Critique Thread

>The two guards at the end of your excerpt are saying things to each other they would already know.
I wanted to convey that they were frustrated with their situation

>pastebin.com/XHmfaF98
Not, bad, not bad. Might want to fix a few errors though, I could help with that if you don't mind

>The relaxing,melodious tone of the voice was tainted by the reek of blood and stale air that accompanied every word.

Give it to me straight doc, is this sentence salvageable? I can't even get out a paragraph of my story at this point

pls critique!!!!!! pls!!!!!! im givin it to my roblox gf

In that case theres a novella's worth of things they could have said instead to convey that your two guards hated their job. I mean, you have two guys that have to guard prison cells, that I'm assuming are completely rancid, and occupied by people who must be slowly starving to death since they are resorting to eating live rats. speaking of which, some images of the poor conditions in your person would also help your story.

Go ahead
I wrote this about 2 years ago and somewhat forgot about it. I'm aware this story has a bad habit of just introducing one new character after another. I was goofing off and cared more about referencing the Frank Zappa album and making food puns.

>speaking of which, some images of the poor conditions in your person would also help your story.
Wait as in the character narrating? (I'm writing Third-Person limited) or the cell she's living in?

>The voices relaxing melodious tone was tainted by the reek of blood and stale air which accompanied its every word.

Oh fuck that's so much better. I have been completely unable to shed passive voice, it has killed all of my novel aspirations for half a decade now.

I spent thirty dollars getting chicken to my door step
If I kill myself, won’t matter if I can’t afford it
Lost all of my loans on the vintage Fender market
I went to the mall I bought an Amazon gift card

Tangled up in severed threads
My oldest friends left me for dead
Spent my savings on a ukulele
I’m too clever to ever go crazy
I can’t drink on my medication
I don’t speak because of maturation
I’m afraid of touching myself
Couldn’t let my parents see me dying with my pants down

I’m not sorry
I forgive you
What’s the difference?
I don’t know
I’ve been thinking
I could hate you
You’d deserve it
But I don’t

Come on acquaintances
Be my friend again
I’ll behave, I swear
I swear, I swear

I’m not sorry
I forgive you
What’s the difference?
They’re the same
I deleted
All my numbers
So you miss me?
What’s your name?

Oh you hope I’m
Doing better
Do you really?
That’s a shame
Because I’m not
Because I’m not
Because I’m not
Because I’m not

Come on acquaintances
Be my friend again
I’ll behave, I swear
I swear, I swear

Arrogant ego death weak motherfucker. WAKE UP! What the fuck do you need that you don’t already have and why don’t you go out and just get some pussy already my dude because you’ve already seen what you came to see and now here’s your jacket here’s your fucking hat and take your hate too, you might need it for later. Don’t do that. Don’t pull that trigger. Que quieres mija? You feel sad? You feel you feel nothing you feel? You fell? You felt? You what? Well. Cheers to you stranger because it’s a big fuckin place this planet is, and what are the chances because of biology and chemistry and recipes for the shitty cheap booze we spit at each other and the cigarettesss. Fuck I wish I had one in this exact moment. Because see, I guess I’m arrogant enough to love the flavor of Certain Doom because everyone I know knows everything I don’t and nothing I do means anything to you anymore so why are you still talking to me? Pain is your job with its long hours and lonely nights and you deserve a break from the broken but I get the sinking feeling that you need and want this on some level. It feeds you and clothes you and confuses you and tells you everything looks perfect baby don’t change a thing but could you please do this and then do that. I said do it! Do it slut. Do it slowly slut. Don’t speak. Don’t scream. Look at this. I said look at it! Remember it. Imagine it. Take it home with you and sleep with it. Now – DANCE! And weep with me. Kneel with me and lament for what we have lost because we have, we have lost far too much to justify what we’ve gained. More than any visions or dreams could ever contain even within those limitless borders. We lost shooting stars and woodsmoke and cold kisses and deep breathing and hearts beating and in the end it all meant nothing because life is a cunt that way and whatcha gonna do? Cry about it? Go ahead then, cry. It turns me on. Always has.

Did what I could. Consider re-writing this into some sort of parody.

pastebin.com/MGv8tFkP

>Ekphrastic piece on pic related.

The paltry fire breathes smoke
that licks at the stumps of trees pencil-thin,
such as the cigarillos
that linger ever burning and infinitely
carcinogenic but to watch.
And these
sold by the tobacconist,
he who models
the crestfallen

Swagman or prospector,
he sits in linen dyed the colour
of a lopsided horizon.

Removed of
self-pity, but jaded.
Swag an afterthought
to an idle stoking stick.
His seat is unhewn and white ant
chewed. Succumb to nature and fallen
for it too was weak in its standing

and he wonders if this is a thing’s own fault.

For he knows there was no downed luck
accounting for empty sieve and sovereign;
no dice to throw.

The choices were his own.

The main problem here is that you give too much detail where it's unnecessary. For example, you call Ay large and then comment on his overabundance of insulation. Pick one and stick with it, people don't need to be told the same thing twice.
You manage to capture a lazy vibe well, I would say, but at the same time the tone feels somewhat disinterested, and I can't help but feel apathetic when reading it.

