/crit/ - Critique thread/general

[Anonymous No.10372175]

Review other people's work
Read your own aloud before posting

[Anonymous No.10372194]

>>10372175
Oh, and old thread: >>10333520

>>10370067
>>10370167

>She stepped through the front door to his apartment
Say open door. I doubt his apartment has multiple doors and I don't want to see her walking into a wall

Aside from that you fixed the start really well, but it could maybe use more in general like the ramen. Even that could use description of the noodles, prefferebaly as a whole structure or something.

I liked the double and-then in the outlet sentence in the first one. It doesn't feel like you build up enough of a runway for that in the second one. The hot chocolate feels like its trying to be the punchline rather than the recovery.

>remembering that her roommate Sarah called her
had called her

It's also very easy to accidentally imagine bob dylan saying the final quote under the spoilers. I'm also pretty sure he doesn't just do that with vowel sounds, but I can imagine Mark Knopfler singin' "vOwel sOunds, through the bAaack, of his teEEeeth" to the tune of Sultans of Swing quite well, maybe you could change the guy. I guess those still aren't all vowel sounds even though they're all vowels.

[Anonymous No.10372307]

>>10371992
>>10371997
>9 years. That is the time it took for my being to actualize itself. Under the most peculiar of circumstances.

>starting on a digit, not using the word
>giving abstract continental shit without having presented an image
>third sentence is a fragment

>9 Years of life in which, despite my claims, I didn't really know of a world outside myself and
could be smoothed:
>9 Years of life in which, I didn't really know of a world outside myself despite my claims, and

>9 Years of life in which, despite my claims, I didn't really know of a world outside myself and, by extension, without anything to define myself against, a world inside of me.
The and looks like it's pointing to the "without anything" section, but that's revealed after the fact to be another cut out like "by extension". That's the serious issue. You might change that "and" to an "or" as well; it's more natural to say "I didn't know this or that; not either one," rather than "I didn't know this and that; not all of them." Though the "by extension" thing qualifies the "and" since it's additive, so don't take that to heart. Compare these maybe:

>9 Years of life in which I didn't really know of a world outside myself, despite my claims, and by extension, without anything to define myself against, a world inside of me
>9 Years of life in which, I didn't really know of a world outside myself despite my claims, or, without anything to define myself against, a world inside me for that matter

Ending on "matter" sounds a lot less weak than "me". You could change "me" to "myself" but repeating that word might be jarring and I'm going to guess that's why you didn't do it.

>Nothing more than a hazy dream not yet aware of the dreamer.
I guess this is a less offensive sentence fragment than the last one. I'll get smirks if I make an absolution here and tell you not to use these, but I'm at least going to direct you to the OP image; artistic sentence fragments are the anime-trap of writing. Do stuff to completion first then chip away afterward instead of just using other fragments as an excuse to never work your way up there in the first place.

"hazy" is also the only image I've really been met with so far.

[Anonymous No.10372313]

>>10372307
>could be smoothed:
Whoops, take the first comma out of that example. I fixed it in the lines below.

[Anonymous No.10372409]

[Anonymous No.10372411]

https://pastebin.com/hp9SvrHz

[Anonymous No.10372439]

>>10372411
Is this type of storytelling part of your style or you don't know how to simplify?

[Anonymous No.10372556]

>>10372439
yes

[Anonymous No.10372846]

>>10372409
>86° when he woke up, now it is 41°.
would read better as
>86° when he woke up, now 41°.
I think 'up' could be cut too but that's really subjective

>The rain is getting heavier, out there a silk curtain bending with the tempest.
very clunky sentence imo. is it getting heavier only 'out there' and not where the protagonist is? it would also imply that there is no rain where the protagonist is, if it weren't for the 'Light rain from the sky.' earlier, which I didn't remember initially.

>The skull of a manatee on the lectern where he has held forth every semester how many years, nicknamed Goofy.
'how many years' doesn't seem to make sense, though you use it twice so I guess it's a motif of some kind? does Goofy refer to him or the manatee? (Or the lectern?!?)

too many sentences start with 'He' and 'The'

i like it a lot overall, especially the descriptions with the ghost and the hysterical mother.

[Anonymous No.10372861]

>>10372411
I never edited this pos, now i saw that i had used to instead of for. pastebin is useful desu. maybe i should delete the 10,000 commas that aren't needed some other time.

[Anonymous No.10372875]

Addie's Tube journeys affect her more than they ought to. The Piccadilly line trains are shaped like loaves of bread, and the people are the fermenting yeast. Addie observes a guy and a girl sat opposite each another, both assessing their reflections in the windows below the Uber ads and adjacent to their respective other's head. Both nudging their hair and angling this way and that, assessing as the train's jolts trick the images like raindrops on water. The windows show tunnels and/or night sky, with the commuters superimposed upon them like camera filters. They are both critical, scouring for constellations in themselves. Both wear earphones. Both smell. Both are reflecting on themselves, for they dwell in the post-9-to-5 lull, where they can keep eye contact only with the windows and their lips are benign growths. A jolt. The pair glance at each other. Reaction is futile: eyes avert, legs shift, hair is nudged conclusively. He tries to push up glasses that aren't there and it looks like he's wiping away a tear that also isn't there. She fiddles with her earphones and thinks about how many leaves might be sitting atop the train, which screeches presently. It is homeward-bound for everyone. The two settle. They look at the ads.
Addie blinks and shifts her gaze, readjusting her posture too for pins and needles, and in doing so notices a bloke sat across from her. He is also rapt with the mirrored pair. He turns to Addie for a mo. She looks away. The cushions are greyed and frayed and there are stains in the floor's rivets, where something once trickled. The cycle could be broken but it won't be, for she can barely bring herself to look back, let alone eek out a hello, before the bloke has taken out his phone. In the window's reflection she sees him start to tap at the screen before it illuminates. Yeah, she thinks. Addie moves a few locks behind her ear and then takes out her phone too. It shows her ads.

[Anonymous No.10372876]

>>10372175
Just read Rupi Kaur for true art.

[Anonymous No.10372910]

>>10372175
https://pastebin.com/e75tVdtp

[Anonymous No.10372924]

>>10372846

Thanks anon, and I agree with both of your suggestions. As for the nickname, yeah, it is supposed to be for the manatee skull, not him. I don't plan on giving him a name for the rest of the story. Again, much appreciated.

[Anonymous No.10372976]

To the ones who criticized our book: Thank you. Thank you very much
>https://sigilworks.wordpress.com/2017/07/09/violas-chapter-1/

We are going to be published soon and it is all thanks to you. You know who you are.

I haven't edited the one posted on our website yet though

[Anonymous No.10373041]

Der letzte Tag, ein Samstag, brach um sieben Uhr fünfunddreißig an, als N.M. klingelte. Sieben Uhr fünfunddreißig: Die Augen unseres Helden, D.F., bewegten sich rapide hinter seinen zugezogenen Lidern, Wasser mag doch jeder, das Klingeln dingdongdingdong dingdongdingdong dingdongdingdong vermochte ihn erst beim dritten - aber nicht letzten - Läuten zu wecken, dummer Hurensohn, dummer Bastard, und er verließ das Bett (lechzte, lechzte, lechzte), noch im Gestern verfangen, das erst um vier Uhr vier erlosch, mit einer Bewegung, einer Rührung, die die allerletzte dieser Art bleiben sollte. Ein Mann wächst nur bis zu einem bestimmten Punkt, das Namensschild an seiner Tür, der Türrahmen. Kleiner Hurensohn, nichtsnutzig, albern. Ein Blick aus dem Fenster, schlagartig wach, als hätte er noch nie geschlafen: Ein grauer VW Polo auf dem Parkplatz - ach was - der Zahnarztpraxis. Dort stand er zuerst im Sommer zweitausendsechzehn, zuletzt vor einem Jahr. Also, sieben Uhr sechsunddreißig, dingdongdingdongdingdongdingdong, kein Vogel war zu hören, öffnete D.F. seinen Schrank, derweil N.M. vor der Tür stand, warum - er wollte ihn ermorden - wusste nur er, allein, einsam, keiner sonst, auch wenn D.F. es hätte wissen müssen; vor 15 Jahren schon, gottloses Stück Scheiße, hätte er es wissen müssen, kétségtelenül. Er trat auf eine Plastikflasche, er war schon angezogen. Sieben Uhr siebenunddreißig. Gestern Nacht hat er wunderschön gekotzt, ist auf seinen Magen gefallen, mehrmals, immer wieder. Heute Morgen: Nicht einmal Vögel hört man, dingdong dingdong dingdong. Er ging die Treppe runter, wie jeden Tag. Sieben Uhr siebenunddreißig. Die Tür ging auf. Er hat wunderschön gekotzt, gestern noch, ist auf seinen Magen gefallen, ja, jetzt ist alles dumm, jetzt ist alles blöd, kein Vogelgeschwitzer vernahm er. N.M. stand vor ihm, wie ein Baum, hinter ihm war der Rest, die Sonne fiel auf seinen Nacken, unverändert. Der Rest: Sein Auto, die Straße, die Zahnarztpraxis, weiter rechts das Tanzstudio. Er, N.M., versuchte sein Grinsen - er grinste wie ein Schwertfisch -, wie immer zu unterdrücken, meistens gelang es nicht. --Sag auch, warum du lachst, D.F. fragend, selber lachend, er musste nach oben gucken, seinen Kopf heben, um in sein Gesicht zu gucken, sein Rücken tat weh, seit Jahren schon tat er weh, trotzdem hob er seinen Kopf, um in sein Gesicht zu gucken, entwürdigend war das, sieben Uhr achtunddreißig war es. Das wusste er nicht, konnte es nicht wissen.
--Hat seine Gründe, immer noch wie ein Schwertfisch.
--Seit wann bist du in S.?
--Seit ... Er schloss seinen Mund, musterte das Vorzimmer, als wäre D.F. nicht anwesend. Sein Lächeln verklebte, schmierig, blieb stecken, sollte für immer stecken bleiben, während, etwas später, D.F. nie wieder lächeln sollte, kein weiteres Mal, und auch das Gegenteil nicht.

[fuck No.10373123]

>>10372307
>>9 Years of life in which I didn't really know of a world outside myself, despite my claims, and by extension, without anything to define myself against, a world inside of me
>>9 Years of life in which, I didn't really know of a world outside myself despite my claims, or, without anything to define myself against, a world inside me for that matter
looking at these again I still don't like them actually. Maybe "despite my claims" could be sacrificed. I still stand by the serious issue though.

[whoops left my trip on No.10373130]

>>10372194
>>She stepped through the front door to his apartment
>Say open door. I doubt his apartment has multiple doors and I don't want to see her walking into a wall
Oh fuck. I went and fixed a bunch of shit you ended up highlighting but somehow this didn't occur to me.

[Anonymous No.10373148]

Here's the creative chunk of my intro phil essay. The rest of it is mostly brick-layering and dialectical synthesis of Decartes and Hume

[whoops left my trip on No.10373422]

>>10373148
>"intro phil"
>says "dialectical synthesis"
>first line of the essay already uses the word "me"
>also uses "onslaught"
>>rhetoric
>>>while apparently complaining about relativity with no grasp of the irony
I didn't even have to reach the words "there-ness" and "world-ness" to come to the conclusion that this was likely a parody. Write an argument out in plain english.

I was once at a bar with a professor and one of his students came up to him and asked how to be more concise. Well, not "how to be" but rather "if he was". Either way, he asked, and my professor looked at him and said to write a whole page of text, TNR 12, single spaced, and then pick just three sentences to take from that page onto a new one and to type from there, and then to repeat the process several times. Don't become one of those wittgenstein posters who hasn't read wittgenstein and only posts him to blow off other readings as well.

[Anonymous No.10373423]

>>10373148

Try to avoid 'poetic' similes and metaphors (molasses reference not needed). Philosophical writing allows for a far broader sense of personal input than other academic writing, but in turn if you use the same flair as you would in an English essay your work will come off as disingenuous. Try to stick to 'dry' comparisons, and let your own take on the matter and your own philosophical terms shape the 'spice' of your work.

Also, avoid direct rhetorical questions, they should be contained within the questions and not the answers (swap 'is consciousness a part of nature' to something like 'some may argue that consciousness is a part of nature'

You will get even more freedom post intro-specs but first and foremost should come an academic writing base, your rhetoric must fit between the lines.

