/lit/ - Literature

The majority of the drive along I-80 East and up I-55 North met Ryan and Jolene with little issue. Ryan has made the trip himself into the city several times beforehand, making sure this visitation would be on a date and time which would arrive the two at Navy Pier with little crowding, and with little traffic resistance on the way. Some ten miles from the city, on a stretch of I-55 just outside South Lawndale, the great skyscrapers of Chicago's heart rise to sight as a '99 silver Chevy Tahoe creeps to the overpasses crest.

"See. There it is. I told you we'd make good time."

Jolene maintains her stare over Archer Heights, opposite the direction of the city.

"Could've gone Sunday."

A brief moment of silence lingers before Ryan hits the steering wheel to sound the horn.

"All the fucking cars ahead of you are still moving; why the fuck are you still stopped! Holy shit learn how to drive!"

"Calm down Ryan. They're starting to move."

"It's never like this--not now. You did check the app before we got onto fifty-five and saw it was clear, right?"

Jolene stares at the license plate of the car in front of them. She reads out loud:

"'Oh-six-nineteen'. That's John's sixth birthday in two years."

Ryan looks to Jolene a moment before again watching the traffic ahead of them.

"I'm sorry I yelled back there. Traffic isn't supposed to be like this."

He places his hand on her lap. When she doesn't respond he takes it back to the wheel, and, catching one of his favorite riffs, turns up the stereo volume.

"Please turn it down. I'm not in the mood."

"But this is one of our favorite songs."

"It's one of your favorite songs babe; please."

Ryan reluctantly quiets the music. He turns off the air conditioner, rolling down his window to feel the wind as thick Chicago air fills the car.

"It's hot."

"Really? Can I do no right here?"

"I'm sorry, I'm just hot. If we were moving faster I'd feel the wind. Point your side away."

"I am sorry I yelled Jo. I just wanted today to go smoothly--just wait til you try a Cheezeborger for the first time. Then we'll ride the Centennial Wheel at sunset, and walk the beach under the moonlight, maybe just end up staying last minute. I know a hostel the guys and I stayed at after Life in Color that let us get away with anything."

A large thunderhead empties over the suburbs on the horizon out Jolene's window as it and several other great clouds steadily drift northeast.

"I told you I'm not eating meat anymore. Don't you ever listen."

"Look I'm trying here. We both know what today is about, can you at least also try and go along with it? Help me out hon."

"I'm just saying I don't eat meat.. You didn't have to yell earlier."

"Alright babe. Would you at least look at the city? The smog makes the buildings look even more massive than they are; the only good thing to come of it I suppose. C'mon, it's part of the whole experience."

...

>>10145852
>...

Jolene's demeanor lightens. She finally looks over to the skyscrapers veiled by a greying haze which does in fact make them appear very massive and distant--as if growing toward her yet moving away at the same time. She thinks about the license plate again, looking from the buildings to the numbers on the back of the car before them.

"Imagine what the world would be like without cars driving everywhere polluting the air. The haze is beautiful in its own way but only because of the city behind it; otherwise it's just poison in the air."

Ryan digests the words.

"I mean, yeah, but everyone can't just stop driving their cars. There wouldn't be a city in the first place."

The traffic has come again to a complete stop. Ryan taps his fingers anxiously on the steering wheel. Jolene watches him.

"People would have less health problems, there'd be less sickness in the city. There wouldn't be car crashes. Nobody would die from them."

Ryan looks to her, and she holds his eyes in hers a moment before looking out her window.

"Accidents--there'd be no car accidents."

"And crashes."

Hot air again fills the car as Ryan rolls down both their windows. Jolene doesn't say anything. She turns up the air and points the vents directly over herself.

"That storm is moving for the city Ryan."

"What do you want me to say? I checked the weather. I checked the traffic. It's not my fault they can't make up their fucking mind."

Ryan has one arm hanging entirely out the window. His fingers tapping against the door fill the car with rapidly pulsing triplets.

"You checked today?"

"I checked soon enough for it to not change right away."

"You checked yesterday?"

Ryan doesn't respond.

"Maybe we should go back."

"No fucking way. We need this trip, I'm not going to let a little rain ruin everything. We can find something else to do. It's early enough, maybe we can go to a museum. How does that sound?"

Traffic continues to hold still.

"You should've checked yesterday. We're stuck in traffic and it's going to rain. We should go home."

"What about the theatre? Maybe the Aragon has a show tonight, or the House of Blues? I think you'd like the hostel if we stayed there--I can show you around. We'll still have fun I promise."

"What are the odds we crash on our way into the city?"

"None babe. Trust me. Tonight will be exactly what we needed. Forget I yelled and forget the haze, the rain and the plate. Look, the traffic is letting up."

Jolene watches as the hazy city begins to approach and overtake them, fully expecting to crash before arriving.

>>10145852
>>10145855
For fuck's sake, dude

The lightning that night seemed to freeze time, casting a net of ozone smell over the city. The haltering motion of the horse and carriage through the park punctuated the lover’s quarrel unfurling in its furs and quilts. This ride Calvin intended as a romantic gesture, but Sidney, an avowed consequentialist in matters of ethics, contemplated the disaster of the evening, a rift opened in his relationship with Calvin, and he balked before the gulf, awed by its overwhelming quality. Calvin experienced a feeling he imagined akin to being sucked down a drain:

“The doctor said it wasn’t a death sentence.”

“That doesn’t mean it won’t happen, so your discontent with my devil-may-care attitude rings a little hollow.”

“The Devil is in the details.”

“Which is what you hid from me at every opportunity.”

A stricken silence followed. Then, an owl sounded off in the near distance, trying to warn them of the dangers of invocation. Large drops spotted the pavement of the road through the park. Sid called to the driver to stop under the bridge, lit by retro-gas lamps, probably LED.

Work in progress for the latest in a series of constraint-based writing assignments my professors have been giving. The first paragraph can only use words starting with W and L, the second only T and P, and the third only S and TH. There has to be a coherent plot of sorts too. I'm really only posting it because I've sunk five fucking hours into obsessing over this so far and still have an entire paragraph left to go, and I'm going to lose my mind if I don't get some reassurance

Thanks fellas, feedback coming soon

It was half past three and he was slamming up the turnpike toward home, doing seventy. The day was clear and hard and bright, the temperature in the low thirties. Every day since Mary had left he went for a long ride on the turnpike—in a way, it had become his surrogate work. It soothed him. When the road was unrolling in front of him, its edges clearly marked by the low early winter snowbanks, on either side, he was without thought and at peace. Sometimes he sang along with the radio in a lusty, bellowing voice. Often on these trips he thought he should just keep going, letting way lead on to way, getting gas on the credit card. He would drive south and not stop until he ran out of roads or out of land. Could you drive all the way to the tip of South America? He didn’t know. But he always came back. He would get off the turnpike, eat hamburgers and French fries in some pickup restaurant, and then drive into the city, arriving at sunset or just past.

>>10145858
It's all line breaks from dialog and not that long, if it's really that inconvenient for you to look at or read then wtf are you doing in this thread

>>10145852
>>10145855
Fucking dreadful, dude. I'm sorry. In the first sentence alone you're clumsy with your tense, and this dialogue is just insufferable. We know from the very first few lines of dialogue that Jolene is a pouty bitch a Ryan is pseudo-oblivious and keeps accidentally pushing her buttons. We get it. We don't need to slog through this inane bullshit for so long. Nothing interesting, poignant, or mildly worthwhile happens. This is textbook "I'm smarter than the other twelfth graders" writing.
Also don't make such obnoxiously huge posts

>>10145896
Please note that the first sentence and paragraph sets the scene and therefor lacks tense. The rest is present.

This is a take on Hemingway and (obviously) isn't as good but it's been evaluated by a professor and is not as bad as you make it out to be. Based on your analysis of the characters it's clear you took no time to actually read it, and instead trudged through predisposed to disliking it because you were annoyed at its inconvenience.

Get off this fucking board. I don't post for real input, I post to help other posters realize that you should not get critiques here because the posters (such as yourself) are lazy, biased, and ignorant.

Picture related

>>10145852
>>10145855

ask yourself this: why does this need to be literature when it reads like a screenplay?

>>10145932
... I'm at a loss for words

say what you will, but i kinda got the same impression as the guy you responded to previously. the whole thing seems like a trite relationship drama that takes itself way more serious than it should. personally i would see nothing wrong with writing that sort of thing as long as there was some sense of awareness - but there isn't. it comes off as banal as the characters themselves and if that's what you're going for congrats i guess.

>>10145928
HAHAHAHAHAHA
I'VE TORN APART YOUR SHIT WRITING BEFORE AND YOU SPERGED OUT JUST LIKE THIS

That opening sentence could only make sense tense-wise if you said "The majority of thee drive HAD met Ryan and Jolene with little issue"

See, when you make wild assumptions like "you only don't like this because you didn't really read it and already decided to hate it!" it just makes you seem like even more of a fucking moron when you're wrong. I was in a good mood today and gave you story a fair shot. I read it all the way through. It soured my fucking mood. Your writing is annoying, your dialogue feels as though I've read it dozens of times in the past already, and you can't even take criticism from an anonymous stranger on a post-diluvian cobbling forum. You're a fucking joke
>b-b-but muh professors
My professors have praised absolute garbage I've handed in that I wrote in a hung-over stupor. That means nothing at all.
Give up now if you're going to be such a crybaby

>>10145936
it shows in your writing desu

>>10145928
Bullshit. You are a snowflake brat who can't take harsh words. This doesn't mean I think the way that other dude reviewed your piece was alright or even remotely okay, because other than telling you he didn't like it he did bubkis. I forgive him, though, because I am going to do the same. However, just because some fucking 'professor' told you you were a good boy and someone here didn't like your shit doesn't mean we're all wrong.

That being said, your dialogue is, in fact, boring. Please go on and tell us how this perception is false and it actually a piece of artistic grandeur which us morons just won't get.

>>10145928
If a professor doesn't tell you to rework your first drafts, that just means that they don't want to see more of your writing

i really hope this guy (or gal) >>10145928 responds after being so comprehensively btfo

>>10145971
Of course he won't. His ears are probably all red right now and he's probably getting some water to drink, trying to convince himself he wasn't phased by any of this

>>10145928
>This is a take on Hemingway

(for real, though: find your own voice and stop mimicking other people. You may find that you actually have some talent of your own buried under your pretentiousness.)

>>10145928
>This is a take on Hemingway

(for real, though: find your own voice and stop mimicking other people. You may find that you actually have some talent of your own buried under your pretentiousness.)

>>10145866
Impressive. Exhausting to read, I wouldn't choose to read it on my own time, but that comes with the prompt, I'd guess. Delete "semidiurnal" (crosses the line into thesaurus-core) and you've got a promising start.

>>10145998
>"semidiurnal" (crosses the line into thesaurus-core

Sometimes, although not all too often, it helps to look at a word real hard and try to understand. I'm sure you can get it.

>>10145998
Will do! I was feeling iffy about that word as well. Thanks for the reply, anon

I also feel obligated to reassure you that this >>10146016 was not me

>>10145951
>>10145967
>>10145968
>>10145971
>>10145992
The test strip has turned quite a deep shade of blue.

If any of you can tell me the reason for the characters dispositions towards one another, I'll revoke my statement and I agree that my professor was a pseud. But you've got five minutes from this post to do so. I mean, you guys read it, so that should be plenty of time to give a quick analysis right? Or was it 'too boring' to pick up on the underlying story?

>>10145998
If you give a critique stating that a word is thesaurus core you're a fucking pseud.

>>10146016
Ignore that guy; seriously, take your work someplace else that actually matters. Don't waste your time here like I did.

>>10146030
Guy that actually wrote >>10145866 here
1. "thesaurus-core" is a fine comment if the word seems needlessly obscure, which it appears he thought "semidiurnal" was
2. >>10146016 isn't me, I'm not that obnoxious
3. I'm not a fucking crybaby like you are and I can actually handle the task of evaluating critiques and criticisms of my work without having a full melt-down

>>10146026
>Or was it 'too boring' to pick up on the underlying story?
Yes. It was. That's the whole point. Your potential readers (that affable prof of yours aside, of course) might have a look at your piece and think, "Oh boy, this is boring. I rather go and read something else". If that doesn't concern you and you like your stuff, go on.

>>10146043
>the word was too specific

You clearly write for attention, so you really should not be writing.

>>10146024
>>10146043

I'm the guy who wrote that "obnoxius" comment. And I'm not a native speaker. Yet I was able to figure out what semidiurnal meant without having a look at the dictionary. I didn't even mean to be condescending. I mean, it's really not that hard and I like reading words I didn't know before. So, I'd oppose the deletion.

>>10146026
Ryan is desperately trying to carry a relationship that Jolene is no longer putting any passion or work into. She isn't responding well to his kind gestures. She seems distracted by something, maybe the environment.

I refuse to read any deeper into your story. It has done nothing to earn a closer reading. I feel no potential for deeper meaning hidden underneath it.

>>10146048
This site is embarrassing. A thousand word short story with a quite clear underlying story cannot be picked up because of real character dialog and not perfect dialog. This is why you will critique posts on 4chan and become nothing of a real writer.

I've been published, anon; how about you?

>>10146030

There are no places that matter anymore.

>>10146058
Why is it so hard for you to accept that your shit might be boring.

Fucking stephenie meyer is published too, you sophomoric shit.

>>10146058
post a screen cap of your published work. you can leave out the name

>>10146055
Apologies if I misread your tone, I thought you were being condescending by saying "I'm sure you can get it."
I think most people who regularly read could figure "semidiurnal" out pretty quick, but the reason I was hesitant to use it in the first place was that I thought it sounded a little gratuitous. I set out writing that assignment trying my best to avoid letting the constraint ruin the prose, so I tried to cut down on needless adverbs and overly obscure words just for the sake of it.

>>10146056
There is no deeper meaning. This story is not a revelatory one, it's portraiture of two people's lives and nothing more. You got the obvious part down, but really if you can't tell what is between the two of them then your critiques can not be trusted.

Again, to potential posters looking for advice: do not get it here. Find your audience. If this place is your targeted audience then so be it. But if you take yourself even slightly serious, go away.

>>10146058
>cannot be picked up because of real character dialog and not perfect dialog
DUDE
THIS FUCKING MUMBLE-CORE SHIT IS WHAT EVERY OTHER 19-YEAR-OLD WHITE KID THINKS IS GOING TO BE HIS "SIGNATURE CALLING CARD" WHEN HE'S FANTASIZING ABOUT BEING THE NEXT BIG WUNDERKIND AUTHOR
YOU ARE NOT UNIQUE
YOU ARE NOT INTERESTING
YOUR WRITING DOES NOTHING TO ENCOURAGE DEEPER READING
I REFUSE TO READ INTO IT ANYMORE THAN THIS>>10146056

>>10146065
That's the funny part, is that you think getting paid for your work means nothing if people on a slanteyed dog eating board don't like it.

>>10146067
Like I give even the slightest fuck if you believe me or not. It does not nullify my arguement. If you think that means you've bested me, then good for you champ

>>10146074
>"I'm sure you can get it."
This is preposterous.

>it's portraiture of two people's lives and nothing more

That's exactly why no one would care about it. The reader just doesn't give a shit about your characters.

Also, considering that this is so not-your-audience, you are trying pretty fucking hard to convince us that your writing is good.

Furthermore, the point of looking for critique is not changing the audience until you find some moron thick enough to like it.

>>10146084
If money is what you're after, go on with writing that vapid dross. I'm sure you'll find plenty buyers. This board however, if it slipped you, is called "Literature"

>>10146086
Give up, anon. He's had multiple good points made to him and he's watched multiple other authors respond maturely and reasonably to criticism, and he still hasn't realized how much of a bitch he is. He never will. It isn't worth it.

>>10146081
It was a quick project that I got an A- on, and I literally only still have it because I save all my graded work. If it was deleted I wouldn't care any more or less than I do now. The stronger of our two reactions is funnily enough the one who is getting his critique critiqued. Sad
Also >>10146074

>>10146084
>Like I give even the slightest fuck if you believe me or not. It does not nullify my arguement.


"Hey, fellow kindergarteners, I am very pleased with myself to announce to you, that I, in fact, have collected all of those fancy collectors' cards you all drool after."

"Show, lying shithead"

"Baaaw, I don't even give a fuck if you believe me or not"

>>10146095
>bro why are you so upset, don't you know that means I win
This is like talking to a minor one-off character from Curb Your Enthusiasm

>>10146084
come on suzy just post it

>>10146086
>>10146091
I never said it was anything better than only more so as to what it was claimed it to be here (hope that's not too confusing for you).
Why would I take your input over an established source? Because you say so? Who the fuck are you? You're word isn't law just because someone asked for advice, and you need to find out how to cope with that.

>>10146058
>my professor likes me
>I've been published
>everyone on this site which I visit fits a stereotype that I don't
Pull your face far enough back from your professor's cock to see straight you insufferable cunt. In the face of criticism of the work you refer instead to validation from a professor and publication? Erotica and YA and even lit's meme books can obtain external validation. If you didn't post to get criticism then I won't bother giving you one, but will point out that your "take on Hemingway" reads like any of thousands of mediocre short stories in the Iowa Review and its copycats. If you think MFA social realist stories are all literature can offer then congratulations I guess.
Have a (you), I sure fell for this bait.

>>10146106
>(hope that's not too confusing for you).
It actually is. Should I critique the sentence for you so you can become a better writer?

>>10146098
>>10146099
>>10146100
I'm simply letting this display unfold for potential posters to decide if they really want their work looked at here or not. I have a gut feeling the scale is not tipped in your favors. And I have this feeling because we are now this deep into the post chain and you're still overlooking the fact that I didn't want or need input. Yet you claim I'm retaliating? Retaliating what? I never cared for what you'd say in the first place. Stop embarrassing yourselves. Or not; I really believe it only helps my cause

>>10146107
I enjoy the (you) and my money. Enjoy... whatever it is you're getting out of writing.

>>10146115
I'm having way too much fun right now. Go ahead man, critique your heart away.

