Critique Thread

Der letzte Tag, ein Samstag, brach um sieben Uhr fünfunddreißig an, als N.M. klingelte. 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 erloschen war, 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, dingdongdingdongdingdongdingdong, kein Vogel war zu hören, keiner, öffnete D.F. seinen Schrank, eine Flasche fiel um, anlasslos, 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. 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. 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 Vogelgezwitscher 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 siebenunddreißig 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. Seine Augen, sie waren schwarz, durchliefen den Raum, rastlos nach Veränderungen suchend, fanden nichts, ratlos, alles war gleich. Nichts, seit A.L. gestorben war, die Ananas die kann was, hatte sich verändert. Nichts: der Boden, die Wände, die Decke - alles war gleich, an Ort und Stelle geblieben.

(Practiced applying Chekov's Gun to my writing)

Walter is on his sixth beer this evening. On the counter lay a steak knife he had got out to cut slits in his TV dinner package. Next to it lay his phone, frozen on the screen where a message was waiting in the send field of his text messenger. It said “Happy New Years” and was addressed to his mother. Above, one could see consecutive messages for Christmas, Veterans Day, Fourth of July throughout the past 3 years. None had been replied to. He hits send before letting out an exaggerated sigh. The TV dinner is clumsily tossed in the microwave and he drunkenly slams his fingers on the quick-cook button. He stares longingly at the knife. He thinks of his life, and lets all the memories play out across his mind like a cinema screen—birthdays spent alone, lovers in bed with others, family dying at young age, attempts to make friends at boarding school, accidents, deaths, funerals for strangers—and finds himself saddened at the lack of anything truly happy. Misery had been his life. Despair had been his companion for so long that happiness or joy might do to him what warm water does to a hypothermic limb—burn relentlessly with untold agony. He felt afraid that his life might turn happy. The knife reflected the pale-spackled ceiling of his apartment, and then, the unkempt beard of Walter.

He fell to the floor of his now bloody kitchen scene, and stared at the off-white ceiling with intent. He drifted slowly. The last thing he would hear in his life would be a buzz. He would never know if it was the microwave or his phone.

More if you want it.
Part 2

Six beers means drunk? Have him drink hard liquor for clarity.
Fourth of July and Veterans Day but not Thanksgiving or Halloween?
I think your adjectives and verbs are clashing with your nouns; how does one drunkenly slam their finger on something as small a microwave button?
>He stares longingly at the knife.
Gee, I wonder what's gonna happen next. I think this would be the sentence where many people would quit reading your story.
>what warm water does to a hypothermic limb
Is there a reason for this particular imagery? It feels bizarrely out of place.
>He felt afraid that his life might turn happy.
Turn happy from what? Why is he afraid of happiness?
>his now bloody kitchen scene,
This just; Bad. Find another way to tell the reader that just Walter cut (or stabbed?) himself.
What does the ceiling being off-white have to do with Walter dying on the floor?! If an adjective is not relevant to a sentence, remove it.
I'm pretty sure my phone's ringtone would not be confused with the beeps from my microwave.

No the previous in the meme trilogy

Even if his explanatory model of jewish behavior is incorrect the documentation of jews as a revolutionary group seems irrefutable. Whether this is good or bad is dependent upon your political views.

No, I think it is quite definitively bad.

Please, elaborate?

Great. /crit/ threads now die under 100 posts or get hijacked by anti-Semites.

The point of their revolutionary behavior is to attack and overthrow their host society and put them on top, which, when successful, has led to jews genociding or trying to genocide that host society.

No one's stopping you from posting away, just a couple people asking questions around it. Don't get your panties in a bunch.

Not sure what the word is, but I feel like your sentences aren't "connected" enough. Although it might just be because I'm not used to reading present tense.
>Turn happy from what? Why is he afraid of happiness?
He is obviously depressed.