Lose 'that haunts us' 'effulgence' and the 'dustballs' sentence

>t. Philosophy graduate

[Anonymous No.10373428]

>>10373422
>trip
I crack me up sometimes

[Anonymous No.10373434]

>>10373223

probably should have posted this here

[Anonymous No.10373481]

>>10372910
jesus fucking christ, wtf did I just read.

[Anonymous No.10373508]

>>10372910
Ya like huey lewis and the news?

[Anonymous No.10373517]

Really great advice, I'm actually surprised. My teacher didn't leave commentary on my essay though it was intro phil at community college so not the best quality class. I started reading philosophy (mostly existentialism) way beforehand due to depression/anxiety, I guess that's where the verbosity/angst comes from. Lack of focus in my writing is probably due to a lack of curriculum.

>>10373422
>>10373423
I knew the way I wrote was decadent but I tend to get real self-absorbed every time I read it so revision was poor. Reading Nietzsche is also a factor.

> complaining about relativity with no grasp of the irony
explain?

[Anonymous No.10373528]

>>10373422
Also I've never read Wittgenstein (including his wiki page)

[Anonymous No.10373539]

>>10373517
>explain?
Pair it with the previous line, I indented them on purpose. Like the other anon said, try to avoid wishy-washy 'poetic' similes and metaphors, especially when you're starting off by venting your angst about how things look wishy washy.

[Anonymous No.10373543]

>>10373148
I agree with the other critiques, mostly. I think if there's a single piece of advice you should reflect on, it might be:
>Speak plainly and let the force of your arguments speak for itself.

Passion is a good thing and you clearly care about what you're writing. But the best philosophical and social-theoretical essays always manage to convey the passion and intensity of the author's point through the sheer factual power of every consecutive sentence. You can experiment with style, but the core of a philosophical essay making a deep and important point should be that solid backbone of precise argumentation. Read something by Leo Strauss for example and see how he manages to make a potentially world-changing argument just by prosaically hammering it home sentence after sentence. He doesn't need flourishes.

When the passion comes across in "external" flourishes, things that aren't essential to the statement but added to it as an emotive afterthought, and especially when you have to clarify your points with that kind of emotional flourish, as if the reader might have forgotten how important what you're saying really is, it hampers the force of the argument. Makes it seem more journalistic.

I would ask fewer rhetorical questions and be more "sympathetic" to the reader, if that makes sense. Try to imagine the reader is someone who is interested in what you're saying and on your level intellectually, but an equal in conversation, so that it would be awkward and presumptuous to talk down to them, to say things like "Is not x but y?" That comes across as disingenuous, like the other guy said. You want to come across like you know the truth of the matter, and you can explain it blow-by-blow and unrelentingly, but not like you are up your own ass about having this knowledge. The most daunting stuff I've ever read was in the work of philosophy professors who wrote very plainly, as if it was a matter of course that you should be following them along, as if they were "serious," but so expert at being serious that they could also be relaxed (and sometimes even playful) at the same time. They made it look easy.

Your style has a bit of both, but it jarringly transitions between that presumptuous kind of rhetorical flourishing and more straightforward pronouncements. It gives it a loose feeling, like a speech-giver who is a bit arrogant about the importance of what he's saying but who can't deliver it in a consistent tone, and keeps starting and stopping as he remembers just how important what he's saying is.

With something like this, if you have the time and energy, it's a good idea to rewrite it in different styles a few times and experiment with stretching your ability to still "hear" yourself in the different styles. You will gradually realise that what feels immediately natural is not necessarily what you're stuck with, but you have to persist at that stretching.

[Anonymous No.10373591]

>1/2

Warm up your ears and prepare your hearts, for a terrible murder has occurred. There is a victim dead and a murderer who has —for the time being— not yet been caught. To lead us closer to know who the killer is, we must think like he does. What is his next move? What is he to do after he is finished? He had in mind the death of another and actualized it; it is completed, but now what? Well, he may take the murder weapon with him after the deed, but it is of no matter, the weapon will be known by the wound he left. He may even comb the scene for any instance of his DNA, but a hair will inevitably be found. He may have an alibi crafted to account for his whereabouts, alas a hole in his patchwork will be unfolded. Before any observation of the crime scene, we know he will be caught, weapon present or absent, DNA or none, alibi or admittance. The murderer is a man, a fallible man. Expecting success to reign superior when covering up a murder is a façade for failure. Culpability is inevitable, but more importantly, it is only a matter of time. This is all under the assumption that he intended not to be caught. What if the murderer killed in a passion of wrath, like an animal?


To kill another like an animal is to let go of any distinction of humanity. A wolf attacks a lamb by the neck to violently shake it to death, spewing blood from its jugular, allowing its content to fly where it pleases. It is a horrific mess; and it is not cleaned up at all. It is left to dry, intended to stay. The beast might even parade its fresh kill with euphoria in mind. What if this murder killed in pure wrath with such passion? Would we would see no attempt whatsoever to clean the scene? He would want the whole world to see what he committed. He wanted the murder weapon to be left in the heart of the corpse. He wanted the victim’s blood to pour over the floor. He had no care for his DNA being left. He wanted it to be a violent, merciless death.
He did not even create an alibi, he admitted his crime! But he did so not of guilt or righteousness; it was of pleasure. Given he has proclaimed owner of this dark deed, he will be imprisoned.


It is evident the murderer will either be free or imprisoned, not both. We know his fate, but we must address what the possible outcomes are. For him to be free, he would’ve done everything in his capacity to cover up the crime and have his work be successful. For him to be imprisoned, he would’ve been like an animal parading his kill, fallible too, for leaving proof of his crime. And as we know, he is imprisoned. He is proud of what he has done. He is the beast with the bloody lamb in his mouth. He does what comes naturally. But who is the victim? The victim is the lamb, he is God. “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” The murderer is not one, two, but many. Many today and those since Nietzsche proclaimed His death are murderers of God.

[Anonymous No.10373594]

>>10373591
>2/2

They are God killers. Given their procession and proclamation, they are sentenced to imprisonment! But what are they to do? The Madman, a maniac, urges the culprits to become gods themselves, “simply to be worthy” of this supreme act of man. So yes, God killers, become gods yourselves, for your heaven is barring steel and your earth is cold stone. Your morality is dictated, and your every whim is scheduled. You are Gods free to define your morality and divinity in the confines of a small cell, for you all have committed the crime of killing God. “The stars will be only dots in the blackness of his own brain …. But over his cell shall be written, with dreadful truth, ‘He believes in himself.’” Yes, the stars are limited to the cell of his mortality in the prison he gave himself. We must add, as Chesterton notes as “dreadful”, is that God Killers believe in themselves. This is most unfortunate because they gained no divinity by murdering God. They have created no meaningful morality by slaying God. They have developed no freedom from killing God. They have only condemned themselves to the darkness of the abyss. They are deaf without God. They are mute without God. They are ultimately blind without God.


By affirming His death, they fall into the pit of the blank slate where no pen of man’s may dare mark upon. No firewood is in the abyss, so they are cold. No light reaches them, so they are without sight. No means of real escape is apparent, so they are marooned in nothing, so close yet so far from divinity. God reaches for their hand to help them escape, but they have chosen not to take it; they believed they have killed Him and know His corpse is stagnant. The pit of nihilism that these murders have fell into was the grave intended for God. It is no wonder they cannot escape the great pit of that size. And it will pain them to know at death that God is alive.

[Anonymous No.10373611]

>>10373594
I'll critique others when I get back from Mass; Happy Day of the Immaculate Conception friends

[Anonymous No.10373612]

>>10373543
Holy shit thanks. Here's the introduction if you guys want to critique that also

[Anonymous No.10373643]

>>10373612
>humanity
might be better to cut away at your claim and not make it human-centric. "Sentient beings are distinctive from all living matter in that they are aware of themselves..." would be drawing more or less the same kind of "this entails that" you're doing without working in specieal specification.

strictly speaking you mean "in reference" or "by referring to"

I still don't get why you're using there-ness. It sounds like it's just a less obvious way of saying "the true nature of one's self" or something equally vague.

>if, if, if, if, is an absolutely introspective thing?
I think you mean
>if, if, if, if, then is [subject goes here] an absolutely introspective thing?

[Anonymous No.10373799]

His head turns to look at me, he has not moved. Face to the painting, mask to me. Searing darkness behind the eyes. We stand in front of a painting, the only one in the room, distant murmurings filter in from other exhibits. A white canvas. No. Subtle structure begins to take shape- hair thin lines- red and ochre intricate.

The mask cracks a smile, loudly. How did I ever think the canvas was blank? That darkness seeps out of the broken porcelain. I keep watch on the painting- lines assembling, no intention or intelligence, but assembling all the same as in my peripheral the darkness shimmers like air from a boiler.

“From the illusion of control we derive control.”

The words shock back the ink and the air is clear again but for a thin keening. The man spoke those words, the walls shouted them. I feel the first bite of a cold- that dreary weight, that heat in your gut.

One hand clasps my shoulder. Avuncular, familiar, wrapped over steel cords. He has not moved. Mask to painting, face to me. Why would he smile? He has no need to comfort me and no desire to gloat. One rock in the riverbed has resisted the water’s wear and will forever. The water flows over it in the same way it always has. He nods and smiles and is not moving. If I could one day learn that trick: to walk while staying perfectly still.

The air fills with music and the hand on my shoulder pushes me sideways, lying down. With a touch I stop the soft bedside chiming.

Today I am going to the museum.

[Anonymous No.10373856]

>>10373643
Thanks, I everything you said makes sense
>there-ness
It just feels more natural than being, presence, existence, self, soul, all these mean roughly the same until a meta-language is made on the individual level. I really can't say why.

[Anonymous No.10373864]

>>10373856
I really can't say why* it feels more natural

[Anonymous No.10373918]

https://pastebin.com/7avD7Z9R
I kinda just wanna go on and write about her life

[Anonymous No.10374076]

>>10373918
>an ed after this that should be an ing
and did I break this guy's neck? how's he this far under her while she's standing and he's sitting on the bed? Better version: https://pastebin.com/MJsBh1jd

[Anonymous No.10374156]

https://medium.com/@a5ce59f204d9/8abb86798e17
tldr im a soyboy

[Anonymous No.10374158]

I am being compressed in this room. Through three windows that from a triptych of a moon, a light creeps along the hairs of a carpeted living room. To my left: Three blue-collared men that drink the air like the red wine on cold counter top. The dust: A heterogeneous mixture of dead skin and live mites, oaring through a shine pike along the waves of a droning fan. The fan: Back and forth, a sprinkler for a room to fertilize the skin of the elderly. It is 4:37 AM, Eastern Time. I am in Clayton’s Memorial Hospital on the Sabbath, standing over a gurney supporting a man that resembles bone more than life, and I begin to wonder if the militia of mites are tearing at his skin and feasting on the sunspots. His head is a jungle of grey hairs; I am beginning to think the mites live there in that jungle, in ziggurats of dandruff, like a colony of ants that dig through the earth. Maybe they’ve been feeding off this live fertilizer.
The white noise of that fan is buzzing in my ear. It is a silent jackhammer, that artificial wind in this terrarium. Yes--a terrarium. I am the zookeeper, the owner. The pungi of a steel sink by a needle dispenser. I look down again at the figure on the sheets again. Homo erectus, cast in a pale cloak, relying on me; cleaning symbiosis in action. I begin to wonder how long I’ve been awake for watching over humans held by their final fibers. Maybe too long. I begin to think of how much money is being dumped into their savings account and right back out from medicare, from insurance, and from their crumpled wills. I wonder how bright birthright glows in the hands of their children, if any. I wonder if they’ll continue the chain of humanly biological growth. Like father like son. Humans see human do. I wonder: Do these kids climb the same ladders as their mothers and fathers? Will they eat to grow, grow to go to school, and go to school to get married? To have a family, a kid? A home and a cheap condo in the middle class suburbs of a metropolitan state known for it’s one appearance on a Diners and Drive Ins episode? Maybe they wish to save enough money so that they can scrape by for a few years and finally go to Disney in Orlando where they’ll ride the rollercoasters for a week. Then the process begins anew.
I don’t think this skeleton did that. This body, a wlaking corpse, is a flag on a new land. Hundreds of thousands of ancestors, only to end. To break the chain of life from a paleolithic anchor. That is bold. But how sad. I saw him crying the other day when I entered the room to give him breakfast. He sat towards the windows with a face glazed with water and his head didn’t turn in the slightest.

