Writing Critique General

[Anonymous No.5243124]

Post the opening paragraph to whatever you are working on and a brief summary. I'd love to see what you guys are working on for my own inspiration and how to improve my own writing.

Hard mode: before you post something of yours, give a genuine critique of someone else first, perhaps something that has been skipped or ignored.

I'm trying to write a semi-autobiographical novel, but I don't really know exactly where to go from there, I was thinking about the slow radicalisation of an impressionable young male.

[Anonymous No.5243170]

The roar of the engines reverberated through the bystanders legs,echoing throughout the abandoned streets of Asbury Park. Above the cracked and disheveled asphalt, their dreams held them down no more. Reality was a figment of the imagination on Kingsley Avenue, all that bothered those who dared to show up those nights - those being the burnouts, the outcasts, the restless and the idealists was who was going to win.

>summary
Short story I'm working on. It doesn't really revolve around plot as much as it does around atmosphere and the characters, but essentially it's about a group of lower class factory workers in the rust belt whose only outlet of frustration and only source of enjoyment is racing on the backstreets of their small town.

Sorry about no critique OP. I'm just starting to write so am most likely shit and would feel out of place critiquing you.

[Anonymous No.5243176]

>>5243170
Okay I actually don't know if this should be broken up, so here's the second paragraph and first combined.

The roar of the engines reverberated through the bystanders legs,echoing throughout the abandoned streets of Asbury Park. Above the cracked and disheveled asphalt, their dreams held them down no more. Reality was a figment of the imagination on Kingsley Avenue, all that bothered those who dared to show up those nights - those being the burnouts, the outcasts, the restless and the idealists was who was going to win. Randall Stein sat in the bucket seat of his 1969 Chevrolet Impala, his 396’s rumble tearing into the unusually warm New Jersey night. His callused fingers gripped the steering wheel. There were no seatbelts on Kingsley, no helmets, no safeguards or roll bars. Maybe it was the bravado among the racers - that they felt they had to prove something to one another, but when your guts seep into the cracks of the street - what entitlement was there to feel? It didn’t matter to them. Nothing did.

[Anonymous No.5243188]

>>5243124
the question in parentheses is idiotic and unnecessary

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5243192]

What literary works have you read, OP?

I ask because it seems that people that haven't read much default to this realist style where they put a non-character in a non-situation and have him describe his non-setting. I'm not trying to insult you I'm just thinking about your writing method. The subject of your piece is totally trivial so the only thing that could possibly redeem it is an artful use of language to artificially create interest where there is none.

[Anonymous No.5243228]

>>5243170
>Reality was a figment of the imagination on Kingsley Avenue, all that bothered those who dared to show up those nights - those being the burnouts, the outcasts, the restless and the idealists was who was going to win.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this doesn't make grammatical sense.

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5243232]

>>5243176
you're trying too hard with your descriptiveness; you're throwing in words for the sake of having words and not because they fit the purpose.

>The roar of the engines reverberated through the bystanders legs,echoing throughout the abandoned streets of Asbury Park.

Too many phrases:
>The roar of the engines reverberated
>through the bystanders legs,
>echoing throughout the abandoned streets
>of Asbury park

It sounds clunky. You need to keep a pace/rhythm in your prose to make it engaging. Seeing as you are describing racing it might be best to go for as fast a rhythm as you can.
This is sloppiness here: "the roar of the engines reverberated . . . echoing throughout the abandoned streets", I say that because the "roar of the engines" is reverberating and echoing, that's two verbs when you only really need one. Try something like

>Asbury Park. The roar of the engines reverberated through the bystanders legs and throughout the abandoned streets.
or even
>Asbury Park. The roar of the engines in the abandoned streets.

> Above the cracked and disheveled asphalt, their dreams held them down no more.

Why do dreams hold people down?

>Reality was a figment of the imagination . . .

Is it "dreams" or is it "reality" that is disappearing on Kingsley Avenue? Which is it? Do you mean something like, "reality does not hold people down here, as dreams take the place of reality"?

>all that bothered those who dared to show up those nights - those being the burnouts, the outcasts, the restless and the idealists was who was going to win.

should be

>all that bothered those who dared to show up those nights - those being the burnouts, the outcasts, the restless and the idealists - was who was going to win.

Here I will will rewrite the thing just by cutting excess fat to see what it looks like:

Asbury Park. Engines roar in abandoned streets. For these dreamers the only reality on the asphalt is victory. It is a humid night, and R. Stein's experienced hands are behind the wheel of his 1969 Chevrolet Impala. No seatbelts, no helmets, no safeguard, and no roll bars - this is Kingsley Avenue, New Jersey. Maybe it was bravado, or maybe they just had nothing to lose.

I kept it in present tense. I noticed you switched to present tense in the Chevrolet sentence. Present tense works alright for this. I changed Randall Stein to R. Stein because I thought it looked more stylish.

Try reading screenplays from talented people m8. I think you are going for a kind of cinematic feel here and well written screenplays are laconic.

[Anonymous No.5243233]

>>5243124

It feels a bit choppy and over-inflated at times. You can definitely make it more concise. For instance, instead of writing the initial sentence as you have, you could say "I'm sitting on my trusty, white stool mum painted that looks like the obscenely priced offspring of some wanky art deco shop." Or something like that. Also it sounds quite awkward when you disembody yourself in saying "my body slouches again..." and so on. Try to focus more on the whole picture rather than finer details, the story will form much better that way and your writing style will start to show itself almost effortlessly.

[Anonymous No.5243243]

>>5243176
>>5243170

Pretty much everything >>5243232 said. You spend too much time circumnavigating the point without going directly to it. It makes it tedious and frustrating to read.

[Anonymous No.5243250]

Jerry said six but that effectively means seven, so I'll be there at eight. It's the third this month--some say it's the cruelest month, being full of showers, introduced by a joke (a bit like most lives, but who am I to say), and whatnot. Good thing only the weather varies--and the one a Friday ago was a gas, full of gaseous, sudsy beers and cheers and billowing beats that made the crowd froth atop a rippling moonlit tide that made the sharks frenzy. Despite the abundant contact, I'd like to think it was a disease-free affair; sans assault too.

Mid soirée, while enjoying a chilled Manhattan in a styrofoam 'JJ' monogrammed cup, I shot the shit with Ricardo Nixon (my nick-name for his Mexican-Republican culo) about how the newest Star Wars trilogy will be the final installation in the trilogy of trilogies that will most accurately represent the last-leg of pre-harvest garden preparation. The first represented seeds; you want to believe they'll grow into something beautiful, fruitful, something you'd show-off to grandma. Yet, and you forget this, garden tending is a feral bitch that demands tedious attention, and so George Lucas became the pound that pays not to give it to her, which brings me to the second: manure. Sweet, tangy cow excrement. It looks full of nutrition that will garner a beautiful spring yield, but eventually you notice that with such little watering all you seem to attract are filthy flies who believe they've hit the jackpot--we all witnessed the atrocity. And so soon you realize you (yes George Lucas, you) don't want heirloom tomatoes, beets, pineapples, cabbage, or even (to abandon the metaphor) a half decent feature; so now the manure is just shit, and now you want to sell the plot (of land). A new owner comes along and, under my suspicion, plans to do nothing but plant flowers made of tinsel and plasticine gleam. Yet people are still going to sit through another five-plus hours of smell-O-visionless shit. And, for the most part, they won't even register the whole fecal matter-less extravaganza because why would they in such a shit saturated world? And with such dullness? Sure I could be a tad wrong. "Fuck right you're wrong," Ricardo couldn't help assuring me. But anything Disney peddles off is something peddled: a product, a drug, sugar at the movies. (And I don't even really like Star Wars).

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5243252]

>>5243232

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5243262]

>>5243252
more http://archive.foolz.us/tv/thread/37864267/#q37868043

[Anonymous No.5243273]

>>5243232
First of all, thanks for the lengthy and helpful critique.
Secondly, I'm actually coming from screenwriting (3 years or so) which I feel might be hindering my writing a little bit - though it'll just be something I have to overcome.

You think the biggest thing I need to overcome is my outlandishly (from what I'm seeing) purple prose?

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5243275]

>>5243250
You cannot refer to March as the cruellest month.

[Anonymous No.5243279]

>>5243273
I'm trying to find a way to describe HOW it's hindering me, but I can't.

When I wrote, I wrote for ME - meaning whatever I wrote I (prospectively) was going to film, so I was fairly descriptive w/ the action lines. Nothing overboard, just not industry - to the teeth standard.

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5243286]

>>5243273
>outlandishly

It's not that bad. Not nearly that bad. We see MUCH MUCH worse. I think you just need to have it mind what kind of effect you want the writing to have on the reader and manifest that in the language and rhythm of the prose.
I'm not sure where lengthy descriptions are appropriate in writing. Maybe in romantic writing that goes on long flights of fancy.
http://www.logopoeia.com/novalis/hymns.html
Where else do you see this kind of over-descriptiveness? It only seems to work for opium-fuelled romanticism, anywhere else it just comes across as very bad writing.

[Anonymous No.5243289]

>>5243279
>>5243273
And also, when I wrote screenplays - I never really read novels/novellas. I religiously read screenplays though, so I feel that as I'm reading more and more, my writing skills will begin to flourish a bit.

[Anonymous No.5243294]

>>5243275

I'm referring to April, 'the third' is referring to the party, not the month in the year.

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5243299]

>>5243294
kk :)

[Anonymous No.5243301]

>>5243286
refer to
>>5243289
I'm just starting to read books after a half-decade hiatus. I ordered Naked Lunch, A Happy Death, Lolita, The Metamorphosis and On the Road as a sort of starter-pack of literature.

[Anonymous No.5243308]

The bullet sliced through the air, the flesh, and the hearts of particles and people around and behind it. The bullet, following that grimace and bang, helped only in the biting of the dust of a man that the slaves would proclaim to be emancipating, a man with a hat atop his head and integrity about his belt, a man wishful to give you a penny for your thoughts. Driving a red Ford F-150 now, I like to think of things like this, things like the stories that pervade and invade our lives, testing our agreeability and openness to things that seem so foreign and yet, only after the fact of squinting acceptance, so simply familiar and raw; local. I once talked to a stranger of a man at a liquor store for what seemed like four score and seven minutes. He was buying a 6-pack of Dogfish Head (one of my favorites) and so I inadvertently sparked up conversation with him by complimenting his choice of brew, which flung us into a discussion about the particularities of married life and the moral conundrums associated with capital punishment and the penile system in general. I embraced and entombed this man's words into my gut as we meandered out of the store and into the parking lot, plainly appreciating his unabashed conviviality and desire to talk to another wandering soul. His name was John, an easy name to remember, and even six years passed, whenever I grab myself a Dogfish Head, I think of him and quietly smile.

[Anonymous No.5243311]

>>5243299

Aside from that, do you have any other comments? I'd love to hear 'em, especially if they're negative.

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5243323]

>>5243289
Read poetry.

[Anonymous No.5243333]

The street felt the vibrations, the vibrations of a titan, of a legend thought dead, of Nobby McElroy. Nobby's impressive gait and sweltering swagger impressed even the most blind of women. His pheromones radiated out from under his arms in such a manner that even the gnats nearby seemed transfixed in his direction. With each walloping step, the dogs and children of the neighborhood became more and more distracted. Thoughts of Godzilla shook each household, and soon, not a window remained vacant. The only thing that outweighed McElroy himself was his reputation. Gold medal winning Olympic disc thrower in '82 and now the house-ridden--well, once house-ridden--proprietor of the internet craze: WhatsGrandmaDoing.com. Nobby was a legend for sure, but now, he's become legend incarnate, fable reborn. Look's like Spring's coming early this year.

[Anonymous No.5243347]

>>5243176

I get what you are trying to convey but it doesn't flow too well for me. Also, what do you mean when you say 'their dreams held them down no more' then go on to talk about their imagination? I don't really get what you are trying to say.

>>5243188

Noted. I thought it would give the reader some introduction to the way I think.

>>5243192

To be honest, I haven't really managed to fully finish a whole book since I read the Outsiders in grade 9. I've read most of Trainspotting and Skag Boys. A bit of "Mrs. Chatterley's Lover" and a collection of other things here and there. Thanks for the feedback, could you recommend me some literature that you think would help my writing style? Also, I've attached some prose I wrote a while ago, what do you think?

>>5243233

Yes I was worried about it being concise and I have been working on it a lot, thanks mang. Do you have any sources which would be useful to me?

>>5243250

I think your style is smooth and easy to read, however I got lost in your Garden-Starwars metaphor and didn't really understand it completely but that may just be due to my ineptitude. Also, I found that it dragged on a little too long according to what I've been told about being 'concise'.

>>5243252
>>5243262

I'm guessing this is a screenplay? I think its written very well however I don't really feel too captivated by it as I feel the New York detective thing has been done to death.

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5243358]

>>5243311
dunno man, that kind of nihilism just makes me sad.

Reminds me of Tao Lin and the "alt lit" crowd in general who like to write vacuously about vacuous people to show how vacuous we all are.

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/relationship-story-v18n6

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5243365]

>>5243347
>I'm guessing this is a screenplay? I think its written very well however I don't really feel too captivated by it as I feel the New York detective thing has been done to death.

Yeah, it's a screenplay and it's not something I wrote, it's a parody that comes from /tv/. Follow the link I posted. There's more of it. The use of language achieves the effect that the author aims for though. It's quality pulp writing.

[Anonymous No.5243372]

>>5243308

I love your writing style.

>His name was John, an easy name to remember, and even six years passed, whenever I grab myself a Dogfish Head, I think of him and quietly smile.
>even six years passed

I think should be:

>His name was John, an easy name to remember, and even though six years have passed, whenever I grab myself a Dogfish Head, I think of him and quietly smile.

also

>penile

I think you mean penal. kek.

>>5243333

No qualms here boss, sounds pretty solid.

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5243376]

>>5243358
I'm talking about this kind of stuff:
http://muumuuhouse.com/

I don't really want to give you advice because to do that I would have to think about this kind of writing and this kind of writing is painful to me.