Remove the italics on "it" after the first few instances. It's tedious to read after a while (no pun intended).
>A shot went off.
Remove this or put much later in the story. I almost stopped reading here.
>The city was vacant, but full. Empty, but plenty.
Dumb. Remove.
>The ground found it first.
>The boot second.
Stop doing that. It's losing its impact. Have more paragraphs in between.
Yeah okay, I'm really tired of you only referring to this thing as "it". Shake it up a little.
>communist threat
The Bargainer is a communist? What?
>a communist's boot
Oh, ok, I guess he is. But why though? The Bargainer seems more like an edgy Samurai Jack to me. Is he supposed to be Japanese? Is he part of the Japanese Communist Party?
Wait. "it" was just an android? That's VERY disappointing. It's not worth hiding from the reader at all, really. A lot of people are familiar with androids in fiction. Have you ever seen Star Trek: The Next Generation?

>eaten to the full???
>he knew [there was a] good reason
>she broke a leg off...
>Time passed.
I think you're missing a sentence here. I know it's implied, and you say he's knocked out later, but there's no reason for any ambiguity here (time passed before or after she knocked him out?).
>- she had none.
She had none what? Meat? Because she's an android?
>meat-slapping noises
Sounds pretty hot.
>The Android held her...breath?
Do androids need to breathe?
>it would be enough to set her free.
Wait. She wanted to escape? Why didn't she just kill him and cut his arm off? Isn't she handcuffed to him? Did I miss something?
Wait, what the fuck? I though they were about to get eaten. All the language used prior to this implied that that was what they were going to do. Why did they capture him instead? Alive even? Why would savages feel the need to cook their food before eating it?!
>a cage of bones.
Really? REALLY? For fucks sake. Just make it a regular cage. This reads like satire; I'm having a hard time masking my utter contempt.
A bubbling cauldron even! With a witch! Stop lifting imagery from fairy tails! I thought I was reading sci-fi!
Where's the sentence were he takes them down from the cage?
They're not even going to put them in the cauldron!? After all that setup, they're going waltz them over a, a king!?
mutie? Don't start making up words. Just use mutant, please.

My advise is to rewrite the prologue and throw away the rest. I was genuinely angry while reading the second part. A giant robotic spider hunting down communists is far more interesting than anything in the second half.

>Depressed people are afraid of happiness.

No, you need to read Ulysses, Gravity’s Rainbowl and Inifite Jest first,

If they weren't afraid of it, they woukld no longer be depressed.

Can’t you do that on a board actually about the topic? And stop polluting Veeky Forums

lol just stop being depressed

Do you mean to say, that they are afraid to do the things necessary to obtain happiness? Because that's different from being afraid of the emotion, happiness.

I simply answered a question, and you are on Veeky Forums on a board that discusses white culture. If you can't handle that you know where to go. Now stop sidetracking the thread.

Eh. At least they're bumping the thread. They're actually kind of useful, in a way. We might as well just use The Culture of Critique cover for every crit thread. We can exploit their anti-semitism for thread bumps. Hell, maybe we should start using Jordan Peterson for novel idea threads, and Mein Kampf for write what's on your mind.

Thanks for the critque user. I hope you found some enjoyment.

Dude it's pretty obvious that the mom was a veteran who killed herself too.

>We might as well just use The Culture of Critique cover for every crit thread. We can exploit their anti-semitism for thread bumps

We prefer "counter-semitism" as a more accurate term, but I would definitely support your proposal, which sounds mutually beneficial since we are mostly concerned with exposure so to bring attention to the problem.

I did, mostly at the beginning when I didn't know "it" was an android and I thought it was some unnamable horror. Re-reading this, I can't help but feel that the Bargainer is a really unsympathetic character. I have a really hard time caring about what happens to him when all he seems to do is beat up a robotic woman. I wouldn't mind reading a story about a communist scavenger wandering around a post-apocalyptic wasteland with his android, while being hunted by giant robot spiders, but, I think the relationship would need to less abusive.

>we are mostly concerned with exposure so to bring attention to the problem.
This is exactly why everyone hates you, though. You bring so many normalfags to the site that then proceed to overrun the existing communities and generally shit up the place.
>It's first-hand experience to dangers of unchecked immigration.
Yeah, well, it's still fucking annoying, and it doesn't make me hate you any less. We wouldn't need you here to bump the thread if you cunts didn't create a million fucking threads every fucking day just to spam your Goddamn bullshit.