[Anonymous No.10374198]

>>10374156
it felt like I was watching a guy do a figurative dance of a soyboy than an actual parody soyboy, especially with the blunt "I am blind" line. You also have him boot up the computer at the end of one paragraph, then immediately have him say "My work is complete" in the next one.

>Our voices fill the web, shouting in tongues like in church, and we are saved.
this is an obnoxious "gotcha" that loops around on itself. Look at this for example:

>We went back to church, that place where we diddle children.
This is still a zinger but a much more stable one. The first one is poking fun at atheist soyboys for being churchlike, but it doesn't deny churches being bad in the process, and in fact needs them to be bad to actually make soyboys look bad through the comparison, thus granting them their argument that churches are bad at the end, making the insult all for naught. The second one just plainly says "churches do things that are contradictory" in a casual tone and leaves it at that without shooting itself in the foot.

never heard of this website though

[Anonymous No.10374204]

>>10374198
-to make this more clear, it wouldn't make sense for the speaker in the example to go "haha, you're a child diddler, how terrible!" if he was one himself.

[Anonymous No.10374209]

>>10374204
Thanks for the critique senpai, will def be using it. Can you explain the "figurative dance of a soyboy" bit? Im a brainlet

[Anonymous No.10374293]

>>10374209
I'm a brainlet too and not really able to explain it more. Ending on more of an image instead of a declaration might help, like "it blinded me". I'm not really getting behind that suggestion though, it's just a way for me to get my point across.

[Anonymous No.10374311]

I don't think I should post this but I will

I can’t remember much of when or how I heard Ethan died, but I traveled back south to New Mexico after the news came to me. They said he was lying face down in the dirt outside Bernalillo. I drove out there to see the ground. Dust hung in the air all around a wooden porch where his body lay face up. His dad told me this was it, and I believed him. His eyes were open and his teeth were shut tight. I told the man thank you as he drove away. I sat at the pole stabbed in the center of the porch with my back against the sun. It felt nice with the warm light breathing down my neck. He knew how much I loved him I think. I said my life is weird and unfulfilling, and I hate myself. He said he feels much the same, and we were quiet for a long time. I think that’s ok, but I don’t know. I fell to my side and cried. I climbed up the pole to a second story window, and killed myself.

[Anonymous No.10374317]

>>10373508
I woudn't know, all names blur together, being so in touch with yourself sometimes has a heavy price of admission, I, for example, am so disconnected from popular culture, that I had to use my search engage to know what you were talking about in the first place.

[Anonymous No.10374378]

>>10374158
>I am being compressed in this room.
"show don't tell" -I would just cut this. The next line is fine, though you wrote "from" when you meant "form"

>To my left:
>The dust:
>The fan:
>It is 4:37 AM, Eastern Time.
good outro. Maybe just say "My left:" at the start. You could have a sentence like "I look around" before it, or move your very first sentence over there.

>and I begin to wonder if the militia of mites are tearing at his skin and feasting on the sunspots
the way you introduce this makes me want to ask "as opposed too...?" because it seems like the mites are there either way

>I wonder how bright birthright glows in the hands of their children, if any. I wonder if they’ll continue the chain of humanly biological growth.
"if any" sounds good, but terminal, but you kept up the pattern. You could cut the "I wonder" out of the next line and just make it a question.

>on a Diners and Drive Ins episode
I didn't need Guy Fieri's face there. "on some TV show?"

>Maybe they wish to save enough money so that they can scrape by for a few years and finally go to Disney in Orlando where they’ll ride the rollercoasters for a week. Then the process begins anew.
>I don’t think this skeleton did that.
"I want to get off mr. bones's ride"

the double "with" in the last line sounded bad

>>10374311
>a wooden porch where his body lay face up
"the" instead of "a". "a" makes it sound like it's "a wooden porch where his body lay face up, one of many wooden porches where his body lay face up" as opposed to the one and only.

>I sat at the pole stabbed
my brain is immediately going to put this in the dead guy; it was stuck there even after you gave the location

>I don't think I should post this but I will
Not really the weirdest thing here. In a strange way stories about suicide are more palletable than sadboy "the being of the world itself upon my self in and of itself-being" undergrad existentialist bits.

[Anonymous No.10374456]

He was at the age where one first considers his mortality,--where he takes his life expectancy, measures it against the age of the universe and discovers his insignificance,--young enough that his dreams and aspirations were not yet dead but old enough to see some incident of evil in the world and extend judgment to the whole of it, not able to imagine compatibility between goodness and a system whose gods permit rape, torture, orphans and genocide.

[Anonymous No.10374596]

Unlikely as it may, Unlikely that I do
Unlikely has the tendency
of sometimes being true

[Anonymous No.10374617]

>>10374311
good riddance

[Anonymous No.10374697]

I sat on the wooden step of the cabin surrounded by the smell of fish scales and firs. The whole of the cabin was constructed of that wood, bent out of shape and snored in the wind like an old man sleeps on public transport. Id been hold up here for the past two weeks. The clocks ticked in defiance, spiting my restlessness. It isn’t that I don’t love nature n’ all, but there some things happenin outside of it I intended to be a part of. I got up and chopped some wood; lit a fire to fight away the night. The flame ate up the air, gettin hotter and brighter and smellin like it used to. The sounds of birds, carried by the wind, was sporadically punctured by the fires pop of burnt up wood. The trees snored that contagious snore of the cabin, like a bacteria coughed up by the wind. And I couldn’t see too much. All I could do was sit and listen, while the fire kept the darkness but a few steps from me. That fire that couldn’t keep them images from being burnt into the back of my eyelids when I closed em. That fire that I could stare at deep, till the back of my eyes looked all white when shut - but those images always were there.

I took the drainin fish to a spitroast over that fire; walked over the creek to toss the bucket of guts. Not that there were tons of em, but enough to stink some’mh over here bigger than me. Some’mh that might be scared of the flame and my uprightness take to eatin me. The bears weren’t hardly what I was scared of, but - it was something to consider hard enough - least to walk through them dark n shrubs to toss ‘em guts. The sound of an engine, like a breath outta the woods’ lung, leaked from it, coughed a spat of birds cries. Maybe they were pickin me up at last. I lay into the chair and lit my pipe to complete the picture. A flame burned in my chest; in my eyes’ lids. My ears swallowed them motor sounds like a resuscitated swallows up air. There’s a fire inside of me that burns for this, that pushes back the long day’s night; and I was scared of that fire like the bears were scared of mine.

[Anonymous No.10374723]

>>10374697
>pretentious faggot
>posts picture of pretentious faggot
go figure

[Anonymous No.10374771]

>"the" instead of "a". "a" makes it sound like it's "a wooden porch where his body lay face up, one of many wooden porches where his body lay face up" as opposed to the one and only
>my brain is immediately going to put this in the dead guy; it was stuck there even after you gave the location
Are these mistakes obnoxious? I like the effects you described in a weird way, but I'm not attatched.
>>10374617
damn...

[Anonymous No.10374775]

>>10374771
>>10374378

[Anonymous No.10374812]

Is there anything of value in this, /lit/?

https://pastebin.com/xvVjijw3

Bit at the bottom isn't a continuing paragraph, piece of a planned later sequence.

[Anonymous No.10374861]

Canute kicked down the door, the expensive lock proving little obstacle to a well-placed boot. Blood dripped from his ax, leaving a sanguine trail as he trod over the splintered remains. The pale moonlight illuminated an empty room save for a bed, the richly embroidered blankets in disarray, as if someone had just scrambled out.

He walked over and placed his hand upon the pillow, which still retained the indent from a person's head – And was still warm. He glanced over at the solitary window. Closed and locked, just like the front door. Glancing over the room again, he paused, then crouched down and dragged the abbot out from under his bed, holding a simple wooden cross as if it were some sort of a shield. Perhaps it was – Canute still remembered some of the old man's lessons, but he preferred a more practical approach.

“Y-you will be damned for all time!” The abbot shouted, his quavering voice belying his strong words, “W-we should've killed you when you were first brought here! You and your heathen mother would've made fine food for the p-pigs!”

“Quit your blubbering,” Canute replied, ripping the cross from the old man's hands and tossing it through the window, sending glass tinkling across the garden below. The sounds of battle rushed in through the hole, though by now the fighting had mostly ceased, and the massacre begun. Outside, he could see the flames eating up the stables and outbuilding, the surrounding farms having already burnt themselves out hours ago.

Chainmail glimmered in the firelight, as Canute's men looted and carried off the riches of the monastary. Danes, Norse, Jutes and Swedes – Even a few Picts from the far northern wilderness had come under the northman's banner, with one goal – Revenge upon the Christian dogs who invaded their homeland and destroyed their way of life.

Screams of burning horses mixed with the final cries of monks as the warriors slit their throats, throwing the bodies into the chapel to fuel the growing fire. Lesser men might've put the entire place to the torch by now, but Canute's men were true to their orders, leaving the main building untouched long enough for him to find what he sought for so many years.

And now, quivering beneath his boot, he'd found it.

“Y-you may kill m-me, but you can never stop the triumphant march of C-Christ! We will be avenged a-a hundredfold upon your kith and kin!”

“And in the meantime,” The Norseman leaned in close to the abbot's terrified face, “I'll have my revenge for what you dogs put me through – One limb at a time.”

Five hours later, Canute passed out from exhaustion, and one of his men finally drove a seax between the old man's exposed ribs.

[Anonymous No.10374899]

>>10374861
Sanguine trail is kind of redundant. Of course it's sanguine, you just said the ax was bloody.
>The pale moonlight illuminated an empty room save for a bed
You should reword this because it makes it sound like the moonlight is illuminating everything, but the bed.

Im tired, but those are the things that stand out to me.

[Anonymous No.10374975]

THE LAST TISSUE

I will drink more
Wake on the floor
Lie here a while
Light fires, cry

The last tissue
Left today. I came
And lay, as ash
Flakes the fire place

[Anonymous No.10374986]

>>10374812
>Great miasmatic releases

Come on m8 you know better than this. Only reason people use words like this is because it's considered bad taste to wear a hat that says you went to a Russell Group university.

[Anonymous No.10374992]

>>10374986
It felt a bit overwrought, at the same time 'miasma' is a pungent concept. I've never been to uni and I don't have the score to get into any lol.

[Anonymous No.10375013]

>>10374992
It's just a personal preference but most of my favourite writers avoided words that don't have Anglo-Saxon or Norman-French lineage. It seems like most people who abuse Latin words do so to put themselves above others.

[Anonymous No.10375019]

>>10372411
Its fucking horrid. It's fraught with nothing but Grammar mistake and overused punctuation.The sentences read disjointed made only words by the misplaced words and incomplete sentences. The sheer amount of word choices you made is nothing short of shallow and retarded.

There is no hope of salvaging your work. Do Humanity a favor and delete it and then KYS.

[Anonymous No.10375026]

>>10375013
Huh, I hadn't even thought of it as a 'classical' word. Made me think of 1800s Britain, medieval carryover. Gothic medicine shit. It probably wasn't an obscure and archaic word a hundred years ago. Thanks for your input anon.

[Anonymous No.10375039]

>>10375019
>see this post and panic
>check several times that it's not replying to me

[Anonymous No.10375041]

>>10375039
Are you the one writing the Victorian England one?

[Anonymous No.10375045]

>>10375026
Well, amongst writers it was probably quite common in the 1800s because they all came from bourgeois society and had classical educations. If you talked to ordinary people in 19th century Britain you were likely to hear a lot of dialect and far less Latin and Greek than you'd hear today.

[Anonymous No.10375051]

>>10375041
No. unless you mean the discussion about muh miasma

>>10375045
Probably. I didn't make the assumption from reading old books though. Since it's related to medicine and disease it'd probably be relevant to a lot of people in industrial urban centres.

[Anonymous No.10375069]

>>10373041
Warum so wütend?

[Anonymous No.10375071]

>>10375051
Well, the muh miasma story is better due to him being able to salvage the story given its short length.

Nonetheless, it's still riddled with punctuation mistakes, weird word choices (I'm willing to give him a pass if he puts an exact date on the story) and improper format and some other style mistakes.

Which is yours anon? It must face judgment

[Anonymous No.10375074]

>>10375071
The miasma story, the yohann one. I'd be grateful for your criticism

[Anonymous No.10375080]

>>10375074
>The miasma story, the yohann one. I'd be grateful for your criticism

It's salvageable, due to its short length.

