Critique Thread

[Anonymous No.8644222]

Post your shit, preferably your worst stuff.

Into a scarlet sky
My thoughts all went and flew
Collided with the stars
And rained down unto you.

My vistas stretched beyond our feet
As the sun massaged your back
Then we stared and stared together
Into that ceaseless black.

[Anonymous No.8645061]

You said you're WORST. So here I go.
I posted here before, I TRIED to make it more digestible this time. I hope.

1 of 5

[Anonymous No.8645063]

>>8645061
2 of 5

[Anonymous No.8645067]

>>8645063
3 of 5

[Anonymous No.8645069]

>>8645067
4 of 5

[Anonymous No.8645073]

>>8645069
5 of 5
Amateur here, please know what you're getting into. Thanks anyway for whatever you got.

[Anonymous No.8645301]

>>8645073
Why is it blue and yellow? trying to read this is like sticking a thumb up my eye socket.

>first 2 lines
this actually really sucks. Stop being autistically dramatic and focus more on the general feeling you want readers to enter your world with. Making everything "blood vortex" like that right off the bat can, and will, turn off readers. I didn't want to read past the first paragraph but i did anyway so i could pick up examples i can use to try to help you improve.

Especially don't go so fucking all out on gore and skulls crunching underfoot and shit if you're going to use words like "noggin" and "squeaky" and "sheepish"

Your grammar and - more importantly - sentence structure is atrocious. Consider this
>At the front seat Lieutenant Monty sat stoned with a cooled reserve: a man of few words, and fewer troubles.
the specific word being expanded upon should precede the colon. Also use less commas wherever you can.
>In the front seat, stoned and with a cool reserve, sat Lieutenant Monty: a man of few words and fewer troubles
now that we've fixed the obvious flaws, let me tell you how forced this is. You shouldn't overdescribe your characters. "a man of few words and fewer troubles" sounds stupid, cliche, and like a bio for your goddamn fursona. Also, what does "fewer troubles" mean? Isn't he in a life or death situation? Describe his personality THROUGH how he interacts with other characters and surroundings. SHOW, DON'T TELL.

Ease up -big time- on the obtuse metaphors and similes. Some of these descriptive words are simply unfitting for the thing they are supposed to be describing
>screams being "suckled" by the vacuum of space
>pilot of the ship groaning like a "teenager waking for school"
>grieving soldiers "gargling" their final goodbyes
>memories "eaten by the wolf of inevitability"
>a tv screen lowering being like "a dog returning to its master"
>smoke like "a hound in heat and not knowing where to put it"
seriously what the fuck is it with dogs

Page 2 was your strongest point for me, but the monologue the admiral briefly gives about the war shouldn't be done like it was. Although I, the reader, know nothing of their history, everyone in that room clearly does, and its silly that a hard, cool character would state and re-state the obvious.

What would have been stronger would be subtler exposition of the history of the war, and instead of most of THAT, have a tactician briefly describe the terrain of the battlefield. A battleship dodging blasts is more exciting if you know that they're, say, in a close formation and could hit other ships, or if we know they're only hundreds of feet off the ground, etc. Battlefields are more confusing in 3D, so make sure to CONSTRAIN your battles in some way, like making one side encamped in a particular place, or one side "uphill" or advantaged by their surroundings in some way. Be creative.

I appreciate the bane reference though. Try rewriting it again, especially the first page.

[Anonymous No.8646595]

>>8645301
Thanks for the help man. I rarely get critics this expansive. This is the most I've got from anyone on my work. I'll remember this advice as I write up the full thing.

Just another thing - did you get what was going on?
Past the first two sentences, how was the flow? The prose perhaps?
And most importantly, do you think think I have the steels to become a writer after some refinement?

[Anonymous No.8647296]

>>8646595
>did you get what was going on?
only after re-reading it. You sort of tried to introduce all your characters and elements at once. I would call what you were doing "toploading" to some extent: that is, spending the first chapter/page/etc. introducing everything of importance in great detail. The beginning of your story should be a "hook" that makes people want to figure out what's going on. Try to save the prose for later on and work on a simpler intro that throws you into the action, but highlights the part of the action that is unique to YOUR story.

>how was the flow, the prose perhaps?
Like I said, flow was best around the second page. You need to ease up on your prose until you develop your style a little better. Don't use so many metaphors and try to - instead of using 3 or 4 descriptive words - use one "perfect" word. The English language is beautiful because of the intricacies between similar words, and how each carries a slightly different meaning.