Off-white ceiling, which is like clouds or conversely, heaven. But it's not real. It's bullshit. I forgot Thanksgiving, but veterans day was important like user above said. I tried to say he slit himself in the line above when the knife reflected his unkempt beard. Reread it and realized it was too vague. Thanks for the crit

Lot of hyperbole in there, bud. But I conduct myself appropriately and don't shit up threads and don't know this book scares you so much itfp.

What the fuck? No it wasn't. Why the hell would the mother be the veteran and not the son? Why would he not be informed of his own mother's death? Are you just fucking with me or something?

Bumping the thread or not, I guess I can only see bigotry as the product of either powerlessness or spite. There will probably always be bigots, but the thought doesn't make me any less disgusted by their brand of thinking. "Counter-semite"- it's a sad thing for me to read. Well I guess I'm a counter-counter-Semite.

Here's my piece for critique. It has nothing to do with these stray thoughts. I'll critique other writing in turn.

---
Dead, unraked leaves thin as the sweat on my forehead crunched under me as I left the sidewalk. Sweat on my neck too somehow, sweat through my shirt though it was cold after the sunset and I was without a coat. All the other houses on the block sporting bare lawns but for the odd political sign. This one was stuck through with weeds, carpeted by those leaves, the trails of bugs and worms visible. The muck that everything dissolves into kept it together. All the trees around the extended vicinity that shed these leaves were alive except for the one I had my hand on. This one was shaggy with moss, dying from lack of sunlight in the warmer months, cold to the touch, clammy.

The signposts read Forsythe and Marigold but I already knew that. The numbers had fallen off the house but I knew it was 856.

To my left, there were holes in the meager mulch beds by the front porch which I knew had once been occupied by lanterns, and smaller ones by my feet where there was once a wire fence, ankle high. A mailbox endured at the end of the walkway near the street, which even at twenty paces I could see was overstuffed with mail. I never wanted to see another piece of mail again in my life or open another overdue bill that announced my inadequacy or a pamphlet that advocated for the health of my physical or spiritual heart. I never wanted to see a correspondence for Mom sent from the other side of the world written by a husband that no longer knew how to love her in his overlapping shorthand,
“Amanda-” he would have begun. He would have written Amanda to let Mom know he was serious and not laughing as he often did. He would have stopped and not known what exactly what it was he meant to say. He would have fumbled with the words and crossed a few out and maybe started again. Would he remember what he did or how he felt in the moment captured in the portrait of them at the top of the stairs, arm in arm on the Steel Pier while the sun set behind them and they smooched with the sides of their faces? Don’t let the sun go down on me in terrible 80’s cursive printed in the glossy layer. Was Dad humming it then? As he wrote the letter? Now as he took his coffee in some distant place?

Pro tip: He was meant to be scum from the start. In fact everything in the wasteland is scum and broken down. But I was going to write that the android warms up to him eventually, and he to she. It would set up a great ending about forgiveness or whatever. Not just for the Bargainer, but for the wasteland too.

And I guess I should make it more clear next time, but EVERYTHING the robots in the wasteland see are communists, at least that spider one. The spider was a military robot left behind in the war and malfunctioned when the nukes hit, still thinking the red threat is real.

Oh, okay, I guess make the symbolism more obvious or idiots like me won't get it and just think Walter is fascinated by the color of the ceiling while he's dying, for some reason.

I mean, i didn't get the symbolism either but it makes sense hed be looking at the ceiling while he died.

>Pro tip:
Don't do that. It makes you seem underage.

Okay, fine. But, the Bargainer still needs to be at least a bit sympathetic or reader will never reach the end. It honestly sounds like your story is just romanticizing abuse, as if the android only falls for him because of Stockholm syndrome. If you want to write about forgiveness, maybe write the Bargainer as a dashing rogue who she is initially infatuated with, who then betrays her, only to have a change of heart, and then she has to learn to forgive him. This a common and well established stock character arc (think Han Solo in the first Star Wars movie). Maybe it's a bit trite, but, I think it would be fitting for the genre, especially if you are more interested with exploring the world of the story than the minds of characters.