Nonetheless, it's still riddled with punctuation mistakes, weird word choices (I'm willing to give you a pass until you puts an exact date on the story) and improper format and some other style mistakes.

[Anonymous No.10375142]

>>10375019
Your post has more grammatical mistakes than that pastebin (???)

[Anonymous No.10375145]

>>10375080
reeee

[Anonymous No.10375148]

>>10375145
???

[Anonymous No.10375160]

>>10372175
R8 me /lit
Rose, who was stood outside, was pretty like Sally, with a hanging purse in one hand and phone in the other. They were friends from school. But really they were friends because they were both good-looking.
She phoned Sally, waking her up. Sally sounded groggy on the phone but promised to come down to open the street door a-sap once she puts on some clothes, and so Sally did, and Rose kissed her cheeks and thanked her. Sally smelled that Rose was drunk, but neither of them cared whether girls were drunk or not. Using the lift the two girls went up to Sally's floor and once they got inside her apartment, without asking for permission, Rose began to wash her teeth with Sally's unused extra toothbrush. Rose had left the bathroom door wide open. And as she was brushing her white teeth drunkenly with mint toothpaste, Rose said loudly to Sally, loudly because Sally was not in the bathroom but in the kitchen, while looking into her own eyes in the bathroom mirror over the sink: "I just gave a blowjob."

"Too much information," Sally said to her intoxicated bestfriend, who apparently had decided to crash at her place in the dead of summer Friday night. But even though Sally was a bit groggy from needing to wake up all of a sudden due to the fucking phone call, Sally asked her friend with a bright voice: "Who was it, though?"

"A boy. We just met tonight."

"Well you two didn't exactly take your time gettin' busy!"

"I wanted him to go home happy," Rose said.

Sally was no longer in her nightgown but now in her clothes and making coffee with her pink coffeemaker, the yellow lights of her one-room flat being now switched on. She said concerning the blowjob Rose had apparently given: "None of my business."

[Anonymous No.10375161]

>>10375160
10/10

[Anonymous No.10375162]

>>10375160
1/10

[Anonymous No.10375163]

>>10375160
Don't use my name in any of the things you write every again

[Anonymous No.10375168]

>>10375163

how u doin

[Anonymous No.10375175]

>>10375163
hey

[Anonymous No.10375187]

>>10375160
Gomenasai. I wrote that but never got around to editing it. But I edited one kindle page as a test. Even though I'm not smart I hope there's still hope for me, I find that creative writing helps with my cerebral palsy.

[Anonymous No.10375218]

>>10375187
ok. I'm writing this novel manuscript now tho. >>10373927

If you /lit/itizens want to review my draft then that'd be cool. I sometimes have certain problems with my concentration so I haven't continued the novel since I farted out that piece of literature history that is 50% of my unborn novel's first ch.

[Anonymous No.10375353]

>>10372976
May I ask why you start out with the third person in the prologue, yet switch to first person thereafter?

>>10375218
It's good, quite raw--definitely the first crack at a whole novel. Keep writing.

My work:
https://pastebin.com/AswrHzg2

[Anonymous No.10375407]

>>10375353
write like you speak bro

[Anonymous No.10375571]

>>10375353
Personal style.

Like a darkest dungeon intro

[Anonymous No.10375629]

>>10375353
All I can say is human beans do not speak like this. That somewhat ruins the entire feel since I can't help but think 'who are these characters and why do they sound like pretentious hipsters'?

[Anonymous No.10375675]

>>10375629
Mc is supposed to sound like a pretentious faggot. The old lady dialogue is just a placeholder for her real dialogue.

[Anonymous No.10375814]

Fragment of what i've benn working on these last few years...

While the moon is shining over mouldy books-stacks penned by sages
Thinking takes him back through thousands upon thousands of hoar ages
To the very first, when being and non-being were nought still,
When there was but utter absence of both life-impulse and will,
When unopen there was nothing, although everything was hidden,'
When, by His own self pervaded, resting lay the Allforbidden.
Was it an abyss? a chasm? wat'ry plains without an end?
There was no estate of wisdom, nor a mind to comprehend.
For the darkness was as solid as is still the shadows' ocean,
And no eyes, had there been any, could have formed of it a notion.
Of the unmade things the shadows had not yet begun to gleam
And, with its own self-contented, peace eternal reigned supreme.
Suddenly, a dot starts moving - the primeval, lonely Other...
It becomes the father potent, of the void it makes the mother.
Weaker than a drop of water, this small dot that moves and bounds
Is the unrestricted ruler of the world's unbounded bounds.
Ever since the vasty dimness has been splitting slice by slice,
Ever since come into being earth, sun, moon, light, heat, and ice.
Ever since up to the present gallaxies of planets lost
Follow up mysterious courses, chaos-bred and chaos-tossed,
And in endlessness begotten, endless swarms of light are thronging
Towards life, for ever driven by an infinite of longing;
And in this great world, we, children of a world grotesquely small,
Raise upon our tiny planet anthills to o'ertop the All,
Lilliputian kings and peoples, soldiers, unread, erudite,
We engender generations, reckoning ourselves full bright!
One-day moths upon a mudball measeurable with the chip,
We rotate in the great vastness and forget 'twixt cup and lip
That this world is really nothing but a moment caught in light,
That behind, or else before it, all that one can see is night.
Just like whirls of dust and powder thousands of live granules play
In a glorious ray's dominion and pass over with the ray.
Thus against the never-failing night of time without a bound,
The spontaneous ray, the moment, still fails not to go the round;
When it dies, all dies - like shadows melting in the murky distance
For the universe chimeric is a dream of non-existence.

[Anonymous No.10376142]

>>10374771
>Are these mistakes obnoxious?
I don't get what you mean by that really. Are you asking if they're obviously "formally incorrect" or something? I don't think that's what you really ought to be concerned with.

For the "a vs the" thing, the "a" sounded out of place as I read over it, then at the end of the sentence I just sorta figured out why in hindsight.

For the pole thing I immediately assumed there was maybe a six foot long metal pole in the guy's chest and had a hard time getting off of it. When the guy "climbed the pole" I imagined him clumsily going up that little six foot pole until you said "to a second story window," which caused me to warp him over to a telephone pole off to the side.

On the flipside the telephone pole was nice because it makes his death ambiguous (falling/electrocution: leaning towards the latter but considering everything is nice).

[Anonymous No.10376169]

From that day the king's sorrow was magnified and as he remained inside his chamber he began to fear light itself. Every morning of his life the sun burnt his skin, so he shut his doors and drew his curtains. Such was his madness, however, that with the written word he decreed all the houses of Anonur to remain in darkness until his death, fearing the trickling of the light. The sun he feared the most, for it was so large and bright and he could not hope to comprehend it. Even the pale moon so far away was to him a searing disc which sent him cowering.

But it was not just the lights of the world outside that had his hatred. He hated also the sight of his own body and the forms of others. They had become grotesque and he was sickened by all thoughts and feelings of the flesh. Therefore, he took to wandering the halls when needs must with his eyes closed, but he found even in that darkness small patches of light still defied him. And when the even the faintest of light was a sun in itself a crack appeared in the walls of his. In contempt for himself he took a knife to his right eye and thought to carve it from its socket, but he had not the heart. First he threw the knife to the floor and then himself to the wall, clawing at it until his nails were splinters. From then his anguish at living was increased beyond all saving and he forsook even the most basic of foods.

'For to eat,' thought he, 'is to be as the crawling things in their endless ravening hunger. I shall not be as the crawling things. Nay, I shall not endure this shell overlong.'

Then the king lay down on the floor of his chamber and would not rise for days on end, for he no longer looked to the surcease of his anguish.

[Anonymous No.10376399]

The bob dylan line is subject to change. I think I fixed the opening with the door without having to use the word open; it came off as a pretentious metaphor for opportunity whenever I tried using it directly.

Is it cozy, /lit/?

[Anonymous No.10376419]

>>10376399
not bad and a bit rough around the edges

[Anonymous No.10376427]

>>10376399
In hindsight I should probably have a
>He closed the door behind her.
at the end of the first paragraph, and change the "He pulled" line to
>He used a fork to pull some of the noodles up to his face and said,

[Anonymous No.10378247]

hey look out of the window she said to me while she was looking out of the window and i got up from the bed slowly feeling the blood rush through my body and being shaken in my foundations by a physical dizzyness that at the same time made the drugs kick in once more and i fell down to the bed again and laughed and said geez and laid down again and said wow this is fucking supreme i said and what i meant was that to induce a heavier kick one could willfully create this situation of blood-related dizzyness by laying down for a long period of time and then abruptly get up and make the drugs kick in again but i just said "wow" again and she looked at me with disdain and scorn written on her face and said get up and look here she said and she stared out of the window and saw the lights in the rain and a lightning man with a teuxedo and a saxophone switching from being posed with the sex to the left and the sex to the right with blurred and bleeding lights shining through the billions of raindrops and as she watched the tuxedoman she imagined listening to a saxophone which she had never heard before and she imagined it to sound like a deep roaring sound like the machines in the factories and she thought that if only she was rich she could hear a saxophone but she had seen it many times and she sees it everytime she came to his place to do drugs but most of the time they were at her place simply because he felt more free to do as he wished at his own place which often initiated tensions between the two as she valued togetherness and a more intimate experience while he when feeling free desired to shoot for the stars and reach higher echelons of intensity unknown to her. he had raised his upper body and stared at her with a tired expression he looked at her and felt feelings of hatred inside him but then was enticed to follow her command by something unknown in him but suddenly he wnated to obey and look out of the window. perhaps it was hypnosis of some sort? he thought and crawled on all fours like a damn animal to her side until he had reached her. He observed her sitting position and tried to describe it inside his head. She sits on her two feet and and then he laughed because the formulation of her legs are broken in the middle came to his head but it was a meaningless laughter and suddenly he felt the hatred again and now he looked out of the window and was facinated by all the cars which were flying left and right and across the worlds from a to z as the greeks said and the lights were bleeding furiously all across the screen and it was raining so intensely that he thought it would be nice to now leave the house and take a shower because his shower was broken. He looked at her and she finally untied her face from the glasses and looked at him and there was nothing there he felt and she felt there was nothing there. it felt profoundly and terrifyingly familiar to feel this way. He moved back to the bed and said ill take another shot and she said m

[Anonymous No.10378281]

we watched the robots dance. we watched them how they made rounds and held hands high of each other and did a 1-2-3 step and then swerve left swerve right and 1-2-3 and we laughed at these robots who were dancing withou tany music and we imitated it. i then grabbed the hand of lamosella and imitated the man and she started imitating the woman but we weren't laughingbut looked at each other with a sudden and surpised seriousness and i felt something rising inside my stomach and then we both had to smile because i think she also felt it and we both were afraid a little for a moment and then we stopped and looked at the robots again and she asked what kind of music are they dancing too she asked us and i looked at the others if they were going to speond but they weren't so i said that i think it must be something with a saxophone and she said that she didn't know what that was and i imitated a saxophone player and made some noises even though i had never heard one but i said that the folks from above had a lots of peoples who played the saxophone and they would meet in large buildings and the saxophone player would play his music and they'd all dance like the robots here in big halls and take drugs. And my friend One-Eyed Jasper said that i was talking bullshit and that i was making things up and i said i wasn't because it wasn't my stories but i had heard them in the taverns many times by elder man who had been above and if he didn't believe me i even could show him what a saxophone looked like and he didn't respond anymore but said it's all just bullshit anyway and walked away and i said Bye One-Eyed Jasper and he waved his hand and smiled and said: Bye, Geordi. and i also smiled.

then i looked lamosella and smiled and said that One-Eyed Jaspers would retrieve his sister now and that he had been thinking baout having to leave for several minutes and that i somehow had also developed a sense when he had to go because a certain restlessness would be expressed in his bodily motions and i smiled and she smiled and said: I had thought he was angry because you fucked him up with your knowledge on saxophones and smiled. And i smiled and said: Were you afraid? and moved closer to her and she said: Yeah a little bit and i'm always anxious when people are starting to fight and she thought of her brother beeing beaten to death by strangers and smiled and i said: You don't need to be afraid because i'm a man and i will protect you if you are my girlfriend and i said i would like you to be my girlfriend and she said okay and smiled and i extended my hand to her and said ok i will show you now what a saxophone looks like and she said but are we going upstairs bu she was smiling and i said no but there is a man in a tuxedo with a saxophone at night who is attached to a building and he's got a saxophone you will be surprised i said because it looks like a long horn i said and we both smiled and she said a long horn? and i nodded and we walked hand in hands thr

