. Luckily, this only happened once thanks to an urgent phone call.

Whoever's the other perpetrator is irrelevant; these are men who come and eventually go. Yet that sound is impossible to replay in my mind. My brain automatically cuts it off like a plug being pulled out of a speaker.

Eyes shut so hard its lashes break from the impact. Those strands of hair always end up in my eyes. I find myself recklessly running to the nearest water source in irritated agony.

It brings me back to a younger day, where I didn't know that it was a vagrant eyelash stabbing through my sockets. Foolishly, I kept rubbing my eyes hoping whatever it is would fall out. Oh and I cried, sure that the tears would wash it out.

Young [my name] greatly underestimated the eyelash. The guillotine-sharp hair sticks to the surface of an eye, patiently cutting deeper until the friction causes flames to incinerate the pupil.

The only solution is to wash it out more thoroughly. So when the worst sound in the world triggers the worst pain, I now know to get to the bathroom ASAP. This was one of the first of many life lessons learned through unfulfilling distress.

[Anonymous No.4394786]

>>4392963
rate please

[Anonymous No.4394897]

>>4394170

You may have
A point
There

[Anonymous No.4395018]

this chant from Carrara never ends, from Avenza to Port au Prince beyond morning fogs that find shelter on the sacred marble mountain where the ermitage and prisons ragefully turned white.

I hate to write in english, it has no soul.

[Anonymous No.4395025]

>>4394897
when I was
a young
boy

[Anonymous No.4395157]

>>4392963
I don't hate it. But it's quite a short sample and not much happens.

It's a bit eerie, really. Andrew not entirely trusting his unreliable Father's motivations or knowing whether he's being truthful or not. His oddly poetic way of speaking. And the group of strange men, what do they want? There's something there, but I don't know where you're going with it.

[Anonymous No.4395655]

Giving you pervs some love.

>>4392458
Dumb and dare I say misogynistic. Read Thirst for Love if you want to know how to do that kind of thing right.

>>4392646
I chortled.

>>4393152
Would love to read more about why furfags are so prevalent in the states.

>>4394460
>"I've got you trapped now! You thought you could get away! You thought you could outsmart me!"
Hilarious. I hope it ends with hard vore.

>>4394516
Anything. It was really hot up until that part.

[Anonymous No.4395698]

>>4384799
holy shit why am I laughing so hard at this

[Anonymous No.4395700]

Oh god it is hard to think right now, my thoughts are as scramble as scramble eggs on any of the topics and ideas I want to work on. My head feels a light, pain is coming from it and I hate it. I look at my computer screen and see no new words being form. I see my hands hovering over the key board but they are at a dead still. I hate this feeling, I want to write, I know what I want to write about, I have the time to write, but nothing comes out. Distraction and her friends comes to pay me a visit, the most annoying visit anyone with work can feel.
Distraction is quite the cruel and ugly bitch, figures are all spread deep within my mind. The temptress is toying with me, making me feel light and weak in the head. She is pulling me away from my beloved self, my here and now. To become a float over myself, yelling at the sight of me dozing off and day dreaming about anything. Having me to wonder and wander to almost about the most unimportant facts I can find.
I want to hate myself for letting her do this to me, I want to hate her for doing this to me but I can't just still ideal by and just think about it, no I must continue on. I am out of it but I can not let that stop me. I must push on and push her. Push the useless facts that she stored deep in my head out, push all the other things that I think I want to do now out, push the feelings that aline to her out. Have Boredom know he is not welcome, and tell Grief to stop crying over herself and get back to work.
That is what I am doing to help me. It still does not rid of the headache I feel rolling and bounding around in the front of my head, that is one thing Distraction haves left in me. But her last plan to hinder me is all but lost. The headache just serves as a reminder, every time I feel it I will not fall to it, I will work with it.

[Anonymous No.4395704]

>>4395700

Though come to think about it, writing this was a bit of a distraction from what I wanted to spend most of my day on. In a way she won this fight, because I had to stop working on 3 projects. I just lack the will and focus that would have help me. But on the other hand, despite that she had wrap her arms around me and planted her fingers in my brain, I was still able to write this.
This isn't good, my mind begins to wander again. A lone thought from the back of my mind flying across my eyes. The thought of playing a old video that I loved as a teen, I still love the game now and do wish to play it. That still doesn't give me the right to start nothing else but to think about it. Each time I close my eyes for a blink I can just see myself enjoying the old game, remembering the story of the old game like it actually happen to me. I can not lose myself in theses old memories and the emotions that attach themselves to it. Theses are the kind of memories that holds a person back.
Damn now tiredness and sleep are siding with that temptress, she is becoming a witch. Able to call fore underlings of the sloth lord to do her biding. My eyes lid now grow heavy, much of my energy is put into keeping one of them only mostly open at a time. My head leans too back or too forward now, and my hands are dancing a tango with two partners at once. The first is the lovely Keys Board, Miss Board is fairly new to the dance but has been learning each new move Hands has been teaching her very quickly. The other is Miss Head who isn't a big fan of the dance so she tries to make her own, in which Hands must quickly get to her and have her dancing stand up and properly.
You know what? Screw it. I'm going to talk a walk and draw.