He wasn't just "looking at the ceiling", he "stared at the off-white ceiling with intent".

I guess you wouldn't be too far about the abuse thing, but maybe I just wanted to write a male tsundere this whole time, I don't know.
And about sympathy, I only wished to make an evil character that turns good over the course of the adventure. But I'll see if I can tone him down. I was planning to make him /pol/ personified. Thought it'd be funny.

Sure. I'll think about it. Interesting way to see it. Thanks user.

who the fuck wishes their mother happy veterans day?

we should have a CoC reading group

You're welcome. Just remember that a character can still be evil while being sympathetic to the audience. It's more difficult to do; but as long as the character is charismatic, and we never see them "cross the line"*, the audience will still root for them simply because they find them so interesting to read about, even if they are horrible people.

*By doing something so awful that the audience hates them as a result. Note that they can still do terrible things, it just has to be implied, the audience can't SEE them do it.

Why the fuck would he send messages to her if she's DEAD. Especially if she died while he was at a young age. She probably would have died before ever owning a cellphone. What? Did he buy a cell phone for his dead mother just so he could send texts to her from beyond the grave!?! Maybe she is a veteran! I don't know! But she sure as hell isn't DEAD!

Anyone read it?

bump

Hehe. That was pretty good. I wish I had more to say about it. It kind of reminds me of Catch-22, in a good way. Keep up the good work.

Wow, thanks. I wasn't sure if anyone would like it, glad you found it amusing.

Well, I can't read German, but for what it's worth I did enjoy the Google Translate version:

The last day, a Saturday, started at 7:35, when N.M. rang. The eyes of our hero, DF, moved rapidly behind his drawn eyelids, water everyone likes, the ringing dingdongdingdong dingdongdingdong dingdongdingdong did not wake him until the third - but not last - ringing, stupid son of a bitch, stupid bastard, and he left the bed (thirsty, thirsting, panting), still caught in yesterday, which had not extinguished until four-four, with a movement, a touch that was to remain the last of its kind. A man only grows to a certain point, the name tag on his door, the door frame. Little son of a bitch, nothing good, silly. A look out the window, suddenly awake, as if he had never slept: A gray VW Polo in the parking lot - oh dear - the dental office. There he first stood in the summer two thousand sixteen, most recently a year ago. So, dingdongdingdongdingdongdingdong, no bird was heard, none, D.F opened. his cupboard, a bottle fell over, anlasslos, meanwhile N.M. just outside the door, why - he wanted to murder him - only he knew, alone, lonely, no one else, even if D.F. it should have known; 15 years ago, godless piece of shit, he would have had to know, kétségtelenül. He stepped on a plastic bottle, he was already dressed. Last night he puked beautifully, fell on his stomach, several times, over and over again. This morning: Not even birds can be heard, dingdong dingdong dingdong. He went down the stairs, like every day. The door opened. He puked beautifully, yesterday, fell on his stomach, yes, now everything is stupid, now everything is stupid, no birdsong he heard. N. M. stood before him, like a tree, behind him was the rest, the sun fell on his neck, unchanged. The rest: his car, the street, the dentist's office, further to the right the dance studio. He, N.M. tried his grin - he grinned like a swordfish - as always to suppress, mostly it did not succeed. --Say, too, why are you laughing, D.F. questioning, himself laughing, he had to look up, raise his head to look into his face, his back hurt, for years he was hurting, yet he raised his head to look into his face, it was degrading It was seven thirty-seven. He did not know that, could not know.
--Has its reasons, still like a swordfish.
- Since when are you in S.?
-Since ... He closed his mouth, studying the anteroom as if D.F. not present. His eyes, they were black, went through the room, restlessly searching for changes, found nothing, helpless, everything was the same. Nothing, since A.L. had died, the pineapple which may have changed. Nothing: the floor, the walls, the ceiling - everything was the same, stayed in place.

"I have literally never known a single group of people, who so pugnaciously combine vehement evangelism with haughty, standoffish egotism the way fucking vegans do."