[Anonymous No.10378328]

have you head the news of the political uprisings i asked my naked pal who was sitting on a bar chair and was drinking his beer and he looked at me with a flaccid expression and said whats this nonsense of a political uprising you are talking about and shook his head and took 2 sips of his beer and i watched his big belly moving heavily with each breath in and out and his inverted smile and looking at nothing particular at the wall that was various metres away from his head behind the bar and i said: There are rebels fighting with the government now i told him and i said they have killed atleast 50 soldiers! and my eyes were widneing from excitement and i realized i held up 5 fingers to intensify the effect of the number fifty but then realized that five did not equal fifty and withdrew my hands and my friend slowly moved his head to face me and said: This is all nonsense that you are talking about. and took 2 sips from his beer and moved back to his default position and i took hold of a love handle o fhis and said you are a grumpy old man my friend and i shook the love handle and caused waves of fat to moved up and down the ocean of his fatness and he looked at my hand touching has love handle and saw me smiling with a cunning and cheeky expression and said stop with that nonsense and moved back to his default position and i stopped the nonsene but i smiled and he took 2 sips of his beers and i looked and felt really exhilirated because so much energy was flowing through me and despite me also being naked i started shouting from happyness and made sounds of being in love with life and climbed on the bar stool and from there jumped on the bar table and threw my limbs around and danced and screamed and laughed like a mad man and felt so energy driven that i felt that the energy would extend beyond my body and rip it into shreds and i wanted to throw myself into the wall that was covered with botthes of alcoholic beverages but instead i hammered with my hand on the table in a crouching position and made rghhh rghhh rghhh noises with every hit and my friend looked at me with a flaccid expression and said: stop with this nonsense about throwing your limbs around and being filled with so much energy that you feel that you could burst and hitting the table to get rid of the excess energy. i felt deflated and moved down the table and sat on my stool and looked at my friend who was calm as ever and i got up from the stool and i hugged my friend very tightly and was very sensual of the touch of our bodies and his hairs touching my hairs and this lovely and fulfilling warmth that this body extended to mine and this surprising but very comfortable softness of his skin and i felt not at all negatively about my friends fatness but rather a loving desire to be even closer to him to feel even more of him and endorse all o fhis body and i looked at his privates and was terribly touched and then he moved his head to look at mine. i wanted to kiss him but he said

[Anonymous No.10378378]

[Anonymous No.10378393]

>>10378247
>>10378281
>>10378328

go to bed Timothy

[Anonymous No.10378403]

Ah a nice sip of water now would that not be splending? i think i'm dying of thirst. I think my body is dehydrated to the point of me being close to death, very close indeed. Not an atom of irony is being expressed through my words. Nothing but water. Water is all i desire. Will you give me some whater please. Water is up here he said and motioned his hands up into the sky and no water is down here he said and touched the floor. I smirked and said: We are earthbound people, you loser. And me and my gang moved beyond the beggar who was standing with the masked expression of a frantic at the side of the narrow street that me and my gang was passing but his eyes betrayed his mask and it was all too clear to me and my friends that this was the lost soul of a deranged creature. My friend turned around, having shared similiar thoughts and said: Your soul is doomed, you failure, and turned back around and walked in unison with me and the other gang members. One of our members had a weapon-sized pipe in his hand and said. This is the third starving idiot of the night, if i meet one more i will spill some blood. The gang leader revealed a condescending smile and splendidly white teeth as he turned his head around and said: Keep your composure, you big baby. What, a bunch of freaks unsettles you? Hey, Baby boy: We are heading for the stars. Man up. and he turned around and weaponized-pipe gang member gulped and wanted to disappear into the earth as to escape such a thorough humiliation. The nerd sidekick of our gang who held in his hand a notebook and was scribbling like a mad man whenever something happened said with the excitement of nerds who feel good because they absorbed some new information that the structure of our gang was very similiar to that of a genuine wolf pack and said that the foundation of these wolf packs was the distinction between alpha males, beta males and- but before he could finish weaponized-pipe boy had hit the pipe at the notebook and it flew like a wild tornado into some water and made a big splash which wet my shoes and i said. hey watch out but weaponized-pipe crew member said: hey punk, do you think your smart or something and the punk said: it's you're, not your. but he was intimidated and was shaking from fear of physical abuse. "I'll show you what it means to be a WOLF." the weaponized-pipe crew member said and laughed at his joke and was ready to storm at the nerd but the gang leader intervened by grabbing weaponized-pipe crew member by his neck. With a kenjudo move he smashed the guys face into the ground where a loud knack emerged and it seems that the guys face was broken. There was blood rolling down the earth and we smiled in unison. Recover your vital intelligence documents said the gang leader and we moved on. As we strolled through the streets we marauded various stores and spit in the face of woman who wore expensive clothes. At 6 PM we were to meet our contact from the militia at Raudeleighstreet ninetynine but

[Anonymous No.10378439]

>>10378247
honestly some well placed commas and the changing of some ands to whiles etc could make this a smooth enough read

[Anonymous No.10378448]

no mista don't go the old man said and he clung to my legs and said no mista dn#t go don't go down thar he said and he pointe downards where i was just going and said don't go mista don't go if you wanna live then don't go mista don't go mista thar demons there there are demons there he said don't go there are demons and i decided to give him some attention and said What Demons Old Man. and he said the glowing red eyes, the demons with the glowing red eyes and the demons with the white masks are down there he said they come for the machines he said they come to take the machines he said. The Demons with the Bright Red Eyes and the Demons with the White Masks. I had not heart of these before. There are no such things as demons did i tell him, as i was a human being with a ratonal end anlightend human mind who was too well-educated to still believe in magic and fairy tales and i smiled. You're a poor old fool who still believes in demons. This is why we should force your people to go to school. You are the reason that people are dying i said and looked with a smile of disdain at this old pathetic fool clinging to my legs and saying no no, no you don't understand these demons are real they will kill you. they kill everyone i saw it with my own eyes they real they kill everyone they will kill you the demons they will kill you and he was crying and i said: Enough you scoundrel. And kicked him in his stomach and he fell flat on the door and made noises of pain and i moved across my way. On the end of the hallway that was littered with trash by the uneducated scums which lived down here was a ladder that would lead me down below and there i was to retrieve machines and this was part of the reason that it had frightened me what the old man said even if i were not allowed to express any sort of doubt since he was talking nonsense but how could such a man know of the machines? And i was there to retrieve the machines and he said that demons were coming to retrieve the machines. What a coincidence i said and laughed. Demons what a bunch of nonsense i said out loud and i heard a whimpering "no they real" behind my back but it was a faint sound and paid no further attention to this old fools uneducated and mythical remarks of some "red eyed demons" and some "white-masked demons" and instead stood still and chuckled heavily and shook my head. "Demons" i said. I looked at the ground which was covered with plenty of snails everywhere and remembered that one time where i had been witness to horns being played by the members of the tibetan community in our quarter and i remembered some chants about devil entities and demons which would break into our world or something like that and i had to chuckle again. "There's so much irrationality in our world" i said out loud and behind me a faint whimper exclaimed: no the demons are real they will kill you they are real but i just shook my head and laughed and said: What a bunch of irrational blabbering. and turned around

[Anonymous No.10378498]

here's a story i wrote like 7 years ago lel

its so old.. i'm still talking about high school ugh

[Anonymous No.10378504]

>>10378498

[Anonymous No.10378516]

>>10372411
oh god this is bad, do you imagine girls talk like this?

[Anonymous No.10378517]

>>10378504

[Anonymous No.10378525]

>>10373148
I read the first line and dropped it. Nothing but typical dilettantism.

[Anonymous No.10378526]

>>10378516
How do girls speak then? Got female dialogue you've written yourself to share?

[Anonymous No.10378530]

>>10378517

[Anonymous No.10379548]

I found a story I wrote in 2007. Enjoy.

chapter one
James' diary


January 10, 1899

today we moved into a nice, new house in old arkham. i expect it to be a good place to grow up in. it has five bedrooms, each with a four poster bed, two bathrooms, with gleaming porceline and marble, four kitchens, a marble staircase, and a grand foyer.
january 11, 1899

last night, the most terrible thing happened. father fell ill with phnemonia, and mother had to go to a conference at arkham tower! also, i have lost my copy of a christmas carol! oh well, i guess i must go to harolds bookstore in the morning.


january 12, 1899

you wont believe what happened! father got well, and i found my book! i cant believe my luck! i feel great! mother also got a job at the grociers! however, whenever i am in the bathroom across the hall from my room, i feel the slightest uneasiness. oh well, i suppose ill have to live with it.


january 13, 1899

today, the worst thing happened. fathers phnemonia came back, this time worse than last, and i am worried. the feeling in the bathroom is growing worse, and spreading. i read about the house, and it supposedly is home to the spirits of several mayors, a baron, over five hundred prisoners, and a dog! my good feeling has dissapeared, and, as i said before, im worried.

january 14, 1899

i feel awful. father died last night, and i think i saw several ghosts. now, the house seems more ominous than ever. the front door seems crooked, the marble does not gleam anymore, the entire hall now has the feeling of terror, and my room smells like death. im more worried than ever.

january 15, 1899

i have little time to write this. today, the stove caught fire and the marble now looks like granite and my room feels so awful and i cant sleep at night and.......... a stranger with a knife........ holy god, he stabbed me and oh shit!!!! i...... i....... leave now.........

[Anonymous No.10379553]

>>10379548

chapter two
Harold's Diary

june 10, 1910

today i came to old arkham to investigate a burgulary, and now im locked up in this damned room, in this damned house, in this damned town! this room has the worst furnishings. a skeleton on the floor, a diary next to it, a blood splattered broken four poster bed, a knife stuck in the closet door, and, on top of it all, it smells of death!

june 11, 1910

im still in this damned room! at least there is a telephone in here. i have called the police, and their trying to break into the room. soon, ill get out of here.

june 12, 1910

my god, i cant believe what heppened! the police where killed by some maniac with a machete, and i discovered that the body belongs to someone named james. i now fear for my life! i cant get out! theres no escape!

june 13, 1910

now, the police have called the fire department to help me get out. somehow, the body has moved itself onto the bed! i now think the place is haunted. i want nothing more than to get out now!

june 14, 1910

today, the body moved itself to the closet, leaving a trail of blood behind it! the police have managed to open the window, but some strange force is keeping them out, and with them the breeze. now the room is getting so hot and stuffyi can hardly breath!

june 15, 1910

i cant breath in here! im gonna suffocate! the police have gone and left me to die! im. i. we. oh. damn.
chapter four

Ghosthunters beware
september 9, 2003
12:38 pm
today we set off to arkham house, old arkham, new england. it has quite the reputation, with over five hundred ghosts and all.

september 9, 2003
4:18 pm
tape recording: "tch, tch, tch. more people polluting the sacred grounds. we shall make them wish they had never been born, eh?" "YYYYYYEEEEESSSSSS!!!!!!!".

september 9, 2003
7:44 pm
note scrawled on a piece of paper: 'ghosthunters beware'.

september 10, 2003
12:55 am
today i found two skeletons in a bedroom. they might belong to james gardener and harold king. there is blood everywhere. the window is open. the room had no air before we opened the door.

september 10, 2003
4:30 am
later, ill leave, but first i must...
(sound ringing throughout house)
"HAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"what the hell was th-
Epologue


arkham house burned down on may 20, 2005, after having taken the lives of over five hundred victims and being used as a prison, a home, and, perhaps most notably, a town hall.

[Anonymous No.10380560]

Excerpt from this thing: >>/lit/thread/S10341083#p10362726

Pastebin of a chapter, because it's too long to fit in a 4chan post (but not too time consuming): https://pastebin.com/XAFiDY46

Tell me how trash it is.

[Anonymous No.10381057]

>>10380560
>https://pastebin.com/XAFiDY46
>On instinct she shoves him off, no more! He curses, it's short-stuff.
Your punctuation is fucking my interpretation of this up.
>On instinct she shoves him off: No more! He curses: it's short-stuff.
The capital N is subjective. I'm still not completely sure what the second line means.