Opening paragraphs are a little weak. I'm not saying you need something explosive and exciting to grab attention, but at the same time, I'm not getting a good sense of mood, tone, or voice.
I think you might also benefit on cutting down some of the ending dialogue.
"All of these wenches are assassins" can go, for example.
It also seems that these guards/gaolers have some pretty sophisticated language, despite cursing and saying m'lord. Is this intentional?

This is all I could squeeze out. I learned that I'm too much of a brainlet to be literary because this took 15 words to become shitty genre fiction.
>pastebin.com/raw/ePSZQWE7 (embed)
I think the weakest part of this is the use of commas. It left me breathless at times, although that could have been your intention. You've a few tense changes
> He sat; looking out of a window at the stillness while the television chattering at low volume in the corner of the room.
At times it felt like you ran a sentence through a thesaurus eg
> He pushed off his hat, letting it cascade down to the floor
This is my favorite bit
>The sound lagged behind it, seeming lazy, just like everything and everyone else.

So like, was there a rat? Was she mackin on her own hands? What's the basis? Regardless, it was a very well written passage, you werent overly descriptive, and your prose seemed to be in your control.
At times I had trouble deciphering your sentences, for example
>However, it was two or more guards she would keep up with her deception. Let them have fun with another girl but me.
In fact, that entire paragraph is very confusing.

Not exactly a critque, but I need advice. I'm working on a story and I know the important plot points, I know the big events, but I don't know how to get the characters from A to B while showing more of how the world works.

im imagining laying belly down mouth open teeth grinding on the curb cement like American History X as a 30 pound sledgehammer pivots counter clock wise swishing down thru the air slamming onto the back of my head against the curb at a velocity of 15+ feet per second causing my jawbone & attached flesh to tear off like the pull tab on a teenage engineering po20 while the top of my skull bursts open baked potato style sending brain matter gushing out onto the sidewalk as a bright sinewy pulp that looks like the inside of a pumpkin mixed with sriracha semen except all made of brain matter which has started smelling really bad as it lays out there in the humid 98 degree farenheit august urban swamp rain developing a darkened semi moist half-dried sponge outer layer while the ants and flies start going into the cavity in my skull thru the crack which all has the effect of really pissing off the guy whose task it is to squeegee this septic meat vomit off the cement into his biohazard dustpan

integrate plot and character progression, don't alternate the two unless absolutely necessary

>Opening paragraphs are a little weak. I'm not saying you need something explosive and exciting to grab attention, but at the same time, I'm not getting a good sense of mood, tone, or voice.

Can you further expand on this? I get what you're saying, I just want to know if You and I are on the same page when it comes to mood, tone, or voice. because I had written a different first chapter than this, which might fit what you want.

>I think you might also benefit from cutting down some of the ending dialogue.
Reasonable.

>"All of these wenches are assassins" can go, for example.
But that's a Starting dialogue?

>It also seems that these guards/gaolers have some pretty sophisticated language, despite cursing and saying m'lord. Is this intentional?
Pretty much intentional. Will this be a problem?

We had docked in a port on the edge of Massachusetts, before heading out on the rough seas. Our ship, the Customhouse, was an oil tanker bound for Canada. I'd been on the boat for a few months now. Lots of crew would come and go but I became a regular. They liked me and took me on full time. I had never worked in one place very long. I always liked moving around and trying new things. One month I’d work as a line cook, the next I’d paint houses. Things like that really got me going. I loved working with my hands, which may seem strange for an educated man. It’s really not though because there’s a sense of accomplishment in it that you can’t find anywhere else.

From then on, notes were written in the cover of the evening. He wrote under bed sheets. He wrote with his bowing body supported by pillows against headboard, greeted only by the outer noise of wheeled carts and walkers over carpets freshly steamed.

Work was picking up, and Walt became increasingly tired and slow-moving. He rang the housekeeper for increasingly menial tasks. Sometimes just to talk. He felt the immovable roots of guilt take form but did not understand why.

On Walt’s last day of work, Mary asked him to take out a trash bag. She told him that it needed to go to the dumpsters out back across the parking lot.

Tasks such as these were normally reserved for the part-timers, though she and Walt were the only staff on lobby duty and her encroaching on forty weeks of pregnancy rendered her static by doctor’s order.

She told him that if he could not do it that he shouldn’t bother. That somebody else would be in the next morning. She remained compliant with workplace safety regulations, she read him unsaid rights.

Walt found the bag slumped against the emergency exit doors. They were unlocked and windowless and airbrushed with little white men running someplace safe.

Walt propped open the doors. He gripped the bag’s plastic tie with both hands and pulled. Though it moved, it was hopelessly heavy.

The bag, lumpy and misshapen, slid out the door and onto the salted asphalt. Walt dragged it inch by fighting inch over the rocky pavement. And he did this for some time, letting the bag follow his steps as he lumbered on.