Of all the things I've ever written, this is the one I'm most proud of
Does Veeky Forums approve?

>leaves thin as the sweat on my forehead
This makes me think of leaves sticking to someones forehead. Keep separate images in separate sentences.
>the trails of bugs and worms visible.
At first read I thought you meant trails of live, walking bugs and worms. I know that you meant tracks left behind by the bugs, but that sentence is just confusing.

The angst bomb hit too hard and too soon for me. Maybe pad out the autumn imagery while simultaneously easing the reader into Amanda's troubles.

>literally
Faggot.
>pugnaciously combine vehement evangelism
Fuck you, thesaurus wanker.

I would tell you to critique someone, but you would probably just tell them that their prose was not "perspicacious" enough because they didn't use enough big words.

That's an astonishingly good translation. When did Google Translate become so good?

Say I want to contract the "is" into the previous word in the line "This quote is pretty good." Should I use an apostrophe? With it the line it might look like a possessive at first, but without it it might look like "quotes" is a verb and other words might look like they're being used as plurals. I know there's no grammatical rule for this, but people talk that way and I'm just wondering what the best way to represent it is.

I would use:
"This quote's pretty good."
Using a possessive apostrophe is fine in this context.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_auxiliaries_and_contractions#Contracted_auxiliaries

Well the way you wrote it, and the apostrophe are your only options.

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_auxiliaries_and_contractions#Contracted_auxiliaries
Oh, I didn't realize this was even a thing. Thought it was just slang or something. Thanks anons.

Just out of curiosity, what is your native language?

>Short fantasy story I wrote for fun and practice, let me know what you guys think

It held its flight, a swift clear cry. Hawk dipping down to a far off meadow multitudes of islands away. Bridges connecting islands high in the sky. Swaying grass and swaying bridges.

Heather lay stretched out in a vast irradiated meadow, hawkgazing. She would often laze about and watch the feathered birds fly and dive past the multitudinous islands and watch in wonder and jealousy, the feat.

How it would feel to fly and soar. The wind all around. Diving down. Watching the endless swaying bridges. People walking back and forth, endlessly. Flying down and over, dipping down to the endless azure whitetinged waves, the endlessness. Waterworld. Warm grass and sun. Mmm. Better head home. Have to make lunch. Or brunch. Never can remember the time out here.

She walked to the nearest bridge connecting to the southern island and began skipping across, singing an inspired tune:

"And my feathered friends soared

To some distant shore

These islands are a bore

Take me with you!

La Da DA"

It swayed in the wind, but these bridges never seemed to break. Perhaps it was the fearlessness of their travelers or the unique windbeaten wood from the islands trees that kept them going.

Waves far below me. Charging on and on, and on and on. Hawk dipping down to the waves. It caught a fish. Rainbow glinting in its beaks. Far far below. How far? Hundreds and hundreds. Endless.

And she skipped and hopped and sang to the hawks. And it happened: the bridge broke when her foot hopped onto the wrong spot. Strong as they were, they were never meant for joyful hopping and skipping.

I’m falling. Air all around me. Heart aflutter and slicing wind. Should have listened to mother and not strayed too far. Bridges near towns and cities are stronger. Out here in the wilds. Far, far. Hold me someone.

A large hawk dove down and grabbed the girl in its claws. Large hawk that she always watched flying and diving all around to distant meadows. Singing a song. He would watch her too, her joyicity. Will and want to fly. And the hawk carried her all around the islands, on account of her not squirming but being held spellbound.

I can see it all. Wind all around me. The cities and towns flying by below me. Tiny people and tiny things going about their day. Wind, wind. It feels good. We’re soaring high. High, above the endlessness. Can see my house from here. I wish. Long way behind me. Never end! Neverending flight. Hold me tight.

Her joyful laugh was carried far by the wind. The hawk set her down in a distant meadow and set off to an unknown somewhere. She had no idea where she was, but she didn’t care. Bridges or high water, she would find her way home.

