/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11706819]

ITT: Post the first line of your novel

>She lay among the swathes of mauve and myrtle, wrapped in cotton from head to foot, coins of speckled sunlight falling on the ground around her, the shuffle of a silver tide some way away the only sound for miles.

[Anonymous No.11706872]

"The last man in the world sat in his room.

There was a knock at the door."

[Anonymous No.11706896]

>>11706819
I like your line. The cadence of the first half is fantastic.
I, however, would adjust it ever so slightly. Put a period or a semi-colon after 'around her', and make the last bit an independent clause. You might need to add 'with' prior to 'coins' to make it work perfectly.

Overall, I would definitely continue reading.

---

My current project:
“‘Family ought to consider blood.’ Have you not often repeated these words to me, Father?”

[Anonymous No.11706907]

>>11706896
Well thanks. I reread it and instantly thought it needed a a semi-colon too.
Here's the first para:

She lay among the swathes of mauve and myrtle, wrapped in cotton from head to foot, coins of speckled sunlight falling on the ground around her; the shuffle of a silver tide some way away the only sound for miles. And then, distant, muffled steps through soft grass, approaching, with speed. The sound of breath exhaled. Closer now, and more furious. Someone lost, looking to be found. And then the sunlight is obscured by the figure, and she is in his shade. Breath replaced with a deep sigh. He looks down upon her with shining eyes, and the sky above him stretches out in a cobalt crease as cirrus whispers dance upon it. She is hoisted up, her face opposing his, cradled in his strong hands. Perhaps she too is dancing. Perhaps she too is found. He smiles and his face creases as the sky does and that is joy. And then he carries her, back the way he came, through fields and meadows, past rows of houses protruding like yellowed teeth from earthy gums and past shores spread with shingle, and there the sea, the mouth, parted lips, a silver smile.

What is the genre of your story?

[Anonymous No.11706915]

>A fart, a rancid wet resounding fart!

[Anonymous No.11706945]

John stood waiting for his toast to pop.

[Anonymous No.11706946]

>>11706872
more! more!

[Anonymous No.11706949]

>>11706819
>coins of sunlight
this has been done to death. remove it.

[Anonymous No.11706960]

Valhalla was as quiet as a grave and, for a moment, nobody moved.

[Anonymous No.11706969]

>>11706896
>>11706907
I see you added the semi-colon. Post-sc is a sentence fragment. If you want to keep the fragment use a period, not a sc.

I like the feeling of the paragraph, save for the jarring teeth-gym simile, but, then again, I do not know your direction.
---
Honestly, my project is just a run-of-the-mill medieval/fantasy piece occurring within a society which is quasi-idealic with my political sensibilities. Every character represents a different enlivened maxim (such as 'Beauty in thought and extension' or 'To love is to serve'), and they're sent through some rigamarole of love, politics, war.etc

To my own dismay, there lacks genuinely beautiful lines, but I do like this monologue from the King's first wife onto his second:

>"You are a strumpet bedazzled with purple! A harlot with gems! I did not brim with jealously when my husband became enamoured with you, for no girl could unnerve a lady. Yet, your puerile insolence, your vulgarities, your lack of regard for tradition, all of that irked me; when my good-hearted Lord in soft-headed gesture made you his wife, against the force of our ancestors, and my equal, against the force of reason, I began to blaze with a fury. Those hated sparks took up in wild ascent, and, ever since that day, as you well know, I brooded in anger. Yet, I am a patient woman, a forgiving woman, but, still, after each of your transgressions, after each succession of impunity, I stand here, in a rage hitherto unknown, overwhelmed by your disregard toward he that gave you so much.”

[Anonymous No.11706973]

>>11706819
As I watched the man put down a dozen donuts,two big bags of Doritos, one of those cheapo one gallon bottles of the generic brand fruit punch and a nasty old rotting banana on the convenient store counter, I heard him mumble to the clerk, "My girlfriend just had an operation, she can only eat certain things", and, smirking wryly, I thought to myself:
"Yeah, what did she have? a bong hit transplant?"

[Anonymous No.11707003]

Waking up to a loud crash rarely means something good is happening. It’s never “CRASH! Mom made pancakes!” or “CRASH! We decided to adopt a Golden Retriever!”

[Anonymous No.11707011]

>In the house, at an increasingly shrinking distance, you could hear the pounding footfalls careening through the darkened streets, mostly tennis shoes but also what must’ve been cowboy (at least those Bon Jovi rocker-types), work and combat boots, of probably dozens of stampeding teenagers and twentysomethings, urged on in an electrified, Satanic bloodlust by a roaring muscle car engine.

[Anonymous No.11707018]

>>11706819
>>11706907
>coins of speckled sunlight
First, you stole this (coins of sunlight falling) from the Deasy section of Joyce’s Ulysses, second, the sunlight itself is not speckled, the mosaic of light and shade created by it is.

[Anonymous No.11707033]

When the first kid died it was clear something had gone wrong.

[Anonymous No.11707044]

He awoke from life back into the slumber of a dream.

[Anonymous No.11707055]

>>11707033
I'm intrigued.

[Anonymous No.11707100]

>>11707033
When the second kid died, it was clear something had gone right.

[Anonymous No.11707112]

>>11707100
Keep going.

[Anonymous No.11707121]

It’s important, when faced with the end of the world, that no one knows you helped usher it in.

[Anonymous No.11707137]

>>11707121
Who do you think you are, Douglas Adams?

(I'm just being mean. It's a good line. Keep going.)

[Anonymous No.11707158]

Snow melt at dawn, revealing the bastion's remains and exposing the corpses of its former guest, resting in silence; except the one trying to remove the stone impaled into his chest and pinning him down. He sounded quite angry.

*this is a translation

[Anonymous No.11707179]

>>11707003
Holy...I want more!

[Anonymous No.11707182]

>>11707033
Great line.

>>11707121
Really solid line. I would remove 'in' -- it breaks cadence, and does not add anything.

[Anonymous No.11707204]

Waking up to a loud brap rarely means something good is happening. It’s never “BRAP! Mom made pancakes!” or “BRAP! We decided to adopt a Golden Retriever!”

[Anonymous No.11707220]

Sunset found her crashing in the grass, making pancakes. Every pancake was tastier than the last and smelled sweeter. By the time it was dark, she was feeding them to the golden retrievers.

[Anonymous No.11707221]

>>11706819
this is a fine sentence

[Anonymous No.11707228]

>>11707033
>>11707044
>>11707055
>>11707100
blessed

[Anonymous No.11707229]

>>11707033
So a grimdark retelling of 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff'?

[Anonymous No.11707239]

>>11706819
>Like every day after dinner, with a compulsive exactitude which liked to dress itself as control, at 11.30 pm, X did as always: he turned on his computer with the intention of searching for porn.

[Anonymous No.11707243]

>>11706819
>>>NATHANAEL CHRISTOPHER FULLER got born at Christmas Eve, during the year just prior that our'n own, and though it weren't come as nobody's surprise, not the old Doc's, not the Nurses', not Mom's or Pop's, and though he'd gotten born by healthy means, he cried, and to add he cried loud, and it seemt opposed against common rationale that he should done so.

[Anonymous No.11707284]

As I stood there, buried in the sand to the head and waiting for the ants to feast on my face, I remember fondly of my childhood and my first detention. ''Nero was a visionary, we should just burn it all down'' I said.
The teacher did not agree.

[Anonymous No.11707294]

South America has a drinking problem and that weekend at bernie’s seems to be coming to an end

[Anonymous No.11707306]

God died yesterday, and i was the only one at the funeral. Not even the priest showed up.

