Write whatever you want, get critiqued

[Anonymous No.4676574]

I'll start with an all too relevant poem:

Gilded dream clouds of sublimation:
your hugging grace caresses my nerves,
separation anent us an abomination,
we ignore what the world deserves.

Cringe at sparking stars and cars
and jealous jelly jam delight,
snap in silence by gars and bars,
for they'll be larking in the night.

Savory spoonfuls fo misfortune
fuel my fiery Campari ridden haze,
down the drain the spirals of fortune,
find the dividends of my days.
Thus the conception bubbles:
I need to change my ways.

[Anonymous No.4676581]

I say I like literature, and I really do. But there's a thing, and it's really hard to specify what the thing is, but it is. It's almost like looking out the window and seeing young schoolchildren playing, amplifying sounds of joy in natural rhythm. This whole world I belong to is home yet it feels more separate than a broken jigsaw. I know the picture is there but I just can't see it. It's like this whole play is going on and the whole town's watching it but me. And then there are those recursive thoughts sprouting from my original, equally negative ones. I think bad for thinking bad for thinking bad, etc. The cycle perpetuates, spiraling into a conch like pit of exit-less agony, leaving only the sound of the ocean for all beach walkers to ignore. Until one.

[Anonymous No.4676584]

My body is so sexy that I don't even know what to do with it. Should I fuck old men or small children? Should I go to jury duty or just get a sandwich from del Fresco's? Either way, my lactating titties, creased ass, and hail damaged thighs are no more desired by men than valhalla or elysium or shangri-la. My pussy is so fire you can grill a rack of ribs on it. Damn, I bet James Carmichael would drill me if he paid me; what a great boss. I like Wal-Mart because they provide little to no health benefits, that way my body can mature naturally like a fine patch of watermelons for wine or a fancy steak. I can't own a mirror because if I do, I would spend to much time in front of it eating and blowdrying my tush-kush. Anyway, thanks for listening diary, I have to go pick up my husbands daughter from school, fucking wench.

[Anonymous No.4676590]

Here's the beginning of something I've been working on the past couple days. It's about a man who realizes that he is just a schizophrenic's hallucination and what he does and can do with the remainder of his existence.

http://pastebin.com/X69Aizkf

[Anonymous No.4676600]

Within Chicago's heart — its beat the steady staccato clack of a thousand keyboards punctuated by the steady thrum of the rhythmic clicking trains passing over silent streets — the downbeat begins. Slowly at first, the lucky few are told they're done for the day, the unlucky that they're finished. A tiny trickle of profitable blood emerges from its glass-paned chambers, doors open, suits flow. They clutch briefcases, phones, books, all containing the life-giving oxygen of knowledge. They flow outward, along streets,into bright yellow cabs that carry them to airports, trains, cars of their own. The flow intensifies as more clocks tick by. The doorways, once sieves, become choke points. Commuters squeeze past each other, carrying on conversations with loved ones in the extremities. I should be home by 7, a chorus seems to sing. The flow continues. Doors become clogged, awaiting some Tokyo-style angioplasty that will never arrive. The chorus turns from declaration to argumentation. Hey, watch it asshole. I have to meet my mother. Excuse me. The cells begin to clog and coagulate into a self-destroying cancer. Cabs fill the street like sand in a buried coffin. Bikes weave snakelike through the stalled passage. Horns bleat out a Schoenberg cabaret. The beat slows. With a great burst it breaks, and the beat continues. The suits begin to flow to the extremities along great arteries of concrete. They drive their many-colored cars, swearing and swerving in and out of lanes as they rush home to blushing and aging brides. They move through the first ventricle, long ago outdated and first on the list. Its great curves twist beneath and above each other: a great concrete ouroboros.

The suits begin to diverge. As they abscond from the heart of Chicago, the great beasts of the inner suburbs unleash their own blood upon the highways. Rolling Meadows unleashes its tide of 5th/3rd bankers, and Asian air traders fly from their modernist acropolis.

[Anonymous No.4676625]

Right before I fell
asleep, I wished that the sun
was always golden

[Anonymous No.4676643]

>>4676584
Well then, this has a voice. Rather hilarious too.
Couldn't read a whole book of this though, it would annoy the shit out of me, consider turning it down a peg.
>>4676581
This is too long for what it is; you go over the same idea too much, and it loses my interest.
>>4676574
I'm shit at poetry, but it reads really well. Nice flow really.
The subject (which I assume is about a bitter depressive realizing he needs to change) seems boring and overdone.
>>4676590
Interesting subject, but the sentences are just way too long. I like the emotional body imagery though.

[Anonymous No.4676898]

Politician's pander under the tree of naïveté's opaque shadow, which makes sense. I mean, if I controlled the world by string and limb then I would manipulate every weakness possible if it meant perpetuating and propagating my juicy power. However, as a snail, I don't like to infiltrate the shells of others, no matter how soft. I mean, a shell is all a snail's got, that and usually a crack whore wife. You see, snail's have a massive predisposition to drug abuse and if you looked up Backyard Betty in an encyclopedia, you'd find a picture of my whore wife, foot and all, titled: exhibit A. All women in my community are named derivations of Michelle, and it makes sense too, but what doesn't is the name of that Office Monkey's wife, Miss Obama. She's where the connection between the shell community and politics lies....Lies, if only the world knew M.O.'s true modus operandi. I can't say too much because they're listening, but I can say this: Barack isn't wearing the pant in the family.

[Anonymous No.4676925]

/The monk perched himself up on the azure mountain ridge like a gleaming holiday ornament, reflecting the intensely calm light enshrouding both him and the drowning festivities. Armed with cloak, staff, & hat, the druid simply stood. Unlike an ornament, however, he aimed to see rather than be seen. His positioning delineated an effect often felt by hormonic peeping toms and other voyeuristic visitors, save the carnality. Yet, as the monk knew, life seldom travels unidirectionally, but down a steep, recursive path forever towards the mirror of origin.

Upon the imposition of organic rhythms: the universe felt self-conscious under the detailed inspection of this subtle man. The birds swam slower than usual as if to appeal to some gentle fancy of an honorable guest far away; showboating in sure salience. The mist danced between mountaintops like members of a masquerade, hidden and all too visible, translucently poised. The world continued to stage itself for the monk, revealing one magnificent act upon the other. Yet, apart from the air around his breath, his observance had little tangible effect, for his recognition did no more than affirm the existence of all that around him as a reality, as something perceptible, sharable.

It was at that moment that the monk knew his life held no more meaning than the cherry blossom drifting by, and no less than all celestial bodies copulating in the blackened blue above.

[Anonymous No.4676939]

>>4676574
the language is too ornate. the imagery is often unclear. simplify. make it concrete and specific.

[Anonymous No.4678194]

>>4676574

Faces dig deep into knees
kissing shelter -- eyes that pierce
as they find their footing on reassurance:
cynical sanctuaries and stagnant hearts
wishing secretly, but hugging themselves
first.

Wholesale hopes for smiles,
bargain-priced faith, if you'd have it.
A sore treat for sure: indiscriminate--
a stern-faced apology.

Concerns about certainty and the applicable good.
Pefectionist tendencies defying those laurels worn
by minds and souls of stakeless enterprisers.

A longing for the better and a yielding, misbegotten,
it’s said, toward the destruction of yesterdays and todays.

[Anonymous No.4678218]

>>4676574

Faces dig deep into knees
kissing shelter -- eyes that pierce
as they find their footing on reassurance:
cynical sanctuaries and stagnant hearts
wishing secretly, but hugging themselves
first.

Wholesale hopes for smiles,
bargain-priced faith, if you'd have it.
A sore treat for sure: indiscriminate--
a stern-faced apology.

Concerns about certainty and the applicable good.
Pefectionist tendencies defying those laurels worn
by minds and souls of stakeless enterprisers.

A longing for the better and a yielding, misbegotten,
it’s said, toward the destruction of yesterdays and todays.

[Anonymous No.4678321]

>>4676590
>http://pastebin.com/X69Aizkf
"form takes form in the doorway" - one of these needs to change

" crushing his rotator cuff into a dust that would not be absent place in his abode." this looks like a cut/copy/paste induced non-sequitor.

"thrown" "thrown" to throw, past tense. the king's seat is a "throne"

Once you get us to the store, the going eases considerably, because the "pair" are doing something and the action enfolds all the interior debate and emotional expo.

Give the opening paras the same propulsion. Instead of just holding the wine glass, then cataloguing the room's contents, physicalize the character doing something which takes us through these scenery props. The same way you manage to catalog nine types of pasta, which works for me as a recitation of anxious compulsion.

Two instance of "underwhelming" in the same para - it feels more like head-bumping repetition than conscious choice. Find another angle for one or the other.

The conceit is well camoflaged. Keep it up.

[Anonymous No.4678349]

>>4676925
"The monk perched...mountain like a gleaming ornament..., reflecting" - multiple overlapping dangles of participles here. The monk was gleaming? The monk was reflecting light? The ornament is reflecting light? The monk is like an ornament? The mountain ridge was reflecting light? Commas won't fix it. Only periods will.

"positioning delineated an effect" - you lost me completely. These words don't seen to refer to each other in any meaningful way.

The first sentence which conveys anything like successful semantic payload begins, "The birds swam" Though it is intentionally surrealistic, it is at least a concrete subject, followed by an active verb, and for that I was, at last, grateful.

[Anonymous No.4678359]

http://pastebin.com/rF2jbHS3

[Anonymous No.4678387]

http://pastebin.com/4APHaT6P

[Anonymous No.4678388]

I could feel the Jazz music floating all around me, it went in and out of my ears, causing me to hear it.

The sounds of Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, etc., coalesced into a grand jazzy sound which turned the wheels of my mind, compelling me to come to the realization that I was in love with Rachel.

"Rachel!" I screamed, and pursued her. She was walking down the street outside the bar wearing a long white dress. "I love you" I said to her.

Some tears welled up in her eyes. "Why... why did you have to say this now Raquel." then she turned on her heel, and ran towards the creek 5 miles from the city, causing her dress to become muddy from the dirt that splashed up from the puddles, because it was raining.

"Taxi!" I screamed while facing the road. I was holding onto a telephone pole to stop myself from throwing myself onto the road so I could be run over by a car, because that's what my emotions were like due to my treatment of Rachel.

Then a taxi cab pulled up and I tried to pay him, but I didn't have any money. I ended up explaining him the situation and then the taxi cab teared up, and told me about the story of his wife which was really similar to my situation with Rachel. He told me he would take me to the creek free of cost.

[Anonymous No.4678396]

George came with all the perks of a good dog. He was a true friend and guardian. One day, I'll see him again.

[Anonymous No.4678412]

drenched in sea salt i am a chip and swimming through the other chips all i can see is potato and plastic when will this end i really don't know but all i want is to get back to the basics the roots of things and shit like how my sister was a baby when she got swallowed whole and my brother just never left the house despite all his loneliness i still smell the soil but i don't think i'll ever see it again

[Anonymous No.4678424]

>>4678359
>http://pastebin.com/rF2jbHS3
Here is your opener, without a single word changed:

Dmitry Barkov walked into Algebra class two minutes late. Mrs. Plumrose sat at the front with a stack of papers. She stopped Dmitry as he was walking to his desk and handed him a graded Scantron. Dmitry took a glance and immediately folded it. He sat at his desk and glanced out the window. His brother's friends were eating their lunches outside by the large oak tree that shaded a few benches. His brother's class finished school two weeks earlier, but many of the older friends still came on campus to hang out. Dmitry tapped his fingers on his desk and chewed on his lip. He unfolded the paper. It had read "Preparatory Exam" across the top; but, a fat red "D" covered the words so nothing else could be read.

Is anything lost by striking the description? Is anything gained?

[Anonymous No.4678447]

>>4678388
idk really know how to critique properly but there doesn't seem to be a flow to what you write. here are parts i find weird.
>because that's what my emotions were like due to my treatment of Rachel.
> because it was raining.
>and told me about the story of his wife which was really similar to my situation with Rachel
>The sounds of Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, etc., coalesced into a grand jazzy sound which turned the wheels of my mind, compelling me to come to the realization that I was in love with Rachel.

[Anonymous No.4678453]

... with some silly boy she hardly knows from Adam, poor thing!"
I am sitting in an armchair in Marc's apartment. We meet here on Friday evenings, every other working week. The afternoon sun is slowly fading into evening. The china clock on the mantelpiece shows 20 to 6. I am sitting to the left of James (a.k.a. "Big Jim")'s wife, Carla, and to the right of Tom, my junior associate. Opposite to this trio sit my wife Marie, James himself, and Sarah, a friend of James from his workplace. I have long suspected the existence of an illicit affair of sorts between Sarah and James, but I have never found an apposite time to query James vis-à-vis this matter. Currently, the company (with the exception of myself, and of our host Marc, who has vacated the premises on "urgent business") are gossiping, or "chewing the fat".
"Surely not! Not /that/ Jessica?"
"No, Marie, the /other/ Jessica. Oh, you must know her! With some silly boy she hardly knows from Adam. And to think! only two months ago she was vowing love everlasting to Mark!"
"Marc? Surely not!"
"Oh! of course not, you know who I mean. Mark, from the office!"
Marie and James have repeatedly exchanged lingering looks that could be interpreted as signs of mutual sexual ardour, or at least a certain "frisson" between the two. I am at a loss as to how I should react to this. Sarah is wearing a low-cut blouse, but I am unsure how to look at her cleavage without it being too apparent to be (comme on dit) "decent". From the corner of my eye, in the mirror on the mantelpiece, I can see my face. I look tired.
I have long since given up any hope for a change. I think this was a line from a movie, but I cannot remember which one. I must have seen it back when I lived a couple of towns over, during the Davis case. I was young then.
"Jack? Are you okay, Jack?"
"I'm fine."
The afternoon sun is slowly fading to evening. The china clock on the mantelpiece shows 20 to 6.
"Oh, that Jessica! To think! Running around...

[Anonymous No.4678458]

>>4678359
Narrational perspective here:

" In the backpack was a math textbook and worn-out notes. "Just this section," Dmitry said aloud, "and then I'll study."" - ok. We're in his room, right? We are looking at the backpack from his "camera angle". Now what happens:

"The front door of the house opened and Dmitry's mother, Alina, walked in." - wow, that snap pan to the "camera" from nowhere was a bit jarring, especially since we jump cut right back into Dmitry's head as:

"Dmitry heard the door creak, her footsteps, the rustling of plastic bags and Alina swearing in Ukrainian. Dmitry finished the page and went into the kitchen."

Compare:

"In the backpack was a math textbook and worn-out notes. "Just this section," Dmitry said aloud, "and then I'll study." Dmitry heard the front door of the house creak, then footsteps, then rustling of plastic bags and swearing in Ukrainian. His mother Alaina was home. Dmitry finished the page and went into the kitchen."

Exact word choice is up to you. the point here is that the second maintains a consistent narrational perspective, which is one of the ways you can ease the passage of each scene so that your reader does not feel themselves working.

[Anonymous No.4678463]

It is my brother I would speak of – I will call him that – though I will begin with the Scrolls. How they made it through by water, as our people, a sect of them, said they would who reportedly at their peril had slid them like rolled-up maps into a capsule and sent them on their way underground secure from those who would have misused them. A great find, it was said, a weapon in the war –for in a way they were "maps" (though all Legend). Yet the Scrolls floating hundreds of miles under the deserts from En Gedi, even Gaza, eastward along a web of roughly horizontal wells, like missives arriving then with such long-range accuracy of time and place, proved less stunning on that day I record than the apparition on a diving board himself all too solid and familiar as the pool was notorious and strange. Suddenly here was my friend, my find – my borderline Chinese so far from our home – in the depth of a Middle Eastern palace standing immense and unlikely above water put there once for a tyrant to swim, dive into, own. withhold, and worse.

[Anonymous No.4678472]

>>4678359
About dialog. See Elmore Leonard:
" Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely. "

Often, even "said" is unnecessary, Compare:

Alina smiled. "Hello son. How was day at school?" she asked.

"Good. Mom, have you ever heard about a guy named Vlad the Impaler."

Alina sighed. "No I have not," she replied.


v.:

Alina smiled. "Hello son. How was day at school?"

"Good. Mom, have you ever heard about a guy named Vlad the Impaler."

Alina sighed. "No I have not."

Are you at any point the least bit confused about who is saying what, or how they are saying it?

[Anonymous No.4678492]

>>4678359
Finally, about pacing. It is easy to be overly concerned that a reader might lose track of the emotional see-saw implied by the action if you don't seem to pay microscopic verbiage on it, but pace and action can benefit from cueing each other.

Compare:

"Sam started to walk past Dmitry. Dmitry grew very angry and shoved him back. Sam started again and Dmitry shoved again, this time harder. Sam put his fists up, but looked terrified, because Dmitry was larger than him. Dmitry smacked him in the head and deflected Sam's punches easily. Sam put his fists down in defeat. He opened his backpack and relinquished a copy of the answer key, and didn't move until Dmitry was out of sight."

"Sam started past Dmitry. Dmitry shoved him. Sam tried again to pass. Dmitry shoved again, harder. Sam raised his fists, terrified, because Dmitry was larger than him. Dmitry smacked him in the head. Sam punched back, but Dmitry deflected him easily. Sam dropped his fists. He opened his backpack and relinquished a copy of the answer key. He stood there until Dmitry was out of sight."

Again, your word choice. If we are POV, then sentences passing by at the rate the POV char is having them evoke the same sense of speed in the reader's surrogate experience.

[Anonymous No.4678495]

Piercing my flesh,
once - twice, stop
Feeling terrified, the pain
not yet induced - adrenaline

Why bite the hand that feeds,
mental disorder, put down?
8 years no incidents,
exiting through the door
you decide to lose it,
separation anxiety

I block with my jacket,
you keep coming at me
Walk away with your tail
between your legs
Bad dog, bad dog

[Anonymous No.4678496]

>>4678424
>>4678458
>>4678472
>>4678492
This is some really good help, thanks Anon.

[Anonymous No.4678502]

My dear George was an outstanding dog. He brought so much joy into my life. If, only Ms. Lopez wasn't so careless. She too, like my beloved dog, would be alive and well. Oh, but this is life and it moves on, for me, at least.

^ the protagonist killed Ms. Lopez

[Anonymous No.4678510]

>>4676574
My life is self-similar; fractal, ever repeating and always ending in indecision. The moment I am on course, seeing straight road ahead, I am thrust into another decision before I had even realised the other one was over.

[Anonymous No.4678535]

Daddy always told me life isn't easy. Whenever I met an obstacle, he'd help me overcome it. He never told me he'd die from a heart attack though. I don't know what I'm going to do without him. May he rest in peace and may the good lord help me.

[Anonymous No.4678541]

i came across this piece in a very non-poetic context and formatted it to look similar to the original. strangely enough it managed to capture my attention in some way despite its obvious immaturity. just curious to see what /lit/ thinks of it.


i believe the children

are the FUTURE

__________________________________________

ANTONIA IS A CHILD

SHE is younger than me

just like Alison pettis

__________________________________________

BABY jesus

was a child

word to ur

mother

yea he was a baby

[Anonymous No.4678542]

>>4678387
>http://pastebin.com/4APHaT6P
Naming your MC Nietzsche is ponderous. Head-bonking. Tell us why immediately, or use another working name until you come up with something less HEY LOOK MY LEAD IS SUPPOSED TO BE SUPERMAN BUT IN THE SOPHISTICATED PHILOSOPHER SENSE!!!!!

I receive your transmission of foreboding gloom, coiled menace, and imminent violent tragedy. The signal is about 2 by 3. Read the first two pages of Tears of Autumn by Charles McCarry, available at google books. Notice one important, invisible trick: he gives the characters something to do which gives them an excuse to be thinking the thoughts he is telling us about. Paul is reading a letter, while boarding a plane, while concealing charcoal on his teeth. Those three actions prompt and excuse all the expo which is triggered and motivated by them. Go read it again.

Now return to your scene:

"Frank Nietzsche stood at a street corner holding his assault rifle." - thank god, a simple sentence I can easily understand

"It was huge as fuck." - dammit. First of all, this is something that would be thought by someone at whom the gun is pointed, not by the person pointing it. Also, it shatters your stylistic window. Strike it.

"The rain poured on his hat, as well as his weapon, and his wide shoulders, which were covered in scars from the Crimea Wars, though at least for now shielded by the coarse material of his trenchcoat." - fine. I'm back on scene....

"He had lost the love of his life in these wars." - why did he just think this? That's the difference between meh and good. Put an object in the scene which motivates this next series thoughts.

"Sometimes he still thought of her. Her face had long since disappeared from his mind, but sometimes little notions of what she was like would arise like needles in his heart, making the otherwise cold ex-soldier teary-eyed. God, how he missed her." - see, because until you give him a reason to be thinking this, it is not him we are hearing - it is you.

[Anonymous No.4678611]

>>4678387
>http://pastebin.com/4APHaT6P

"There was a sound, like a little girl's head being torn off." - yikes. that's pretty scary. Was it, in fact, a little girl's head torn off?

"And there it was, one of the Scherecats." - huhboy. Writer, here, stepping into my scene to explain some pretty far-out stuff.

"Isaac Newton had been right all along... called aether. Newton.. aether ..reports of Scherecats..theory..Jack the Ripper.. of Scherecat killings..Millions had died already only in the Russo-German Empire."
- the writer said.