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5243382]

>>5243376
http://muumuuhouse.com/nc.fiction4.html

[Anonymous No.5243407]

>>5243372

lol, right on all accounts

>>5243358
>>5243376
>>5243382

Okay, here's the successive paragraphs. I think it picks up, but I'd love to hear what you think.

My stomach grumbles at a stop light, a fart followed by a grin. A busted relic from the past butts its dilapidated head into my windshield from the block up left between North and Hargrove street: Blockbuster. Dung comes to mind again; Mayan ruins too. A second set of stars grabs my attention from atop: dusk, Alpha Centauri; I can see Mars through the smog. I wonder if Serena'll be there. The song transits to "How Long Baby" by Them and my fingers undulate to the sapphire tune like they're paid. Five more minutes across this newly paved pavement; the middle road lines swoop under my car fast and quick like Speedy Gonzalez, deceiving me of their length with foreshortening, a medieval technique.

TGIF.

My turn signal sets itself left, anticipating an approaching turn. The streets are long and linear in Dallas (insert dick(joke)) like taut clotheslines strung up with undergarments from the 50's. The turn of the century: all is right angles, even this one to the right. Hanover street: bingo. 1134: there she blows. A panoply of cars sits astride the right curb and people parking, opening, walking, all exude perfume or cologne. I can't smell them, but I can see them.

The front door swallows me, gluttonous, revealing gurgling innards that course with flashes of left-handed drinks and chattering vocal chords. The hardly austere decor complements the mosaic of generally attractive faces that remain cloaked by anonymity; namelessness rings it's name out like a wet towel in a silent movie. Shapely tits and a surplus of lascivious lips; lucky lawyer bastard's house could not be better stocked, boozy and floozy wise. I slice through the simmering crowd at a slight slant to the left towards the kitchen so to help myself to a little beer, hopefully Shiner. About a dozen babes, banging broads, salacious Cinderellas, and/or (if you'd like to satiate hunger of respect) lovely ladies stand in my purview, which is happily limited to the lively and open living room lightly pulsating to the rhythm of a suspected seventies soul song whose name I can't recall, if I've known it at all. I offer a few "excuse me's" to find that--cool--Jerry does have Shiner--buck goes the bock on a rock--but fuck, I can't find the bottle opener. I see an evidently Hispanic guy sporting a Parliament between his shaved head and left ear gesticulating at a tight, inviting redhead with a cartilage piercing and the air of expensive sour candy around her; I ask him for a lighter.

[Anonymous No.5243416]

>>5243382

And ooohh, I'm definitely trying to stray away from this type of bleeding edge bullshit. I'm aiming realism, absurdity, and oddly enough, romanticism.

[Anonymous No.5243535]

Billy took a stroll down Seminar Street when he found himself getting accosted by a ruddy fellow in a powdered wig.

"Fucking scientific boojum! Monist!"

This outburst greatly confused Billy, who asked for clarification. Happily the fellow in the wig revealed himself to be a proud jabberwock theologian with quite the online following. As for clarification, that was the tricky part. Apparently, the only way to fully understand the theologian's righteous anger would require at least three years of Billy's life to be pissed away in some academic cubbyhole. His reward would be cosmic enlightenment plus an astronomical student debt.

"But I don't have time for that," commented Billy. Fortunately for him there was another solution. The jabberwock theologian was happy to cure Billy of his gross ignorance and convert him on the spot for a small donation of 101bux. Like any fresh grasshopper neophyte he would be molded into a wellspring of eternal sycophantic loyalty and frequent upvotes. Billy then realized he did not have 101 smackaroonies to spare, because of the economy. The theologian turned ruddier than ever before. "That's because the economy is controlled by disgusting infidels such as you!" Billy said he wasn't like that! "It doesn't matter what you think you are," snarled the theologian. "You do not share my convictions and therefore you are going straight to HELL!"

[Anonymous No.5243556]

>>5243535

I really hope you're parodying the parodying of religious fanatics, because if not, please go back to r/atheism.

[Anonymous No.5243571]

an attempt

http://pastebin.com/E08zN5zB

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5243587]

>>5243407
Your writing lacks emotional content. It is perpetually tickling with superficiality. It lacks empathy for human beings and any sort of outlook on life other than the trivial surface of things.
If you are going to tickle with superficiality like this you have to keep it "goofy" and humorous, like a stand-up comedian. It's extremely trashy and so the best you can get out of it is entertainment, distraction. It's impossible to impart some message about life or something moving or beautiful with this kind of style. The best you can hope for is a laugh out of world-weary ironic nihilist types who have given up on trying to find meaning and want to mock humanity.Your writing does have the spirit of mockery, though I'm not sure that you are aware of it. It reminds me of when I see vapid facebook pictures and ugly posters of crap films: all I can imagine is the Devil sneering in contempt at how degenerate he has made mankind. Your characters are big empty nothings, they are just sensual creatures aimlessly navigating around the world, encountering nothing but little goofy "moments".

You will not achieve romanticism. You will at best achieve moments of cloying sentimentality as two characters desperately try to break through the vapidity of their lives to achieve something meaningful, but it will be shallow. Kafka was the best writer of this type because while his characters are emasculated, dehumanized robots, he keeps a sense of empathy with his characters and wishes that they were human, that they had a soul and weren't living meaningless and empty lives. But from Kafka to Tao Lin all hope has been abandoned and meaninglessness is fully embraced; they are no longer ironic, they are sincerely ironic, they lack the emotional goods in life to be anything other than perpetually ironic with a few moments of sentimentality every now and then. It's actually very sad and pathetic. It's the ultimate in emasculation. When a person literally CANNOT have any sincere emotion anymore because he has been too cut off from his emotions by brutalizing schooling and media. Read Trifles for a Massacre by Louis-Ferdinand Céline; there is a lot of Jew hating vitriol but he says a lot of shit that you need to hear. You can find it free online in pdf. You need to read it.

My advice to you would be to get religion/philosophy and try to break away from the shackles of emasculating modernity.

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5243599]

>>5243587
Don't take this criticism too personally. Your writing reflects contemporary humanity quite well and with a bit of refinement could make for a great period piece. My resentment is not for you writing but for the object that your writing reflects - the emasculated human being with no tradition, virtue, or meaning in life other than garbage entertainment. It's not your fault that this is the nature of men living in contemporary liberal democracies.

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5243625]

>>5243599
Your writing's potential is as satire, the satire that people write when their culture has become effeminate and corrupt. If you acquire a sincere outlook in life enough to realize that the trivial human being that you are describing is contemptible and worthy of condemnation, then you could write a good satire because your writing will gain an ethical purpose and thus acquire substance; it will mean something even though the characters will be meaningless idiots. Read Aristophanes, Juvenal. If you take them as your examples you have a chance of writing something worthy.
Although I'm reminded of a quote from the Bible:

>For every mocker is an abomination to the Lord, and his communication is with the simple.

If you follow my advice you are going to become a mocker. It's the difference between how when the gentiles society's were crumbling they would write bitter satires in the manner of Aristophanes, but when Israelite society was crumbling you would have a prophet like Jeremiah weeping to God and praying for forgiveness and restoration. The latter is infinitely more noble.

[Anonymous No.5243634]

Tripfag see >>5243347

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5243638]

It's amusing to me how in ancient times the Jews were so superior to the gentiles in that they produced so many prophets full of righteous anger and sorrow for the degradation of their people, whereas the gentiles produced witty fools who mocked their own people and hurried the process of degeneration along - whereas today the Jews are the kings of degenerate comedy and satire which mocks humanity.

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5243724]

>>5243347
I like that piece in your pic a lot. It describes that neurotic tendency that wants to THINK its way out of despair rather than come to terms with things on an emotional level. This tendency is one that resident hero DFW spent his entire career trying to describe and I think you've done it here at least as well as he did. What you've done here is to match the style/form of your language with the thought you are trying to express; you achieve a unity in form/content which is the essence of good writing. You have done this by observing that you are trying to describe a neurotic and anxious person who cannot get a hold of is thoughts, and realizing that you can express this frame of mind by using choppy prose. These are the kinds of observations you need to be making.

> could you recommend me some literature that you think would help my writing style?

I think a style comes down to taste, a style is not so much what you express as how you express yourself, which comes down to personality, your own values. So with developing a style you just need to think about what you want your writing to achieve. Be frank with yourself. A style is an emotion, so let your style/emotion be sincere. That said a distinctive/original style is not something that you can acquire from other authors, you have to invent one. But there isn't much shame in imitating the style of past authors to pick up on techniques. I can't really recommend you a style to imitate because it comes down to your personality.
Just look up famous literary movements and different periods and see what takes you interest. Read a couple of the most famous poems / paragraphs from the most famous prose of that period/movement. You will be able to find all this free online. If you can find one author you really admire you can just imitate every nuance of his style. I think finding one truly great author and imitating him to the best of your ability is better than reading a lot of stuff and half-assedly imitating bits here, bits there, synthesizing conflicting styles. There are some truly GREAT writers who did exactly this, taking a great author that came before them as their mentor and just copying them until they found their own distinctive voice. Mentor-Apprentice relationships have historically made great artists.

[Anonymous No.5243821]

>>5243638
Jews stopped existing after the Roman genocide in A.D. 70, the so-called 'Jews' of today are impostors.

[Anonymous No.5243962]

>>5243587

I believe you've mistaken my offerings as the countenance of an emotionally downtrodden majority that, as you say, has succumbed to the numbing waves of modernity. These are merely the first excerpts from whatever-it-is that I'm working on, yet you've managed to make heaving and sweeping statements about not only my writing, but me as a person. I say these condemnations, albeit not malign, yet not entirely insincere either, have been not all accurate. You hint towards vapidity, yes, it exists, but you must remember that in the case of my story's beginnings, I am merely providing a stream of thought from the characters perspective, and so in such little text, it is not the intended goal to expound on sentimentality as it is as much to simply set the scene. You mention my lack of empathy for human being when no interactions between any have occurred yet. The raw nature of humanity can only be appreciated in the dense contrast of its opposite; such is the set of my scene. This all being said, I take you're critique turned tirade honestly and will not forget its words. However, as I've said, I think you've mislabeled me by too strongly associating me with a freeform entity that very much so exists in this sphere of life and nearly every other in today's day and age, leading to what I'm on the verge to call projecting.

[Anonymous No.5244065]

>>5243571
Your use of language is excellent, though some might consider it stuffy. It would work very well for a period piece. Just a couple things I picked up on:

>"The congruence of overcast weather on an otherwise bright day..."
I think you mean "incongruence". As in, the overcast doesn't "fit" the day. So you might want to rephrase it as "The incongruent overcast of the otherwise bright day". Also, I don't see how an overcast permits a pleasant view of something. Cloud or no cloud, it won't obstruct the cityscape unless there's fog.

>"Veritably in the midst of battle; his mind wandered nonetheless."

Veritably is used incorrectly here. It's only an intensifier. "In the midst of a veritable battle" would work, and I'm not entirely clear on why "nonetheless" is there.

>"...complimenting of the mountainous horizon..."
Obviously remove "of the".

>"The downfall of territorial behemoths, contained within a bunch of particles. The overshadowing cyclicality of the sight, that facilitated Georg's daydreams, grew discomforting."

This is very wordy, even for the time period. The last sentence doesn't make complete grammatical sense, either.

The way I see it, your use of language is excellent (bar slight exceptions) but you tend to dawdle. A lot of excess paint on the canvas. I'd recommend maybe trying to interlace descriptions of the landscape with the action a little more, keeping everything you've written, just mixing it up. With a slight redraft, it'll be very good.

[Anonymous No.5244084]

“Stop that.”
“Begging your pardon sir, we are but standing here....?”
“We are but poor old men, sir; we mean no harm.”
‘You’re antagonising these people.”
“Of whom we are together a number, sir.”
“Merely adding some levity to their misfortunate day, matey.;”
“I’d much rather you wouldn’t.”
“You’d take this joy from us, sir?”
“Mayhaps we should all kill ourselves, then.”
“Excuse me?”
“What?”
“You say such things the same morning a man is found murdered?”
“Was it my recommendation we murder one another?”
“Begging your pardon sir, truly, ‘tis of my nature - I think myself an honest man - but is’t there a selfishness to murder?”
“Yes, o-of course, a selfishness to both....”
“The same breed of selfishness, sir, for you would agree sir that selfishness by and large is a most incontrovertible sin?”
“I am, in my blood, a Lutheran, and agree whole-heartedly.”
“But then, sir, the selfishness of the - oh, leave-taking - is fair enough perceived a transgression on the soul in the eyes of God, which is not strictly selfish, rather it is the ill consideration of those surrounding the subject....”
“And, sir,” the second man continuing. “If murder follows the same course of thought - that is, absolute selfishness, and ill consideration of others, total ignorance to them, in fact - what may we say the true motive to be?”
“Wait, what?”
“The motive!” Both heads are swelling into one another, intumescent pustules offending the eyes of the captain “In the absence of thought of the social repercussions of the act, and those of the soul, what is left?”
“Well, I suppose...” One of the old men reaches into his filthied pocket and removes a handful of brown sludge and with unashamed liberty smears it across the captain’s face. He begins to wheeze. “God!”
“We are ourselves reflected in your eyes, good sir! We only filthy you for we appreciate filth ourselves! It’s in our belief that the scoundrel, and all others like him, did only see himself in the victim. They are one in the same, sir, two men of different stories met at the same conclusion.”
"Then it's with great pleasure I flagellate myself!" The captain, coming upon the men.
"The god fearing Lutheran, eh?" One says t'other.

[Anonymous No.5244090]

>>5243556
Nah, I wanted to try parodying the dogmatism of SJW cults. I guess when I post it here people will just think I'm being le funnay atheist troll.

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5244142]

>>5243599
I misused the term period piece here. What I meant is you could write a work that reflects modern society well.

>>5243962
> You mention my lack of empathy for human being when no interactions between any have occurred yet.

