Critique Thread

[Anonymous No.5277079]

Didn't see one in the catalog, so post your stuff and give critiques. Not like you'll listen to me, but it's my RECOMMENDATION that you stick to the following rules:

1) No posting a piece of writing without first giving a critique of someone else's.

2) No empty critiques. "Shit" doesn't count, nor does "Excellent". Also, no "Best in threads", which admittedly doesn't happen so much, but it's incredibly annoying when people state their opinion as if it's fact.

3) No multi-part posts. A couple paragraphs will suffice.

4) Where possible, post directly to here and only in exceptional circumstances to pastebin. It's easier that way and I think brings more attention to your work than just a single little link.

I'll do my best to critique throughout. Go nuts.

Unrelated, but FUCKING ROBIN WILLIAMS. Jesus Christ.

[Anonymous No.5277105]

>>5277079
Well what are YOU writing?

[Anonymous No.5277110]

Oh, OK. Start of a short story I'm thinking of submitting to this contest.

He was a traveler of far away lands and he was not used to trains. He tolerated cars and jeeps, for they were easily embellished with snow or sand, and they were generally sympathetic to the land they crossed. Planes were out of the question. Quiet ships he liked the most, though certainly not those officious cruises. Sail ships he loved. He had spent a summer fishing in the Laccadive sea and had slept on his skiff most nights, and some he’d spent close to shore where the waves would light phosphorescent blue and the stars become his earthly friends, and this memory he reserved should he ever be approached on his travels. It was a happy anecdote and he didn’t at all mean anything by it. The waves and sand had been a-glow with blue and he had slept in the sky and he dreamed about it often. And he had been sailing then, pleasantly adrift, and now the fjords and very white houses and mountaintops were speeding past him a reel of glossy postcards. Then the train would come upon a tunnel and his ears would pop and his sinuses flare across his face.

In the train the air was thin and though he was accustomed to higher altitudes even than this he found difficulty in breathing. It was stale and flat like old beer. He hugged the little bag closer to his body and its Wumpum beads rattled down the side of the seat and they were dangling from his suitcase in the rack. The Iroquois girls had gifted them to him and said they were vestures of history, stories and almanacs, and he was very grateful. Their fathers told him they were currency, and he had offered them back, but they were gifts and he was encouraged to wear them. It had grown on him that their currency was history. But the stories of whom? He’d wondered. Surely those of other people, and not mine. How could they be mine? I’ve got many years of traveling ahead of me. It is not yet lived, never mind written. He had gone to Alaska afterward and had dated and carved the dipper into a big blue one.

[Anonymous No.5277156]

>>5277110
It's an alright piece sol far, maybe it would be better with a bit of context and where you'd like to go with this. Some sections of the text feel like they were translated giving it a bit of an awkward feel. It could also just sound as if it was written many decades ago. But honestly context would help for a better critique