Enfold this. Even without changing a single word, consider the gentler effgect upon the palate of taking smaller bites, like:

"There was a sound, like a little girl's head being torn off. The amount of Scherecat killings had been steadily growing since they started a few weeks ago. Millions had died already only in the Russo-German Empire. Frank Nietzsche put the strap of his assault rifle around his shoulder, and began to run. Behind him the men screamed like songbirds."


Frank Nietzsche stopped to regain his breath. Around him there were people everywhere now. It never seized to amaze him, the power human company could have on his nervous system, even that of strangers looking curiously at the colossal weapon he was carrying.

Isaac Newton had been right all along. There was a fifth element in addition to water, fire, air, and earth. And it was called aether. Newton had measured it correctly. The problem was that the aether only showed up for a few months once every few hundred years.

He felt safe. Frank Nietzsche was well ware of this psychological mechanic, and used it when he kept being woken up by nightmares, often going down to the bar beside his house to have a beer at the bar before always falling fast asleep almost immediately upon coming back home again, and sleeping out the night. It wasn't as if his nervous system lied to him by making him feel better by giving him company though.

Why no reports of Scherecats from Newton's time existed though, was unknown. Some aetherologists had supposed that the aether fed itself in different ways each time. One theory adored by the popular mind, but not held in very high esteem by academians was that Jack the Ripper had been one of the aether's ways of collecting humans for food, but why it had only needed so few humans that time, could not be explained, and was the weakness of this explanation.

He was actually safe. If the Scherecats had followed him into the city, going through all these people, their screams would give him a fair warning before he was in any real danger.

[Anonymous No.4678634]

why do you neckbeards think purple prose is attractive? you're all going to fail as writers

[Anonymous No.4678659]

>>4678634
this is me:
>>4678359
I wouldn't describe my writing as ornate. Minimalist really..

[Anonymous No.4678662]

>>4678634
They will get there if they keep working at it. Everybody has to grow through the phase. It's like acne or menstruation. For a moment, while it's happening, the tyrant of self forbids attention to anything else.

[Anonymous No.4678681]

>>4678634
because this is /lit/ - muh prose >reading for plot

[Anonymous No.4678695]

>>4678634
>this is what alt-litfaggots actually believe

[Emben !AtnQHUCOZg No.4678710]

>>4676581
hey this is really good, I thought it was going to get verbose but the descriptives you use are clearly as a result of how you think rather than show, i'd be interested to know what your story is about?

>>4676590
I like the way you write and you got me good with 'love me for i cannot myself' but i found it incredibly detracting reading about everyones personal appearance and subsequent joke, if you are going for a comedic novel then i'd suggest not putting a joke and description on every sentence because its too much, you have to leave the reader wanting more. peaks and troughs brother, peaks and troughs.

>>4676600
Good description seems a little forced in places, particularly angioplasty, schoenberg and ourorbos, I think you could use ouroboros but not giant concrete its way too trite. Outside of that I liked it in particular the 'hey watch it asshole i have to meet my mother' line and the rhythmic quality to it.

>>4676925
haha i have no idea why i liked this, in the beggining i was prepared for shit 'gleaming holiday ornament' ... what, somehow it got better and better with each non-sentence, i almost felt like the monk was drawing me in to his serene wheels within wheels but actually just one wheel if you look closely (and far away) ways, so i just kinda let it happen. this juxtaposed by the last line of this critics response >>4678349 made my day

>>4678453
you have banal conversation down to a fine art my friend and that's not necessarily a criticism, is this supposed to be in french or is it a french character? because the interjections of frisson and vis a vis just seem all wrong, apposite too. and I would use words for time or 5:40 otherwise its jarring. Apart from that its fine.

>>4678463
Really well made in structure and a very natural sound to it. Also like how set up intrigue right from the off, first sentence alone has 3 hooks, best one 'i will call him that' already want to know more. Nice work anon.

[Anonymous No.4678719]

On a warm winter day where the rays of the sun can hardly pierce the thick defense of an overcast sky, there was nothing more joyous to do than to set up cozily in the balcony and sketch. It was wonderfully relaxing, even fun, to stroke and hatch at the soft pages of recycled newsprint---the scritching sounds of a wax pencil being particularly ecstatic.
But a problem came when she looked at a sketch that she rather liked. The decision to refine it, to potentially strip it of its energy and life with ink and definition raked her indecisive mind.

[Anonymous No.4678858]

>>4678719
About adverbs:

On a warm winter day where the rays of the sun can hardly pierce the thick defense of an overcast sky, there was nothing more joyous to do than to set up in the cozy balcony and sketch. It was relaxing, wonderful, even fun, to stroke and hatch at the soft pages of recycled newsprint---the scritching sounds of a wax pencil particularly ecstatic.
But a problem came when she looked at a sketch that she rather liked. The decision to refine it, to strip it of its energy and life with ink and definition raked her indecisive mind.

[Anonymous No.4678883]

>>4678634
>>4678695
most people posting are beginning writers. if they continue to write and grow their skills, they'll look back on these first efforts with horror.

[Anonymous No.4678891]

>>4676574
Anouk Aimèe and her smile inside a crooked frame.
the engine breaks the quietness-filled countryside
with animals asleep on trees.
Powed land adorned with green gems
and decreasing kilometers as
driving fast from Nice to Paris after the race
with intermissions of laughing-shouting sisters,
heavy trucks stuck in the mud, hooray!
The sight trembles as a reckless ride through the alogen orange
Elb tunnel with lazy-whistling cops
and I am Jean Luis Trintignant with a organ-driven fever
of various shades of pink around my kissing silhouette
that embeds me as the hero
of patience and speed
inside a plot slow as life
when you didn't win the Monte Carlo Rally
and neither have a face for cinema.

[Anonymous No.4678895]

I posted this in the other thread there was, but it seems to have died. Don't know what else to post, so this is just the intro for a modern young-adult novella I had to do for school a while back.

Cecilia's parents opened the door to the house, and to their surprise it was completely empty. All the lights were off, and it was dead quiet. "We're home now!" her mother shouted, in the hopes that their daughter was just sitting in her room, even though she already knew it was impossible. Cecilia was always listening to music, no matter what she was doing; her father had even walked in on her masturbating with the music on full volume once. If she was in her room, there wasn't a single moment that you couldn't hear Depeche Mode playing loudly from inside.
Cecilia's mother turned on the light, and noticed a small note sitting on the kitchen table.
Six months before, Cecilia was walking quietly down the hallway of her new college, in the prettiest clothes she had. She had just begun her first year, and she wanted to look good on her first day. She had her favourite legwarmers on, they were a dark shade of purple, which coincidentally was her favourite colour, and they had cost almost 100 pounds. Cecilia had always had a thing for the 80's, and both her clothing and music taste were obvious reflections of that, although today she was wearing more modern clothes, as she wanted to fit in. Not because of the boys, she had never really cared about that kind of thing, but the girls; in her previous school she hadn't had a lot of friends, and those she had now went to a different college.
While she was walking down the hall, she noticed a peculiar-looking girl, that looked about a year older than her. She had long, smooth, blue hair and green eyes, and Cecilia felt weirdly uncomfortable looking at her, like her stomach suddenly filled up with air, but she couldn't stop looking at her. The girl's hair was almost magical, and Cecilia had never seen anything quite like it, as she had went to a very conservative school. The bluehaired girl was leaning against the wall, alone, while she was reading a relatively thick book. Almost as if she knew someone was looking at her, she looked up from the book and over at Cecilia. First, she looked annoyed, even a bit aggressive, but after a short moment she smiled kindly, as if she knew Cecilia meant no harm, and was only fascinated by her blue hair.

[Anonymous No.4678902]

Part 1/2

She honoured the gods. It was her civic duty, what else could she do? When there was drought she offered to the god of rain, and when she had sewn her seed she offered to the god of plenty. But now was not the time for such things, now was not the time for such things, now was not the time to think of rain of seeds. There were greater things at stake. Now was the time to offer to Thraitis, the goddess of womanly strength, and of warfare. She was a goddess from the north, and her ancestors had not worshiped her, but now was not the time to quibble over such things.

Daphne was a fair woman, curly dark brown hair reaching past her shoulders and piercing golden eyes, a ring of dark brown edging inwards. Her handmaiden bound her hair behind her head, braiding it loosely to reveal her long face with high, pronounced cheekbones. Her skin, just like her hair, was darkened a natural olive complexion. Once her hair was back, her handmaiden helped her to dress, and she was to dressed in her father’s clothing. She was his only heir, and so his armour, belonging to his father before him, was left to her, perhaps in the hope that she would bear it to her own son. Alas, she had no son, and her husband was far and away in armour of his own.

[Anonymous No.4678908]

>>4678902
Part 2/2

While her husband wore a square bonze plate on his chest, she slipped over herself a fine corselet of chain. It was folly for him to not have taken it, a man’s honour. It’s to my advantage, she supposed. The chain bore heavy on her shoulders, but was made lighter once her belt was fastened, distributing some of the weight onto her waist. As bronze greaves were strapped to her calves, Daphne regarded how the chain doublet flattened her breasts, and that beyond the linen wrappings, she didn’t need any more help to make her breasts look any smaller. This thought took her for only an instant, as she knew that now was not the time for such things.

Her armour having been donned, Daphne entered the household shrine and went to her knees. She begged of the gods, “Household gods and Thraitis alike, I require of you your strength and fortune. I need you to grant me your protection, to sweep away blows which might do me harm, make my blade sing true as it strikes any who would do me harm. In addition, I request of you that minimal damage be done unto this household, in that its structure remains intact, its stores unmolested, and its slaves unharmed. I offer you now a cup of wine and a broken arrow.” She pauses and stares downward towards the floor, her hands out with palms facing upwards as her handmaiden slowly pours a cup of wine over a small fire in the shrine, and next as another slave breaks an arrow over her knee and places it in the fire.

“Should my wellbeing be kept intact,” she continued, “I plan to sacrifice the joints, sinews, and heart of a young bull in your honour, which time now does not permit. Household gods, I have always sacrificed to you fairly, and Thraitis, I shall do you the same in the future permitting good result. My fate rests in your hands now. This is Daphne, wife of Aelestros Orionus Ferrus, father of the Orionus Ferrus family. Do unto me fairly, and likewise I shall do unto you.” She closed her eyes and breathed in slowly, deeply, before exhaling and slowly opening her eyes. She stood up and turned to her handmaiden, saying to her, “Our fate belongs to the gods now. Is everyone prepared?”

“Yes Domina,” she replied in a somber tone. “Everyone who can hold a weapon has been given one so best as we’re able to provide. But…” She trailed off and dropped her old, tired eyes towards the ground.

“What is it?” Daphne inquired.

“They’re scared, Domina. Everyone is scared. I’m scared.”

[Anonymous No.4678912]

Thus he stood from the bed and saw the room. The calendar showed him his twentieth October. The alarmclock screamed painfully, but soon fell back into his well-known ticking, back and forth. The room was in gray gloom. It was so sparse, one would want to be buried in it. A desk was plain, and books owned a shelf - they were physics and mathematics, and also some tried psychologies. Behind the curtains of the window, the sun was sunk into a cloudsea. Coolness shaped the world.

Translated from my german mother language. Not sure if it really works.

[Anonymous No.4678922]

>>4678902
>>4678908
I really really like this. It has a calm atmosphere, but it manages to stay tense and engaging, like a quiet before the storm. My only complaint is just a nitpick; you use the "now was not the time" one too many times. Other than that, I adore it

[Anonymous No.4679089]

>>4678922
T-thanks anon. After I finish up the last 35,000 words, I'm having four different people help me with editing, so hopefully I'll be able to weed out problems like that. I'm not really looking forward to a multi-month editing phase. Again, thank you.

[Anonymous No.4679268]

A weathered, beaten and and bedraggled old fool sat upon the stump of a great oak tree - at least it would have been, had he not orchestrated it's demise. The hour was becoming late, the day had grew old, the sun deemed that it had graced his of the hemisphere for quite long enough. The day became dark, the day became cold, and still the man did not move. A chill found itself in transverse down the man's spine, whose body language gave no sign of this occurrence.

[Anonymous No.4679351]

strike strike the sun
birth to a thousand rivers
rape and pillage
until death do us part

[Anonymous No.4679542]

Cowardice found me
hiding away where it's dark and loneliness isn't oppressive, but liberating. I say what I say, "just another day," when a single minute more spent on optimistic thought holds no more weight than the logic that I've caught. Even barely hanging on to what is gone graces my thoughts to being wrong.

And so I hope that I despise in everything I sumise in myself, a great knowledge of worthlesness despite self-love and judicial thought above love.

[Anonymous No.4679548]

i posted this in another thread but here it is again...
it's probably trite and you're probably right

"A Sweet Blue"
I've fallen into a sweet blue:
The ink of night
The surging shores
And I was consumed by you.
You, with your clear eyes and skin
Sent me spiraling downwards
Down into that sweet, sweet blue

[Anonymous No.4679677]

One day I was asked to contribute to a simple paper banner at my university. It was put together by campus's psychiatric center; participants were asked to answer the question “what does your mental health look like?” using the crayolas, watercolors and cheap acrylic paint that were sitting around the long flat roll of paper in the center of convocation mall. I hadn't drawn anything a while, and the question was so abstract, I wasn't sure what to make. Many of the other students were keen to improvise and were able to slap down any old thing with confidence, smiley faces, sleeping cats, etc. It had always been my nature to take things gradually, and took a minute or two staring at my blank spot on the paper before starting to let the creative juices flow. I took a little crayon and just started lightly rubbing it on the paper from its broad side, creating a flat wash of yellow. I started doodling a stick figure on top of it, and a couple of palm trees and blue sky from another flat wash above the pre-existing yellow. I had made a quiet desert island underneath a cloudless blue, with a couple of simple stick figures around it, unaffected by the cold Vancouver weather that existed outside the flat page. It certainly wasn't anything to write home about, but it was still pleasant to draw something after a long time of not getting involved in the craft, no matter how formulaic my little doodle was.

A week later, I had failed a test that I had spent 40 hours studying for, with the study guide being completely incongruous with the test's actual content. I was already on the verge of failing, and my self-loathing had reached a fever pitch after spending fifteen minutes sobbing in the handicapped bathroom. After spending an hour letting all my anger and disillusionment explode onto a counsellor, I walked up a flight of stairs towards the exit, I saw the banner hanging up on a guardrail on one of the higher floors. I looked for my little island on it. Eventually I found where it was meant to be, only to find that from the distance at which the banner was hung, all I could make out a blurry outline of a few crayon strokes. In making the little island, I had not pressed down on hard enough in my wash, not emphasized the stick figures enough or made a visible enough contrast in colour. This little island of my mental health was lost in this tapestry, drawn away from sight by the multitude of shining suns and radiant rainbows brushed on in cheap, bright acrylic.

[Anonymous No.4680091]

after you left, i
found myself staring at the
flies too much

they were

in my pantry, fridge,
the molded contents of a
living room with no
food out to rot

in the shampoo
i forgot about

in the
heart i left inside
me, because people are like
vultures
anyways

on the lamp which was
dark

i couldn't even feed the flies

i realized this, and i went out in the rain
to camouflage my eyes
breaking,

the flood
drowning

[Anonymous No.4680096]

>>4678891
I really like this. The language, tone, and diction make it.

[Anonymous No.4680106]

>>4678541
I think this is an interesting, refreshing format. Could be a modern twist on vignettes, if you were to write your vignettes this way. However, the last portion is just... no. Not at all profound or meaningful. I like the rest of it, though.

[Anonymous No.4680146]

all winter there have been lady bugs
clinking against the light in my room

dragging their white heads scrapping
across the glass with what kind of

want i have no idea

my _____ says that they were
hibernating

but i like to think there is a garden
underneath my house

all my dead dogs play there, my cats too
my friend uses the electrical cord

to plug in the heater for the lady bugs

not for limbo, this time he plugs it in
and smiles at me from across the space

across one whole light-year of space
he smiles at me, he is no longer in the

the earth alone
breaking open all his loneliness

my grandmother comes in through the
kitchen and smiles at me too

the people alive are above us breaking
open all their loneliness

scrapping their eyes against the windows
with what kind of want i have no idea

my brother tells me to be cautious
but he doesn't say that, he just looks at me

my dog is old
much closer to death now

the kind of close she feels in her body

we'll bury her in a place under
-neath the pine, like we did Emma

i think about her body being bones
her fur matted under the earth

he says death is insatiable
it drinks all the water

it bathes you in salt

it holds your hand and walks
you into the forest

into the ocean

if heat rises then maybe light rises too
but light is an endlessly expanding circle

which way is rise

if i stand in front i create a shadow
everywhere is front

the heat rises from the top of my head
the light

maybe my god rose out of the earth
maybe my dog rose out of the earth

[Anonymous No.4680154]

>>4676584
jordan is that you

[Anonymous No.4680162]

viagra is for pussies


tomorrow my penis gets upgraded
for better sex, increased confidence, detachment i underhand toss my upgraded penis
it softly thumps against her forehead
she says “wow, is that upgraded?”
i say “it is detachable”
she tells me she wants to throw it
sorry about the title
please give me my penis back

[Anonymous No.4680164]

>>4680162
Goddammit, /lit/.

[Anonymous No.4680167]

>>4680162
the formatting got fucked up, sorry for double posting. i will shave my balls very roughly tonight as an act of penitence


viagra is for pussies
tomorrow my penis gets upgraded
for better sex, increased confidence, detachment
i underhand toss my upgraded penis
it softly thumps against her forehead
she says “wow, is that upgraded?”
i say “it is detachable”
she tells me she wants to throw it
sorry about the title
please give me my penis back

[Anonymous No.4680447]

Written for /tg/ by Anon

Our first contact with another sentient species was, naturally, big news across the Klixid homeworld. Unsurprisingly, there was a great amount of fear surrounding these “humans” as well. Were they hostile? How would they act? Our species is one prone to...panic and fear, embarrassingly enough. We certainly aren’t ones to charge head first into danger, that much I will say.

I worked a comfortable position among the Klixid high council offices. I was to arbitrate disputes between parties, and come to an agreement I hoped both parties would be comfortable with. Due to our passive nature, this was the case, most of the time at least. So when the Klixid Collective first had the opportunity to speak with the humans, it was to be agreed, the individual with the most experience in diplomatic means, was to be an ambassador for not only the Klixid Collective, but our species as a whole.

That position, was mine.

I, along with two other of my colleagues (both in similar professions) were to board one of our starships, receive escort to the human homeworld, and were to enjoy “dinner” with them (which I’m told is a certain time to consume food).

The Collective told me the humans were very loud about hosting the affair (a gesture that our communication chips would either translate as enthusiasm or fear, and since they had found us, we assumed it was the latter).

And soI, along with three others, set out on a Cloxin V class star cruiser, bound for a rendezvous point with the humans, carrying the weight of the entire Klixid race on my shoulders.

Even with our more efficient fuel pylons chugging away below deck, it would take quite awhile to meet up at the rendezvous point with the humans. I didn’t mind. I had work of my own to do.

[Anonymous No.4680449]

>>4680447

The humans had supplied us with an intricate background of their species, of which I was to review. They were a head taller than our own, with soft, pallable skin and hair that differed in texture and color. They stood on two enormous appendages that they could use for traversing (walking is the term they use, running is something else entirely), and are able to manipulate the environment with a second set of appendages farther up attached to their torsos.

Reviewing the sheet made me nervous. They sounded quite a bit like our own, though they lacked the hard chitin covered plates that hung off OUR appendages, the sensory nodes at the top of our heads (they used internal sensory lobes as a matter of fact, unable to process colors though), two pronged feet and of course, they did not spit acid.

They processed food in the same way we do, and I was astounded to find that much of our internal gastric organs had similar functions. They needed carbs, lipids, proteins and acids to survive, as did we. Both of us drank water, remarkably, and both us consumed food through the same manner (a hole in the face to be crass).

I was to attend a “dinner” with some of the highest ranking and most powerful humans on the planet, so thankfully the humans supplied us with several educational videos on human mealtime etiquette, and our very own sets of tableware. I hoped the humans we would be meeting did not speak in the manner that the humans in the video did. Our translators were very sensitive, and calibrated to the first human voice we had heard. This man spoke with a thick accent of some kind, and was ecstatic about flalling his torso appendages and manipulators about when he spoke. Not to mention he had a strange patch of fur growing above his mouth, which the humans we had met did not seem to possess.

[Anonymous No.4680452]

>>4680449

We arrived at the rendezvous point earlier than expected, by about two cycles. We were to meet on the moon orbiting Centava Ao’tai. The moon did not have a name, but I was later told the human crew had dubbed it “Sputnik” based off it’s craterous surface and in honor of a spacecraft their ancestors built.

The human escort was...less elegant than I expected. Their ships were by no means unimpressive pieces of technology, but they were massive compared to ours, and quite clunky by the looks of it. Antennas and open bays hung loosely off the hulls of their ships, blinking away with an obnoxious light. Aboard their ship, they burned (inefficiently) small fragments of anti-matter, and I’m told that they had only just perfected the fabrication of this material in small quantities.

None the less, our ships docked with theirs for a brief moment, to transfer coordinates and to finally speak with one another. I nervously stood in front of the vid screen, my arms folded tightly behind my back so as to appear rigid and focused. The human books I had studied suggested this pose, and I thought it best to emulate their posture. Despite my appearance, my hearts pounded against my exoskeleton. I was beyond nervous. My body was glowing a pale green out of fear, and my comrades were no different. As we watched the video monitor fizzle to life and receive information, I briefly contemplated fleeing right then and there. It was perhaps that same fear that kept me glued to my spot.