An interaction has occurred between you and the character you have written.
I was hasty in trying to infer your nature from the nature of your work, I don't really know your nature and I was just making assumptions. For all I know you could later redeem this vapid character with a religious moment where he realizes that his life is shallow and needs to reform himself. If you maintain that vapid outlook throughout however it suggests that either you are vapid (which was not and is not my assumption) or that you have a kind of cynical view of contemporary humanity, or that you are writing a satire about a certain kind of man.

My question would be to you: if you are planning on introducing some sort of conflict or romance in to this character's life, how are you going to pull this off? If the character does not mature and you continue to present him as this muddleheaded manchild then it suggests ill-will on your part, that you despise your character. What I mean is that what your language suggests is that the character has no sense of ethics or purpose, that he's an effete aesthete. Now, not many authors change the language style of their work to reflect a change in the protagonist's character, but that's exactly what you are going to have to do if your character is mature, because the slapstick language you are using currently is not fit for maturity. If your character meets an obstacle and has to reform himself to overcome it, maturing the process, and you reflect this in your language - it could be a successful work.

[Anonymous No.5244186]

I open my palm, and disable the audio using the virtual display. Pots and pans fly in silence across the kitchen. I see her face take fathers fist, and she collapses. I close my eyes. I turn around, feel my way around, and return to my room. I shut, lock, and walk away from the door . I drag blankets off the bed, and in the closet we go. I lie down, wrapped in cloth, and the closet is shut. No sense of anything in black silence. O open my palm, and begin playing a video. She is ahead of me, both our feet share wooden planks, and we cooperate walking forward using rope handles. She is smiling, happy being my friend. Our car pulls into the driveway, the door opens, father appears. He stops walking, stares our way, and continues inside our house. Tears pile up, around my now closed eyes. We stop walking together, and now she wants inside for lunch. I nod, with my head down. She holds my hand, and we enter our house. We continue walking, until seeing father in the kitchen, and she leaves me give him a hug. He lifts her up, she wraps her legs around his waist, and they kiss. His hands feel her bottom up, and she casts her sight on me. I open my palm, and stop the video. My chest pains. Light is seen through my shut eyelids, and the morning felt where it strikes my skin. I open my eyes, I open my palm, and enable audio. The alarm clock is ringing, the fan ticking, and outside the birds singing. Cold sweat is wiped off my brow. i breathe deep to slow my heartrate. I open my palm to read the morning weather. I put on some clothing of the floor, comb my hair, and go out the door. With my only remaining dollar, I make an offering to the vending machine, and receive its animal crackers. I kneel to accept the reward, and save the snack with my open palm.

practice writing from my phone last night before sleep

[Anonymous No.5244196]

>>5244186
You know, I was just aimlessly scrolling through lit and I stopped on your post because I saw "tears pile up".

That should not happen ever. Pots and pans should not fly. Writing in clichés makes everyone sick.

[Anonymous No.5244209]

>>5244196
i tried to avoid cliches, and deliberately chose those, i'll try harder next time.

[Anonymous No.5244335]

>>5244084

Reads like a Victorian rendition of The Republic. Aside from my opinions on the religious and moral inquiries provided in the text, my suggestion would be to try to make the whole dialogue more clear. The beginning of the exchange feels awkward and a tad nonsensical. It picks up a little but the characters seem to disregard what another says and/or jump to thoughts that have vague relations to the former questions, such as

>“Was it my recommendation we murder one another?”
>“Begging your pardon sir, truly, ‘tis of my nature - I think myself an honest man - but is’t there a selfishness to murder?”

Commonly, a 'no' would precede the second man's answer. Try to clarify the dialogue with adjustments like this and it will read much better.

[Anonymous No.5244341]

Wind sliced through the air, howling through the mountains as it blew. The gusts of hard, ice cold air brought white flakes of snow with it, dropping them from the sky so they could nest on the ground. A few flakes fell from the sky, twisting and tumbling elegantly down to the earth. They became more direct as they approached the ground, but their white purity was short lived as they quickly became stained in red. Patterns formed in the snow, melting through the cold as the warm liquid left its container and reached its destination. Over the sound of the wind, violent, deafening cracks spread throughout the mountain. With each crack came a flash and another splash of red. Behind each crack was a click as a man's finger pressed ever so gently on a trigger. The red was no longer an ensemble of patterns. Each of the small blots had grown out to connect to their siblngs, creating one large circle of red. Only six bodies broke the monotone pattern of liquid, five lay down as the last stood in the middle of them. The sources of red blood soon stopped breathing and the cracking ceased as they did. One of the six bodies remained alive, as it stood there; an angel of death to each of its opponents.

The last man standing looked around himself, his expression grim and empty, his eyes as dead as the five before him. Without a single sound, he holstered his large gun, flicking the safety on as the barrel slid into the leather pocket. His silence continued as he left the bodies and walked off into the mountains, his cloak flapping around him in the harsh wind. With his right hand he reached into his pocket and pulled out a little black box. He pressed the red button and began talking into the cassette recorder. "August sixth, time-" he looked at the watch on his left hand "seventeen twenty-one. Unit: Solo Alpha Squad Zero-One. Mission: Under Rug fifty-four. Cause of distubance found in mountains north of Duopolis-East. Scoped likely hideouts in caves and found weapons and supply stash. Stash was destroyed, unit was attacked by five armed targets. All five terminated. Unit will return to Duopolis-East and submit report. End Report."

[Anonymous No.5244351]

>>5243571

You write quite similarly to George Eliot, ergo, very well. Props, kudos, congrats. My two cents would be to hone in on your oratory ability and conjure up a story that's worth telling, not to say the one you've begun here isn't.

[Anonymous No.5244410]

>>5244142

I'm >>5243962 and I'm indefinitely planning on introducing not one, but several romantic and emotional conflicts that will cement the work as a modern day coming-of-age story, well to refract my own recent life's experiences. For instance, the party the protagonist attends leads him to a night drenched in debauchery: this sets up the platform from which the character embarks on a, for the lack of a better term, 'soul-searching' journey that leads him to a variety of introspective, inter-relational, and ethical epiphanies that border on the spiritual or supernatural, all while being fueled by the extremities of both life's banalities and absurdities. The work is supposed to be as funny as it is poignant; though I may be tilting more towards humor at this point. For instance: there's a scene with a pedophile midget who finagles his way into the ball pit in a Chuck E. Cheese. I'm not one to hold restrictions to myself, so there exists a massive amount of breadth of human sentiment, opinions, humor, incidents, and characters in my writings; it's depth, as you've suggested, that I must work on more. And I'll be done digging when I'm dead.

[Anonymous No.5244437]

>>5244341

>wind sliced through the air

I'm going to go ahead and stop you there. Wind can't slice through air. It is air; fast, moving air. After reading a few more of your sentences, it appears I'm right: you spend too much time on the less-than-fine finer details of a scene. You stretch the rubber far more than elasticity allows. Tighten up your writing, because at this point it's tedious to read. Sentences drag on like a slug; a lot is written but not a lot happens. Basically, just find something worth writing about, then write, not vice-versa.

[Anonymous No.5244448]

And Derrick shot the last of his five bullets; the ear-cuffed crowd tightened in anticipation for the results of the competition's final round. The pulley-system brought the target close enough to see: three in the ten, two in the nine, one short of victory. An extra round would decide it. McCleary would go first. The audience was quiet. With eyes focused, he stood firmly at the firing counter a few paces in front of Derrick with his fingers hugging the trigger. A shot and McCleary dropped his gun, five rounds full. The tournament ended and almost everyone went home.

>quints

[Anonymous No.5244452]

>>5244437
Thank you! Seriously, I know I've been lacking but nobody has ever put it that bluntly before. You've been more than wonderful!

[Anonymous No.5244457]

>>5243571
>Initially, Georg had expected the environment to be as dank as the clouds hanging above it

dank story maaaaan

[Anonymous No.5244484]

>>5244335
Thanks for that - I'll keep it in mind. Just to clarify (probably should've posted the preceding paragraph) there are three people in the exchange - two old men and another, who's just sauntered up.

[Anonymous No.5245701]

So, once again, that was it. Jim was left with another seed of guilt to plant in his completely barren gut, well knowing not a single pang of anything would come from it. Being built out of iron ore mined from somewhere in Siberia by Dr. Mengele, as Jim believed he was, rarely produced what you would call an 'emotionally mature person.' See, Jim had a knack for fucking any and all holes that would grant him entry, always hatless, and then leaving them with a fancy 80% chance of contracting the hip new retrovirus: HIV. And in the late 80's, it wasn't just easy to find a willing soul when searching in the right places, it was inevitable. So now, with a drenching crotch, unflinching disposition, and maybe a little satisfaction, Jim decided to dress in a flash because of some seething urge to do something else, anything else. For our crude crusader, meat spoiled very quickly.

[Anonymous No.5245760]

>>5245701
I feel like there's almost too much of an info dump here. I know the first paragraph is supposed to really hook the reader, and in that respect a lot of information might be good. But I feel it's wrong to just cram as much data as possible into the space.

When it comes to 'hooking' a reader, I personally like to do so more by setting the tone, the mood, the 'sensation' of the rest of the book, along with featuring a main character and perhaps one element that will grow in importance. But I don't like to put everything down. I believe in drawing the reader in by slow revelations.

That's just me, of course.

[Anonymous No.5246181]

>>5244065
>I think you mean "incongruence".
Understandable, but I actually do mean congruence here. The congruence I'm referring to is what makes the character's vision so clear.

More specifically, daylight can sometimes make it harder to see things. And I notice when I'm driving I have a much easier time seeing quite far off into the distance when it's overcast, more than I do when it's bright. Haha I understand how using congruent here could seem incongruent though.

>Veritably is used incorrectly here.
Thank you for letting me know, I thought it was applicable like that and didn't realize. I'll change that.
>and I'm not entirely clear on why "nonetheless" is there
Yeah now that I think about it, it would only make sense to say 'nonetheless' after he daydreamed, and not before. Will take out.

>Obviously remove "of the".
Will do.

>This is very wordy, even for the time period. The last sentence doesn't make complete grammatical sense, either.
Yeah you're right. I'll try pace that whole part better, because I think my problem is I'm just trying to rush the metaphor. I get paranoid I'm being long-winded.

>I'd recommend maybe trying to interlace descriptions of the landscape with the action a little more
That can definitely be done.
I think what I'll do is move descriptions of the environment to characters/scenes where they're more relevant.

Really appreciate it, thanks a lot for the kind words too.

>>5244351
Thank you very much for the validation.
I'm attempting to write a story with it.

[Anonymous No.5246224]

>>5246181

No problem. And you should definitely post it once you've applied the aforementioned corrections, because I'm starting a 'best of /lit/' thread soon and would like to include your piece, revisions provided of course.

[Anonymous No.5246268]

>>5244448

> ear-cuffed

That's a type of jewellery. I think you mean ear protectors.

> pulley-system

I wouldn't use hypens unless it's absolutely necessary to let the reader know that the words are connected, or it's customary (twenty-year-old). Pulley system is fine.

>brought the target close enough to see: three in the ten, two in the nine, one short of victory. An extra round would decide it. McCleary would go first.

If this is meant to be a tense moment, you need to develop it more. Make us care about the outcome, which is hard to do in the very first paragraph since we don't know any of the stakes or the characters. If you're not trying to create tension, why not just fast forward to the result so you can start giving us some context to invest us in the story?

>with his fingers hugging the trigger.

finger

>The tournament ended and almost everyone went home.

Beware of wishy-washy, weak words like "maybe", "almost", "perhaps". You're the narrator, tell us whether or not! And if it's not important enough to elaborate, then it's not important enough to even include the "almost" in the first place. The tournament ended and everyone went home.

[Anonymous No.5246317]

>>5246268

The 'almost' is essential to the story. If you read again closely, you can see it's implied that Derrick shot McCleary, in turn causing him to drop with his gun full of ammunition. Almost everyone goes home because McCleary is dead and Derrick presumably goes to jail. I did my best to show and not tell, yet you're quite right about the tension. I'll convey it more exactly. Anyway, I appreciate the read and also the suggestions.

[Anonymous No.5246324]

>>5246317

I should also add that this is supposed to be a standalone short-short story. Almost Twitter publishable.

[Anonymous No.5246330]

Jamal slapped a slurp of suz and cobbled down the slimeslat to gribble on some gooze n griz. Z-boy done copped a clock on Jamal mid-trip-like and eyed down the britches with a sly gromp of griddle. "Get over here nigga," jammered Z. Jamal caught fly of the trick and bumped and bounced on jimmying his fiddle in his rocket pocket, fixing to fix it. Turtling like a jackrabbit, Jamal jumped jiggy-like, rolling crewside on the westside walkin' and talkin' and gawkin' like a bluebird, keepin' fly and dry. Holdin' stacks of slats of scratch, he figged why ain't jumbo insurance be packed and strapped, so he did. Jiving cold turkey, Jamal done flip a flop and turn on his tale to Z. Sliding hands out with a full fledged glicking, clicking glock, boom went the dynamite, rocking the socks off the Z-man, pulling up dem trousers with a slap. Z tumbled and rumbled and crumbled to the 'ment, crying like a river, boltin' big burch with the 9-milla milli lurch. Church bells crack-a-lackin', Jamal kept stackin'.

[Anonymous No.5246813]

>>5243124
Posted this already.
Written hung over, it's still pretty sloppy and has no direction.

>still no dialogue edition\
http://pastebin.com/p5WrByng

[Anonymous No.5246919]

I posted this the other night. People thought it was "okay", but I am stuck.

[Anonymous No.5246984]

>>5246330
10/10

[Anonymous No.5247012]

My question for you is this: Please tell me how often you simply type for the sheer pleasure of typing. Yes, there's reflexive beauty to be found in feeling
the jolts and prods of your fingers translate into movement on a sharp and glowing screen, watching letters appear one by one
in a neat row, marching onwards and onwards and onwards for only as long as you move your own body.

What a thrill.