I think your intro with the "war drawing to its end", "sea of stars", "blood orchestra", etc. shows that you want to instill an enormous sense of SCOPE in the reader, which I think is very admirable. But you should try to frame your story with that same scope. You can't seem to decide between following many ships and characters, or portraying only a very specific slice of the action. Maybe you should choose one or the other, just a thought

Last thing I should add: break up your sentences. You write too many labyrinthine sentences. Make sure you can identify the subject and the verb and if a phrase doesn't pertain to either then please don't slap it on the end with a comma. Shorter sentences with short-but-vivid adjectives may give your writing the "flow" and pace that you are looking for

>do you think I have the steels to become a writer after some refinement?
The only thing that prevents you from being a writer is thinking that your work isn't good enough to share. Keep working on it and we'll see

[Anonymous No.8647956]

>>8644222
Let the mania sing. Let the poltergeist dreams take hold and spill their sickly ink. And in these bizarre neurofrantics were burn the fucker to ground. Let incest take the life of the butler and cheer the wizard on for your dialogue with the damned crucifies the Christ within us. Chase these spooks for crypt for covenant with the naughtness and niches of human perception allows everything to wither and wane from the frothy cream of the milk sane. Depart! Depart my friends that which daisy chains together. So delicate and slender. Ruefully maintained in slaughterhouses for the pigs. Sentience? Fuck that. Sensuousness. Do I want to put my cock in? Remember friends it doesn’t matter if male of female. Mail in your resignation. Fuck the rooster. Slay the cat. Cheer chim churee. Clusterfuck. Depart! Depart! Let the spiral take you somewhere dark and cold. Let the islands travels and slur. Yo yo fucker in nigger kentucker. Where cleverness and talent can’t reside. Just a frail affirmation of life. And the cheerless dark dreams of some constructed within and without. Hope they all kill themselves before I kill myself. Let the the ink drip down some drain and into some angels throat. Cut throat. Slit throat. Deep throat. Oat and hay for the horses.Friend, friend! Don’t be afraid. Just an expression of the self that has passed into the next. But all know it’s all shit underneath.

[Anonymous No.8647985]

El bosque
Sentado en la tierra ya soy uno
La soledad es viva y me envuelve en su regazo
Duermo en éste, con sus alas me cubro
Bebo el cálido respirar que en mis pasos trazo

Camino y el ruido recorre suave
Ente los árboles donde posan las aves
Árboles escudo de la lluvia
Cubren su piel de fría agua turbia

Caen a mis pies frutos del cielo
Las hojas que son páginas de olvido
Con la sátira del viento que empuja su velo
Y escribe en letras de un dialecto rendido

Nunca me recuerde las palabras de este sendero
Aún me perderé, lento entre las ramas y troncos
El sol me alcanzará y me cubrirá entero
Aún no lo conoceré, y no me acercaré al fondo
I´d post a translation but i´m too lazy and depressed right know to do anything other than staring at a screen

[Anonymous No.8648658]

>>8644222
The New Priest


Polite, cautious, politically sound, occasionally caustic, little Rick stood alert in the gathered group. He listened warily to the other students talk. His ears were sensitive and finely tuned. He liked to find cracks in their words. His daggerblue eyes darted from speaker to speaker, as if seeking to transfix the parent of a misspoke phrase with his gaze.

“I thought it played with language in an interesting way,” said Aaron of the poem. “And I get the point it’s making. But, like, it’s not something I’d ever read outside a class.”

“But,” said Rick, “as a literary witnessing that undermines Western modernity’s constructed but naturalized structure of witnessing, it doesn’t speak for you.”

The students looked at their feet or nodded shyly.

Inside of Rick was a reactor where unstable elements fused, split, and decayed into boundless energy, needing an outlet. By this stage in his life, Rick could, for the most part, control this internal energy. But he hadn’t always been able to.

He frequently had silent and red-faced meltdowns in his teenage and young-adult years. Tripping over his feet in front of a pretty girl; a jock’s lockerroom comment about his height: every little exclusion or embarrassment, real or imagined, used to rile Rick into lasting abject confusion. Once in grade seven Biology class, Rick had fumbled over the word “organism”; after that incident, he declined to go to any of the school dances for the rest of that schoolyear. And Rick still stung when he recalled his first kiss: he was cold and clammy and trembling like a damp mouse in winter, and Bayleigh leaned her fat face in, and Rick wanted to die or just to get it over with so he could say he had done it, and then their lips touched; the next thing he remembered was coming to on her carpeted floor, looking up at her, asking was she okay and what happened?