The screen fizzled to life, and I caught my second look at a human, one not in a pre recorded video or text. The human had silvery fur about his head (cut short and neatly pruned), pale skin and sharp blue eyes. The fur above his eyes narrowed as he brought his face closer to the video monitor. At this point, one of my hearts had failed itself, and I was already feeling dizzy.

“Hello there, my name is Admiral Shendon, captain of the UNSF “Winged Victory”. You must be the escorts I presume?”

[Anonymous No.4680458]

>>4680452
Our translators took but a second to piece together his speech and gestures, but it took us far longer to muster the courage to speak.

The human pulled his face far away from the vid screen, revealing behind him a hundred other eager human faces, all crowded around the admiral. Their mouths hung open widely as they gawked at the screen, staring right back into us.

That did not help our courage.

The admiral spoke again. “And this, is the part of the crew you’re seeing right now. Say hello, everyone.” The crowd broke into a thunderous cheer their appendages waving back and forth in greeting. Many of them curled their mouths upwards and revealed their teeth, which, fortunately, we recognized as an expression of joy. My crew sheepishly said hello back, before the commander regained control of his crew.

“You’re welcome to come aboard if you’d like?” The commander asked.

We, as politely as we thought we could, declined the offer, and said something along the lines of “We have to go urinate.” which of course stirred a look of confusion from the sharp faced commander. Translating chips, while accurate most of the time, were not always perfect. We would later find out that urinating in the face of an opponent was a sign of fear and submission among humans. And thus, our diplomatic mission was off to a wonderful start.

[Anonymous No.4680466]

>>4680458
Before arriving at the human homeworld of “earth”, I took as much time as possible to study them. Their history, their culture, their art, their genealogy and whatever else I could find about them and the planet they lived on. The humans, luckily supplied us with texts and manuscripts, though they needed translating.

I found their homeworld to be incredibly fascinating. It was a place of extremes, unlike anything I had ever seen before. In parts of the world, it got so cold that things would just flat out die. In other parts, the opposite was true. It got so HOT things would just flat out die. And the things that died would then be either returned to the earth or eaten by something even bigger, which in of itself, had something even BIGGER hunting after it. It was not until I learned of the “whales” did I truly grasp the size and immensity of the diversity on this planet. By our standards, this place would be too inhospitable to support the growth of intelligent life. The Klixid homeworld enjoyed a uniform and mild climate, supporting small, very passive creatures who were easy to herd and farm. On earth, there existed a million different creatures, all who had evolved the ability to kill one another.

Much to my dismay, I found the humans did not have a single dominant race among them. Instead, there were hundreds of different tribes, with thousands of different spoken languages, practiced cultures and religions. Some had dark skin, dark hair and dark eyes, while others were entirely different. As a matter of fact, just thinking about having to memorise all of these different things was making me ill, so I retired to go to sleep.

Our mission departed and was going quite nicely. Thus far, there had been slip ups between the two of us, and we had not yet been attacked by the humans. The trip would take quite some time, so I made it my daily mission to learn as much as possible about the humans before I had the chance to meet one face to face.

[Anonymous No.4680473]

>>4680466
>>4680458
>>4680452
>>4680449
>>4680447

And that's it so far.

I'm sorry to bombard you all with my writing, and I'm open to any kind of constructive criticism.

[Anonymous No.4681993]

>>4680447
The prose is under control. There is a tone, but it is entangled with a few habits which could be construed as lazy by the uncharitable.

How to find them and make them visible to you:

set edit->find to *ly and reconsider every adverb. Is your narrator doing that because it's in his nature, or is that you not searching for a way to nail down the sentiment?

And again, here, is there a way to segue between scenes without seeming to have forgotten you told us these already:
>>4680449
humans supplied background
humans supplied educational videos
>>4680466
humans supplied us with texts.

>>4680449
reviewing
human books I studied
>>4680466
i study them
I found
I made it my daily mission to learn

Don't be afraid to actually look up figures of speech. I don't think this one was what you meant:
"We would later find out that urinating in the face of an opponent"

>in the face of

Sum up: you want this narrator to sound and feel wishy washy, timid, but in a comic way. Make two lists. One: characteristics of this character that are pivotal for the outcome of the story. Two: for each of above, what is funny about it?

"Tight" doesn't necessarily mean "brief" but it does mean consistent and intentional.

[Anonymous No.4682196]

>>4676574
First day of Spring
It rains

[Anonymous No.4682325]

Jack Future was a cool dude. The kind would be written by Tarantino and given a righteous monologue. Future was sitting behind a table and looking at the cop whose eyes were wet with tears.

''You know what I did, cop-boy?'' Jack Future said in a characteristically cool tone, ''I went to your house through the backdoor and then took your wife through the backdoor, if you know what I mean.'' Jack Future winked at Mr. Cop.

''You sonovabitch!''

''Oh, I may be a sumbitch,'' Future said, ''but I'm a sumbitch with style.'' Future made a radical dance-move and slid a card across the table. Inspecting it, Mr. Cop saw that it was the King of Spades. ''Figures...''

''What does?'' Future asked.

''That you'd align yourself with the negroes, the niggers, the mississippi porchmonkeys, the-''

''Stop, you racist,'' Future said. ''You know what else I did, coppie? I stuck my big warm ding-a-ling in your son's shitter.''

Coppie tried a riposte. ''So you're a faggot?''

''Nope,'' Future said. ''Your kid got fucked, I fucked. The one gets fucked against his will is the faggot, the one who initiates homosex is the straight one.''

''God bless Americ-''

Smooth dude Jack Future shot the copper in the face and, looking at the dead cop lying on the floor, blood bubbling out of the copper's head, said: ''You're just afraid of a black planet, of a COOL planet, whitey.''

Coolness won that day, and everyone lived happily ever after with AIDS.

[Anonymous No.4682412]

>>4682325
Undisputed genius voice of your generation.

[Anonymous No.4682679]

4th of Dusk's Song, 1407 ME.

Castle Whitehold's master bedroom was ancient, having been crafted by elven craftsmen over a thousand years ago. Masterpieces of art, detailing the deeds of heroes gone by, hung from the white marble walls and every furnishing was made with maple wood and iron.
The center-piece was the bed. A personal gift to his family from King Garedon himself. his family crest, an iron gauntlet holding a laurel wreath, was proudly displayed on the bed's footrest while scarlet red bed sheets kept his body warm.
This was to be his death-bed.

I think everyone can tell how bad a writer I am from this

[Anonymous No.4682700]

>>4681993
Thank you so much for the feedback. I appreciate it

[Anonymous No.4682815]

>>4682679
There is probably an infinite number of ways to sneak exposition into a narrative. My personal preference is for a character to be doing something which prompts the observations of things like scenery, or weather, or landscape. The fictive value of that is that the descriptions of scene become an extended characterisation as well.

"The two lovers faced away from each other. Soft rain fell outside through dim street lights onto shiny cobblestones." well, ok. As prose stylings go, there isn't much to say about "soft" or "shiny."

"She saw he wasn't listening. He was staring into the street below. She followed his gaze. There was little to see: soft rain falling through dim street lights, falling onto shiny cobblestones." - what is different is that 1. she is trying to see what he is looking at, is why we now have an excuse to describe the weather, and 2. "soft" and "shiny" are now words attributed to how she "thought" them so they are now part of her voice and are descriptively part of her characterization, even though she didn't say anything.

Doesn't Rowling use a talking owl as a conduit for describing a castle?

Ever notice how in LOTR - the books - you actually feel hungry and tired after one of those long, long hikes, and the smells of food and drink are almost real and you are so happy when they finally get to eat a meal?

"At first it seemed that although they walked and stumbled until they were weary, they were creeping forward like snails, and getting nowhere. Each day the land looked mush as it had the day before. Yet steadily the mountains were drawing nearer. South of Rivendell they rose even higher, and bent westwards" - as seen from the perspective of the weary, hiking hobbits.

[Anonymous No.4682869]

>>4682679
now, niggles-
"crafted by craftsmen" - take every opportunity to populate your imaginary garden with real toads. Carved? Etched? Hewn? Sculpted? Whittled? What are ten verbs for actions that may be taken upon stone or wood? Chiselled?

"Masterpieces of " - painting, tapestry, sculpture, macramé? A word that conveys shape and size is stickier to the mind's eye than one which does not. How many pounds does "art" weigh - compared to the weight of "thick woollen tapestries" [or whatever you are seeing there]?

Is someone in this bed? Because why not put all this from his perspective? "MC streched his arms over the scarlet brocade bed sheets. He sat up and seemed to be greeted by a gallery of family heroes gone by, woven into the masterpieces of thick woollen tapestry which hung from the white marble walls of his ancient master bedroom. He stepped down onto the footrest, the soles of his feet chilled by the wrought plate of his family crest, an iron gauntlet holding a laurel wreath - a personal gift from, etc...in merciful ignorance that he would next lie in that bed dying."

I even once read a description of a room from the perspective of a fish in a bowl on top of a tv.

[Anonymous No.4682979]

illicitly elicited
explicitly implicit
drugs keep my brain
clear and happy
in all this shit
My brain keeps me
guessing what it is,
because
separation seems present
but seams seem seamless
when shit hits the fan,
I hope I'm not dreamless.

[Diss-hurr No.4683051]

"From that particular day, I can only remember shutting the door behind me and the bang that followed thence, echoing through the building's stairs and climbing down from the fourth floor to the entrance hall. I was probably trying to wake myself up, but it didn't work. Without having known it, I was already at the train station, as if the usual walk there had never existed."

First paragraph from a (hopefully) future novel I'm writing.

[Anonymous No.4683641]

>>4676574
So is this a general critique thread or write something immediately without thinking thread?

[Anonymous No.4684493]

Bump for more creativity.

Some good stuff in here

[Anonymous No.4684622]

>>4682815
>>4682869
wow thanks for the huge amount of feedback.
Did a quick re-write and yeah I seems a bit better
http://pastebin.com/5rpxzMxH

[Anonymous No.4684631]

Near the edge of the known, across gulfs of time and stretches of imagination, on a tiny spinning rock, tiny creatures with large brains spun to and fro. After what had seemed an eternity, a spark erupted inside their tiny heads and behold, Io! A flame soon had erupted from their hands and thus began a slow march towards something. Something miraculous or something useless, they didn’t quite know. But on and on they spun on their tiny spinning rock, which in turn circled a star, which in turn orbited a heaving mass of other stars, which hurled through nothingness towards nothing in particular. So much nothingness overwhelmed the small sparks that burned so precariously in the tiny creatures, and so they searched for other dots of light in the great inky void beyond their rock. Flinging metal and steel into the night, the clash and clang interrupting the uninterrupted dark, they shouted and screamed into the night with nary a peep in reply.

[Anonymous No.4684642]

>>4684631
That was pretty solid.

It starts off kinda pretentious, put it flowed really well

[Anonymous No.4684648]

>>4684642
Yeah, it was a piece I wrote for a writing workshop and I wanted to impress the instructor, so it's a little pretentious. I plan on reworking it. Thanks!

[Anonymous No.4684829]

>>4682196
Isn't it ironic?

[Anonymous No.4685710]

>>4684622
Yes. I agree. Staying in and with a character maintains a sense of propulsion and growing familiarity. Each sentence answers another question we didn't know we had yet - "Oh. So that's why this character is interesting. Oh! And that! Gee. Now that I know so much about this guy I wonder what happens next."

However we do it, that's always what we want readers to be thinking.

[Anonymous No.4685789]

>>4683051
So, in my retirement, I'm donating some critique. I like it here. It's honest, in the most backhanded of ways. I need to ask you something. You.

Over the last three critique threads, by far the most common scenario submitted involves describing a fractured state of mind; a discontinuous experience; from the first person perspective. Is this because your experience of the world over the last 20 (+-) years is largely that way? Fractured, discontinuous, interrupted, jagged?

There is nothing wrong about selecting one species of experience over another for an artistic outing. There is also nothing wrong, though very difficult, about trying to describe experiences fractured or disoriented. The aerial acrobatics derive from the conflict between the experience itself - broken, confusing, cubistically dis-perspected - and the writing of it, which must, if we want our readers to follow us, remain smoothly connected, competent, intentional, and accessible.

I am aware of those who wish to avant their garde, and care nothing for readership. May they howl to their lonely (and doesn't it seem, just a bit, narcissistic) content.

So, presuming you want another(s) to read this one day, let me ask first about that "thence." Does this edit-ion provoke any feelings of resistance:

"From that particular day, I can only remember shutting the door behind me and the bang that followed and echoed through the building's stairwell, then climbing them down from the fourth floor to the entrance hall."

Because here's what I was thinking, and my uncomplicated commitment to the Current Orthodoxy should be pretty obvious by now:

The "I" is, in memory, "shutting" and "climbing." These are inging verbs, so they are being relived as they happened, in the temporal "now." But this is text, which happens serially and sequentially, and unlike film, no matter how hard we try, we cannot make two things happen at once. So the bang "followed" - in the past, because sequential - but then kept "echoing" - in the now - at the same time as "climbing" - a dangled participle which might make it appear that the bang is climbing. Look again: "the bang followed, echoing..and climbing."

That kind of eyeballular double-take removes readers from the page and forces them to work it out. The high-minded will claim artistic license, "If Joyce can do it" and so on. Fine. But intentionally tripping your reader must /be/ intentional.

One more:
"Without having known it, I was already at the train station,"

No. By the end of that clause, you did know you were at the train station, because you just told us you were at the train station.

"Without knowing how I got there, I was already at the train station," is what you meant.

This is what I mean by "the tension between the fracture of the experience, and the connectedness of the writing." It is all too easy to loose grip on the firehose of confusion, and then tenses and referents just go quirting all over the place.

[Anonymous No.4686474]

Matthew stroked his beard in ferocious indecision. He had been growing it for a good two and a half years now, and it had progressed to a thoroughly satisfying stage where it kept his neck warm, made him look like a Viking (or at the very least, a homeless Engels), and offered a brilliant companion for thinking. It was soft, pliable, and somewhat elastic – perfect for those moments when, for once, you could do with a stress ball. At the moment, Matthew was kneading it furiously, looking from bookshelf to bookshelf, trying to find the novel that would make his library visit worthwhile. He lived in the middle of nowhere in a rickety house by a river, making a living from the little ornaments he cut from the nearby trees, so any excursion to a place even resembling a town was to be treasured. This was the cause of his frustration – such a special occasion can never, even on one instance, be a disappointment; otherwise the entire experience is ruined ever after. If he didn't find one book to blow him away, that truly would be the end (ironically) of his ventures into civilisation.

[Anonymous No.4686541]

I believe that freedom is not as good as wed like, every action is an act of restriction, and due to that progress can happen, entropy or total madness is freedom, but the only way to get better is with more control which is the opposite, which then returns to total control in a higher level of entropy

[Anonymous No.4686725]

>>4679548
write some cheerful music to accompany that and you've got yourself a nice song

[Anonymous No.4688396]

Red flag, red blood
Revolution, the change for good.
Or bad, it must be said -
Many will be left for dead.
Marching people start to shout:
"Down with the government, get them out!"
Shot down in cold blood.
The police are now stood,
A barricade in themselves
But they will never stop the shells
The shells of disquiet
The shells of dissent
The shells that remain,
Never to be spent.

[Diss-hurr No.4688491]

>>4685789

Wow, very good critique man, thanks. But let me clarify a few issues.

First: yes, this is, in part, semi-autobiographical. I didn't follow the last threads but I wrote this as honestly as I could, inconsistencies aside. I believe this scenario being a common one may be nothing more than a coincidence.

The "thence" has a simple explanation: I'm translating this from my native language (which is European Portuguese) and there are times where I can't tell when some words are far less used in English / American literature than others. But yes, it does detract the reader and interrupts the general flow.

I did not intend to "trip" the reader - in fact, I'm actually trying to find a ground where I can describe semi-complex thoughts in simple language.

Finally, yes: that clause correction is spot on. I actually mistranslated and omitted the "how I got there" part, which was present in my original text.

I will keep your advice in mind as I keep writing. Thanks. This wasn't too weak of a sentence, was it?

[Anonymous No.4689566]

The day I ran out of sand

Today's the day on which will fall
The last grains of my sand
And after I have lost it all
I am thoroughly spent

Today's the day that will be cut
The short line of my thread
And when the scissors are slammed shut
The fabric won't hold my head

Today's the day on which will dusk
The warmth of my red star
And when the world is but a husk
I'll be as most stars are

Today's the da I'll start to sleep
Forever, save and sound
And now, I see my last grain leap
And it hits the

[Anonymous No.4689721]

>>4688491
You're doing fine. Keep at it. Mind the details. Rewrite much. Nabokov and Konrad proved it's possible to write better English prose than most natives, when coming from another first language.

[Anonymous No.4690532]

X's voice seemed to rupture space and leave a distorted echo hanging around them . He couldn't be absolutely sure that he had not actually repeated himself, his attention had been wholly lost to that agitated revulsion that would flush over him whenever he found himself in the unfortunate position of having realised the stupidity of what he was saying as he was saying it. Then, a voice coaxed X out of the mild fright and despair that was clearly visible on his countenance. X swivelled round slightky to face it. She was smiling, X could not be sure that was due to his ideas, but he was absolutely certain that she had, for an instant, glanced in the direction of the person X had just addressed, which only served to increase his suspicion. X felt a grimace begin to creep on to his features but, as best he could, composed himself so that his face contorted into a slight grin. X caught the rest of what she had finished saying. "You know?", he started as the two faces in front of him began to open up so as to urge X on in his analysis of the situation, X continued eagerly, having apparently completely dismissed the obvious slight that had just been dealt him.

[Anonymous No.4690590]

I turned the key once, not a whimper. Twice, thrice the asthmatic leviathan remained silent. At the eighth attempt, nothing would catch and spark and ignite and stir that patt and putter, which whipped up that neighbour’s terrier to such a frenzy. Not the barring of its teeth and its throaty growl, which it greets me with most mornings, on this morning its mouth showed no tooth or emitted no sound; its eyes wide and tail neutral behind its white picket prison.
I supposed I should pop the hood and peek inside, although what would I achieve. And indeed, after my hand scratched around and found the clip and I walked past the curious mutt, pulling up the hood and propping it to stay up and to not fall on my fingers. I saw the engine, whatever type it is its certainly an engine, some chords, hoses, a thing for the oil and a pipe for the water connected to an opaque white plastic tank. Something acrid stung at my nose; a black dusty film gripped to my fingers. Most things were dark, of rubber, grease, and dirt.
It felt compact, the whole setup, space wasn’t readily wasted if a tube or canister could fit in it. Though to the back left, I noticed, a volume was left unfilled. Moving around, I saw a clamp with probably a proper name, holding one fifty and one ten dollar note. A black plastic tube dangled freely, a few wires spouting from it; one red, one blue, and one green, their copper hairs hanging frayed. I appraised the space, though it represented nothing to me but a talking to from the supervisor.

[Anonymous No.4690598]

>>4690532
I have no idea what is going on, who is she, who is X what are they doing, who are the other people, why are they there.
Besides for some grammar and spelling, the prose is not bad, not good but not bad. I mean, you could clear up some things, like who is looking at who and whatnot, but i think you need to clear up what is going on.

[Anonymous No.4690606]

>>4689566
>I am thoroughly spent
>safe and sound

poem is alright by 4chin standards, I like how you left the last line. Those two lines need to be rethought, the last line of the first stanza especially, it doesn't fit at all and not in a good way.

I'd like to see you play around with rhyme and meter and structure a bit, not using the abab structure. Perhaps try rewriting the poem in abad or abcb and experiment with line length and iambs.
Keep it up.

[Anonymous No.4690616]

>>4678412
i love this

[Anonymous No.4690625]

>>4680167
this is hilarious

[Anonymous No.4690629]

>it's kind of long, but please critique, comment, anything. i think the ending is kind of hackneyed, but am too tired to think of an alternative right now

around the third or fourth time i woke up, i started counting "mizzippis" to see how long it would take before the book would slide off the desk and i'd wake up again.

[it was that stage of sleep where you're still damp and sticky from being born into another world or two every night, but you're clinging to the one we reset to in the morning (or afternoon), the "real" one, and they form a uniformly disappointing ouroboros where you could have sworn you run a carnival though you've never even been to iowa and you're not sure if something that hasn't happened yet really happened two nights ago in another dream and you get so confused in your temporarily stunted, childlike cognition that it gnaws and gnaws at the yellowed sleep mascara clumped on your lashes until you're awake and blind and will never recall the dreamscapes again.]

i'd been taught in primary school that a good way to absolve the common fear of thunderstorms was to count mizzippis so you knew the storm was passing over you and going away.
they don't teach you about hurricanes until you're older and by then you know the walls and windows seizing out aren't (usually) lifethreatening but expressions of the concept of sound. they don't teach you about the eye of the storm, or how the piss pallor light outside isn't a weakened streetlight stuck between that startling change from smog dreamsicle to combusting magnesium that it likes to fluctuate between when you're alone and drunk and walk past at 2:45 am. it's the storm, and it's come back. it always comes back.