He was halfway across the lot before he noticed the bag lighten. With his next and final step he felt it lighten more.

The bag had torn and its contents had spilled onto the cool, wet tarmac, leaving a small trail to where he stood.

They were books, most of them. Some magazines. There were twenty-five in all. They were familiar to Walt, because each of them had at one time housed his letters. Every one.

Walt glanced down by his feet where a book lay on the ground, its white cover dampened. Opium. Turning it over, he found no letter inside. He grabbed another and found nothing. There were no letters in any. They had all been removed.

He tried to put them back into the torn bag. He tried to carry them in his arms.

Hello?

He called silently to anyone at all.

He wept, he howled.

It was late in the afternoon when we disembarked from the ship. The pier was old, but well kept. It possessed a patina gained from the battering of sea water and cold winds. It was an odd sight, we were the only vessel in the harbor minus some local crafts. Some of the boys and I took off and went into town for necessities. Although Alan was a wonderful cook, we were getting tired of pot roast and mashed potatoes. One good thing about our line is that they fed us well. Coffee in the morning with pastries made fresh most days. Warm coffee always helped the cold mornings on the bow. For lunch we’d have hot sandwiches; ruebens, ham & cheese, or a pastrami. Dinner would come and we’d have a nice meal. Usually together in the small built-in down from the kitchen. I never liked using nautical terms for non-sea traveling folk, too pretentious if you ask me. Gully this, starboard that. No one can make sense of it, and neither could I for a while. I can sometimes be slow to learn, but that’s not really important. Where were we? Yes, dinner. For dinner we would have hardy meals cooked with fat and butter. Roasted beef with vegetables, potatoes, heavy bread. Stick to your ribs food they’d call it. Spaghetti and meatballs or sausages. Things to keep us filled and content.

We disembarked from the ship at a quarter past three. It was overcast. I thought, that’s not going to bode well for our trip tonight. It was a cool fall day, I was wearing thick cotton pants, boots, a wool knitted cap, and a heavy jacket. I hadn’t shaved in weeks, and at the time my hair had just began to recede. I felt like Jack Nicholson in the Shining, and I had a demeanor to match. We first went to a general store, the man behind the counter was wearing a thick flannel and a scowl. The room smelled of cheap tobacco. I walked towards the counter.

Two cartons of cigarettes and a box of matches please.
The scruffy old man behind the counter nodded and disappeared in the back. He soon reemerged with two beautiful boxes of stiff cardboard. He plunked them down on the counter with a lazy underhand throw.

That’ll be 18 dollars.

I handed him a crisp twenty dollar bill and walked out with a smile on my face.

The other boys had sat this one out. They didn’t like going into the store with the old man. He creeped them out with his horror stories of ships sinking or being swallowed hole by monsters of the deep.

I strolled down the block towards the pub we always stopped at while in town. The boys didn’t like to wait for me while I picked up my smokes. After a few days at sea they were ready to drink and carouse with the locals.

I was writing on and off at the time. Mostly ramblings about things that didn’t amount to anything substantial. Occasionally I’d hit upon something interesting and try to flush the idea out, but could never get more than a few pages in. I thought it was my lack of will power that stopped me, but as I came to realize it was my lack of self confidence. They say you have to like what you write, but I seldom find that true. Some of us are born with unquenchable doubt, and they say that those of us possessed this affliction are often brilliant. Its sad because there is so much wasted potential born from a lack of faith.

I hated to tell people I was writing, it made me feel like an attention seeker, especially when I didn’t follow through. I felt a release when I transferred my thoughts to paper. There were so many stories I longed to tell, but just couldn’t seem to get out. I remember when I was a boy in Chicago, I loved writing stories about animals. I had stacks of them, but one day my father came into my room. He scolded me. What are these? He threw them away and told my mother I was acting like a faggot. That was a painful moment for me, to have someone you love, someone you looked to for protection and reassurance cast off your dreams, the work you poured into those things from yourself really hurt. My mother fished my papers out of the garbage and put them in the trunk of her car. When she took me to my grandparents house the next day she put them in a plastic shopping bag and handed them to me. She told me that she saved them for me, she said she read them and that she thought I was a good writer. My mother was the only person who ever believed in me. I miss her everyday and sometimes I wish my father would have died instead of her. I left home at twenty-one after she passed and went to live in the south where I began living with my cousin in Georgia. He was a difficult person to be with, but he taught me so much and as much as I hate to admit it, I credit him for my meager success.

I stepped into the bar, a dingy little place filled with rough fishermen and near do wells. Who else would be drinking at 4pm on a Wednesday? The boys took a seat and I made my way to the bar. Neon signs displaying the names of beers I've never tried lined the walls. On ground level were a series of dinged up pool tables with more than their fair share of stains. The bar was made of old wood, stained dark brown to hide the scruff of old age. Out the corner of my eye I noticed a woman I had seen around before. She was pale with blonde hair, but her roots disclosed the fact that it wasn’t her natural color. Something about the light hair, dark eyebrows combination really got to me. Her jeans were tight and the checkered shirt she was wearing was unbuttoned enough that it left little to the imagination. I sat beside her and took a fresh pack from my pocket. I lit a cigarette and offered her one, she accepted.