>>10146106
>I never said it was anything better than only more so as to what it was claimed it to be here

I read this thing a dozen times and still don't get what he is trying to say. Must be because of my thick-wittedness. Please, someone enlighten me.

>>10146117
Not a single person lurking this thread who is following this considers you to be the sympathetic character. This is a level of retardation and obliviousness bait can only ever hope to recreate
>I didn't want or need input
LOL
>I never cared for what you'd say in the first place.
LOL
>Stop embarrassing yourselves. Or not; I really believe it only helps my cause
LOL

>>10146117
>I didn't want or need input.
>I never cared
And yet you continue to post?

>>10146121

>>10146124
I'll stagnate it for you:
it not great but it's better than your claims

>>10146117
> doesn't need critique
> doesn't care
> posts in a Writing Critique thread

>>10146136
This guy gets it

>>10146135
This guys doesnt

Are you even so sure I'm the guy who originally posted it? How far down the rabbit hole do you wish to run anon? My point will always be proved, will yours?

>>10146117
hi Vox Day

>>10146143
You realize both posters are mocking you. In fact almost everyone in the whole thread is mocking you (or the original poster, if you want to claim you are a different one of the 8 posters here) except for the poor guy who posted his story in a doomed thread.
We are here to laugh at you.

>>10146144
*tips

close one

>>10146143
>This guy gets it
You didn't get me, however.

>>10146148
It's weird that we all must be laughing then. I wonder if that's a testament to the advice given and general state of interaction within this board and site.. I wonder who's cause that fact helps more.. Fucking weird man

>>10146152
Well I mean I do have a lot of fun with my money and my writing, so... I guess you showed me man

>>10146155
>who's

>>10146143
>Are you even so sure I'm the guy who originally posted it


Faaar to late to dissociate yourself from that YA-writer level story.

>>10146156
Yes. The guy in the picture also had a lot of fun with his money. Other than that, however, he was an emotional wreck with a disgusting character, no friends and a lot of regret ahead of him.

>>10146157
>>10146158
Damn, you guys got me! I AM a pseud, and my writing IS trash. I'm going to tell my professor they should've failed me and return the money earned by my publication right now!

>>10146117
You don't want input and yet this is the second time you have tried to get input for this story?
>>/lit/thread/9626538

>>10146168
HAHAHAHAHA

>>10146164
Wow, that's pretty deep man. I should tell all my friends and family to dislike me because I make money, and my fiance to leave me because I'm incapable of supporting her and our future family. Shit, this board really IS filled with geniuses. I'm going to get ALL my stories looked at here first from now; I was so BLIND

>>10146167
You are so full of yourself that you are going to detonate at any moment. Critique is not about failing anyone. We are trying to tell you how you could improve. That and how much of a son of a bitch you are.

>>10145866
You spent five hours on this?

>>10146168
Wow, you're right man. Kinda strange how it's one of the first posts there as well though, right? I guess once a story is written it cannot be used more than once without losing its intention. Glad you're hunting me down though, I'm really under your skin man

>>10146168
He doesn't want input from us. Don't forget he wants his professor to put in his big nice critique any time.

>>10146172
>implying my professor didn't already tell me how to improve the story
>implying the real point of quick projects like this aren't more for completion and practice then perfection
>implying I cared any more for this project than to get it graded than I did to rework it

I know my real works and I know my homework. Or wait.. do YOU actually know and I don't? Fuck man..

>>10146187
so are you gonna post more work or not

christ and gods army

>>10146187
I wish you would finally explain why we are going on and on and on about this issue and why on earth you are posting this story on at least two boards for critique if you are

- completey content with what your prof said about it
- the project holds no real value for you
- you don't give any shit

And don't give me that " I am trying to tell others not to post here" shit because you already said that, twice, and spent the rest of the whole discussion defending yourself.

I'm starting to think we've been trolled, guys

>>10146202
At this point, I would be glad. Imagine the dude is really like that.

>>10146196
Go nuts lmao:

As I lie here in my car, encased in night and pinned by streetlight, faces come to life in the nearby trees. Three branch-and-leaf-shadow puppets cackle out the dark in tune with the wind. Their facial segments seem as flimsy paper cutouts bouncing on rods held by people dressed in black to blend with the darkness behind them. The first face is that of an exaggerated jester. Three tufts of hair point up and out, and it's face is sharp with a bulbous nose and jutting jaw which juggles teeth in airy hysterics. The eyes are black, hollow and infinitely deep. They lull me into a trance which traps one within their hall-of-mirrors facade while entertaining with comforting absurdities as it gorges on my stare. Beside the fool sways face of a lion-like old man. Small, focused eyes like talons hook into retinas and pluck out one's eyes. They look beyond what one can see, peering at what is believed, and at what is known. Dark hollow cheeks accentuate the light reflected off its pointed ears, brow, and nose bridge. The head jerks lightly, as if sniffing the evening breeze. Underneath its nose a large bushy mustache and short goatee age the wise man, and hone the lion's senses as sensitive whiskers. Above each the two acts observes what appears as an ancient wooden mask with wide sunken eyes and mouth cut as a narrow rectangular opening. It's nose is petite, with fine slits for each nostril. And while each the previous faces felt alive with mockery or nobility, this one appears emotionless. Only occasionally does it mouth something tucked away within the folds of wind. It appears to neither judge, nor despise, but simply observe--its face closest to the light and body deepest in the shadow.

>>10146200
>>10146202
>>10146204
Just remember I'm doing whatever you believe I'm doing

Error: Comment too long (3748/3000).

https://pastebin.com/ts9dFpDK

The prompt was to write about a predetermined object (mine was "oscillo-grill") and instill a sense of the uncanny in it. I had fun with it, figured I might as well post it somewhere

1/2

2/2

I woke up, groaned for nearly a whole minute, then stumbled out of bed. I fall off the mattress too hard and catch myself, nearly crushing the cat. He runs across the room, then ends up still, staring at the door. PRetty funny in hindsight, the bastard has nowhere to go. No spare room or parlor to sunbathe in and catch spiders. Just him and me and the bed. This makes me laugh, and I laughed and laughed until it became a chuckle, and i sensed the tears of joy on my cheek. SO funny, to me, in hindsight, that the bastard had nowhere to go. Obviously, I love the bastard. Me and Domey and Marcus, my dog, asleep in front of the toilet and staring at the ceiling, who has nowhere to go. That made me a little sad, because i think i’m more of a dog guy than cat guy, ever since I was a kid. This made me sad, maybe bummed out a little bit. I had to feel bad, because the MArcus wants a nice field to run around in, and maybe a big pink ball, and Domey wants a big cat palace with venetian blinds so the heat is distributed evenly across his body. This made me think, think to reach under the bed for something to drink or maybe eat.

“Darling, your fake plastic diamonds glisten so pretty in the reflection of the diskoteque light storm, i want to put my arms around you and choke you like a cobra”

She threw her drink at my eyes and called me a scoundrel motherfucker and turned around stomping away into the dancing herd of with the times young ones. I swore, i swiped a napkin from the cocained out banker next to me and wiped the mysterious drink residue from my face. Oh, to have the speed in the tongue and body again! I shouted as a overdramatic theatre actor in my mind, gesticulating with my hands italianesque. All these beautiful tight women and no one could appreciate my subtle mockery of the absurdness of this whole situation, that we was in a prison cube listening to what amounted to a beat after a beat, the rest just a covering, the pitch of the slippery car salesman. To move around with your joints to the beat, to grind against fat meaty thighs. To release a small amount in your pants, feeling a prick of a warmth against your thigh. My meandering was broken up with the appearance of a fine brown girl in a gown around this town. I went up to her and smelled her neck, her pure black short hair making me immediately hard like a rock ready to be thrown into the face of a person, imploding their nose into a smudged red pulp, i was lightly licking my lips. “Hey baby brownie, i don’t know if it was the whole slavery thing but the thought of me tying you up and making your hands work my bodily field is a very invigorating idea” She called me a bleached bastard and slapped my face, her sweaty fingers touching my face and her breasts jiggling as she did it made the floodgates open in my nether region, i screamed. “AHHHHHAHHHH OHHH AHHH MOMMY, MOMMY OHHHHHHH” I sunk to the floor, a great statue being pulverized, knocked down by the barbarians. I was a god, these people didn’t even deserve my time, but yet, i was here. But at least i had cummed a good cum. By a females hand.

>>10146979
I dig it

Worship concluded here 50 years ago.
A woman's name owned his body.
Thinking about prayers, he knelt like one.
He had the ability to escape stolen from him at birth.
Warm temperature liquid was inside of him that should have been frozen.
As a consequence of travel he was almost naked, and almost empty.
Wind cut through him instead.
Undeniably, there were hallucinations of reality growing in the dream.
Everything can be seen past the distance.
Travelling today, he can reach history tomorrow.
A man buit taller than him was rare.
One wanderer with shorter body and longer orifices, longer hair approached him.
Some scars couldn't be cut in half and stayed on him, which interested the passer by about his safety.
I'd like your opinion on this prose style

>>10147064
Work on your prosody

>>10145928
>asks for feedback
>"no you're wrong"
Why are you here?

First attempt at writing fiction since I was a kid - please be gentle!

Here is mine, guys. Please be honest.
Bruce went to the store and bought cigarettes. The end.

>>10146611
Unless it's just me being a newfag to these critique threads, but this is so bad that it's almost a really good parody. If it's a serious attempt, then respond so and I'll tell you why it's so bad. Read more.

>>10145859
get rid of "seemed" in the first sentence. Only use "seem" if you know what you're doing, and in this case of painting a picture you certainly don't want to use "seem." There's nothing wrong with a long sentence (hell I'm prone to them and I think they're as beautiful as can be), but your third sentence falls apart with "a rift opened..." since this is an independent clause. Not only that, but the flow of this entire sentence is awful. It lacks the flow of prepositional phrases. This being said, if it wasn't for the "a rift opened" it wouldn't be the worst sentence in the world. The dialogue should have at least one or two identifying speakers here (i know this sometimes comes down to personal preference, but I don't know who's speaking and further I don't really care. "That doesn't mean it won't happen, so your discontent with my devil-may-care attitude rings a little hollow." This line rings a little hollow, and it's not just because the dialogue seems unnatural. Tolstoy has unnatural dialogue sometimes (translations), but it does not read like this. "A stricken silence followed." Eh. Especially immediately going before a "Then." Then there's "An owl 'sounded off'." Sounded off? Weak. "Trying to warn them of the dangers of invocation." ;laksdjf;laksdjfsaoipd;hfjoxchvinp;dsfgijhasdifjaoihvcaosicvjuoisdujfoidspfjuposdifj. "Probably LED." PDOSIFJUPOIS:Dfjhasopdi;nvoidxfuchnvbiodufxhgipasudzfhjosdifjo.

In all seriousness apologies for being harsh but it's the way I like to critique. Continue to write and please read more. Maybe I need a larger sample.

>>10147446
Because people like you can't read

>>10146187
>>10146167
>>10146155
>>10146143
>>10146058
>>10146026
>>10145928
>>10147771
High quality entertainment. Something tells me you'll never change. If you're some how so sensitive you can't take critique while also seeking it.

>>10147458
What program do you use? Otherwise it's a pretty solid story, you just need to work on the Telling part of Showing and Telling in prose (just look it up, it's fucking everywhere).

He frowned at the last part of the absurd pitch, but disregarded it, stamping his finger on the START square below the colorful lettering. A list of choices appeared detailing insecurities about a variety of topics that stretched for several pages—at least ten—in tiny, nearly inscrutable text. How the hell did they acquire these multitudes of information? He surfed through the ocean of options until he finally spotted a suitable one.
I’m insecure about how I look.
He selected it, and a black box appeared, with a white line stretching across its inkiness.
“So you’re insecure ‘bout how ya look, eh?” the sound wave—the white line assumptively was—quivered and shook as the voice talked.
The thick, masculine accent almost deterred him. This voice was going to be dictating his self image…what a surreal thought. Christopher shrugged and averted his gaze from the screen.
“Aw c’mon, you’re a handsome fella, you’ll find someone. I mean, lookitcha! You look straight outtuva, whadda they call ‘em—a noir movie! Like one o’ dem, uh, detectives, y’see?”
“This is making me…kind of uncomfortable.”
“Nah, really! Anybody could see that! You look just like an actor!”
He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his coat and looked away shyly. His face was oblong but strong-jawed, eyes stained with an overcast shadow but his lips always seeming to have a smile not yet ready to be released. The only thing he really felt proud of was his caramel-colored hair, which he took after his parents.
The screen shut off, all the colors sinking down a black drain. Christopher’s eyes widened and the strange terrified nausea that had overtook him back at his office seized him once more. His eyes darted to his left and the row of Confidence Pads had also all shut off. Was the power going off again? Neon signs, left and right, began blinking off and on. The trampling of boots boomed from all around him.
His stomach sunk a mile. Men clad in white armor and helmets carrying large, sleek machine guns poured out from the crowd, pointing the muzzles of their glossy weapons at him. A bright circle of light covered him like an oversized flashlight from a stout white helicopter in the sky. His knees almost buckled and sweat poured down his face, lip trembling spastically and arms raised in the air.
“Please! Please—don’t shoot me! I didn’t do anything wrong! Please!”
They would shoot him anyway, right? That’s what they always showed on the television. Racists, toxically masculine white males, patronizing old men, all of them were arrested in the name of the non-discriminatory and equality-loving AmeriCore. Suddenly he was no longer content with being a statistic.

The man and the woman lit cigarettes in the winter cold. The trees were bare and the ground was hard and the factory loomed in the distance,. In the predawn light, they were black outlines and a crow cawed and was quiet.
The man blew smoke and kicked the dead ash of the firepit.
“Almost ready?” he asked.
“Since last night.”
“Okay,” he said. “If you’re sure.”
“I am.”
“Okay.”
They took their packs and walked through the trees to the cracked road that weaved down the hill and through the yellow wheat fields to the gates of the factory. The man had a rifle and carried it loosely in one hand. The woman’s backpack was bulkier and had a small bag hanging off of it. The sun was beginning to rise. Smoke was coming out of chimneys to the west.
The smokestacks of the factory were throwing up thick clouds of black smoke as they came quietly towards it. The man held up his hand and they stopped and crouched by the edge of the road. They both took up binoculars and watched the land through the lens.
“See anybody?” the woman asked.
“No.”
“Good.”
They moved on slowly, pausing to watch for sentries. The sun got higher and they came closer and they still saw nothing moving save the crows.

>>10147890

that's the windows quicknote thing

“She’s just nasty,” Callum said. “She’s got that weird stink, like old people. She smells like old people when their bodies are dying all around them. Maybe she uses old lady soap. No soap, is more likely.”

“Hold up,” Henry said as we came up to an alley. He turned into it and started to piss against a fence.

“Women are very dirty,” Callum said. “They don’t clean, they spray, they have all these products. You know back when women had that tall hair, the beehive? They used to leave that up, they’d keep that up, they don’t wash it- you can’t do anything, it’s very complicated, you touch it it’s fucked, so they just keep spraying it with the hairspray. And I heard this story, this hairdresser goes to cut this lady’s hair- snip, snip, cockroaches. Tens of cockroaches, dozens of cockroaches. Hair looks beautiful from outside, you cut it open, cockroaches. That’s women.”

“Is that a true story?” I asked.

“It could be true. Is it important?”

Henry was singing something to himself and swinging his hips from side to side all carefree. Piss was arcing all over and splashing on his shoes and he didn’t even care. I thought it was terrific. He zipped up and we walked to the dairy.

While he was inside, I fixed up Callum’s shoelaces. I always had to – he never got the loops just right, which is to say exactly (exactly) the same size but a little asymmetrical, one hanging straight to the side and the other resting down on the shoe. A 60-70 degree angle’s good for that one, but it’s not too important, it’ll move around as you walk anyway. They gave me stick sometimes for caring about details like that, but it never got to me, cause what’s wrong with being an orderly guy? And I like having a niche – you know how every organ does something different? I’m one of the cleaning ones, like the liver. Or maybe I’m one of those little birds that flies in crocodiles’ mouths and picks the shit out of their teeth.

>>10147907

reads like ernie

don't like the word predawn here
what besides smoke could smokestacks release
bulkier seems wrong here, probably everywhere
'and they stopped [walking/some travel verb]'
They moved on slowly, pausing to watch for sentries. <- is missing a time-period phrase/word

>>10147950
>what besides smoke could smokestacks release

Well, you got me there.

Thanks for the useful critiques, my dude.

>>10147950
>>10147964
Anon's right. This is pretty shitty critique.

An ailing and wealthy old man has yet to divulge his will. His relatives come from all over the country to court his favor. He rests in his bed, looking at them all circumspectly. His grandson, Vasilly Strigidigilov, is a lieutenant about to be sent off to war. Vasilly is tall, dark, and mysterious - a genuine Heathcliff. The old man reveals that the will consists of a secret diary left him by his own father that contains clues to a Caribbean treasure, and several hundred thousand roubles, and that he has chosen to give it all to Vasilly. Vasilly is called suddenly off to the war, suffers a serious head wound, recovers, squanders his fortune playing cards, and racks up a huge debt. He falls into despair and begins to lead a dissolute life. One day he insults a colonel passing through town, and is challenged to a duel. He loses the duel, and as a dying wish asks that his bloodied cravat be given to his true love as a memento. It is discovered after the duel that the colonel challenged the wrong person, that there was somebody else named Vassily, equally as tall, dark, and mysterious, and that it was a case of mistaken identity. Vassily's widow discovers the diary while rummaging through his desk. The diary, written in the tiny, feeble scrawl of its long dead owner, alludes to a mysterious fortune hidden somewhere in America. She travels to America, Nebraska to be exact, where an outpost of Russian colonists once lived. There, she meets a decadent preacher, a fiery hypocrite who inspires fear and love in the townspeople. The preacher wears a golden crucifix, drives a flashy car, and has a radio station that he uses to keep the people in a state of moral panic. The territorial governor is a grifter, too, a WASPish bastard who studies phrenology. One day an oil speculator comes from the north, an Englishman with a deed to the land. A conflict ensues between the preacher and the oil speculator, itself a metaphor for the eternal struggle between greed and virtue. The territorial governor is unable to keep law and order as his jurisdiction turns into a powder keg overnight. The oil speculator has an army of mercenaries, dispossessed Native American Indians all named Andrew Jackson, and very skilled in throwing knives. The preacher calls upon the people to get their guns, declaring that the second coming is at hand, and forms a fast militia.

