/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4448170]

Hey /lit/
I'm trying to make it as a writer, like earn some cash, get my name out there on the market.
Now before you go on and crush my dreams and/or call me a faggot, please read the following, http://maskedwannabee.deviantart.com/art/Tales-of-Horror-Bodah-s-Passage-421465486

and do tell me, would you buy a book that consisted of 13 short horror stories, written by me? The first I linked story should serve as an example of my writing style.

Thanks in advance.
PS: Thoughts on amazon self publishing?

[Anonymous No.4448183]

>>4448170
yikes

[Anonymous No.4448224]

>>4448183
say what?

[Anonymous No.4448251]

>>4448170
Okay guys, you've been really helpful, gonna take a wank and a shower, will be back probably in a hour or so

[Anonymous No.4448270]

>The shortcut was going directly through "Bodah's Passage". "Bodah's Passage" was a well known place in the small town the young man lived in.

can be written as

The shortcut was going directly through "Bodah's Passage" which was a well known place in the small town the young man lived in.

Read more.

[Anonymous No.4448274]

>>4448270
>2014
>Using restrictive relative clauses.

[Anonymous No.4448280]

>>4448274
I don't know what that means.

[Anonymous No.4448308]

>>4448274
The shortcut was going directly through "Bodah's Passage"; that was a well known place in the small town the young man lived in.

[Anonymous No.4448319]

>>4448170
youngmanyoungmanyoungmanyoungman
bodahbodahpassagebodahpassagebodahspassage

stop that!

[Anonymous No.4448334]

>>4448319
I tried to minimize it, honestly, I did.
>>4448270
I didn't read for a couple of years already, no fucking time, and most books I've read were German or Serbocroatian, so yeah..

[Anonymous No.4448344]

>>4448334
yeah you minimized it, into a huge block in the first lines. Can´t get around it sorry..there are enough substitutes for drunk young man.

[Anonymous No.4448351]

>>4448344
Well the first lines are there to trick the reader into thinking that the writer is bad, so the expectations are low, and as the reader progresses through the story he will be more and more amazed until he gets to the half assed ending.. I'm full of shit, but thanks for feedback, much appreciated.

[Anonymous No.4448352]

>>4448270
The shortcut went directly through Bodah's Passage, a well known place in the small town.

passive voice twice in one sentence is ridiculous

[Anonymous No.4448368]

>>4448352
Gotta agree, but it's not really a mistake, it's merely unusal.

[Anonymous No.4448385]

>>4448368
it's not a grammar mistake, it's a good writing mistake

passive voice is always bad unless intentionally used to achieve a very specific purpose with full awareness

[Anonymous No.4448401]

>>4448385
Which purpose could that be?

[Anonymous No.4448415]

It's a shitty story and makes me wish we were back in medieval times where only the wealthy could read and write. I'd gladly take smallpox over reading this garbage.

[Anonymous No.4448419]

>>4448415
Write a better one, son.

[Anonymous No.4448421]

As other anons have pointed out - the repetition of ''young man'' feels like a rookie mistake and also takes away from the empathy we can feel for the fucker. He's young and drunk - so scared we might lose him!
The structure and the monster (a random man who encounters an unspeakable death-like character in bits of a black bathrobe and then gets scared/killed/mamed) is overused to the point that you have to be really inventive and have a really good main character to have some emotion to the story - and in this piece you are not. The last bit at the ending also seems like to be edgyness for the sake of being edgy.
''but at least he was alive... if you can call that "life" - that sounds like a thing a 15 year old would write in his first horror story.

As for the question: if this is the representative sample, no, I wouldn't buy a book of these. That being said, the only horror stories I have really read and liked are by Poe, so may not be your target audience.

That being said, all those mistakes aren't that hard to correct, given the length of the story. So, you know, try again.

[Anonymous No.4448441]

>>4448421
Thanks for your comment.
About being inovative, the 13 short horror stories in the book would all be connected, showing that this was no mere monster, and the victims are supposed to be miserable fuckers.
I agree, the ending kinda didn't agree with me, but I was in a rush to finish it so I could continue doing nothing.
Also, this is in fact my first try to write a horror story, and my secont try to write prose, and keeping in mind the fact that I grew up and live in a country where maybe every tenth person speaks english, I think I did quite well, for a Croatian rookie that is.
But to get better I decided to ask you jobless haters, at least many of you know your shit.

[Anonymous No.4448445]

>>4448170
why don´t you work with the claustrophobic theme of a narrow alley, much like the tunel out of life, the narrowing of your pupil in the moment of death, the random feeling of depression in a drunken mind of a young man without perspective? The setting is full of opportunity. Also as I mentioned before
>>4448344

the repetition makes it a bore.

[Anonymous No.4448447]

>>4448419

It was a real scary night outside, way scarier than your usual night. The darkness seemed darker, the moon seemed more sinister, and the streets were empty save for the sinister boney-white light of the spooky moon.

None of this seemed to bother the old man in the brown hat. After all, no matter how dark it was, his hat wasn't any less brown, nor he any more old. The Brown-hatted old man went down the scary street and took all kinds of terrifying turns. He was on the home straight but suddenly the Old-hatted Brown man felt something squirming in his brain, telling him to go down "Devil's Alley". "Devil's Alley" was especially spooky this time of year, for all the homeless people gathered there to smoke crack. The Brown Hat Man went down "Devil's alley" where he was quickly set upon by countless hands that grew from the shadows.

He was found the next morning naked in a puddle of piss; the homeless people had robbed him of everything. Everything but his life; but he wished they had.

[Anonymous No.4448469]

>>4448447
You win, even made me giggle.
Truth is, short horror stories don't work as it seems, thanks for this revelation.
>>4448445
I really could have..yes.
Thanks for the idea.

[Anonymous No.4448472]

>>4448447
Adventures of the Brown-hatted Old Man.
I like it.
I will write one with too.

[Anonymous No.4448540]

As the lights faded, he was back on the track. Brown hat ,old face . The old "Old-Face-Brown-Hat" or, as the more daring youngsters call him, the Brown-hatted old man.
He frequented the most exclusive brothels and bars of the town. Though he stank of alcohol, clothed in mere rags, hands yellow like nicotin and envy, none threw him out. Not even when he started raging, spitting malevolent curses in fantastic languages, trying to shove his dirty old fingers, around the silk band of the stripper´s thong, in her asshole.
Not even then he was bothered.
It was his brown-hatted aura, his bold old-man-esque behaviour, that drove even the most aggressive glances away.
Some say he got mad in the deep swamps of moldavia, where he used to dig up the gold of a pack of raiders, who used the swamps as their hideout.
Some...well some never said anything about him, just turned their heads, their faces getting hard.

[Anonymous No.4448553]

>>4448472
I thought it was the advantures of the Old-hatted Brown man

[Anonymous No.4448564]

>>4448553
Manhat Oldbrown.

[Anonymous No.4448578]

>>4448564
The old brown Hatman!
Na na na na na na na na HATMAN!
Bringing fedoras to justice, since 07.01.2014.

[Anonymous No.4448598]

>>4448415
Slow down there edgelord.

[Anonymous No.4448619]

>>4448540
I like this a lot

[Anonymous No.4448635]

>>4448619
thanks