I’ve seen you around here before, what’s your name?
Margarette.
Pleasure to meet you.
What brings you around these parts?
My boat docked in the harbor for the night and I’m here to drink. How about you?
I come for the charming atmosphere and refined clientele.

Being lonely causes a certain strain on your soul. Its like you’re being deprived of an essential nutrient. I basked in the warmth of her next to me. I tried to savor that momembt because I knew it was fleeting and I may not experience something so soothing for a long time. She smelled wonderful and every deep inhale through my nose release more endorphins than any drug, liquor, or cigarette ever could. Her skin was soft, like nothing I had ever felt in my hand. I had been with other women before, but this time was different. I was in it for different reasons. Companionship was something I missed dearly while traveling on the open waters. I kissed the nape of her neck softly, she was fast asleep with a half smile fixed to her face.

You could use Pastebin. you know

>a child cannot help himself from gazing into the sun
I liked this
>man didnt want to discover the source of these words
I think this sentence could be better if you replaced "didn't want to" with another word. Something like "he dreaded discovering the source of the words"

It seems like you put more effort into some paragraphs than others. The first two paragraphs are great but most of the rest don't feel as "poetic"

The fog came across the bow of the boat as we crept slowly through the water. I was smoking a cigarette and fiddling with the equipment. Pierce's eyes lowered. This was the area of the distress call, but there were no signs of the boat. I put the binoculars down and walked out of the wheelhouse and down to the deck. Some of the boys were perched on the sides holding life vests and ropes. Their faces were a mixture of apprehension and confusion. The fog was becoming more intense. I heard a boy call out from the front. By the time I got there they were pulling someone from the water. A young man with short hair and a fisherman's uniform. He was ice cold, shivering fiercely as he clung onto the coat of one of the boys. He was making little sense. Sputtering and stuttering, he couldn't get it out.

What are you saying boy! What's happened to your boat? Are there other men out there?

We had floated right through a scattering of men floating in the water. Low moans from the dying. The smell of smoke began to fill my nostrils. I began to make out light in the fog.

sorry new to all of this, I guess i'll use paste bin from now on thanks

Yyou might want to delete those previous post as they won't get published if archived by Veeky Forums.

Second Paragraph of a story I just started working on:
>Jennifer Etolin waited at the entrance of Arrowhead Middle School, classmates passed her by, leaving with the crunch of gravel. Couples, held hands. She cupped her palms before her mouth, blew warmth into them, and placed them back into her coat. Rainwater puddles mottled the gravel entrance path. Eyes down, she moved to and fro on her heels, humming a song of her childhood but the name escaped her and she stopped with a sigh. She began to think about it. In sotto she said her thoughts, and started to move to and fro again, the homebound crunching of gravel receding. When it became silent, she looked up to the empty gravel path and turned around to see the entrance hall, which was empty too, even the secretary was gone. With eyes down again she heard the start of steps at the end of the gravel path, she recognized the staccato of the footfalls and looked up. She smiled and began to walk. Hi, Edith.

Could be just me, but it sounds choppy. Particularly in the first half

>The main problem here is that you give too much detail where it's unnecessary. For example, you call Ay large and then comment on his overabundance of insulation. Pick one and stick with it, people don't need to be told the same thing twice.
>You manage to capture a lazy vibe well, I would say, but at the same time the tone feels somewhat disinterested, and I can't help but feel apathetic when reading it.
Thanks, I'm not sure how I could make it less disinterested but it's the opening scene of my novel so it's important that it keeps you reading.
>>pastebin.com/raw/ePSZQWE7 (embed)
>I think the weakest part of this is the use of commas. It left me breathless at times, although that could have been your intention. You've a few tense changes
That wasn't my intention and I definitely agree. Punctuation is something I struggle with.
>> He sat; looking out of a window at the stillness while the television chattering at low volume in the corner of the room.
>At times it felt like you ran a sentence through a thesaurus eg
>> He pushed off his hat, letting it cascade down to the floor
I did run it through a thesaurus, was hoping it wouldn't appear that way.
>This is my favorite bit
>>The sound lagged behind it, seeming lazy, just like everything and everyone else.

Thanks again everyone for the critiques, I'll return the favor when I get time.