>>10147992
Vasilly Strigidigilov? More like Vasilly Shiggydiggilov. Stopped reading right there.

The rain came down in heavy sheets,
and lo! a thunder-crack!
I forged ahead, down drown-ed streets--
no gale could turn me back.
I crashed into the sandwich shop,
my smile serene and high,
and leaning o'er the countertop
I ordered as I dried.

"O Moistened Man, why come ye here?"
"I seek a submarine."
"A ship to sail beneath yon waves?
Or bread with meat between?"
"Give me a sub to work 'em woe,
with toppings tall as I;
I've come to eat more pepperjack
than any man alive."

>>10148015
Very fun to read! Strides and strolls like the best of poetry.

>>10147992
>>10147992

Things get ugly; blood runs through the streets, dusk falls, a black cat creeps along the tin roof of a saloon, tumbleweeds tumble, and the light of the full moon shines down upon the dead. Just then an outlaw comes to town, a dead shot with a revolver, who, having been pinned down by bounty hunters, drinks his last at the tavern, and challenges the town to offer up their best sharpshooter. The colonel, on an expedition from Tsar Alexander II, and motivated by a mortal hatred of tall, dark, and mysterious men, challenges him and dies. The outlaw reveals that he came there looking for a hidden fortune, old Russian money buried deep in the desert, and it is revealed by intercepted telegram that the oil speculator is an impostor, a clown from San Francisco who worked for a while in the navy, saw the world, developed a feeling of wanderlust, and vowed never again to efface himself before gawking crowds. In the guise of an oil speculator he came looking for a Russian fortune hidden deep in the desert, something alluded to in sailor's myths that he'd heard in the navy. The plot intensifies as they realize they all have the same, exclusive, goal. They cast lots to decide who will square with who, and one by one, they pick each other off. The outlaw dies, and the clown reveals that despite his outward show of humor, he carries a deeper existential burden with him. A note is found in the colonel's pocket, itself written by the old man with the will, given in secret to the colonel who he'd always intended to kill his grandson, not trusting him with his fortune. The actual benefactor is revealed to be the widow, upon whom it then falls to find the money and get the hell out of there. The widow grabs the revolver and shoots the clown, hops up on a horse and does a trot up and down the alley, spinning the guns for show. The clown, baffled by a divine revelation, utters something profound that no one is able to hear under the gunshot. The widow sets out in pursuit of the money, meets a mysterious sage in the forest who teaches her the art of combat, and ends up in a dry gully called Death Gulch. The preacher, suddenly waking up, takes an account of the carnage in the town and sets out in pursuit of the widow. He whips up his men into a fury, and leads a search party of 10,00 men all named Andrew Jackson into the dark, dry, desert. They catch up with her by a river, where the horse stops for a drink, and seeing the lanterns, she hides with an elderly couple, Good Samaritans who keep the good book. The brigands surround the house; the preacher spits. "You can run but you can't hide! That fortune is mine!" He shouts. Just then a hissing sound is heard, and the preacher realizes to his dismay that he's standing atop a bunch of TNT, deftly hidden in the brush by the widow, and a moment later there's an explosion. The preacher is blasted to high heaven, and the name of Andrew Jackson is well and truly forgotten.

>>10148022
The widow, losing her disguise, is revealed to be the Loch Ness monster. She talks to the old couple and tells them about the fortune. They ask her how much is buried. "I'll tell you, for a price," she says. "How much?" They ask. She says, "about tree fiddy."

>>10148025
God dammit.

>>10148053
i don't remember this when i read prison school

>>10148057
Think it was like two pages after the blond guy is almost late getting back from the movie

The midnight sun wavered above the horizon with a blood-orange hue. As hospitable as it ever becomes, Summer so far North has its own discomforts. Little above the Arctic Circle is solid then: ice flows seasonally, tundra churns if it thaws, glacial rivers swell and bend. Winter's dark, but there's surety when familiar ground's frozen solid. But that's just one explanation. Really, the light just doesn't look right. It wanes all day on the precipice of expiring: soft and sickly like some insomniatic geriatric whose forgotten when and where he's meant to sleep.

He dropped a small handful of snow into his coffee, finished it with a grimacing swill and turned back. Aside from the icicles that'd since grown off the ribcage, the body was largely in tact. Probably a bear. But then they usually went for the senses first: nose, ears, mouth, eyes. Face and neck generally. No. It looked as if something had burrowed through the abdomen reaching for something else.

>>10145852
I'm not an authority on writing, in fact I kinda write like this, but here are some things I would do differently (disclosure, I only read the first few lines):::

>"The majority of the drive along I-80 East and up I-55 North met Ryan and Jolene with little issue."
Why is the 'drive' acting as the subject to the verb 'meet' here? This is a form of personification, but the stylistic choice doesn't amount to anything. If Ryan and Jolene were lost, perhaps the personification would be warranted since it would imply a sense that our characters aren't able to control the situation and it feels as if the road is dictating where they go and what they do next, but that isn't the case here. I only bring this up because it is the very first sentence which ends up being off-putting.


>"Ryan has made the trip ... resistance on the way. "

"Ryan has made the trip himself."
There's no need to say himself, omit it.

"beforehand"
Omit "-hand."

The word 'visitation' and the noun 'visit' are synonymous (American English here). The more-communicable choice would be 'visit.'

"the two"
Omit.

"traffic resistance"
Omit 'resistance.'

I might re-word this excerpt like so:

>'Ryan's clever planning will land them at Navy Pier on time, excellently avoiding the dead-stop traffic that chokes the interstate from here to Chicago's south end and the groaning throngs of chortling tourists posing for photos and stupidly asking the fast-talking locals to repeat themselves.'

Ryan thinks himself clever by making plans. We're in Chicago. Ryan's familiar with it. Ryan hates crowds and traffic; We know how he feels about them / We know what he thinks of when he thinks of crowds and traffic.


>>10145932
This. Your dialogue and the actions of the characters are akin to what is happening as if they are on a screen somewhere (I noticed my writing suffers from this as well).
The strongest stuff in a narrative comes from a character's motivations, not the actions; Characters commit (or not) to certain actions because of personal motivation, which is far more interesting. WHY is more interesting than WHAT in these cases. Honestly, it might hurt and you might feel like a noob, but start very, very obvious and whittle your way down to satisfactory levels. Don't feel like you need to grasp every concept On-the-first-try, In-your-own-unique-way. I know some artists who are phenomenal now, but who I witnessed producing sketchbooks and sketchbooks of utter garbage. Start small, and build upward. It takes longer, it hurts much more, and yields better results.

>>10148131
Also,

There was an anon (I can't find the comment) who said something along the lines of, "Find your own voice, you tool."
Fuck that. People steal, people copy, people cheat. But stealing from one person is plagiarism while stealing from two is research (this is a quote I stole). Take from a style you really enjoy and try to emulate it. You can (and should) focus later on distinguishing yourself from that original style because no one wants to die being known as an Elvis impersonator. Having style ain't easy, and that includes others'.

People might give you flak about this. Fuck them, I hope they die at the bottom in the Plebeian Ocean.

Lee grew up in a skyscraper penthouse, it’s air-conditioned rooms lined up against inch-thick glass. Some days, clouds would lower and press against the glass, making white, glowing walls. But most days he saw the city extending over the horizon, where the buildings were like grains of sand. He would be mesmerised, watching a million points at once. At night, the view glowed orange. The neighbouring skyscraper, a casino, often broke his trance; around this building, once an hour, metal obelisks shot roaring towers of flame. The sound penetrated the penthouse; the only other sounds so loud were fireworks and car crashes.

Some nights, when not quite trying to sleep, he imagined his home as the frontiers of space travel. He would think about how for maybe as long as the earth’s life, his home had been empty air. He was closer to Space than almost anyone, ever. But when he turned in bed to look through the window-wall, there was no Space, only the city’s orange haze.

He was usually left alone. Father visited foreign cities for work, Mother visited her girlfriends. Father would come home and Mother would go out, missing each other. The rare times he saw them both, they spoke cautiously, spaciously.

Watching TV was their famial bonding. His parents liked prime time reality TV, watching people bite heads off chickens or sit in spider-filled glass boxes. They drank thick red wine and sat on the white leather couch while Lee sat on the floor, bored. He prefered watching shows about science and space, shows with eccentric scientists taking in front of green screens, or shows with dark spaceships filled with ventilation tubing and predatory aliens. His daydreams took place inside these shows. Even through horror, he’d imagine himself as the protagonist. But while dreaming, he was always only an observer.

>>10148230
>Some days, clouds would lower and press against the glass, making white, glowing walls. But most days he saw the city extending over the horizon, where the buildings were like grains of sand. He would be mesmerised, watching a million points at once. At night, the view glowed orange. The neighbouring skyscraper, a casino, often broke his trance; around this building, once an hour, metal obelisks shot roaring towers of flame. The sound penetrated the penthouse; the only other sounds so loud were fireworks and car crashes.

This is all really boring and your prose isn't good enough to hold it up.

>Some nights, when not quite trying to sleep, he imagined his home as the frontiers of space travel. He would think about how for maybe as long as the earth’s life, his home had been empty air. He was closer to Space than almost anyone, ever. But when he turned in bed to look through the window-wall, there was no Space, only the city’s orange haze.

Nice.

>Father would come home and Mother would go out, missing each other

Cut it. Useless sentence. "The rare times he saw them both, they spoke cautiously, spaciously" covers the distance between them plenty.

>Watching TV was their famial bonding
What a terribly-written sentence. "Familial bonding" what the fuck who even says that.

>They drank thick red wine and sat on the white leather couch while Lee sat on the floor, bored
Nice, but cut "thick". Wine's not gravy.

Otherwise fine. You overwrite.

That was all long ago and much too far away now. At the time, he had been terrified of the new journey and the loss of his friends and acquaintances, but he had grown and learned. In the moment goodbyes were almost always too painful for him to take but you meet new people and you grow older and things seem to change; They don’t, really, but perspective matters much more than the reality of things do and either way you move on. He wouldn’t lie, there was a fondness he couldn’t compare anything to of the memories of the people of his past.
They littered his mind, each a pylon that stood higher inside his remembrance than they ever had outside it. Each was better in memory than they had been in the time. He would hear of them in passing sometimes, either from his family or a call. It was funny how hard it him when the status quo of those days changed. Once he recalled hearing of a childhood friend moving states. He was struck with a feeling of inexplicable loss that he was unable to shake. Another time his father told him of the death of an old neighbor. She had been close to an aunt when he was young, and dread had engulfed him. He was nearly broken to tears in that moment.
The longing for stagnation, for everything to be as pristine and beautiful has it had been in his youth, remained inside him. It was a cancer he couldn’t cure. It broke his heart every day, bringing him closer to what he could only describe as the death of soul.

>>10148345
But it was all long ago. Those memories were no more than pieces of a jigsaw that was no longer a cohesive image. He was losing himself, losing his values, and losing his mind. He leaned back in his chair, sipped on his gin, and closed his eyes. He wondered what had gone wrong in his life, if he was alone in this war waged against one’s own ego. Sometimes he thought he was stuck in that adolescent glow; he certainly felt he was.
All the people he was around seemed so careless, so free of their history. He had often felt himself wise, old for his age, but now he wondered how wise the unhappy could be. Perhaps he was the greatest fool, an individual unwilling to allow himself contentedness. A man drowning himself in emotion and embracing melancholy and tragedy over passion and benevolence. Still, he bobbed up, gasping for breath and grasping for someone or something to grab a hold of his hand and save him.
And, of course, that hand would never come. There were women who at times would rush into his life and he would feel momentary ecstasy. It would fill him with feelings and thought he had never had before. He would instantly reach out to love, to some omnipotent overarching theme or feeling that would draw him into an ever-deepening hole. He was, quite frankly, a romantic just like his father was. It was not by any means a good trait, he had decided long ago. Romantics end up wanting too much, and their hopes almost always fall short.
His dad had left his mother when he was a child. He had run off with some woman he had thought he loved more. He had been unsure, in the time, and only confirmed those thoughts later in his life. In reality, his father only chased after that beginning of a relationship, that initial burst of feeling and emotion. When it was gone, his father had wondered if he had really ever loved at all. It always amused him how much he had understood his father. He had been so close to his mother, and yet the enigma that was his father was so easy to transcribe. Perhaps they were just similar, perhaps he was just a predictable man. At first, Tom was unsure of why he seemed to have such a connection with his father, but he had grown to realize that the quote ‘the sins of the father’ meant much more than he had ever thought. He had become his father, and while he may have had a chance to grow better, he was more than likely already on his level. Thus was life, he had concluded; To continue redundant cycles. He would someday have a son and on that day he was sure his son would turn into him, a depressed optimist wishing for meaning.
He didn’t envy that future son, nor did he envy his father; He only envied those outside the viscous circle.

>>10148349
His brother had managed to escape it somehow. Nick was always a Mama’s boy, perhaps that was what had saved him from this eternal damnation. Perhaps it had been blind luck. Regardless, Nick had found a lovely woman who had built him up into a great man, someone who made Tom prouder than he ever thought he could be. Nick had always looked up to him, at least when they were younger. In those days Tom had been much more forward. He had advanced into the unknown with a smile, but that had gone away. He knew he was a disappointment to his younger brother. Nick no longer looked to him as a role model, and Tom no longer looked to Nick as someone who he needed to protect. It had been a blow to their relationship, one Tom was unsure he could repair at the time. It all mended, as things do, and life continued forward. He remembered a quote from a book he once read; 'So it goes...' it went. It was such a beautiful, simple phrase. Still, repetition always made things seem better than they were; Perhaps thats why he found the saying so beautiful.
He was once again reminded of the distance he had from those times. Now he had the solitude he had always wanted. Now he had the oneness he had always asked for. Now he had the peace he would have died for. It was all coming together, a perfect circle of all the wants and needs and wishes he had once desperately chased; How he hated each and every one of them. It seems the eternal theme that the grass is always greener, and he came to realize that rather than him not having what he wanted, he just didn't truly want anything.
Life closed in around him. It was time. The lights had grown dim awhile ago and the echoing anger of the city had long died down. Far away he heard distant crashes and the sound of rolling thunder and then only silence.
His mind went back, in it's overly romantic instincts, and remembered Diana. God how he loved her even now. God how he wished she was happy. It was funny, when he was a younger man he would have married her without even a thought, but now he realized how unhappy he would make her. He realized how unhappy they would be together. It's funny how you can still love someone whom you know you couldn't stand to be with. She had brought to him so many wonderful moments he still remembered now, so many gentle summer nights spent in the grass staring at the stars. Many more drunken nights on the train, their heads leaning against one another in a sleepy haze as they made their way home.

>>10148352
And as he thought of her, he could almost feel her against him now, her arms locked in his and her head upon his shoulder. He wished someone had been here. Anyone would have done, any individual willing to share in this moment. A short laugh reached him as he realized how he had always been his enemy. He smiled, and his world came to an end.
The death of humanity was not glorious fall. It was once said 'so it ends not with a bang, but a whimper...' and it was not far from off. The death of humanity was not, as people would think, surrounded by violence. It was not surrounded by chaos and crime and hatred. Rather, it was all done with gentle introspection and shared moments of thought.
Every soul on the planet known as Earth wiped out, ever trace of what and who we were gone, but the universe continued on uncaring. Uncaring of our love, of our joy, of our tragedies and our hope. It just kept going.

>>10148345
>That was all long ago and much too far away now
uhh...

>>10148358
Cool
For anyone willing to read all the bullshit I wrote, it's the ending sequence to something I'm trying to write about an invidual trying to find himself before the world goes out. He's a cynic, and he faces his last moments he realizes all he really wanted was somebody to care about. It's probably not great, I'm well aware, but I've been trying to figure out how to write halfway decent for awhile.

>>10148333
thanks for the feedback

>not a single piece of feedback on either posted work
>if I ask for it again then I'm a whiny piece of shit

>>10148015
pretty enjoyable read. Consider making waves singular would be the only advice I could offer.

>>10148361
I think it's solid for a nice and slow reflective piece. There's a few little errors in grammar and spelling but i doubt you care about that at this stage. It definitely evokes a steady feeling throughout. The only criticism I'd give is that it's a little too steady, I read half a sentence and know the ending of it, which is fine, but it doesn't, I don't know, surprise the way some really great things do? And it doesn't have beautiful prose to make the feeling steadiness completely engaging. Perhaps you could try to tailor your writing to that.

But again, I'm looking for criticism, if that's how you write and you had a solid plot (maybe you do) I think you could write a fine book.

>>10145837
>Lysidike took her ability to read his mind as a matter of course, but his converse power was still unsettling. Time was only Anaximander ever gleaned what she thought with any proficiency; but he deduced her nature from what his oily smarts told him was the nature of a person, and only sardonically hinted at his mastery. Tlexictli didn’t even have to puzzle to catch her straight away, so the privacy she took for a metaphysical given in her youth broke up, and she felt her disagreements with her husband as dumb sensory pressures, like heat or cold. Their cross-purposes weren’t any easier for their transparency, but there was nothing to worry over – they’d conducted business together before becoming sentimental.

bump

>>10148361
Stick what you've got in a text document I can toss on my Kindle and I'll give it a read.

>>10149888
There's no need to bump a thread on the fifth page. You're lucky I'm not a mod

>>10147884
You got me man. Though it was entertaining as fuck. Glad it was for you too. Sarcasm can be quite a subtle and beautiful art, especially with no face.

>>10149192
I appreciate it. I'll take it into account. I think I took too much influence from some of the books I was reading at the time. I tend to do that and it doesn't fit the style in which I write. It also takes out a lot of the originality, so it's a problem I really need to fix.
>>10149897
Thanks. I'll see if I can get around to doing that.