[Anonymous No.4395708]

(Just wrote this twenty minutes ago, never really posted anything I wrote here before)

Suddenly my boyish body felt itself flushed with the liquids of brashness and recalcitrance, fluids reborn in churning flames, and provoked by dying ambitions. When a man's inner deterrents, speed bumps internalized through years of inconsequential dialogue ("May I fuck you please ma'am?" "No, that is quite absurd." "May I fuck you please ma'am?" "No, that is quite unlicensed" then we all walk away with an incessed puff and a pocket full of snuff), decide to finally dissolve back into the quaint nothingness that spawned them it does not disappear gradually. No, the stops are always swallowed by the wholeness of Big Other and Big Self in the thunderous flurries of adventure. I am thoroughly convinced of this, not only because of my own case, but because of what I have always seen in others; all genders, religions, and states have seen a fair share of firebrand malcontents, people of freedom. And these people of freedom are nearly all insatiable monsters, worthy only of our ire. Most eminently marching in this camp of traitors, at least in my heart, is Emma Bovary. Pity her case, dear reader! Even now I shudder at the thought of her being with child. How badly I wanted to buy the items she sold in her final desperation you cannot understand. My days at university passed by, and became increasingly unimportant when compare to my love of the doomed damsel. I only wished to touch her quivering shoulders as she read through La Chanson de Roland. So unduly ferocious was my cursed want that whenever my roommate's miserable girlfriend from Cornell visited I felt nothing but emptiness when confronted with the unhappiness of their real relationship. Although all was sallowed when the two agreed to hold hands and dart eyes in the presence of others, myself included, it made me feel nothing, for their issues were insignificant compared to the fractured house of Bovary! Their case, mired in the weak and undramatic flair of bourgeois concern, only deserves anger, scratched palms, and booing. But Emma deserves bleeding palms. In the days of my boyhood, nothing could interest my hands. For this reason they became fat and soft. Perhaps my fear of my own utility, my own potential for industry, was enforced by the image of my mother's old boyfriend forcing her to the floor to choke her? Yes that can be one reason. It was a Christmas morning too. Funny to think of Christmas as the day my masculine industry died! I only joke. The truth is I had never used my hands because I had never wanted to use my hands. Nothing was worth dirtying my precious palms over. Except Emma. My days at the university accelerated and coagulated into one great Mount Rushmore of insipidness.

[Anonymous No.4395710]

>>4395708
(Part 2/2)

I was fed the worst foodstuffs imaginable, such as the aforementioned normal relationship that begged for attention and mercy. So my desire for Emma grew, as did my intention to touch the sole of her riding boots. My hands, which had always been mere meat, had suddenly found a purpose in those boots. I wanted to feel the leather between my palms and her preciously cared for calves. I wanted to feel the sensation of rolling an impromptu cigarette for the self-destructive flame of a person we all know as Emma Bovary. Now imagine me underneath her nag, my beloved friend, absurdly clawing at the bottom of her muddied boots, while simultaneously rolling a cigarette with Carolina tobacco. Was I merely attracted by her burgeoning masculinity? No doubt there are many among us who would jump immediately to such a diagnosis. But true attraction is never as simple as an upset girl from Cornell, or homosexual impulses. My attraction for Emma was impounded into the flow of death itself when, far away from her father, she had fallen for the romances of France's past. To explore the great cheat's fingers with my mouth would be a great honor. I wanted to be immured by the bosom of her reckless freedom. That flame flowing through her dainty feet and powerful Norman abdomen made her a giantess in my eyes. I read on with no small amount of jealously as she trotted through conventions with only one thing in mind; the highest. For this reason she is exemplary.
In spite of all of her splendor and glory she made one mistake that cost her dearly. The very sky she won came crashing down because of her final apostacy, but now is not the time to confront that. I merely brought up the topic of my imagined affair with Emma to display the suddenness of fiery movement, the only movement that matters. I also bring up this collection of incidents to show how horrifying of a response absolute freedom has been able to illicit from me throughout life's formative stages and venues.