It is. I usually do fine for the first paragraph, but not so much the second. Sometimes even goes for sentences. It's weird, I lose traction so quick with writing. But, I'm making an outline this time to try and create cohesion. This paragraph I shared was pre-outline and rather rough. At least it's salvageable... I hope.

different user,

So I've posted some stuff on Veeky Forums like in the reply box (300-700 word bits that I plan to compile). Am I fucked basically if I ever try to publish?

thanks for the advice I appreciate it.

pastebin.com/9Cju3Nab

>But that's a starting dialogue
What do you mean? This is the second sentence that the second person speaks

>Can you expand further
Sure. The way the opening paragraphs are written don't give off any particular vibe and seem generally disinterested. Later lines like
>The consequence of her actions be damned, better dead and free than alive and captive in this hell.
are better because they give insight into character and because it is a direct thought conveys a sense of desperation. Lines such as
> tears streaming down her cheeks by this humiliation as she feasted on its corpse.
Don't really mean much to me, however. Who is humiliating her? Herself? If that's the case you're not showing it here. Sure she's crying, but you don't write why, not really. Many of your early sentences are like this. It leaves the piece without a general mood until later when it should be established early (at least, imo). The voice itself seems rather apathetic too initially. Actions are described without character emotion behind them, like the narrator is somehow distant. Obviously, don't give character emotion and explanations to why shit is happening every sentence, but balance it so there is some early on. You do it well later, just not enough initially (once again, imo).
Hope that makes sense.

And, I guess it wouldn't be a problem if the guards spoke like that, but it just leaves me with questions. Are they educated? If so, why are they lowly guards? If not, why are they speaking in this way? Does everybody speak like this? etc etc

Critique would be great

pastebin.com/eV4G3RRH

Should the publishing company find it, pretty much? They will ask you to rewrite it or remove it.

fuck me ugh

I intend to reach out to religious publications (that's what I've been writing), so perhaps they won't find it. Technically speaking, what I've posted are not complete works (I will put them all in an aphoristic fashion) and I do not believe I have posted more than 2500 words of excerpts.

>Sure. The way the opening paragraphs are written don't give off any particular vibe and seem generally disinterested. Later lines like

>>The consequence of her actions be damned, better dead and free than alive and captive in this hell.

>are better because they give insight into character and because it is a direct thought conveys a sense of desperation. Lines such as

>> tears streaming down her cheeks by this humiliation as she feasted on its corpse.

>Don't really mean much to me, however. Who is humiliating her? Herself? If that's the case you're not showing it here. Sure she's crying, but you don't write why not really.

>Many of your early sentences are like this. It leaves the piece without a general mood until later when it should be established early (at least, imo).

>The voice itself seems rather apathetic too initially. Actions are described without character emotion behind them, like the narrator is somehow distant. Obviously, don't give character emotion and explanations to why shit is happening every sentence, but balance it so there is some early on. You do it well later, just not enough initially (once again, imo).

>Hope that makes sense.
Pretty much, you would have liked my draft on this chapter then.

>And, I guess it wouldn't be a problem if the guards spoke like that, but it just leaves me with questions. Are they educated? If so, why are they, lowly guards? If not, why are they speaking in this way? Does everybody speak like this? etc etc

Major subplot later in the series, can't go further than that.

First Paragraph (posted before):
>Edith Byrne sat in Isabelle’s apartment. Across from Jennifer, the girl of Isabelle, who ate the supper Edith made her: egg on toast. The room was temperate, the window obscured by rain. The tatami table they sat at had half-empty bottles of gin by its legs and low-volume laughter from the television made Jennifer smile and laugh. Edith read a dog-eared pulp book, her hand rested on the tabletop beside a pencil, which she picked up and underlined a sentence she found interesting, she subvocalized it: On the beach, she saw a far-away lighting.

Starts off well enough. I felt invested in the character's issues and relationships. Tone turned quickly and without warning, which threw me off.

Seems overly pensive. You have good control over imagery, and the contrast between the couples' hand-holding and her own palms cupped together was great. I like it, though I agree with

Thank you. I'll try to refine it and maybe move it a long. I always wonder how I shall fill pages since I make my paragraphs so short but with a lot of stuff. At least I don't meander like I once did.

>So like, was there a rat? Was she mackin on her own hands?
A left over from a previous draft, where she ate the tips of her fingers in her delirium. Was going for some Kafkaesque storyline with her, before being force to abandoned it due to being edgy.

>What's the basis? Regardless, it was a very well written passage, you weren't overly descriptive, and your prose seemed to be in your control.
thank you.

>>At times I had trouble deciphering your sentences, for example
>>However, it was two or more guards she would keep up with her deception. Let them have fun with another girl but me.
She wanted the guards to rape some other girl instead of her, so she feigned sleepness in the hopes it will allow them to overlook her.

>In fact, that entire paragraph is very confusing.
Sorry to hear.

Was told this was a bit angsty which surprised me since I wanted him to be Flippant about his past.

pastebin.com/1CKyFBv6

How the fuck do I stop letting my autism get in the way of my writing?

I want to write. It's fun. But I always have these intruding thoughts when writing like "oh this needs to have some kind of symbolism" and "this description could be more verbose" etc, etc.

I just want to write stupid shit and have people enjoy it. For some reason I write my best when I spontaneously write stupid out-of-character fanfic snippets on /a/ about some retarded anime.

How the fuck do I break the cycle of self critique? It's seriously holding me back.

Spontaneity is a meme. Deeper meaning being the purpose of writing is also a meme. Deeper meaning is just something you use when you need spontaneity. Can't spontaneously pick a color? Pick one that means something. It's all just a way to compensate for the fact that you aren't a random number generator.

