/crit/ - Writing Critique

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

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

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

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

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

Because people like you can't read

High quality entertainment. Something tells me you'll never change. If you're some how so sensitive you can't take critique while also seeking it.

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

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

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

that's the windows quicknote thing

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

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

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

“Is that a true story?” I asked.

“It could be true. Is it important?”

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

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