[Anonymous No.4395716]

I'd appreciate some criticism on this. It's not long as I haven't had a lot of time to write today. I posted some of it earlier in the thread but I expanded it by a couple of paragraphs and plan on expanding it further into a short story or possibly more. I have it all plotted out for the most part, but I just need to write it up

http://pastebin.com/knMSRby8

[Anonymous No.4395755]

sorry if this is a bit aimless, I'm trying to get back into the habit of writing. any feedback appreciated.

Droplets of hot running water fell down on Henry's body as he sat with his arms wrapped around his legs in the shower. His red eyes gazed up at the steam that filled the room. There was something lingering at the back of his mind, but he couldn't remember what it was. The last thing that he could recall was the echoes of shouts of congratulations as he walked down the isle with Mary.

Where was Mary?

Henry thought long and hard about this. Soon the thought wavered as he returned to an empty state of mind.

"Dad?" a man called out. Henry stiffened and tried to make sense of who it was that was trying to talk to him. "What do you want?" he called out.

[Anonymous No.4395759]

>>4395755
not bad. nice and to the point. hooked and got me interested. would read more.

[Anonymous No.4395770]

>>4395759
thanks, much appreciated!

[Anonymous No.4395778]

>>4395755
I don't think it's aimless at all. It's concise and I liked it. My only critique would be your descriptions. Red eyes, thought long and hard, echos of shouts of congratulations. Those stuck out to me as awkward.

say congratulatory shouts, or bloodshot eyes, you know? That's just my opinion

[Anonymous No.4395797]

>>4395770
ah, reading it again, I see what you mean. it was more or less a stream of consciousness piece. I'll definitely be more careful about that kind of thing in the future, though

thanks

[Anonymous No.4395801]

>>4395797 meant for >>4395778

[Anonymous No.4395867]

At the centre of the village square, a large horse chestnut tree grows. From the top of it’s thick trunk, branches spread out and split into ever smaller fractalized versions of themselves. A stunningly complex crown of self similar spindles collectively waver to-and-fro, driven by a light ocean breeze. Spring birthed, freshly regenerated leaves cover the tree, forming a dense canopy that absorbs light from above and shades a group of boys, who are gathered on the ground below. The teenagers hang out in a loose troupe within the chestnuts shadow. Two of the boys are smoking and the scrawnier one spits a hunk of yellow phlegm onto the ground. The only boy sitting raises a can of Strongbow cider to his lips and gulps down the sugary, alcoholic brew. The focus of the group is a muscular, buck toothed boy, who has his hand wedged down the front of his boxer shorts. He’s playing non nonchalantly with his cock in an animistic display of male dominance. The other boys are hanging on his every word. Jay’d sure like to be that hand, massaging the dark musky area between the boys hairy thighs. He feels his own cock stir and wonders what the boy would think, if he knew he was attracting that kind of attention.

[Anonymous No.4395884]

1/3

"Listen. I don't know who you are, but my family has a lot of money. Just think about--" I cut him off with a harsh blow to the jaw.

When I first started out in this business, I would hear out their pleas with an air of sincerity, just enough to make them believe that I'm seriously considering letting them go, just enough to give them hope that maybe they'll get out of here alive; it's this kind of thing that usually makes what I do so much more satisfying. I used to let them talk themselves hoarse, but at this point in my career, I can't really bear to hear it anymore; it's always the same. You've got the calm ones, the ones that'll offer you something they see as a reasonable exchange for their life, like money, not realizing that leaving this abandoned warehouse with a duffel bag full of paper won't calm my demons, won't quench my bloodlust, my insatiable desire for severed limbs, delicate flesh tearing from flesh, electric signals of pain traveling from nerve endings through the body to be translated into screams of agony, the whole beautiful mess.

So you've got the calm ones, and then you've got the squealers. I used to love tossing around those pathetic little mice until they couldn't make a sound save for the harsh, low hissing of their cries for mercy and the slap of bruised skin and brittle bone meeting stone as I tossed them to the floor. My mentor once told me his favorite weapon was not one you could hold in your hand, but one that you could push your victim into, something bigger than yourself, something like a flight of stairs, railing on a bridge, a brick wall, a heavy door pulled back to smash someone's face in, a hard, tiled floor--you get the picture. Knowing him it probably had some deep philosophical meaning, but then again he always was a hopeless romantic. Me? I could give a shit less. I've got no delusions of grandeur, no absurd vendetta to take out on the world. I just so happen to believe that every man is entitled to his vices.

[Anonymous No.4395889]

>>4395884
2/3

But I digress. The short, red-haired man before me has sobered quickly from his chemical sleep after seeing where we are. Personally I find the place quite charming, but my visitors don't seem to appreciate it as much as I do. Then again, I've never taken the time to ask. At this point, I'm curious.