[Anonymous No.4690637]

I've been writing a shitty poem every day for the past few weeks. Today's offering:

'hungover'

today I can’t think too well
i got drunk last night
repeat personal hell

head full of cement
stomach full of acid
and everything makes sense

sometimes i feel okay when i drink
other times i feel like shit
but it always makes me sick

when i’m drunk i get lonely
i feel like i’m in freefall
and i let despair devour me

i’ve done terrible things when i drink
i regret them more when i’m drunk
because i’m honest

it makes me so weak
so afraid of being alone
i miss you so much

i should stop drinking
the world is so much more beautiful when i dont
but that goes two ways

i’m just like everyone else though
i got drunk last night because everything wasn’t okay
and i wasn’t strong enough not to let it show

[Anonymous No.4691174]

Alfred sighed a relaxed sigh, and took a seat in his chair. He glanced out the window at the empty Medical Bay lobby, knowing full well it would be a dirty, bloody mess in around an hour. He adjusted his Security Glasses and eased back in his seat, mentally preparing himself for yet another shift aboard Space Station 13.
Maybe it won’t be so bad… he thought passively. Maybe it’ll be a slow day for the Sec. team, and I can get some flowers grown in the public garden befo-
“Security team, this is your Captain speaking.” interrupted August Finster, and within seconds the peace that Alfred was building vanished. “Please report in on this channel with your name and rank.”
Alfred sighed an irritated sigh and pressed the red.button on his headset.
“Alfred Keplin, Medical Bay officer, reporting sir.”
“Hi everyone, this is Roger Opti speakin’, how’s it hangin’? I’m keepin’ the gearheads A-oaky. today.”
“Detective here, I’ll be waiting around in my office todblah blah blah blah blah blah complaint about lack of access blah blah…”
The chatter over the common channel and security channel blended together like it did constantly, so Alfred let his mind wander.
I’ll grow some turnips, actually….feed the chickens a bit...maybe bring the chef some fresh milk…
His mind was almost back to the tranquil state it was at shift start, when the tiny old man that is August Finster marched into the lobby. August glanced at Alfred, who was sitting at his post, and gave a courtesy nod of acknowledgement. Dread, hatred, and loathe were all hidden behind a pair of security shades when the nod was returned.

There's a bit more to this, but it's all about a futuristic sci-fi game called Space Station 13. Feel free to look it up on /vg/ if you get sick of reading sometime.

[Anonymous No.4691573]

>>4690606
I agree on the first line, I don't like it at all either.
I did play around with my structure in some works, but they are mostly translations.
One is ababaa acacaa adadaa aeaeaa etc. going on to g. But that's German... there is a translation, but it obviously is slightly awkward.

[Anonymous No.4691588]

>>4682979
Keep the first two lines and try to make the rest of the poem fit them. The tone changes for the worse afterwards.

>>4686474
Anybody?

[Anonymous No.4691594]

The air in the crypt lay solemnly still. They were no dust particles, for there was no aperture of any kind, and therefore no natural light. Yet a faint topaz glow cast its iridescence across the marble-cold expanse of the room's tiled floor. In its shimmering quality it revealed a long, rectangular avenue of polished walls and uniform pillars. These held the bulk of the ceiling well above the human eye's ability to perceive it in the blue dimness. The pillars were peculiar in their ornamentation, or their lack thereof. From base to hypothetical pillar, they stood shamelessly bare. And in their cylindrical nakedness, they quietly endured the unimaginable burden of the invisible vault above. Like anchored souls, their shadows fleeted in metronomic consistency with the pale blue luster.

At one far end stood a towering throne of marble. Atop its stony seat a giant reigned in peremptory silence. Its skin glowed paler than the ivory adorning the throne's legs. Its enormous head tilted forward, a Herculean cranium, intense in its lethargic pensiveness. Two stony eyes set their gaze on the object encrusted in the palm of the crystal gauntlet. It gave the impression of a gem, brittle and otherworldly. From its core emanated the sole source of light in the crypt. Within the gauntlet's glassy transparency, an intricate mechanism ran from the stone to the digits of its crystal fingers. And through these the creamy purity of the giant's fingers could be visible. As the gem emitted its radiance, the mechanism sprang to life. Infinitesimal, the gears shone a moonish glint as they rotated in silence. Almost instantly the engine within the glove powered up as the gem shone its light, washing away once more in monochromatic palor the desaturated greys of the cavernous room. The giant reigned over in paralytic silence.

[Anonymous No.4691599]

>>4691594
purple/10

[Anonymous No.4691600]

>>4691599
Th-thanks...

[Anonymous No.4691606]

Browsing Lit, I wondered what to do with my life. The sun shone outside, yet I felt trapped in the putrid cesspool of this thread.

[Anonymous No.4691609]

>>4691600
you're welcome, anon

[Anonymous No.4691610]

>>4691606

[Anonymous No.4691617]

>>4691606
Me/10

[Anonymous No.4691633]

Unconscious at the time, having clockwork movements rule the day like days before, with body and mind only needing to be at peace to let the days move onward, was Johnathon, letting the noises of the room melt and thin into a soft static, and falling ever great down the calm hole where he exists alone.

[Anonymous No.4691709]

>>4691573
Yeah, as long as you're experimenting and stuff. Make sure you don't just read old poetry though, i know it gets chucked around lit that modern/contemporary poetry ruined poetry but there's a lot of interesting structures, word play, verse and meter.

[Anonymous No.4691724]

>>4686474
I like the prose, there's some small things i'd change to the rhythm but that'd probably change the voice you're going for.
>...Middle of nowhere(,) in a ...
Small stuff like that, here and there. Read through it aloud and look for small stuff like that.
There's not much else to say, really. PErhaps read a couple of Austen novels, as it reads a tad similar.
>>4690590

[Anonymous No.4691786]

>>4690590
I'm the down-in-the-words guy. Here's my read through:

"leviathan" it may be due to the lack of context from a short passage, but because this is the first noun describing this vehicle, I had the mental image that "I" is trying to start a whale. Is there a reason I am not allowed to know what kind of conveyance we are dealing with?

We have a little-used conjunction to iron out the awkward constructions of double verb negation:
"on this morning its mouth showed no tooth, /nor/ emitted /any/ sound."

"although what would I achieve." - period. I get there are reasons to end question with periods as a matter of stylistic choice, but be sure that is what you are doing here. "what would I achieve?" is the alternative.

"pulling up" turns that sentence into a fragment. Again - intentional? Do you object to parallel-ing those verbs? "my hand /scratched/, I /walked/, I /pulled/ and /propped/"

You were fine on "its" until "its certainly an engine". "/it's/ certainly an engine"

some /cords/. unless the engine is playing guitar.

I read that the point of the passage is MC is about to have a rather bad day. If that is your intent, you've communicated.

[Anonymous No.4691797]

>>4686474
>>4691588
Honestly? I thought it was an elaborately written troll on the theme of neckbeards. I'll take a closer look if it is sincerely offered.

[Anonymous No.4691819]

>>4691594
Since we are 3rd omniscient here, un-anchored to any character, there is an EA Poe echo to the tone. Which is not bad, if it is intentional. Another way to say it, is that free-floating 3rd omni reads like screenplay scene instructions. Which, again, is fine if that is your judgement of your best option.

You clearly have the swing of subject/verb/object under control, so let's take a look at some finer points.

solemnly still, or still and solemn? I am not knee-jerk about adverbs. I just always wonder if they are not often a convenient crutch.

or /rather/ lack thereof. ?

descriptors ending in -ness and -ish always feel tacked on. It's a personal peeve, and maybe you have a good reason. Though, is there any objection to:

nakedness - nudity
pensiveness - contemplation
moonish - lunar or "shone with a moon-like glint"?

"The giant reigned over in silence" I have never seen "reigned" used in the sense of a physical motion. This seems to say he "slumped over"

"Reigned in paralytic silence" ? "Reigned over the hall in silence" ?

[Anonymous No.4691846]

>>4691724
Thanks anon, I appreciate it
>>4691797
LOL I see what you mean. It's not entirely serious, the book is called 'The Club of Long-Bearded Men', but it's not a troll.

[Anonymous No.4691927]

>>4691846
The words mean what you intend, where you intend, so I have no close editing to offer.

On higher-order style, then, I would ask about the sequencing, in the interest of what I think of as "reader propulsion." There is an ineffable quality to prose which propels you forward, keeps you reading. This property is made of many specific decisions about perspective and scene, and is very difficult to nail down, because it is very difficult to read our own stuff while simultaneously trying to imagine what it looks like to a stranger.

Here is the passage again, with no words changed, but with a different sequence. Does it seem to roll on its own wheels a bit smoother?

Matthew was looking from bookshelf to bookshelf, trying to find the novel that would make his library visit worthwhile, kneading his beard furiously. He had been growing it for a good two and a half years now, and it had progressed to a thoroughly satisfying stage where it kept his neck warm, made him look like a Viking (or at the very least, a homeless Engels), and offered a brilliant companion for thinking. It was soft, pliable, and somewhat elastic – perfect for those moments when, for once, you could do with a stress ball. He lived in the middle of nowhere in a rickety house by a river, making a living from the little ornaments he cut from the nearby trees, so any excursion to a place even resembling a town was to be treasured. This was the cause of his frustration – such a special occasion can never, even on one instance, be a disappointment; otherwise the entire experience is ruined ever after. If he didn't find one book to blow him away, that truly would be the end (ironically) of his ventures into civilisation.

*about the reference to Engels. I get it. But some will not. It is a decision about limiting your readership right out of the gate. If there is a compelling thematic reason to link MC to the Marxist programme, then, well, ok. But it is fraught, and risky.

[Anonymous No.4691941]

>>4691927
The difference is that the very first line begins with the tension of the search, a tension which excuses the expo, which is now more, to my ear, symmetrically sandwiched into its resolution in the last line. Start with tension, end with tension, the read will accept the expo in order to get to the tension of action again.

It is an offer of good faith. "I offer a mystery, and promise to resolve it, if you indulge me on some description" is how I formulate it.

[Anonymous No.4692032]

The beginning of a story I wrote, and I feel it's the weakest part by far. Help


A pair of oak trees stood along the edge of a church yard, brown branches holding bushels of green swaying under cloudless blue. It was an idyllic day in middle america, and Sunday school children drew on the sidewalk with chalk. A young man with a few years of required schooling left jogged across the lawn. His name was Peter. Peter waved to the lawnmower man. His calls went unheard with the church bells ringing and lawnmower's engine roaring. The man on the lawnmower noticed Peter and the red machine sputtered to a stop.
"Something wrong?" The lawnmower man asked.
"No, it's just, Father Francis was wondering if you could wait about an hour to do this part of the yard? They're having a meeting and they want the kids to play out here," Peter said.
"Yeah, no problem." He wiped the sweat off his face with his shirt collar.
"Thanks, that's not a problem, is it?"
"Nah, I'll just have my lunch now." He walked by Peter. "Let the kids play, it's nice out."
"Ok, thanks. You sure it's alright?"
"Yeah, I told you, no problem."
Peter kept a wiffleball game organized for most of fifteen minutes before the younger boys started to get rowdy and disorganized. Jimmy Hark kept making faces at Arnold Sellington, and when Arnold went up to bat he rushed Jimmy and started beating him with the plastic bat.
"Hey, Jimmy, stop that!" Peter laughed, taking the bat from the boys. "Come on guys."
"He started it!"
"It doesn't matter who started it, Arnold. Go over to your mom, you're leaving soon anyway." Peter said, pushing the two boys towards the group of families gathered on the sidewalk talking about the nice weather.
"Who won?"
"It doesn't matter who won, as long as you had fun," Peter said, but he wasn't paying attention.
In the crowd of talking churchgoers a girl in dark clothes stood alone. She looked around for something deserving of her attention and Peter stood in the grass, somehow peculiar. The girl nodded and chewed on her bottom lip, then spun on her heel and walked off behind the church. Peter followed.

[Anonymous No.4692038]

>>4692032
> and Peter stood in the grass, somehow peculiar. The girl nodded and chewed on her bottom lip, then spun on her heel and walked off behind the church. Peter followed.

Jesus Christ, this is the 3rd draft of this story and somehow I've left this cringey shit in through all of that.

I'm mostly afraid it's going to come off immediately as YA romance, and although that's part of the story it's not what I'm going for.

[Anonymous No.4692067]

>>4691927
Thanks a lot, anon! I do see what you mean; it would do good to actually tell the reader what he was doing/thinking about.
I kind of agree about the Engels reference, I'll have to think about changing that I suppose. I'll just have to think of another guy with a huge beard. Darwin, maybe?

[Anonymous No.4692087]

>>4692067
It's not a trivial decision. It is a big early cue about tone. Comic? Tragic? Politicized? Controversial? *gasp* Polemic?

If you know what you want the tone to be, and want this comparison to signal it (to show intention, which I heartily recommend), make a list of familiar bearded figures, and evaluate against your intention for the character.

[Anonymous No.4692088]

Ti guardo, o damigella angelicata,
nella tua veste d'argento puntuta;
sentendo la tua voce, tosto muta
l'anima mia, da te sublimata.

Sia benedetta sempre la giornata
in qual'ebbi a veder, seppur minuta,
la tua figura, che ognor rende muta
la mente di color ch'han disprezzata.

Se mai potesse una stella cadere,
chiederei al Divin di porti suso,
per luminare, o face, toto il mondo.

O mia principessa, un cavaliere
errante nelle fronde non fia uso
a contemplare te, in quanto immondo.

[Anonymous No.4692095]

>>4692087
Thanks; in all honesty I didn't think about the implications. I just thought "that's a guy with a ridiculous beard".

[Anonymous No.4692109]

>>4676574
I'm just wondering if I should continue this story. It's basically about this young guy who is lazing around waiting for his grandparents to die so he can get his inheritance. I wrote this passage ages ago and didn't continue it; though now I'm wondering whether it's worth continuing because I like the premise.
1/2
The Dead Aunt

The chill was insidious. John sat on the park bench, doubled over and hugging himself for protection against the frozen tendrils of mist that were mercilessly infiltrating his clothing, one cold finger at a time.

He would much rather be at home with a steaming cup of tea than be at Aunt Valerie’s funeral. It was all a rather unfortunate affair – especially for John, as Aunt Valerie happened to be one of his few relatives who was too poor to leave a will or any form of inheritance at all. Indeed, Aunt Valerie’s only two possessions of worth were her two Burmese cats, and they were probably dead anyway. Aunt Valerie’s body had been found a week after her demise and the cats hadn’t been found at all.

It was rather typical of Aunt Valerie to have her funeral held on such an unpleasant winter day. She was always a rather bitter person; very fitting, John thought, given the weather. In fact, there couldn’t have been a more appropriate day for the funeral; purely because it was on this day that everyone least wished to be at a funeral, and least of all a funeral held outside. What remarkable luck.

The nearby cathedral chimed for 1 o’clock and the same thought jumped to everyone’s mind in a remarkable instance of telepathic synchronisation. It was most certainly time for lunch.

“Hold on, hold on everybody,” the vicar crowed, trying to gain the gathering’s attention, “I know you all want to get lunch but this isn’t over yet. We need to finish giving speeches and then we can all go.”

The crowd groaned in the most unsympathetic way imaginable. The vicar seemed slightly disheartened. “Come on everybody, it’s not that bad.” He then realised he was at a funeral. “Look, we’ve only got Mrs Harris to go. Mrs Harris?”

[Anonymous No.4692117]

>>4692109
A middle-aged, slightly overweight woman with short brown hair and a rather stern face emerged from the crowd. She nodded at the vicar curtly. “I’d best get on with it then,” she announced, producing a sheet of paper from her coat pocket. “Valerie was a dear member of my family; she was well-loved for all her eccentricities, no matter how… idiosyncratic she might have been. The news of her death struck my household as a tragedy, one of many to add to our family history. I can only hope that her cats are still alive and well.”

She then ran out of things to say, and promptly stepped back into the crowd.

“Well then everybody,” exclaimed the vicar, clapping his hands together, “tea and scones are available in the marquee; sandwiches are also available for those of you who like cucumber. Let’s not all go at once! The entrance can only fit three side by side.”

By this time the vicar was drowned out by the relieved burbling of a crowd desperate to get out of the merciless cold and towards the comfort of tea and biscuits.

John stiffly rose from his bench; he felt like he had been frozen into place for the past half an hour. As usual he was grumbling to himself about the misfortune of the funeral - once again, the relative left nothing. Once again, the relative was not one of his grandparents. Typical. Just typical.

[Anonymous No.4692125]

>>4692032
It is our first exchange, so excuse me if I sound like I've said this eight times above, because I've said this eight times above.

It is not the only way. There are many. My loyalty is to the reader. My reader is a human who presumably, is interested primarily in other, interesting, humans. I argue that the lowest risk first line begins with such a human. All the gorgeous turns of descriptive elegance we feel compelled by a writerly urge to interpose, which agents and publishers reject with swift and merciless finality, may be excused by making them into characterisation.

Try this very light edit one for size, and ask does it now seem that the landscape is from Peter's view, and the word choice is his, making the description an extended way of characterising Peter:

>A young man with a few years of required schooling left jogged across the lawn. His name was Peter. His route took him by a pair of oak trees along the edge of the church yard, brown branches holding bushels of green swaying under cloudless blue. It was an idyllic day in middle america, and Sunday school children drew on the sidewalk with chalk. Peter waved to the lawnmower man. His calls went unheard with the church bells ringing and lawnmower's engine roaring. The man on the lawnmower noticed Peter and the red machine sputtered to a stop.

Yeah?

[Anonymous No.4692156]

>>4692095
Yes. It is always safe to assume that our readers are our friends until they are not. They want to know what we are up to. They are desperate for us to not to let them down. Another word I've heard for "propulsion" is "density." It refers to the property of every sentence carrying a meaningful payload. This is a density decision.

[Anonymous No.4692163]

>>4692125
No, you're right. That's already better. I've edited it so many times that it's difficult for me to look objectively at this, but you're absolutely correct, starting the story by introducing the protagonist is much better than describing the setting, especially when it's not a super interesting setting.

[Anonymous No.4692167]

>>4692156
I wouldn't have thought about it until you pointed it out, but you're right - one of my friends thought 'Engels' was a typo..
Thanks for that insight, anon. It helps a lot.

[Anonymous No.4692196]

>>4692109
>John sat on the park bench, doubled over and hugging himself for protection against the frozen tendrils of mist that were mercilessly infiltrating his clothing, one cold finger at a time. The chill was insidious.

The simple reversal now gives us a "whom" to whom to attribute the otherwise free-floating chill.

rather typical of Aunt Valerie
rather bitter person

>the lunch thing is genuinely funny.

rather stern face

rather, rather, rather. That's an easy one for both of us.

It's fresh and verging on really funny. Keep it. The difference, in comic irony, between pitch perfect and over-wrought is a fine one. Look at each instance of "cold." I can't do it for you, but there are many ways to hammer that in. It's an opportunity. "merciless cold." or...?

[Anonymous No.4692208]

>>4692196
Thanks! I'll definitely have to think of a better word than 'rather'. To think I didn't notice!
I suppose there are times when a Thesaurus becomes necessary..

[Anonymous No.4692229]

Hi /lit/, hopefully I'm not l8 to the thread

http://pastebin.com/w2vUXUrh

Looking for advice on the action/dialogue.

Thanks m80s

[Anonymous No.4692231]

>>4692163
It's a universal problem. One technique I find valuable is simply to ask, who is verbing my verbs, who is holding my "camera"? If the answer is "nobody" then that should raise a flag. Not because "nobody" is not a valid answer, but because it should be for a reason you have chosen, deliberatively.

Note also, if you choose to go this way, that Peter is now the kind of person who notices oak trees, and thinks of phrases like "bushels of green." That landscape is now part of your description of him, so whatever happens to him behind the church, he must continue his arc from the initial position of a tree-noticing, chalk drawing children-noticing, idyllic day in middle america kind of guy.

It gets easier.

[Anonymous No.4692312]

>>4692231
It just so happens that this particular character would take note of those things. But I know what you mean, it makes a lot of sense. That's seriously some solid advice man, how'd you learn this stuff?

[Anonymous No.4692352]

>>4691633
a bit droning and redundant. break it up and make sure you align your verb tenses.
the sentence looks pretty and has pretty words, but it's near incomprehensible and completely nonsensical.

[Anonymous No.4692373]

Human life is famous for moving through phases. Most people who were completely fine with kings and queens leading them suddenly got really uppity one day, a lot of nasty old men in business suits switched from cigarettes to cigars around Earth’s industrial era, and at some point humanity had decided that space was the latest fad of the decade. A few years before Earth entered it’s very first Space Race, the planet was actually visited by aliens in a freak accident that wasn’t supposed to be a visit at all. The event is contained by Earth’s government forces and it kept secret for nearly a century, until a lot of nasty old men in business suits decided that the general public was “ready to hear this sort of thing” while also requesting more cigars be sent to their meeting room.

When the nasty old men in business suits finally broke the news that “Hey, this happened a hundred years ago.” no one was really surprised.

“To be honest a lot of us kind of expected it. I mean, you didn’t do a really good job covering it up.” said humanity.

“Oh. Well now we feel rather silly.” replied the nasty old men, now thinking their ties were a bit too tight and their black polished shoes were really, really interesting. “Well in any case we plan to move forward with colonizing Mars, so look forward to that.”

“Well okay, just don’t try and pull anything like that again.” and with that, humanity was satisfied.

