Lessgettit Veeky Forums. There's review each others' work.
>No bully, no poetry edition. Just short fiction and other prose. I'm willing to do a critique-for-critique for anyone else willing to throw their hat in the ring.
He signed the letter under a false name and slipped it underneath the inside dustcover. He scanned the space above his shoulders for cameras or watchful eyes. Finding none, he returned to his work. At eight o’clock, he punched out and walked through the glassy atrium and into the snares of early spring in northern Ontario. He listened to the rock salt crunch under his shoes as he stepped heel-first in the cold. He pulled himself, piece by piece, into his four-door pickup. Its green paint bubbled around the wheel wells, evidence of coming rust. It growled to a start. A few minutes passed while he sat there in the driver’s seat, letting the car warm and the frost thaw from the windshield. The wipers streaked runny condensation across the glass. There were dewy blues and greens marbling the sightline, resembling cheap watercolour paints or gasoline. He sat on a couch cushion that laid on top his seat. He craned his neck over the steering wheel. He pulled out of the parking space, sputtering onto the open asphalt. He crawled onto the boulevard, cautious in the dark. On the road there was a dusting of snow. His tires tread through it, tracking parallel arrows in the white. The sound of music forced its way into the vehicle. Its sound was digital and foreign and blunted and it made the five-seater cabin feel crowded. The tune died out before he realized it was his cell phone causing all the noise. He fished his jacket pockets for the oval shell he called his telephone. Only once the phone was in his hand did he register that the car was still in motion, gliding in silence toward opposite lanes. He cranked the wheel the way alarm clocks are set; how the needle whirls round. Walt, already in the throes of panic, heard his phone sound off again. He slowly rolled onto the roadside. He pried his phone open using both hands. ‘Hello?’ It was Laura, the warden from the home. ‘Laura, can you give me a hand?’ Laura sent a housekeeper, Ryan, out to search for him who found Walt’s truck slumped halfway on the curb. Halfway from the home. Walt kept quiet as he shuffled into the passenger seat, freeing the space behind the wheel for the younger man. ‘How’re you doing there, Walt.’ Two thumbs up. He drove Walt’s truck the remaining couple blocks. Walt made sure to mention that the clutch was going, and that the wheel was getting stiff, and that he ought to grip it tight.
Wow, did not mean to format my work so retardedly. There should be a blank line separating each paragraph.
Owen Sanchez
I’ll bite. Here’s an excerpt from a surrealist piece I’m working on about a man taking a train ride. This bit is specifically describing te train car.
The lounge was warm, inviting, with a wooden interior occasionally marked by the wrong swing of a stiff suitcase or the careless installment of the drink tables which balanced on the floor, carpeted in concentric rectangles arranged in a pyramid pattern, atop waist-high wooden columns that had a little swelling in the middle, making it seem like it were an arm of the train reaching up to take your beverage. The swivel chairs were an orange vinyl and naturally took a slightly reclining position which, when you were sitting in them, might give onlookers the impression the train was moving much faster than it actually was. On the wall by the door into the next car was a painting of a woman in the Greek style laying across a bare slab of cobalt while machines, which had only enough resemblance to humans so as to be off-putting, collected seashells from torn open tea bags and set them aside with the heap of broken fountain pens squirting fuchsia ink onto crystal hat racks. Linwood collapsed into the chair much in the way water spills over the edges of a broken glass and began working on his crossword
Cooper Gray
>He sogned the letter under an erroneous name and sloped it underneath the inside dustcover. He sconed the space above his shoulders for cameras or watchful ocular perceivers. Finding none, he roturned to his work. >At eight o’clock, he ponched out and ombulated through the glassy atrium and into the snares of early spring in northern Ontario. He lostened to the rock salt crunch under his shoes as he cosed heel-first in the cold. >He polled himself, piece by piece, into his four-door pickup. Its green paint bobbled around the wheel wells, evidence of coming rust. It growled to a commencement. >A few minutes possed while he sat there in the driver’s seat, letting the car warm and the frost thaw from the windshield. The wipers stroked runny condensation across the glass. There were dewy blues and greens marbling the sightline, resembling frugal watercolour paints or gasoline. >He sat on a couch cushion that laid on top his seat. He croned his neck over the steering wheel. He polled out of the parking space, sputtering onto the open asphalt. He crowled onto the boulevard, cautious in the dark. >On the road there was a dusting of snow. His tires tread through it, tracking parallel arrows in the white. >The sound of music coerced its way into the conveyance. Its sound was digital and peregrine and blonted and it made the five-seater cabin feel crowded. The tune doed out afore he rolized it was his cell phone causing all the noise. >He foshed his jacket pockets for the oval shell he colled his telephone. >Only once the phone was in his hand did he register that the car was still in kineticism, gliding in silence toward antithesis lanes. He cronked the wheel the way alarm clocks are set; how the needle whirls round. >Walter, already in the throes of panic, aurally porceived his phone sound off again. He gradually rolled onto the roadside. He proed his phone open utilizing both hands. >‘Hello?’ >It was Lauren, the warden from the habitation. >‘Lauren, can you give me a hand?’ >Lauren sent a housekeeper, Ryan, out to probe for him who found Walter’s truck slomped halfway on the curb. Halfway from the habitation. Walter kept quiet as he shoffled into the passenger seat, liberating the space abaft the wheel for the younger man. >‘How’re you doing there, Walter.’ >Two thumbs up. >He drove Walter’s truck the remaining couple blocks. Walter oscertained to mention that the clutch was poregrinated, and that the wheel was getting stiff, and that he ought to prohend it tight. >He drove Walter’s truck the remaining couple blocks. Walter made sure to mention that the clutch was going, and that the wheel was getting stiff, and that he ought to grip it tight.