"What do you think of the place?" I ask, taking special care to look the man right in the eyes. He deserves that, at least. It's not his fault he was too slow, too buzzed on the second-rate whiskey they serve at that new bar on the run-down patch of Main Street. Too late in realizing that the man he met who insisted that they had gone to college together was not an old friend, but a predator closing in on his prey. It's not his fault that the bartender didn't think twice when that same college pal helped the slightly drunk and heavily drugged man into a taxi and took him back to his place to 'sober up'. Surely it wasn't my fault that no one questioned that statement, because I wasn't lying: the man is now at my place--one of them, at least--and he is undoubtedly sober.

"Who are you?" He coughs, squinting up at the florescent bars of light overhead. "Where are we?" To be honest I'm a rather disappointed with this catch. So far, all of my attempts at polite conversation have been thwarted. I step forward to grip his neck with my left hand and pull my toolbox closer on the adjacent table with my right, sifting through its unusual contents. My fingers pass over a screwdriver, a pair of needle nose pliers, and an icepick that's still caked with a congealed crimson mess; finally I find the perfect tool.

"Damn," I scoff. "I thought you'd be an interesting one." Sighing, I open the latch and reach for a pair of fingernail clippers. "See these?" I wave them side to side in front of his wide eyes. "I don't have any plans to hurt you," I say. His face contorts as I clutch his throat even harder. When it seems he's slipping away I release my grasp and turn my back to him, hearing an almost comic burst of inhalation as he regains his breath. I turn around again and admire the scene.

"No, I have no plans to hurt you, friend." I walk over briskly and pull up his right eyelid, prying the bottom section of the clippers between his eyeball and upper lid, scraping the slimy surface of the eye until I can set up a solid bite. He screams, and I struggle to hold back a smile. "So I think I'll have to improvise." My thumb and forefinger tighten on the stainless steel tool. The man's squirming practically does my job for me. Steel meets steel through perforated skin, and I rip the clippers back, separating half an inch of flesh from the man's upper eyelid. This is enough more than enough to break him. I drop the piece of skin in his lap and leave him screaming for now. Falling back into my office chair, I pour myself some bourbon and sit back to enjoy this evening's entertainment.

[Anonymous No.4395890]

>>4395867
Why present tense?

[Anonymous No.4395891]

>>4395884
>>4395889
3/3

After fifteen minutes have passed, I get up to circle behind the man and grab his wallet from the table while he writhes around, throwing his weight back and forth in the confines of his chair. I almost pity him for a moment, waiting for him to realize it's bolted to the floor. The moment passes and I knock him on the back of the head. He screams. I turn back to the task at hand. "Robert. Good, strong name," I say as I rifle through his mess of credit cards, gift cards, identification, and even a family photo of two young girls playing in a lake. "Who are these little angels?" I hold the picture up to his face, and although his teary eyes are closed, the missing section of skin exposes part of his right pupil. I flip the picture over, reading the handwritten scribble on the back. "Zoey and Esther Chase, Summer 2007." He growls with a loathing that I am all too familiar with.

"Don't you even think about--" I slap him hard across the face. This is one of the best, if not the absolute best part of what I do: watching as fear is pushed aside to make room for blind rage. It's beautiful, really.

"Think about what? Killing them? Trust me, friend, that's not my intention." I put the picture back in his wallet, and place it gently on the table.

"What the fuck do you want from me?" He's struggling with his restraints again, screaming like crazy, tears mixing with blood, and I know I ought to end this soon. I'm growing tired of Robert Chase.

[Anonymous No.4395935]

Anyone alive?

[Anonymous No.4395937]

Critique me
http://pastebin.com/zybFVhRa

[Anonymous No.4395939]

Just wrote earlier. Lets see if 4chan likes me.

A small collection of streets and houses humbely collected its tears.

Life beyond warm doors sounded of babling streams draining from the roofs, pittering cascades from the expiring drops, and the occational fading shush of the wet spinning wheels of a passing automobile. One found himself overtaken by the rhythmic splash of shallow puddles and shallow breathing.

The damp streets and sidewalks ignored their imperfections and gleamed proudly. The moisture that had glazed them over provided a layer of reflection that would mimic the gentle glow of the ever changing street lights. Reds, yellows and greens rose from the streets as if reaching for the eye that would normally ignore them, rippling in delight. They presented a magnificent portrait of the dreary sky they stared at, almost as if to flatter the very source of what exposed it's rare beauty.

Such subtlties were lost on the poor soul.

Trotting absently over the natural canvass, a hapless lone man ran. Clothes darkened and heavy, he stummbled aimlessly forward between two endless row of houses. He darted his head from one side to the other crying meekly to himself. The bones in his legs had long before ached from the chilling gusts aggitating his soaked clothing. Each step sent a fresh splash of cold water onto his feeble person. Thunder could be heard timidly croaking to itself far behind him.