I don't consider myself a writer

Youth can disguise a lot - the earliest days in skin are almost superficial. Capital street names were written on cuneiforms, understanding them was horrible. Food was once a day. Yew berry flesh, palaquium - the diet bred imagination. A river halo was observed, and a cold figure in the water floating. He seemed to hallucinate the body, but after the visions failed it didn't go. When the body got out, misunderstood feeling came for his esteem.
Supposedly the woman in this pond had an apple in their throat Youth could hide the fact that [A] is a man, but not as well as this man. This man let his hair grow out and his chest become sinuous, bruised and lavish cold. Of course [A] felt it totally acceptable to taste this all in front of him.
"What's your name?"
His name. "[A]? A woman's name?" - perhaps this was praise, but it was definitely familiar to [B]. [B] mocked his corpulence, as [A] was deprived of a resting place "Those are some desperate scars" he dug into them "At least they don't cut in two". [A] pushed the hand away, halving it. "You are soft all over, like you've never become abrasive" - sudden friendliness in subject. He explained with verve that he really wasn't hungry. He forced [B] not to.
[B] didn't call it hunger - he called it fragmentation, despite the scars. "We're not looking at having colour, one day we'll be blind or pretend we are"
After life [B] explained they wouldn't be an animal - "In life you should be one". A stream of honey ran down [A]'s leg from the underwear. Legs melted and rears were pinched evocatively, balance slain. They sang into each other, and the honey was shared between their mouths. His silk-coloured eyes held a canyon behind them, which he penetrated as well. It was pinched and teased like milk from a breast - he squirmed. "Don't worry - I only took all of it"
[A] spun over on to his back, crossed himself off, covered his nudity. "This is of course the perfect time to begin concealing yourself"
They both laughed at how much of them had been brought together. [B] looked at the bite marks that replaced cushions on a forest floor. [A] looked at [B] still arched over him instead of sleeping. Shaking violently, [B] collapsed in his arms - a bosom heat that made him lethargic. [B] recovered on top of him, breaking his whole until the sun rose and then some.
Homosexuality is the act of attraction towards your own gender. The king made it capitally punished. [A] knew, because of the blue cloth, who he'd slept with

>>10149413
masterpiece. 10/10

Franz waited for Lana. She wasn't coming back out. He flicked his cigarette and started back home. It was one of those agreeable March days when the late afternoon humidity put you in a strange mood. He had been absorbed in the weather and was startled when the man began talking to him. "Slow down, Brother" said the man. Franz was bewildered and said nothing. "Thing's will work out wont they?" the man asked. Franz felt as if this encounter was deeply important or somehow prophetic. "Will it be?" Franz asked back trying to come across good naturedly. He didn't wait for an answer and walked past the man who looked on at Franz solemnly as he left. Franz was walking at a frenzied pace, cursing to himself at how he'd handled the encounter. Franz despised the senile man for perturbing him so. Yet he knew that he really despised himself for how he felt he had squandered this vaguely important moment. He calmed himself down telling himself how it didn't matter. The sun was setting now. Franz, having nowhere to go, entered a cafe and ordered a soda from the plain faced girl

Franz waited for Lana. She wasn't coming back out. He flicked his cigarette and started back home. It was one of those agreeable March days when the late afternoon humidity put you in a strange mood. He had been absorbed in the weather and was startled when the man began talking to him. "Slow down, Brother" said the man. Franz was bewildered and said nothing. "Thing's will work out wont they?" the man asked. Franz felt as if this encounter was deeply important or somehow prophetic. "Yout think so?" Franz asked back trying to come across good naturedly. He didn't wait for an answer and walked past the man who looked on at Franz solemnly as he left. Franz was walking at a frenzied pace, cursing to himself at how he'd handled the encounter. Franz despised the senile man for perturbing him so. Yet he knew that he really despised himself for how he felt he had squandered this vaguely important moment. He calmed himself down telling himself how it didn't matter. The sun was setting now. Franz, having nowhere to go, entered a cafe and ordered a soda from the plain faced girl at the counter. She smiled at him sweetly when he asked for her name. "Lana." she answered. She was less ordinary when she smiled. He payed and took his coke to a stool seat at the empty bar where he could glance sideways at Lana if he decided he wanted to.
>If it's bad, it's "experimental".

>>10145866
Finally hit the required word count after a few more painful hours of punching myself. Now I'd really appreciate some feedback, or anything that validates the ridiculous and pointless amount of time I sank into this

>>10152258
I'm going try and read through this and give you a good crit, but just know that I have a 48 line poem awaiting (hopefully) publication that took me two weeks of 2 hour writing then two hour editing sessions. Can't rush perfection man

Posting here because the other thread sucks. This is my second ever attempt at poetry, which I have only begun even reading about a month ago, so I know it's not great. But encouraging words or useful criticism would be much appreciated. The syllables are symmetrical, does that help with rhythm? Anyway, here it is:

We are but three
She and I, and the moon
Does Night grow warm so soon?
No, it is She

Will we belong to each other?
I bid thee, errant star showers:
Bind this waxing love that is ours
To thy shadowed home forever

Etch this fleeting kiss in thy space
So others may gaze up and know
Where, with this tenderness, we go
An immutable, perfect place

We are but two
She and I, and the moon
Round me her hair is strewn
Fire unsubdued

>>10152377
Thanks man, and I only say pointless because this is an inconsequential, one-and-done assignment that probably wasn't intended to take this much effort and very few people are ever going to see. Congrats on the publication, I hope everything goes alright!

>>10152378
I'm a complete layman to poetry so take this with a grain of salt:
This is obviously an amateur's poem but the up-side is that your amateurism is coming from a different and considerably less annoying place than most armchair "poets" I know. Keep at it read up on prosody

>>10152442
>keep at it read up
*and read up

>>10152442
Thanks very much for this. Yeah, I'm still working on it, trying to make up for lost time. I was never taught how to write or appreciate poetry, but I find it is more relaxing to write and more effective at expressing my feelings than prose is most of the time. I'm a better than average prose writer, but poetry has grabbed me recently like never before. I will look into prosody.

october all over/collected ;_; shiteposts:

>2017/10/15
sometimes somewhere
somehow
never nowhere
sorry.

>2017/10/16
lost
cat
searching
yearning
dreaming


finally
You


finally
home.

>2017/10/13
sadeyes/blackeyes
latenight/earlymorning
occhinero/čiernoočko

we met
eyes
minds
bodies
souls
i hope

we kissed
we missed
we kissed
we siksed

however far away
however long i stay
whatever words i say

yet
her eyes
beau, belíssimo
yet
her eyes
dor
still
ennui
hiraeth
poignant
wabi-sabi
transient
saudade
sehnsucht
bittersweet
нocтaльгик
melancholic
weltschmerz
mal du siècle
profoundly sad
mono no aware
so profoundly sad
looking into the distance
past me
yearning for faraway lands
without me
piercing into the past
past her
feeling past wounds
past harms
i don't know
her
i want to know
her
i want to help
her
heal

I want to make her whole life feel like that afterglow.

>>10152471
I hate it, dude

>>10152485
Okay. Started writing on Friday, never tried before.

>2017/10/16
SAP => AT&T => SalesForce
II
V
the path to heroin.

>>10152471
You've got the heart it seems, but the format is a put off for me. The lapses into Cyrillic script and German and whatever other languages would be a problem for 99% of your readers, so consider who your audience is. If writing in this format is cathartic for you, though, do what you want with it. It's not really my cup of tea, but like I said, it seems like you have the motivation and creativity to write for yourself or for other people. If you find middle ground, maybe there will be success there.

Subtle colours of a low sun bathe an english country lane, along it kept hedgerows of berrys, like jewles in thorn crowns. Old trees reaching out with thick branches, in those trees the fussing of birds. On this lonely road there a small cottage, atypical brickwork and slate roofing, weathered walls dressed with ivy, and against them firewood stacked. Its in this cottage that Briar lives, hes out at the moment but he&apos;s made the mistake of not locking his door, and as an unexpected result his privacy has been invaded. Inside the cottage, by a clean white sheeted table, sits Mary. Mary has taken the liberty of making a fire in the fireplace&apos;s wood burner, and has set it to work warming the kettle through. While making the fire she had a quite a long think about how well kept the house was, tea bags even, quite the rarity, a cupboard full. It was clear to her this house was not long since left and had decided to wait, she had no other plans anyway.

This is the first thing ive ever written, i know where i can take it but im not sure if i should. Im not looking for an ego boost, i just want to know if its cringe as fuck or something.

>>10152526
Not cringy as fuck. Keep at it, the picture you paint is pretty. There should be more paragraph breaks, though, and practice will improve it overall.

>>10145954
clevergirl

Subtle colours of a low sun bathe an english country lane, along it kept hedgerows of berrys, like jewles in thorn crowns. Old trees reaching out with thick branches, in those trees the fussing of birds. On this lonely road there is a small cottage, atypical brickwork and slate roofing, weathered walls dressed with ivy, and against them firewood stacked. Its in this cottage that Briar lives, hes out at the moment but he's made the mistake of not locking his door, and as an unexpected result his privacy has been invaded. Inside the cottage, by a clean white sheeted table, sits Mary. Mary has taken the liberty of making a fire in the fireplace wood burner, and has set it to work warming the kettle through. While waiting on the kettle she's had a quite a long think about how well kept the house was, a cupboard of tea bags even, quite the rarity. It was clear to her this house was not long since left and had decided to wait, twisting her wedding band and thinking.

This is the first thing ive ever written, i know where i can take it but im not sure if i should. Im not looking for an ego boost, i just want to know if its cringe as fuck or something.

>>10152542
Thankyou, i will.

>>10146248
this has to be b8.

>>10152551
a low sun is the opposite of subtle you ass

every human on earth that has been alive longer than a day knows this

Your eyes have stolen me
I stand there now,
Not a sound but your singing
Not a motion but your dancing
Your eyes that enchant;
Phials of sweet silver wine

>>10148015
very good. has a real heart (with a pulse).

>>10152598
where do you live?

>>10152378 #
(This time with spacing) My first attempt at poetry, in a more free verse. I triggered some anon with my use of the word "hydrargyrum," but I think even if you don't know the word (it's the original name of mercury), it lends the beautiful, arcane quality to the subject's eyes that I intended anyway. It's a throwaway poem like any of mine so far, but it felt good to write.

-Where is my dream, with her eyes of swimming hydrargyrum,
-And laughter on her lips to banish the Devil?
-Immobile, she dances
-In motion, divine
-Her hair my most prized vintage,
-Nectar of some red vine tended in Other soils
-It lends me courage to ask for more
-And so I drink deeply

-To you, dream, I profess that thing,
-Of which love is but a phantasm,
-My utter reverence and devotion
-And unyielding tenderness
-Only visit me again
-Tonight, while the rain patters

>>10152598
You wouldnt say this is subtle?

>>10152588
It is. If ever post prose it's bait. I only write poetry. I'm baiting this whole thread

>>10152433
I read it and it's very difficult to give you a crit based on the incredibly precise circumstances you've been given. All I can really say is that it is, on the whole, cohesive enough to pain a(n), albeit fuzzy, picture. But based on the title given in the filename you sort of work that into its theme. Really I can't see you getting anything less than a B- or whatever mark is equivalent where you live. You're time was not wasted, don't fret.
Other than that though, I can't say anything else. Can you imagine trying to tell someone how to tighten up a piece such as this? It'd be as difficult as it was for you writing it. I want to help, but I do have a life and I'm not getting paid, sorry!

>>10152730
cohesive enough to paint*

Madeline found relief on the mountain roads. The windings and meanderings and dippings and crestings. The pools of mist swirling at the bottom of steep descents, the sunrises nibbling at the top, and the plunge into gloomy tunnels of ancient sentinels that dropped the thermometer, fuzzed the radio, and triggered the sensitive automatic headlights of rare cars coming the opposite way. She felt it was a quiet miracle that the roads led anywhere. But in the four years since her transfer she had learned to trust and warily respect the mountains. She had cursed them at first for the countless times they forced her onto the shoulder of a forest road that never forked, never branched. Worrying about being late she'd take out a broadsheet sized map and beat down the creases. Whispering names under her breath, she'd begun in the tiny bubble of familiarity and traced the web of lines, following them out until they became long, lonesome fingers veining the mountainside, then the car lights went out and she lost her way in darkness. The switch for the cabin lights was broken in her old sedan and she'd open and slam the door shut to turn them back on, but she could never find the road again. She'd angrily cram the map back into the glove box, making it creased with more roads and more impossible to use the next time, and pull out, hovering three kilometers over the speed limit. And in this way Madeline learned that the destination was always a little further but near, just around the next bend, or over the next rise. It seemed once she made her intent clear with anger the mountains were ready to thin their mystery and welcome her.

>>10152551
I like it, mate. Not exactly my cup of tea but I can see a style. Not cringy but then again your only describing the start of a scene, maybe your dialogue will make me leave the room from embarrassment, who knows?

Do grils like romantic poetry?

>>10154606
Depends where you live, girls around here only want sex
>tfw you will never live in a romantic mediterraenian city reading poetry to civilized qts

>>10154624
>girls around here only want sex

From me?

He sat squatting on the street corner awaiting the presence of the one he awaited. She came look at him slyly with a sort of oily intelligence. Something about her eyes piercing his soul made him want to say something, so he took a deep breath and walked towards her. Her eyes widened as she realized the implication of his movements and she used her legs to move herself away. It was then that he showed her the gift he had created. The gift of love.

Please only constructive criticism.

waking up in some sort of haze, sticky from the days before, my feet stinking up the bed. i groan to the ceiling, and look around at the walls and the pale blue light streaming from the outside. my animals lay on top of each other, moaning at the impasse of food, the dog going mute from the groans. i suddenly feel the heat of the room creep up my back, and i scream and arch my back from the bed, then throw my shirt across the room. i just think of cachaça, how good it will feel when i finally get up from the bed.

>>10154694
>awaiting the presence of the one he awaited
Redundant. Don't do this.

>oily intelligence
Oh, now I see

>>10154767
My first lit shitpost. I actually can't write for shit for real though. Maybe I should start practicing. Threads like this, and your initial sincere criticism, inspire me.

Art didnt have much hope for Millersville University Go Bonobos. In a little over three months hed begin studying economics at their nationally-rated program, nationally-rated in the extreme triple digits read the brochures fine print, but in a little under six months there would be global economic collapse. There was no consensus for this yet but Art had seen it numbers plummeting faster than leaping businessman in Hong Kong, London, New York and soon there would be consensus, courses at Millersville teaching Advanced Looting, Gaining an Edge in the 21st Century: Proper Shiv Fashioning and You, The Joy of Cooking Rat. This was something Art felt everyone but the televised intuited. That a day was coming and coming soon. That Earths roundness was a womans and she was ready to pop.

>>10154820
I don't know shit about prose, but I always felt like putting a metaphor directly after the literal expression that it's related to, or vice versa. sounded childish. Just pick one. If your metaphor is good you need not be literal right next to it.

>>10154814
Whatever gets your rocks off, my dude. That thread was pretty funny.

>>10145852
Why is everyone butthurt about this? It is Hemingway-esque, just not as good in the sense that it's not as subtle or poignant. But, as it stands on it's own outside of the context of a novel as a whole - it's not wholly terrible.

It's overly drawn out. Hemingway would convey the sentiment and the conversation would move on. Not 2 pages of Ryan's attempts and Jo's fleeting. But the inspiration is obvious.

ESCAPE
The roosters are blinded. A whistle accompanies the morning, until a flash numbs the World. The legions are coming over waters and are defacing pine-wood. Shoe’s leather drowns the river; an engineer weaves a tumor to stop the washing of blood. They are steel wrapped in tweed; their smiles are sorted silver ingots; their legs are deformed and whirl in wind. They smell of petroleum, which, I presume, is how they dress their hair. The death in their hands gets quickly warm after several fief antics. They eat and drink for little denarii, though the money is invalid. After their parade, the City smells of salted milk and copper pipes.
“Ein Kaffee, um aufzuwachen?”
I deny and run.
I ran between live pillars of earth; the mud I trampled piled up beneath my nails – that soil was becoming every breakfast and dinner. My hairs were a field of karst from where waters ran when broken. My body was as if bird’s bone.
Where am I? Yesteryear light was collecting itself on these graves; I can’t find them. I am paralyzed, I feel my heel dying. Death and decomposition will begin in February, says the learned man.
How lovely would it have been, had I become something, some kind of lily on the stones or similar; but I couldn't have been anything, nor an insect or bureaucrat.


a poem in prose btw

>>10154916
It also doesn't help that the situation outside of their conversation is probably uninteresting. hemingways books are anchored in the backdrop of some tragic or interesting historical setting which makes the dialogue more interesting in context. where as two randoms driving in a car losing their relationship isn't interesting on it's own and is rather annoying.

such as the dialogue between robert and his girl in for whom the bell tolls would be awfully cringy outside of the context of war and suffering. it's cringy even in that context, imagine it standing on it's own.

Anyone ever write while absolutely shitfaced?