[Anonymous No.11707312]

On that night of the blood moon when stars fell from the sky it had been one thousand and thirty seven years since the dragons were driven away from the Kingdom Malnia.

[Anonymous No.11707336]

In darkness, i was to count to three. At two my brain was smoldered with hot lead.

[Anonymous No.11707359]

Start of my new fantasy novel:
>bloodrun, past Melchior and Rundroth's, from snarl of dragon to curve of wand, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Soditall Castle and Environs.

[Anonymous No.11707370]

Although the pursuer was persistent, no hunt was meant to last this long. At this point if one didn't find the other soon enough, they might not even have the strength to strangle each other.

[Anonymous No.11707381]

I hate TV. Didn’t like being given limited options. When the internet came, I was happy.

[Anonymous No.11707387]

Memes aside; the female sex really did invent to strangle me.

[Anonymous No.11707402]

The book. You have opened it up. Yes- YES! You are reading it now!

[Anonymous No.11707411]

Even if this is a private diary the idea of someone reading it, seduces me. I put down my thoughts cryptically but not cryptic enough so someone with a similar level of intelligence would not understand them. This isn’t a diary of events, but of pure thought, of articulation of anxieties, of artistic aspirations, and aftermath embarrasment.

[Anonymous No.11707437]

Allow me, dear reader, to lick the labia

[Anonymous No.11707792]

God tier:
>>11707306
>>11707336
>>11707402

Mid tier:
>>11707284
>>11707411

Trash tier:
>>11707312
>>11707359
>>11707381
>>11707387
>>11707437

[Anonymous No.11707845]

>>11707306
The only good one, except OP. The rest is fucking cringe material.

[Anonymous No.11707851]

>>11707845
Try this zinger.

Only one enemy remained; two if you counted God.

[Anonymous No.11707924]

>>11707792
kek

[Anonymous No.11707929]

Stately plump Buck Mulligan comes screaming across the sky surrounded by heads and bodies

[Anonymous No.11707946]

In my 20s i used to think that i would become smarter by reading. But then i realised that was for faggots like you. FUCK YOU! Get a life. The next 347 pages is written by my cat sleeping on my keyboard. jhdlkwwwwwhcfwjklddddddddddfhhhhhhhhhhhhhwellksfjerkhrfffffjrrkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

[Anonymous No.11707965]

>>11707294
I’ve never seen this photo of Ingrid before and I’m obsessed with her. Is this from a shoot or st her home?

[Anonymous No.11707966]

>>11707946
*turns to the next page*

[Anonymous No.11708235]

>>11707033
Dewey Cox: A Father's Story

[Anonymous No.11708251]

His penis tip flared from the masturbathon of days prior.

[Anonymous No.11708257]

>I didn't know that Molly Malone died in that song before I was maybe 18 or 19.

[Anonymous No.11708279]

>>11706915
where were you when bu got resurrected?

[Anonymous No.11708352]

Not a novel, just a short story idea:

"Nothing quite says freedom like smacking a wad of my own hard earned cash into my landlord's palm. The paper steroids turned the squirrely man into a downright decent human being, at least for one more month."

[Anonymous No.11708375]

>>11706969
>>11707845
I would love to hear your critique of my paragraph.

[Anonymous No.11708390]

>>11706819
This whole area used to be much more rural. There used to be an apple orchard we used to play in, hide and go seek, cowboys and Indians, or we’d just throw fallen apples at each other. Right around age 12 or 13, they brought in the bulldozers and they started putting the houses up. We tried playing on the construction site but they chased us out. They said it wasn’t safe anymore.

[Anonymous No.11708466]

>>11707018
Fair point about the speckled but I did not steal coins of sunlight from The Dead - it's used in Moon Tiger and The Pale King as well off the top of my head so is not unique to Joyce nor stolen by me

[Anonymous No.11708515]

>>11706907
I like this despite it's obvious Joyce worship.

>>11706915
In keeping with Joyce's liberal and intentional allusions and paraphrasings of previous works, I imagine he was intentionally making an allusion there, not plagiarism.

[Anonymous No.11708523]

>>11708515
Quoted the wrong post there in the second quote, but whatever

[Anonymous No.11708545]

>>11706819
On a quiet summer evening, the sun shone warmly, suspended between twin nimbus clouds. A tall young man rested his right arm upon a low garden gate, his eyes stretching up the road until it turned aside and hid behind a curtain of manicured hedges.

[Anonymous No.11708560]

>The little ship didn't make it.

[Anonymous No.11708566]

"Ouch."

[Anonymous No.11708602]

>>11706819
>all the try-hard purple prose in this thread
Yikes. Try writing sincerely for once in your life.

[Anonymous No.11708645]

>>11706819
>>She lay among the swathes of mauve and myrtle, wrapped in cotton from head to foot, coins of speckled sunlight falling on the ground around her, the shuffle of a silver tide some way away the only sound for miles.

way to rip off Ulysses Ch. 2 lmao

[Anonymous No.11708661]

>>11708466
>people after joyce stole it from joyce so it's okay

[Anonymous No.11708691]

>>11706896
A semi-colon doesn't provide different timing than a comma and serves neither improved syntactical purpose for the cadence nor grammatical accuracy. Adding "with" where you suggested it is solid advice. (The addition of 'with' only further degrades the usefulness of a semi-colon in that sentence, in fact.)

[Anonymous No.11708791]

>>11706819
I wrote out of sync. Can't decide if I want to open with the part that begins
>"I love you." I am not happy to hear these words.
or
>Morning mercilessly greets me. The sun batters my eyes through slit curtains, red pouring across the room along with orange and yellow - a sickly-sweet sherbet.

[Anonymous No.11708812]

>>11708791
>Morning mercilessly greets me. The sun batters my eyes through slit curtains, red pouring across the room along with orange and yellow - a sickly-sweet sherbet.
Not this, the alliteration (of two adverbs no less, one of which part of a cliche) is awful

[Anonymous No.11708822]

>>11708791
pick the first one because the second one makes me wanna load and rack six 12g shells, just in case i miss on the first, second, third, fourth or fifth shot

[Anonymous No.11708826]

>>11708812
>>11708822
So stuff the first one 3/4s of the way into the story and make the second one the opener, got it.

[Anonymous No.11708828]

>>11708826
reee...

[Anonymous No.11708849]

>>11708826

[Anonymous No.11708867]

It was late enough in the night that when I walked along the coupled yellow stripes in the middle of the road I did not have to worry about a car coming in either direction, and the fireflies gleamed here and there.

[Anonymous No.11708917]

>>11708352
+1

[Anonymous No.11708922]

>>11708867
Get rid of 'in the night'

[Anonymous No.11708938]

>>11706907
Beautiful, highly comex, great symbolism, absolutely unpublishable

[Anonymous No.11708974]

>>11706819
it's a nice sentence but i'd watch out for the overuse of the word 'of', don't develop a dependency on it to describe things visually.

[Anonymous No.11708989]

>>11707011
post the first paragraph? i like the atmosphere in this one, i'd love to read some more.

[Anonymous No.11708996]

>>11707239
it screams 'r/writingprompts' with that last addition, almost as if it's trying too hard.

[Anonymous No.11708999]

>>11706945
John stood waiting for his toast to poop.

[Anonymous No.11709001]

>>11707792
based

[Anonymous No.11709009]

>>11706819
>I didn't quite often(and notably, as papa would announce before those blacktie gusts he found his pleasure in impressing,'often enough') make it my business to thrust a homecoming upon my family, nor to so much as attach my presence upon the old house.

[Anonymous No.11709070]

>>11708661
Auden used wine-dark sea so I guess we should hate him for stealing from Homer, too.