One of his hands stayed tucked close to his rapidly cooling body while the other fruitlessly attempted to sheild his brow. His ears felt red and stung mercilessly as an uneccessary reminder of his current situation. He whined helplessly watching the passing of the countless houses knowing ironiclly that none of which were a home.

His steps were stifled as a sudden patch of slick sent his feet behind him and his body sliding across the wet sidewalk. He lie for a moment in defeat, earth acheiving its revenge for his ignorance of its beauty. With a reluctant sigh he gathered himself on his knees. Before him stood a sign. "CONDEMED" It read in blunt black text. Behind it, towered a home.

Dwarfing the collection of houses it followed, its wood looked worn and splintered. It's trim was extravegant with shapley like vases lining its entire perimiter. The shingles looked beaten with patches of punched in damage blotting either side of the the pointed roof.

[Anonymous No.4395941]

>>4395939
also forgive shitty spelling I just realize I didnt proof read before posting. like a jackass.

[Anonymous No.4396006]

>>4395890

why not?!

[Anonymous No.4396032]

>>4395704
>>4395700
No one?

[Anonymous No.4396115]

>>4395867

Crit please!

[Anonymous No.4396156]

>>4383707
Genre: Magical Autism
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sgw-Yrns9wOGIdMQqGBpVRv3Ub-enDvJZLRmpCKiVsQ/edit?usp=sharing

[Anonymous No.4396159]

>>4395867
>it's

[Anonymous No.4396183]

James, a ten year old boy, took a tiny white pill from his friend Steven’s backpack and swallowed it. They had been walking home from school when Steven ran into the woods to take a leak, leaving his backpack behind with James on the sidewalk. Just before lunch, James had watched him take a single pill from a small plastic orange container, swallow it, and then place the container in his backpack’s front pocket. He had seen Gordon, Chris, Kevin, and Michael all take pills of their own too, and he had seen Mrs. Chang handing out pills to the girls at recess. When he asked his classmates about their pills they ignored him or pretended they didn’t know what he was talking about. Where was his pill?
“Did you take one?” asked Steven. He had just come back from the woods and was staring with interest at the container in James’ hand.
“Yeah,” said James, “Just one.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” said Steven.
“Sorry,” said James, “What’s it for?”
The sound of sirens screamed over Steven’s answer. James looked up the street and saw a police car roaring towards him. Its wailing drew people from their houses and yardwork and they watched James from their porches and lawns. The police car screeched to a halt in front of James and he quickly handed the container back to Steven.
Two police officers emerged from the car. Their uniforms were dark and plain and they were very tall. One of them had his hand on his gun.
“Have eaten anything that you weren’t supposed to, James?” asked the officer with his hand on the gun.
“No,” said James.
“You’re lying,” said the other, “You’ve always been a dirty little liar, ever since you learned how to talk. It’s disgusting. Why are you always lying, James? You’re sick.”
“Yes,” agreed the officer with the gun, “he’s very sick.”
The two officers lunged towards James and he fled into the forest. He ran through the trees for a very long time until he found his way to his backyard. He came into his house through the backdoor and found his mother crying at the kitchen table.
“James,” she sobbed, “What have you done?”
“I didn’t do anything,” said James, “I just came home from school.” That only made her cry harder though.
James was very tired now and he wanted to go to sleep. He ran upstairs to his room but his father was already sitting at his desk, waiting for him. He was home from work early, which was always a bad sign.
“James,” said his father, “What happened at school today?”
“Not much,” said James, “I got a B on my math quiz.”
“Let me see,” said his father.
James took out his math folder and showed his father a quiz he had taken two months ago.
“That’s good,” said James’ father, “but why didn’t you get an A?”
“I guess I didn’t study hard enough,” said James and his father smirked.

[Anonymous No.4396184]

>>4396183

“No, you didn’t. I called your math teacher today and we talked about your grades. You have D in math. She didn’t say anything about this quiz.”
Danger flashed in James’ stomach. His father rose from his seat and James turned to the door. It was too late; his mom had locked it while he and his dad were talking.
“I promise to get better grades, Dad” said James.
“You’ve told me that before,” he replied.
James’ dad grabbed James and pulled his mouth open. He buried his fingers down, down, into his throat until he reached its back. James’ stomach erupted and he vomited all over the blue carpet of his bedroom floor. When he was finished, his dad threw James away from him and into the far corner of his room. He bent to the floor and plucked the tiny white pill that James had swallowed from the vomit. He flicked the bile on his fingers in James’ face and then left the room. James heard his footsteps thud down the stairs and into the living room where his father gave the pill back to the two police officers.

[Anonymous No.4396210]

>>4396159
oh yes! How about a critque of my writing, rather than pointing out one granatical mistake!