> I write my best when I spontaneously write stupid out-of-character fanfic snippets on /a/
I seriously fucking doubt this desu

>I seriously fucking doubt this desu
Compare this
to this
pastebin.com/vHPQ25FB

Aye how do I make this line less fucked:

>I was at a bar-arcade, or a “bar-cade” as whoever’d invited me put it, although it really wasn’t so much that they’d “invited” me as it was that they’d just announced they were “going to be there from 8 to 10,” like they were signing books or something.

Everything there is important (including how the speaker corrects themselves, etc), but splitting it up would be acceptable:

>I was at a bar-arcade, or a “bar-cade” as whoever’d invited me put it. They hadn't really “invited” anyone though; they’d just announced they were “going to be there from 8 to 10,” like they were signing books or something.

Might drop the last two quotation marks.

Is this the internal voice of a character who's narrating the story?
If no, that's trash, if yes, you can get away with it whatever way you like

I was at a dingy hole in the wall of a bar, with cheap beer and grouchy bartenders, arcade machines lining the walls of the narrow rooms that made for the "bar-cade" as whoever had invited me here had called it. They hadn't really 'invited' anyone though, as if saying they're going to be there between 8 and 10 counted as an invitation. It felt more as I was being invited to a book signing by an underground author.

>Is this the internal voice of a character who's narrating the story?
It is. That's why it starts with "I"

Are you the /a/ poster who was worried about being verbose?

Ye. Just wrote that over the top of my head.

This will depend on how you like this to sound, but if you make a small change like
>His seat unhewn and white ant chewed
then there's a nicer rhythm.
The same with the last line which could be turned into a (nearly) rhyming couplet if you dropped 'were'.
This line here
>that linger ever burning and infinitely
is the one that seems a little odd to me because of a similar criticism you yourself gave. You use 'ever burning' 'infinitely' but it doesn't add so much after you've already given the sense of lingering. I think just two would be enough, 'infinitely' as well (even if attached to carcinogenic) started to feel a bit strange.

>two person
hyphen

>made her awake from her sleep
You're not thinking of imagery order at all here. I see awake and then I see sleep, which is the exact opposite of what you want. It's also just weird to say it as you have because people don't awake from anything besides sleep anyways. And then after this you go on to talk more about sleep, and then snap back, and I don't need this talk of mount Fiji water or your obsidian minecraft adjectives.

The pastebin writing is definitely better going off the two paragraphs I read. You're describing things on a micro-scale, but that's a good thing if the story calls for it. When people get made fun of for overdescription it's for thesaurus abuse and too many adjectives, not slowdown. Anna Keasly has a good essay on it, you'll probably find something if you google story time vs discourse time.

I disagree vehemently, but I'll take your criticism to heart.

I'll critique for each screenshot I upload... Pic-related is something I wrote in an afternoon - first time I've written this year, so I'm not expecting it to be that great. It's just a rough idea now, not a complete thing yet.

I enjoyed it, seems like a well-worded monologue that's been isolated. Is there more to this? Your voice comes off as realistic and sincere, so much so that it just seems real to me. I'm not well-versed in the Bible or anything, so I don't feel like I could appreciate it as much as I could. I feel like it should be much longer though, or part of something else - it could be a prologue, for instance. First of all, I'd like to know what crime was committed exactly, apart from rejecting God. I don't think you need to change to another scene or anything, in fact, I'd really like to read it as a longer piece of the same nature. For example, a very detailed confession or something - where the crime or the speaker's character can be slowly revealed. Main tip: feel free to write more, but if you want to keep it short, make it more stylistically interesting... no need to sound so real when it's this short. Flash prose should be very stylistic, in my opinion.

Straight off the bat, I don't really enjoy the voice or the phrases much. "Game" just sounds very cliched to me. I'm not a reader of urban fiction - if that's what you're attempting - so I'm not really the readership here. Sentences are a bit run-on:
>Not much to tell besides being born in some faraway and rural place which I have few recollections of, lived there until seven-years-old which my family got killed and my master spared me out of pity or compassion, she never gave me an honest answer as to why she did what she did.

No need for it to be this long. Feel free to cut it up and make them tighter.

>Dead family
Bit boring, in my opinion. I don't know the character yet, but this is a bit cliched too.

>Changing tense in the last paragraph, mid-sentence.
I'm not saying you can't do it, but most will say it's a big no. Pynchon is probably the only person I've read who does it well. But the first sentence of that last paragraph is a bit shoddy.

Just feel you have a bit of work to do with the voice, grammar and cliches. I understand there's a market for this though, so you should probably listen to that readership critique this more than me. I remember I followed some guy called Dayshawn R Smith who self-published urban fic.

Fug, forgot the other screenshot.

pastebin.com/rJPuBmNZ

A 2 page setup for a short story I started last night. English isnt my first language, so expect plenty gramatical errors.