[Anonymous No.11709091]

>>11706949
lmao look at mr. cliche-spotter here

[Anonymous No.11709116]

>>11708602
You're a fucking idiot if you seriously that prose can't be beautiful or that there's anything wrong with emphasising description - this kind of mindset is just ignorant even if you think it's enlightened, In Search of Lost Time wouldn't be half the book it is without the meandering and evocative prose, if it serves the story it's good and without context you can't know either way from a single sentence

[Anonymous No.11709153]

>>11709070
yes you should totally steal a famous line from the most critically-analyzed book on planet earth for the first line in your novel to show that you, individually, have nothing to offer.

brilliant!

[Anonymous No.11709156]

>He falls backwards as the lights flare pale against a black sky.

[Anonymous No.11709158]

>>11709116
He's pointing out the anons are trying to write meandering and evocative prose but failing. /lit/ tends to emulate the canon prose stylists and it come across as forced and artificial, like they're using a fake sepia filter on a digital camera

[Anonymous No.11709161]

>>11709091
he's right you know and you're wrong you know

[Anonymous No.11709175]

>>11708922
thank you anon, sometimes I get a blind eye to redundancy.

[Anonymous No.11709197]

>>11709158
You should steal as much as you can from other writers in order to develop a prose style of your own - no one magically develops their own prose style instantly. If someone posted McCarthy style prose here and McCarthy never existed I'm sure all these criticisms would be leveled at tit but because he's an author and respected it's accepted and respected. If some of the prose you refer to was in a published novel I'd bet any money you wouldn't see it as 'using a fake sepia filter on a digital camera'

[Anonymous No.11709205]

>>11709153
>three common words in a certain order
Yeah, nothing to offer what a plagiarist...

[Anonymous No.11709210]

>>11709009
>>11708867
>>11708560
good

>>11708545
>>11708257
>>11707387
>>11707381
>>11707336
middling

>>11707370
>>11707312
>>11707239
not good/needs improvement

[Anonymous No.11709223]

>>11709205
again, the line is famous because every jew on planet earth loves how it pokes fun at the big raciss. it's a big "NUH UHHH DEASY IS WEALTHY TOO SO MY NEPOTISM AND MANIPULATION IS OKAY AND ISN'T THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN BTFO GOYS"

nothing to offer

[Anonymous No.11709225]

>>11709197
>If some of the prose you refer to was in a published novel I'd bet any money you wouldn't see it as 'using a fake sepia filter on a digital camera'
I'd be wondering why a contemporary author is writing like he's in the 19th century rather than in a modern idiom.

[Anonymous No.11709235]

>>11709225
It's a satire? It's appropriate? It reflects a character and a period? Hundreds of possible reasons. Is The Sot-Weed Factor bad because it's written like Laurence Sterne?

[Anonymous No.11709256]

The tent swayed rhythmically, oscillating to the whims of the nimble currents of wind.

[Anonymous No.11709265]

Hitler was right and this book is the proof.

>it's a gay furry porn 'novel'

[Anonymous No.11709272]

>>11709235
>Is The Sot-Weed Factor bad because it's written like Laurence Sterne?
Kinda is yeah. It's derivative, it's been done before. The novelty of writing like that is pretty cool at first as a gimmick, but it's not really tenable which is why the book hasn't lasted. Barth is faking it, it's like fake vinyl sounds on an mp3, phony retro stuff that doesn't wash when you've tasted the real thing. And he's much better than the /lit/izens faking Joyce or Flaubert because they've conditioned themselves into thinking that's what good prose should be.

[Anonymous No.11709275]

>>11706973
Bravo, bravo. More! Encore!

[Anonymous No.11709282]

>>11707158
Do you mean "snow melt" like "snow melted" as in a verb or "snowmelt" like a noun? That doesn't read very clearly and depending on your intention it's grammatically incorrect in its translation.

[Anonymous No.11709301]

>>11709223
ruined it with the ressentiment at unfunny "erudite" pseud anti-semitism (i'm not against anti-semitism idiot, i know exactly what you're brainlet reflex response is, fuck you you fucking subhuman nigger masquerading as a 140 iq literary critic faggot)

[Anonymous No.11709339]

Scared at first, he was reluctant to utter lone whispers about his father's recurring ilness. His mother was more like a wraith or whispered thought who went from room to room only boding bad news, while the father felt more like a less abusive uncle. The money would soon stop popping as if by magic at the bank if they were to cross over, and outsider's eyes could already be felt creeping underneath his heels, with their little giggles and one-sided judgement causing feverish dreams afterwards. Being afraid scared him even more so than his urine stained and bloated lonesome life. It was time to end it.

[Anonymous No.11709350]

>>11709301
but that's what the line is

>On his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung spangles, dancing coins.
>"""""WISE""""" SHOULDERS
>DANCING COINS

it's obviously backhanded and poking at deasy's own wealth. it comes right after deasy bashes the jews (based). it's pretty obvious actually, i don't get what your problem is

i'm 123 IQ

[Anonymous No.11709361]

>>11707929
breddy gud. would read.
mine:
>All really pretty girls have been going to sleep late, Maman noticed today, or maybe yesterday, I don't know.

[Anonymous No.11709383]

aaron : hey, ,man, i just like, read "thus spoke zarthustra" by nietzsche,
that shit really got in my head, god is fucking dead man, and we the ones who killed him
jamie: I mean shit, that's pretty heavy shit
aaron: yeah like, fuck it, im going full nihilismo my dude, time to kill some prostitutes.
jamie: lmao

[Anonymous No.11709436]

Anons, no matter what anyone in the thread says, you've all taken the time and effort to create something and that's amazing and beautiful in and of itself. Whether it's just a dream or a hobby, the act of creation is not something done easily and I'm proud of each and every one of you.

[Anonymous No.11709449]

>>11709350
Nothing, just i don't like you and am signaling this and if we were plains indians i'd scalp you because you're a threat to me and my interests and are an annoying weak male. That's all. There's nothing deep going on, no neuroses. Just simple hatred. I fucking hate people like you without any good reason or defense for it. Can you, a fascist, accept, that I, an aggressive internet lunatic, want you dead for no good reason? I thought this was like the one thing you all made recourse to?

[Anonymous No.11709500]

>>11709449
are you this crazy bipolar guy from yesterday >>11700251

if you are, you do indeed have a neurosis! you're one crazy motherfucker! i'm one of the guys who was responding to you with frogs

boo hoo the goyim figured out the majority of MSM CEOs/their parent company CEOs are ethnically jewish, shut it down

and i'm not a fascist but there should just be a social movement to shame them out of their positions in countries other than their own without killing. shitler already fucked whites over with that one. he just HAD to go and kill some like a retard

[Anonymous No.11709809]

>>11709436
What is art anon?

[Anonymous No.11709899]

>>11706819
I've got 3. Blocking out character names to avoid drawing attention to myself.

>At six thirty-seven on a cold February morning, Anon — a high-school dropout due to start the early shift at a sandwich shop called Anette's — texted his fiancé goodbye, climbed over the snow-dusted railing of the Lake Street bridge, and jumped into the half-frozen water below.

>Chad dreamt of his high-school sweetheart.

>Jezebel had anxiety.