That one got volleyed around. He was thankful his parents chose to move their family to a new town later that year.

[Anonymous No.8648660]

>>8648658

Things were much different for him now. He was older. More mature. He was an intellectual force in his classes. And he now knew how to control his inner instability and the intense energy this instability generated. For though he had not been able to move gracefully along to the music that guided the human social dance in his youth, his schooling had since taught him a new language and way of thinking that enabled him to criticize the music, the dance, and the dancers, and to justify his exclusion from it all. Indeed, the way he now spoke made it sound like he had chosen to abstain from the regular social dance in the first place, not that he had originally been excluded. He now claimed, in his oblique and self-abnegating way, that the world, the music, and the social dance itself were all rotten, oppressive, exclusive, and dangerous. Yes, the world itself was rotten. Its leaders were rotten. And anyone who lived up to the expectations of the rotten world, anyone who fit into the rotten world, was rotten, too.

The whole history of the world was rotten.

But its future needn’t be. So long as people woke up and began accepting what was true, good, and right. So long as people began listening to those who knew the truth…

[Anonymous No.8648663]

>>8648660

Through his university education, Rick had grappled with some of the deepest insights of humankind, and had glimpsed, and now held, securely in his hands, the truth: all the loud and tall and confident men who ran the world were lionlike brutes. And they preyed on the weak and vulnerable. And they always had, and they always would unless people like Rob did something about it.

It was such brutish men that had created language—the very language that everyday people spoke. For it was always rich, tall, straight, white men who had access to the best educational institutions throughout history. And these men, all with relatively similar life experiences and ways of seeing the world, got together, throughout history, and developed words and ideas and theories to reflect what they, a small but powerful minority, believed. And these men called their narrow set of beliefs the “truth”. And they taught this truth to everyone.

Now every word anyone spoke, Rick believed, was in one way or another the product of this very narrow perspective. So every inherited word was contaminated. “Truth” simply meant “that which conforms to the beliefs and values of rich and tall and mostly white men”, and all words, even those that seemed neutral of value, were riddled with the values of those white men who had created them.

The fastest, most efficient, and best way to get from one point to another was called “straight”; and proper sexual orientation, thus, got its name from that, “straight”, and now carried an almost scientific authority. And “light” and “white” became connotative of good and pure, while “dark” and “black” meant bad and dirty: thus, the determinism of race, and the inherent racism of language itself. And arguments became “penetrating” and “seminal”, and they were “asserted”, and they were backed by “strong” evidence: thus language was masculine, and excluding of women. And poor arguments were said to come up “short”.

Short like Rick.

So straight white tall men built language and logic; and they built in such a way that any time anyone spoke with it, they couldn’t help but reinforce the straight white tall man’s superiority to everyone else. All language, Rick had learned, was infected. That was why Rick needed new words. Complex words that no one else knew. Complex words and theories that ran like a dizzying maze and that couldn’t be navigated, and thus, couldn’t be refuted by brutish white men.

[Anonymous No.8648667]

>>8648663

So straight white tall men built language and logic; and they built in such a way that any time anyone spoke with it, they couldn’t help but reinforce the straight white tall man’s superiority to everyone else. All language, Rick had learned, was infected. That was why Rick needed new words. Complex words that no one else knew. Complex words and theories that ran like a dizzying maze and that couldn’t be navigated, and thus, couldn’t be refuted by brutish white men.

The students continued to bandy about different ideas, and though Rick kept an attentive ear open for problematic words like “objective”, “truth”, “race”, “sexuality” and “capital”, he was, in fact, daydreaming. He imagined himself as a professor, standing at the front of a university class. Because all the students were sitting, he was much taller than any of them. He looked over them confidently. And he imagined the beautiful young women looking admiringly at him as he taught them about the inherent weakness and oppressiveness of Western men, the men who had rejected him in his youth, and about the true, great strength of the female and feminine. And one especially beautiful, albeit shy, young woman would grow emboldened by his lecturing. And her cheek would flush after hearing him say something with especial rhetorical genius and argumentative force. And she would pause from her feverish note-taking and look up at him, her eyes watering with tears of joyful liberation. And after class, long after class, when it was dark and the university was empty, and Rick was in his office, late, marking papers, he would hear a light knock on his door. And he would look up, wondering who might possibly be at school this late, and he would say, “come in”, and the door would swing slowly open, and—

“…that’s why I think there is probably at least some biological basis to it,” said one of the students.