Thanks user. There are more short pieces like it. And it's not a monologue, I'm describing what I have done and how I feel(I didn't kill a man either lol). It's a sin that I keep fall back to and I hate it...
>First of all, I'd like to know what crime was committed exactly, apart from rejecting God.
I'd rather keep that private; and when I say "rejecting God" I do not mean apostatizing, but rather I, by my actions, have denied what Go wants me to do. Just want to make sure you understand that as you said you aren't well-versed in the Bible! :)

More stylistically interesting for its shortness? Got it. Thanks again!

Whenever in my dreams I see the dead, they always appear silent, bothered, strangely depressed, quite unlike their dear, bright selves. I am aware of them, without any astonishment, in surroundings they never visited during their earthly existence, in the house of some friend of mine they never knew. They sit apart, frowning at the floor, as if death were a dark taint, a shameful family secret. It is certainly not then, not in dreams, but when one is wide awake, at moments of robust joy and achievement, on the highest terrace of consciousness, that mortality has a chance to peer beyond its own limits, from the mast, from the past and its castle tower. And although nothing much can be seen through the mist, there is somehow the blissful feeling that one is looking in the right direction.

edgyteenpopmusic/10

You did a good job describing how the painting makes you feel, and you noticed very small details in it (such as the stoking stick). Good job user. I don't think you captured the mans feeling enough, though.

Love is when
any thing
coheres.

Never to slide,
on a raft of false
thorough-ways,
down the desolate
muddy mountainside.

The gentle wind,
the eyes and ears,
the light reflecting
on the river-side.

Love is when
anything
coheres.

I like it

I liked this a lot.

The light refracted through the water as if with every sound the brook babbled, light appeared like iridescent, bright, flashes of bright, healthy teeth, but gold instead of white, falling in and out of sight as if the small waves were lips, lips that hid and revealed the glory of a smile to tease and dazzle, the flow of the water like the rhythm of a poem told slowly by someone with a tranquil need to entertain for their own amusement.

Her hand penetrated the water carefully, acquiescing to the cold, reaching for something that would make the acquiescence evolve into something new, something that would transform the regret that spawned from the idea of disturbing the speech of the water, into joy,or at least something that would resemble it.

But what she wanted wasn’t there, then and now with no promise of later. She withdrew her hand slowly and held it outstretched over her reflection, diaphanous drops of water with the potential to intimate to her choosing not to, escaping her grasp or falling from the great height as if to be away from their mother was to not exist as they were meant to.

As the sons of the brook ran to to their mother, her reflection changed with the arrival of every escapee, every runaway, every transparent leap off her hand causing it to shake, shimmer and shatter. She wondered if every new reflection that appeared anew as the water consumed itselff was the reflection of another part of her, one that looked the same but celestial, or cosmic, occult or fictional. A liquid eye seeing all realities at once, blinking as it consumes, each blink shifting it’s vision to another perspective, each perspective more bizarre than the other. She wondered if one reflection would be a of the sky showing her body under the lake, devoid of life and consumed by the water as the drops were.

“Macabre”

Wrote this out of boredom, tell me how shit it is

Clark Lane Fields, aged 40, leaving his office in the gorgeous part of an ugly town. He has been adult for quite some time, but the glow of youthful exuberance still follows his every move. He checks his watch, and seeing he is an hour late, he speeds to his quick car with a certain haste. An hour late for business concerns, would cost him more than some may ever make. The glows of envy follow him, for he has the connections, and the money.

He is the portrait of power,
The master of puppets
From which the world revolves

The portrait of power is not all-mighty, however.
Clark returns to his multi million dollar house in the gorgeous part of an ugly town. He goes home to kiss a trophy wife who doesn’t love him and who he doesn’t love right back. He sees a deadbeat son with no ambition. He looks into the glowing bright eyes of a happy young boy unaware he is going to inherit his father’s monumental debt.

For the portrait of power is running on fumes
He lives on borrowed funds
And borrowed time.

Clark Fields goes home feeling empty and alone in the gorgeous part of an ugly town. He enjoys all the pleasures of the world’s food, girls, and entertainment. There is something off, however, for the portrait of power feels disgusted and weak. He goes to sleep in his bed large enough for 4, and dreams mundane dreams of grey. His wife sleeps on the other side, and though she may imagine them as entirely different people, she dreams the same repetitive dream. The portrait of power sleeps empty and alone, and he will work tomorrow, hard enough to find something else to fill the gaping void

And the portrait of power that has everything
Though he feels that he is really at home
There is something far different
For the Portrait of Power is really
Alone.

I feel like the whole 'rich people are secretly miserable and hate themselves and im totally not a poor person writing about how much rich people hate themselves' thing is kinda overdone but I like the way you did it. There's some good imagery here and I like the repetition and the mix of sentence length.

Thank you, and I'll take that in to account

It wasn't really about being rich though, it was more choosing hedonism instead of love

>Did what I could.
I appreciate it. Sometime in the near future I'll read your edits alongside my original. Some of them I like but others I don't agree with, the first sentence in particular. it's worded that way in reference to Aqua Teen Hunger Force. There's a character in the show who tells long-winded and outrageous stories in about two or three episodes. They always start with "Thousands of years ago" (except for the Thanksgiving special in season two, I think, where he was a robot turkey claiming to be from the year 9595 because of some Terminator shit.) I wanted the story to feel like it was being told to you by an insane robot that just broken into your house.