[Anonymous No.11709903]

>>11709449
>if we were plains indians i'd scalp you because you're a threat to me and my interests
pretty funny
pretty autistic
get well anon

[Anonymous No.11710060]

>>11709272
This. All these people are massive failures because they don't realize you can't honestly write 19th century prose nowadays. It's comically anacronic. It's the telltale sign of the mid-wit who only read the classics and thinks everyone should aspire to write like Proust or Joyce. Well, no, sweetie. The times of those autists are long gone, and their verbose and purple prose feels incredibly artificial when is imitated by a 20-year old who clearly hasn't mastered the craft. The funny thing is that there are a couple of good opening sentences in this thread, but they are the ones that these morons consider "bad" or "cringy" (because - surprise! - they don't read like their beloved canonical dusty old books), while the sentences considered "good" are, unsurprisingly, pathetics attempts at replicating Proust and/or Joyce. Grow the fuck up, buddies. We already have Proust and Joyce, and there is no way you're gonna beat them in their own game. The fact that you morons apparently didn't realize this simple truth (which would take you to the next level, the real task of a young writer in our times: trying to achieve a prose that feels sincerely contemporary without being shitty) speaks volumes about the intellectual level and commitment to the art of writing in this board. This is the kind of writing people do when the most recent book they read dates from 1939, and, make no mistake: it shows for those who know.

[Anonymous No.11710219]

>>11710060
can you critique >>11707370

[Anonymous No.11710254]

>>11710219
I think it's a good opening sentence. It's sweet and short, it doesn't jerk itself off unnecessarily with MUH EVOCATIVE AND MEANDERING PROSE, it doesn't waste time on non-essential bullshit but instead jumps straight into the action. It intrigues the reader and makes him want to keep reading to find out who these people are, why the hunt is taken so long, and why they want to kill each other. But of course most of these morons would send you to le /r/writingprompts (as someone already did with another good opening sentence) because you're too "simple". Ignore the purple faggots in this thread, you're doing fine.

[Anonymous No.11710269]

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In the end I destroyed the heavens and the earth.

[Anonymous No.11710343]

>>11710060
Nice. Who is writing today that you think is doing it right?

[Anonymous No.11710409]

Not really a novel but more of a short story
>The heartbeat of the heat pulsed with the cicadas' call. Mechanic sounds and rythym from an organic source. The boy stood alone in the tall grass. His flesh itched, the insects took turns biting him, and the hot sweat glazing his skin did not do much to help. The sun baked the dust, man and earth alike.

>>11706819
Total joyce worshio but i love joyce and you did a pretty good job
>>11707011
I like it
>>11707033
This is the kinda hook creative writing teachers get a boner for. Good one. >>11707284
interesting
>>11707306
gay
>>11707336
Nice

[Anonymous No.11710465]

>>11710254
Thanks anon, I appreciate it.

[Anonymous No.11710485]

>>11706819
>Owls, in a sense, are not human. It’s commonly known that they forego the human experience in favor of the owl experience

What do you guys think?

[Anonymous No.11710504]

>>11710485
I'm not sure if everything I read reminds me of Douglas Adams because I just read his books

but this reminds me of his writing a bit

[Anonymous No.11710507]

>>11710060
>EVERYONE MUST WRITE FOR -ME-!

[Anonymous No.11710520]

>>11710343
I think these are the best:
>>11707033 (kinda cliché but still good)
>>11707336 (same as before)

>>11707239
>>11707381
(these two people apparently are the only ones in this thread who live in the 21st century and aren't afraid of writing about it)

>>11708251 (I know this is probably a joke, but I don't give a fuck: greatly underrated; the nature of the sentence coupled with the somewhat formal "of days prior" is hilarious; a great example of the tone one should adopt when writing somewhat archaic prose nowadays. This guy was ignored because he isn't a try-hard trying to sound "serious" and "literary".)

>>11709899 (notice how effortlessly he introduces and characterizes the main character without resorting to BIGBOI WORDS; great use of dashes)

[Anonymous No.11710525]

>>11710504
Interesting. Thanks for the feedback. I haven't read Douglas Adams for over 15 years. I wonder if his style just sort of seeped into my subconscious writing style because I read him when I was in middle school

[Anonymous No.11710529]

>>11706819
snap

[Anonymous No.11710532]

>>11710485
I like it, but maybe cut the "in a sense" for some other dependent clause. Maybe like "as it turns out" or something

[Anonymous No.11710544]

>>11707033
fuck the responses to this. this shit sucks.

[Anonymous No.11710554]

Fingering the hole in his pocket could not bring back the ring.

[Anonymous No.11710557]

>>11707239
stop being so gross

[Anonymous No.11710562]

>>11710532
Thanks. What about "as a general rule"?

[Anonymous No.11710569]

>>11710520
I meant more like...successful writers not anons who are writing appropriately for the generation.

[Anonymous No.11710575]

>>11710525
Forgot to also mention I do like it anon, owls are underrated
have a good night

[Anonymous No.11710579]

>>11710575
Thanks friend, you have a good night as well

[Anonymous No.11710624]

>>11706819
meaningless, pretentious, idiotic...
swathes? What? What is mauve? What is myrtle? Do you think I'm a botanist? Do you think I like reading you pretend to be one? Coins of speckled sunlight, again, refers to nothing, at least nothing real. This whole insipid passage makes me see nothing, makes me feel nothing.... it's meaningless.
>>11707306
stupid
>>11707312
probably good if I was autistic fantasy reader
>>11707336
durr
>>11707370
hate this kind of thing
>>11707381
good
>>11707387
not even grammatically correct
>>11707402
incapable of original thought
>>11707411
can't even master basic grammar, otherwise would be interested
>>11707437
vulgar
>>11707946
duhhh
>>11708251
vulgar
>>11708257
ok
>>11708352
kind of ok
>>11708390
stop ape mccarthy, he's not even that good, you just like him because he's dry and you think that means he's """literary"""
>>11708545
avoid adverbs. eyes stretching? Like in a cartoon? also nothing is going on here, nothing is being displayed or symbolized... jusss purple prose, m'nigga
>>11708791
both awful, I'm sorry. the first is trying to be cute, the second is trying to be beautiful prosewise. Don't try. Be.
>>11708867
almost good, too many self-consciously literary touches though
>>11709156
what lights?
>>11709256
so many words to say so little
>>11709265
please stop trying to be provocative
>>11709339
Don't post the whole paragraph, bub.
>>11710060
>anacronic
>mid-wit
but anon, these words don't jibe with the modern day either
>>11710269
DUH
>>11710485
meh... doesn't really mean anything. I know you want to start a quirky little hmm piece with this but it's not getting off the ground. Much like a flightless owl, actually...
>>11710554
dats pretty good

[Anonymous No.11710632]

Daylight was streaming in through the porthole.

[Anonymous No.11710633]

>>11710569
I honestly think the best writers whose writing style feels authentically contemporary is, ironically enough, the not-so-contemporary-anymore postmodernists. Guys like Pynchon, Wallace, Gaddis, Bolaño, Cortázar, you name it. Of course, a lot of their stuff sounds kinda dated today because they made abundant use of the pop culture of their time (and sometimes they go too far with the maximalist meme), but it is that engagement with their time, alongside the fragmented narrative structure which takes a gigantic shit on muh linear 19th century novels, what makes their novels reflect much more faithfully how disorienting it feels like being alive in the 21st century. THESE are the kind of guys that one should look up to nowadays.

[Anonymous No.11710634]

He shaded his eyes from the harsh polar shine and squinted at the distant horizon.

[Anonymous No.11710638]

Oh if I could only see him sparkle and shine.

[Anonymous No.11710641]

I was journeying along the road to the

Happy Country
& the
Land of love & Plenty

when suddenly a horde of demons interrupted me, crowding around as close as they dared and whispering at me in harsh tones through their sharp little teeth: “If only you’d been ___________ __ _ _______ ____, you wouldn't have to suffer the indignity of wandering along this barren road to that imaginary country whose archway’s shadow will never slide across your furrowed brow—no, /never/, not even in a billion years.”