But how often do you type anything of worth? Does that even matter? You don't think so, it is the simple act of clicking and clacking-- and god knows that
spending $180 on an expensive mechanical keyboard was worth every cent...or so you like to tell yourself, I mean yes the
keyboard is nice but jeez one hundred and eighty dollars for a computer keyboard sure is getting up there on the scale of gratuitous spending. Maybe you're wasting your money.

[Anonymous No.5247051]

I have no idea what this is. I just sat down and let my own whiny BS talk. Maybe I can make it into something worthwhile.

For a long time now, I have been keenly aware of the stench of incinerated shit emanating from the future, that is, ruptured septic shit, shit that snarls out in space the moment the containing film or medium is broken. To be sure, to be certain of one's instincts in speculation is a symptom one of two things: arrogance or insanity. Conclusion: I am a pedant or I am insane.

My burnt shit is the burnt-out memeplexes of the petty-bourgeois – the Last Men, the bureaucrats, the helicopter parents, the freeze of the mediocre of the Earth. Having been born anxious, weak, sick, unfit, technocapitalism was kind enough to sink its hooks into me, to allow me to live just enough, to be kept on drip-feeds of all kinds: oh, poor me, born with everything one could ask for!

Make no mistake: I typify the worst, most complacent scum of the First World, and to sink deeper, faster, to total ego-death, to be effaced, to be even more faceless, to allow one's identity to sink to Lacerating Degree Nihil – this is escape.

The managerial class has suddenly become very good at producing burnouts without life experience. The economy spoke, it had no use for liberal arts, that's my story – serves me right, though, for thinking that ambition and nice thoughts could help me.

What does this “emergent adulthood” mean? Drip-feed and the atrophy of all vitality. To be an adult and to have everything provided for: this is a special, insidious and subtle form of decay, all the more frightening because it doubles as beneficence worthy of envy.

The atrophied, the sick, the weak, the complacent, thawed from deep-freeze only to become invalids – how lucky we were to be frozen! Thank goodness we're white meat, who knows what horrors we'd be putting up with from birth.

I've lost track. Why then, the pursuit of living death?

Hold on. Reset.

Your shit is burning inside, Boomers, incinerating organs to ash in agony-time - we can smell it, we revel in it, we live it, we eat it, we know only it.

I get drunk at parties. I know I'm changing the subject, but I'm not. Too chickenshit for drugs these days: I'm already wired, hastily taped together on family payroll by Big Pharma. “If you do weed, god, who knows what could happen?” “Son, let me tell you, I saw you smoking that crap, I'd put you out of your misery.” Mission accomplished – instincts ingrained, fear learned, avoidance imprinted.

Meanwhile the therapist says that you are your own person.

When does the commercial break during the Individuality Show stop?

[Anonymous No.5247064]

>>5247051
Nice, for a second I really believed I was on a tumblr blog. Very convincing.

[Anonymous No.5247072]

My application to Architecture

Architecture is a reflection of a societies culture. It shows a societies beliefs, values, history and thoughts. Currently, many architects simply care about their perverted sense of "aesthetics" of their creations (that is, making it a geometric abomination) , or try to make the building a pathetic attempt at pretentious "art". I believe architecture transcends pretentious individual expression. Architecture means more than endless torrents of Neo-Modernist architecture, I am applying because I want to create beautiful and respectful buildings, save society from this urban degeneration. An example of this is the situation in Williamstown, where the authorities are planning to destroy a building hundreds of years old, a piece of local heritage and throw a four story monolithic apartment building ruining the scenic skyline. The public's outcry at this is evidence that people share the same view as I do when it comes to this "modernisation". I have little practical experience in this field but am hoping you will teach me so I can help make a difference. Together we can save our society from this cultural degradation, we have had enough of these blights on the eyes, it is time for a Renaissance of architecture, a move for simpler, ergonomic, respectable but still aesthetic designs.

[luminous illuminary No.5247076]

something I wrote for a class blog that I think could stand for further development into a working essay

I.

“If we now look closely at the two doctrines, we shall discover in them a common postulate, which we may formulate thus: perception has a wholly speculative interest; it is pure knowledge. The whole discussion turns upon the importance to be attributed to this knowledge as compared with scientific knowledge. The one doctrine starts from the order required by science, and sees in perception only a confused and provisional science. The other puts perception in first place, erects it into an absolute, and then holds science to be a symbolic expression of the real. But, for both parties, to perceive means above all to know.” -Henri Bergson

Personally, I have, for a while, viewed science with a hint of skepticism. Not skepticism in the sense that science is not factually true, but in the sense that science is factually true in the reality that the individual has constructed. For me, it’s the individual senses that reign supreme in the way the world is viewed. Ever since reading Leaves of Grass, this one quote from Whitman has stuck with me: “You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, not look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books. You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, you shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.” It is through the self that “all sides” are filtered. When Bergson notes that “perception is pure knowledge,” I readily agreed. And he imposes another perspective to it, that both the doctrines of realism and idealism intersect at the point of perception. To me, science has been, as he notes, “a symbolic expression of the real.” No matter what futures science predicts, it can never deviate from only being postulations in the mind created by warping perception into a logical structure. But idealism’s weakness is its absolute devotion to perception. Skepticism to perception’s absolutism is also healthy for the idealist. cont.

[luminous illuminary No.5247079]

>>5247076
II.

“Perception is just a phenomenon of the same kind. That which is given is the totality of the images of the material world, with the totality of their internal elements. But, if we suppose centers of real, that is to say of spontaneous, activity, the rays which reach it, and which interest that activity, instead of passing through those centers, will appear to be reflected and thus to indicate the outlines of the object which emits them. There is nothing positive here, nothing added to the image, nothing new. The objects merely abandon something of their real action in order to manifest their virtual influence of the living being upon them. Perception therefore resembles those phenomena of reflexion which result from an impeded refraction; it is like an effect of mirage.” -Henri Bergson

And although perception is “pure knowledge”, it must be noted that this knowledge has its distortions, even though perception is the knowledge most untainted. Objects can never be what they are, because once they are morphed into the realm of virtuality, they have lost qualities. Perception is always “impeded.” I like the metaphor of a mirage that he gives perception. Bergson is full of astonishing ideas like the cone of memory.

III.

“…Adorno’s ‘specific materialism’ includes the possibility that there is divinity behind or within the reality that withdraws. Adorno rejects any naive picture of transcendence, such as that of a loving God who designed the world (‘metaphysics cannot rise again’ after Auschwitz), but the desire for transcendence cannot, he believes, be eliminated: “Nothing could be experienced as truly alive if something that transcends life were not promised also…The transcendent is, and it is not.” Adorno honors nonidentity as an absent absolute, as a messianic promise.” -Jane Bennett

I love how Adorno dismisses the naive transcendence of a loving God who designed the world. I feel like my experience of being raised Christian parallels this. I had that naive picture of transcendence. Even though I abandoned it, my desire for transcendence remained in the arts, which is why I am continuously drawn towards notions and works that are sublime, particularly poetry that has a “religious” (religious as in godlike) resonance, as if it comes from a beyond, a divine realm above human comprehension. The “transcendent is, and it is not” because there is this “promise” that something “truly alive” is beyond life. Even if all religion were proven wrong, this impulse may stay within people. And maybe this impulse is carried on through even the literary theorists and philosophers, who want to find something transcendent, and find it in the object, if it isn’t some dualistic notion of a beyond. Realism can find its transcendence in something hyper-real.

cont.

[luminous illuminary No.5247083]

>>5247079
Animal

Given its iridescent color, the mantis shrimp is a spectacle, both internally and externally. It both is a spectacle in the way its color is perceived and a spectacle in the way it perceives. The average person has three photoreceptors by which the human visual color spectrum is held. The mantis shrimp has twelve photoreceptors, able to see an incredibly vast array of colors. Scientists are actually baffled as to why it can see so much as four or five photoreceptors are mostly what an animal needs. Its color makes it seem like a heavenly creature and to behold its visual makes it seem transcendent.


Cucumber

The cucumber’s metamorphosis into a pickle has been a fascination for me. One time, I ate a cucumber in mid-metamorphosis as a cucumber-pickle, and was partly stunned by it, like it was something unholy. If I do a project on this it will be this quality of metamorphosis, like how the pickle still retains its memories of being the cucumber that it once was, akin to Bergson’s the cone of memory.
Pumice

This rock is created by volcanic eruptions, explosive eruptions. That from chaos such a stone could be formed creates with it a sense of memory as a formless, celestial magma that hardens into glass, like a creation story. Its current stable form is produced by an effusion of chaos.

[Anonymous No.5247100]

>>5247076

>2014
>reading essays

[Anonymous No.5247131]

>>5247072

Your missing an apostrophe in the first sentence man. Get someone to fucking proofread that before posting it on /lit/. We'll help you with ideas, not elementary grammar mistakes.

[Anonymous No.5247146]

>>5243124
It's short, so here's the whole story:

Alan awoke to the soft and steady beeping sound coming from the console across the room. It had been years since he’d heard the incoming transmission signal. He dragged his feet across the cold floor and hit the button. The speaker crackled to life.
“Solar Relay Station X-17, this is Central Power. Please be advised that we will be sending a maintenance crew to your location for repairs at seventeen hundred hours Earth time.”
The message repeated and Alan listened again. Repairs? Nothing at the station needed repairs, and he hadn’t put in any maintenance requests. He found it odd that the Central Power Station had made such a mistake, but he wasn’t complaining. It was a lonely job, operating the solar relay on asteroid X-17 which beamed energy back to Earth. He was in charge of the upkeep and care of the entire station, and he would be glad to have some company before the maintenance crew realized that there was nothing to fix.
As he waited for their arrival, he tidied up the small living quarters, putting away loose tools and storing data tapes. Maybe he could ask them to take a letter home to his daughter, Eleanor. She would be twenty-one next month, and he hadn’t seen her since he began working at the station years ago.
He watched the jets of flame melt the ice of the landing dock as the mechanics’ rocket touched down at precisely seventeen hundred hours. A few moments later, he heard the airlock squeal open and went to meet them.
“Greetings, Alan. I’m Franklin and this is my colleague Tim. We’re just here to perform some repairs. Shouldn’t take long,” said the shorter of the two as he peeled off his bulky space suit.
“I’m very glad to meet you gentlemen! I can’t remember the last time anyone else came out to the station. But I’m afraid there’s been some sort of mistake. I didn’t submit any maintenance request.”
Tim was walking around the room, surveying the place. “God, Frank. Could you imagine having to live in this tiny compound, all alone in the middle of space like this?”
Frank began unpacking some tools. “It’s enough to give ya goosebumps.”
“Hey, didn’t you hear me? There’s nothing to be repaired here. I’m sorry, but you’ve wasted a trip.” Alan pulled out the letter he had written. “Listen, could you take this letter with you when you go? It’s for my daughter back home on Earth.”
Frank looked up. “Jesus, did you hear that, Tim?”
Tim stuck a static probe into the back of Alan’s neck and he collapsed onto the bed.
“That’s the problem with these androids. You leave ‘em alone out here for too long, and they get to thinking they’re human. Start coming up with false memories, too.”
“Let’s just hurry up. We’ve still got to do the android on X-4 as well, and I promised my wife I’d be home for dinner tonight.”

[Anonymous No.5247154]

>>5243124
It's boring stream of consciousness journaling. There's no story and I feel like I've wasted my time reading that.

[Anonymous No.5247314]

>>5243724

Wow, thanks so much dude. You are the only person on here that puts effort into other people. I was going to call you out on being a tripfaggot but I think in your case it suits you well. Again, thanks, hopefully I'll see you around very soon.

[Anonymous No.5247477]

>>5243587

Have you ever considered being a professional editor?

[Anonymous No.5247522]

Rewriting my novel for the third time. Here are the first two chapters.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gb0_mB8rBDQzpBxF4hO8uzl_vLKU-t10qdX5rH9-0rQ/edit

[Anonymous No.5247545]

A poem:

Listen.
Let me ask you a question,
And answer it seriously:
When was the last time you felt?
No, I mean real emotion,
Like, when your heart beats arrhythmically,
Because it’s unsure how to respond to all of this suddenness,
And everything but the object and you obliterate,
And the organs in your eyes secrete water;

Funny that that happens.

Sort of like, when you see the past, and the present, and the future, and the always-has, and the never-will,
At once,
Get what I mean?

It’s almost like,
Moments like those forces life to remove its mask of Cordiality,
Why we live is not for cordiality,
Alcohol,
Sex,
Drugs,
Small talk,

Distractions.

What do you really want?
Politely introducing oneself,
“Hi, this is my name and I deeply want to be understood by you.”
“Hello, good to meet you, I most want in the world contentment and acceptance.”

[Anonymous No.5247557]

>>5247522

>fantasy

>unimpressed_frog.jpg

[Anonymous No.5247587]

>>5246919

Better than the majority of this thread, since it appears you're actually trying to tell a story.

[Anonymous No.5247590]

Just wrote it, no editing, take no mercy.

The iridescent sky gave way to a funnel cloud as my mother rushed me downstairs, where I was to contemplate suicide for the first time. As the sirens tore into our consciousness, we rushed from the beige carpet of the family room, away from the bleats and blabs of the Zenith, down the powder blue stairs, and into the gray and barren concrete chamber that was to be my womb.

My eyes became plasticine pools. I mumbled something about the cat in an effort to distract my mother.
“Tommy, are you all right?”
“F-f-ffine.”
“Don't worry it will be okay.”
I hadn't heard of the term platitude, but something in me– GAD, mortality, primal urges– knew this was inane, but my mother persisted. She began to tap into the family history.
“You know, my dad used to collect the sorta things your Aunt Merle sends you.” She had begun to walk over to the plastic crates nestled against the crawlspace ledge.
“Come over here, look at this,” she opened the nearest, and removed a an old club. It was serrated on one side, and a faded feather hung from a hole at the top. The bottom thinned into a small grooved handle, meant for a child. At this my pools broke into rivers.
My mother embraced me. In between her warm, yet alarming arms– are family was more Married With Children than Cosby– I kept my eyes on the serrated edge, and thought of my twelve year old head leaking crimson history upon the floor. This was when my eyes were opened to indifference of nature, the cruel joke of geography.