>She isn't cuffed, that monster never locked her up after he was done, maybe he forgot or assumed he had her in submission?
Again with the comma splicing anon; use a semicolon if each side can stand on its own unless you've got a good reason not to. I'd make one of those three parts it's own sentence as well.

>"You bet!"
Seem a little nonsequitur. "Damn right." perhaps?

>Sandra hurriedly feels her collar, there's a buckle, she just barely manages to fidget with it before he charges her, pinning her down on the mattress, wild look in his eyes, he leans in and is about to shout something at her before she cuts him off by headbutting his bandaged and swollen nose,
Again, there are times running on is immersive, but break stuff up. The start for example:
>Sandra hurriedly feels her collar; there's a buckle. (I can now reflect on this: what to do with the buckle?) She just barely manages to fidget with it before he charges her, pinning her down on the mattress with wild look in his eyes, he leans in and is about to shout something at her before she cuts him off by headbutting his bandaged and swollen nose,
The end is still spaghetti too though, and "fidgets with it" sounds retarded, as does "(leans in and) is about to shout." Just go through and fix all the spaghetti.

[Anonymous No.10381082]

>>10381057
I've never written a story in my life before, so I'll take that into consideration.

[Anonymous No.10381199]

Barring the Dylan line, does this seem finalized? It isn't finished in terms of length, but the current final line should be able to operate as one.

[Anonymous No.10381460]

>>10381199
alternatively

[Anonymous No.10381751]

I have a 6 page story I'd like to post, but I'm not sure the best way to do it. Just take pictures of the pages? a pastebin?

It's a fun piece about the 60s, acid, andy warhol and hallucinations.

[Anonymous No.10382120]

>>10381751
Pastebin link would be the most convenient.

[Anonymous No.10382139]

>>10372175
Experimenting with some stream of consciousness in German.

[Anonymous No.10382167]

>>10382139
I don't speak any arab languages so I can't weigh in on your text.

[Anonymous No.10382181]

>>10382120
Got it.

If anyone is interested in reading this, I hope that it is fun and creative, mostly entertaining and cool. It's a real big experiment in a lot of ways for me, so some of it is kind of wonky, but sentence to sentence it should be alright. The last chapter is going to be rewritten for sure.

[Anonymous No.10382185]

>>10382181
eegads, I forgot the link. Hear It Is: https://pastebin.com/SDhNUVRR

[Anonymous No.10382191]

>>10382167
Exquisite zinger, fellow kekistani!

[Anonymous No.10382194]

There’s a woman kicking cobblestones
a veil’s sewn in her neck.
Don’t tell her she can barely breathe
she gapes to some far place.
You reach for the black web she dons;
its tar leeches to you.
You reach for a common language,
she speaks in wisps and smoke:
“What bothers you?”
“My womb is grey, and my only child taken!”
“If only I had been there on that day where Satan took him!”

She mutters to some far place,
clawing her growing veil,
she screams to a dying crowd -
your comforts are spat on.
Hear her tongues and old wisdoms:
“My life begone, begone begone!”
“So blind I was to bounties, this bolt has taken me!”
Her fingers thin and gold rings slip
to meet the ground in black,
she collapses in plumes of coal
wind sweeps apart the ashes.

[Anonymous No.10382286]

>>10382191
I'm sorry your feelings were hurt, it was only meant as a cheerful glib.

[Anonymous No.10383020]

How do I get people to actually critique my posts?

[Anonymous No.10383024]

>>10383020
You just put it out there and hope someone does.

[Anonymous No.10383025]

I got a call about my former boss
who decided to withdraw from life
and call it off
I hanged up the phone
and went to make some coffee
and taught myself how to say hung up properly
for all the hung up hanger uppers
who can do nothing but stuff their papers
into the open throat of the soft soft cotton swab people
always cutting off the flow of information before the jet takes off

g-force has got me peeling my face back
if i had a stethoscope i couldn't trace that blood loss
and in fact i'd like to top it off by saying that
that i'd rather not
but that's not saying i lost the cause
ya silly silly whack job
whack me off
it's not the not
but a bakers dozen of the nice fluffy spearheaded
you're doin my head in, concave like a freshly kicked soccer ball
i'm tired of pointing fingers but my back's forced against a wall
with climbing vines always trying to make it to the top
well guess what
i'm at the top
and i will kick you off
if you're trying to climb at me, you picked a loss
look at all this you want to make me do
you don't want me to unleash the claws
i would simply rather not
look, it's not so simple
I understand these thimble games
I invented the sense of tame an animal must gain to remain a part of all this

sticks and stones
flick the remote my way and I will show you poetry
in a constant state of suspended animation
like that line
are you starting to get it
are you starting to fit it in
are you starting to take in the many forms of people spinning
their webs like silly string out a spider's ass
you've stepped into the tigers den

[Anonymous No.10383031]

>>10382194
Shitty and melodramatic, like most posts in these threads it reeks of someone who reads a lot trying to replicate a "sophisticated" style.

[Anonymous No.10383136]

'We are, the power of stone and grace of fire,
You know this is, and was, and will be
But of course we speak much higher than the shallows about us, we, their betters, they, our lessers.
So some time ago(A quite some time ago) a cold lot of them came before your equally exceptional forefathers, and spoke their stupid.

"We're come uh, we acome to bash, em, you!"

A stupidity that confused even they
Or more appropriately angered.

But your wise(tall, strong, handsome, etc.) fathers responded wisely by not quite responding.
But they were quite the brutes, these runts, as they'd reveal, they thought to lay ours low

"Come on and now die!"

And these low ones slosh approached from their lower grounds up towards our laughing ancestors, who I imagine cleverly replied,

"OHAHAHA, look at their shallow heads. Let's make them all the shallower with our stones!"(A thing they did)

And those about us can no longer even speak their stupid, they wander the forests and only succeed in making spittle.'

[Anonymous No.10383289]

>>10383136
what do you want critiqued about this?

[Anonymous No.10383420]

Non-german speaker with a german question here: is axe/axed something germans commonly use as a verb? Like in English, I could say "I'm going to axe that plan." or "That plan's been axed." Would it make sense, in German, to say things like "Ich werde diesen Plan axt." and "Dieser Plan wurde geaxt."?

[Anonymous No.10383611]

>>10383289
Oh shit I didn't think about that
I guess is it shit?

[Anonymous No.10383620]

>>10383611
I don't know what it's trying to do, what it's talking about, if it is a part or a whole piece. It's grammatically inoffensive, characterized in a way that is kind of annoying but which might be intentional. Can't say much about it.

[Anonymous No.10383638]

>>10372175
Buzzing low, humming really, three distinct Zs from the outer-glassy-shell of the handy. I think he’s driving, there’s road out front with the stripes, dashes and headlights. There are fossils lying around, scraps of glossy paper, crumbs. Messes are one thing, he thought, but three distinct Zs are another, and sure enough there was a bubbly message for his reading. What am I looking for, he asked himself. Fun, he replied. I’m looking for fun. Do you want me to pick you up tonight, bubbles. Crumbs, papery gloss and the window shear, there’s air leaking through the seals and into the auto itself, and because it’s cold, and the vents quit, it’s cold. I can see my own breath, he thought, he sipped on. Fun, she can laugh, I’m thinking, but she can cry, wait, no, she can only laugh. What am I thinking, she’s here in my auto and the bubbles on my handy. Bubbles, crumby and apholstry. I’ve read a few messages in my day, trust me, but nothing like this. I’m just looking for fun.

[Anonymous No.10383644]

>>10383638
Bodies amused him, because they are so bendy. She can dance too, a girl can do a lot of things, and it seems like they’re different, but how. Maybe girls bend, and they fit into bubbles, little blue handy bubbles, and they can smell the crumbs and see the papery gloss through the handy, and my bubbles are like the windows and they leak. Once I broke a girl, I thought she was bendier than she turned out to be, which was a real disappointment because bendiness is a wonderful thing in a girl’s life, and it’s something that I want to be a part of. Of course she was fragile, and she did bend an awful lot, but not near as much as I’d liked. You can smell crumbs. It’s not as though fractions are any less numbers than numbers, but you’re looking out the window and there’s a small building with a few standing round the intrance and it looks like they could be fun.
I’m pulling over to them but I’m not getting out under any circumstances, my handy Zs and bubbles, I’m coming, I’m looking for fun. Fun is what I’m looking for, yes. They look at you, what do you look like, do they like you or want nothing to do with you, one of them has a lighter. I think there’s something sharp between the now three of them, maybe a blade. Bubble, crumb. Glossy paper? would you like to see what papery gloss looks like up close.
Hatred, Zs, is what you feel for where you live, the town, county. I can see the town and county in them, I could feel it in the blade if there’s one to be felt. But was there internet here, the tiny building, there was certainly dark, and a lighter, there might be a blade, but I’m not getting out under any circumstances. Zs, what do you want me to do while I wait? Play with yourself.
Handy, there’s internet in the tiny building but we need the code if you want to connect.
‘Looking for fun?’
‘We looking.’
‘For what.’
‘Guy. Rudolph at twelve-thirty, that you?’
The tiny building swelled into a balloon house, and there were probably goofy mirrors inside that make us look topsy-turvy.
‘I’m Rudolph.’
‘You Rudolph huh, got the shit.’
‘Toss it over?’
‘Oss it.’
Crumbs, I drove away fast. I could’ve laughed if I weren’t so afraid, they are niggers.

[Anonymous No.10383691]

>>10383644
>>10383638
??? You're not looking for critique.

[Anonymous No.10383774]

>>10383691
I don't talk to people. Looking for thoughts, suggestions on the style, pace and prose, and, of course, for fun, because there's nowhere else to turn at the moment.

[Anonymous No.10383854]

>>10383620
>>10383620
It's not talking about anything, it's an old woman telling a boast story about their group that's I intended to be comical

[Anonymous No.10383921]

>>10383854
That is not apparent. But it's not bad.

[Anonymous No.10383932]

How do I describe someone angrily pulling a door forward-shut, from the outside? From the inside its easy to say they just slammed the door, but I think using that line to describe slamming it from the outside would make me visualize the same inside motion instead of a pull.

I guess it is an awkward motion though, so an awkward sentence might be the right way depict the motion anyway.

Yanked the door shut?

[Anonymous No.10383961]

>>10383921
Yeah I suppose It'll make more sense in context, although I haven't written any context

[Anonymous No.10384716]

>>10383031
How would you suggest I improve?

[Anonymous No.10385187]

>>10373148

Why are you writing from the first person in a fucking academic paper?

[Anonymous No.10385417]

>>10384716
Be more self aware, look at your writing and ask yourself "does this look embarrassing? Do I look like a pseud." Actually to be honest I was only half serious, I don't know jack shit about writing, that's just my face value view of this thread.

[Anonymous No.10386225]

hi guys i wrote an essay for my class some weeks ago and i want to improve but the instructor is crazy buzy all the time and chances are the feedback i'll get is minimal

anyone interested in helping me out? i thought i did a good job but idunno. it's on electronic surveillance. i'll post a link if there's interest to read & gib good advice :-/

<3 thankoo

[Anonymous No.10386231]

>>10386225
post it, maybe it will be read!

[Anonymous No.10386260]

>>10385187
I mean I shit on the guy too, but it's an intro phil paper. I get that 100 level courses are technically "academic," but come on anon.

>>10384716
I'm gonna tell you that the other anon's advice is not actually very helpful. It's a good way to catch a problem as a critic but not a good way to move past it as a writer. Go do things. Write about those things. Don't talk out of your depth, and practice presenting actual images instead of just jumbling up a bunch of abstractions.