At the same time this speech event was going on, Earth was giving a lot of sickening coughs and wheezes. 2050 was the year that the leaders of the world decided to abandon the world they led in favor for newer, shinier worlds, despite the fact that they were responsible for Earth becoming a polluted hive of disease in the first place.
Generation after generation passes, and humanity moves deeper and deeper into the Milky Way Galaxy. Technology soars, Kings and Queens became the norm again, and eventually their home world is forgotten about in the haze of total war. The xenomorphic life found on other planets is surprisingly peaceful, and ripe for the conquering. Unity for all human life is gone too, and human colonies are thrust into absolute chaos because a bunch of people suddenly got real uppity about Kings and Queens always ruling things.

How am I doing so far?

[Anonymous No.4692419]

>>4692312
>Practice, man, practice.

Some from Lee K. Abbott. Some from Miss Snark. Some from editors who took a story here or there. A lot from the many (contemporary) novels which sold, but were just short of something in a discernible way. Almost-something novels. I have tons. I Was Amelia Earhart. Silverlock. Tears of Autumn. Ipcress File. Garp. Four Lords of the Diamond. Hunt for Red October. Let the Right One In. Live From Golgotha. The Bone People. Lucky Jim. A Man In Full.

so on. It's not a reading list from a syllabus. It's chosen for what it reveals about who's buying what; or how to do some particular thing. How somebody good solved a problem. It's a bookcase full of templates. Because the Great Literature goes only so far toward helping us in the here and now.

[Anonymous No.4692425]

>my attempt at starting a concept horror short story

around the third or fourth time i woke up, i started counting "mizzippis" to see how long it would take before the book would slide off the desk and i'd wake up again.

[it was that stage of sleep where you're still damp and sticky from being born into another world or two every night, but you're clinging to the one we reset to in the morning (or afternoon), the "real" one, and they form a uniformly disappointing ouroboros where you could have sworn you run a carnival though you've never even been to iowa and you're not sure if something that hasn't happened yet really happened two nights ago in another dream and you get so confused in your temporarily stunted, childlike cognition that it gnaws and gnaws at the yellowed sleep mascara clumped on your lashes until you're awake and blind and will never recall the dreamscapes again.]

i'd been taught in primary school that a good way to absolve the common fear of thunderstorms was to count mizzippis so you knew the storm was passing over you and going away.

they don't teach you about hurricanes until you're older and by then you know the walls and windows seizing out aren't (usually) lifethreatening but expressions of the concept of sound. they don't teach you about the eye of the storm, or how the piss pallor light outside isn't a weakened streetlight stuck between that startling change from smog dreamsicle to combusting magnesium that it likes to fluctuate between when you're alone and drunk and walk past at 2:45 am. it's the storm, and it's come back.

[Anonymous No.4692433]

>>4692373
it seems more like you're summarizing a story that would be more interesting if it were allowed to be told in the first place

[Anonymous No.4692444]

>>4692433
It's all backdrop fluff, though I see what you mean.
Any issues with it though? No glaring flaws?

[Anonymous No.4692474]

>>4692444
the prose itself is kind of immature. like, it would be good palahniuk worship if it were by a teenager, but the frivolity of the phrasing undermines the seriousness of the topic. like, it's an outline of how humans fuck each other over repeatedly, but it reads like a 15 year old's description of his first day at a new school.

[Anonymous No.4692482]

>>4692312
>>4692208
This is a comparison an agent made for me, to make a point about "rules" or "conventions" and when to break them. This is the opener of The Corrections (Jon Franzen)

The Madness of an autumn prairie cold front coming through. You could feel it: something terrible was going to happen. The sun low in the sky, a minor light, a cooling star. Gust after gust of disorder. Trees restless, temperatures falling, the whole northern religion of things coming to an end. No children in the yards here. Shadows lengthened on yellowing zoysia. Red oaks and pin oaks and swamp white oaks rained acorns on houses with no mortgage. Storm windows shuddered in the empty bedrooms. And the drone and hiccup of a clothes dryer, the nasal contention of a leaf blower, the ripening of local apples in a paper bag, the smell of the gasoline with which Alfred Lambert had cleaned the paintbrush from his morning painting of the wicker love seat.

Three in the afternoon was a time of danger in these gerontocratic suburbs of St. Jude. Alfred had awakened in the great blue chair in which he'd been sleeping since lunch. He'd had his nap and there would be no local news until five o'clock.

It is reasonable to ask: Should "Alfred had awakened" come first? That would seem consistent with my advice in this thread.

What the agent said: "You can break all the rules. You can catalog oak trees. You can spin up nasal contention and draw a curtain across entire religions. When you are Jon Franzen. You are not Jon Franzen. And by the way, that paragraph still reveals at the end, that it is the thoughts of Alfred. He just painted a bench, and is looking around, thinking that."

She really nailed it.

[Anonymous No.4692490]

>>4692425
>primary school
>hurricanes
>iowa
You're letting the reader know where you are: I'd drop primary school because it limits you to countries which make even Iowa seem exotic. Probably you're an Amerifat who hasn't been to the UK or Iowa. If you're not, that's how it appears mixing registers like this.
You need to rearrange your clauses in parentheses with the uniformly disappointing ouroboros coming closer to the middle to not fall slack.
It's good but there's elementary (if you'll forgive the pun) mistakes here which make it seem unfocused and indiscriminate. You could combine dialects to great effect if you've acquired several, but you have to be able to differentiate them in purpose to your reader.

[Anonymous No.4692561]

>>4692490
thanks a lot.
i have traveled a lot, but i've always been a bit too careful to not lose my natural dialect, and that does limit me considerably. i'll try hard to watch my tone more. and we amerifats are a proud and closeminded people, yuropoor

as for iowa, the intention was to seem like the speaker has no experience or knowledge of iowa. people sometimes visit dreamscapes that are called "benin" or "kiev" that share little to no similarities with the real thing.

what elementary mistakes, specifically? like, grammatical errors, inconsistencies?
those paragraphs are the roughest of rough drafts (i actually haven't read it since i wrote it last night)

[Anonymous No.4692609]

>>4692373
I want to like this, in the way that I want to rip ugly clothes off a pretty girl:

People who were completely fine with kings and queens leading them suddenly got uppity one day. A lot of nasty old men in business suits switched from cigarettes to cigars around Earth’s industrial era, and at some point humanity decided that space was the latest fad. A few years before Earth entered it’s Space Race, the planet was visited by aliens in a freak accident that wasn’t supposed to be a visit at all. The event is /contained/ concealed? by Earth’s government forces and kept secret for nearly a century, until the nasty old men in business suits decided that the general public was “ready to hear this sort of thing” while also sending for more cigars.

It's loose. At the level of the sentence, it doesn't bear the signs of having been pruned over with an eye toward loading up each word with its full weight.

Human life is famous for moving through phases. - I know. We all know. You put that in there just to get your fingers moving.

"Most people who were completely fine with kings and queens leading them suddenly got really uppity one day, a lot of nasty old men in business suits switched from cigarettes to cigars around Earth’s industrial era, and at some point humanity had decided that space was the latest fad of the decade." - as read, a fragment, and a run-on. Here's why: one day, a lot of nasty old men. One day sets up the day on which a bunch of nasty old men, or one day is the day most people got uppity. Spell it out for me. I'm not that telepathic.

I think it's almost funny, anon. If you decide that each sentence is deserving of care, because each one is a chance to break your reader's confidence, then go back and treat each one to a re-write. On the house.

[Anonymous No.4692734]

>>4692229
Thank you for:
dialog only tagged with said or asked.


readying her pistol. - Opportunity lost on abstract word. readied How? Formula readers appreciate knowing you know. Safety off? Setting her grip? Racked the first one into the chamber?

ran up to the door, kicking it open
v.
ran up to the door and kicked it open

I'm going to want to know how you are deciding on the back and forth between past and gerund, because it is easy to lose track of when subject verbed into verbing, had bgeun to verb, while verbing verbed. If you get my verbing.

Regan followed closely behind, Stefan going in last.
v.
Regan followed, Stefan close behind. - this one is about pace. For this kind of action, the general rule is fast action, fast sentences, calm the action, longer sentences.

had been lounging ... they were now kneeling or lying
v.
had been lounging ... they now knelt or lay

inging verbs wheels wobbling a bit here. Just asking.

!" Regan shouted. As is, it is head bumping: shouting, she shouted. It's clear her voice was raised from "!" Try "Regan said." and see if Elmore Leonard was right that it will just pass by invisible. If you must, Regan ordered.

Several marines turned, raising their weapons at the mustachioed man.
v.
Several marines turned, targeting their weapons at his moustache.
again about inging. An opportunity to convolve description with action?

This one will live or die by the story. Formula prose has well-established expectations, and if an agent or editor like the story, they will assign someone to line edit with you.

[Anonymous No.4692756]

>>4692561
Sticking to one "voice". I understood the intention to make Iowa seem exotic, but when combined with being exposed to but not differentiating a wide range of accents, it makes your character seem... fedoraish and maybe something of a closest weeaboo. It creates a different voice where the speaker is chasing a dream of Iowa (with no real attachment to it besides it's a farewell to flesh/the current life) when he's speaking in a patois of the almost satirically mondaine which would have nothing to do with Iowa. It's not that Iowa won't look like the real thing in his dream, his readers have no doubt it is a fantastical carnival... it's that having been exposed even superficially at least to two different cultures with diverse histories, this guy thinks Iowa holds something special that he couldn't find in his native one(s). If you're going for a modern des Esseintes, that's fine, but I get the sense you're not. The grammar and capitalisation I wholly overlooked.

[Anonymous No.4692770]

>>4692756
Good thing I overlooked grammar.
>(but not differentiating) a wide range of accents
>closet

[Anonymous No.4692839]

>>4692425
It may not be obvious, but the first sentence does not mention the storm, or any noun related to the storm, so why the book should slide or what you are counting from is a mystery, but not in a good way. Initially, I thought you might be on a boat.

The second paragraph is a competent description of a confused internal mental state. I was able to follow it all the way through without tripping on shoe laces.

i'd been taught, while a child, - localization problem solved.

Do they ever teach about hurricanes? Everything I know came from the news or NOAA.

There seems to be evidence of intent behind the contrast of a long mildly menacing sentence, followed by a short and directly threatening one:

"or how the piss pallor light outside isn't a weakened streetlight stuck between that startling change from smog dreamsicle to combusting magnesium that it likes to fluctuate between when you're alone and drunk and walk past at 2:45 am.

it's the storm, and it's come back."

But that long one is teetering on two wheels on the edge of out of control. Here it is just 5 kph tighter:

"or how the piss pallor light outside isn't a streetlight's startling change from smog dreamsicle to combusting magnesium that it fluctuates between when you're alone and drunk and walk past at 2:45 am."

because "stuck between that startling change" starts with "stuck" and "startling change" is not "stuck" it is the opposite of stuck.

Stay with it.

[Anonymous No.4692882]

>>4692734
thanks for giving it a look bro, those are pretty good points. I usually can't abide any writing, especially amateur writing, that uses tags other than asked and said too.

[Anonymous No.4692893]

>>4692756
thanks so much. i'll try to be more aware of my own subtext (i'm not too good at this self-aware thing, ha.) and yeah, capitalization is the last thing i tackle. i do need to be more careful with my tenses.


>>4692839
the storm is an initial metaphor over the rest of the story, which follows the protagonist through a regular day that has a few surreal but believable (at first) moments throughout.
my goal is to include inconsistencies the reader won't notice until the ending, when it turns out that it was all a dream and the protagonist is stuck in this loop (and he only realizes it's a loop when the book falls off the counter again).

>localization problem solved
thanks.
and yes, i was taught about it, but it was in 6th grade. smarty pants school for asshole kids. i think your solution will work better in both solving the location issue and also not highlighting my privileged childhood.

[Anonymous No.4692978]

Love these threads, bump

[Anonymous No.4692994]

>>4692196
Okay, so I took all the 'rather's out and changed the first sentence like you said. Does this read better or is there still some changing to do?

[Anonymous No.4693001]

>>4692994
Whoops, forgot link
http://pastebin.com/9adTLkux

[Anonymous No.4693075]

>>4676574

Scene 1
A bare stage.

EFIL

bellowing forever at the incongruity of insoluble hope. black rain - exclamation marks telling of a lurking madness. trunks raised in salute. infantlized tumors scratching at my brain. Gone! Gone!

(a beat sounds)

THAED

(over EFIL)

cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt

MOTHER COURAGE

I dread the loss of tongueless children never born, resisting coercion.

(a beat sounds)

(hushed sobs persist until the end of scene)

VOICE 1: Being becomes our dialectical transcendence towards phenomenological clarity into tomorrow's reason.

VOICE 2: Consume my shit.

End Scene.

[Anonymous No.4693089]

>>4692994
>>4693001
It does not trip me up. Whether anything is ever really finished is one of those eternal questions. My eyes are getting heavy, so I think my value is getting suspect. If it were mine, I'd plow on from there.

[Anonymous No.4693397]

>>4691786
thanks man

[Anonymous No.4693405]

>>4693075
the new sam beckett right here

[Anonymous No.4693426]

>>4693089
Sure, thanks

[Anonymous No.4693428]

>>4693075
wouldwatchhigh/420

[Anonymous No.4693755]

Tentative, timid, the
Pallid sun peeks
From behind the clustered clouds.
Rain spatters on the pavement,
Speckling the sky,
Along with the shadows
Turning the town into a talkie.

[Anonymous No.4693776]

>>4693755
Hmm, already I know what's wrong. Crit this instead:

Tentative, timid, the
Pallid sun peeks from the darkening clouds.
Rain spatters on the pavement,
Along with the shadows
Turning the town into a talkie.

[Anonymous No.4693790]

>>4693776
Ffs. Missed out 'speckling the sky'. You know where it goes.

[Anonymous No.4694312]

green tea and cigarettes
unfulfilled needs
and past regrets
is why i write shitty poems like these

[Anonymous No.4694374]

>>4693790
darkened. don't touch it more you're going towards trite town with that edit already. pretty solid but you don't need purple to blot out your imagery

[Anonymous No.4694408]

Here's something I just started working on today. I've never actually written anything before, it was a whim. Be gentle:

You won’t find an “About the Author” section in this book. I figure by the time this book gets published, if it gets published at all, I will be dead. About two weeks ago, I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer. Inoperable. Incurable. The doctors say I have only a month, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. At first I was scared. Hell, I’m still scared now, but I’ve decided to write this to help me through it. I don’t really have a family to speak of, for reasons I will soon explain, so I’ll talk to you.
My name is Frank by the way.

[Anonymous No.4694527]

>>4694312
oh god, i'm a fan, seriously

[Anonymous No.4694587]

Death is the greatest aspect of life. Rooted in the conscience of every human is the fear of death, the fear of permanent slumber in a world man does not, and will not ever know of. Yet this fear is great. Death is unpredictable and unescapable. Whether it be in ten years or ten days, the winds of live eventually blow out everyone’s individual flame.
With the thought of an unpredictable end constantly nipping at the back of our conscience, along with it so should another: conquer greatness while your flame still flickers. Each day is a blessing, every moment a gift of escape from the scythe of the reaper. Every morning I look in the mirror and ask myself, “If this was my last day on Earth, would I be okay with the situation I leave?” Life is too short to bear grudges, too short to not remind your family you love them, and much too short to not leave it a better one than you were born into.

[Anonymous No.4694833]

>>4694587

[Anonymous No.4694837]

>>4694587
Kendrick Lamar said it better
thats not a compliment

[Anonymous No.4694873]

Once upon a time, there was a man who met with God, and this man's only request was to enjoy life completely alone. His wish was granted. He was given immortality, but the price was having other humans unable to interact with him. At the time, this was a double blessing for him. He hated people, wanting his entire life to escape the social dogma which binds him, and he wanted to do whatever he wanted without ever having to go directly through other people.

Time passed. He was granted immortality, his body wasn't. His senses, however, do not fade; they began flicker and waiver. Familiar sights recall familiar smells, familiar sounds, familiar responses, all from whence the familiarity wasn't all that familiar. Sometimes he repeats his days, down to the last breath, just by getting out of bed in the morning that was like that of one day, or many days to be exact. In his context, deja vu isn't a phrase. It has become the Hermit's life.

[Anonymous No.4695718]

There it is, that feeling.
It starts at the bottom of your sternum,
Where you keep your thoughts hidden.
The same idea floods back.

It starts at the bottom of your sternum,
And, working their way up to your brain,
The same idea floods back;
A car on the highway.

Working their way up to your brain,
The new pills soon take effect.
The car on the highway
Dissolves in the synapse.

The new pills soon take effect.
There it is. That feeling
Dissolves in the synapse,
Where you keep your thoughts hidden.

[Anonymous No.4695792]

A story I wrote last week after years of no writing whatsoever.

http://pastebin.com/2Akh1L9f

Be ruthless.

[Anonymous No.4695825]

>>4678388
>Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, etc
yeah im real into jazz: davis, mingus, the list goes on


guess i have to write some sort of critique now - don't describe jazz music as coalescing into a grand jazzy sound. that should go without saying. unless this is some sort of irony/satire im missing

[Anonymous No.4695837]

Dad tosses out all the clothing
like a garbage man on early route,
sifting through the pile kicking
all her shirts in fury towards
the muddy pavement.

It was raining though no one
noticed while he poured
the bleach upon a purple blouse.

A favorite that she wore
but no one ever really noticed.

Dad looked at me and belched to start
‘Grabbing shit and throw it out’
I gulped and stood in silence
and he told me mom’s a whore.

He slammed another pile to
the pavement,
It was raining on a Tuesday.

Mom came home to see the
angry heap beside him as he
goaded her for answers.

“Did you fuck him last night?”

Mom picks through her clothing
while fighting back the tears,
but no one ever noticed from the rain.

Dad sits down self-satisfied,
the point he got across
in mind for being
the better man and only
‘fucked six girls but married her.’

I was standing in grandma’s kitchen
and she offered me a bag of pretzels
‘Salted like the ones mom likes’
She gasped to say I shouldn’t have them
or to share with her at all,
but to pray for favor with God and man.

Mom slams the door.
The shrill sound pierces my heart
shattering like a Christmas ornament.
The pieces gather in my toes
and over time I fill from leftover shards,
wondering if no one will ever notice.

[Anonymous No.4695917]

Based on this thread, I think it's safe to say that poetry is well and truly dead.

[Anonymous No.4695923]

>>4695917
Is in the whole of poetry? Or just poetry contained I'm this thread?

[Anonymous No.4695924]

>>4695923
I'm not too big on modern poetry, so pretty much based on this thread.

[Anonymous No.4695931]

>>4695924
What about this?

SUN FEAR:

I came from the kinderhook just now,
Down by the Chiques Creek and up the pike,
Past summer rows where full-grown wheat heads
bow,
Through heavy knoll woods where the coppers
strike.

And all the world was sun--upon my head,
On either hand, and under me--as I came;
But it was not until we met (You said
Something of weather, mentioning the name
Of someone who had got too much of sun
And fell down in his field.) that I returned
Unto a sense of earth-old fear that one
Might lose himself no matter what he learned.

Upon whatever devils in the heat
Enchanting me I turned my darkened shirt,
I knew I had to watch once more my feet
And think once more, and yet once more, of
hurt.

[Anonymous No.4695972]

>>4695931
Not as bad as much of what I've been reading.
That might have been a good poem like a hundred years ago.

[Anonymous No.4696004]

>>4695972
No that's more recent.

But I was going to suggest reading Billy Collins. I think his poetry represents the best merits of our current contemporary style.

[Anonymous No.4696022]

>>4678895
I like where its going, its just that I feel the flow of the two parts are different.
The First you have her listening intently to music, to the point where her father walks in.Its obvious that the girl uses music as a barrier to stop the present, her obvious romanticism of the past. But in the second part, you have her trying to make an effort with the present.
And also, it feels rather odd that a girl who had no friends because she practically alienated herself, would find someone else 'peculiar'. I get the whole conservative creates social outcasts, and the acceptance of being liberal (blue haired chic), but the the remark on her being 'odd' sort of threw it at the reader.

[Anonymous No.4696742]

>>4694312
You did inspire me though.

[Anonymous No.4696782]

>>4694873
>Familiar sights recall familiar smells, familiar sounds, familiar responses, all from whence the familiarity wasn't all that familiar.

Is this sentence exactly what you were shooting for? Does it say, in your best judgement - as one who would bid for the minutes of another's life spent reading it - precisely what you mean it to say?

[Anonymous No.4696807]

The Vantage grunted out of it’s slumber, the corroded remnants of it’s engine dragged back to life, the fuel cell barely able to sustain itself. It screamed and a shadow came off the sand. Ivan took a swig, if not for superstition he would have spat it out. He strapped his great grandfathers leather gloves, the same ones that the lawyer hadn’t called his name for, and dragged the acceleration lever forward.The Vantage screamed some more.A glance at the rear view camera, Johann had long ran back into his shack. Eyes forward, clean sands, pre-wars, walkable without a gas mask. A kick at a pedal, the Vantage breaking to Ivan’s will, shooting forward - a rusted black bolt through the yellow ground and bloodied sky.

[Anonymous No.4696814]

>>4695792
The young boy grappled with a taller boy, managing to force him off the top of the mound of dirt.
With his feet planted in the soft earth, his legs wide apart, he straightened his back and shouted to proclaim his dominance over the mound.
The other boys lost will to carry on for the top, content to continue their skirmishes for whatever level of the hill they occupied the moment the shout was heard.
The boy at the top grinned, his chest heaving and his gaze passing over the remnants of the battle below him.

- Some will jump to defend adverbs as a general principle. Yours are filmically motivated and entirely unnecessary. You cannot mimic film by wrapping each verb in so many layers of insulation that, like the little brother in Christmas Story, they cannot get up.