[Anonymous No.5247604]

>>5246919

I would include it in a post, so we can cut and paste and do line-by-line critiques.

[Anonymous No.5247806]

>>5247522
Compress. Compress. Compress.
The writing is passable but it's bogged down by way too much description. Go through and cut out every single thing that isn't necessary to understand what's going on. It's okay to skim over things if they aren't of particular importance to the story.

[Anonymous No.5247821]

>>5247806
Thank you, Hemingway.

[Anonymous No.5247829]

>>5247821
He didn't get the Nobel Prize for nothing.

[Anonymous No.5247832]

>>5247545
shit

[Anonymous No.5247850]

>>5247829
Yes, but Faulkner won the Nobel Prize, too.

[Anonymous No.5248110]

>>5243124
Doing what OP said, I'll never finish this anyway because I missed the window of opportunity:

Opening paragraph: Everything’s haunted nowadays. Houses, of course, are still haunted. So are rooms in hilltop hotels. Abandoned theme parks, shopping malls, subway stations, office buildings, mental hospitals, derelict ships? All haunted. Also some things you might not expect, like cars and Laundromats. I heard people used to get possessed by evil spirits, now they just get haunted. Often in just one body part, like a cowlick or collarbone. You can imagine that with the steep increase in ghosts came a new demand for the spectrally sensitive, one not seen since the procession of the old world. These days we’re mostly in the business of ‘evicting’ rather than exorcising, and most tenets don’t give us much trouble. It’s not the first field I would have chosen, parapsychology, but it comes naturally to me. In practice, it mostly just involves listening. I’m not so bad at listening.

Summary: It's a satirical ghost story about a future where so many people have died that heaven and earth are overcrowded with spirits. Main character's crush has a haunted laugh, so he and his friend try to exorcise her through a shamanistic ritual (tickling) and in the process MC must face his own impotence.

2tired for hardmode.

[Anonymous No.5248145]

Subtracting himself before violence descends, the boy quits the hotel. Drizzle has slicked the masts, brought disarray unto chignons and clew lines - all a very conducive atmosphere to mourning, it must be said, that were there ever a day to die, ‘twould be this one. The sky is sealed, ignominy in all notions of a pleasant horizon. His journey this morning nature it seems would term profane, that certainly it’s all bad weather but there lies a roof in reverence, or at least in operating, as most lips do today, under the death of a man unknown. But it’s none of it really his business, is it? From what the sailors say - the truest and most stoic artisans, for whom there is only ever constant motion, like it or not - asea there are places reserved for the dead and places reserved for the living. Crypts of the mind. Coffins consigned to the abyss. Perhaps some prayer, if in the mood, but come the afternoon or time for work there will be gamesomeness and relentless duty and as much as the men at the pumps exclude the ocean’s pressure so too they exclude all notion of grief. Only in the lamplight, far below decks, in somnolent areas between dreams and reality is a there recognized a diminished company, while outside, well, the sea is pregnant with spirits, fallen charges of Leucothea, Phorcys, knocking beneath the Great Easterns of the world, private and holding reverence to revenants, constrained to the night and the water and dreams.

[Anonymous No.5248181]

The shadows lengthen; the landscape darkens until it is only a silhouette.

And now you could swear that all the moments of your life- for how real they felt to you as you were living them - all those moments seem now like the dreams that are forgotten before the morning- dark, distant, and difficult to understand.

And already the sun has gone away beneath the mountains, leaving you alone again, at last.

[Anonymous No.5248185]

He reflected that there was no combination of words that would make her love him, no matter how slavishly he polished his actions, no matter how many lies he could devise - she sat there across from him in the train car, reading, gently, close enough to touch by accident, but so far that the stars themselves seemed more readily within his reach.

[deleted No.5248193]

They keep me in the basement, or they would, if they knew about me. They have glass floors, however, and looking up, I can see them live. It's too dark down here for them to see me- which I'm glad for, for if they knew about me they would gas me or pay a man to do it for them.

[Anonymous No.5248200]

The bombs fell and he did not give a damn. Having learned survival skills among the forest rangers and having a body young enough & strong, too, nothing could arrest him in his flight into the wilderness. While hordes of weeping supplicants begged god or Vishnu or whomever for salvation, he cut open fish under a grey sky and tossed their guts into the river.

[Anonymous No.5248248]

>>5248145
It's impenetrable to me, but so's Joyce, and it looks like you're not bullshitting

[Anonymous No.5248816]

There are things around me that I cannot ignore. Mainly, the air that I breath, but that is just what's immediate. With it I can hear, and through it I can see: an assortment of pleasures, desires, atrocities, and warfare. The man in front of me cuts the line to get coffee; I couch and check my phone for it has buzzed. It's a news alert: another 60 dead in Palestine. Great, I take one step further to get my espresso and decide to exact justice in the smallest way I can.

"Hey buddy, you can't blatantly cut like that. Get to the back of the line like everyone else."

He sized me up and down with a cocked eyebrow and grinning cheek in the span of about three seconds and turned around with a scoff. I tap him on the shoulder again now and say, "Now, asshole."

"Fuck off," without even facing me.

So I grab him by the collar like a frustrated father and pull him towards the end of the line, gathering a pool of startled looks and faint gasps. Within a few feet of being manhandled, he wriggles out of my grip and gives my chest a shove. I stare him down with the determination of a steaming bull who has much to prove and mutter in a low, monotone hush, "Just do it. You don't want this to become a problem." He jaggedly calculates the outcomes of obeying and the opposite and surmises that it would be to his benefit, not his pride's, to do as I say. I get back in line and grin at the absolute insanity that had just preceded, feeling quite good with myself.

[Anonymous No.5248843]

>>5248816
the most fedora-tippingest post in this thread, and /lit/ as a whole, by far

[Anonymous No.5248846]

>>5248816
Holy fuck. This is too painful to be satire.

[Anonymous No.5248877]

>>5248843
>>5248846

I-it's not good? I feel like you guys just don't get it

[Anonymous No.5248898]

>>5248877
I don't get it.

[Anonymous No.5248904]

>>5248877
I don't like it.

[Charles Bukkake !!dbC6x/DQFYo No.5248947]

>>5246330
Holy fuck that is good.

[Charles Bukkake !!dbC6x/DQFYo No.5248995]

>>5243587
>>5243599
>Attacking the morality of a work rather than offering technical advice.
With all of the "Gentile" shaming and anti-modernity/satire shaming of the crumbling gentile empire found in >>5243625 I am unable to believe that you aren't a troll. Preaching against snide gentile satire while snidely being a gentile satirist is very funny, as idiots like >>5247477 eat this shit up (assuming that's not you without your trip.)

[Anonymous No.5249026]

>>5248947
>>5248995

Thanks CB, 'preciate it.

[Anonymous No.5249553]

http://pastebin.com/PDM7rtK5

[Anonymous No.5250018]

I haven't written anything I'd be comfortable posting yet but I'd like some criticism on a vague plot.

The story begins in the near future with a working class adolescent attending a prestigious English boarding school. The school is set in it's own high walls away from the rest of the city, and this keeps them away from an worsening class war between the working class and the government. Losing touch with his family, he becomes best friends with a teenager whose lordly father loathes him.

They leave school and are about to embark on a gap year when the loathing lord dies, making the main character's best friend the new lord. They go on the trip anyway and come a while later to this enormous, crumbling stately pile.

Main character, selfish lord, their friends, his girlfriend/her friends move in to the house, and create a sort of golden age in which they restore the house, throw parties, take anything that can be injected and empty the cellar. They live as if on stage and act take trivialities seriously and vice versa.

Main character and selfish lord begin to feel listless and disillusioned, acting like heterosexual life partners, and making vague plans to find purpose in life, and main character begins to fall in love with selfish lord's girlfriend who reciprocates somewhat.

Meanwhile the class war is waging harder than ever but none of the main characters notice until a homeless man assaults selfish lord outside an opera house, leaving a large gash through one of his eyes which makes main character fall out of hetero-love with him. When in hospital, selfish lord's girlfriend and main character deeply and lovingly fuck in a toilet stall.

Selfish lord recovers and the characters discover how the aristocracy has been painted as uncaring and decadent by the government who want to shift focus from themselves. Selfish lord sticks to his guns and decides to stay at the house. He forces girlfriend to stay and the rest of the party stay until the house is raided by revolutionaries, at which point everyone else leaves.

Thinking he can rely on main character and girlfriend, selfish lord refuses to leave, but is told by girlfriend that main character fucked her in a toilet stall and that they plan to leave for France, which the main character knows nothing of. Enraged, selfish lord attacks main character, only for revolutionaries to storm the house and drag him and girlfriend away. Main character is made to choose which will be killed by the guillotine since he is a collaborator, but still a member of the working class. He visits selfish lord who tells him to choose him and to go to France with his girlfriend. He goes to choose but is too late, and they execute them both.

The curtain falls at the same time the blades do, and the story ends with a few wistful words from the main character, a refugee in France.

I'm also toying with the idea of never showing the aristocrats in a natural environment to highlight how artificial their lifestyle is.

[Anonymous No.5250062]

>>5250018
> leaving a large gash through one of his eyes which makes main character fall out of hetero-love with him.

why would he fall out of hetero-love with his friend because he got injured

Also I rolled my eyes when the love interest was introduced. She doesn't sound particularly interesting as a character if she's just bouncing from boy to boy and eventually gets killed. No agency makes for an uninteresting character, I'd say

[Anonymous No.5250090]

>>5243587
>2014
>literally 2014
>not recognizing the sincerity in irony

The debate is pretty much over; we can't go back.

[Anonymous No.5250131]

Jewel was going back to Africa inside a Georgia Super Target.


All I have is the first sentence. I plan to write a short story about this interesting character that, as you might be able to tell, is my co-worker at a Super Target. I tell the story in third person as he unloads a truck ("breaking down that wall"), stocks shelves ("pickin that cotton"), and leaves to take semi-professional photos of Mid-Town ("tallyho"), all the while including his interactions with other co-workers (me included) and maybe adding some introspection/narration.

[Anonymous No.5250132]

>>5250090
good point

>>5243587
What I don't understand about your crit is that you say Tao Lin and co. are embracing meaninglessness but

spoilers for Taipei

the end of the book has what's his face deciding that there is a reason for him to stay alive, that there IS meaning somewhere

[Anonymous No.5250148]

>>5250062
Well I ran out of space and couldn't properly describe her, but my ideas for her are a satire on the sort of girl-who-doesn't-form-emotional-attachments-because-she's-had-her-heart-broken-one-too-many-times archetype. In the end, had she actually loved the main character it would have saved her life, but it didn't.

I was also toying with having her die in the same way that the princess of Lamballe did, but I feel like overly gory executions might be too much.

>why would he fall out of hetero-love with his friend because he got injured
Because it's not really that heterosexual.

[Anonymous No.5250216]

>>5250148
Wait, so she never actually loves the main character?

Also you might want to read The Secret History (Tartt) if you haven't already. I think you'd get a kick out of it. It's not anything spectacular writing-wise but it's got a similar vibe to your plot and I thought it was worth a read.

[Anonymous No.5250251]

By the time I smashed my foot against the door and sent the handle into the plaster of the wall, the screams had sunk to dull moans. I stood in silence for a short, suspended second, and the second has since taken in my memory so much more space than it should rightfully fill, every detail available in total recall, every horrifying implication etched into the backs of my eyelids should I ever shut my eyes.

Her head was being smashed against the headboard in a vicious rhythm, hair sprawled out over her eyes, both closed, fingernails clawing almost in consolation at something that would not be moved. Above her curved spine hunched the dark figure of a beast, of a man, of an attacker. Pounding furiously, the slapping sounds, the slapping sounds! They torment my waking hours with their vigour. Her face dug into the pillow and now she spoke, as if in sleep, my name, calling for help but resigned to the fact that it would not come. "James, James..", a weak call that barely sounded above the thrusts, said in a trancelike state. The grunting of the man as he again thrust into her.

Then the second ceased, and the fleeting action that has since fled my memory occurred, and the assailant was chased away, and I was left to hold my sister and search for fragments of sanity in the weary hours, amid all the sobs.

[Anonymous No.5250269]

>>5250216
Thanks, ordering it now.

[Anonymous No.5250287]

When the nights would arrive, indicated by a navy blue gloom that darkened his room, Gregory would wrap himself in his blanket of grey wool. It had only just reached October but he found himself frequently shivering under his blanket when the sky went dark. The central heating in the building had been gone for several months, despite several complaints to staff from the many people living there, and winter was around the corner. Gregory had his attention fixed on the book in front of him, resting on his desk when the slight sound of paper sliding across carpet caught his attention. Without unraveling from his blanket he walked slowly over to a doorway, at the foot of which, laid a folded letter.


It's my first go at writing something and I don't think it came out as well as expected, though I'd be interested to know what people think.

>>5247012
I don't like how the sentence starts with "My question for you is this:" though I think I'd be more comfortable with it if there was a sentence before that sentence. I quite enjoyed the prose as that first paragraph went on, though I'm not terribly excited about typing.

Second paragraph is a bit weaker. I'm totally bored of the gawking over typing and keyboards by now and the "jeez" as well as mentioning the mechanical keyboard with its price tag sound really casual and laidback as apposed to the tone of the first paragraph which comes off as sounding much more formal and poetic. It's a juxtaposition that I just really don't like.

[Anonymous No.5250309]

>>5250269
>>5250216
>usually order from a second hand ebay retailer
>books are almost always £2.99
>first copy i come across is £182.98
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/191276456919

It must be really good.

>>5250287
>When the nights would arrive, indicated by a navy blue gloom that darkened his room,
I'd try and make this into one clause, it's like saying the same thing twice.

>The central heating in the building had been gone for several months
Similar complaint for this, maybe just trim it down to "the central heating hadn't worked for several months". Try and use past present instead of past perfect and it'll flow better.

Other than that it seems to convey quite a bleak feeling, I wouldn't mind reading more if you've got it.