[Anonymous No.11710645]

My Uncle, the traveller, was standing by the window with his hands together behind his back, raising the heel of his right boot and clomping it back down onto the wooden floor with a certain irregular rhythm, like a horse.

[Anonymous No.11710659]

“Mmm…” the catgirl growled at me, her eyes flashing with the premonition of lascivious thrills. “You'd better be careful, or I’ll eat you up like a potato chip!”

[Anonymous No.11710666]

>>11710624
>hate this kind of thing
Please explain anon
criticism wanted

[Anonymous No.11710667]

>>11710520
>effortlessly
>great use of dashes
Aw thanks.

[Anonymous No.11710683]

>>11706907
I think you've achieved a style nicely, and the other anon likes it, but I'm not a fan of all the adjectives. And I think "she" is a dull word to open a novel. I don't mean to say it's bad, but I don't like it.

[Anonymous No.11710689]

>>11710666
It sounds like something from a modern fantasy story. Like a fantasy story where they're not afraid to have blood and sex and FUCKing.

So I do admit I was overly harsh, that's a genre and it deserves respect; people like it, so who am I to butt in and wag my ugly crooked finger?

Ok, setting that personal, subjective thing aside, I do have a somewhat more objective complaint... I think that this is overloading the reader with too much, too soon. You're setting up this vague thing and I don't even know what's going on. Two people are chasing each other and trying to choke each other? Maybe this isn't a necessity, but I'd like to start with something that is either more concretely detailed (more show), or more abstract and non-detailed (tell). Do you know what I mean? Either show me a piece of qualia or roll out the story like Grandpa would.

That's just me. I think this would work alright in the midst of a story, but it's wrong for the very first gasp.

[Anonymous No.11710696]

Why is every line ITT en medias res

[Anonymous No.11710697]

>>11710689
Thanks anon I appreciate it :)

[Anonymous No.11710704]

>>11710689
Is the difference between modern fantasy and classic fantasy literature just vulgarity?
Don't read fantasy much

[Anonymous No.11710705]

>>11710624
I'm >>11708791 and I wasn't trying to be either. You're actually the very first person who got something out of either those sentences other than exactly what I wanted them to, which probably means I'm at least an okay writer and you're likely pretentious as all hell. Then again, you're criticizing someone for using the word "mauve" seemingly because it's an uncommon word - as if there isn't an audience that reads just to find fancy words - so I know you're a fucking idiot.

P.S. I don't care that you think my writing is bad, I do care that you carry this pretense of authority on writing when you're demonstrably a jackass.

[Anonymous No.11710720]

>>11710696
Because it is usually a more exciting way to start. Like how action movies in the 60s started with Steve McQueen literally waking up in the morning, whereas now they will start with a gunfight

[Anonymous No.11710726]

It started with a penny.

[Anonymous No.11710765]

>>11706973
Ha! Nice. Keep going.

[Anonymous No.11710768]

>>11710705
>as if there isn't an audience that reads just to find fancy words
if there is, there shouldn't be!

Look mac don't take it so personal. Few people write anything at all. Just doing that means you've got an inkling of the magic touch. Especially if you keep going after the insults of the world assail you. KEEP TO GRIT. KEEP TO STICK TO IT IVENESS

[Anonymous No.11710772]

>>11710726
>it started with a penny
>it started with a wish
>I go to the lake every day
>But I've never caught a fish

Pretty interesting anon

[Anonymous No.11710788]

>>11710768
>there shouldnt be
It's nice that you're trying to be nice, but you're too pretentious for me to respect anything you have to say. People can read for whatever reason they want. No one in all of recorded human history has invented an irrefutable argument for why anyone needs to take things seriously, including you. Especially you.

[Anonymous No.11710803]

>>11710788
what is pretentious about saying that people shouldn't write overwritten flowery garbage? That's like the opposite of what pretentiousness is. If anything, I'm too lowbrow. Also wtf why are you getting angry at me? If anything you should pity me... I'm a hater—& what a hungry life it is we have! kept alive by nothing but morsels of hatred; never a bite of love. Ah...

[Anonymous No.11710855]

>>11710772
what is this from
this is nice

[Anonymous No.11710865]

>>11710855
I just made it up. Thank you for the kind words. I used to play in a band that a good number of people on these boards might have heard of. I played guitar and wrote most of the riffs and frameworks for songs, including a lot of the lyrics, I still like to write when I have a little inspiration.

[Anonymous No.11710884]

>>11710865
I googled it because I thought it had to be from somewhere, you should do something with it.

Hope you have a good week anon

[Anonymous No.11710888]

It's nice to be able to read everyone's sentences and responses.
I'm new to literature and can't exactly tell what makes the medium special and what makes writing good but it's nice to hear some anons opinions.

[Anonymous No.11710897]

>>11710884
Hey thanks man, I really appreciate the good wishes. I hope you have a good week as well!

[Anonymous No.11710938]

>>11710803
>Too lowbrow
>Ends post with "Ah..."

[Anonymous No.11711001]

Her mind was replaced by a warm hole through the back of her head.

[Anonymous No.11711028]

>>11706819
Charles Vincent had never been worth more than 500 dollars to anyone at any point in his life, and as his body was left to rot in the hills northern Nevada, it wasn't even worth that in the end.

[Anonymous No.11711030]

The bowls were stacked high and inside they were stained with old lunches and apathy.

[Anonymous No.11711097]

He folded the newspaper closed, and looked up at his daughter in the high chair and said in a whisper: 'I think that something has gone very, very wrong.'

[Anonymous No.11711106]

>>11707033
Wtf is up with the responses, it reads like straight out of this infamous reddit thread

[Anonymous No.11711130]

Trayvon looked deeply into his father B-Money Hussein's eyes, they were bright red from all the crack cocaine and marijuana he had been smoking. "Yes father, I will do anything to help destroy the white race and American values. Allah Ackbar."

[Anonymous No.11711134]

This board is embarrassing desu. Two out of three people fell for Frankposting (God died yesterday) and thought it a good opener

[Anonymous No.11711166]

>>11706819
Pic very much related. This is like a third tier Joyce sentence, would need a better surrounding cast of sentences to read well.

>>11710624
>What is mauve? What is myrtle? Do you think I'm a botanist?
Sigh, the kids are illiterate.

>>11708390
Says too much in one sentence, assuming this were for a hypothetical novel.

>>11710803
>what is pretentious about saying that people shouldn't write overwritten flowery garbage?
Because some people enjoy flowery prose. Some people enjoy terse, dark satire. Some enjoy plotless confessionals. Some people enjoy gratuitous footnotes and pop culture references. Some people enjoy character studies. It's pretentious to have a superiority complex over someone using a certain style. This is not to say you can't criticize, but if the criticism boils down to "you are writing a certain well known style that I personally don't want to see written any more", it's pretty empty masturbatory self congratulatory criticism. As further example, if someone is intentionally using Shakespearean styles, then you ought to critique both the approiateness of its usage in the piece and the success of its usage, not throw a fit because they're intentionally trying to use Shakespearean style. The same goes for sounding like Joyce or Proust.

[Anonymous No.11711206]

>>11709091
In the movie "Prick Up Your Ears", Orton corrects Halliwell as he types the fatal reply to the sleuthing librarian:

"'Furnished' is better than 'provided', it's more municipal in tone."

Last week I noticed in a biopic about Orton that the letter uses "provided". So the filmmakers used a little poetic license to overstate the teacher/student role-reversal that developed during their time together. Yet I often imagine the film's version of Halliwell on the other side of the screen, making the pedantic correction, hovering bald over a shirtless figure hunched at his Remington...