At some point in life you need to take a step back. You need to look at everything amd see they are such insignificant aspects, such unimportant parts of your life, that they barely deserve to be a part of it. I had an issue when i was young. I used to look up to people as if they could save me, as if they were the savior and hero I needed to free myself from a life mediocracy. I soon realized the reality, that there is no such thing as saving anyone else. That you were eternally and continually stuck in this patch of shit that held you down.
In reality you had to save yourself. People around you only wanted to see you in pain. They wanted to see you eternally held back. I of course disagree with this mindset. I refuse to be held back by some sort of ambigous feeling of infatuation. I refuse to be held back by someone who would rather see me hurt than happy. That's the truth. They marry themselves off only to wish death and destruction on me. Only to wish death and hopelessness on a man who wished nothing but joy on everyone.
In reality it's desperation. It's the need for that infatuation. It's the need for someone to see you as something more than trash. You see yourself so lowly that you have this inherent neccesity for someone to see you as more. I used to love you, but what does that mean? It means I fell in love with a dream, with a joke, with a distraction that represented something that doesn't exist. It's pointless, it's against reality, it's against personal growth.
I'm worth more. I'm worth infinately more, and yet there is this pressure on me as if I'm a child telling me I'm less. Fuck her, fuck it, and fuck this pointless feeling of depression. You are better than her. She is nothing but a whore. She is nothing but an obstacle in the path to joy that you've put yourself on. Joy is so fucking close. Love is so god damn realistic. Everything you've dreamed and hoped is right in front of you.
You say you are different? You aren't. You say that you are sappy? You aren't. Everything everyone dreamed is so close.
I say all of this to mean this. You are great. You are fine. You will find what you want. Love will come, I promise you that. Brace yourself and deal with the pain as it comes, but things will work out. Don't let others hold you back. Embrace joy, embrace innocence, embrace joy. You will find happiness.
I love you, you love yourself, everythingis perfect and beautiful.

if i don't get any replies here does it mean my work is entirely unimpeachable and good

>>10155496
Link it and I'll say what I think

https://pastebin.com/T3NQq80U

A first draft of a short story I'm writing

>>10155501
happier believing what i want to believe desu

He had begun to dream of her now; of her long hair and soft touch. It would hit him in the midst of nightmares, relieving him of the pain and suffering. She would hold him, embracing his head against her chest, as he would curl up like a child. He'd listen to her heartbeat and feel the warmth of her breast, then he'd move his head up. He'd kiss her neck, her cheeks, up to her forehead before entangling her with his arms. His chin would rest softly on her head, and he'd enclose her and feel her deep, slow breathing as her hair tickled him.
It was bliss. It was warmth, comfort, safety, beauty, and love. It was life itself. But then he awoke, his head cold and his heart realizing the emptiness it held. Desperately he grasped for the dream, chasing sleep to relive the moment, but it was in vain. He continued to fade in and out of consciousness, and soon he gave up. Soon he had forgotten all about the beauty which he had experienced. Parts would linger, presenting themselves as deja-vu, but he found an inability to truly comprehend it.
He scrambled out of bed, his bare feet searching for the floor. It was cold on the tiles. He noted that it wasn't an entirely unpleasant feeling, but it reminded him that he was now hopelessly awake. His hands went instinctively to his face, pressing against his eyes until they nearly hurt. The pressure felt good in an odd way. He walked to the bathroom, and then toward the mirror. The room was still dark, he hadn't put on the lights. He enjoyed the dark as long as he could get it. He stared at himself. He jumped into the depths of his eyes, explored the ridges across his face and forehead, and drifted across his cropped hair. It all seemed so surreal and unfamiliar. It didn't seem known to him this apparition, this doppelganger, in the mirror that stared back.
He flicked the lights on, wincing as they fell on his eyes. Again he stared into the mirror.
"Get it together," the man named Jack said, "Get it the fuck together."
Jack turned on the faucet and splashed cold water onto his face. It brought him back from his half-dream state. It was always funny to him how reality had such an ability to destroy will., Things were so much easier when you drowned in ignorance or vice; he found vice was the more interesting method, and had proceeded to into it. Those days were long gone though, and while he regretted them, he knew they had been a key to his survival all the same.

>>10155520
He glanced at his clock and was surprised to see it read 4:00am. It would not go off for another two and a half hours. He debated returning to sleep, but decided against it. He jumped into the shower, going through he motions as fast as he could. He finished with the meticulous task, and got dressed. He walked to the living room. It was scattered with portraits and pictures and photographs. They had not been put up on his accord, they had been done by his wife long ago. One portrait always stood out to him more than an other. It lay on his table, and as he sat down he picked it up. It was of a young couple, no older than 28, and their two children. The boy, a spitting image of his father, had short blonde hair and a narrow face. The girl had a rounder face with light brown hair. It had hints of red in it.
The woman was named Samantha. Jack had known her since kindergarten, though they never became involved until much later. It was in high school that he had first known her, and a little after that he had fallen for her. She was a short red head with a bit of a temper and a teasing smile that always gave her away; On their first date he had seen both, tough he found making her laugh chased away the former and brought the latter. Later he had found that it didn't always work that way.
The two children were named Jack and Vivianne, Jacky and Viv for short. They were 8 and 6 respectively, and full of the kind of joy only innocence brings. He had wanted them to hide in that innocence as long as possible. He thought he had done well enough on that front, they always seemed happy with him.

>>10155501

>>10152378
>>10152614
>>10152657

Poetry attempts 1-3 (not in that order, though). Pretty redhead picture offered as a token of good faith.

GIVE ME REPLIES GIVE ME REPLIES GIVE ME REPLIES

we were floating as magnificent shadows against the boiling earth. 5 of us cutting through the desert brume in sync with each other each move answered by any else. the iron weighed heavy, a luxuriant chainmail for these times so your core wouldn’t be transported out by the air into unburiability when they finally got to you, when the spiked waves of pure dynamism bounced against your heart ending all life on the earth. his head sank down and he raised it up again, in a yank. he turned his head in round now, he observed the perfect just symmetric enough beauty of the woman behind him, the gap between her legs, how she swayed, her rubberdoll lips and gator eyes, seeing her all sweaty, completely worn out awakened a primordial need inside of him to take care of her, to hold her in his arms, for her to lay against him, going into his body and not pushing away swallowing them into each others fleshy pole arms. he, round with the head again now. 4 men here and 3 ahead of him him the 4th her the 5th. they had killed a 100 man 10 days ago, their miniature crusade complete and the crossing back to base now underway. blood was still stuck in the inside of his eyelid, the 3 had sliced flesh, broken bones like lobsters shell or various other sea creatures them giant children smashing down breaking and tearing and stomping and piercing and full force rawing and stabbing shrill penetrating and finally throwing away the mallets and going in with the hands plucking and groping and touching and feeling and rolling their eyeballs in the sockets and playing frisbee with the chest bones and licking the cranium with vibrating tongue. she was backup in the back seeing over the warfield with smoking corpses sunken atlantean statues in the sand the sand in their mouths deafening the sound from beyond. round with the head, her face on him, the glint of her presence her nose so diagonal so beautiful her chest going up and down rising at him he could feel it in his hands he closed his fingers moved them as mechanical joints but the coldness in him touched the imagined warmth of the thought of him touching her grabbing her chest and throwing her against the tainted magenta ground and filling her up completely the glass running over with wine her eyes disappearing into the top of her head only noise that could be heard half gasps coming out like steam from her slightly curved fanged teeth mouth. love was real in that moment that he prophesied to himself. loud screech above his head. top of the hill a shape mistaken for a bush. the bullet went in the middle of her forehead and out and as fast she was on the ground, her personality, his future all ever thought up and dreamed off slayed by a haze ghost in the desert sun. no, this can’t be happening, i'm in charge here

not like that, not like that you can’t just die like that, not in that way, the brain is big and important but she can’t just be evaporated like that. an idea with that amount of control over his very soul and reason couldn’t be murdered in one second by a physical object, a stone going very fast in the air. that couldn’t happen. he had seen 200 of his fellow men lying face in the earth but a woman, a elegant and cute face unmoving made grotesque, fucking dead, raped into the transformation into just the flesh without life. forever dead and never again being here with him.

>>10155845
PARAGRAPH BREAKS

>>10155873
it isn't my fault that i am too smart for the average /lit/goer. you people really have to get with the times more. too lazy to challenge yourself, sad 2 see. uncreative snailman.

>>10155880
Shut up and crit, widdle boy.

I am a piece of shit with nothing interesting to say

I'm not sure what this is...not sure if it counts. Just don't want to sound superficial
How beautiful it is at dawn
Before the intensity of the sun burns away the gentle colors in the sky
Before it's rays kill the nuances of the the morning and sheds light on the imagination

>>10152378
I feel like you overuse the words thee and thy. I understand why you'd use it, but it makes it seem a bit dated and a little pretentious. Generally though I like it, though I feel some of the lines could be shortened and some extra words, like the multiple ands, be done away with. That said, I really like the word choice. It really paints a very detailed picture of the woman it's for.
Side note, I really love the lines about the moon. Don't know why.
>>10152614
Sweet and simple. Not much to say really, it seems as almost a prelude to your last poem honestly, or a start to it.
>>10152657
I could be wrong, but I almost feel as if Mercury would suit the poem better than hydrargryum. I'm usually against using overly complex words unless they fit the context perfectly. I actually really like this one, especially the last few lines

Some shitty ass poems I wrote when I was literally trapped for 2 months with nothing else to do.

Delinquent condition
Quiet Disposition
It claws me down
Under heavy hands, my heavy heart
Contrary to beliefs, I see it fall
As Constantinople, to it's own
Or so I'm told, my defense wearing thin
To assaults of heart and mind
My heart and mind, refusing to negotiate
And thus shattered I sit
Dwelling in loathing
Within a quiet disposition.

>>10156061
A temple in the trees, long forgotten
Pinned in my mind, lost in prayer
Lost in thought and hope
Far from home and verdent hills
Only plains lie before me, only pains behind
And within long gone pain, perhaps shreds of joy
Buried in melancholy, buried in acted apathy
But dug up at inopportune times
To test my faith and shred my patience
My eager hands grasping to glints and shadows
As ecstasy rears its head, only to hide
Only to cower as I approach
To seize it, to conquer it
But I fall short, my goals shattering
Upon the rocks within the grove
In which my temple resides

>>10156065
Light in the night
Guide me through
All this Carnage
This desolation, this morbid reality
I feel entranced
I feel chained by it
And yet content, if not bored
Drenched in mediocrity
Soaked in the less than average
And so I fall to sleep, waiting to wake
But not to another day
A new day, a new opportunity, a new choice
But the sun falls, and I find little hope
But for a light in the night
To guide me

>>10156053
Thank you so much. I'll try and tweak it more to your liking so I can compare the before and after and decide which I like.
Thanks for reading.

>>10155954
Patently incorrect. Find your voice. You have something to say.

>>10156079
>Drenched in mediocrity
>Soaked in the less than average

I like these lines. Sounds like a Tool song.

>>10156129
I feel like thats a bad thing, but I understand

>>10156131
Well, I'm honestly not super familiar with Tool, but what I've heard I've enjoyed a lot. I think those lines were well-written regardless.

>>10156154
In that case thanks lol

Monkeys can climb
Crickets can leap
Horses can race
Owls can seek
Cheetahs can run
Eagles can fly
People can try
But that's about it.

>>10145866
stop being such a little buttboy to your professors. I can't believe how little self respect you must have.

>>10146437

Your closing was kind of week...would have been nice if you had made him fixate a little more on the cracked, darkened wood floor.
You did really well with the prompt you were given. Captured the 'uncanny' quite convincingly.

>>10152378

>thy

keep at it dude. Definitely far from the worst I've read on here, especially for an entry level effort. But the poets you're obviously mimicking here were writing in a variant of early modern English that hasn't been used in 150+ years. Cut it out.

>summary

Told from the vantage point of a high school senior, a month into the school year, running over the next eleven months. He's lived his whole life in an isolated island city in Alaska, but is either going to have to move away with his parents - as they relocate - at the end of summer, or go away to college. Overall theme is moving on, how his old friends that he'd cemented memories in town with are changing, and that as much as you try, you can't replicate how the past felt with your friends. Drifts through a few different jobs, drifts through a new group of friends, deals with accepting change, accepting that childhood is over, and accepting that he's been living physically and mentally inside a bubble most of his life.

>First draft was over 300,000 words long. I liked it as an intentionally bloated story with a slow shifting plot, but I feel like that won't be a popular opinion, so I'm trying to carve it up.

I walked inside with my hunched gait clutching my satchel bag at my side. The classroom was more or less filled and many of the back seats were taken. I walked towards the chairs at the other side near the windows and in front of the teacher’s podium and sat myself in the middle since that was the only seat open. I’ve always taken the seat closest to my professor in an attempt to pay attention better, this always had mixed results, I feel like a lecture room would be better. This school has a number of lecture rooms but most classes are held in these smaller spaces that are reminiscent of highschool classrooms and their as loud and obnoxious as one too. Even during class the backseat fuckers always engage in stupid shit like whispering each other, giggling at their texts and other common annoying trifles that can be ignored on their own, but with so many people doing the same thing in a small space everything just adds up and becomes increasingly more grating.
The professor finally shows up, he was a small old man with a clean but worn slightly slovenly with glasses so large and lenses so thick I wonder if he stole them from Keck 1. He started talking but his voice was so soft and his accent was so thick that I could barely make out what he was saying and I think all the other students were trying to be considerate and didn't say anything. With a combination of me staying up last night, his whispering voice and the dull material I simply can’t stay awake for this class. When confronted with something people don’t want to do, they will always use any means necessary to not do them, but when they have too, the same behavior still occurs but the instinct to not work becomes so strong that the job gets done in a much more efficient fashion.
I’ve heard the phrase ‘there are no shortcuts to success’ that people parrot a lot and to them I say- have you ever been outside in the last 20,000 years or so or do you have the the observational abilities of a fucking tadpole.
‘I don't wanna drag this thing across the dirt why can't I tie it to that ox and make him do it’-the yoke.
‘Quiet Adapa, I don't have enough fingers nor the mental stamina to do all those calculations why can’t I get something that makes this process easier?’-the abacus.
‘I don’t wanna go to several stores to get what I want, what if there was just one store that had everything in it to replace all of them with the purchasing power of a small nation’-Walmart
Hell, in business there is field of study and practice entirely devoted to shortcuts called logistics. Why do you think Alibaba and Amazon make so much money? Because they’re logistical monsters, they know every shortcut in the fucking book and that's how they have more wealth than some entire countries.

>>10156270
>dude why are you trying so hard in college lmao what, do you want to instill a vigorous work ethic in yourself at a young age while your habits are still malleable or something? skip class and come drop molly with my bros and I, live a little

>>10156280
I've gotten that feedback from others too. I agree that it is probably best to write with more modern language. The only poetry I've read so far is some of the romantics, so my pool of influence is small. Thank you for your kind words, I don't write from a place of pretentiousness or arrogance, I'm just really inexperienced at this stage.

>>10145928
Jesus christ you sound insecure

Can someone critique this thing I was writing a few days ago?

>Everything goes black, life leaves you, your suicide attempt succeeded - You are dead. Your consciousness is surrounded in what seems to be a great soundless tunnel of darkness, you stumble and stew in the dark for what seems like hours. After a certain distance you are met with a silver of white light, you walk closer and closer and the light grows. Soon you are bathed in light, the tunnel has lead you into world of blinding illumination. When you look back the tunnel is no more. An assault of rich blue engulfs the world. Shattering thunder breaks through the silence, reverberating throughout your very soul. "WATCHED", you make out through the roars. "JUDGED", a righteous, sky-splitting crackle annouces as the world becomes a crimson, bloody red. "PITIED", the sky moans, bringing creamy, soft violet with it. "DECIDED." "DECIDED." "DECIDED." The heavens repeats, overlapping itself in a cacophony of agreement, the world becoming booms of blue, red and violet as the sound emits and echoes.
Don't really write much but I like where I could go with this.

>>10156356
You should focus on writing good stories instead of pleasing your professors.

>>10155513
>His only guides were a steady breeze and his spear which he used to slowly feel his way
>There he first felt the presence of the beast, it's sickening odor, sweet and yet foul.
>The warrior's foot brushed against something that felt odd
>Disgusted, yet angered
>strange body, long and winding, but of irregular form
>it screams were resonating throughout the unnatural labyrinth.
>Indescribable visions of grotesque nature were burned into the warrior's head and drove him mad. Endless alien sounds and smells, images of things that should not be. It all was flashing before his eyes.
It reminds me of fucking someone repulsive with the lights out. I like it, but I would play that bit up some!

>>10155520

I once had a sex dream where I fell out of a boat and couldn't get back in, so I just started fucking random women in the ocean. I had another recurring dream where I discovered a small vagina behind my balls and tried to figure out how to make sexual use of it.

These dreams probably say something about me- I would want Jack's sex dream to say something about Jack.

>>10155845
> blood was still stuck in the inside of his eyelid, the 3 had sliced flesh, broken bones like lobsters shell or various other sea creatures them giant children smashing down breaking and tearing and stomping and piercing and full force rawing and stabbing shrill penetrating and finally throwing away the mallets and going in with the hands plucking and groping and touching and feeling and rolling their eyeballs in the sockets and playing frisbee with the chest bones and licking the cranium with vibrating tongue.
Nice sentence!!! This is pretty damn good. My one request would be to either captalize ur sentences or indent each line like a poem. My eyes lose track of where I am.

>>10156061
Sounds like a shitty time. But- your heavy heart falls to the assaults of heart and mind? Or is it your disposition that falls like Constantinople?
>>10156065
>>10156079
I think it is hard for a suffering person to really write about their own suffering from their own perspective- when I feel this way I write my own feelings into a character who is not me, if that makes sense. That's what I would recommend

>>10156224
(: very nice

>>10156338
You write about shortcuts to success- is there some shortcut to academic success? I'm in college, I want to hear it.

>>10156684
> "WATCHED", you make out through the roars. "JUDGED", a righteous, sky-splitting crackle annouces as the world becomes a crimson, bloody red. "PITIED", the sky moans, bringing creamy, soft violet with it. "
Reminds me of a delicious hot food, like a rare steak with a cream sauce topped with crackly fried onions and rock salt.
Your character is obviously dissatisfied with the things of this world because he/she commits suicide. So I would have him try to kill himself again at some point.