“Sorry,” said Rick, snapping out of his reverie, “but did you say you actually believe that there is some kind of interpretation neutral substrate…”

----

[Anonymous No.8648672]

>>8648667

At the bar that night, Rick was drunk. The alcohol seemed to have washed away much of what he knew. He wasn’t speaking properly. It seemed like another self was speaking for him. One whose voice he never heard during the day when he was sober. One whose voice he could not so easily tyrannize.

The bar was dark and colorfully lit. And the women he admired for their brilliance and, really, rather interesting perspectives during the day seemed embodied in a way he didn’t usually notice. Claire, so awkward but intense in classes and at school, seemed laid back enough to melt into and move with the flowing music. She eyed him from on the dancefloor. He smiled, more confidently, less coldly and guardedly than usual. She was singing to him, moving her hips, and that look in her eye, calling him as she put her hands ceilingward and slowly brought then down along the sides of her body, tracing downwardly her curves. Her shirt was dark with sweat. The thin material clung to her body, her pushed-up breasts bouncing a little. It was warm in the bar. He was warm. She was walking over to him, smiling at him.

“Come for a smoke,” she said.

Outside it was cold, dark. Snow swirled in the wind and curled about the streetlamps like the whorls of clashing currents. Their faces were close. Sharing the smoke, back and forth, they spoke. She said that her medication made her get drunk really quickly so that she could hardly control herself with some things. She insisted that she got drunk really easily because of her medication. Almost too drunk, because of the medication she took. For her condition. She needed the meds for her condition.

“Are you drunk now?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Too drunk?”

“For what?”

----

[Anonymous No.8648678]

>>8648672

They stumbled into her apartment, she leading him by the hand. It was pitchdark. She pushed him gently onto the couch and she grabbed a half bottle of wine from the kitchen and glasses and returned. Watching TV, she was looking at him for a while. Staring. They were sitting right next to one another. After a while, a long gaze at the side of his face, she looked back at the TV. Then he looked at her and she turned and looked at him. He could tell that his gaze had far less power here. It was she that was transfixing him. She closed her eyes, and leaned in, slowly. He leaned in, too, his heart racing, remembering the blackout. And he stopped.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked, shakily.

She opened her eyes slightly.

“Yes,” she said.

After the wine was finished she led him to her bedroom. They tumbled onto her bed. He held the back of her head gently as he kissed her. She started kissing him, gently at first, too; but gradually she became more aggressive. She grabbed his ass. He pulled his head back.

“Can I touch your body?” he asked, quivering.

“Yeah,” she said impatiently.

They continued. He explored with gentle hands her curves, over her shirt. He lightly rubbed where he thought her nipple would be. She put her hand over his hand over her breast and made him squeeze her. When she let go, he went back to touching her gently. He started licking her neck with the tip of his tongue. Her body tensed up.

“Do you like that?” he asked, emboldened.

“No,” she said definitively. “It tickles.”

“Do you want to stop?” he said.

She seemed to go limp and sort of pulled away.

“Maybe,” she said.

“How come?” he said.

“I…I think I’m too drunk.”

“Like I’m taking advantage of you?” he asked.

“Uh,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

They lay on their backs for a minute, in darkness and silence. He felt beside him for her arm, ran his hand down it and grabbed her hand romantically, interlocking their fingers. He rubbed her palm with his thumb.

She pulled her hand away.

“Time to go,” she said. “I’m getting really tired.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Sorry,” she said.

At the door, before he left, he went to kiss her but she turned her face. He kissed her cheek.

“This was fun,” he said. “We should hang out more.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Maybe. Goodnight.”

She closed the door.