[Anonymous No.11711262]

>>11706819
As i reached my climax, and the bitch sucking on my knobber worked her tongue furiously around the head of my throbbing mushroom, the events of the past 3 weeks flashed through my mind at the pace of a bullet train. Had I known 3 weeks ago, that I would be here now, coming onto my cousins tonsils, I never would have shot that disabled motherfucker through his temple.

[Anonymous No.11711264]

>>11711262
2nd sentence is pretty good

[Anonymous No.11711266]

>>11706819
>some way away
Delete that and I'll give it a star.

[Anonymous No.11711269]

>>11711001
> 3 edgy
> mind == brain

[Anonymous No.11711274]

Anon stood at the edge of a wide pit, looking down. Her heart sank as her eyes followed the steep muddy walls to the frigid and filthy water at the bottom. She hated the pit, but didn't have a choice.

[Anonymous No.11711280]

>>11706969
This reads like the narrator saying it, rather than the character. Can see the omniscience behind it

[Anonymous No.11711310]

>>11711166
>then you ought to critique both the approiateness of its usage in the piece and the success of its usage
That's exactly the point people are making. Anons are using the retro styling, not because it's appropriate or necessary, but because they think that's what 'good writing' sounds like, and it comes across as fake and forced because it is fake and forced. If I wrote in the language of Chaucer or even Beowulf you might be impressed at first, but then you'd think Chaucer did this better because it was more natural to him, and me imitating him is derivative and gimmicky. And it's the same with imitating Joyce etc.

[Anonymous No.11712197]

>>11711310
>because they think that's what 'good writing' sounds like
is it wrong to think that? Again you are committing the exact same mistake I was pointing out. You're pretentiously determining what another person has to think good writing is based solely on its style and inspiration.

>you'd think Chaucer did this better because it was more natural to him
Assuming, yes, you wrote like shit in Chaucerian voice, then sure. If you did it well, then sure, what's the problem. Could be interesting to read. However...

>me imitating him is derivative and gimmicky
I wouldn't think that because I'm not some smug retard who uses words like "derivative".

This is all a part of the postmodern tendency of thinking everything has to exist in some always evolving cultural zeitgeist. Things are allowed to be genred, or stylized, or follow a tradition. You're well within your right to prefer reading contemporary lit that conforms to the ever evolving cultural zeigeist, but again that is a personal preference and not some universal standard of quality. In almost every single epoch of human history until the twentieth century it was considered fine and good to reference and use previous styles and traditions. It didn't suddenly become wrong just because postmodernity has by and large become entirely self-aware and self-obsessed with its own being.

[Anonymous No.11712271]

>>11712197
>In almost every single epoch of human history until the twentieth century it was considered fine and good to reference and use previous styles and traditions
No, all arts have constantly evolved and changed. Rafael didn't paint like the medievalists, Shakespeare didn't write like Chaucer, Beethoven didn't compose like Bach. The law of diminishing returns is a real thing, and all great artists have innovated and expanded their form rather than slavishly follow the past
It's likely you're just defending your own thin imitations of better writers because you aren't capable of developing your own style.

[Anonymous No.11712967]

>>11706872
The last baby seller sat polishing his shoes. A pair still unused.

[Anonymous No.11713165]

>>11706819
A man walks into a bar. He's greeted by an American, a Mexican and a Greek.

Im a comedian

[Anonymous No.11713206]

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT GOOD PROSE IS! Can someone point out the good ones and tell me why they are good?

[Anonymous No.11713214]

>>11713206
kafka-kleist-nonmeme joyce and nabokov

[Anonymous No.11713241]

>>11712271
I can point you to a thousand artists who did ape other styles though - sometimes using previous form allows you to improve the impact of the content

[Anonymous No.11713255]

>>11713241
>I can point you to a thousand artists who did ape other styles though
Well yeah the majority are hacks. Many are called, few are chosen etc

[Anonymous No.11713258]

>>11713255
What a load of drivel

[Anonymous No.11713402]

The rain was relentless and the street was deserted and the stranger's hand was edging ever close towards my wife's breast.

[Anonymous No.11713406]

>>11713258
Ok dude, just point out the great artist in any field who was entirely derivative without any actual originality or imagination of their own.
You paint like Mondrian or write like Joyce 100 years ago you're a genius. You do it now you're a hack.
Sing like Elvis in the 50's you're a legend. Do it a few years later and you're Shakin' Stevens. (not to imply that Shakey isn't a fucking legend himself)

[Anonymous No.11713411]

>>11713402
*closer

[Anonymous No.11713426]

>>11713402
His charcoal black fingers smothered the pink of her nipples.

[Anonymous No.11713446]

>>11713426
Originally I did envisage that character as a black personal trainer, but I thought that was a little bit too obvious so I made him a white businessman instead

[Anonymous No.11713458]

>>11713446
I assumed it was a gritty DH Lawrence type thing about tough mining folk and their sensitive hearts

[Anonymous No.11713459]

He was too big to fit, but that didn't matter.

[Anonymous No.11713474]

>>11706819
>yep, she bit my dick off.
it's about a guy who got his dick bit off

[Anonymous No.11713526]

>>11713446
Can we all work to make a BLACKED short story anthology please?

[Anonymous No.11713569]

>>11713526
ironically, though, r-right?

[Anonymous No.11713607]

>Yo, listen up, here's a story, about a little blue man that lives in a blue world.

[Anonymous No.11713624]

>>11713569
yeah.....ironically.......

[Anonymous No.11713881]

I sat down outside carrying a grapefruit orange with a cut hole just big enough for my little dickey to fit in.

[Anonymous No.11714044]

>>11713426
>>11713446
Don't like it.

>>11713458
Now I like it.

[Anonymous No.11714595]

bump

[Anonymous No.11715244]

Bump

[Anonymous No.11715825]

>>11712271
But the non-flowery style being praised in this thread is original? Millions of books have this contemporary style of writing.

None of the writing in this thread has a unique and creative style. Most of the published literature you've read does not have a unique and creative style.

[Anonymous No.11715830]

>>11710624
so little time and yet so much life left unlived

[Anonymous No.11715839]

"I don't write.

I'm only here for the memes and the pseuds."

[Anonymous No.11716174]

Fellow writers, is this a good line?

"The world is a kiln and we are its clay"

[Anonymous No.11716176]

And so it begins.

[Anonymous No.11716222]

>Unusually for a story of this sort, you should Read the first letter of every paragraph

Then it spells out 'ur mum lol'. It's a short story

[Anonymous No.11716225]

>I woke up in an unfamiliar bed in a familiar place.

[Anonymous No.11716240]

*GLASS SHATTERS* EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[Anonymous No.11716267]

>>11716240
Very avant garde, I like it

[Anonymous No.11716305]

>>11706969
>toward he that gave you so much

Should be “toward him”, if you want to be grammatical

[Anonymous No.11716311]

>>11707011
No offense but this sucks ass

[Anonymous No.11716314]

>>11716240
GET SO FUCKING DARK IN HERE

[Anonymous No.11716316]

>trying to make your first sentence edgy or otherwise out of place because you're obsessed with the idea of a hook
I'll stick to my opening up with a description of the scenery

[Anonymous No.11716325]

>>11716316
>Presently, he sits on a trail, looking out towards the field.
>"Nature sure is beautiful, today."
>"Yeah," says Jake.

Post your own comfy opening lines

[Anonymous No.11716334]

>>11716325
That actually is quite nice, with how simple it is.