I'm going to post a story of mine next. It's a kid's story called "Blue Muffins"

"Blue Muffins"

Once upon a time there was a ship that sailed the sea with a captain, and that captain had a dog named Blue Muffins. The dog was a very special dog and whenever the sea captain said "Blue Muffins" the dog would bite everything nearby. He takes out chunks of the legs of pirates occasionally, and he generally lives a great life as a sea dog.
One day the boat was sailing along and they ran into trouble and the captain realized they were out of breakfast foods. So he stops by on a nearby island and he goes to the island's one store, a general store. He sails up and gets out and he lets the dog play in the water. And he asks the general store employee,
"Hey, got any purple pancakes?" But he says no, so he's like "Hey got any orange....breakfast burritos?" And the general store employee says, "No, but I do have these.....blue muffins."
And the captain says, "Blue Muffins?"
The dog is playing in the water and he hears this and of course bites everything in sight, mainly the water. He bites so much of the water that he starts to eat it up, and he eats up so much of the water that he begins to swell up like a balloon. And the captain keeps asking about the blue muffins regarding the price and the quantity and so on, and the dog keeps eating the water, until the whole sea level goes down. The dog grows to the size of an aircraft carrier.
Whales are everywhere. Piles of fish flopping around. The ship is beached. And the captain says, "How can I sail anywhere when my dog is bigger than my ship! This is all wrong."

(continued)

And of course the general store employee doesn't know what to do.
But then he says, "Okay, to undo this curse we need the opposite of a blue muffin. I can sell you a yellow lamp for 100 dollars". But the captain points out, "Yellow isn't the opposite of blue, and lamp isn't the opposite of muffin. So how would a yellow lamp be the opposite of a blue muffin?"
And the general store employee says maybe that makes sense. He thinks again and says, "a muffin is circular when viewed from above?"
"Oh, indubitably," says the captain.
"And a muffin is muffin shaped when viewed from the side?"
The captain says "Yes indeed".
"So the opposite of a muffin would have to be muffin shaped from the top perspective and circular when viewed from the side?"
And the captain says "That makes sense to me". The general store employee finds out that red is the opposite of blue so he goes to the back and gets a blue muffin and paints it red. Then he takes the red muffin and shows it to the captain tilted sideways.
"Oh my God," says the captain. "It's a red tilted sideways muffin!"
And the dog coughs up some ocean, about equivalent to twenty bathtubs. The captain says this is very promising and he asks about the price of the red sideways muffin, and the dog hacks up another thirty bathtubs and a hot tub. The captain approves of the price and asks about how many red sideways muffins are on the island, whether other sea captains are buying them, and whether their flavor and texture were approved by focus groups, when the dog hacked up several lakes of ocean water and returned the ocean to normal and the dog to normal size.
The captain was very grateful but he had one more question. "I yell the food we are having for breakfast at my crew every day. But how can I yell about blue you-know-whats without my dog freaking out and biting everything and everybody?"
And the general store employee says, "maybe your dog doesn't have to hear anything you say. have you considered buying your dog a pair of delightful earmuffs?" And the captain buys the highest quality of earmuffs the island store can offer. The dog never hears a thing, and the crew eats blue muffins, and everybody lives happily ever after.

The end

Please read the last line in your best Italian accent for full impact.

This very serious work was inspired by >>10148015 which I think is very good.

>>10148064
Wasn't a fan of that first paragraph. I think you're trying to convey a sense of unease, but it just felt overdone.

>Cop a squat
I was a stoner loser in high school who reinvented himself in college. I had never even kissed a girl, but had a blast as a freshman in my dorm. Anyway, the first time I heard someone say, "pop a squat" was when I was drunk and walking with a girl along a forested path on campus at night. She was a fiery redhead, tiny but strong, very cute, with a bubble but and perky little tits, and pretty wild.

She said, "I've got to pop a squat" and started pissing in the grass at the forest edge. The expression was new to me and, in my state, I decided to take a piss too. On her.

What followed was the wildest sex I've had to this day, 8 years later.

>>10145852
Of all the dramatic situations I know of, there is probably none more compelling than a couple arguing in traffic

>>10145837
Not sure if this is the right place for this, if I'm looking to write a comedy script what would the essentials be? Any books that I could read in order to have a greater understanding of comedy that makes audience's laugh. I'm already capable of doing so, but I'd like to be more on point that's about it. Lit Beasts please help a poor normie out.

Convey to me a way to say
that everything we did today
will last forever
in at least
the littlest way.
And all the lips
of lovers lost
linger still
in the shades of sky.
And all the world
is the greatest art
And each of us
play an essential part.
And each of our hearts
are weighed down
by the words that we
never spoke,
so speak.

1

Pat’s squelching foot squelched, secreting pus and fluids. His stinking sock was soaked with pus and Susan told him that he had better air it, and get his foot out of that stinking sock. Pat obliged, pulling the pus-filled sock from his slimy foot. Then, he steeped it in the bath until the yellow fluids turned the clear water putrid. When he finished stooping it, he took it out and put it on the bathroom floor. Susan screamed: Don’t put that foot on the floor, or we’ll all get infected! And so, obligingly, he hopped, hopping to bed from the bathroom floor. Struggling on the stairs, Suze came to lend a foot – booting his backside and giving him what’s for.

‘Look at you Pat, pathetic.’ He was lying on the bed with his foot sticking out, letting it air. ‘Nothing has changed, except the sheets. And they’ll need changing again now that your foot’s all over them!’

He tried to soothe Susan, but she would have none of his schmoozy soothing. Susan was too seething to be soothed. She picked up his shoes, and threw them out back, beside some empty bottles of booze. A weak whimpering voice called from the bedroom:

‘Suze…’

He was feeling sorry for himself and bowed his sodden head in shame. When she came, he raised it and weakly said

‘Suze…’

Her hands held her hips and she pursed her lips.

‘What do you want, Pat?’

‘I’m sorry Suze, I won’t do it again, I promise!’

She told him to shut it and beat him black and blue. Suddenly she felt sorry for his sad sodden head (beginning to take on a certain purple hue) but steadfast Suzy resolutely said

‘That’s the last, Pat. If you come in like that again I’m leaving.’

‘Don’t leave!’ said Pat.

And she left him to sulk, and sulk he did, with a petted limp lip which drooled as his black and blue head drooped. Soon he was asleep, his sticky foot, still sticky with pustule gloop, stuck out from the sullied bed.

Pat awoke with a thirst, and a sore head and foot. And admittedly, he was feeling a little blue. The pitter-pattering rain made Pat need a piss, so he hopped downstairs and let flow hoppy piss. Su was not to be seen, but he knew where she’d be. Parched Pat, no longer pissing, had an impatient mouth. It itched and retched and acted foul, and only sat still when its gob was full. Obliging Pat looked for his shoes. They were outside next to the empty bottles of booze, and the rain was turning them into moosh. Off he hopped on mossy slabs to fetch the soggy buggers, ran inside and put them on atop his ugly runners. Meanwhile, his mouth moaned, and his tongue cursed the body that bore it. He told his mouth to shut it, that it’d be full soon, that it was an ingrate and a tired old fool. As for his tongue, he bit the bastard.

>>10159174
2

2

The barmaids glanced askance as Pat befriended the barstool. He unfurled his purse, produced some sullied pennies, and asked (as politely as one could) for a pint. Of the two timid girls, the least timid timidly said

‘Sorry sir, we think you’ve had enough.’

And Pat, aghast, said

‘Refusing a paying customer a pint? My word!’

The girls behind the bar looked to each other, each smiling a timid smile that said, ‘what should we do?’ They were too timid to tell the man he had better get out, and so, of the two timid girls, the most charitable charitably said

‘Sir, here’s a glass of water instead.’

And Pat, aghast, said

‘He orders a pint of beer and gets given glass of water? My word!’

But obliging Pat accepted his poison, too miffed to tiff with the two pretty girls behind the tills.

Then a strange thing overcame Pat, gradually over the hour, as his mouth was force-fed a peculiar brew: his sore head (for all external purposes a darkish purple hue) had inside transformed itself from cloudy, to a bright, clear and sparkling sky blue. Saintly Pat saw the light, and in spiritual confusion plummeted from his stool.

‘Forgive me Father!’ cried poor prostrated Pat, body wallowing in bar juice. His hand clenched the leg aside him.

‘Father?’ said the leg, ‘I ain’t no priest, an’ a certainly ain’t your da. Now fuck off.’

Fumbling Pat fumbled back fast before his bald pate got the boot. The last thing his head needed was another fat bruise from a brute. Besides, his head was thinking so clearly now, and a boot might cause the stupor to reboot.

‘Thank you’ Pat said to the two timid barmaids, who timidly bowed back. He finished off his water and headed out. Then, Pat approached the nearest payphone, and finally consulted the doctor about his foot. ‘Never,’ he said to himself as it rang, ‘will I ever touch another drop of booze.’ And so Pat dreamed of his new life and what it’d be like, first time sober since fifty-two.

that morning,
two days after your friend died,
(hanged himself at his own primary school,
they'd had to cancel that day's lessons),
we sat in the cafe,
just quiet,
and watched the rain falling silently
over the university commons,
not touching our breakfasts,
just quiet,
and still,
and still there.

>>10157722
It does. The short story eventually leads to Jack reminiscing of his family, which he ended up losing. The overall theme was going to be him realizing what he wanted in life was what he had, and his insistence that he would win it back.
The entire thing is composed of leaping between flashbacks and stories of his family back to his current time.
The ending was going to be him going calling of work, and going to see his ex before being hit and killed by a car. The ending sequence was a quick reflection about his choices in life and fate in general followed by the statement and title of the book, being that he woke up to early.
I actually had a series of short stories I was trying to write called Joy, which was suppose to be compilation of people's last moments and thoughts.
I had another story about a couple hiking in the mountains, with the male eventually falling to his death after the two had made up. I'd like to think it has potential, but I've kind of given up on it.

>>10159210
Another one yet, based on a true story, of a military man on death bed. He gained a rank, but was unable to put it on or attend the ceremony, so his pals got permission from high up to hurry up the process so he could put on his stripes. They did it in his hospital room, and he died weeks later.
Thats something that's always really stuck with me, and I really hope I can do it justice some day.

>>10159174
okay i'm drunk, have been reading Don Quixote in spanish and this popped up, going to go line by line.

> His stinking sock was soaked with pus and Susan told him that he had better air it, and get his foot out of that stinking sock

Stinking sock twice in the opening line, no, pls reconsider this.

>He tried to soothe Susan, but she would have none of his schmoozy soothing

repetition, pls no.

>He was feeling sorry for himself and bowed his sodden head in shame. When she came, he raised it and weakly said

she came where? they are in the same place

>She told him to shut it and beat him black and blue. Suddenly she felt sorry for his sad sodden head (beginning to take on a certain purple hue) but steadfast Suzy resolutely said

why are you no longer using speech and instead narrating what is going on? now back in to speech? this is all very jarring and not at all conducive to any kind of suspension of disbelief or narrative train.

>‘That’s the last, Pat. If you come in like that again I’m leaving.’

‘Don’t leave!’ said Pat.

>And she left him to sulk, and sulk he did, with a petted limp lip which drooled as his black and blue head drooped. Soon he was asleep, his sticky foot, still sticky with pustule gloop, stuck out from the sullied bed.

the last what? Time? did you even read this back or edit it? again with repetition, she left him to sulk, and sulk he did, ooooh boy he sulked, the sulky sulk, sulky sticky foot sticky pat they called him on account of all the sulking, did i mention his sticky feet? So sticky. You also seem to be doing something (on purpose?) with assonance which is for some reason very jarring:

>Suddenly she felt sorry for his sad sodden head
>Meanwhile, his mouth moaned

> The barmaids glanced askance
Askance is a neat word.

> Of the two timid girls, the least timid timidly said
ffs you are making me repeat myself with your repetitions. Which is pretty fucking meta

> The girls behind the bar looked to each other, each smiling a timid
WE GET IT THEY ARE TIMID.

>But obliging Pat accepted his poison, too miffed to tiff with the two pretty girls behind the tills.

timid and pretty, why is this not mentioned when they are introduced, also more weird assonance.

> poor prostrated Pat
IBID

> Fumbling Pat fumbled
IBID

> two timid barmaids, who timidly bowed back
IBID

It's not good mate.

>>10159168
Pretty good but I feel like you're chopping your lines up too much for the sake of it,

why not

-

Convey to me a way to say
that everything we did today
will last forever in at least
the littlest way.

And all the lips of lovers lost
linger still in the shades of sky.
And all the world is the greatest art
And each of us play
an essential part.

And each of our hearts are weighed down
by the words that we never spoke,
so speak.

>>10154661
Male or female, as long as you please their eye
Northern europe is completely morally bankrupt

>>10159237
All those things you criticise were deliberate choices. It's just a bit of fun with words, nothing serious

Are they worth the waiting for?
If we live for eighty four
All we ever want is boob!
Every day we say our prayer --
Will they change the bill of fare?
Still we get the same old stool!
There's no areola, not a nipple can we find,
Can we beg, can we borrow, or cadge,
But there's nothing to stop us from getting a thrill
When we all close our eyes and imagine
Boobs, glorious boobs!
Hot bulbous and jiggling!
While we're in the mood --
Oiled lesbians wriggling!
Sluts fucking with massive toys
What next is the question?
Rich gentlemen have it, boys --
a straining erection!
boobs glorious boobs
We're anxious to try them
Six titties a day
Our favorite diet
Just picture a dripping quim
Shaved, waxed or natural
Oh boobs! magical boobs! wonderful
boobs! marvelous boobs!

1. Ambition

It seems beneficial to acquire many talents;
It seems wise to know many things;
It seems illustrious to greet many acquaintances;
It seems exciting to travel abroad;
It seems magnificent to display many riches;
It seems fulfilling to win many accomplishments;
It seems noble to have much influence;
It seems majestic to obtain a famous name;
Though it seems best to rest well,
To sleep innocently like a child.

2. Woman

Deep in the ocean there is a pearl,
That no child of man has touched.
Deep in the earth a treasure chest,
Buried long ago and held never since.
Deep in the sky there is a star,
So far away no eye has seen it.
Therefore, I have hid the memory
Of your beauty deep within me.
I tell you this, so that when you are old,
And your beauty is lost to the world,
You might find it deep within me.

>>10159259
I am very drunk, perhaps the subtlety was lost on me. Why not crit some nice folks while you are here?

>>10159264
The second stanza of this cracked me up, I would read more of your stuff.

>>10158153
this drew a wry smile from me at least. Some understanding of rhyme and metre, off course in some parts. Clearly not edited or given a second pass but you possibly (?) have talent. Would read an actual piece of your work.

>>10159242
this is a nice edit, something worth persevering with in the original i think.

>>10159242
Six one way, half a dozen the other

>>10159314

>The second stanza of this cracked me up, I would read more of your stuff.

was meant for >>10148015

Whilst we're here though,

>>10159264
I cannot get the tune of food glorious food in my head, so difficult to give proper consideration to this but i'm sure its great when given proper context.

>Just picture a dripping quim

made me kek very Monty Python

>>10159348
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly7PONiKGUs

>>10148230
Contrary to the other guy, I quite liked the description in the first paragraph. The second paragraph is slightly weaker though, or at least, the first sentence of it is.

>Some nights, when not quite trying to sleep, he imagined his home as the frontiers of space travel

I get the sentiment, but its poorly writ. I'm sure you can improve on it.

The other guys critiques were fairly accurate thereafter. It's a pretty good start, keep at it!

>>10150253
I don't have a clue what's going on. This is incomprehensible, at least to me. Maybe that's what you were going for. Good luck trying to find an audience for that.

>>10151181
>payed

Take out these two lines:

>Franz felt as if this encounter was deeply important or somehow prophetic

and

>Yet he knew he really despised himself for how he felt he had squandered this vaguely important moment.

It already runs a lot smoother. There's no need to tell the reader that a random guy asking an odd question is going to be an important part of the story. Anyway, you write like I used to write, that means you've got potential (ha ha).

>>10159174
This was me

>>10159237
That's ok buddy, have a good night. I'm gonna have a lil beer myself

>>10159369
I did not intend on listening to the entire Oliver soundtrack tonight, but here we are.

>>10159264
returning to this in proper context, a simple idea executed without frills. A lot of people ITT could learn from this, far too much running before walking. I would watch the smutty panto remake of Oliver for what its worth. Again caveat emptor - I am wasted.

>>10159396
>mocks someone else's spelling
>writ

I am such an idiot

>>10145837

I'll give some crit in a bit while I do homework.

Cans of used motor oil on the cold pavement of an abandoned murder scene garage 1980 times changed so fast for Mortimer and the last thing he needed was a family to get in the way of his sexual ambitions. After all it was only a gallon of paint thinner and two sharp tools from the metal lunchbox under a stack of moldy national geographics and several boxes of junk no one had touched in at least five years. Mouldering faux-velvetine recliner sits looking pensively out of the living room and only Mortimer's head is visible gleaming bald in the noon sun. Speak to the audience, Mortimer – look at the seats. Sedentary life made Mortimer's ass cellulitic. Craning his neck at the television put Mortimer's head years and years forward to the end of time and he sees the future completely. A good episode of collected cold thoughts lie like a dead bird feathers exploded perfectly outward. Sterile on the floor like a toxic scattering of lighbulb fragments. Who cares if the mercury fumes go sour in the air and choke anyone. Mortimer flips back and forth like a rolodex from times all the same to him. When his father died it was like fishing once – one fishing trip just lost in all the rest. When his son died it was like a long ago birthday lit up in camera flashes on tacky dark stained wood furniture handcarved wood molding accents and religious kitch. We roll past all this dark grimy mouldering stains dark beneath the refrigerator with rat shit and a few lost neverseen fridge magnets. We get closer and closer and we watch the neverthoughtabout foundations of this musty family home. Fewer and fewer eyes fixed anywhere on the cobweb picture frames. Nobody's eyes down in the murder scene basement. Only one bare lightbulb alone. A light bulb almost afraid while old Mortimer bumps and thumps around up above.

>>10159264
kek

The lonely man wakes in his bed.
The light that is close to him,
Is from a sun far away from him,
And only one ghost haunts his house.
For a moment he stands confused in the mirror,
Then greets himself with a small nod.
He goes out and locks his door,
Walks past the doors of local strangers.
He buys bread to feed the pigeons.
After taking it they fly away,
Then sit in trees and sign to each other.
He eats the last bit of bread himself.
He gets up and mumbles:
He speaks about himself in the third person.