[Anonymous No.10386274]

fee fi fo fum
i smell filthy yankee scum

against britain they bravely stood
never wond'ring if they should
and the common man though bravely fought
for his trouble was gifted nought
the fruits of american liberty
to the landed, moneyed gentry
dockhand bob and baker ted
the scrutineer counts not their head
and power is as power does
and voters vote for merchant's cause
thus the revolution dies
born from bitterness and lies

then came spainards, then came spain
then came indians, and their pain
of these mere imperial spats
know nothing, say nothing, speak in caveats
recite the old american lie
and ignore a destiny gone awry

the civil war needs not much prose
though i don't discount the nation's woes
instead i note with unbounded glee
that whether conferederate or yankee
they were all american, no matter their dress
so every corpse was one yankee less
and the only war the americans win
was against themselves, and more's the sin
that we might not see it's like again
for a yankee's loss is civilisation's gain.

and the only thing less noteworthy
than this stanza's contents
is the US contribution
to both world wars on the continent

thus we come to vietnam
a US victory of aplomb
which lasted all of thirty seconds
though many many yankees reckon
that though their strategic aims unmet
and though communism it beget
whose failure there is no equal
yet deserved a sequel
so we come to the middle east
where yankees fight the jihadist beast
and though their aims i'll not deride
their aim i'll criticise.
through yankee eyes the world is scary
of every civilian a terrorist wary
and so they bomb and bomb and bomb
with fire and fury they seek to calm
and when the hyrda rises still
again they seek to kill and kill
first in egypt, then in libya
next in jordan, then in syria

if you heed not what i write
you need only wait for the yankee's bite
for before that fat fuck's slavering maw
and despite yet losing every war
freedom to your land he'll bring
so shut your face and praises sing

>this is 1999 characters exactly and I wrote it to use on /pol/

[Anonymous No.10386383]

If someone's going down stairs and you say they reached the next floor, it sounds like they're going up, right? Advice for fixing this?

[Anonymous No.10386388]

>>10386383
He went down the stairs and stopped on the landing.

[Anonymous No.10386409]

>>10386388
That makes me see a ground floor though, and "next floor" doesn't work and "previous" sounds backwards. I'll save landing for later though.

[Anonymous No.10386418]

>>10386409
Maybe "he went down the stairs to the floor below."

I think below is probably a good option.

[Anonymous No.10386449]

>>10386231
yeah well it's for a senior hs english class. so i didn't know if it was going to be immediately trampled under the rug of esoteric, post-modern fiction in an assault shittalking

it probably will regardless so lemme find a link

[Anonymous No.10386478]

>>10386449
ok here it is! it's a tiny bit long (not really--6 or 7 paged) but if someone reads it and gives any thoughts at ALL i will be ur best fren. and/or slobber over your dick. it's up to you. i hope y'all enjoy!

[Anonymous No.10386485]

>>10386478
i am a fucking retard
https://pastebin.com/mN2tTmRK
sorry pls no bully

[Anonymous No.10386502]

>>10386485
>>10386478
>>10386449
Most pussywhipped shit I've read today outside of the ernest kline thread

[Anonymous No.10386535]

>>10386502
i am sorry let me instead speak in the language of /lit/

Greetings, /lit/. John Ashbery was bad. I'm glad William Gass died too, the pseud. I am writing a postmodern novella. My intellect is so monumentous it collapses into itself in formation of a black-hole that consumes all the inferior, shit-eating faggots on this board. Also, read my essay.

i hope that helped
but seriously i would love essay advice

[Anonymous No.10386543]

>>10386449
some okay sound in here honestly

>Her eyes jump up, falling again in frustration to her Amazon shopping cart, smile sending back an ‘I know’, and she sighs in a way that is almost sad—barely audible above the dense TV-drone.
Replacing "to" with "towards" would sound better, but it might make "frustration towards her amazon shopping cart" sound like just a motive and perhaps not a destination. "Down to" might work, I just feel like the syllables choke up when they shouldn't. It's at least clear up to the cart, but nothing after seems to follow. Did you mean something more like the following:
>>Her eyes jump up, falling again in frustration to her Amazon shopping cart; she smiles, sending back an ‘I know’, and then sighs in a way that is almost sad—barely audible above the dense TV-drone.
?
I also think the em dash is extraneous.

I'm too lazy to go through it all right now, but I figured I ought to point out that it's readable.

[Anonymous No.10386551]

It's a foreign language, so I'll translate it but it will lose meter and rhyme
It's the ninth sonnet in a crown of sonnets

IX

They would mix a poem with the smell of smoke
Afterwards you would hear ashen screams
While tall aspen loses its leaf
Sky unknowingly becomes the shape of fog

Milky flatlands are wishing of cows
Two bloody roots have come up
The hills melted in an udder face
And replacing milk started growing grass

The bird took in her mouth a bit of fog
Then barley spat two tulips
Which grew and stabbed the bird

Grabbed the stomach and stole a rock
Which would fall and stay still
Until it transformed into a painted seed.

[Anonymous No.10386555]

>>10386535
that is advice. dont write about soccermom SUVs and christmas amazons unless you have an angle

[Anonymous No.10386565]

[Anonymous No.10386574]

>>10382181
>>10382185
can someone read my wip story

[Anonymous No.10386583]

>>10386543
thank u! i think flow advice is really important. always working on smoothing things out so reading it is enjoyable
>>10386555
oh. i thought u were saying the request for advice itself was guilty of being pussywhipped. u replied so quick i didn't realide you'd read it. can u go into more depth about a good angle?

[Anonymous No.10386640]

>>10386583
ok dude. next time you want to write, sit yourself down and ask 'what the fuck do i want to say. why do i want to say it' when youve answered that then say 'what ideas are brought up by my 'point' or 'angle' because appealing writing comes from hard sought intention. dont think before you speak, think before you think

[Anonymous No.10386698]

>>10372194
>>10373130
>open thread
>it's this kind if critique

Author style

[Anonymous No.10386702]

>>10375019
>grammar mistakes matter

Not gonna make it

[Anonymous No.10386838]

>>10386698
>>10386702
>makes two posts critiquing critique instead of critiquing work
>unknowingly defends me from my own samefag self crit
>"yeah grammar doesn't matter ignore it"

[Anonymous No.10386902]

>>10386838
other gay man here, grammar is not that important as long as the words affect and can be understood.

[Anonymous No.10386916]

>>10386902
Having it isn't, but understanding it is. If you make a grammar mistake simply because you don't know any better, it's a mistake. It should be done either knowingly or not at all.

[Anonymous No.10386922]

>>10386902
>>10386916
-but in hindsight, the anon anon was replying to wasn't being helpful

[Anonymous No.10386924]

>>10386916
I can agree with that.

[Anonymous No.10386996]

>>10386640
did u finish the thing? i still need some more specifics. what specifically feels tangential to underlying purpose/irrelevant? the psychotic christmas mindset (soccer mom + other examples) is fed by sentimental vulnerability and routine, which has since been abused by technology's placement in out lives

at least that's what i was aiming for

[Anonymous No.10387024]

>>10386996
but why

[Anonymous No.10387162]

>>10387024
it's the thesis
:(

[Anonymous No.10387939]

>>10386260

Starting my freshman year of high school, writing papers in first person unless explicitly told to was grounds for the paper to be considered unacceptable for grading.

[Anonymous No.10388008]

>>10387939
Yeah. I see the use of first-person in academic writing as a pretty big faux pas. I would use first-person for really flourishy writing where I'm asserting my personality, but personality in academic writing shouldn't come from interjections of yourself but inferred from your observations and writing style.

[Anonymous No.10388119]

As time flew by and as I stood waiting,
waiting for her return, so we'd start dating.
The others' laughed and said she'd forgotten,
and I ignored them, but sometimes I'd listen.
As time moved faster and faster,
the more the words told to me would pester.
You never came back, and you forgot me,
but there would never come a time, when I would forget thee.

[Anonymous No.10388159]

is my poem good? I'm the as time flew by guy :D

[Anonymous No.10388176]

>>10388159
>>10388119
I like it. But there are some parts I think are weak:

the 'told to me' in
>the more the words told to me would pester.
I feel like you could come up with a better, prettier sounding line than this.

and forgot me/forgot thee in
>You never came back, and you forgot me,
>but there would never come a time, when I would forget thee.
doesn't make a satisfying conclusion rhyme imo

[Anonymous No.10388269]

Thank you so much, this is my first post here.
I'll work on making my poems sound less weak :D

[Anonymous No.10388315]

>>10388269
do it!

[Anonymous No.10388429]

>>10387939
I slept through my first three years of highschool so I can't comment there I guess, but I do know that philosophy classes don't really start until college for what are probably political reasons rather than intellectual-maturity/age based ones. From my experience, 100 level phil courses have always been kindergarten level classes with 50+ students. I'm being a little hyperbolic, but they could at leaat be dragged down to the middle school level. Then again, no reason for anon to do the bare minimum.

[Anonymous No.10388468]

Do you think a romantic comedy in the style of pic related would sell in the West? I'm going to write it anyway, I'm just curious.

[Anonymous No.10388470]

>>10388468
Nothing sells anywhere.

[Anonymous No.10388520]

a cream of day
like the moon
lonely, afraid
rises soon
whiling away
hours few
I wait new rays
to sink into

a dreaming there
readily
his silky hair
cotton tee
a body bare
here with me

my wretched hot air fantasy

[Anonymous No.10388539]

>>10388520
your one comma doesn't seem to separate anything, really. and "I wait new rays/to sink into" seems tacked onto that stanza. not bad tho

[Anonymous No.10388555]

>>10388539
thank u fren i agree. i'll smooth that up

[Anonymous No.10388569]

>>10388470
Words are a dying medium.

Just ignore that the internet, the biggest new thing in decades, consists almost entirely of writing.

[Anonymous No.10388673]

Rain pelted the sandy ground, thunder booming across the blackened sky. The desert wind howled around, like the death throes of a dying animal in the jaws of a predator. John wasn't sure if he believed his own eyes; Six days in the desert, three without water, and just as he was ready to pass out from dehydration, the yearly rainstorm happens to pass by?

The cold patter against his skin seemed real enough, making the ragged remains of his uniform cling to his body. He was truly beginning to miss his jacket. It may not have been comfortable, but it was insulated and waterproof. But no, he'd stripped it off after the crash, before he realized just how chilly these desert nights actually were.

A shiver ran up his spine, and he wiped the water from his eyes. If he had to hallucinate in his final moments, couldn't it at least be a bit more pleasant? He snorted. Although, if he was going to die anyway, he may as well indulge in his madness. He let out a raspy croak of a laugh, then cupped his hands in a nearby puddle, bringing a mouthful of water to his lips.

Strange. It didn't taste like sand, though he knew instinctively that it must be the case. Yet, instead of scorching heat burning his vocal chords, all he felt was the cool, refreshing flavor of water. He stared down at the puddle, and at the rain turning the endless sand into a flat plain of mud. It was almost as if...

John reached down and brought another handful of water to his lips. Carefully sniffing it, he detected nothing strange. When he opened his hands, it splashed across his lap, sending a wave of cold through his already chilly legs. If this were a hallucination, that couldn't have happened, could it? Cause and effect break down, you can hurt yourself without pain...

[Anonymous No.10388678]

>>10388673
He slapped himself across the cheek. It stung, though heavily numbed by the endless days of marching through the pelting sand, and the freezing... Rain.

John looked up at the sky and laughed, a raspy, yet full laugh, as the cold water gushed from the roiling clouds. Then, collapsing to his knees, he shoved his face in the puddle and began sucking water like a dog. Water, water, everywhere! The crown jewels of the world seemed like nothing compared to simple, muddy water!

Whatever came tomorrow, he didn't care. As he dunked his canteen into the murky water, he was happier than he'd ever been. Today, he was alive. With careful rationing, he made it to the coast, to Tobruk, and on a ship back home. He swore he'd never complain about the English drizzle again.

[Anonymous No.10388723]

-A Day Lost-

Never had the sight of dawn --
The sphinx: it synchs the breath of day
Neither by arduous heart nor pitchforked hay,
Nor the pock-marked wall with resin stains.
By piston and cog the hallowed log lays -
A present fog over the redwood’s grave

[Anonymous No.10388761]

On Eliza and 4chan's Orbiting Culture: A Case Study

4chan is a popular imageboard website where users can post anonymously. There are many boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, but orbiting culture is most prevalent on 4chan's "/r9k/" board. Orbiting behavior occurs when a person develops an unusually intense interest in another individual and closely monitors their life via social media or other means. The orbiter's emotional intensity is unusual because they have never actually met their person of interest and likely never will. Communication is limited to social media and 4chan but that's all it takes to develop a devoted following of orbiters.

To understand how this could happen, one must consider the culture of /r9k/. As an extension of 4chan culture, /r9k/ is esoteric, offensive, and filled with memes. The people of /r9k/ consider themselves social failures and commiserate by sharing experiences. Frequently discussed topics include sex (or lack thereof), suicide, and frustration/hatred toward women. The population is overwhelmingly male. Some users are "NEETs" (not educated, employed, or trained) and collect disability checks from the government. It's easy to see how a girl could attract attention in a place of such male desperation. In 2015, a teenage girl known as "Eliza" did just that.