----

[Anonymous No.8648679]

>>8648678
As he walked down the empty downtown streets, two parts of him wrestled with each other to make sense of what had just happened. Was he guilty of taking advantage of Claire? She had told him about the effects of her medication. How drunk it made her. How out of control. She was a kind and intelligent young woman, and he had preyed on her just like those lionlike brutes he claimed to be fighting against. In a way, he was little better, no better than they were. And at school on Monday, he would see her in class…Should he apologize right away? And what if she told the others in their class about what he’d done? What would happen to him, to his scholastic career if a sexual assault allegation were filed against him? He himself was a vehement critic of victim blaming, and always advocated for the validity of the woman’s story in sexual assault cases, even in cases where there was no tangible evidence to support the woman’s claim. And now he would be the accused. Oh no…

Or, he considered, relaxing immediately, maybe he wasn’t at fault. Maybe, despite her education, Claire had never properly learned what true consent meant. Maybe she had been expecting him to take control of her and her body, instead of offering her the opportunity to exercise her rights, and asking her if she consented to his advances. And if this was the case, well, then he wasn’t at fault at all. It was she that was at fault! He clenched his fists. How could someone possibly call themselves a feminist, and advocate for women’s rights and freedoms and protections, and yet be impatient with someone like him—one of the good guys—for being an ally to her cause, and for practicing the very things she and he both preached? Claire was obviously inconsistent, and despite vocally advocating for one thing, her practices and expectations showed, deep down, that she believed something else. She was still in the grips of a backwards and disgusting ideology.

----

[Anonymous No.8648683]

>>8648679

He threw the tissue into the bedside garbage. Then he closed his laptop and placed it on the floor. He lay back in bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. Why did he watch things like that? And why couldn’t she have guided him through what she’d wanted of him, like the woman had for the man. Helping her sand her corns and clip her toenails. Should he have been more open, and told her what he wanted? No. It could not always be about him. He began phasing in and out of wakefulness and sleep. Maybe she could teach him.

In the liminal dreamstate, the college classroom he often imagined materialized in his mind. But he wasn’t teaching, proudly, forcefully at the front of the class. He was a pert little student, hunched at the back of the room, feverishly taking notes and occasionally looking up at a fat and faceless woman, the professor. She was writing something on the board with furor. He couldn’t make out the writing. She stepped away from the board and stated what she had written, for all the class to hear:

“This is the portal that leads to the future. And we vote for the shape our world will take with our feet.”

[Anonymous No.8648718]

>>8648658
Very well written but really depressing.

[Anonymous No.8648722]

>>8648658
Also the bit about the protag's "knowledge" was a little essayistic. Kinda halts the story flow.

[Anonymous No.8649494]

>>8648683
This is actually legitimately good. It's a great satirical piece.

[Anonymous No.8649667]

>>8644222
This is a bit too mawkish for my tastes but it didn't make me wince. I'd say ditch the "unto," as it seems a bit too anachronistic and kinda juts.

>>8645061
Sorry bud, I am not reading anything that long in that color scheme.

>>8647956
Nicely emetic. Wouldn't be game for this for more than a paragraph or two though.

>>8648660
Not bad. Lionlike seems like a strange choice, though. Unless it has some deeper thematic significance that escaped me I would suggest changing it to leonine.

This is mine, in media res

[Anonymous No.8649685]

Tear me apart, /lit/. I want to feel the pain of how terrible this is. You really don't want to know what the plot of this "novel" was about.

>Every Alice must have a White Rabbit, and Desmond's arrived in the guise of a little white girl, who tumbled to his feet one wet May morning.

>Hurrying to work as the London clocks chimed eight, he did not notice where she had come from or where she was going, but only how she crushed herself against him, tripped over his boots, and fell, shrieking like a provoked small animal. After he had regained his balance he stood still and stared at her, annoyance ebbing away. She cowered, bony and fierce, and Desmond had never seen such a face before. Under a powdering of grime, her skin, her hair, her eyelashes were cotton-white. Her eyes were great spheres of watery red, like blood diluted by tears, and she squinted oddly at Desmond, tilting her head to the side. One pink lip was curled over the other in a childish pout. Transfixed, Desmond did not notice his hand reaching out to touch her.

>"Oi! What the hell d'you think you're doing!" she cried, springing back, high pale brow wrinkling.

>"Might I ask you the same thing?" Desmond smiled. "You nearly bowled me over, and you don't seem to be showing any sign of continuing on your way, so I'm helping you up."

>"Get away." The girl crouched a few feet away now, yellowish teeth bared, red eyes boring into Desmond's. "Touch me and I tell my Pa. He'll mess you up real good."

>Desmond could not help but laugh. He rummaged in his purse and found some change, which he held out to the girl.