>>10159396
I'm half-cut on Riesling and smashing the 'Oliver!' soundtrack, buddy, i'm having a helluva night. Enjoy the cold one.

>>10159466
I don't know much about free form poetry, but it feels like the themes here would work more neatly in a short narrative.

>He buys bread to feed the pigeons.
After taking it they fly away,
Then sit in trees and sign to each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKbamjdyw5M
I like this part the most. Reminds me of the Tony Soprano's ducks.

I wrapped my vagina in moist salami, before slathering my body in onion and venturing out into the cold, where I found myself deliriously stumbling about. My vision grew blurry as I staggered through the snow, rubbing my ice covered nipples, hoping to warm them up.
It didn't work, I soon found. They were growing colder and colder, as was the rest of my body. My beard was covered in ice, as was my head hair, eyebrows, and public hair. The salami wrapped around my testicles was my only warmth, and it was nothing. I felt, in my very core, the life slipping from my bones. I prayed that I would either be saved, or released from this suffering.
Left with only one option, I reached behind me, to my asshole, and felt for the eight inch long stick of fatty Genoa salami. Whimpering, I slowly drew it out, as my asshole gave, released from its tension.
Lifting the salami to my mouth, I bit into it. It tasted horrific, and even worse, my tight asshole had not kept the salami nearly as warm as I had anticipated. Realizing defeat, I sat down in the snow, defeated. I slowly chewed on my ass-salami, savoring the last thing I would ever taste. As the cold began to take me, I could feel every memory, every emotion slipping from my body, as my life faded away from me...

>>10157722
>You write about shortcuts to success- is there some shortcut to academic success? I'm in college, I want to hear it.

If it's the liberal arts or general business classes I can help somewhat.
One I've never bought a textbook for these classes ever. Just pay attention in class especially dates and people and then use something I like to call the "flow of events'

Usually in things like history if you have a good grasp of common sense and look at the time period distance you can have a good judgement of what the mentality of the period is like so predicting the outcome of events as well as their motivations is pretty simple

Just keep things like "those at the top want to stay at the top'
and just people simply acting on there own self interest in mind for History, Politics and Business.

And also some general advice know your capacity for each class, if you think you can get away with taking a break from a class since it's a bit easy for you and you're struggling in another class take that energy from your easy classes and put them in the hard ones and if you can schedule your classes in that manner.

It's a simple thing but it really did save my ass in college

>>10160269
By the way my schedule was, international politics, Business law, Medieval History and Business Statistics.

I chose this line up because I knew I could bullshit my way through three of these class while still getting B's and put the rest of my energy into stats since i'm no good with numbers

>>10152377
let's read it then
or give us a sample

some of the best work i've read. keep at it, son.

>>10148015
i like everything except for the "lo!" i think it's a little dramatic and embellishes simply for prettiness' sake

>>10159193
nice last line

Wanting to write two books right now but don't know which one to focus on. Can someone tell me which is the better story so far?

Sample 1

Tldr

>>10160810
Sample 2

Go hard on these guys, it's the only way I'll learn, though harsh it may be.

It's been a long time since I've written anything, and I've never really used first person before, so can someone take a look at this and let me know what they think?

https://pastebin.com/g4APJUSS

Act 1
Scene 1
(A dingy kitchen in the American Rust Belt. Mother sits at the cutting board cutting onions for the Sunday stew. Tears roll down here eyes)
Mother: That little shit's ruined my entire night! I knew introducing him to Frank was a bad idea, why won't he just leave this god damned house already!
(Enter Ed Kemper from scene left brandishing a hammer)
Mother: Oh it's you, still single and living here I suppose?
(Mother continues tearing into her onions ignoring Ed Kemper's entrance)
Mother: Just because you'll never have any chance with women doesn't mean I have to be single too you little shit
(Ed Kemper casually strolls across the scene to Mother's behind)
Ed Kemper: Looks like beef is back on the menu
(Ed Kemper bludgeons Mother in the back of the head with the hammer and proceeds to cut her head off and have intercourse with her windpipe)
Ed Kemper: An asshole will suck your cock right in, literally

FIN

>>10151181
>good naturedly
Never do this. If you break rules it has to be worthwhile and interesting.
Other than that, I liked the story.

>>10152657
>>10152378
I had casual sex with a red headed girl before. She was deeply in love with me, but I wasn't interested in her. I am going to her wedding in a few days. She's marrying one of my friends from college. It is funny how life works out. With or without the redheaded girl, the game is worth it.

I am writing a racist epic that will hopefully be adapted for the screen. Here is an excerpt from the climax (the main protagonist, Thaddeus, a Southern Slave owner, visits Washington to see the Supreme Court decision involving Fugitive Slaves):
Thaddeus
Oh please, spare me. If you credit us for the wars and violence we have committed you must also credit us for the birth of art, literature, and modern industry. We were constructing great monuments hundreds of feet tall while Africans were living in huts held together by shit and mud. You see, what the African lacks is ambition. A certain drive for greatness. It’s odd, that you are docile and dressed nicely directly due to the influence of the white man. What do you do to thank us? You defecate on the face of our culture with your words, and you amuse yourself with the idea of superiority. Men tolerate you because they are told to. True men do not belong to a time, they do not belong to an institution or a philosophy. Abolitionists are the true slaves, they belong to the cause as a way to justify their existence. Existence! Ha! What a small word for such a massive thing, but you...you have no acknowledgements of things of that magnitude. You live inside of your own ape skull. Your kind is the black stool of the earth, the worst of man and the best of beasts, yet we tolerate you. It is only natural. It is only due to the white man’s natural empathy that your kind isn’t wiped off of the face of this earth. We clean up your shit and walk away with a forced smile, all because we are people. Unlike you. You lack compassion, yet with that, lack logic and sense. These two compromising factors is what put us on top. It is why you’re kind is working in the fields and we are sitting on the porch, sipping cold tea. Empathy brings us down, logic pulls us up; these keep the balance, while your kind... Your kind shares attributes of reptiles, cold blood, ruthless nature. This coupled with the fact that countless atrocities paint the flag of your people bewilders me beyond belief, and what doubles this bewilderment is that people actually feel compassion towards you. It pains me greatly to acknowledge the fact that half of this great nation is deluded beyond belief. And when you people crowd around this “smiling ape” clapping as he puts on his little show a small part of my heart weeps, it yells a cry louder than any cannon blast or any battle cry, and I know that this is shared. The south is a sleeping beast, and it is taking its first morning breath. The declaration that your kind are property is it’s first groan, and you’d do good to mind it.


There is a brief silence across the crowd, and a look of horror on the Freedman’s face.

>>10159396
Unreadable, got it. Was it pretentious too? Or maybe that's the same thing as unreadability, the polar opposite of layman's terms

>>10161913
Not him, but it is both difficult to read and pretentious. You're attempting something interesting stylistically but you're not quite there yet and the use of words you plainly don't understand makes it pretentious.

>>10160314
Yeah, sure, hang on a sec

There within the broken bowels of a ship standing on it’s final years stood beside the man who hadn’t waited long enough. He hadn’t breathed, hadn’t seen, hadn’t loved, and most of all hadn’t desired enough. Laying at his were thousands of shards, all of different colors. A tear ran down his cheek and his hand came up and slapped his face with a grunt. “DAMN YOU.... DAMN YOU ....DAMN YOU DAMN YOU DAMN YOU.” With every curse to himself he slapped himself a little bit harder until his vision blurred and he tasted blood. he sunk to his feet and wept silently in between choking sobs. He looked up and met face with the sun as it began it’s descent over the mountains in the distance. The scene was beautiful. Truly beautiful, but this only frustrated him further. He couldn’t appreciate anything. Not now. Not ever it felt like. Slowly, he stood up and walked through the debris littering the sand next to the shore. His foot kicked a particularily mound-like pile of shrapnel and some silver slivered out. He cocked his head and leaned down to pick it up. It was cold. A necklace. A piece of him. He recognized it immediatly. He clicked the medallion and inside was a picture of a girl no older than five. His face contorted then squeezed into some form of derision. He stood up and put the gem into his breast pocket and walked away from the wreckage of a life no longer. He walked towards the mountains with only the clothes on his back and said under his breath, “For her I will not give up. Not ever.” The burned carcass of the ship laying on it’s side croaked and moaned. The shore wisped with it’s soft voice. The world, suddenly, was not so terrible.

>>10152258
Put "take time to perish" at the end of the second verse. It'll leave a stronger taste than just "take pride".

Ex: People take turns; take pride, take time to perish.

>>10159193
really like it, but it could use some reworking

He spends his days wasting time
dreams about another life
for entertainment he watches people turn
from decadence to the underworld

he watches as they ruin their lifes
externalize: a blaming game
he knows the ego does not
belong in hell
hate belongs to them and himself

he plunges his hand into himself
pulls out something that coincides
with the hierarchy that he exists in
the channel that matches his instinct
hearing an advantage for the blind
justification for his life

>>10163350
stop.

>>10160837
Anyone?

>>10146979
this is my aesthetic

post more

some gay shit i wrote just now

Robert James Bridger, the big bold hairy chested rootin tootin fighting man, ran down the alley and I, like some sort of yipping little lap dog, followed. His stupid fucking pleated khakis flapped lightly in the wind as the respectable officers of the law chased behind us, guns out, voices rising to a pitch. Something was being communicated by these black clad officers, something perhaps important, something so coherent and civilized I could barely understand it. Robert James Bridger clambered on to a chain link fence and, in a desperate act of self preservation, climbed over the other side and kept running. I shouted “Robert, you pleated khaki mother fucker, don't leave me here to die” but he kept running, stumbling. I'm a terrible climber and by the time the tazer embedded its thorny, white hot limbs into my back I wasn't even halfway up the fence. “I am a god,” I sputtered between fits of muscle spasms “I am a god and you are swine”

The officers, as was their due, cuffed me and put me in the back of a police cruiser. The interior, consisting of leather seating and steel bars, was surprisingly comfortable. “I am a gentleman, “ I shouted, from the back of the vehicle at the men up front, “I am a gentle man and so are you. Treat me as such.” I tried without much success to brush the dirt from the front of my sweater. “Sirs, I believe what has occurred here today is in great violation of the law by which you claim to abide, and moreover that, without a doubt, it goes against the spirit upon which this great nation was founded!” I brushed the blood and spittle from the corners of my mouth. “And as gentlemen I believe it is your duty to release me this instant, for both you and I are people of great respect and dignity. Truly I tell you, gentlemen, that this is absolutely barbaric, and nothing short of disrespectful.” I glanced up at the men, and noticed an inscription on the glass that separated me and my captors. It read simply “sound proof”.

i was raised (i was raised)
i was RAISED in the city
shitty ever since i was an itty bitty kiddy drinkin liquor out my momma's titty
and smokin weed was an every day thing in my house hold
and drinkin liquor til you out cold
and though i'm grown now nigger it's still on pow
bustin on these niggers til they gone
how many more jealous ass bitches
comin for my riches?

>>10163350
delet

>>10163668
>i was raised (i was raised)
i was RAISED in the city

really dude ? dont post this.

To outrun time is not within a human’s reach
the mighty silent god, without a face or body
The farmer sees his fragile plant grow big and fruitful,
his bed-locked wife’s eyes closing breath is slowly leeched
But time gives us the miracle of life - but then,
forced out from dreaming in suspended darkness, be born
In tears and screams, rip through the motherly felt warmth
Same warmth felt in the blood-soiled fields where roses grow
where young men fighting through a bullet stream of hatred
But time will heal the wounded land, as we evolve
ahead from sand to snow, the restless human being lives.

>>10146437
Thought it was a fun read, but why would the dad be that pissed off?

The boy’s father looked like he had some money, so Evan chose him to be the one to dump chum in the water. He reached into the cooler at the back of the boat and dragged out an orange bucket full of bloody slop, a puree of various baitfish that they’d caught over the last week and ground up that morning at five a.m. Evan gave the bucket a slosh to wake the gutty tang then moved toward the boy. The kid, maybe eleven, as white as anything, wore a blue T-shirt with a Hammerhead on the front and was afraid of him, afraid of whatever in the bucket was releasing that smell. He just wanted to see some sharks. He didn’t know this would be part of the deal. Seven miles off the coast of Galveston in an ancient walk-around with dried blood under the rivets. Their guide a freak with his face carved up in strips. Their skipper a shadowy bulk behind the bridge window.

Evan Slusser saw himself clearly through the boy’s eyes, caught his reflection in the revulsion that registered there. He looked over at the kid’s mother, sitting behind him with her hand on the back of his head, fingers in his hair, her sulky face behind a pair of those big sepia sunglasses they like. Evan could hear her thoughts. She sat there, thinking, this was supposed to be a nice simple fun family vay-cay and now here’s this fucking ghoul coming at my dearest boy with his mincemeat face and a bucket full of carnage, saying, “Alright buddy, you go ahead ring the dinner bell for ‘em.” Well, if his parents had just grabbed the pamphlet two to the right on the rack at the hotel they’d be at this very moment on a double-decker catamaran with a see-through bottom and a snack bar being told about the gulf’s ecology by a marine biology student with a ponytail and a perky ass in stretch khaki chinos. Instead, here they were with Evan, at fifty bucks a head, and “Here’s the bucket, sailor.” The boy stepped back against his mother’s knees. The father winced slightly, moving forward to take the bucket himself. But Evan waved him off and smiled, a sight he knew to be distressing. He worked his own face like a puppet, felt his lips split at the seams where the Mako’s teeth had torn through. He took the bucket over to the edge of the boat and upended its contents into the waters of the gulf.

Evan struck the bottom of the pail with his palm as the gory paste sloughed into the sea. The kid whispered to his mother that he wanted to go back to the hotel and Evan heard a sound from inside the bridge that only he could identify as his cousin Bobby’s laughter. To anybody else it would just sound like the outboard gurgling.

>>10165326
His kitchen floor's all fucked up now

>>10165968
That happened after him being so pissed off

>>10165202
this was very boring and felt overused. "time will heal the wounded land" is very weak

>>10163650
bukowski + thompson =

it's not that its terrible. i just sort of see where it's going.

>>10165697
>The kid, maybe eleven, as white as anything, wore a blue T-shirt with a Hammerhead on the front and was afraid of him, afraid of whatever in the bucket was releasing that smell.

This sentence is a little clunky. I'd reorder it or split it in two.

>her sulky face behind a pair of those big sepia sunglasses they like.

who's they?

>She sat there, thinking, this was supposed to be...

don't think you need those commas

>But Evan waved him off and smiled, a sight he knew to be distressing.

Don't know enough about the characters from just this snippet, but is Evan actively trying to scare the child? You'd think someone who is so scarred would want to hide his face form the public. Unless these are supposed to be antiheroes or something? But if that's the case, you might want to change the dialogue a bit. Evan comes off as nice when using "buddy", calling the kid "sailor", etc.

>The boy’s father looked like he had some money, so Evan chose him to be the one to dump chum in the water.

This is unclear who you are referring to (the father or the boy). It reads like Evan chose the father, but then he hands the chum to the boy. Might want to clarify who he meant.

>Seven miles off the coast of Galveston in an ancient walk-around with dried blood under the rivets. Their guide a freak with his face carved up in strips. Their skipper a shadowy bulk behind the bridge window.

These sentences read a little weird. Why not add subject and verb to these? ("They were seven miles...", "Their guide was a freak...", etc.)

Otherwise was pretty cool. I like the descriptive word use.

>>10163650
>I brushed the blood and spittle from the corners of my mouth.

Where'd this come from? I assume it happened in the arrest, but you might want to clarify that.

> the big bold hairy chested rootin tootin fighting man,

I see what you're going for, but ugh. Maybe use some more mature adjectives?

> I glanced up at the men
where was he looking this whole time? was he not already looking at the officers while speaking to them?

Might be funnier if they threw him into the back seat of the car and the whole time he's yelling at them he is trying to get him self seating upright. like clumsily struggling to sit up because his hands are cuffed behind him or something? Then he finally sits up and then he sees the sign.

>>10165697
>five a.m.

write "five" as a number

>>10165697
>Seven miles off the coast of Galveston in an ancient walk-around with dried blood under the rivets. Their guide a freak with his face carved up in strips. Their skipper a shadowy bulk behind the bridge window.

this should all be one sentence since that's how it reads - periods just slow the pace pointlessly

>>10165697
>those big sepia sunglasses they like.

get rid of "those" and "they like" - awkward

>>10165697
>perky ass in stretch khaki chinos

'perky ass' sounds like something you read in trashy erotic fiction. maybe the narrator or the central character in this scene is supposed to have a concupiscent mentality (dad boner), which is cool, but even then you might find a better way of expressing this. your prose style is fairly impersonal so this lower-lip biting diction feels clunky, out of place

>>10165697
>and upended its contents into the waters of the gulf.

shorten to "upended its contents into the gulf"

overall not bad though, i kinda like the juxtaposition of nuclear family and the revolting fish guts/boat. you might have something going on here

>>10166192
>>10166104

Thank you both very much. I'll be doing some critiquing over my lunch break here in a bit and would be glad to return the favor if you'll let me know which pieces are yours.

Before I moved out I was used to seeing her pee with the door open, or walk around without a bra, her nipples poking through whatever top she had. I never gave this much thought, since she was after all my mother. My friends would always tell me how turned on by her they were, but I always dismissed this as them trying to wind me up. Maybe they had a point. Seeing her in that dress really excited me. I could feel my cock pulsating in my pants, but I quickly started thinking of other things, doing my best to prevent myself from getting an embarrassing boner. Thoughts of her shaving her legs and pussy with the bathroom door open, or her doing the dishes with nothing but an apron came flooding in.

She sat me down, and then asked, “so was your trip tiring honey?”. She would always refer to me “baby” or “honey” or “sweetie”. She would never call me by my name. This used to infuriate me when I was younger, but recently I started to like it more and more. We talked about my trip, what college was like, if I liked living in a different city, and so on. The dinner she had prepared was fantastic, she obviously tried her best. She would often get up turning around trying to get one thing or another from the kitchen counter, showing me her beautiful ass. I would eye it up while she was not looking, trying to memorise its perfection.