Ramen Noodles again:

pastebin.com/zdwAUVux

I had at least one person say they'd want to read more, but that was on christmas day so I guess it doesn't really count. Most of the previous crit I got was just asking me to cut stuff, which I did in some cases, but I opted to keep things when in doubt since it's easier to cut away from a block of wood later than to try and add mass back on.

I was also told that it looks like too much of a downer, thematically, and while I don't see it that way myself I can tell that it comes off that way to most people anyway, and I need to fix that. My issue is that things which come off as depressing or bittersweet to other people come off as genuinely pleasant to me, but every time I try to build up to one of those things my perspective doesn't come through. Here's a chunk of dialogue I wrote to try and put it more directly, starting with the male:

pastebin.com/iN0p8CvD

I probably won't use it though since it ends up just sounding sad-in-the-sad-way even from my perspective, but I would want to try and passively get across some of what I think it communicates.

English. It's not even that I write poorly (I think); my education is just shit because I grew up with hic country on all sides. I mean, I lived in a college town, but it was a college town with hic country on all sides. I didn't know what a semicolon was or that "philosophy" wasn't just a way to mispronounce "psychology" until I was an adult basically. Now I'm one course away from a philosophy BA and trying to study writing though, so that's nice.

I think what threw me off was the word "it's," because I know that the possessive form of "it," "its" has no apostrophe, to distinguish it from the contraction version. I figured since other words had apostrophes on their possessives that they couldn't safely have an "is" contracted into them that way, aside from words like "there's" since the possessive "they" would be "theirs." Though on the contrary, I guess you could be talking with "there" as the subject, and have something possessed by "there" and say "there's," maybe? Doesn't sound conventional though.

So how do I write so it doesn't seem like I'm trying too hard?

Make it ironic.

You're probably setting yourself up for failure just by asking that.

The problem for me with people who're told they try too hard isn't so much that they try too hard but that they have terrible priorities and try to bank off of talents which are ultimately only of a secondary importance to the plot. There's nothing wrong with a work where the author is clearly giving it their all; the real issue is when people try to use their thesaurus as a substitute for all the other things good writing needs. I also think it looks shortsighted to focus on the words rather than the sound and image evoked by them. Showing off how well spoken you are without showing anything more is just pretentious.

Bump for you, bud.

That's understandable, and your writing is good.

well guys i got rejected yet again so might as well post it here. the whole story's only some 4000 words but i'll just post the start. if anyone cares i'll add the rest
pastebin.com/a7NAY6L9

i only read the first link but i liked it. it didn't come off as a downer to me. more like a slice of life, but if you want me to be a dick i'll just say the story comes off as banal though. that isn't necessarily a negative. there were some wordings that could be moved around but that's really just personal preference. a couple of grammar mistakes but nothing crazy. i wish i could give you more but my mind's a bit frazzled atm.

You can keep the rest. That's my critique.
To be fair cultural barriers prevent me to fully understand what you try to convey.

I was requested to write the beginning of 10 children short stories. Here is one in Spanish, any comment is appreciated.
pastebin.com/0zGPcigp

Pic related, is the dogger of the story when it was a pupper.

dime lo que no entendiste y te digo lo que pienso del tuyo

You know when you dream you can only remember parts of it, then when you try to tell what happened in the dream it's hard to connect everything together? Feels like the main character dreamed about work, really.

>i'll just say the story comes off as banal though
Yeah, I'm aware. It strikes me as more manageable than my other concern though, I'll just elbow-grease it out.

The second "part" is just one paragraph followed by a couple lines if you didn't look at the paste, not that you need to read it.

i kind of like that desu

but as for your story all i can say is that the first paragraph seems necessary. the story, or at least its intro, focuses on the dog waking up Leo, right? Just jump right into that. I mean the first paragraph is pretty and all but it's not really necessary to a the story as far as I can tell from the material given

i read the second link but it's too much of its own thing for me to give you any honest feedback without more context

^unnecessary

not that good user--keep practicing. Read more. needs a more concrete sense. As it stands: pretentious