[Anonymous No.11716340]

>>11716334
Thanks friend, I wrote it just now. Maybe I'll continue and develop it into a comfy short story

[Anonymous No.11716345]

The grass was as green on one side as it was on the other

[Anonymous No.11716348]

>>11708602
Yikesposter get out

[Anonymous No.11716350]

>>11716345
>The Grass ain't greener
>The wine ain't sweeter
>Either side of the hill

>Rose knew those lyrics well

[Anonymous No.11716375]

>>11711166
>Sigh, the kids are illiterate.
imbecile, I know what they are, the point is that nobody would naturally reference them. it's straining to be smarter than you really are, and it's painfully obvious to everyone who reads it that you aren't that

[Anonymous No.11716377]

>>11710254
Lmao what a Steven King tier fag you are

[Anonymous No.11716387]

>>11710485
WOW quirky cross post to reddit please

[Anonymous No.11716421]

>>11710485
This dumb quirky writing combined with you posting a random picture of a woman's face makes me hate you on a personal level.

[Anonymous No.11716462]

>>11710485
>Owls, in a sense, are not human

But owls in literally every sense are not human anon

[Anonymous No.11716477]

I sat at the back left corner of the classroom. Perfect for avoiding having to talk to people but not ideal for an escape route.

[Anonymous No.11716567]

>>11716387
>>11716421
>>11716462
>LAst night, people liked it
>Tonight, people don't.

Hey, that's just the way it goes on the ol' 4chans

[Anonymous No.11716644]

"The Storm wanted everything to be painted black. And he had the brush to will it."

[Anonymous No.11716777]

>>11716477
Wow! More, more!

[Anonymous No.11716801]

>>11716567
It would be better if you began explicitly saying they weren’t human and then moved into the fantastical. Your attempt to be whimsical makes you seem naive. What sort of genre is this meant to be? can you explain the general premise of the book?

[Anonymous No.11716804]

"Writing is hard, okay?" Anon whined, while drinking a very good drink the he made at home by himself from a plastic cup.

[Anonymous No.11716811]

>>11713406
pointing out Mondrian is entirely point out a symptom of the disease that art has to be something that rejects the past.

Plenty of music genres from garage rock to techno to salsa to ambient to grindcore to bluegrass to synthpop etc etc are entirely based on the idea of constraining the music within set parameters. It is actually within these constraints that the creativity is shown, rather than thinking creativity is only doing something never done before or doing something that is on the bleeding edge of the ever evolving cultural zeitgeist.

[Anonymous No.11716941]

At the end of the world, only a cold gale still persists.

[Anonymous No.11716955]

The dead suburban road undulated in the sheen of midsummer. No wind came, gifted from the sea to rustle the branches of the old pines standing vigil in the park. The local crows had taken a day off from screaming. The world was still and boring, a middle-school art student’s attempt at a landscape that their parents fawn over but their peers mock. From behind a shuttered window [character] wished for autumn rains. He wished for change.

[Anonymous No.11716983]

>>11707182
>I would remove a word to make the sentence ungrammatical
wut

[Anonymous No.11716990]

He leaned back, holding his spectacles in one hand, and giving me a quieting look. “You’re
young, my boy.” Thereupon he launched into a miniature lecture, to all of which I listened with
attention and increasing amazement. It was a somewhat intense and incoherent narrative which, as nearly as I could follow his turgid manner of telling, had to do with long-forgotten folk myths.

[Anonymous No.11716992]

He leaned back, holding his spectacles in one hand, and giving me a quieting look. “You’re
young, my boy.” Thereupon he launched into a miniature lecture, to all of which I listened with attention and increasing amazement. It was a somewhat intense and incoherent narrative which, as nearly as I could follow his turgid manner of telling, had to do with long-forgotten folk myths.

[Anonymous No.11717032]

He leaned back, holding his spectacles in one hand, and giving me a quieting look. "You’re young, my boy." Thereupon he launched into a miniature lecture, to all of which I listened with attention and increasing amazement. It was a somewhat intense and incoherent narrative which, as nearly as I could follow his turgid manner of telling, had to do with long-forgotten folk myths.

[Anonymous No.11717047]

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

[Anonymous No.11717131]

>>11708523
What do you mean 'whatever', you son of a bitch?

[Anonymous No.11717165]

>>11710705
You should learn to take strong criticism, even if you disagree with the given reasons behind someone disliking your writing. Say what you want about this place and the shit tastes of its inhabitants, but I think you're much more likely to receive useful criticism here than, say, on Reddit, or, God forbid, from family and friends. Generally, you should be a lot more wary of praise than criticism, unless writing flavor-of-the-month YAF is the ceiling of your aspirations.
Also, what you posted, while not terrible, was plainly not very good. Certainly not deserving of your agitated defense.

[Anonymous No.11717215]

>>11710697
I agree with that anon's criticism. I think you got some very good feedback there.

[Anonymous No.11717262]

>>11717047
based

[Anonymous No.11717275]

And it came to be that on the fourth day of travelling the endless mistful ocean started to leak into her dreams.

[Anonymous No.11717389]

I immediately took a dislike to her. She was so unworthy of the company she had joined. Great men seem to enjoy going
about with freaks; suppose it is on the same principle as the old kings used to keep fools and dwarfs around to amuse them.
She was a fat, red-headed bimbo that resembled a maggot. She was pompous, pretentious, and stupid and gave herself out as a great authority on literature; but all her knowledge and babbling was parrot without the slightest grain of insight.

[Anonymous No.11717408]

>>11717275
>By the fourth day of travel the ocean began to leak into her dreams.

[Anonymous No.11717455]

The window's broken and the clock has lost it's pace ; what colour were her eyes?

[Anonymous No.11717467]

Stories? Sure, I can tell you some stories.

[Anonymous No.11717471]

“You’re just like the other niggers,” Jennifer whimpered as the cold whip tore her behind.

[Anonymous No.11717494]

>>11717471


This reminds me of a story I heard, probably apocryphal, about an English student at Oxford who had not done any work and got called out on it by his tutor. Scrabbling for an excuse, he claimed that he had been working on a novel.

The don called his bluff by arranging a public reading, and instructed him to read from his manuscript until instructed to stop.

The reading began with something like "Mabel's naked body quivered in anticipation of the swiftly descending lash."

The tutor immediately stopped the reading and accepted the excuse.

[Anonymous No.11717547]

>>11706819
You're trying too hard.

[Anonymous No.11717655]

>>11717494
That’s quite funny. Mine is a book about fetishisation so probably not going to be that literary lol

[Anonymous No.11717888]

>>11716375
I would naturally reference them if I needed to and I understood them as I read it without looking it up. They're not ancient words, you just have a smaller vocabulary.

[Anonymous No.11717928]

>>11707229
Underrated

[Anonymous No.11717957]

>>11716375
>nobody would naturally reference them.
why not? are you some retard who has never walked around nature? never dealt with fabrics or colors? how fucking closed-minded and narrow much your tech-addled world be?

[Anonymous No.11717958]

>>11717888
Come crown my brow with leaves of myrtle;
I know the tortoise is a turtle.
Come carve my name in stone immortal;
I know the turtoise is a tortle.
And as I'm trained to spot a turple
I too can tell when prose is purple.

[Anonymous No.11718040]

>>11717957
I think he’s trying to make the point that literature does not speak with any sort of eloquence or grandeur. We don’t live in a time that celebrates decadence, romanticisms, or anything similar; therefore, for him, and much of society, what you’re writing is untrue, and as such, causes the writing to become inadequate.

But we’re in a literary period which is waiting for someone to begin a new canon, so write whatever desu

[Anonymous No.11719022]

>>11717408
Sounds better and its simpler so yeah thanks

[Anonymous No.11719064]

>>11706819
I took his wig.