After dinner she suggested that we should lie down on the sofa since I must have been very tired. At that moment all I could think about was blowing my load in the bathroom. I could not remember the last time I was this turned on, and to have the object of my desire right there showing me her beautiful smile, her full breasts and her ass like that was driving me crazy. I knew that I HAD to jerk myself off, or else I was going to do something very improper. If I stood she would see what I was hiding under the table, so I asked her if it was ok to smoke in the kitchen. She said she did not mind if I did not do it all the time, so I lit one up trying to calm myself down. I said that I would join her after I finished, and she said that she was going to get into something a little more comfortable for our “movie night”.

Writing some incest erotica for the Kindle store. Rate.

>>10166158
Thanks for the critique anon, I'll try to fix it up. I actually ripped the "rootin tootin hairy chested fighting man" part right out of a uni hazing ritual I had to take part in. I'll find something better though.

>>10166038
I've never actually read those others, but ill definitely check them out. My style is partially inspired by "the naked lunch". I would agree that it's pretty clear where things are going, I'll try to muddle it up slightly.

>>10159264
such vulgarity is a sign of the times' decline

>>10159291
By this you have redeemed the preceding matter, through the entirety of which there was perhaps neither a single honest nor moving word.

Thank you.

>>10160837
choose your tense and stick to it

>>10160845
shut up

>>10160898
dumbass

>>10162441
not pleasing to the imagination

>>10163650
SIT UP STRAIGHT!

>>10166288
have some discretion please

>>10145837
https://pastebin.com/ayhxgQKe

Please let me know what you think and be brutally honest. I've tried to inject some humour but it might fall flat or seem mean spirited.

1/2

"What's the big red button do?". She'd finally found something to catch her attention. It had been less than five minutes since we took off from the station. Despite all my prayers for the contrary, she was going to be a talkative one.
"Don't touch it." I didn't want to look at her more than I had to. Considering the ruin that was now my economic life and the burden from having either a pistol, a sharp object, or a tentacle constantly pointed at my ass for the past few days, the last thing I thought I needed was a commission from the East Front pirates to deliver a "package" to another sector of the galaxy. That was what I thought, at least, before being informed that the package could not be stored in the cargo hold, and that it would talk. Trying to stick her in the cargo hold anyway only resulted in the threat that I'd have to pilot the ship with broken legs.
And now her hand was twitching and shifting forward with her eyes locked to the button.
"I said don't touch it." I tried to show some irritation in my tone but I felt like it would fall on deaf ears anyway.
"What's it even do?" Dumb pirate girl. Look at her stupid face! Big eyes like a fucking gray walker, her lips were definitely too narrow, shiny skin like she took a bath in cooking oil or something. Her body looked hideous as well. Her breasts were disproportionately wider than her waist, she wore one of those plastic bras you see on the on the porn ads on the internet forums from free space colonies... her ass was okay, I guess. "Does it blow up the ship?"
"No, it doesn't blow up the ship." She was dumb but she was too cheery to be a slave. "Do you see the little circle with the double cross in it? Just above the button."
"Yeah?"
"That means it's the waste disposal hatch from the septic tank." That shut her up for a few minutes. She started looking around at the ships in the parking spaces outside the station.
"Hey, you said you keep your warp drive charged even when you were parking, right?" She was looking at me with a curious face. I could see glint in here eyes. She turned to the navigation console and started typing in waypoint coordinates. I wanted to punch her. Don't touch my ship! "Okay." She exhaled with a smile. "Can you follow those coordinates before we leave?" She put us on a course close to a column if small ships.
"No."
"C'mon, it's part of the job!" It was not. "And I wanna see a friend." I could feel a vein somewhere on my head selling up. Somebody switch with me for a minute. "If you're not doing you're job, I'm reporting it." She frowned unconvincingly. I yawed the ship twenty degrees counterclockwise and rolled by forty. She was sitting quietly as we passed the various shuttles and fighters. I felt a bit of relief at her inaction. "Oh, there he is!" My relief immediately turned to foreboding as I saw her right hand in the air.
My foreboding turned to sheer panic when she slammed the red button, all with a grin on her face.

>>10168010
2/2
Cold sweat starting running down my spine as I heard to hatch on the septic tank pop open. My head started hurting and my neck cracked when I turned to her. The waste fell onto the cockpit window of a fighter ship.
"What did you do?" It was a heavy chase fighter with quadruple engine layout for flash strikes. "What the hell did you do?!" It was a former Goodrich-Boeing prototype heavy fighter designed with state-of-the-art cloaking fields and twin GAU-171 solid ammo cannons that could shoot while in stealth mode. The last captain I worked for told me a story of how pirates caught tried to capture the original model while it was being showcased to the president of the Florida Belt Coalition. They lost close to a hundred pilots just trying to get close enough to disable it with electric harpoons.
"Don't worry, I know the guy, it's fine." She waved her hand around while she spoke. "I'm sure he won't take it to heart." I was getting even more nervous with every word she spoke. "I owe the guy anyway. He'll understand."
I gave it a moment before speaking. It was getting tough trying to discriminate between my lips and my fists.
"So who is he."
"I don't think you'd like him. He's this big guy, face full of beard, very cheery personality."
"What's his name?"
She went silent.
"Crap, I forgot." In the the heat of the action, I spent a quiet moment contemplating the mentality of a pirate, and how she can so easily forget the name of a friend so close as to dump feces over his ship so casually. "Well anyway, that's what you get for slapping random girls on the ass in a bar." I quietly let my right hand slip from the stick so I could more easily grab her throat. "Usually my bodyguards would take care of these guys but they bitched out for some reason."
Fighter ships in this were to pilots what horses were to cowboys. Screwing with somebody's horse would get you hanged. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth. Before any screams came out, the comm unit flickered with an area wide emergency broadcast.
"Addressing the pilot of the mid size Toyota shuttle with the license tag 1L0V3TTS, that just dumped shit on my cockpit window. This is Alexander Strauss."
Alexander Strauss, the Hellhound: one of the most feared rogue pilots of our time. He got his name from his relentless assaults and his famous "sixth sense" when it comes to tracking down escaping targets. He earned his fame when he went against an entire wing of Russian special forces SU-235 super-fighters and won. His hobbies include raising rabbits. They say he once beat a man to death own severed leg for kicking a landing strut on his ship.
"You sir, are perhaps one of the bravest sons of bitches I've seen in my life. I've not been so insulted since I beat a man to death with his own leg. You have truly earned my respect, sir, for that, I swear on my mother that I will make it my mission to hunt you down. Good luck sir."
I immediately warped out.

Kiva Lagos was busily fucking the brains out of the assistant purser she’d been after for the last six weeks of the Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby’s trip from Lankaran to End when Second Officer Waylov Brennir entered her stateroom, unannounced. “You’re needed,” he said.

“I’m a little busy at the moment,” Kiva said. She’d just finally gotten herself into a groove, so fuck Waylov (not literally, he was awful) if she was going to get out of the groove just because he walked into it. Grooves were hard to come by.

>>10168010
>>10168014
Pastebin please?

>>10168031
Don't got any.
I usually stay on /pol/.
I got bored so I came to /lit/ to fuck around and found this thread.
I just wrote this now for fun.
I barely write anything. It's probably the first thing I wrote for others to see.

Why, is it any good?

>>10168047
Mate, what are you on about, are you dense? Your piece is just long so it's annoying to read in post form. Just use pastebin and put your piece on there.

Since you asked though, your piece is terrible. Quite possibly the worst thing in this thread. I don't know what you're trying to do but it reads like clunky genre fiction. I suggest you stay on /pol/.

>>10168062
I dunno, I just like to shitpost on boards for fun.
Aside from the fourth grade spelling errors, why's it bad?

Hoping that kids will like this one.
Here's a pastebin in case it's hard to read:
https://pastebin.com/Gq8SxijH

How do I write about sleeping in a trench?

09:25 20/10/2017
They'd gone from 18 to 40 years old over the course of 24 hours - the extra-virgin water supply helped, as did the rats changing the light of their faces. Despite the lack of a roof over their heads this felt more like an enclosure than a house ever did. The night sky only delineated claustrophobia, and he was almost able to touch both of the concealing walls.
A warm and menacing heat covered the jail - everyone was here, a chance any of them might have been vagrants in their past lives but their smells didn't distinguish them. People of all qualities were blended together - their legs extended over his body, smothering it. The atmosphere was deteriorating under the smell of baby food (in both senses) and fettering cocoa
He thought about how in the news they'd develop into a nameless collective, on the colourless commemorative pages acting as an obituary. A trickle of near-solvent aqua ended in his hair and it grew gradually colder, making him more aware and not any less terrified of sleeping. His dreams seemed inspired by absinthe.
Wrappings of thin plastic sheeting veiled over them, tumbling like carbon in a wasteland. Graveyards looked a lot like this, but the breast of his neighbour was uncomfortably heaving. No amount of wind freshened the pit, and it wasn't flying overhead either - it was an incredibly quiet front.
He knelt his head away without being quiet, closing his eyes tighter than would let him cast his shadow into a dream. Tomorrow they'd probably be delivered from here anyway.

A deep and uninvited frustration brought him to clench the pen in the cradle of his hand, he watched, furrowed and distracted, as the blood rose to the source of the pressure and he felt slowly the bones of his fingers shift under the force. The bleeding ink words of her letter compounded into one mass of dark incongruence that spoke of rejection, though no modicum of understanding entered his mind. This is what had angered him so greatly. He was now a cuckold. An eternal foolish cuckold, suppressed by the horrors of that emasculating humiliation, he could not help but imagine beholding the beauty that was his wife being brought to orgasm by the pleasure of another man, railed hard by that great organ of love that was doubtless larger than his meek average excuse for a phallus. Then suddenly the worse of it become apparent, it was more than just petty anger. It was dismal, unending, torment, a flurry of images increasing in vividness flew across his thoughts, and he saw the lips of the unnamed man planting innumerable kisses all over the softness of his wife’s porcelain skin, over the expanses of her breasts and bottom, once saved only and sacredly for none else but him, each successive touch eliciting boundless moans of expressive pleasure that she had never felt at the hand of her now abject, worthless husband. All that was under the title of his name, all estates, achievements, assets, vocations, and experiences were immediately tarnished by that infinitely pathetic epithet: Cuckold.

>>10168124
More if someone wants it.

And here's another pastebin for more content, and clarity if you wish to read it this way.
https://pastebin.com/iiwH8mzj

>>10168826
Not kidding just go to a ditch in the middle of the night, lie down and try your best to sleep. Add other factors to make it similar to whatever experience you're trying to create, and approach the experience with the same mentality as the character experiencing it

>>10167924
Sentence 4 is a comma splice

>>10167924
And you’re kind of right, it’s not that funny, mainly cause you’re roasting people who care about millennials... easy, ephemeral target

A crop of an alternate-history project I've been developing. I glimpsed one sentence and I dread to look at the rest so I ask you do it instead;

Will I ever make it /lit/?

>>10170356
To add, I'm not anxious about typos, those are caused by neglect, it's the style I want criticism of.

I'm writing a horror but three chapters in I became concerned with a question, when, how often, and for how long is the spook supposed to show up?
Is horror in writing even scary if it's not supposed to be a true story?
Should I be writing for myself or the possible five people that stumble upon it?

I don't want to ask without critiquing, I'm in no way a good writer but I think I should try for the sake of courtesy

>>10169407
I think this might be some sort of pasta but I think it's decently written

>>10168010
I don't really like it, maybe it's a little clunky? Also it reminds me of my writing, that's not good

>>10170109
That wasn't my intention, I'm defending them if anything.

>>10170638
It's not pasta I'm just scared of writing something serious because then it's immediately obvious that my writing isn't good enough to make the subject interesting

Pantheon


They stood over me, pantheon.
"I'll admit it, I lost. Your
skill far too great. Far too
long have you labored until
the next dawn and to me you
are superior, I inferior
teach me your secret oh
please oh please?" Said
the person under them, pantheon.


Pantheon, all the divinity. Those
standing above so shiny eyed and
mystic their skill and legends
pull across time and space to
mimic and mock your efforts and
comfort you alike. That they would
stoop to such level is their choice.
Their stories finished, their legends
set, their troubles turned out tested
and bested.

What have you to say to them?
And what have you to say to them?
What, have you, said to them?

"I'm nothing! I learned nothing!
You, I can't do it like you did,
pantheon, I'm not as smart nor
fit nor skilled nor filled with
potential. My time is already at
an end, my story finished set in
stone! Don't look at me like that!
I see your point! Try harder, test
myself, triumph, earn my keep,
fall in failure and regret and
crawl from it like you did, pantheon.
My story is not finished, my story
isn't finished, the work I have not
done I weep! I'm nothing, pantheon."
Said the person under them.


Pantheon, watching waiting always
chatting never silent yet silent
ever before that person under them.

So easy, their story finished, that
person would whine. Would they
respond to him? They would and
have, told him everything and anything
and still the person under them
comes back, and whines.

From the group of all of them
comes one, a seperate divinity
nor hero nor man nor beast who
lived that story of the person
under them. He mimics the person's
form, their shape their speech and
that person tells him a hand on the
person under their shoulder and
a sparkle in their eye:

"Get to work"

https://uploads5.wikiart.org/images/john-singer-sargent/in-the-garden-corfu-1909.jpg

>>10171288
Pantheon

Sitting in the shade of a pillar, enticed
By the figures carved of marble stone –
A pantheon rose over, dimming bellows
From all the burrows of their mythy mind,
And I, forsaken from their rift
(Much of the temple denied in me)
Sparked flint from my mortal tongue,
Flamed with arid, lips of woe:

“I’ll admit it, I lost. Your skill
Far too great. Far too long
Have you laboured, till the next
Dawn, and to me you are circled
Above our revolutions, pitied sum
Of Man! Dirigible to your works
Am I! Swallow on your cloudy roam!”

And the pantheon, with all divinity
Gleamed with eyes of silent beams
Espousing themselves, their pull of space,
Criss-crossed in time, my mimicry
A stolen word from earliest flame!
They, done with their legendry,
Entranced the holy sanctified
While my hands bound their shadow
Clipped from it, to make my veil!

What have you to say to them?
O, their tongue is far beyond your dusk –
What have you to say, mired
In the verses that hardly span
Earth, the pit of hell, the stars?

“I’m nothing! I learned nothing!
For naught am I, clay to your idea,
Nor does my wisdom breach the spheres,
Designed in classical concord to the drift
Of aeons speaking their services!
My time is already at an end,
And story set in realm, rafted upon seas
That wash to shores compassed by your tide!
Fall in failure, regret and crawl,
As timpani of a thousand ants!
I weep, I am nothing – Pantheon,
To your form, golden in all your curves,
From embodied desire sparked in the sun!”

But they, always watching, stern
In their chatting, never silent though
Their lips lack movement. Speak they do
In symbols limned from centrifuges.
They spoke of first arc, rimmed in man’s
Eyes – first light we hardly see,
Scalded first brain with its plight,
And sent the seeker, naught of seen.

Then, the stench of man, divides
My heart from the shadow of the stand
Where the statues stood, ambient night
Of a thousand Gods – a sister smile
Took my arm, held in its sway,
And said: “I am the human verse within,
Coursed through veins, dissolved in ink,
And one step beyond your amplitude’s
Crest. I am the best of men – stirred
In empathy to your woe. I do not
Speak much anymore. But sing
Upon your raging musk, gardening
The eternals that do float. Seek,
Beyond the quaff of dream,
And find – your pantheon sang in me.”

>>10159466
Caul, blanketed in a swim
Is the lone man. Here he roams
In pillows seamed by sweat, he sees
The stripes of white beyond the blinds.

Today, he marries to the ghost
Of past, forgets, and drifts again
Until the meters of his mind
Are shortened into half-a-stump.

The mirrored face, along him sways
To his nod, repeated in symphony
With so many calendar pages torn
Until he faces a mask, no more

Eyes, nor cheeks, but swallowed hole.
He opens the door, the streets seem
Nothing like what he knew before.
He greets, in silence, stranger doors.

Buying bread to feed the pigeons,
That pick his fingers from the dirt
And leave him there. A set of crumbs
Are left, when they fly away.

The trees seem to sit and sign to each
Other. The man does get up and mumble
To himself. He sees a bird in the sky,
And chirps in third-person, fading in clouds.

>>10156126
>Find your voice. You have something to say.
HOW I FIND MY VOICE
WHAT IS THE THE VOICE
IS IT LIKE THE FORCE?

>>10172618
Just copy people (training wheels) until you can ride on your own (no pun intended ;)

I'm attempting to write a book about people getting trapped in a virtual reality mmo, without it sucking. Any tips?

I was thinking about having the main antagonist being the director of the game who killed himself after his child died and his wife left him and in his last moments he programmed in an npc into that is essentially his son's avatar. So he trapped everyone in his game because he wanted to make a world where his son is still alive and living in fantasy world, and then kills himself. But because he's wearing a virtual reality headset as he died his mind gets trapped inside the game where he has infinite admin privileges and can change things as he pleases. He turns psycopathic, and makes it so players are trapped in the game and if they die they die irl too.

Anyway, is it a good idea? Any tips? Any ideas to better fledge out my antagonist? I was thinking as a climax he could have his son's memorial avatar kill him.

Here is a section from some shit that I deleted. I already hate it/know that it's shit, but I want to know why. My writing is so affected and pretentious and I don't know how to develop/practice a sincere voice. This is what I am talking about:

Where can a man go to speak and be heard? Mobs and masses move about without an eager ear among them. A distrait public and compounding anxiety – this is the circumstance from which my grey utterances arise and fall, punctuated each by chiaroscuro eminence and the ever-besetting influence of doubt. I fear that my naked admissions to the discordant multitude have spoiled my will and dispirited my search for sympathy. It must be a common concern, I am sure, to feel shipwrecked along some abstract expanse of dispassionate wanderers and antipathetic reserve; in this case it can be said, with tended infirmity, that equivocal detachment may well be the sole resemblance between us.