[Anonymous No.5250376]

>>5250309
You're absolutely right about both of those things, thank you.

I'm not really familiar with the terms past present and past perfect so I'll go do a bit of research.

I just wrote it now so I don't have more but I have some ideas about what I'm going to write so I expect I'll have more to post in the near future.

[Anonymous No.5250383]

>>5250376
Past simple and past perfect, I'm retarded. It's the difference between "I have spoken" and "I spoke".

Also I look forward to reading more.

[Anonymous No.5250604]

>>5250251
tfw write for the first time in months and no one bats an eye

[Anonymous No.5250622]

>>5250604
Because it doesn't need altering, faget. Except for the word sprawled, it doesn't really make sense in context.

[Anonymous No.5250638]

>>5250622
Doesn't need altering? I thought the critique thing was just to see if it was decent/passable, rather than look for mistakes. I wrote that in one drunken sitting unedited

[Anonymous No.5250857]

>>5248110
Any feedback for this?

[Anonymous No.5251326]

>>5250857
>>5248110
I like the sort of conversational, humorous tone you convey here, and it's a rarity that this kind of thing doesn't come off cheesy or stilted. "Tenants" btw mate.

A nice introductory paragraph for the narrator.

[Anonymous No.5251452]

>>5251326
Thanks
>Tenants
You're a lifesaver.

[Anonymous No.5251491]

My phone lights up when Ally says Hi. Two days ago when I messaged her first it took her four minutes to reply. I open the facebook messenger app (which I almost ironically held onto longer than the actual facebook app) without opening the message so she doesn’t get the read receipt until later. In this case, later means six minutes from now. If I respond in four minutes she knows I’m a semi-sociopath. If I respond in five minutes she knows I’m a one-upping semi-sociopath. If I respond in seven minutes I’m an inconsiderate twat. I respond hi in exactly six minutes and nearly piss myself when I read the words Active now. For exactly six minutes my messenger app displayed my active status for Ally to see. I think to explain that I was messaging someone else but I quickly realize I made a point to Ally the day before that I really only use kik and traditional text messaging. She responds whatcha doin and I exhale. From her previous messages I know her phone automatically capitalizes the first letter of a sentence. Ally unshifted to project a sense of ease she does not possess. Why is she uneasy? I’m a weirdo. But she messaged me first and Ally wouldn’t engage a known weirdo. She doesn’t know I’m a weirdo. She wants me. Maybe she does this to everyone. I scroll through my camera roll and find the messaging screenshots Ally sent me the day before. A boy named Tristan messaged Ally asking if she’s down for the dick. Ally responded No. Capital No. I again scroll through my camera roll and select the picture of my penis most appropriate for the circumstances. A bird’s-eye view is perfect. Ally responds in under a minute. It’s the emoji where the yellow circle has hearts in its eyes. I ask if she likes wings. I know she can’t stand chicken from the day before when she told me she had a food poisoning experience in her childhood that turned her off of chicken for life. She responds yes.

>this isn't actually part of a novel it's a standalone piece
I know explaining the joke is bad form but the big bam moment takeaway is, among other things, that the nudes aren't the reveal that the narrator is getting laid but the chicken is because nudes are a cession of the body while eating chicken in this case is a cession of identity.

[Anonymous No.5252392]

POOP ON MY WRITING /LIT/

GIVE IT ALL YOU GOT

R8 & CELEBR8


In a small room at the end of a long hall, stone walls cradle, with hard father-hands, a dusty broom. For years it’s rested alone in this castle closet, remembered by none but one, and wanted by fewer still. The head of straw has faded to grey. The dry handle splinters more each passing year. The broom will fade to dust within a century.

But toward it Liv walks, and it will see again the sunlight.

She’s passed more seasons than the broom, Liv. Her lips are cracked and always chapped. Time long ago brought his chisel to her face, chipping at her youthful skin ‘til its sheen crumbled into small flecks, which flit away on the wind. Now only a colorless ghost of beauty’s past haunts her pale eyes, and though from others she is given a pitied respect for what she once was, she knows none will ever again have hope for what she could be.

She flexes her fingers beneath their gloves. She’s used to the cold, but no matter how many times one is bitten, still there’s a sting. Her breath fogs and she can’t stop sniffing. It’s eleven o’clock at night. Most of the family is asleep in bed, each with a fire burning in the hearth. She wants very much to close her eyes and melt into a dream of heat; how nice it would be, she thinks, to let go of memory for once, for once…

Unfortunately, she’s always had trouble letting go of anything.

She steps to the closet door. It’s half a foot thick and carved from heavy oak. Large hinges veined with rust clutch at its side like claws of a iron golem. She places a hand on the big latch that secures it, feeling the cold through her cloth glove.

Back to the beginning, she thinks -- before all this -- and with a deep breath she opens the door to her old broom.

[girl !EihVUOzAKE No.5252394]

She stood there, politely and pointedly not staring at the shit on the knees of his trousers.
In turn, he politely and pointedly avoided looking at the nebulous bruises on her thin neck and arms.
Instead, he addressed the man that had brought and bought her. The man was dressed in a grey suit, the top button of his white shirt done up, which was unusual in the heat. The hair on his temples were fading to grey, his head a monochromatic sunset. Tattoos ended neatly on the man’s right wrist, so that only a slight bracelet of ink could be seen when the man’s sleeve came up as he moved his arms. They were faded, almost indistinguishable from the translucent purple veins on the patch of skin where the ulna and the radius curved perfectly to meet the carpals.
He knew what the man was: a criminal will always recognize the camouflage of other criminals.


not too happy with "Tattoos ended neatly on the man’s right wrist, so that only a slight bracelet of ink could be seen when the man’s sleeve came up as he moved his arms." but bleh not a final draft yet

[Anonymous No.5252648]

>>5252394

I recently wrote my first two poems and would like some feedback on one:

One hundred years of solitude
Sounds pretty nice to me.
But only since, I seem to be,
An angsty little teen.

Oh wisdom, oh knowledge!
Why must you elude me?
And why do I allude to be
A symbol of the bourgeoisie?

James Joyce is just too much for me,
And Shakespeare reads like Japanese.
But I will never let you be
If you bring up celebrities.

But still! Despite all I have said
I plan to win my share of bread
When I have earned my deft degree
In English. Oh the atrophy!

I know it's a little wonky. The better one is a straight sonnet, but it's pretty good so I don't want to post it anonymous.

[Anonymous No.5252722]

>>5252648
>The better one is a straight sonnet, but it's pretty good so I don't want to post it anonymous.
No one's going to steal your shit, and it would have to be a LOT better than what you posted to be worth stealing anyway.

Everyone's too absorbed in their own shit is to bother wanting to steal yours.

[Anonymous No.5253041]

JULY 12
"My psychologist wants me to keep a diary; everyone has a psychologist nowadays, even the perfectly healthy people like me. In fact, my psychologist told me that I shouldn't even bother seeing him, that it would be a waste of my time and money. But am I going to be the only one of my friends that doesn't have one? Oh no, not me. Anyways, today is a good day to start. I had a bizarre experience last night. I went out with Julia to the bar. I took three of those new energy pills and we danced until the early morning. I lost Julia last night though. I must have walked home (for the exercise, of course) around 3 or 4 in the morning. I lost my way, which is odd because I am always running these streets, I like to brag that I've run every street in New York. An exaggeration of course, the city is now close to two thousand square miles (and growing every day!). In any case I found myself under a bridge near the water just as the sun was coming up. It was a very pretty sight of the ocean, of course I see it every morning on my run anyway, so it was nothing special. I heard a strange tune, a homeless man, clearly drunk, played the tune by blowing through a strange little device he held in one hand. I had come down off of the pills, and was feeling very tired so I stopped to listen for a moment. How dull, to listen to music without the pills. I had never heard the song before. I am almost sure I haven't which bothered me because I've been following the HARMONY corporations weekly song for years, I must have forgotten about it. Or worse I hadn't heard it yet, how embarrassing if I don't have the newest one before a homeless man does. I tried to ask the man when it had been released, but all I could understand was That he mentioned some address I believe is in one if the older districts of town. Naturally I called the police to come and help the poor man and I went home to sleep. When I woke up I asked Julia what happened to her last night and she said that she took the bus home because she felt ill. No one takes the bus anymore. I scolded her for it of course, such an unhealthy method of transportation."

[Anonymous No.5253094]

>>5252392
man if you ask for bad reviews you're going to get good ones by rebellious assholes. if you really want to improve, be honest - tell us that you think your work is the shit

[Anonymous No.5253129]

>>5252648
You've got a handle on rhythm and your rhymes didn't distract (as in it didn't look like you were reaching to rhyme). I'm not sure if you were going for regular stanzas or not, because you begin with a ballad stanza, with 8 6 8 6 syllable lines, but then you eventually go into every line being 8 syllables long, and a couple of the lines don't rhyme (I'm not sure if it's intention).


The subject matter, is fun. Nothing particularly interesting or thought provoking, but it brought a smile to my face.

[Anonymous No.5253147]

>>5253129

this has not been my experience. people will diarrhea on your writing regardless of request.

[Anonymous No.5253158]

>>5253147

whoops responded to wrong guy

meant this:

>>5253094

[Anonymous No.5253220]

>>5253041
Plz anyone

[Anonymous No.5253226]

>>5251491
A-anyone?

[Anonymous No.5253251]

>>5253041

Pretty cool. Reads like student work, which I'm guessing it is. Could be a decent book bordering lit and genre fic. Probably wouldn't get published unless you have connections because it isn't too special.

7/10 would read back cover of

[Anonymous No.5253252]

>>5253226
Well it's interesting but meaninglesz

[Anonymous No.5253264]

>>5253251
It is. I got assigned to do a science fiction short story that is a metaphor to an issue. My issue is the devaluation of art in society.
It's about a guy, our narrator, being like the rest of society and then discovering the beauty in art, realizing how blind everyone is and then killing himself because he can't handle it.

[Anonymous No.5253276]

>>5251491
I think you posted this a while ago. It's pretty well written and extremely accurate.

[Anonymous No.5253325]

>>5251491
No one is looking that much into a text conversation, not to the point where 'cession of identity' is the takeaway. A more likely takeaway is "this whole thing is boring and cliche." Do you really care about trite shit like this? I pray for you.

>>5253041
It's ok. The character seems like a bimbo, though. Or maybe an android. The 'big corporation owns everything' future is a pretty dull base. I hope your narrative prose isn't done in the same way.

[Anonymous No.5253336]

>>5253325
Wait, you mean when you're on the kik nude game and the tinder hookup game you aren't philosophizing as you go?

[Anonymous No.5253358]

>>5253276
Thanks. And yeah, I posted it like a week ago I think? I wrote it in the reply box that time but I changed it a bit.

[Anonymous No.5253399]

>>5253264
Isn't that the exact plot of Rush's 2112?

[Anonymous No.5253458]

>>5250251
Melodramatic. At least if I don't know the character. Why should I care if she's being raped. Just because 'rape is always sad, man.' Nah. The last sentence is criminally shit, too. The prose was passable. Just a bad topic to write seriously about in an uncontextualized paragraph. Maybe if you did some sort of spin on the rape it would be interesting. But straight up it doesn't work.

>>5250131
Well write the story first, dick.

>>5249553
You have an awareness of things that's promising. The cow udder and suitcase opening was good. The dialogue was okay except for that inexcusable monster quote. It's too compact of a story to be compelling, though.

>>5248816
>for it has buzzed
Fuck off with this. A clear projection of your testosterone deficiency. Just awful.

>>5248145
Tacky. Generally bad.

>>5247146
A blatant Moon ripoff. Fuck off, you donkey.

[Anonymous No.5253581]

>>5248110
It's a good idea, but it sounds more like a summary instead of a story...a lot of direct information. Are you a reporter? No, nigger, you're a writer. Open with someone 'evicting' ghosts out of a laundromat or at least a similar anecdote and then explain why they're doing it.

Voice needs more maturity:
>I'm not so bad at listening.
Are you a twelve year old girl?

>I heard people used to get possessed by evil spirits, now they just get haunted. Often in just one body part, like a cowlick or collarbone.
Clarify this. Also the first sentence should be two or use a semicolon.

[Anonymous No.5253612]

>>5253581
Thanks. I'm guilty of info dumping in a lot of my attempts. How do I get better with detail?

>Are you a twelve year old girl?
I fucking wish.

[Anonymous No.5253640]

I used to enjoy listening to the rain. One memory from my childhood is especially vivid, when I focus on it I can still feel the dry, cool air. I remember wrapping myself up in a thin blanket with only the light of my laptop illuminating my surroundings. I was listening to the tropical rain beat down against the clay roof above me. My bedroom was a re-purposed Florida sunroom, with a massive wall-to-wall window that faced the backyard. Outside, my Cuban neighbors had packed up their late-night party, thanks to the rain, and were now smoking cigars under their veranda. I recall unplugging the phone cord from my laptop and then shutting it down, placing it beside me on a nightstand. I wasn’t very sentimental, I understood that rain was rain and nothing more, but I felt that the rain on that day deserved a little more of my attention. I let the pattering lull me to sleep. It is absurd to me the way that memory is warped by the very act of recollection. Years later, I tried very hard to remember the morning after that night, to remember if it had still be raining when I woke up. I couldn’t recall. The sound of the rain colliding with the clay and concrete is overwhelming, it clouds out all other memories from that time period like a fire crawling and flickering through a dusty library. Twenty years later, I can still hear the rain from that night.

Summary: A man hears the sound of rain constantly, with increasing intensity as he ages (imagine a sound that seems to have no immediate source, but is nevertheless deafeningly loud and unmistakably real). Losing trust in his faculties, and spiritually starving from a life of loneliness and stagnation, he goes hunting for relief.

I like a lot of what I'm reading in this thread. I'll try to post some responses to the ones people have skipped.

[Anonymous No.5253675]

>>5252394
>The hair on his temples were fading to grey
"was"
The hair on his temples is singular.