[Anonymous No.4396215]

A vile stench gathered around Mary as she was sitting on the subway. She was observing the passengers, watching worried buisnessman make phonecalls, middle-aged women calming their kids and elders trying not to shit in their pants. A smile came to her face as one particular old man ranted about the youth today. "We didn't drink milk out of glasses when I was young! We sunk out head beneath a cow and tugged hard to get our calcium! Things were a lot simpler back in the day..." She soon lost interest of his deep philosophies and grabbed her big black bag. It seemed very moist and an unussually large hound sitting next to her started sniffing it. On his collar it said: "Marco". Mary looked for Marcos owner, but it seemed that the dog was alone. She told him to sit and he obliged. She told him to heel and again he obliged. She told him to make some noise and he promptly responded: "Hello, Mary". Panickingly, she stood up nad watched the hound in disbelief. Nobody around her seemed to care of the talking dog, so she sat back down. "How can you talk? You're just a dog!" "You're quite mistaken. I am far more than a simple dog, and i got a proof of that. Try spelling dog backwards and you'll see what I truly am!" "Are you a god?", Mary asked. "Of course not, you silly! I'm just a talking dog!" She let out an annoying sigh: "Then how did you know my name?" "Your husband wispered it in my ear." Suddendly, her face became darkened. A fluid was leaking from her big black purse. She noticed it was falling apart. The train stopped on the station and a head fell out the bottom of the purse.

[Anonymous No.4396217]

>post shit
>nobody crits
Every fucking time.

[Sange !Fde5Qjfb5g No.4396223]

>>4396183
>>4396184
Diggin it, man. Its real like, whats the word? You know?

[Anonymous No.4396228]

The most recent thing I wrote:

http://someladsblog.wordpress.com/2013/12/22/growing-up-playing-video-games/

[Anonymous No.4397345]

>>4396215
boring & unfunny

[Anonymous No.4397348]

>>4396184
It's new at least, but the writing style is simplistic and it sorta seems like a heavy handed modern Kafka.

[Anonymous No.4397358]

>>4395716
Anybody?

[Anonymous No.4397365]

>>4395939
Boring. Get to the action! It takes you four paragraphs to get to the fucking guy.
>he darted his head from one side to the other crying meekly to himself
fuckign what on earth is this? Now I see him as a kitten.
>trotting absently
>ran
fuck you. You're shit. Choose one.
>thunder, timid, croaking
It's like if Tommy Wiseau wrote.
>he whined helplessly
is he autistic? srs question
>earth acheiving its revenge for his ignorance of its beauty.
just- stop. Rewrite everything, shorten everything. Nobody knows what's happening, nobody cares.

[Anonymous No.4397370]

>>4395884
Doesn't interest me. The style of "con man talking conversationally" is very cringeworthy, imo, but others may not see it that way.

Also, your character seems like an asshole, and not in an intriguing way. Just a cruel piece of shit, without even a good sense of humor to redeem himself.

[Anonymous No.4397371]

Money money money money money money money money. Let no one say it has no place in a love story. It has a particular place. It is something on the right shelf. When Helena bought the Chianti there was no question which shelf she'd take it from. "We have the cheap stuff on the right, and then it gets more and more expensive as you go along," said the liquor guy.

"You don't say," Helena said. She took a cigarette out of her ripped purse and lit it because she smoked. She was a smoker.

"I like to put the expensive stuff here where I can keep an eye on it," the guy said.

Helena blew a smoke ring, which was illegal in this country. "Well," she said, "I'll be over here, as far as possible from you."

"You have a sexy accent," the guy said. "Are you from someplace?"

"Yes," Helena said. "I'm from Britain, originally."

"I told you," the guy said. "Because you can't smoke in a liquor store in San Francisco. In California, and everyone knows it. So I figured you're new."

"I guess I am new," Helena said, and walked toward him with a bottle. "I imagine you have a lot to teach me," and this is a good example. Why would she say this? Helena was a young woman, originally from Britain, whatever that means. She was a smoker. She had a sexy accent and a bottle of wine in her hands. The wine was Chianti, also from Europe and very cheap in this case, but that was no excuse for the "I imagine you have a lot to teach me," or that milder, less scrutable joke about being cheap herself. Why behave this way? Helena was beginning to think there was no particular reason. Arguably, of course, there was a particular reason that Helena could not find. Perhaps she had left it in Britain. She paid for her wine, in American currency. Money money money money money.