>That first couple of sentences (line)
This style of incomplete sentences would be good if the writing was good, but right away you come off as an inexperienced writer.
>Hawk dipping down
This is part of that string of sentence. "Hawk dips down" would be better, but "A hawk dips down" would be best. Seriously--the last time I saw this style recently was in "Underworld" where DeLillo describes Cocksucker Blues. He does it well, and there's a purpose (i don't like that word--I can't claim how much purpose vs unconsciousness there was in writing what he wrote).
>multitudinous
not a good word
>That third indent (line)
you're branching into stream of consciousness. Read Ulysses if you get a chance--don't tackle this if you're not gonna do it well or with some good meaning behind it
>the poem
idk if this is good or not--i'll say no
>it swayed in the wind
what swayed in the wind
>waves far below me
me???
>on and on, and on and on...far far below...hundreds and hundreds
eh
>hold me someone
good
>joyicity
not good

Thought I'd add yet another nihilist story. Please,
be honest,
be brutal,
but if I do anything well,
let me know too.

pastebin.com/UqhDamLU

nihilism is retarded

It is, but it's undeniable. Everyone will face it. This is just a short excerpt of a story I was thinking about writing about overcoming it.

Beyond the place where the trees had been cut away points of light hung in a lattice over the intricate folds and drapes of the countryside. It was like there was no country there anymore, only color and pattern. But the illusion failed as the car descended closer. Things again appeared out from under the scrim of abstraction. Rusted trailers, cars on blocks, collapsing houses, until everything was swallowed once more in a dense rush of vegetation. Steadman leaned on the gas and the scenery was chopped into a passing blur, the trees blending together into a wall that loomed dark and spikelike at each edge of the road. The lights cleared dual arcs of space in the night in front of them. And where the woods opened up like the mouth of a tunnel Jessie prepared to see what he was going to see. They breached the clearing and the windshield tipped down the hill but Jessie felt himself keep moving upward. It was like floating. That was what the view did to him. But it only lasted a second, and then he was back in the world below with everything else.

The car bounced on its suspension when it hit the bottom of the hill. Its engine had a low growl to it, deep like a voice, rich in organic inflection. And when its outsides bubbled out with rust maybe that was just the molecules fighting the constraints of space, yearning to return to a more natural state. Steadman picked up speed on the straightaway through the fields. They made the drive so often they had to go fast just to break the monotony; faster every time they did it just to keep up the adrenaline kick. Jessie let the torque move his body side to side when the curves came up. Waiting, always, for the slide, the flip, the flight that never came. Waiting without impatience and without trepidation. Just waiting for the change.

>Somewhaqt Short fantasy scene I wrote for practicing on writing Third person limited, let me know what you guys think

pastebin.com/qGj41bXQ

How?

>Third person limited
Doesn't exist, user.

I put this up online a week ago, does anyone have any comments?
taktak dot nu/memorata/

Why is the website Korean?

bump

SIX TWENTY-SEVEN PM is what the clock in the corner of the screen said when Tommy reached the point of clarity. His eyes looked at the numbers with the strength they forgot they even had. "Six twenty-seven...six twenty-seven. Four hours...lost." He exhaled and inhaled. His back hurt, his mother was sleeping and his cum-sock had ended its metamorphosis into slimy badness. "Again, I have lost four hours. When will I end?"

>.nu is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to the island state of Niue.

There was a young woman sitting on Matthew's bed. She had been milling around his apartment, inspecting the furniture with a childlike awe before he left for groceries. Now he was back and had forgotten her name.

'Hey-' Matthew started

'please leave now.'

He said it in what felt like a deceptively warm voice. She appeared to be mesmerized by him.

'Ok.' she softly emitted.

'What's your name?' He decided to ask.

She told him it was Amelia.

He sat on the bed next to her and got a closer look at her face. She, in turn, looked back at him. Her features were more delicate now that he had a good look at them. She was a redhead girl of maybe 20 with freckles and blue eyes and the rest. What he liked most about her face was that it seemed incapable of conveying malice. She was, at all times, an innocent babe; a face found in a painting, signifying youthful beauty and a divine virginity.

'Stay' he said looking down at what she was a wearing: a flowing white shirt too big for her--it was his own.

'I'm glad."