[Anonymous No.5253690]

Paragraph(s) [because fuck you]:

An obituary. Female, aged twenty-five, overdose of methamphetamine, found in a disused east London flat. Under- and post-graduate of English Literature. Alma mater Oxford, person-of-import-to-be. Cause for concern, academically oppressive yet emotionally negligible parenting, searching for experience, the ephemeral pursuit of life itself.

Poor, directionless creature.

Where the hell does one acquire methamphetamine? I imagine her strolling, lackadaisical, through Soho on a summer eve, an eve of fuscia sky, darkened street. I can see her now, chancing upon an emaciated transvestite enshrouded in doubt waiting for her and only her by a gas-lamp, a Chartered Purveyor of Fine Psychedelic Substances. How would one administer such a thing? A shootup, a bumpupthenose. How had the girl done it? Alone? I hope not. I know big city fever; did it get to her? A geist shared by a coven of co-dependants?
The now. I sign my name, adding myself the plethora of letters, a wholly organic signature, approving the effective of separation. The only part of me contained within the clauses and legal stipulations. I do not protest. I'm not even concentrating. Come on now. I glance through obituary once more, but a few soulless words written on a long Wednesday afternoon by an intern, after the rest of the day's work is done.
Aside the papers sprawled across the table a solitary key. A half-finished meal for one. Beside it, a tall wine glass, half-finished, Côtes-du-Rhône. Hardly narcotics. I make a resolution to move onto the harder stuff once she's gone: it seems hardly appropriate as of yet. Think about the now, back to the present. Grasp, fucking grasp, attempt to allow your emotions to render the scene. Believe the tears to be wet, the words to have meaning, the movements to have motion.

Summary:

A guy reads the obituary of a girl he once knew (though he doesn't know yet). He is sat at the kitchen table, signing the divorce papers his (soon-to-be) ex-wife has placed before him.

[Anonymous No.5253693]

>>5253581
>>5253612
Don't hit and run please.

At least give me your number.

[Anonymous No.5253697]

>>5253612
Give more detail than you think people want. It might feel like overkill when you're writing it, but the process of someone reading it is ten times quicker. Just make sure it's pertinent. Also don't dwell on describing the exact details of the actual scene. A lot of 'detail' can be given by referencing the character's past, thoughts, emotions, dialogue, future plans, etc. There are tons of dimensions that all need to come into play to make the story believable--since life is more than just a flat description or explanation.

[Anonymous No.5253708]

>>5253697
So basically your advice is:
a) Show don't tell
b) Begin a story with an action
c) Inject exposition into descriptions

I made it sound generic but thanks I needed this.

[Anonymous No.5253748]

I tried some rhetoric.

In 6th grade I was in a class with one especially dim, backwater kind of hillbilly that would often walk around the classroom with his boner on display, likely not even knowing what it was or to hide it. He would bump into tables with it while myself and the group I was friends with made puns and occasionally told him to hide it, but he never did. I think he must have been more intelligent than any of us, he must have known it was the only time in his life he'd ever be free to parade his boner out in the open without reproach.

I will tell you one of my deepest secrets.

I dream of a society where men can parade their boners freely.

Men should be judged by the strength of their boner, not the strength of their mind! What an arbitrary rule of society we are forced to live by, what a disgustingly cruel judge of mankind! EVERY MAN IS HIS BONER, AND LET NONE DESPAIR OF IT. ALL BONERS ARE EQUAL. SHAME TO THE STATE, SHAME TO THE IGNORANT MASSES WHO REPRESS AND CONDEMN THOSE PROUD OF THEIR BONERS, SHAME TO THEM FOR THEIR MINDLESSNESS, FOR THEIR INABILITY TO APPRECIATE WHAT IS WONDERFUL IN THE WORLD. BONERS ARE THE ONE TRUE BEAUTY IN THIS UNIVERSE, YET SO MANY ARE SIMPLY BLIND TO THEM, WILLFULLY IGNORANT OF ALL THEIR GLORY!

LET ALL BONERS BE FREE AS THE SAILING WIND, FREE AS THE BIRD IN THE SKY, FREE AS THE LEAF IN THE BREEZE. FREE! FREE! FREE!

[Anonymous No.5253996]

I have no idea what this is about, I wrote it last month and its been sitting uncompleted ever since.


“Do it again, without the jacket.” The kid paused, unsure of what to do, his smile frozen for a moment before becoming natural again, as if he’d been caught in some elaborate lie that he had no recollection of fabricating.

“That would expose my secret sir...a good magician never shares his secrets.” A bemused smile, the man watching shook his head.

“Don’t give me any of that kiddy bullshit.” The kid still looked unsure and the man looked at him closely, unsure of why exactly his associates had seen it fit to send the poor kid here. He looked like he had been a legal adult for maybe all of a week and a half...perhaps he was still in high school. Leaning forward the man carefully extracted something from his jacket pocket, giving the kid plenty of time to ogle a wallet fat with bills. Taking one away he showed the kid the unsmiling face of Ulysses Grant.

“Would you really turn down a former President of the United States?” The kid eyed the money for a moment, then took off his jacket, a stiff black Victorian getup that all the hucksters and quick fingered conmen calling themselves magicians wore these days. Underneath was a white dress shirt, but it was too light and the cuffs too tight to conceal any secret pockets.

“There you go, now do the apple again, I’m curious to see that.” The kid let his jacket fall to the ground and picked up an apple from his little pile of supplies. The man set the fifty dollar bill on the arm of his chair, watching the kid carefully.

“For my next trick,” the kid said, “I will make this apple disappear.” He made a complex motion with his right hand, flicked it in front of his left hand, where the apple was held, and just like that, the fruit was gone. As though it had never existed in the first place.

The man smiled, more to conceal a growing sense of unease than anything else. How had the kid done that? He had no secret pockets to stash the apple in, and he hadn’t put his right hand behind his back or anything, he had just made an open fingered twirl and made the apple vanish. It made no sense.

[Anonymous No.5254007]

>>5253690
>Where the hell does one acquire methamphetamine?
>East London
At least be realistic.

[Anonymous No.5254260]

>>5253996
Well for what it's worth, your straightforwardness is refreshing.
People get too caught up with ugly, awkward attempts at being cryptic or metaphorical.
And it's completely unwarranted when they're applying their attempts to really basic exposition.

What you wrote was fluent and didn't get caught up in any of that.
If there was more, I would keep reading it.

[Anonymous No.5254739]

>>5253325
Well it's hard because I wanted the character to come off as being sort of shallow, in terms of art. But I didn't want him or anyone else to be unaware. They are supposed to all be intelligent people that just don't really give a shit about art. They listen to music as a fashion statement. The corporation isn't even supposed to control everything, it's just the only thing anyone listens to. No the prose isn't done like that.

[Anonymous No.5254755]

>>5253690
>methamphetamine
>Purveyor of Fine Psychedelic Substances
>narcotics
It's not too big a deal as the narrator clearly doesn't know what he's on about, that seems intentional, but does the author know psychedelics, narcotics and amphetamines are all different things?

[Anonymous No.5254766]

>>5253399
No

[Anonymous No.5255250]

>>5253264

Don't have him kill himself that's incredibly cliche.

[Anonymous No.5255275]

>>5254260
Thanks. I've never been a particularly ornamental writer and whenever I try it just gets cluttered. Good to see that my light stuff holds up.

[Anonymous No.5255777]

The autumn is often not a time for togetherness. What is connatural in the summer, those pleasant evenings, and what is both demanded and sanctified before the yuletide hearth is dead or dormant in the autumn. It is a time for work and preparation and solitary walks down gusty pathways and frosts that come upon the windows in perennial grimness that, much like the rain of the season, is necessary and rarely appreciated.

Yet today there has grown a magnetism about town. It’s known that something has happened. In quiet intervals they come from their shops and convene in the street, and mothers are arrested together and children are seated at the kerbside, all eyes very bright and each conversation evoking a vague location over yonder, an arm wave away. That morning perhaps all eyes turn toward the herald of winter and there is universal distraction at all the desks in the offices and those on the street look for another excuse to stay out that bit longer, perhaps one to justify a walk through the streets in search of what is termed “The Event”. For the paper today says there has been a murder of a man unknown, and in the anonymous grows conjecture, and soon there are fifty murders of fifty different men, and a single corpse alone in the street.

[Anonymous No.5256838]

>>5254766
>A man discovers an ancient guitar and learns to play his own music. Thinking he has made a wonderful discovery that will be a boon to humanity, he goes to present the guitar to the priests of the Temples, who angrily destroy it and rebuke him for unearthing one of the "silly whims" that caused the collapse of the previous civilization. He goes into hiding and dreams of a world before the Solar Federation. Upon awakening he becomes distraught and commits suicide.

[Anonymous No.5256848]

>>5254766
>A man discovers an ancient guitar and learns to play his own music. Thinking he has made a wonderful discovery that will be a boon to humanity, he goes to present the guitar to the priests of the Temples, who angrily destroy it and rebuke him for unearthing one of the "silly whims" that caused the collapse of the previous civilization. He goes into hiding and dreams of a world before the Solar Federation. Upon awakening he becomes distraught and commits suicide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2112_%28album%29#2112

[Anonymous No.5257003]

"Twisting and turning beside the slumbering Tereza, he recalled something she had told him a long time before in the course of an insignificant conversation. They had been talking about his friend Z, when she announced, 'If I hadn't met you, I'd certainly have fallen in love with him.'

Even then, her words had left Tomas in a strange state of melancholy, and now he realized it was only a matter of chance that Tereza loved him and not his friend Z. Apart from her consummated love for Tomas, there were, in the realm of possibility, an infinite number of unconsummated loves for other men

We all reject out of hand the idea that the love of our life may be something light or weightless; we presume our love is what must be, that without it our life would no longer be the same; we feel Beethoven himself, gloomy and awe-inspiring, is playing to our own great love."

[Anonymous No.5257013]

Ode to an anus
O, how to speak trippingly upon the tongue
of her callipygian pleasure bump
so to speak, or her stately lumpy rump
the sight which causes me (being rather hung)
a marvelous swelling in a certain region
(prompting me to give the old serpent a ribald thump)
its battle-cry boldy sung,
so spews forth the whole of Kolchak's white legion

[Anonymous No.5257424]

>>5256848
Yeah but that's not what my story is about. He doesn't think he's going to be a noon to society. It's about him alienating himself from those around him. The harmonica is just something that makes him realize there is other music. An he isn't the only one playing music. He finds a whole group of people who do.

[Anonymous No.5257968]

This is my Foreword:


These are the writings of a young man, a very young man, whose life has unfolded in no fixed place; no mother, no country, careless of the things one should care about; like many wretched young men, evading moral laws. He was aimless and troubled to such a degree that he could only trudge towards death as though towards a terrible and fatal propriety. He had never loved women—though full of passion!—and so his heart, his soul and all his strength were prey to a strange, sad waywardness. From a succession of dreams—their evolution and their endings—which came to him in his bed or on the street, delicate religious notions took shape. Perhaps you recall the uninterrupted sleep of the legendary Mohamedans—good men and circumcised. Yet his strange suffering has a disquieting ring of truth, and we must hope in all earnest that this Soul, lost in our very midst, apparently longing to die, will find true consolation at the moment of death, and prove worthy of it!

[Anonymous No.5258307]

"John is sad, and likes to mope and muse a lot. I believe that he thinks of himself as some sort of a poet", said Jack.

"I am a poet", said John.

Joe was an honest man and not as quick to mock as was his friend, Jack, and asked, "how do you know that you are a poet, John? I've wondered what it is that makes men poets."

John smiled, "As to how I know it is difficult to communicate, Joe, but since you asked so sincerely I am compelled to give you my best attempt at an explanation, so I will say this: I have been initiated in the mystery that all poets have been initiated in throughout the ages."

"What is this mystery?", said Joe.

Jack, smiling, said, "he's speaking of 'love', of course; what else could a poet be talking about?"

"Yes, love", said John, "I've been taught its mystery, I confess. If I could put a mystery into words, Joe, I would be more than a poet, but seeing as I am so fond of you I will speak anyway - against my better judgement - and try vainly to announce the mystery - in prose, though I am a poet - which is as follows: the profane men of this world who are very far removed from the beatific vision like very much to say that there is no man so stupid or deluded as a man in love, that love makes a fool of the lover, seducing him into a voluntary blindness. But this is not so. They say that the lover views his or her beloved with false eyes, that the whole world knows that the fool's beloved is not nearly as beautiful as they say, that it is only by accident that they love this person and not another. But none of this is so. For this is the truth, which it has been given to all poets to know: when a person sees their beloved - I do not mean when a person first meets another, but when a person first "falls in love", which is the first time that they truly sees their beloved - the guardian angel of the beloved opens the eyes of the lover to see the beauty of the beloved's soul - revealing its heavenly origin - so that rather than it being the case that the lover has false eyes and that the world sees the beloved for how mundane he or she is, it would be more true to say that the lover is the only one who sees the beloved for how heavenly they are, and that it is more the case that the whole world blind to this truth. This knowledge is what makes a man a poet, and all poets have known this; and I know this, so I am a poet."

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5258310]

>>5258307
forgot trip

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5258386]

Hey, it turns out that by sheer chance my post is a refutation of this guy's
>>5257003

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5258402]

I think Plato and Kierkegaard are my favourite poets. I know that sounds edgy because they didn't write in verse, but if you accept the idea of "prose proems" then you can't disagree with me. Even if you insist that poetry is limited to verse, I would still insist that Plato and Kierkegaard are my favourite "poets" in that they move me with language, although I admit that is not a practical definition of poet but rather a more mystical one, like in my post above.

[Anonymous No.5258408]

>>5258402
>you can't disagree with me

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5258413]

See, I think my post >>5258307 is a lot more beautiful than this guy's >>5257003 But why? Mine isn't "better written" really. It could definitely use editing. The reason that mine is superior is that I have a more beautiful Idea or Form in Platonic terms, his Idea is one of disintegrating despair where mine is one of exaltation.

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5258417]

>>5258408
>implying you can
:^)

[Anonymous No.5258421]

>>5257968
Supreme gentleman

[Anonymous No.5258425]

>>5258421
?