Helena had moved to New York first. She planned to stay there and work on a new book until her money ran out. Her money ran out in nine days. Prices will have changed as people read this book, so I'll try to explain it this way: Let's say Helena arrived in New York with money from the American publication of her first novel in the amount of $700 billion. She found a hovel of an apartment, crawling with grimy American insects, that cost $500 billion a month to rent, and half a million usually went to the taxi driver who took her there. Milk—milk!—cost $100,000. A pair of smashing, striking new boots cost over $1 billion. Nine days was actually something of a miracle, although not the miracle Helena was hoping for. Unfortunately this is also the way she explained it to her husband.

[Anonymous No.4397374]

>>4395867
Why do you describe the tree? Why so short? Why gay? Who cares? What is the conflict here? Why mention longboy? Why mention the focus? Show not tell.

[Anonymous No.4397377]

>>4395755
>running
you can remove that

I guess its ok, but its so short that its really just a gimmick.

[Anonymous No.4397381]

>>4395937
>fantasy erotica
Cancerous shit. Fuck you and your fantasy.

[Anonymous No.4397395]

>>4397371
>which was
omit
>in california
confusing
>whatever that means
drop the postmodern bullshit
>no particular reason
again, no pomo
>wine, in American
omit comma
>le hyperinflation face
Obviously you haven't heard of bitcoins.

It's new, dialogue is good, make Helena's money running out a more prominent point of conflict. Writing is generally quick, though a little ungainly, and dialogue feels very modern.
Drop the inflation point unless it serves a purpose in the text, I guess.

[Anonymous No.4397417]

>>4384025
Fuck yes. Postmodernism put to good use. Most people in our generation have read so much that we are wary of falling into any cliche, often to an absurd extent. The shadow of this is present in your work. I think it's important to address.

[Anonymous No.4397428]

>>4384085
>the swallower
gay! Your description of the ocean isn't too bad, though saying "the name of the world was Ocean" is kind of stupid.

[Anonymous No.4397432]

>>4384160
Badly written and boring. Cobblestones arent hell on anybody's sneakers. You're just padding space, because you're a pompous dick.

[Anonymous No.4397438]

>>4384242
Start with the last paragraph.

[Anonymous No.4397442]

>>4384311
NOBODY FUCKING TALKS LIKE THIS IN THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD

[Anonymous No.4397446]

>>4384325
>"Uncle Morris' Tyrannosaurus" my brother Bobby used to call it.
Switch to
My brother Bobby used to call it "Uncle Morris' Tyrannosaurus".

[Anonymous No.4397449]

>>4384401
Wow, this is pretty good, actually. Sounds great.

[Anonymous No.4397453]

>>4397428
The fish is a Black Swallower. A deep pelagic predator.

[Anonymous No.4397457]

>>4384438
"How am I blind?" were the first words that escaped her lips, slow and measured, bearing only a hint of a tremble.
It's backwards in my mind. It's also boring. Also, fantasy is shit.

[Anonymous No.4397462]

>>4384709
>kol brannier
fuck u and your fantasy nigga!!!! I fucking hate fantasy. You seem to know which words to desecrate though, which is nice.

[Anonymous No.4397471]

>>4384349
>the wolf of england
boring

[Anonymous No.4397476]

>>4386169
>that dialogue
very bad

[Anonymous No.4397484]

>>4386505
>beginning with waking up
ugh
>Wilson Leonard
UGH
>le morning after face
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU YOU CANT WRITE

[Anonymous No.4397489]

>>4386548
>erol
>done for
>this pseudo-fantashit
It's so fucking cliche.

[Anonymous No.4397499]

>>4386618
Story sounds really fucking boring and inhuman. A bunch of political bullshit. Keep out all possible world building- merely imply it, and only then if you have no other choice.

[Anonymous No.4397502]

>>4387204
Annoying
>>4397453
Oh so interesting. Why not just call it the fish? Fish don't have names.

[Anonymous No.4397554]

Hoping to get crit on this bit.


STORMCOMING

We saw the storm coming

Far out to sea, thick clouds gather

Building in the rising level,

Lit from below by golden light

Overlooking ocean blue
The sun is slipping lower

To the horizon, and bathing us

In warm marmalade glow:

The thunderheads grow and

Whirl softly in, shoreward
The rushing wind is coming

Whistling and upsetting

The mirror-ocean now ruffled

White horses dance and

Spray us with salty foam
A million tiny craters form

In the sand as a billion

Raindrops fall like silver nails,

Pinning down the fading glow

Of the sinking sun

[Anonymous No.4397556]

>>4397554
it fucked up my spacing, sorry

[Anonymous No.4397562]

>>4397554
I'll tell you what I think if you fockin crit first u wanker

[Anonymous No.4397569]

>>4397562
I can hardly write myself, never mind critiqu the writing of other people...

[Anonymous No.4397570]

>>4397569
Why the fuck are you posting here then? Stop wasting everyone's time, and crit, and I'll tell you what I think.