>" Rest assured that I am quite harmless. Take this, as a token of our friendship, and don't make me late."

>A sullen light glimmered in the girl's eyes, and she snatched the coin with a bony white hand, her skin clammy against Desmond's for a moment. Then she was gone into the grey morning, her dress snapping about her knees, and Desmond had a moment to think that she should have been a hare or a marten flying through some distant snows. Only when the last ripples had smoothed over the puddles she had disturbed; only when the animal musk of her had faded from the air, did Desmond realise that he was panting, as though he had been running in her stead.

[Anonymous No.8649695]

>blood orchestra
>not gorechestra

Missed opportunity.

[Anonymous No.8649704]

>>8649685
>You really don't want to know what the plot of this "novel" was about

From the beginning, it's obvious that it's about pedo shit. That aside, it's actually pretty well written. Little heavy on the adjectives sometimes, and the animal imagery makes "what the novel was about" come off a little too strong, especially this early on.

[Anonymous No.8649709]

>>8649704
>pedo shit

Not even. It's a re-telling of Dorian Gray (hence the name Desmond) where all the characters do is fuck each other and explore fetishes. The girl is the bastard daughter of the Lord Henry character. I don't remember why she was in the story. Hell I don't remember why I thought this would be a good idea in any way, shape or form.

I can post sex scenes for extra lulz.

[Anonymous No.8649714]

>>8649709
Can't tell if all is better or worse than what I was imagining

[Anonymous No.8649736]

>>8649714
It's worse. At least the pedo shit could potentially be interesting. This was the fucking stupidest thing I've thought of in my whole life.

>The voices of girls fade into existence, slicking the air with a delicate warmth, like death. I lean over and gently kiss Mr. Heathcliffe’s neck. Save for a trapped-bird pulse beating away my lips, he seems unaffronted. The alto voices rise and sing of pain; the girls emerge, this time carrying strength in that pathetic delicacy. I deepen the kiss; my hands slip over the buttons of his shirt; he tumbles into my lap; his mouth is open but I cannot hear him above the thorned stems of the music. The dance of mouse feet down my back. My incisors dancing over Mr. Heathcliffe’s neck in a similar fashion. I want to consume him. I want to lay in his dirt; take his beauty and twist it and oh! – voices of horror rise inside me like honeyed lead, and our lips clash.

>Yes, oh God yes...

>The soft skin under Mr. Heathcliffe’s knees prickles with electricity as I divest him of his clothing to the awestruck chanting of generals. My lips cherish the pink of his chest; my hands travel up his thighs, to his core, oh how he sings with desire, how his voice pierces the music; how the generals and the cavalry flee before this shard of heaven and hell...

>Girls’ voices waltz through a forest of woodwinds. Blackbirds swooning, calling, laughing. Their wings drip liquid musk as I taste Mr. Heathcliffe’s lips once more. I draw out the taste of wine and opium smoke as his warm sex, crowned with hair the colour of blackbirds, grinds hungrily against my thigh. Addled with opium, the poor boy cries out O God, O my God, O Robert in time with the music, the dark-voiced soldier rising and dropping now, the wind over graveyards. Mr Heathcliffe arches back onto the pillows as that lattice of heaven-spun metal that is the chorus descends; traps us in the garden in the sky; scatters and burns the pallid Victorian angels with its invocation of the Mongolian sun.

I want to kill myself, I don't know why I'm posting this other than that I'm drunk and maybe it'll amuse someone.

[Anonymous No.8651140]

http://pastebin.com/mKsKnpB4

Here's a scene from a story I am working on. I've been working on this one for almost a year now, it's one of the more important scenes (I know they should all be important but whatever).

I'd like some critique. Please ignore the autistic parts if you can. Just want to know how good the shooting parts are, and how you like the writing in general. I want this to be fairly easy to read seeing as the novel is about 334,000 words so far and I'm not even close to done yet.

[Anonymous No.8651430]

>>8644222

"Ungrateful bastards,"
I spat as I gave a disdaining glance towards the horizon, where a sea of glittering gold began to emerge against the bleak, grey, dreary sky as far as my panoramic vision could see marching closer like a tsunami. An ominous, crescent moon hung above as if placed there by the Gods themselves as if it was a mocking Cheshire grin, knowing the outcome of all this before we do.