Compare the style to this minor passage:

The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon. Though he had taken off his school sweater and trailed it now from one hand, his grey shirt stuck to him and his hair was plastered to his forehead. All round him the long scar smashed into the jungle was a bath of heat. He was clambering heavily among the creepers and broken trunks when a bird, a vision of red and yellow, flashed upwards with a witch-like cry; and this cry was echoed by another.

“Hi!” it said. “Wait a minute!”

The undergrowth at the side of the scar was shaken and a multitude of raindrops fell pattering.

“Wait a minute,” the voice said. ‘ I got caught up.”

The fair boy stopped and jerked his stockings with an automatic gesture that made the jungle seem for a moment like the Home Counties.

The voice spoke again.

“I can’t hardly move with all these creeper things.”

The owner of the voice came backing out of the undergrowth so that twigs scratched on a greasy wind-breaker. The naked crooks of his knees were plump, caught and scratched by thorns. He bent down, removed the thorns carefully, and turned round. He was shorter than the fair boy and very fat. He came forward, searching out safe lodgments for his feet, and then looked up through thick spectacles.

“Where’s the man with the megaphone?”

The fair boy shook his head.

“This is an island. At least I think it’s an island. That’s a reef out in the sea. Perhaps there aren’t any grownups anywhere.”

The fat boy looked startled.

‘There was that pilot. But he wasn’t in the passenger cabin, he was up in front.”

The fair boy was peering at the reef through screwed-up eyes.

“All them other lads,” the fat boy went on. “Some of them must have got out. They must have, mustn’t they?”

“Aren’t there any grownups at all?”

“I don’t think so.”

The fair boy said this solemnly; but then the delight of a realized ambition overcame him. In the middle of the scar he stood on his head and grinned at the reversed fat boy.

“No grownups!”

[Anonymous No.4696819]

dashing into the quick
glowing putrid judgement
ooze infested sun
take the breaking point home

[Anonymous No.4696820]

>>4696814
>Some will jump to defend adverbs as a general principle. Yours are filmically motivated and entirely unnecessary.

That passage contains not a single adverb.

[Anonymous No.4696829]

>>4696814
And the paralytic snowsuit wraps up more layers than lazy adverbs.

Compare:

he proudly straightened his back and let out a forceful shout proclaiming his dominance over the mound.

he straightened his back and shouted to proclaim his dominance over the mound.

or even better:

he straightened his back and shouted to proclaim the mound was his.

Is there really any doubt about the lyliness of why he straightened his back? Any reason to believe that we readers are going to develop, for reasons unknown, a nagging suspicion that the shout was the opposite of "forceful" and might have issued from the boy in some way other than to have been "let out."

The other boys no longer had the will to carry on their struggle for the top, and were content to continue their minor skirmishes for whatever level of the hill they occupied the moment the shout was heard.
v.
The other boys lost the will to carry on their struggle for the top, and were content to skirmish for whatever level of the hill they occupied.

Again: how much brain damage am I assumed to have suffered to require all that extra reminder about what just happened one sentence ago? "the moment the shout was heard." yes. One period ago. Is there such a thing as a "major" skirmish? Is there not some other concise term for that, "battle" maybe? And what have you got against the noble verb? "no longer had the"-> "lost."

The word is "overwrought." Not everyone should nor needs to sound like Hemingway. But to sound like anyone, we must be able to hear you through the mufflers and scarves. Take them off.

[Anonymous No.4696875]

>>4696814
>>4696829
Yes, YES, this pleases me.

Please do another section somewhere, because I think I was using so much fluff because this was the beginning and wanted to come on strong.

And maybe for good measure a more general insight after you're done soaking your microscope in the petri dish.

[Anonymous No.4696876]

>>4695792
Representative, not comprehensive, line edits:

He had collected and positioned blocks and pieces of wood in the hearth in the far corner of his house, as one does to make a fire, but the fire was not yet lit. Instead he seemed to be in deep thought, pondering perhaps whether it was not too early to start this fire, though his house was likely the coldest in town at this hour; seeing the sun first in the morning but losing it first in the afternoon as well.

He had collected and positioned wood in the hearth in the far corner of his house, as to make a fire, not yet lit. Instead he seemed to ponder whether it was too early to start this fire, though his house was the coldest in town at this hour; seeing the sun first in the morning but losing it first in the afternoon.

panting audibly. - not panting silently?

and so on.

Did I witness a human sacrifice at the end? did he died? The hilltop boy? Because he is unaccounted for, but he is last heard from hearing something.

Go read this. Not for imitation. Ask how she manages to do that in so few sentences, of such relatively short length. How does Jackson's contrast of tone v. events create astonishment at what just happened? Also - is there any doubt someone was killed?

http://sites.middlebury.edu/individualandthesociety/files/2010/09/jackson_lottery.pdf

[Anonymous No.4696900]

>>4696876
>He had collected and positioned wood in the hearth in the far corner of his house, as to make a fire, not yet lit. Instead he seemed to ponder whether it was too early to start this fire, though his house was the coldest in town at this hour; seeing the sun first in the morning but losing it first in the afternoon.

I tend to agree with being too wordy at times, but honestly in this case I liked my original phrasing better.

>panting audibly. - not panting silently?

My thinking was that it is possible to pant visibly but very silently, too silently to hear over ambient daytime noises. So I excluded that possibility.
I wanted the reader to get the impression that a small, very stale old person's room is being filled with the noise of young lungs pumping away. Maybe I should have wrote it that way.

>Did I witness a human sacrifice at the end? did he died? The hilltop boy? Because he is unaccounted for, but he is last heard from hearing something.

I didn't come out and say it, but the clues are there.

[Anonymous No.4696911]

>>4696875
>http://pastebin.com/2Akh1L9f
Para 32 marks a turning point at which the punctuation - lowly, trivial punctuation - abandons its prior formatic rigor, and by doing so, my eye loses the reminder that it is still the loincloth dude who is, in fact, still narrating. Each and every para he speaks should begin with double quotes, no closing quotes if he speaks multiple paras in a row, just the opening one, and single quotes on dialog within his speech"

"blah blah blah
"blah blah blah
"blah, 'blahbitty' he said,
"blah blah, " the old man said.

I am now left-hand-face propped:

He gathered much support from the other youths, and they soon found themselves in the town square directly opposite the older men of the town, their own fathers, who were led by the town chieftain. The chieftain was a tall and broad man, his long beard and hair seemed to grown into one another and widened down to match the breadth of his shoulders. He was considered a wise leader, and had led his people to many victories over any rivals who came to challenge our dominion. His body had grown strong but scarred through years of violent clashes which he spent fighting at the very heart of the bloodshed, and his mind had calmed beyond the youthful passion that moved this young man before him to voice his discontent so vehemently. Though known to burst into fits of unreasonable violence even against those closest to him, the chieftain heard the young man with a passive resignation as he made his case against the fire.
v.
He gathered support from other youths, and opposed the older men in the town square, their own fathers, led by the chieftain. The chieftain, a tall, broad man, beard and hair grown into one another and full as the breadth of his shoulders, was considered a wise leader, and had led his people to many victories. His body strong but scarred, his mind had calmed of that passion that moved this young man before him to voice his discontent. Though known to burst into violence even against those closest to him, the chieftain heard the young man as he made his case against the fire.

[Anonymous No.4696920]

>>4696900
Very well. Proceed as you wish.

[Anonymous No.4696931]

>>4694408
Your intentions matter much. So far, you appear to have either an expository essay, or a memoir.

Are we in the realm of fiction?

[Anonymous No.4696940]

>>4696911
Is that thing with the quotation marks standard practice?

How would that work for instance at paragraph 36, which starts with the old man quoting the youth leader in his narrative?

>The chieftain, a tall, broad man (...)

I was actively avoiding this kind of construction.

You totally had me with the adverbs at the start, but in all I don't think I can dig your re-write of this particular paragraph. The original passage seems concise and actively voiced enough to me.

[Anonymous No.4696950]

>>4696807
After a draft composed while experiencing the emotion of the scene you are writing, go back, as later as may be easy for you, and read it from last sentence to first. You are now line editing.

"a rusted black bolt through the yellow ground and bloodied sky." - almost nice.

a rusted black bolt /across/ the yellow ground and bloodied sky.

a rusted black bolt /over/ the yellow ground and bloodied sky.

because "through the ground" sounds like you are drilling vertically down.

Johann had long ran back into his shack
Johann had long /run/ back into his shack

The Vantage grunted out of it’s slumber, the corroded remnants of it’s engine dragged back to life, the fuel cell barely able to sustain itself.

The Vantage grunted out of /its/ slumber, the corroded remnants of /its/ engine dragged back to life, the fuel cell barely able to sustain itself.


This vehicle seems to run pretty well, given its initial condition. Is there any sanity-check type credibility to be gained by having the engine - which is about to "scream" "scream" "shoot" and "bolt" - be "corroded" and "barely able" on the outside? While its engine retains sufficient descriptive integrity to pull of those later violences?

>Red Barchetta?

[Anonymous No.4696954]

>>4696931
Yes. Fiction.
I was hoping this would turn into a memoir/social and political commentary

[Anonymous No.4696960]

>>4696940
Quotation marks. Yes. See Lord Jim, starting on chapter 4:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5658/5658-h/5658-h.htm

As for the rest, your judgement is final. If you find readers willing to follow you through all that, come back and post where you find them, because that will be an epic thread for the archive.

With peace.

[Anonymous No.4696970]

>>4679351
pretty cool

[Anonymous No.4696977]

>>4682979
kind of neat
needs more ethos

[Anonymous No.4696978]

>>4696954
Very well. Continue as cleanly as plainly as you have begun. If fiction, then you are engaging what is called the "double 'I'" narrator perspective, or you are narrating as to a diary. here's the difference:

In a "double 'I'" the first I is telling the story, presumably at some remove in time and place from the second "I" who is the same person, previously experiencing the narrative. A simple illustration:

"It was last week that I ate a bagel. I now know that was a mistake."

In a "double 'I'" there is fictive pay dirt to be mined from the difference between the I of then, and the I of now. The double I also gives away that the narrator lives, at least long enough to tell the story up to the point we are reading. Holden Caufield is a classic double I.

In a diary, the narrator has progressed only as far as the events of today, and today just happened, and today, and previous days covered, are all the narrator is reasonably allowed to know of, given a realistic fictive universe. If, in a diary perspective, you go farther back in time that the diary, it is important not to contradict anything the diary has covered in its past. If the diary is on day 7, and recalling day T-1, that day must reasonably be able to conclude on day 1, our first day of the text.

That's all I got, based on the pasg.

[Anonymous No.4696994]

>>4694312
the last line is stupid, but the rest is fine.

[Anonymous No.4696995]

>>4696978
I read that diary thing, and it is not clear at all.

Day 1: "I've been a coal miner in West Virginia for five years."
Day 7: "I ate a sandwich. It reminded me of last week when I was a circus acrobat in Tapei."

This would be no-no.

[Anonymous No.4697008]

>>4696960
Now I kind of want Flashbird teh anime vampire to be a success.

[Anonymous No.4697024]

>>4697008
>Flashbird
>anime

Yeah, nah. He's just really, really, really cool.

[Anonymous No.4697091]

The curtains rip open and Satan unleashes his chemistry set on my organs. My stomach lining is splashed with nightshade wine. I'll be in between these four walls until the sun does its Icarus flight, and then the night will dawn and I will be at home. Superstitious lunar activity spawns tsunamis and werewolves. Astronomers are the real werewolves. My father was an astronomer and my mother was a ball of hydrogen gas, expanding and brilliant and birthing galaxies in the way that I am a planet in ellipse and you are a solar system in maternal entropy. They're in the Earth's ribcage now, underneath granite tombstones. Currently, it is dusk and something is returning.

[Anonymous No.4697110]

crossed up and wonderful
and dolled up and forgetful
a childhood friend of mine
tore the belly of another boy,
some humid, sorry night
and i just wonder if he still sleeps
little us had a gored a young bird together
with a slingshot and a rock
with a weight that now seems
impossibly heavy,
who could have forgotten?

[Anonymous No.4697166]

>>4694837
Everybody gon' respect the shooter
But the one in front of the gun lives forever

[Anonymous No.4697305]

>>4697110
was this intended to be a song?

i really like it. just don't fuck up the title, i guess.

[Anonymous No.4697337]

>>4697305

it's not but singer/songwriters do tend to be more obvious influences on me than real poets (or w/e that means)

thank you, though! did anything specific come to mind when you mentioned not fucking up the title?

[Anonymous No.4697496]

1/2

The United States

A remarkable child in so many ways, conceived in an inspiration of parental true love and lifetime devotion, gestated in violence, born into terror, loses his mom in childbirth then his dad dies of food poisoning while the babe is still new, later neglected by foster parents, abused by neighborhood babysitters, and robbed by day-care providers, even as a toddler, no surprise that he is traumatized, that he develops certain antisocial tendencies, no surprise that he kills an adult assailant who tries to molest him at the age of eight, blows his head right off with an unsecured hunting shotgun the neglectful foster father left lying around, no surprise that he is later shunned by the better-bred kids who steal his lunch money, who try to gang rape him in the shower after baseball practice, no surprise that his failed suicide attempt (smashing his head repeatedly into its reflection in the floor-length bathroom mirror of his absent foster parents home) is interpreted as a cry for help, that failing any answer -- since the teachers, the principal and the city officials are all the parents of his tormentors -- he retaliates by arming the very worst ghetto scum, then by creating motives for them to attack his attackers, and boy howdy do they ever,

[Anonymous No.4697500]

>>4697496
2/2

and look now, he wears his scars like transvestites wear feather boas, survived and triumphed he is the strongest, the smartest, and yes, the most ruthless one to walk the graduation stage, look over at his vanquished enemies, craven, in-fighting, maimed, repetitive, dim-witted sods, bent in toward each other and stuck amongst their arid, barren selves like octogenarian lesbians in a nursing home, one even tapping his foot to Pomp & Circumstance March No. 1 and when the only cute girl in school needs an escort home, through the mean, mean streets of this Polis, loaded now with the well-armed, pissed-off, and quickly discarded tools of his previous engagement, who will she turn to for protection -- the brilliant, cultured, but chicken-legged SE Asian kid with the thick glasses - the pachuco kid everyone is pretty sure is fucking the goats his family keeps in the backyard - The daven-bobbers with the scrotum beards - Certainly not the alum-sucking muff-lickers convention whose hash he has already settled - No, she goes home with the swinging dick that curls her toes, and what surprise should it be that the ghetto never forgets him, hunts him wherever he goes, that the locker-room rapists pussy convention and all their parents for ten degrees of separation conveniently forget his phone number, that the pendulum life of lunge and deflect should wear his joints, that his hyper-vigilance, his chronic insomnia, his bad diet's high-calorie bursts of combat, his amphetaminic tastes in defense-bolstering substances, his middle-aged turn to alcohol for what sleep there is, his both-ends burn and Atlas-shouldering burdens, alone as he is, should take their toll - And what of his child, packed off on the school bus, the electronic commo expert wrapped in padded protectives and EPIRBS, ignorant by virtue of shelter, from stray bullets and suitcase nukes, which it mistakes for virtuous innocence, aware only of its resentment of its callous, emotionally unavailable Dad, who, after all, should have been there more for it through its tender years, who should have sung more Barney tunes and connected to his bliss more and played Candyland and gone to her Koala ball games - What will befall as her legacy when the thankless Dad, scarred and shunned, finally, as all men do, turns in his badge and gun, leaves the earth to its feckless digestive churn, and gets his soul's wings back?

[Anonymous No.4697517]

>>4696978
Thanks. As I said, I'm new to the whole writing thing, so this is very appreciated

[Anonymous No.4697570]

>>4697517
You're welcome. here is a breezy read from one of my old teachers of the story. He's academy, but he also smokes and drinks and curses like a sailor, (or he did, long ago) so he's OK.

http://www.storyinliteraryfiction.com/interviews/abbott-lee-interview/

[Anonymous No.4697609]

Pain-Based Accounting

Hal the happy hardware man stood behind the whistle-clean counter of his store and surveyed the pile of implements which represented the selections of his current customer, who, because he was the current customer, was also the focus of the hardware man's unconditional love.

"That'll be one-hundred-eighty dollars and twenty-seven cents," he said.

Harvey, trying his level best to fulfill his current role as devotionally beloved customer, worked his cheeks into a smile, paying attention to squint his eyes, to complete the most essential element which distinguishes a fake from a real smile. While Hal bent to peel a shopping bag from his stack, Harvey glanced at the accounter embedded in the back of his right thumb's proximal phalanges bone.

"$ 0.00," it read, in familiar green ambient-adjusted, sans-serif digits.

This had been going on for over a week now, and it defied explanation.

"Generating joy with some metal work, Harvey? Maybe a bit of wood-refinishing to evoke cheer from the ole lovers of the house's hearth?"

"You bet, Hal. Grinding away some tarnish to reveal the jubilant shine beneath, and sanding away some scars of well-slaked use to renew the potential for exultation."

That drove Harvey's accounter up to, "$3.83," but he still did not rest his hands on the countertop, like most men buying hardware do.

Harvey's incremental earning potential had suffered also; a certain awkwardness of cadence and subtle mis-mix of metaphor had worked itself back into his revenue streams in a way he had not experienced since his voice started cracking in junior high school; that time when awkward constructions and incongruous images were age-appropriate to their utterer.

"Direct infusion, happy Harvey?"

Ever since this inexplicable attack of what looked like a second puberty had come on, his checking account had become seriously drained, and now here he stood in Hal's hardware store running up his credit card.

"This investment of shiny delight deserves a chance to pay for itself, Hal. I'll use the credit of my banked goodwill, if it pleases the chambers of your generous heart."

A tiny bend of green light here, a snail's tail of green light there, and Harvey's thumb managed to squeeze itself up to, "$12.65."

"My delight to increase your debt of future cheer gives me feelings of boundless peace," Hal said, making another hundo, easily.

[Anonymous No.4697772]

"What can I help you find today?" Martin said, trying not to lose count of a bin of 3/16" washers.

"Lookuh, here, now, son," the visitor said in husky tones which Martin thought sounded like an impersonation of a celebrity only his mother would care to admit knowing.

Fatherless Martin's lack of sociability, which he admitted, contributed to his life's current sitch, derived in part from the barely suppressed fury he felt whenever he heard the term of address 'Son' applied without care by the kind of failed and aged who feel entitled to project genetic ownership fantasies upon others as a salve for the regrets of their own outlived lives, none of which (the regrets of others) Martin felt were his burden to own, on their pathetic behalf. So Martin pushed the bolt drawer closed with excessive dignity and rose to his USA-average height.

Before he could snort his disdain, though, the customer said, "I need me eight hex-head bolts big enough to fit me through these here holes."

The recently unwrapped mummy standing in front of Martin had escaped from its glacial crypt under the Siberian taiga within the last several hours, somehow made its way to the American Midwest by way of desiccating air travel, and unaccountably frightened some unfortunate vintage clothing store clerk into speechless retreat, prior to taking its choice of the Disco Lives clearance rack. It proffered an orthopedic cane, the kind of elaborate space-age shillelagh you might find in one of those joints who pitch themselves as active senior communities and where the clientele, to a one, is engaged is pissing away their children's inheritance to the last penny for eight more weeks of The Price Is Right. This particular model of tubular aluminum cudgel was designed to support its bearer's weight on a quadrupod of legs tipped with rubber feet which hung loosely jangling from this specimen's business end.

Martin had never seen eyeballs so receded into their sockets as to be nearly unsupported by the surrounding flesh outside of episodes of forensic crime television, and what made the effect even more cadaverous was the luxuriant, full, thick shock of black hair on the man's head. He toggled his own gaze over both the creature's shoulders, exorcising a jittery sequence of impulses that involved the poorly imprinted store training images for "medical assistance," and "shift supervisor."

"You with me, there, pard?" the cadaver said.

As with the need for cops during crimes in progress and raw steaks during attacks by stray dogs, Martin's need for independent verification of this experience went unsatisfied. He focused on the feet of the cane and summoned his reserve of retail indifference to say, "Yes, sir. Drawer 12, row 4 should have what you need."

"Well, now, thanks a million, there son. Why don’t you amble on over, there, and pick me some out."

[Anonymous No.4697807]

In the Fall, the leafs tumble. As I look at them, I wish to tumble too; wish to rustle, tightly to the ground, mindlessly numb. When I was a leaf, I never longed to be one. I fell and tumbled without knowing how great it was to be a leaf. I doubt I even knew I was one. I dont remember much of what it was to be perched upon the Great Oak's branch nor do I remember the sensation of descending from it. I remember, however, what it felt to look up and see what was hitherto my life. That which I most remember of my life as a leaf was the moment I stopped being one- the sudden wake. Of orange, yellow and brown, the leafs I see now, carelessly surfing the wind, move beyond the bole. Their migration will lead them in an array of directions, but they'll remain leafs, longer than I did. What I would give to be a leaf again, perched and tethered unto the crown of an Oak, above the worry of life below. What I would do to once again be mindless. Alas, the leafs remain leafs and I remain I, mindlessly aware of it.