[Anonymous No.4397578]

>>4395755
>running
omit, tautology

>his red eyes gazed up
separates him from the action of gazing, the agent is the eyes and not him. IMO makes it seem as if his eyes are acting independent of his will

>echoes of shouts of congratilations
the of...of repetition is not smooth, I'd say 'echoing shouts of congratulations

>Mary
pretty generic name actually

>wavered
perhaps 'faded' would be better here

>of who it was that was trying
again the was...was makes for awkward phrasing, consider 'sense of who was trying to talk'

[Anonymous No.4397581]

>>4397570
There is my opinion of a piece.

[Anonymous No.4397591]

>>4397581
I thought it was good, but you're not really saying anything. Whatever, beauty justifies itself. It was good

[Anonymous No.4397594]

>>4395778
I think saying 'echoing shouts of congratulations' flows better as thw word that would be shouted would be 'congratulations', and using it suggests more clearly an actualy shout without interrupting by adding direct speech. Also, congratulatory has too many syllables.

[Anonymous No.4397632]

>>4392963
The View from Castle Rock.

[Anonymous No.4397633]

Lane Dean, Jr., with his green rubber pinkie finger, sat at his Tingle table in his chalk’s row in the rotes group’s wiggle room and did two more returns, then another one, then flexed his buttocks and held to a count of ten and imagined a warm pretty beach with mellow surf, as instructed in orientation the previous month. Then he did two more returns, checked the clock real quick, then two more, then bore down and did three in a row, then flexed and visualized and bore way down and did four without looking up once, except to put the completed files and memos in the two Out trays side by side up in the top tier of trays, where the cart boys could get them when they came by. After just an hour the beach was a winter beach, cold and gray and the dead kelp like the hair of the drowned, and it stayed that way despite all attempts. Then three more, including one 1040A, where the deductions for A.G.I. were added wrong and the Martinsburg printout hadn’t caught it and had to be amended on one of the Form 020-Cs in the lower left tray, and then a lot of the same information filled out on the regular 20, which you still had to do even if it was just a correspondence audit and the file going to Joliet instead of the District, each code for which had to be looked up on the pullout thing he had to scoot the chair awkwardly over to pull out all the way. Then another one, then a plummeting inside of him as the wall clock showed that what he’d thought was another hour had not been. Not even close. May 17, 1985. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a poor sinner. Cross-checking W-2s for the return’s line 8 off the place in the Martinsburg printout where the perforation, if you wanted to separate the thing’s sheets, went right through the data and you had to hold it up against the light and almost sometimes guess, which his chalk leader said was a chronic bug with Systems but the wiggler was still accountable. The joke this week was: How was an I.R.S. rote examiner like a mushroom? Both kept in the dark and fed horseshit. He didn’t know how mushrooms even worked, if it was true that you scooped waste on them. Sheri’s cooking wasn’t what you would call at the level of adding mushrooms. Then another return. The rule was, the more you looked at the clock the slower the time went. None of the wigglers wore a watch, except he saw that some kept them in their pockets for breaks. Clocks on Tingles were not allowed, nor coffee or pop. Try as he might, he could not this last week help envisioning the inward lives of the older men to either side of him, doing this day after day. Getting up on a Monday and chewing their toast and putting their hats and coats on knowing what they were going out the door to come

[Anonymous No.4397930]

>>4397633
guys please rate im really insecure

[Anonymous No.4399106]

Hello?

Hello?

Hello?

Hi.

What do you want.

That sounded like annoyment, he could hear it in her voice. He had said hello twice and he didn't even introduce himself. Now she was irritated and didn't even ask him who he was before asking what he wanted.

I'm John. You know me from history class?

Oh yeah.

The way she said "oh yeah." It held no emotion, surprise, anything. It was monotone. John started to feel sick.

What work is due for tomorrow?

I don't think anything is.

OK, thank you.

John hung up. He was glad it was over but he still felt sick to his stomach. Someone was squeezing it very hard. At least there was no work to do. But of course there was the possibility she had simply tried to contract the conversation by answering like that.

He realized while eating spaghetti later that night how weird it was to call a girl he didn't know to ask what homework is due.

[Anonymous No.4399796]

We laugh on the ice. The frozen pond supports are weight and our happiness. I feel fulfilled but soon the sense of forebiding sweeps over me and my eyes lose their shine. She doesn't see how my expression has changed yet. In those few seconds of her looking away I plunge deep into the gloom.
Can this be truly good? Questions slowly erode my good mood and soon my smile is no longer genuine. I step away and the ice feels less solid. It won't hold forever. It's time to go home.

[Anonymous No.4399800]

>>4397633
No one will read it because it's a massive wall of text. Use paragraphs or write with less words.