[Anonymous No.5258430]

>>5258425
> He was aimless and troubled to such a degree that he could only trudge towards death as though towards a terrible and fatal propriety. He had never loved women—though full of passion!

[Anonymous No.5258433]

>>5258430
and?

[Anonymous No.5258446]

New to this, criticism welcome. Probably not very good, everything else here seems so beautiful.

Dawn broke through the darkness of the barren landscape. It brought light to the land as the ground emerged with brown and grey colors broken by the cracked rock. A mountain pierced through the flat land with a brown house nestled at the foot of it. It was unseen by the dawn as it blended to the mountain as a brick fits to a wall.

Still, the arrival of the dawn did not affect the noise that littered the landscape. The sound of bursting bombs engulfed the house without any visual change to the land. The sounds were distant but so close that they could shake the heads of whoever they met. There was a beginning noise that shook the air causing a tiny flock of birds to spot the cloudless sky. It was quick and loud as it cut through the air right as the sun came across the horizon. The noise may have shaken the land but the landscape was unaffected as if the bang had not happened. The noise subsided and a large pulse was emitted from the sun as it came further across the horizon. The pulse covered the land with a bright red haze that colored the cracked land crimson. The red pulse grew more intense as a second bang shook the air much like the first. It was louder and more intense but still no sign of destruction announced its physical presence. The bang was longer and deeper than the first. It lasted for a few moments until its shake came to peace. Still, the sun pulsed a red haze that grew brighter with each passing second. It found no peace with each passing moment as it lifted further across the horizon. From the red orb, a new white pulse emerged with great force soon after the second bang. It struck the mountain and gave image to every crack and opening that covered it. From this white haze, the sound of a third bang started to visibly shake the land for the first time. The pebbles on the ground started to move as the sound of the bang engulfed the air much more than the previous two. The landscape started to bend as the bomb gave birth to movement with earth and sand spilling into the sky. Debris started to litter the horizon with a ghastly spiral shooting into the heavens. The mountain shook from the noise and so too did the house that laid on it. From this shake, Tris awakened.

[Anonymous No.5258455]

>>5258307
does that mean schizophrenics are poets?

[Anonymous No.5258463]

>>5258402
>plato
>plato
>the man who despised poets

[Anonymous No.5258474]

>>5258417
>>5258413
>>5258402
>>5258386
>>5258310
>>5258307
damn you post a lot of stupid shit
save yourself the shame and drop the trip

[Jude Thaddeus !SX.Jipgvhc No.5258483]

>>5258463
let's just say that Plato "was a poet and he didn't know it".

[Anonymous No.5258493]

Submitted some stories to contest a few months back, was really proud of them. Just went back and it's so much worse than I remember and now I'm extremely insecure and am really doubting how much time I've invested into writing. And since I already submitted these stories it's not like I can just edit them and send them in again. Fuck. I know it sounds like I'm fishing for compliments here but genuinely looking to see what people think.

Here's the full story: http://pastebin.com/5dRYHFFP

And here's the first paragraph:

It was winter but it wasn't cold. It had been cold the day before that day but on that day it was seventy degrees. It didn't smell like flowers or rain. It smelled like the cold, but it wasn't cold. It was warm and the trees were bare and the birds were silent and the grass was yellow and the small patches of snow melted quickly. They were all puddles by noon.

[H-here I go No.5258635]

They laughed under their breaths as the man who leaned over to urinate would be the first casualty to baptize the event. A youth left the huddled group with a javelin in hand, holding it underhanded while crouching across the grass. He could hear the man whistling a song, a romantic ballad or a heroic stanza he did not care, the stench had engulfed this place and the only thing to do was excise it from the land. With one motion of the arm he sent his gift, the man still exerting for the last drop. The missile impacted his torso, letting out a scream as he fell back and begun to bleed. The youth lifted his shield above his head, shining with the light from the moon. A river of black overran the ground, six metallic snakes among their numbers. Approaching the walls they struck them in the ground and began to mount them. Ascending, they reached the walls while an alarm sounded, panic settled in once word spread

[Anonymous No.5258781]

>>5258493

too much Hemingway breh

[Anonymous No.5258789]

>>5255777

impressive/10

would read.

[Anonymous No.5258836]

[Anonymous No.5258850]

>>5258836
Dee is a 6/10 at best on the show even though she's actually pretty in reality

[Anonymous No.5258855]

>>5258413
Yours sounds like it was written by a robot because you have no grasp of what human interaction resembles. Because your brain is stunted. And you can never fix that.

[Anonymous No.5258927]

>>5255777

>frosts that come upon the windows in perennial grimness that, much like the rain of the season, is necessary and rarely appreciated.

You made a lot of contentious statements that I could still see some reasoning in up until this one. You have to tell us what's so necessary about autumn frost, I have no idea what you mean.

Also I'm concerned that you're opening your story with a description of the weather.

>and mothers are arrested together

Your style of vocabulary aside, I'd still not use that word for what you're saying. It just goes too far here.

Then you go on to get really prose-y about rumors involving a murder. I personally think prose is terrible when you're just using it to drive the narrative. I think it's at its best when you're using it to affect emotion in the reader. You want to show them an idea, or an image, and have them feel something about it. I don't think you can stir much emotion in the first paragraph, before the reader is even sure he gives a crap about the story to begin with.

I'm concerned that you're trying to use prose to make up for a well-tread premise. But then again I don't really know the premise, I'm just going on what I'm reading.

[Anonymous No.5258938]

>>5258493

Stop opening your stories with descriptions of the weather, anon. It's boring and irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.5258947]

The moon hangs low in the nights sky, dangling from an invisible string, inches from the smooth horizon. It's light, tearing open the darkness to wash over the featureless earth, eats the ground before it heaving back a monochrome landscape. It silences the stars' glow and fills the boy's field of vision. He is thin and frail, a visceral mass coated in sweat and fear. He stumbles through the night in dirty, torn clothing that hangs limply from his skeletal frame. A bag clutches lamely to his shoulders, half empty but threatening to burst free from its stitching and spill its contents over the hard, dry earth. A million shades of silver dance over hollow cheeks and sallow chest as he staggers through the field. His body turns inward from the night, save for eyes which unrelentingly dart their gaze across the earth. They are milky white, contrasting from his greyed, listless features. The eyes lead him on, urging his failing legs forward as he seeks escape from the horrors prior seen. Images of the caged animals pressed up against their bars, peering into the empty hearts haunts his conscience and pushes him onward.
Escaping Greece. Also being existential and edgy but I'm not sure if I want to end it in self delusion or acknowledgement that shits hopeless yo.

[Anonymous No.5259016]

>>5258947

I really didn't like reading this. The imagery is weak and convoluted. "His body turns inward from the night"? I understand you're trying to be poetic and set a mood, but I just can't connect with the character (a kid with a backpack is all we know about him), nor do I feel any kind of dread about this moonlit night. It just fell flat.

You might be able to make this work as an opening for a story... about some kid escaping an animal testing laboratory?... but it needs a complete overhaul.

>Images of the caged animals pressed up against their bars, peering into the empty hearts haunts

"Peering into the empty hearts"? Did you miss a few words here? And this, what the boy saw, is a million times juicier than describing his physical condition or the environment around him. Spend your words on that, instead. Give us story-relevant context, give us information, make us feel his terror.

[Anonymous No.5259036]

By midnight we were surrounded on the exterior of the brasserie, heavily occupied even in the early AM. Displayed on each table were a lighter and a preferred brand of cigarette, and each breath was a crapshoot: air or smoke. Even overlooking the sea and at night, July did not relent and every place was breezeless, myself sticking to the armless rattan chair, dazed and sweating uniformly. But the Frenchmen seemed impervious—somehow cool by their very nature. Primary colored bifocals, peculiar noses, eccentricity. Each was a character. A gray cat coming and going laced below our legs and went to sit demurely beside whichever table the food was headed, subsisting on the scrounges of bread and poisson du jour. Voices vied for attention and embraced against the imported music snuck under the whole scene…while facing us, farther out, the darkened landing was known only by the moonlit rigging of fishing trawlers and the reaches of lamplight from across the road. I wanted wholly to be pulled from the noise and meld within that solace. I excused myself to the bathroom. “Take your things with you. I am in no state of responsibility.” Through similar antics inside, penetrating the crowd, through double-takes, “Hé! USA!”, to the male-marked door, into a familiar buzzing and thin veil of aerosol, blinding whiteness and condensation beading metallics, ancient pipes bursting through tiles running elsewhere. In the mirror: a drained face with a low-hanging jaw, brooding accompanied by the exhalatory gush of a toilet. The wet backward shirt text on me: MORE TERRIFYING THAN MAN.

[denali No.5259056]

It's fucking freezing. Fuck the cold, fuck winter, and most of all, fuck any pretentious asswipe who goes jogging in conditions such as these. Why in christ name did I move to Alaska? Sure, I was able to find a job fitting of my earth science masters, but this? This is Hell. I mean, it's beautiful and all, great mountains, sloping and cutting into the skyline. Pristine environments chock full of fir trees coated with the glistening white substance that I am now sure covers Hell. Yes, Alaska is wonderful. But I'm not partial to the bear that recently ravaged the lunchbox I left outside on a table. Fuck you bears, that was bran new and cost thirty dollars and had 'amazing heat saving technology!' Bears aside, life can be interesting here. Exploration in the ring of fire always gets me pumped, and I always end up with an excuse to punch Mark. Cecil from administration usually puts a damper on things, a debbie downer in the northest of states. From day one since my florida tanned ass moved here, she's had it out for me. But today, that changes.


An incredibly annoying geologist tames a powerful wild beast with the help of a sexy santa impersonator and an intellectual quiz team. The effort is complicated by the death of a loved one, the birth of the antichrist, and the coming of the end of worlds.

[skelington !.jpvapBAYw No.5259089]

>>5259056
You're going for the stream of conscience approach, but it comes off as a TV character breaking the fourth wall. I have no idea what your plot is, but you need to make things sound a bit more genuine

[denali No.5259096]

>>5259089

Just fucking with ya, I just wanted to add to the post. Thanks for a legit response though, I'll try to apply.

[Anonymous No.5259535]

Venice Beach. September, 1963. Somewhere between 70 and 80 degrees. Behind the sailboats, the great flame is setting once again. In less than two months I’ll be dead - but for now let’s enjoy the scenery.

Until something disrupts me.

Burning.

Burning flesh.

A faint hint of cigarette smoke.

Whether the sky was just that awe-inspiring or the morphine had kicked in, I had forgotten about the stog I lit - with only a single drag taken off. I almost felt like weeping. A perfectly packed Carlisle Unfiltered, gone to waste. With my throat swelling I checked the soft pack.

No mas.

That’s all I remember of last night.

[Anonymous No.5259593]

>>5258446
Try to avoid opening with laborious descriptions. Far too many words to describe what's happening. You've overdone it. Also, towards the end of the second paragraph, the word 'bang' becomes disruptively repetitive. But maybe that's intentional, Idk.

You might want to consider starting fewer sentences with 'the'. You have four in a row here:
>The noise may have shaken the land but the landscape was unaffected as if the bang had not happened. The noise subsided and a large pulse was emitted from the sun as it came further across the horizon. The pulse covered the land with a bright red haze that colored the cracked land crimson. The red pulse grew more intense as a second bang shook the air much like the first.

It ruins the flow somewhat.

Overall, it doesn't read well. I had to force myself to persist. It lacks flow or rhythm and is overly descriptive without the use of any real imagery.

Still, not terrible for a self-confessed beginner. There are few faults here that can't be wrung without practice. Keep trying.

[Anonymous No.5259656]

>>5243124
>orthogonally
Didn't like it.

>I was thinking about the slow radicalisation of an impressionable young male.
>autobiography
>thinking anyone wants to read 400 pages of some /pol/tard learning to shitpost while his mom brings him hotpockets

[Anonymous No.5259661]

>>5259656
>>thinking anyone wants to read 400 pages of some /pol/tard learning to shitpost while his mom brings him hotpockets

[Anonymous No.5259747]

>>5258433
Look up Elliot Rodgers then destroy your hardrive

[Anonymous No.5259840]

>>5243124

James Joyce wannabe.

This is all any editor will think when reading your shit.

And to the trash it goes.

It's not the first half of the 20th century anymore, move the fuck on.

[Anonymous No.5261495]

>>5258938

Is it really boring? I always hear this advice but never understand it. What should I start with? A description of the environment, as long as it's a good description, seems like as good of an opening as any if it doesn't last too long.

[Anonymous No.5261795]

>>5261495
You can start with anything really as long as it's not stupid. And yours is stupid. Try with a character or with action or with a scene that has something happening.

[Anonymous No.5261896]

Darik used to fear the monsters hiding in the dark. His mother told him that it was fine and that the guardians held them away from the city. It never reassured him. As a twenty five year old, he loved the night; it meant he could escape from gruelling work, away from accusation and the past.

Too stuck in his head to read, he placed his book down. The fire in the corner of the room cracked; his tongue felt like sandpaper. He tried to move the little spit he had around in his mouth; no dice. He got up off his couch, the plywood clicked as his weight left the thin cushion. He scooted around the shin-height coffee table and walked four steps to reach the sink. He reached up, just over his head to pull out a foam cup. He turned the tap six times to the left and water spurted from the spigot.

Knock – knock – knock.

Darik jolted and water went everywhere. A thousand different horrible things rushed to his mind. His breathing was painfully loud and his hands started to shake. He looked around for the cause of the noise; it couldn't have been the door. Was it the plumbing? No, it was too precise.

Knock – knock – knock.

-

It's pretty rough, I know, I just started writing this because I wanted to get better at writing and there's only one real way to do that.

[Anonymous No.5261959]

>tfw not writing in English and cant share my writing here or even give proper critique

Well I am just gonna say what I am currently working on. Short story about young man with no dreams or ambitions who meets man who is not able to sleep.

Its actuallly inspired by real person. Google Paul Kern if you´re interested.

[Anonymous No.5262059]

>>5259747
I fuckin' lelled.