[Anonymous No.11719098]

Heaven shat in my mouth that day, and God was just standing by, recording it.

[Anonymous No.11719115]

>>11707370
It feels a little muddled to me. 'At this point' and 'enough' are unnecessary. I would write it this way: "If one didn't find the other soon,"

[Anonymous No.11719121]

>>11719115
cont. or if you really want to include 'At this point' you should put a comma after it.

[Anonymous No.11719258]

She was a cruel and harsh master. Comfort sided with myself in the shape of a bullet, etched with her name, that she knew nothing about.
One made ones own destiny and mine was about to be revealed through a shower of red spray and flying brain pulp. Fortune favours the brave they say. Heres hoping.

[Anonymous No.11719319]

here goes
>The rider had visited them in the small hours of the dawn, a hooded man with parchment-white hands, howling promise of reprimand at the nightwatch if he was not allowed passage

[Anonymous No.11719345]

Staring at the tapered tapestry of his old room, he struggled to reminisce the sound of his father's last breath.

[Anonymous No.11719425]

He thought that if her love oppressed him long enough his courteous feigns would one day become true love, and the thought of it made him physically ill.

[Anonymous No.11719606]

The ironclad footsteps woke him, though he couldn't make much of the darkness about - except that the numbness of his limbs and the slow blood pump that could be felt in his eardrums made it clear that he was being held upside down.

[Anonymous No.11719653]

>>11706872
Holy......

[Anonymous No.11719674]

The illness had finally struck him. Beneath his work desk was a pile of dry skin that came from a spot he couldn't stop scratching.

[Anonymous No.11719682]

The Operator brought the device to the base of the skull of his patient, gently inserting the mechanism directly into the crown of the woman's nervous system.

[Anonymous No.11719697]

>>11719098

I had me a chuckle.

[Anonymous No.11719840]

Coffee was cold by then. It was four a.m. and he had to testify in a copule of hours, but he was still discussing the Velvet Undergound on the internet.

[Anonymous No.11720050]

>>11712967
For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.

[Anonymous No.11720058]

>>11720050
Groundbreaking
Generation-defining
Revolutionary
Paradigm-shifting

[Anonymous No.11720892]

>>11706819
Trust me, fucking children is the tits.

[Anonymous No.11720915]

>>11706872
Cringe and bluepilled

[Anonymous No.11720925]

>>11707294
Hey this is actually pretty good

[Anonymous No.11720936]

The Yonderburn rots.

[Anonymous No.11720969]

>>11711097
curious if this one is any good.

[Anonymous No.11722104]

>>11720915
It’s a straight up copy from Ray Bradbury

[Anonymous No.11722467]

>>11716644
I would have refered to the storm as female, but it sounds good; I like it.

[Anonymous No.11722537]

"What the fuck?" Richard whispered as loud as he could manage, and wondered when exactly he painted his ceiling in this ugly shade of blue.

[Anonymous No.11722714]

"Our story begins in a small mountain village."

[Anonymous No.11723010]

>>11707437
Allow me, dear reader, to pummel the vulva

[Anonymous No.11723035]

>>11706819
>coins of sunlight
You stole this from DFW

[Anonymous No.11723072]

>>11711097
now I want context, so I guess it means that the line worked

[Anonymous No.11723111]

At the bottom, there was none of the imagined coolness and refreshment to be found. It tasted like spit. She could see a sun and a moon in it, muddy and distorted, held by translucent glittering wires, the whole body of water a spiteful mise-en-scene.

[Anonymous No.11723738]

>>11723035
DFW stole it from Joyce

[Anonymous No.11724919]

>>11706819
If you’re using “coins of speckled sunlight”, you better be doing some reference, otherwise you’ll just look like a hack

[Anonymous No.11724996]

>>11706819
There is something so instantly horrible about me. I faltered whenever an opportunity that possibly fell in a wonderful, gracious light had been given to me, or I’d wrenched it from the guts of a higher being who I had come to the conclusion was not only merciless, but also right. I’d expend it and grind it between my gums as if pocket change, a slow intoxication that rotted them ceaselessly. It was something to keep me company almost- in a deep smog set aside by an abyss even my awfulness could not live up to, I could wander backwards with my eyes closed, arms held by safety pins to my side, through the paleness and the blue strands wherein my veins stained me, I would not be disappointed some more and the smog would never think to make more of a brunt out of me. I writhed on my mattress, imagined an object as ugly as necessary to approach me with lust. A human could not find something worthwhile about my pudgy appearance, of course: not the frankly silly way that my hair(an ugly darkness that lost most charm or grace) colourblocked my face, as if a photograph from a newspaper. An anomaly swept in through a normal life. I worked, and my rigour with alcohol knew no bounds, and I enjoyed a good magazine on the commute. I was ushered through crowds by people who assumed I was another human being. I dressed myself each morning, though never before a mirror. I never bothered to expel unwanted pairs of shoes from my life, and thus they clogged up a perfectly good rack by my front door.
I imagined a horse: another necessary unattractiveness that nature had never dismissed, and another thing I could compare to myself without the tears welling, and one that could not pick apart my flaws from another human. Uneducated creatures most interested me, as I felt I could blend in with them. It would think I was beautiful as it entered. It would fuck me, deeply intoxicated by my truths and not my traits, and believe I was acceptable: a horse would think so in due time, a horse would think so and I would be wanted.

[Anonymous No.11725057]

"A few more knots, and Aledh would have his freedom."

[Anonymous No.11726025]

>you will never hear Joyce playing guitar and singing Irish folk songs

[Anonymous No.11726142]

>>11706819
How do I write good

[Anonymous No.11726187]

"Hey, thats not my Problem, I pay him to feel."

[Anonymous No.11727540]

>>11706907
Absolutely tryhard, cringe and bluepilled.

[Anonymous No.11727556]

>>11725057
Is this a furry rape-fic?

[Anonymous No.11727562]

>>11706819
>some way away
Sounds awkward!

[Anonymous No.11727570]

>>11706819
Find a different hobby.

[Anonymous No.11727593]

>>11708867
>>11707003
These are the only two in this entire thread that I would continue reading. Good job

[Anonymous No.11727700]

The Fat Man abides. He is a man who, whether due to his genes, his stubbornness, or some sense of metaphysical inertia, can survive anything. He is of 45 years old, he was 176 centimetres when he last stood upright, and at this moment in time he weighs 235 kilograms. His body is a fleshy fortress that is sustained by air and hospital food alone.

[Anonymous No.11727715]

>>11710520
>who live in the 21st century and aren't afraid of writing about it
Does anyone else find this quiet difficult? Beyond very surface level things like characters having smartphones and computers I don't know how you convey modernity.

[Anonymous No.11727717]

>>11709383
unironically would read on

[Anonymous No.11727720]

>>11709436
I don't disagree per se, but like most 'writers' a lot of anons here didn't even try to construct good prose. It's like they didn't even read what they had written.

[Anonymous No.11728049]

>>11718040
GOOD post.

[Anonymous No.11728080]

I write the opening line last so I make sure it's perfectly tailored to the store.

[Anonymous No.11728980]

"wu-tang clan aint nothin to fuck with" was the last words my mother said

[Anonymous No.11729142]

>>11727593
the second one is quite cringey ngl

[Anonymous No.11729149]

>>11727700
post more. i like this one

[Anonymous No.11729311]

>>11706819

In that box is my funhouse mirror self.

[Anonymous No.11729314]

>>11727700

Yeah, well. That's just like... your homage, man.

[Anonymous No.11730565]

>>11706819
As with any proper story I would like to start by telling you where it begins; there is however a problem with this as I don't rightly know an exact location to give you.