[Anonymous No.4697831]

I'm six back then. This girl swims by and look at her and she's not all that remarkable except she's like 14, which is like more than twice my age, and as a six year old I really don’t have the vocabulary for what hot means, and she pulls this dolphin dive move where the loaves of her ass go popping up then her legs straighten toes skyward and shloop she's gone, and so I look down at the ole' speedo in a little backwhirl of deconstructive wave action that killed all the turbulence and made a quiet moment, I thought something like, "huh. I wonder what's causing that?" And - "Yeah, no, that can’t be right. Whoa, that's like two and a half times original size. If my nose swelled up like that Mom would have me in the ER like in two minutes. I hope whatever is causing that doesn’t spread to my balls cause that's really probably going to smart. Maybe I should get that looked at."

Which is really weird now, the age proportion part, and kind of a shame, really, because if that effect, where girls twice your age make your cock spring out like a party kazoo, if that lasted until we were I don’t know, 50, instead of dying out around age 35, man, world peace would ensue. There'd be all these 35 year-old guys prowling nursing homes. "Hey baby. I see you're into metal. Me too." "I see you like a lot of tartar sauce with your boiled fish." "Oh no, little hottie, you can trust me, you do NOT need those dentures to look hot. In fact, let me prove it to you, here, let's just set those over here, and take a look at this…" Frustrated would-have been trophy wives forced to troll keggers at places like UMASS…Oh yeah, so anyway,

[Anonymous No.4698052]

>>4697807
Is this an allegory to childhood? I like it, it flows well. Is this an excerpt from something larger? Or just an experimental stand-alone piece?

>my shit

The artist had portrayed a young woman, steeped in black and veiled as though in mourning. She sat upon a stool, the faint jut of her chin visible in profile, as she looked away from the artist’s lens out of open veranda doors down upon the opalescent waters. They were pictured calm, as though drawn upon a midsummer’s eve, but as he felt beyond the frame of the tower to the portrait in his mind, he saw the waves spit and rise, crashing and tumbling against one another.
The artist’s interpretation of the scene gave a gloss to the seas. The girl in the picture seemed drawn to them, the shape of her body, the twist in her posture, all speaking of a desire beyond her mourning wear. And how the waves were caught, silvers and golds, cold yet alluring; the girls dress by comparison seemed as though drawn an afterthought, the folds and creases like shadowed wraiths clutching at her limbs.
Was this her then, the Siren? This fragile girl? This breath of wind? The witch spoken about beyond closed palm? And what did she pine for? Did this portrait catch her in the act? Perhaps it served to immortalise her transgressions. Seducing the lost and wooing the worn. A call across the blue wild, a harp to the green.
He realised he knew nothing of her beyond the centuries of indoctrination. In some tales she was tall, as tall as the tower itself and barely human, equally as often she was wizened and bow-backed, an elderly spinster wending time from reels of indifference. In others she was fat and globular, the very grotesqueness of her features lending to her bitterness. Always, she was depicted with malice.
The Siren was an amalgam of their fear and prejudice. She was an icon of hatred, someone to disparage, an entity to blame. To some degree she had become idolised a construct to be revered. She was their maker; she had shaped their world in ways they could not imagine. The monolithic tower, built of her hand, once of her home, had, as the sun rose and faded, become her cenotaph. A monument to a being beyond this girl.

[Anonymous No.4698197]

http://pastebin.com/PWukMkWF

Short story I'm working on, this is just the start and I have absolutely no clue where I'm going to take it from here. Is that common? Writing a story before you, yourself know the ending?

[Anonymous No.4698240]

>>4698052

>Is this an allegory to childhood?
It could be, but its more targeted towards the feeling of blissful ignorance of anything in general. What inspired me to write is far more recent than my childhood.

>I like it, it flows well.
Thanks man, flowing is my main concern with anything I write.

>Is this an excerpt from something larger? Or just an experimental stand-alone piece?
I wrote it less than a week ago. I was in a gloomy mood and I felt inspired. I like it and would wish to further it along, but I've been having a terrible month; can't bring myself to write more on it.

I wish I could comment something useful regarding your work, but I'm new to writing and don't feel comfortable giving critiques. I've deliberately read for a long time now, but only recently felt inspire to write. As far as my knowledge goes, I think its good.

[Anonymous No.4698266]

>>4698197
First, yes. that is normal, but there are no rules. Novelists tend (tend) to be the ones who map the whole thing out, because of the length and continuity requirements. Many story writers start with character, or setting, or situational setup, and imagine their way through it, to where were their internal logic takes them. It's not a debate about which is 'better' it's a choice about what works for you.

Now I want to walk you through this sentence one clause at a time:

He had, seeming, come to fruition in just that moment, - I'm going to forego that seeming should be seemingly, and say 'keep going'

his current state, which could be perceived as an almost fully grown adult, - i am resisting the urge to ask "perceived by whom".....

was his primordial form. - huh? was when?

Now most c/lit/s are not going to be as sincere in the attempt (attempt) to help, so take this with all the cross-generational feels with which it is intended - lugubrious was tough to swallow, but then melancholic, and finally gelatinous.

I get it. I'm trying to tell you I get it. There are all those Big Books with their Style and their Voice. and you want one. I want one. we all want one.

But you know a radical proposition? You can't acquire a voice until you first eradicate your own. The first style is no style. Just tell a straight story. Subject verbed object. Dialog, he said. Conflict she said. subject verbed adjective object.

You feel how hard you want to resist? That's the thing to eradicate. then write it again straight. As you. As the guy transmitting the events and emotional charges of the characters without stomping all over them with

His countenance was lugubrious, with a hint of melancholic expression, for this was the only emotion he could possible contrive or even ponder to contrive. This was an obvious reflection of the world that surrounded him, he acted as the mirror, the city as the supposed inanimate object.

"This" is a pronoun, marooned from its referent by a period. This what? Here is the list of possible candidates:
This countenance
This hint
This emotion
This contrivance

I have a 25% chance of getting it right, even if I cared to solve your grammar problem. See? Until you can parse that sentence analysis with me, you really are swinging way over your weight. Just tell a straight story as you. Let the 19th century rest. It was a crappy century anyway. You can tell a story someone will want to read. Just do you.

[Anonymous No.4698284]

>>4698266
It did feel a bit forced while writing it, but I was under the impression that the way to develop a style was to imitate writers you've read. I most likely got a bit carried away with it, because the last criticism I received was that I lacked any 'style' to my writing.

I'll try toning it down.

[Anonymous No.4698652]

She sat on the round, plush animal covered bed before him, legs spreading like her maw at the sight of a McDonald's bag, over 1 billion served. Apprehensive, but in need, he went to work. Slamming away into her pudding-esque folds, trying like so many of his profession before him to find the one fold with something under it other than more fat or the occasional Oreo cookie, his mind began to slip into other thoughts. Childhood, adolescence, college, debt. She moaned. Images of whale watching with his yuppie-lawyer father flash behind his retinas. The bed quakes, as the monster shifts her weight, it would seem to better waft her near-apocalyptic vaginal funk. Entering his nose and poisoning his body, that serious sweat finding its way into his brain and stomach. Vomit spews and the man runs as the morbid mastodon recoiled at the pile of stomach on her cellulite ridden tits. He was free, cold in the night air and carrying his clothes, but free.

[Anonymous No.4698669]

this is a poem I wrote today:

Freedom
by anon

Believe in freedom in love and fortune
And all we need
Is a peace of heaven
Believe in freedom in love and fortune
And all we need
Is a peace of heaven
We all need love
Freedom, come on everybody
We all need love
Freedom, let's live for freedom

I don't know what you're believin' in
Is it love or fortune
Or a fight to win
I don't know to what you say
This is the thing
Is it a peace of heaven
That makes you swing
Freedom is the MAGIC WORD
The only thing that will never hurt peace
Like in a movie scene
We try together
And start to scream

Yes! I know you want some more
From what I said just right before
So clap your hands
To the beat of the sound
Put your hands in the air
And back to the ground
I never saw a jam like this before
Back to the front
And door to door
If you want some more
Get on the floor
Love will come and that's for sure

Scream and scream it out of your soul
Try to escape and get out of control
Get out of control and save your soul
Stop this violence, say no no no
No more pain, no more lies
No more panic in the children's eyes
Freedom, believe in it
Take a piece of heaven
And you will win

Believe in freedom in love and fortune
And all we need
Is a peace of heaven
Believe in freedom in love and fortune
And all we need
Is a peace of heaven
We all need love
Freedom, come on everybody
We all need love
Freedom, let's live for freedom
We all need love

[Anonymous No.4698918]

Panda bear on ice mountain
Raindrops splintered his skin
Pulverized by a crusty lizard
That tickled his spirit
And absorbed his cold

Upsettingly, He dived deep into
oceans of tv static.
Until he drifted away
into sea foam dreams.

A jellyfish sedative
swam by
and lulled him even deeper

To an autumn creek
with fireflies across
flying on twisted hills

the father tree looks to the panda,
asks him how he feels
he says nice and then
drifts below the ground

Northern lights, greet him
in a clear and breathable iceland
where he can finally rest.

[Anonymous No.4698931]

i really want to collapse someone's face
the brow, the cheekbones, chin, each jaw, finally stamp on the nose and the dome of the head
just smush it all inwards shattering the bones condensing it into a bowl of pulp
i can tense my body up and scrunch my face and spit into the bowl and leave relieved

[Anonymous No.4698933]

>>4698669
God bless America :')

[Anonymous No.4698968]

“The First Day of Spring”

this whole winter you kept telling yourself
‘spring is coming soon’
‘the flowers will bloom’
‘you’ll have more breathing room’
more bleeding room
but what destroys us isn’t what we hate and fear
its what we love and let near
so the season you’re waiting for breaks its promise
and the betrayal you feel now is all that keeps you honest
stagnating inertia is your only comment
verbal hallucination, word vomit
you save yourself from it daily only to fall back on it
no hope for you, lucky breaks like Hailey’s comet
ideographs have become your only philosophy
all your confidence is gone, your strength takes its leave
you sink a little deeper with every ambition you meet
rolling around in it, masturbatory self-pity
and deep down in your brain you know you’ll just let it be
but you’ve fallen too far, idealism became ideology
its always the same recital
revolting but still standing idle
hope springs eternal until one day you find
that your suicide is a long, slow decline

[Anonymous No.4699005]

>>4695718
Darn. Nothing.

[Anonymous No.4699014]

The cursor blinked before him, mockingly. Somehow, that flashing little black bar seemed incredibly condescending: “Come on, you can write anything, surely you can come up with anything to write, yes?” Even its fictitious voice was annoying. He sighed as he continued to stare at the blank screen, clearly frustrated.

Just write anything.

Anything.

And there lays the problem.

If one is to choose from anything, he must first decide what is it that he wants, among an infinity of possibilities. The sheer scope of it all is simply too great to process in one go, and in trying to, things get stuck.

Choices, as always, are complicated.

And writing is us choosing a single thing from anything we can possibly think of, and translating it as best as we’re able through words plastered on things.

It kinda puts things into perspective.

[Anonymous No.4700593]

>>4698968
>Haley's comet

i am grateful for a poem which retains a consistent and this-world referent, which is aware of itself pacing itself, which appears to have an emotional plan, and which executes it, and which has taken formal steps to inspire and to maintain my confidence that I will not be spat upon due to some jejune urge to shock or rebel.

it is my sincere hope that ideographs as philosophy refers to the current trend of tattooing (often) meaningless Chinese upon one's body.

the only planks where the rope bridge seems to sag, where I grip the rope rail in the fervent hope that i will not be allowed to fall through, are from

all you confidence
through
deep down in your brain

those these lines do not, finally, falter, they are less stable than the rest. I would point to confidence gone (why), strength leave (why), in your brain (brain, hmmm)

it is a delicate precision, but somehow, "idealism became ideology" is somehow obviously true and self-explanatory, as is an idle revolt. Is it of any relevance that one word, or one event might motivate "me" to have fallen this far?

[Anonymous No.4700598]

serb is stink
rat smell is sick
can live in sewer
not welcome

stay out

[Anonymous No.4700602]

>>4700593
>Is it of any relevance that one word, or one event might motivate "me" to have fallen this far?

Let me rephrase that: I want to know why "you" has fallen this far. Would your intent be damaged if so little as one word or clue were given as to why?

[Anonymous No.4700671]

>>4678412
Fuck, that's very nice.

[Anonymous No.4700806]

Short story.

http://pastebin.com/jL6k5GHb

[Anonymous No.4700825]

>>4700602
Thanks for your detailed input. I've reworked it a bit:

first day of spring

this whole winter you kept telling yourself
‘spring is coming soon’
‘the flowers will bloom’
‘you’ll have more breathing room’
more bleeding room
but what sets us back isn’t what we fear
its what we hope to let near
so the season you’re waiting for breaks its promise
and the betrayal you feel now is all that keeps you honest
stagnating inertia is your only comment
verbal hallucination, word vomit
you save yourself from it daily only to fall back on it
no more dreaming for you, ‘lucky breaks’ like Hailey’s comet
ideographs have become your only philosophy
all your passions take their leave
you sink a little deeper with every ambition you meet
rolling around in it, masturbatory self-pity
and deep down somewhere hard to find
you know you’ll just let it be
but you’ve fallen too far, idealism became ideology
and for you this is all a daily recital
revolting but always idle
placating your desires until one day you find
that your suicide is a long, slow decline

I wish I could incorporate the context of this poem so it could stand alone and make perfect sense without preface but I'm struggling to do that. I wrote this for all those mired in their own inertia, waiting for something to 'happen' in their lives rather than taking responsibility for their own shitty situation. I had /jp/ NEETs in mind when I wrote it actually.

[Anonymous No.4700843]

>>4700806
>http://pastebin.com/jL6k5GHb
This is British Isle English, so I won't pretend to parse phrases.

Thank you for staccato pacing. Thank you for S/V/O. Thank you for descriptors consistent with the time and place and character. Thank you for a sense of character derived from what he does, and how he sees himself doing it. Thank you for consistent verb tense, even in an unusual all present pov, which does not violate its premise.

Is it complete? I went back, since it did not prevent me doing so (see above), and scanned for encoded signifiers - that instant meal, cigarette, hand bag on door, raincoat.

I found nothing I could put into a satisfying conclusion. Is it an existential open end then? Am I supposed to never know what happened to Liz?

[Anonymous No.4700862]

>>4700825
>It's still "/Haley's/ comet".

OK. A recognition piece then. I would feel its truth if I were subject to its truth. Nothing wrong with that. You will know when and whether to stop or go on. I am happy without "brain."

[Anonymous No.4700883]

>>4699014

Anyone?

[Anonymous No.4700926]

>>4700883
"my story is about a stuck writer who"

No offense. And truth to tell, this is a workshop staple. After a dozen workshops, you've seen this a couple dozen times. Treat it as an exercise.

It is possible to write about writers and writers' problems. For example, can this moment happen as a conversation with his agent? His prof? His gf? His pet cat? His goldfish?

Maybe the computer's mouse talks? A mote of dust settles on his screen and begins a conversation about the Adamic act of creation?

Somehow, from an infinite set of possibilities, you must first solve the problem this guy has for yourself, and get this moment out of the guy's head and into a scene which sets up an actual story.

[Anonymous No.4700936]

>>4700843
Well, initially I thought it was complete; the complete story is meant to be guessed (the idea being that he's murdered her). Should I drop some more hints so it's less of a cliffhanger?

[Anonymous No.4700971]

>>4700936
I suspected as much. I wanted it, and went looking for it, but could not find it.

By way of an example ; I had a buddy who had his teeth sunk into a master's thesis proposal that Iago, from Othello, was a Turk spy, and that the play is about a military assassination in the context of the war. Desdemona, et.al., were just pawns in this brilliant, first-of-its-kind Jacobean James Bond espionage tale.

And it was a great proposal. He had worked out all kind of extra-textual Cypriot v Turkish history, a cite list pages long. He had me convinced that Shakespeare invented the spy genre. I still love the idea.

But it was rejected. The committee's last sentence in the rejection was "It's not on the page."

I think cliffhanger is what you are going for., or at least a whiplash-inducing end. Somehow, I can't say how, MC's self-delusional facade has to crack, or shatter. He is very successful as a narrator at not seeing what he did. He is clearly hitting the "not here" note pitch perfect. But as of the handcuffs, he is still not there, so I was still not there with him. His crazy needs to blink, so we can feel it blink, too.

[Anonymous No.4700981]

>>4700971
Brilliant, thanks anon. Would it work if I end after the handcuffs with him just thinking: "Me?"

[Anonymous No.4700990]

>>4700971
>But as of the handcuffs, he is still not there, so I was still not there with him. His crazy needs to blink, so we can feel it blink, too.

no no, that;s not how I should have said that. >/I want/ his crazy to blink

My loyalties are pretty conventional. Experimentation is valid. If it was your intent to tease, then you succeeded. But now I won't like you, and I will sell your short story collection back for pennies on the dollar and say bad things about your work on 4chan.

[Anonymous No.4701007]

>>4700981
cross posted with>
>>4700990

let's catch up. is it your intention to leave it ambiguous, or should we know, to a certainty he killed her?

[Anonymous No.4701025]

>>4700990
The post you replied to wasn't the author btw

[Anonymous No.4701030]

>>4701007
>>4701025 here
Well I'm a retard. gah

[Anonymous No.4701044]

>>4701007
It's meant to be ambiguous, but I would like some degree of certainty in the reader's mind that he killed her. I want them to feel a strong possibility of it.

[Anonymous No.4701077]

>>4701044
Very well. then, no, it is not on the page yet.

"Me?" as the sole addition only seems to extend the doubt into an expectation of one more line.

Don't do any of these, unless you happen to be my long lost illegit love child, and it seems perfect, but this is the genus of animal I am thinking of:

>The police reveal in dialog that the rain falling from his coat was blood.

>His anxiety was heightened the entire time because he was in socks. The police come down holding his shoes. Her face was kicked in.

>That was blood on the fork, not cheese sauce.

Your cops are the only window of sanity, so you have an interesting field of play, where he can "come to" or you can have them do the reveal.

Either way.

[Anonymous No.4701108]

>>4701044
"and snap hand cuffs around my wrists. Now I'm never going to see Liz tonight. And that dried mash isn't sitting well at all."

[Anonymous No.4701113]

>>4701077
I see what you're saying, thanks. I kind of like the shoes idea, but I suppose I'll have to be original! Thanks so much for the suggestions.

[Anonymous No.4701122]

>>4679677
I like this, it's simple and still says something. The prose is a bit dense, maybe needs some thinning down, but is otherwise fine.

[Anonymous No.4701141]

>>4701108
I quite like that too! Decisions, decisions.

[Anonymous No.4701172]

>>4701113
Raymond Chandler (an under-rated talent, imho), described the perfect mystery as "inevitable in retrospect." I think what he meant was that the reveal is the key that slots all the unexplained tumblers into place. There is a way, though I don't know what it is, to reveal the murder so that the commute home, the raincoat, the instant meal, the handbag, and the cigarette, are all motivated and justified by the single puzzle piece revealed at the end. So that it /had/ to be that he did those things in that sequence, because they were all part of maybe
>methodically concealing the evidence from himself
>surrogating her normal routine, putting himself in her place
>doing what he always wanted if only she were dead

something like that.

[Anonymous No.4701203]

>>4701172
Would it work if he got a call, just after he was cuffed, and the cops let him answer it and it was the school thanking him for stepping in for Liz (off sick)?
I dunno, that might be a shit idea, but it just occurred to me.

[Anonymous No.4701243]

>>4701172
The reason I mention Chandler's observation in that regard is because when crafted to that level of detail, the mystery's resolution justifies interpretations beyond just a fictive parlor trick.

For example, if you succeed in hitting a pitch perfect ending, you will have a serviceable short story, suitable for a student mag, or a web zine.

If the mystery reveals that he always wanted to be her, so he enacted her routine, then the story is about obsession, and the fine line between love and self-annihilation.

If he turns out to have been concealing the evidence from himself, then it is a story of romantic epistemology, about erasing one's past in order to salvage remaining life, even at the expense of life imprisonment (literally, as well as within one's own delusionally self-fashioned reality).

Then you have something approaching a /lit/erary work. The difference between good grade and Exquisite Corpse publishing credit is just that small.

[Anonymous No.4701251]

>>4701203
see
>>4701243

[Anonymous No.4701265]

>>4701203
>>4701243
Don't feel you must solve it for me, or tonight. You have a monster on the table. He's put together and wired in. Don't rush the lightning bolt. It's worth the extra think.

[Anonymous No.4701294]

>>4701265
Thanks, I'll definitely mull it over a bit 'til I'm sure. I'm glad I posted here, I doubt I'd have thought about the ending as much otherwise. I appreciate it.

[Anonymous No.4701367]

>>4701265
The cops walk in to the living room, regard me silently, and snap handcuffs round my wrists.

A phone rings. The home phone. I glance to a cop and he nods. He walks over to the phone, picks it up, and brings it to me. He presses the green button to accept the call and holds it to my ear.

“Hello, Mr Saunders?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, we called earlier but you weren't in. Well, we just wanted to thank you for coming in for Liz today, you were great. Is she holding up any better now?”

“She's.. she's still in bed.”

“Sorry to hear it, well, at least it's Saturday tomorrow so you won't have to stand in again! Ha ha ha ha! Well, see you. Call in again if things aren't right by Monday.”

“Ha ha ha.”

The cop hangs us up and they march me to the van.

[Anonymous No.4701376]

http://pastebin.com/9z6kid56

A short story I wrote up one weekend (<1500 words). I wanted to focus on technique rather than narrative. I submitted it to this public critiquing site but didn't get much in the way of feedback, some people missed the point entirely or very clearly skimmed through it.
I spoilered my approach because I want this story to be read completely blind (at least the first time) but in a lot of ways I feel like it's really easy to miss some of the thematic elements and symbolism if you don't have any prior knowledge.