[Anonymous No.8651839]

>>8649685

(>>8651140) here, I would remove the second comma in the first paragraph.

>crushed herself against him

Eh, for bumping into someone in a crowd... maybe. It's okay but it sticks out like a sore thumb until I rationalize it.

> and fell, shrieking like a provoked small animal.

At the very least cut this off from the last sentence. Say "She tripped over her boots and fell, shrieking like a ..."

I don't know, don't say provoked. Come up with another word.

> Under a powdering of grime, her skin, her hair, her eyelashes were cotton-white.

Why not "her skin hair and eyelashes were cotton-white"?

>"Oi! What the hell d'you think you're doing!" she cried, springing back, high pale brow wrinkling.

This does not sound like a little girl.

>"Might I ask you the same thing?" Desmond smiled. "You nearly bowled me over, and you don't seem to be showing any sign of continuing on your way, so I'm helping you up."

I dunno, maybe I just cringe at Victorian-era speech. It just seems so forced. It should be what the characters would actually say, not serving what the writer wants or his exposition. Dunno it just feels shitty.

>"Get away." The girl crouched a few feet away now, yellowish teeth bared, red eyes boring into Desmond's. "Touch me and I tell my Pa. He'll mess you up real good."

This part's good.

>" Rest assured that I am quite harmless. Take this, as a token of our friendship, and don't make me late."

Yeah what the fuck. No one gives out a coin to a girl and says they are now friends. Even pedophiles have more finesse.

>A sullen light glimmered in the girl's eyes, and she snatched the coin with a bony white hand, her skin clammy against Desmond's for a moment

That sullen light line is strong. Stop reusing the word white, you've got limited words here, don't waste them. Pale bony hand might work. Or bone-white hand. Or just flat out bony hand, that implies whiteness. I would remove the "skin clammy against Desmond's for a moment." Just because itmakes the sentence a bit too long. Perhaps "Desmond felt her clammy hand" as a separate sentence.

> Then she was gone into the grey morning, her dress snapping about her knees, and Desmond had a moment to think that she should have been a hare or a marten flying through some distant snows.

Okay the pedophilia is NOT at all subtle here.

> Only when the last ripples had smoothed over the puddles she had disturbed; only when the animal musk of her had faded from the air, did Desmond realise that he was panting, as though he had been running in her stead.

This is actually okay. At least the last part. Actually the first part is pretty good too.

Yeah the "friendship" is too forced. I don't even know what the fuck is going on there. The dialogue is mostly trash. At least Desmond's lines. Fix him up and do some word-by-word editing and this would be a decent beginning. It needs to go somewhere interesting though. Do not make it purely fetish shit.

[Anonymous No.8651851]

>>8648658
>>8648660
>>8648663
>>8648663
>>8648667
>>8648672
>>8648678
>>8648679
>>8648683

Top kek. You should print this out and submit it to a uni lit mag. Seriously.

[Anonymous No.8651856]

>>8647956
>. And in these bizarre neurofrantics were burn the fucker to ground


You mean "we" burn the fucker to ground? I kinda like that part. Why the hell is "nigger" in there though.

> Hope they all kill themselves before I kill myself.

Pretty good.

> Let the mania sing. Let the poltergeist dreams take hold and spill their sickly ink.

Honestly a powerful opening.

> Mail in your resignation. Fuck the rooster. Slay the cat.

Interests me. This actually seems like it has meaning.

I like a lot of this. 8/10.

[Anonymous No.8651878]

>>8644222
that's really quite nice
"as the sun massaged your back" is a weird line that i'm not too fond of.

I need to figure out what works in this piece and what doesn't.

[Anonymous No.8651881]

>>8651878
pt 2 of 2

[John Burger No.8651884]

[Anonymous No.8651891]

Here do I sit now,
In this the smallest oasis,
Like a date indeed,
Brown, quite sweet, good suppurating
For rounded mouth of maiden longing
But yet still more for youthful, maidlike,
Ice-cold and snow-white and incisory,
Front teeth: and dor such assuredly,
Pine the hearts all of ardent date-fruits. Selah.

Thou goest straight and crooked ways; it concerneth thee little what seemeth straight or crooked unto us men. Beyond good and evil is thy domain. It is thine innocence not to know what innocence is.