>Consider re-writing this into some sort of parody.
I think I wrote this about 2 years ago so I've long since moved on from it. Only enough one of the two books I'm writing right now is a collection of short stories revolving around cats and it may include two parodies. one of them maybe a spoof of Beren and luthien where mortal cat tries to impress a goddess of merchandising. He dies halfway through his heroic quest and the goddess of merchandising immortalizes him with a cascade of plastic crap. The other would be a spoof of The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath where a cat goes on fabulous adventures in his sleep looking for the town of Ulthar.

In the future, I could attempt to build on top of this silly fruit and vegetable story into a larger epic of edible slaughter but I have several other book ideas lined up.

A girl’s virginity is so precious, because it represents all her hope.
No woman in her childhood dreamt of being used and trashed.
No, she dreamt of being loved, of being loved and held forever.
She dreamt of a man that would hold her and love her forever.
If only women knew how much men adored their bodies;
If only they knew what they were giving away with their bodies.
Only a man can understand the preciousness of a woman’s virginity.
Only a beast could take a woman’s virginity without regard.
I am a man, I understand how easy it is to play the part of a beast.
I only wish men, when they are beasts, would stop pretending to be men.
I only wish whores would stop pretending their virginity meant nothing.
But if I had only one wish: every woman would be a virgin on her wedding day;
That way, every woman could have her childhood hope fulfilled:
That after she’s given herself, she may be held and cherished by her husband.
I wish I could weep for all the world’s wasted virginities.
O you women, if you wasted your virginity, at least purify yourselves with tears:
Stop pretending that your virginity meant nothing: that lie is an even greater sin.
I love the Virgin Mary, but sometimes I feel I could love Mary Magdalene even more.

>A girl’s virginity is so precious, because it represents all her hope.
why read it if you gave it away in the first sentence?

Don't understand. Shakespeare begins Romeo & Juliet by giving away the theme and the ending. The first line sets the theme, the rest expands.

>Only men know the childhood hopes of women, which is to be with men
into the trash it goes

The tone of "A girl’s virginity is so precious" would have been open to a lot of misinterpretation if he hadn't immediately explained why, but at the same time I probably should be putting the word "misinterpretation" in quotation marks.

but u r not shakespeare. Idk, perhaps you can pretty it up, it doesn't feel creative

>Only men know the childhood hopes of women, which is to be with men

Woman has neither the selfishly developed conception of the self nor the intellectuality of man, for all that she is his superior in tenderness and fineness of feeling. On the other hand, woman's nature is devotion (Hengivenhed), submission (Hengivelse), and it is unwomanly if it is not so. Strangely enough, no one can be so pert (a word which language has expressly coined for woman), so almost cruelly particular as a woman -- and yet her nature is devotion, and yet (here is the marvel) all this is really the expression for the fact that her nature is devotion. For just because in her nature she carries the whole womanly devotion, nature has lovingly equipped her with an instinct, in comparison with which in point of delicacy the most eminently developed male reflection is as nothing.

This devotion of woman, this (to speak as a Greek) divine dowry and riches, is too great a good to be thrown away blindly; and yet no clear-sighted manly reflection is capable of seeing sharply enough to be able to dispose of it rightly. Hence nature has taken care of her: instinctively she sees blindly with greater clarity than the most sharp-sighted reflection, instinctively she sees where it is she is to admire, what it is she ought to devote herself to. Devotion is the only thing woman has, therefore nature undertook to be her guardian.

Hence it is too that womanliness first comes into existence through a metamorphosis; it comes into existence when the infinite pertness is transfigured in womanly devotion. But the fact that devotion is woman’s nature comes again to evidence in despair. By devotion [the word literally means giving away] she has lost herself, and only thus is she happy, only thus is she herself; a woman who is happy without devotion, that is, without giving herself away (to whatever it may be she gives herself) is unwomanly. A man also devotes himself (gives himself away), and it is a poor sort of a man who does not do it; but his self is not devotion (this is the expression for womanly substantial devotion), nor does he acquire himself by devotion, as in another sense a woman does, he has himself; he gives himself away, but his self still remains behind as a sober consciousness of devotion, whereas woman, with genuine womanliness, plunges her self into that to which she devotes herself .

I'm writing another poem of a similar theme but with more poetic execution. I just wanted that one to be as direct and confrontational as possible.

Well, I must say you have captured the confrontation

Was "leap of faith" the original phrase for "hot take"?

I hope you aren't trying to be clever and implying that somehow Kierkegaard didn't accurately describe a woman's nature in that passage.

>TL;DR they're fap material

I kinda liked it, tho I don't know what is speaking louder: the genuine liking of the poem, or my fetishism.
I think both.

No I'm saying it pretty directly actually.

But, mi'lady, you are only proving his point with your feminine pertness.

At least I'm not a thumb sucking """vo"""cel who assumes his conclusion in the proof whenever the world makes him feel desperate.