I used adjectives that pertain to machines & computers to describe the protagonist to create a commentary on the banality and repetition of work. I used more passionate wording and animal adjectives within Rob's thoughts to create a duality between man & machine. I also wanted it to be ambiguous as to whether or not Rob was human or robot. We've all felt the grind of daily life, so i felt the conflict is relatable, but leaving his motives and emotions ambiguous allows for reader interpretation of more personal desires. I found that female readers tend to focus on the romance between the secretary more so than anything, while male readers tend to focus on the banality of daily work.

Any and all criticism is appreciated, this is really my first foray into writing so I'm still trying to figure out my style.

[Anonymous No.4701411]

Again her stomach's emptiness yawned, and Pallas shook her head vigorously. Yes, she'd gone to bed hungry- but it had never felt like this. “Oy!” Naestr's voice called from behind her. “You there, alien! Keep moving! Earl Alibrandr and his kin are freezing! Faster!”

A spike of cold and ugly wrath rose in her. A snarl filled her throat; she let go of the cart. Her hunger and her anger mingled, fueling each other, and as Naestr came close, she felt a powerful urge to kill him. Not even just kill him, she wanted to tear his face apart and rip his chest open. She wanted to paint herself in his blood, and a thrill rose up as he appeared. She stepped forward-

But her stomach roared, and the pang of hunger that followed nearly brought her to her knees. “Yes, sir,” she mumbled, and gripped the cart once more.

[Anonymous No.4701427]

For all the fiction prose types.

If you went to uni/college in an English speaking country and did anything /lit/, then you (were assigned to) read To Build A Fire. It's been anthologized to death.

What they almost never add, it that Jack London write the original for Youth's Companion magazine. Think Boy's Life. For children. In that version
>MC had a name, Tom Vincent.
>MC never considered killing his dog to warm his hands
>MC had no dog
>MC was an overgrown boy scout
>MC survives with a few cool scars

in short, it's drivel for dreamy kids who read outdoor magazines.

The immortal anthology classic is the exact same story. Same MC, same hike, same setting, same ice stream, same boots wet, same first fire, same failure, same panicked dash, same resigned collapse. But
>no name makes him universal
>dog is smarter than him
>dog is foil for desperation of killing it
>style, word choice, explication all grown up
>chain reaction of snow in tree is metaphor for chain reaction of narrowing options due to thoughtless decisions
>this kills the man

The two side by side illustrate the difference between draft and masterpiece as clearly as a recipe for baking a cake.

http://www.jacklondons.net/olderbuild-a-fire.html

http://www.jacklondons.net/buildafire.html

[Anonymous No.4701429]

Fucked a short fat girl, call that bitch Hamlet
Pussy sweet and salty, call that ham sandwich

[Anonymous No.4701457]

>>4701367
>The cop hangs us up and they march me to the van. I hope they remember to bring my handbag from the doorknob.

[Anonymous No.4701460]

>>4701376
also I'd like to hear about the prose. I wanted to create contrasts between short and direct sentences (machine) and longer more descriptive sections (man). I think it works to an extent, but I feel like it becomes disjointed in certain parts. The people who have read it haven't really mentioned anything about it, so that's probably a good sign, but I can't help but feel certain parts just read badly.

[Anonymous No.4701467]

>>4701457
Interesting one, kind of psycho-esque. Endings are hard, damn it.

[Anonymous No.4701530]

>>4701376
Anon, if you search this page for the words "fractured" and "dis-perspected" [sic] you will find several posts regarding the propensity to describe internal mental states in the first person. Go read them. They pertain.

I read your firsts two paragraphs, and I stopped because you have your story nailed down just fine. What you need to come to grips with next is finding the sentences and words to tell it. What you have ain't them. I will make an attempt to describe my reading experience, so you can see it as I did:

Passion clouds my mind like miasma. - It is impossible to form a mental template, from any of the five senses, singly or in the aggregate, for an abstraction performing an action. In fact, "passion clouds" is ambiguous as a kenning. A double word noun. A category of could, rather than clouds as a verb, which is not something passion does. This initial confusion is not the pleasant kind, where I feel the character's confusion by virtue of intentional prose craft, it is the confusion of being taken out of the story by an overwrought construction.

Passion clouds my mind like miasma. - And again, if I try to feel my mind being overtaken by miasmic passion clouds, I have no idea what a miasma looks like. What color, how cold, no idea. My receiver is not getting any signal.

Thoughts of expression and reflection jet around inside my skull, colliding and exploding into one another forming flares of color and radiance. - this, even if conceptualize-able, seems like it would hurt quite a bit. It certainly hurts my head to try to figure out what this emotional state is. Again, not in a good way.

My mind is filled with feral beasts, spurred by an unknown force. I try to reach out at the wild animals, but they slip past effortlessly. - the reason I am willing to read this sentence is because it has a real thing in it. feral beasts. That's the first phrase that I can actually get my head around. Because I have a common referent with what that means.

The borealis of sensory leaves me reveling in awe. - wat. sensory as a noun raises a 404 error - usage not found. It leaves me revelling in grave doubts about whether my Author has really thought this through.

I open my mouth to tell her what I feel, to let her know who I am and what I want, to try to convey what I don’t understand in hopes that she too will be lost with me. - I don't know who "her" is, where she is, if she exists, or anything else, but whoever she is, get her and this entity in the first two sentences and place them in a concrete field of existence outside of this thing's miasmatic revel of reflective thought color flare radiance passion cloud exploding jet skull collision

and just tell it straight until your reader can tell what universe we are in. Then work in the miasmatic revel of reflective thought color flare radiance passion cloud exploding jet skull collision in small bites, so it doesn't feel like a grammar exercise assigned by a sadistic grad assistant.

[Anonymous No.4701544]

>>4701467
Yes. That's why writer get the big bucks.

Dahl said he re-wrote parts of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 150 times.

[Anonymous No.4701564]

>>4701429
2Chainz please go

[Anonymous No.4701575]

>>4701530
This was incredibly insightful. Thanks a ton.
Frankly I wish more people were as straightforward in their criticism as you are.

[Anonymous No.4701598]

>>4701544
I guess it will come with endless re-reading.

[Anonymous No.4701600]

I wrote this for a girl please respond

I’ve traveled far
Climbed the Great Wall
Took refuge from the sun in the Taj Mahal
Stood in awe at the foot of Abu Simbel
Drifted down the Mekong lulled by the Darters’ call

I’ve searched far
Heard the Dalai Lama speak as I started at my bare feet
Searched churches for true verses that wouldn’t pain me to speak
Surrendered my words at a Vipassana retreat
Swam in the Ganges to rinse and repeat

I’ve climbed far
Built a fortune on mercurial market machinations
Toasted my glass well above my station
Propped myself on my bedrock of certifications
Did it all while young, brazen and unshaven

I wonder then
With the whole world in view
All this experience accrued
A lifetime of possibilities waiting in queue
Why my only ambition is to love you

[Anonymous No.4701626]

>>4701575
>http://pastebin.com/9z6kid56
I don't know what the kids are reading these days, but here's another, counter-balancing, observation:

“I’m fine,” I say to her. I’m not. We both know this in a strange sort of way. - These 18 words convey more narrative payload than the entire first two paragraphs. Because I can access them.

There was just enough of a delay in my response and the word hung in the air just long enough to hint at a fear that neither of us could confront. - "delay, "response" - this is the first time you are transmitting what you are shooting for. That hint of machine-ity. Notice that it is in the context of a conversation which is recognizable as a conversation.

I want to confront it, possibly she does too, but I’m conditioned to say this every day I see her in the lobby and I’m not one to break convention. - now I am reading you at about 3 X 3.

She smiles at me. It’s forced of course. I know my cursory answer didn’t give her pleasure, but she’s so accustomed to feigning sincerity that perhaps even she believes it’s a genuine response. I smile back and immediately feel shock run through my head. I hate this recurrent lie. - because it is about conflict, and because it has real toads in it - lobby, smile, shock, fear, hate, response, cursory (sounds like cursor). I get it.

Do it more like this^^^^^^^^^^^

[Anonymous No.4701634]

>>4701575
>>4701530
Though I would like to clarify the ambiguity of who "her" is.
The idea is that the story would begin with the protagonist completely lost in his thoughts, which was supposed to be intentionally overwhelming and confusing (I see now that it's confusing for the wrong reasons, however).
It's implied through the context of the story that he's having a simple conversation with a lobby receptionist/secretary at his job. When he says "I'm fine" it's supposed to imply that it's just a really simple "how are you today, Rob?" kind of conversation (though not immediately revealed). This is ideally pieced together by the reader when he goes to the elevator and steps out into the office. Once this is pieced together and you begin to understand more about the character you can understand why he's initially lost in his own thoughts and why it's so incredibly confusing. He's a character who's totally lost himself to the monotony of the world around him, and as a result has lost the ability to articulate and give voice to his passions and desires clearly (this is addressed in the concluding paragraph).

I feel like you'd probably have a better understanding of this if you read more than the first two paragraphs, though I can understand how this is off-putting. I'll definitely adjust the first paragraphs to be less abrasive and confusing (in the wrong sense).

Thanks again.

[Anonymous No.4701668]

Yes, it was true, he had a tiny penis, had no love of reading yet wished to be well-read, had no love for others but wished to be loved, but he could make up for all of this by being a shithead on an imageboard, no?

His finger as it moved the scrolling-wheel on the mouse (looking for threats to his superiority, of course) made a motion akin to what he was doing to his micropenis with his other hand.

"My vitalistic impulses!" he ejaculated, "I am performing the ultimate act of life-affirmation!"

He found one! ... a threat to his superiority. A well-read fellow, a so-called "voracious reader", devouring books, poetry, authors, interested in allusions, in classics, in improvement, in reading as much as possible.

"Ur a fagt!" he dexterously typed, "reading is about absorbing what you read"

Another degenerate he found, this one claiming to have enjoyed a difficult piece of work!

"LOL how tiny is your dick to have to cover it up with big books"

Finally, he found a critique thread. Not a threat to his superiority, no, but a possible boost... and as he wrote his obscurantist 2deep4u bullshit, he thought to himself that he was living the life and wasn't an avant-garde poseur like THOMAS PYNCHON.

[Anonymous No.4701684]

>>4701634
yeah, no, I got it. He spends about 88 words taking a sip of coffee. Like I said, you got the story.

Wait, let's take that and unpack it.

>Went visiting. Turned left. More grass.
no one is going to anthologize this.

>trees, travel, fork, hmmm, much wonder, such deep, go left, grass, it is good.
still not getting invited to the white house

>A long long time ago in a fairy forest far far away I hitched my trusty steed to my mighty golden chariot. At long last after many travails I encountered a fork in the road which decision to take which fork presented its own set of deeply ontological implications for the fortune of both the kingdom and my immortal soul.
Um. no.

>TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

The story is in your head. You can hear it and see it and taste the coffee in it. I get the story. It's Pinocchio. It's Data. It's Office Space. It's Cryptnomicon, Matrix, and Neuromancer. It's Bartelby.

But it's not this set of words. Words are writers' babies, and we must become mass murdering cannibals of infants, if we want to be good.

[Anonymous No.4701695]

>>4701530
what a thing!
piece be with you :)

>>4701626
and also with you :^)

literature has the potential to expand, like a decaying fart, but it's also self-descriptive; I'm not in the mood to write about myself :(

[Anonymous No.4701705]

>>4701684
Wow, I guess I never really thought of it like that.
thanks anon.

Do you frequent these threads often? I'll probably end up heavily revising the story and posting it again, and I think I'd like to get your opinion on the revised version if possible.

[Anonymous No.4701738]

>>4701705
>I shall be telling this with a sigh
>Somewhere ages and ages hence:
>Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
>I took the one less traveled by,
>And that has made all the difference.

yeah. about 80% of the prose critique in this thread is me. It's easy to tell, They all run to 2999 characters. I'm here until I'm dead or until sarge finds someone better.

[Anonymous No.4701751]

Head and Shoulders shampoo commericals say
the scalp is the soul of the stem of the stalk of the hair grain.
So-called Subway sandwich artist/artisans argue
that bread is the base of the belly's beloved.
And if page sets the pace of the manual phrase
by which hands, lungs and face work in synchrony swallowing word-pills
Then do transitive laws render gray matter paws
if our joints are but cog-claws and pistons?

Separate me from these cold processes
I won't breed with the screens or the touchscreens
Crucify me on a cross birthed by consciousness
Don't bother riposte, I never claimed cleverness

!!..?*;
import.util.*;
{
...violinsviolasvicodinviscera vinebitch/grapeho
}
Wrapper class?
Rapper class
Teach a man to fish, call that trapper class
Need a bad bitch, need that clapper ass
Not no dapper ass; that flapper ass

[][][][][]
[][][][][][][]
[][][][][

[Anonymous No.4701793]

>>4696782
Familiar sights brings back memories as hallucinations, and they warp his sense of reality, mentally having him relive that memory down to every sound, smell, sight, touch, and maybe even the feelings like surprise and sadness.

[Anonymous No.4701794]

>>4701751
>not using befunge
It is 2014, right?

[Anonymous No.4701802]

>>4701794
I can't program at all I just read enough po-mo poetry online to get an idea of what a shell would somewhat look like

[Anonymous No.4702111]

>>4701751
I read the last stanza in MF DOOM's voice. Totally worked.

[Anonymous No.4702130]

Me writing notes on my studying Heidegger:


One desires, one does not predominantly see oneself desiring.
Then how is this distance of Lacan's, that one should maintain, possible?

We do not believe as in “take this as a fact”, The world to me can only be said to be the world as it presents itself. Beliefs are not held as objects before the mind, rather, beliefs refer to my process of interpretation, to elements in my logic of the world. To say “God does not exist”, is to say that there are no things which I interpret as coming from God – though we should admit that a person's “inner life” may cause them to speak differently than the lense of our shared langauge seems to grant me an experience of (though of course I cannot speak of this when it occurs, I can only note the logical possibility).

How do we classify the person who has what we deem fundamentally incorrect beliefs? Without the cconcept of “inner life” we shall have to simply think of him as mad, as he shall have to take us as mad, and for all men madness exists only in the soul of their brethren... an unnamed but surely there madness. And if I grant that there is a way of knowing outside of my own acknowledgement, that there is a way of getting at truth and that I fail to yet percieve it, then I shall have to characterize knowing. But what will I characterize that this knowing does, but lay out for me a being that is also outside of my current understanding? So what shall I say of that knowing... Who may know via it as a method? It would be more honest to the being of the world that I do not know that I do not allege a characterization even of the method in which it can be grasped, such as by bringing to bear all my preconceptions in the term “knowing” as it is employed to be a grasping of a certain sort.

[Anonymous No.4704221]

Bamp for limit

[Anonymous No.4704328]

>>4676898
>>4678218
>>4678495
>>4678912
>>4679268
>>4679542
>>4680091
>>4680146
>>4688396
>>4690637
>>4692088
>>4695837
>>4697091
>>4697496
>>4697609
>>4697772
>>4697831
>>4698652 [tho prolly not srs]
>>4698918
>>4701600
>>4701668 [also prolly for lulz]
>>4702130 [not sure how to approach]

This is a clearinghouse update. All above have received zero replies. Mostly poetry. Some not.

They dared. Let 'em have it.

[Anonymous No.4704331]

The beginning of a short story I wrote a while ago:

Old man Jeremiah was a man of seventy-three years. He was quite comfortable with his life, but that changed on a certain day in May. Nurse Stephanie, who took care of him three times a week, had left a book on the small kitchen table. It was an old copy of a book by Ernest Hemingway. In bright, big letters it read 'The Green Hills of Africa'.
Old Jeremiah smiled, as he opened the first pages. He went to the living room, took out his reading glasses and began to read. 'We were sitting in the blind that Wanderobo hunters had built...' the first chapter begun.

'Mr. Walters?'
'What is it Stephanie?'
'I was wondering if you had seen...' there was a pause and then a sign of relief. She walked over to him smiling. 'I didn't know you were interested in Africa, Mr. Walters.'
The old man looked up from the novel and shook his head. 'Oh, you mean the book? I'm sorry, Stephanie, was it yours?'
She nodded, but made a motion with her hands, showing that it was alright. 'It is okay Mr. Walters, you can keep reading it, I don't really need it anyways.'
'Thank you.' He leaned back into his chair. Stephanie was already on her way outside, when the old man started talking again.
'Have you ever been to Africa, Stephanie?'
'What? No I haven't. I just got the book from a friend a while ago and decided to give it a try.'
The old man sighed.
'You know. When I was younger it was always my dream to go there. This book' he held it out towards her, 'was one of my favorites when I was a kid.'
The eyes of the old man became sad. 'I wish I could have seen Africa just once in my life.'
'You've never been there either?'
'No. I always wanted to, but there were other things I needed to do. You know Stephanie, once you have a family to take care of, a job, a house to pay for, you just don't have much room for your personal interests anymore.' he paused and looked down for a moment 'I haven't thought about it for the past fifty years. That is just how life goes, I guess.'
Stephanie felt pity for the old man.

[Anonymous No.4704344]

>>4704331
"there was a pause and then a sign of relief."
any objection to
"he paused, then gave a /sign/* of relief."
>sign
would help if not so abstract, invisible.

The rest is fine. How it plays out would be the locus for further discussion.

[Anonymous No.4704561]

>>4704432
new thread.

[Anonymous No.4704697]

Those pigeons on those trees
Gray rocks
Germinating
Silouhettes meshed like the ink
Paintings I would do when I was nine of
Lines of black trees growing to the breath of that straw
Water splash and
Instilling form

Is it their instinct
To stay there so
Or instead an ingrained
Blossom
Of their dead heads
To twitch
Shapes and flowering now
Gone

[Anonymous No.4706988]

invulnerable am I,
I shall likely never die,
I'm the great Thrifty Crook,
I rob each and every nook.
If you were to inquire,
Of these situations dire,
With a riddling tongue,
I'd shoot my wordsmith's gun.
Nary a thing will make sense,
Less of it true. Oh, how you will tense.
But a truth does sleep, underneath these lies,
A terrible truth, one that could reveal my demise,
If you should take all my money, every last cent,
You would soon find me dead, all withered and spent.
And so I cheat, and rob, and collect on my favors.
I speak only in babbles, lest someone avers.
Yet my curse is that I love my own death,
I speak only of that gasping last breath.
Cover it up with insult and hate,
For a while, maybe I'll avoid the bait.
And then when I slip my tightrope's edge,
Those cops they will tax, my pennies they'll dredge.
And then comes the end,
I can see it come, hear it approach,
Well, maybe I'll take just one more broach.

[Anonymous No.4707039]

>>4704344
>"there was a pause and then a sign of relief."
>any objection to
>"he paused, then gave a /sign/* of relief."

I object. Don't use "then". It's a filler word.

[Anonymous No.4707053]

Beneath the darkness,
lies nothing.
Softly

[Anonymous No.4707076]

the chorus was drab
and so was the verse
conductor'll leave in a hearse.
drummer left his time at home,
flutist went and left her breath.
i notice, 'cause i'm on the meth
trombonist plays a slide whistle,
the bassist never rosins his bow,
boy oh boy, listen to my heart go!
my pulse is steadier than the cabaret,
singer sounds like he smoked a cigar
but i always come and play,
just to admire you from afar.

fucked up (?) love poem, I guess.

[Anonymous No.4707118]

Two steps forward, then three steps back.
That's how he fights, indecisive hack.
His knight moves into the wrong damn row,
taking his queen down in tow.
Sweat drips on down his brow,
Looking pretty scared now.
Clock keeps ticking,
He'll go down kicking.

Still he takes a while, I say , "Go."
He's getting pissed, think he's gonna blow.
Two step steps 'til checkmate,
Looks like he ain't too great.
Stands up, knocks over his chair.
The door opens quick, a whoosh of air,
Walks out quiet, now he's not too tall.
So come each Kasparovs' fall.

These are the beginning of the lyrics I'm working on for a friends song; the accompanying music is similar to that Modest Mouse (not a fan, I just know they sound like this) trope of whisper-screaming.

all critique is appreciated.

[Anonymous No.4707237]

bump

[Anonymous No.4708848]

>>4707118
Big fan of Modest Mouse here.

I think you're on the right track, but I can't see this working with the kind of melodies and sounds that the band uses in their music.

[Anonymous No.4709456]

>>4708848
I didn't mean literally a modest mouse song, but the same type of singing, where Isaac is singing, then shouting, then whispering. Musicality aside, how are the lyrics themselves?

[Anonymous No.4709615]

>>4709456
What you're describing, with the singing-whispering-singing is more along the line of Smashing Pumpkins.

But I digress.

Lyrically, it could work for what you're saying. I think "whoosh" in the second stanza could be changed into something a little less onomatopoeia-y, simply because if this is supposed o be a serious song, whoosh doesn't match.

Just for a little more help, is the tempo of the singng supposed to be fast or slow? That's important.

[Anonymous No.4709703]

>>4709615
It's very slow and dragging, almost like the instruments are shackled.
Also, I changed "whoosh" to gust, think that works better?

[Anonymous No.4709718]

>>4709703
Gust definitely works better. Otherwise, I think it's okay. Not something I'd listen to personally, but it works.

The biggest issue is that we can't hear how it'll be sung/work with the instruments, so it'll be hard to really judge.