O man! Take heed!
What saith deep midnight's voice indeed?
"I slept my sleep-
"From deepest dream I've woke, and plead:
"The world is deep,
"And deeper than the day could read.
"Deep is its woe-,
"Joy-deeper still than grief can be:
"Woe saith: Hence! Go!
"Want deep, profound eternity!"
"Joy-

[Anonymous No.8651897]

Here's a poem I submitted to my college's lit magazine. It was never published (kek).

To build an empire, if you are a king
One must have by your side a queen
Nubile body and of sharp mind
Who will serve obediently by her husband's side
No matter what may come
She must put her faith in her dearly beloved
Disrepute! Discordant Truths!
Don't believe the poison filling your ears!
Lest it come from him

[John Burger No.8651901]

>>8651884
I'm not going to post the other pages. They were written when I was a dumb teen.

[Anonymous No.8651927]

>>8651878
woolly* if I'm not mistaken

[Anonymous No.8651936]

>>8651878
bubbling is an adjective, not a noun.

[Anonymous No.8651963]

>>8651927
shit, i'll be sure to fix that
>>8651936
that wasn't a mistake (although you may dislike it)

[Anonymoos No.8652000]

Circles of light dancing in a small, dark pool
rain, drenching the outpost's platform
lone sentinel pulling his cap down
hunching shoulders in a vain attempt
to keep his center warm and dry

no concern for lack of sight
no concern for prospective trespassers
flash of lightning illuminating midnight sky
silent counting begins

One
young woman hopping the railing,
dark cloak previously concealing
her lithe figure in the damp grass
fluttering behind her

Two
a single lunge from the watchman now
left boot disbanding the bright circles
right arm crossed her breast

Three
roar of the thunder muffling the thud
of the victim’s skull on Accumulator’s outer shell
figure crumpling at the precise impact
of the girls’s right elbow

checking her watch, she gives the signal
before repositioning the comatose man
several similarly cloaked figures
emerging from the shadows
hastily shuffling about
before zipping aboard the convoy

kneeling above him,
she gives one last glance
at the empty platform
and its departing friend
removing her cloak to conceal the man

motion seems familiar
darkness of damp gives way
bright, pastel sheets of her home
guard’s cap and short, brown hair
becoming a mix of blonde and crimson, sticky fluid
unfamiliar face now the visage of he who gripped her heart
before it was callously ripped it from her breast

stirring of the mechanical beast on its tracks grows louder
calling the Eris back to reality
turning and making for the Accumulator
already in motion and picking up speed
finally matching it, zipping aboard
nimbly passing through the overhead door

[Anonymous No.8652010]

>>8647985
I haven't read or heard Spanish in a long time. This sounds nice.

[Anonymous No.8652048]

>>8648718
Thanks yo. Yeah, it's creepy to think these kids will be preaching all this "knowledge" to the next generation. I pray for a conservative and aesthetic-centered resurgence in the arts and humanities, but it might take a legitimate miracle to keep these cucks from taking over everything, aha. They seem, in large part, to have already succeeded.
>>8648722
Do you have any suggestions for how it could have been fit in better, aside from "show dont tell" or something? Because I feel like the polemical point requires that stuff be in there.
>>8649494
Thanks a lot!
>>8651851
Thanks, that means a lot. But do you think any uni mag would take up something so bitterly critical of a large number of its common audience?

[Anonymous No.8652143]

Here's the beginning to a short story I'm writing

http://pastebin.com/257sDxu9

[Anonymous No.8652151]

An honest man sits
Alone beneath a tree,
And the whole world dares to listen.
A man whose words
Are bittersweet,
But the world does not dismiss him.
In fact, he feels,
With every sin
The world begins to miss him.

An honest man, here, once sat,
And told the world so much.
When on this tree he hung his hat,
The grass forgot his touch.

[Anonymous No.8653357]

>>8648678
>he said
>she said
you don't need these

[kitty !kitty/EnNg No.8653422]

>>8653357
>Humbaba opened his mouth to speak, saying to Gilgamesh...

:3

[Anonymous No.8654388]

r8 don't h8 appreci8

Down the froth upswells to break the brighter
Light along the sands and stones to wreak delight
Among the rats and wormy pools that ripe across the shore

A fingered stagger stabs the sand and polls its way
To sway the rumpled dunes and whippers laughing at
The buckled running stilts that shift the clumpy sumps
As if they dance the rays away—of Son

[Anonymous No.8654434]

>>8648663
It gets a bit too on-the-nose here.