I don't understand how to use figurative language; nothing I come up with makes any sense. Does anyone have any advise on how to use simile and metaphor?

This kind of 'fiction', which is interesting to no one, captures nothing—in is in a way, as a reader, it's a double edged sword—it's supposed to be fun, and part of the fun for me was trying to stay on the conscious side of consciousness and yr ability to deliver a hardly visible line between the two to focus on for the 30 seconds it took to read & reread yr post here.

I wanted to describe an ancient library similarly to how Joseph Conrad describes the Congo River in Heart of Darkness:

"Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest."

(You can read the full text here):
gutenberg.org/ebooks/526

The best I could come up with was: "Reading the pages was like peering into the soul of human knowledge and endeavor." (which is stupid and doesn't mean anything), and a tired biblical reference: comparing the books on the shelves to the forbidden fruit on the tree of knowledge. I suppose I could also compare them to Pandora's Box; but it all just seems like such a waste of time.

This is clearly based on a model of someone who doesn't read books, doesn't participate in reality, or the world—someone who doesn't enjoy deep fiction→a mirror you held up (like any writing) and then scribbled yr skrawl on the meer and hoo-ah is it bad, reflecting a mind that, good Lord, has a pale range of emotion and knowledge and life and lust and love and experience and anything interesting to say at all.

I say that a football is a mass-produced wad of polyeurethane and lace with traces of leather--Browner says it’s a pigskin with a Southern drawl so emphasized that you hear the saliva build. Browner says high school is for the sake of the girls, the hedonism, and the “opportunity cost of youth” as if he knew what half of the words meant that came out of his bright mouth, with teeth so shiny you want to swing a fist at each molar and feed him candy until they rot to the core.
Every Christmas was configured the same:
We’d wake up,and Browner would make sure he took the plumpest of the pancakes before I got downstairs, and he’d beat me with his legs that had to of been stolen from an ostrich. He’d get a football, a jersey with the numbers “08” stamped and pressed in the back, and a new videogame console. I’d open the books I requested and I’d thank ma and pap for them, and I’d get plucked by my brother once again. We’d sanction ourselves into our own spaces. The top bunk was his territory, a proper nest for his posture. I was left with the creaky bottom bunk that withdrew a constant “Hey, Lucas, how ‘bout you shut up down there, yeah?” And we’d bask in our newly received pleasures of Christmas while eating Aunt Beth’s traditional piles of chocolate and other assorted candies wrapped in their noisy foils and wrappers. I’d read a book and he’d lay around texting the seventh high school-sweetheart of the month about his new jersey and his “hard-earned-cash” (that is, the cash Granpa handed to him for Christmas).
We didn’t have the traditional gingerbread houses or the marvelous dinners, nor the caroling, nor the making of snowmen. These were alien to Floridians. But our family always had one tradition, and it was always to play the glorified sport of football. In fact, the mere word “football” is the epitome of us, the Brownsters, Christmas. And Browner would always ask me the afternoon if Christmas, “Want to play some football?” Last Christmas, the following exchange of conversation after the question was as followed:
“No, I don’t want to play the stupid sport.”
“You never want to do anything. You just sit in some cave and read books all day while thinking about everything, like everything is just some fantasy to you.”
“Well all you do is play some sweaty sport and waste your life on thrills and feelings.”
“And?”
“And? It’s stupid. You think it’s all about having fun, don’t you? You think you’re going to ‘make it’ in the big leagues and not have a worry in your life.”
“Where’d you read that, one of your stupid book? Did your idol Shakerspeare quote that in one of his books?”
I threw a punch at him we rolled around on the carpeted floor of our room for some time until Pa came in and broke the two of us up, sending us to two separate rooms. He gave me some sort of stare as if to intimidate me, and we exchanged some colorful words.

it's got, had, four eyes, six eyes, ten tentacles and a few rows of teeth, shaped like a dog maybe -- she doesn't know how to define it. it is shifting with a consistency that renders stability useless. such a thing restricts itself not to grammar.

Just write as you would with Third Person Omniscient. Except of course the thoughts and feelings of other Characters, unless your character is a Mind reader in which case all restraints are lost