Eliza took /r9k/ by storm. She was perfect for them: porcelain skin, unkempt raven hair, and stunning blue-green eyes. She was cute (but not exceptionally so), and had a very innocent appearance. She was interactive, too, spending a lot of time in chat rooms and posting hundreds of photos. Many robots (/r9k/ users) fell in love. Like them, Eliza had serious self-esteem issues. Unlike them, however, she was a 15 year old girl who stumbled across 4chan while playing NeoPets. Her life would change forever.

[Anonymous No.10388901]

>>10388761
the way you initially throw out "orbiting culture" as though the audience should know what it is is off putting. At least stick a "what's known as" in front of it.

[Anonymous No.10388983]

>She answered the door barefoot, wearing neon green shorts and a bright pink tee-shirt. The word “OUCH!” was printed overtop her chest in a tall white font.

Can I get away with it /lit/? It's slightly relevant and I didn't want to use the Pink logo. Also, describing font is hard.

[Anonymous No.10388990]

Any advice for how to write dialog for a character similar to Karkat Vantas?

[Anonymous No.10388994]

>>10388983
to be more clear I could write "The text “O U C H !” was printed overtop her chest in a tall white font.", but I can't make Word keep "O U C H !" as all one word when wrapping lines around the page.

[Anonymous No.10389100]

>>10388761
Stop, who gives a fuck
I do love her though :/

[Anonymous No.10389115]

>>10388761
>>10389100
It's a college paper for my sociology class

4chan is an adult site with adult content. Despite this, Eliza quickly adopted the culture and began making videos for her orbiters. She would speak in memes, mock 4chan, and even impersonate Elliot Rodger. Watching a teenage girl spew profanity would be off-putting to most, but to /r9k/ it was hilarious and only made Eliza more endearing. The flood of attention consumed her. Soon she was posting nudes on the internet. She was kicked out of private school. She began self-harming, all the while using drugs.

[Anonymous No.10389142]

>>10388761
>She was perfect for them: porcelain skin, unkempt raven hair, and stunning blue-green eyes. She was cute (but not exceptionally so), and had a very innocent appearance.
trying real hard to out yourself, aren't you?

[Anonymous No.10389148]

>>10389115
Jesus that is embarrassing, please choose a better topic. Don't let this become one of those memories which brings a dooming cringe.

[Anonymous No.10389191]

>>10388673
>>10388678
>the sandy ground
>the blackened sky
>The cold patter
>the ragged remains
>the cold water
>the murky water
>the [ADJECTIVE] [NOUN]

this is a boring pattern to read over and over again, especially at the start of >>10388673 where you use it twice in one sentence. Just doesn't read well in my opinion.

[Anonymous No.10389196]

>>10388569
Being paid for words IS a dying medium, books sell like shit. Words on the internet are free.

>>10389148
I second this I can't even read your shit without cringing.

[Anonymous No.10389210]

>>10389115
>It's a college paper for my sociology class
Awful idea anon for sure do anything else

[Anonymous No.10390196]

More ramen noodles

https://pastebin.com/1KKuuMKF

Salmon and eggs next

[Anonymous No.10390407]

Sirens can’t flood ear canals
rather they titter near the lobe
and gnaw at the loose drapings
‘Get off your ass’ they say.

You’d do well to torch the bloody place
and plug into the static
but the sirens would still peck if from a distance.
‘Attend attend!’ ‘Away away!’
Such is the wicked day –
you self-employed dust mite collector
bound to make a killing!

How to escape?
You know full well
clean your robes,
and keep vigil for the
next time you burn your ears with liquor.

[Anonymous No.10390450]

Part 1 of a two-part spookarama

[Anonymous No.10390453]

>>10390450
2/2

[Anonymous No.10390467]

>>10390450
>>10390453
Spookily ambiguous. Some good writing.
I felt the "womb of god" line was a little cliche-ominous, but maybe it has significance.

[Anonymous No.10390537]

>>10390196
>make a few changes before posting
>add a bunch of mistakes

[Anonymous No.10390770]

>>10390196
>>10390537
Good version: https://pastebin.com/wvNAN6wc

[Anonymous No.10390829]

>>10372175

This may sound disingenuous, but at my core, my problem is this: I possess a severe lack of faith in my ability to affect my surroundings. I cannot shake the overwhelming notion that life is a slave to probabilities, so that while my life experience is not planned or pre determined, it is only plausible for things to go exactly as they are going, which is to say, gruelingly slow and tedious. You could call it a really disappointing form of destiny. You could call it something else.

[Anonymous No.10390868]

>>10386551
can anyone critique

[Anonymous No.10391473]

>>10374158
Have you read The Consumer recently?

[Anonymous No.10391597]

>>10388520

https://soundgasm.net/u/s1rpanda/a-cream-of-day

[Anonymous No.10392435]

She bashfully says Oh Hi with authentic but not exactly untroubled surprise, her nose scrunched and her head twitching a nod, and he responds with an astronomically dumb Well Hey There! You can tell straight away: he’s gone too far. He leaned into the enthusiasm too much. Way way too much. He had over-cooked the entry, he had obviously been waiting. She now must surely realises he’s been aware of her presence the whole time. When he said it his eyelids practically peeled back into his apparently psychotic head and he didn’t really smile but instead sorta flashed his teeth like a pissy chimpanzee. Sweet baby Jesus Christ in Heaven above. A whole bunch of detailed social information suddenly unfolds within a fraction of that second, that second before either attempts to initiate the conversation, and the key bit of information is that the other person has next to zero interest in speaking with me.

[Anonymous No.10392454]

I have no mouth and I have to meme.

[Anonymous No.10392569]

>>10390868

I'm not a great reader of poetry but none of the metaphors jumped out at me. It's not quite cliche but it seems to rely on violent imagery to dilute some fairly bland nature prose.

I could be completely wrong though, I'm not even good enough at reading poetry to discern Emily Dickinson in a book of high school student poetry.

[Anonymous No.10393003]

>>10391597
thank you for providing cool british voice but now that i'm hearing it out loud w/ giggle at the end i hate it

you've got a remarkably effective curation technique there. add a giggle at the end and see how self-conscious the writer becomes

[Anonymous No.10393005]

It's funny when you wake up in the morning, I think. Your mind races to countless thoughts and ideas that slowly flood your mind as consciousness meets you. Perhaps you had a wonderful dream, perhaps some terrible nightmare that shook you in the night. The last thing that would ever hit you, though, is the realization of expiration dates. I don't mean this in the sense that you'd find in a grocery story, but rather in life in general. We are all born with expiration dates. In October of 2017 most people shared the same one. It was several weeks out, now, and racing towards them ever faster. The news of it hadn't hit yet, but there was a gut feeling everyone seemed to share. Call it a case of introspection hitting entirely in unison across the Earth. The entire globe, it seemed, had retired momentarily into oneness, into singularity of the self. It lasted only a day, but it was a beautiful day.
People called off work, refused to leave their house, and simply contemplated it all. There was no making up, there were no apologies, there were no arguments or debates or any other sort of conflict; There was only calmness.
And of all the beauty going on in the world at that moment, a man named Theodore felt it too. He wasn't a special man, not excessively intelligence, artistic, or special; On the contrary, he was just an average, if not less than, person. He had grown in relative innocence most his life, surrounded by modest wealth and joy. That had shattered later on as he become a young adult and he had secluded himself. He had on occasions found love and joy during this time, but had lost it as quick as it came. None of that really mattered though.
Tom was a sad man, though on the outside it seemed quite the opposite. He would build himself up and find a way to go through life only to be beaten down over some simple off-handed remark. Each time he found himself staring into the mirror. His eyes were big and brown and, as he berated himself as foolish, hopeless, and unlovable, he watched them die. It had become a routine, one he adopted when he was a younger man, and it seemed to calm him. Perhaps it was just making him colder, but he felt better at the end of the day nonetheless.

[Anonymous No.10393933]

Fuck, I wrote all my with a really cartoony cadence that makes me cringe even though it's YA

[Anonymous No.10394014]

Your approval isn't enough anymore.

Your respect isn't enough anymore.


The crowd I hid from, and in, has turned away from me; I still hear them saying my name.

[Anonymous No.10394021]

>>10393005
This is really good, the suspense was tangible. You should work on how you bring the characters in though, it feels a little shoehorned.

[Anonymous No.10394050]

>>10392569
thanks, appreciete anyone having read it

[Anonymous No.10394085]

>>10393003

then consider it as just one interpretation out of infinite perspectives; I am not solely the right person to appraise your work

[Anonymous No.10394099]

Is this prose tiring and over the top?

On the beach, a whole museum of oceanic curiosities. Stones, large and small, lay scattered in the dark sand. They lie amidst clams that jut out, half-buried. They go clattering into the bucket. Little pools of salted foam, and a lone crab that creeps along, plucking each leg delicately, as if playing a harp. A fish lies still. Face frozen blank, it stares out at the sea.

[Anonymous No.10394117]

The emperor is dead. I am trembling in my room. All the noise outside. So confusing. I am all made up and ready, as always. The emperor doesn’t call me, as always. He will never call me. That’s the difference. He is dead. He will never embrace me. I’ll never be the queen.

Screams of women. Shoutings in a foreign language. Mongols. Their language does not have the singsongy rhythm of ours. What they say is right. They sound angry.

The doorway curtain flutters. What comes in isn’t Ms. Song who is in charge of primping me. It’s a giant Mongol. Wild eyes. Long scraggly hair. I smell his musk from meters away. He is holding a blade in one hand. His abs are exposed. He says something in his language. He steps closer. This is the end.

He raises his blade and I close my eyes. The blow doesn’t come. I open my eyes. He is tearing my clothes with the tip of his blade. He is focused as if opening a wrapped present. He eyes meet mine. He mutters something. I don’t understand. He drops his blade and tears open my silk dress with his hands at one go. My upper body is naked. The air is cold on my skin. He pulls the torn dress toward him and my whole body is naked. I smell blood in the air.

Is he going to eat me like old people say? Then I see in eyes not anger or hunger, but lust. The familiar creepy eyes the palace officials gave me at every rare occasion I passed them. Then I realize he is going to embrace me.

“No,” I whimper.

He understands. He shouts something and picks up his blade from the table. I see anger in his eyes. He stinks of old sweat. My body is the emperor’s. But then I remember the emperor is dead. Whose is my body then?

It’s mine. And the Mongol is angry that I don’t give it to him. I have no choice. I spread my legs.

The Mongol drops his blade and undoes the armor covering his thighs and crotch. When it drops to his knees, a wild mushroom made of flesh is looking up at me. They say it looks like a snake but they are wrong. It looks just like the pine mushroom grandpa used to bring home when I was young. Thick and long with little to no umbrella. It’s just redder and filthier. A tangled mess of bush is covering its roots. The musk is unbearable. I feel like throwing up. The Mongol grabs my leg with his coarse hand.

I have just started growing hair down there. His and mine don’t look right so close to each other. Mine is for the emperor. But this is the reality he decided upon. The emperor is dead. He is alive.

The head of his mushroom touches my bottom lips. It doesn’t feel right. Panic assails me. He grabs my belly with both his hands and pushes in. I am dry and it hurts. The Mongol clears his throat, spits on his palm, and rubs it all over his dick. Then he pushes in. Gross. I close my eyes. The lubrication and his brutal force opened me. I feel him inside me. He pushes in once again. The pain is intense. I whimper. The Mongol laughs.

[Anonymous No.10394124]

>>10394099
No it is nice description. It doesnt belong to purple prose.

[Anonymous No.10394185]

The Requirements of an unfading summer can be boiled down into three main categories; work that doesn’t interfere with play, youthful outbursts of effervescence understood only by hapless souls that can bear to live in the present, and a spiraling love affair that paces along too fast for it’s own good and ends before it seemingly even began, likely because summer is the only season that can handle the magnificent flames of a passionate, shooting star romance. And as sure as theory, ethic and logic fall under the jurisdiction of philosophy, the three aforementioned infallible codes of conduct all lead to a common confluence known as memories. Because, at the end of the day, but through different means of action, the normal man’s greatest fear is that he lived a insipid, uninspiring life, waking up one day closer to 50 than 30 and realizing that the recollections he thought he held fond turned out not to be anything special at all