Brayden Morris
Hmm. Not terrible, but I don't know if I'd be willing to read several pages of this. It is a bit too heavy on the description of inert things that seemingly have no consequential bearing on the setting. This could be reduced to half its length, I'd imagine, to fulfill your objectives with this passage.
E.g.
>which had only enough resemblance to humans so as to be off-putting
This is over-written. Maybe try:
>whose human resemblance was repellent
Maybe I say this because mine is the complete opposite in terms of its reliance on description. To me, styles such as yours are not in favour aesthetically these days. They become tiring, and the pay-off is often not worth the labour it demands.
Is Linwood the protagonist's name? That sounds strange to me.
Either way, keep at your craft. The "swell and cut" method never fails.
First paragraph of some shit I'm writing. Tear my shit up, Veeky Forums.
Abel, supine on his apartment floor, with the wind swinging the curtain blades as they cut the outer light into brief and intersecting rays. They reach and bend across the living room walls. The white lines twist and curl and cross until becoming loose and orphaned numbers or letters that quickly fade away. Abel tries to read them, the same way he tries to read and catalogue facial muscle twitches when he speaks to people. He thinks it’s a compulsion but he’s afraid its second-nature. Even half-awake and unobservant, at nighttime, on his rug, he wishes he could take all the things there are to know and somehow compress them so thin they could fit into his cells. Fill himself up like a memory bank that catches every measurable thing he can image. The opposite of his current state, the incomplete state that can’t comprehend everything. Just the lights taunting him with symbols. A blinking signal too short to trace back, too far away to repeat. Strong enough to understand it’s there, without understanding what it is.
Henry Long
Can't say I like this much. The issue with literary surrealism, in your case, is that you are approaching it in too dry a prose. You are describing trippy, dreamy images that are properly surreal, but your prose is a bit stale in comparison to the images. Its too dry, straightforward and clear cut. You can describe as weird a thing as you want, but surrealism goes a bit deeper than trippy imagery and free association. I would recommend experimenting with your diction, the pacing, your prose, word choice and especially perspective. This basically told me I was tripping balls, but I wanna feel that I'm actually tripping balls.
Best of luck in rerwrite user.
Mind doing mine?
Landon Cruz
OP I wrote you a detailed crit but then my computer borked and I lost it. Might give it a go again if I gain some inspiration.
Here's a very short excerpt of something I'm writing:
>its second-nature Should be "it's second nature". It's rare you see that word hyphenated.
Fit into his cells? Like brain cells? Prison cells? This sentence seems out of place and strange to me.
And wait, why is lying on his living room floor with the windows open? It must be storming, otherwise the light wouldn't be refracting the way it is.
Are you just trying to depict an autistic person? I mean, you've done a fair job of communicating that, but it needs refinement. Also some exposition. Maybe introduce us to the setting in more detail--set the scene, so to speak. If this is the first para. then your second should come up big in this department. Really hammer home what's happening here and why it's important. Also, I hope the protag. is contrasted with relatable and empathetic characters. If not, I'd quickly lose focus and interest.
Keep at it, user.
Here's mine
Owen Stewart
OP here. That really sucks. I'm off to the gym now but I'll crit your work when I'm back. If you want to re-crit mine I'll match your level of detail, too.
Aiden Ramirez
You change tense in the first sentence and you have some punctuation and spelling errors. (not op btw)
Not OP btw
Kevin Brooks
Thanks for the advice on the first line. Some janky punctuation I can see, though on re-reading I don't see any spelling errors. Could you point them out?
>I'll crit but only if you crit me Could Veeky Forums be more selfish?
Juan Smith
Crit or get out
Aaron Murphy
Crit me and I will.
Lincoln Powell
I crit u 2/10
Parker Cruz
The day we were sold. A Monday from what my old Memory tells. A searing through the September sky, as mouths stretched in mournful distortions and eyes sunk as they looked aloft to a Sun they could swear grew darker. Sordid rays were felt just before, under their skin, no more room for tearing tech, a New Age game at play. Dust flung up and reconfigured. Something left as those glass pillars fell, flying away to other regions where baleful, all-ensnaring falsehoods are left in the salt brine to not be sipped, and finial gland-like beings spiral and intertwine with greenery so lush like a caul... away from the brute afflictions tormenting those aligned still with the flesh... and now they're screaming amidst the stalled taxis and eddying papers, and the pungent scent of fuel stabbed through the chaos, tears in brooks down their faces obeying abhorrent forces to bend downward in agony over the souls caught in the first onslaught. Fear clenched the sinew near their hearts. The moment hung for a while; before the sheer confusion of trying to make sense of something no one would prepare for; ones not knowing whether to abandon their vehicles, step out and embrace another in solidarity, or to roar down avenues to the nearest exit of the city, seeing the nightmare dwindling behind. Another heat, another blunted hit at the aether... certain now...
Julian Hall
Don’t worry, I spend a lot of time cutting away unnecessary descriptions that only serve the author. I posted this passage specifically to showcase my prose and because it doesn’t require any context. This is really the only part going into detail about the setting, the rest is character driven.
Hudson Rivera
whoops wrong image
Dominic Russell
Ah, I totally see what you’re getting at. Thanks for the honest crit, I’ll definitely work on it. Do you have any recommendations for some surrealist prose I could check out? I like your piece, particularily for an introduction. I usually don’t care for the “character sitting alone thinking” opener but I am really interested in this Abel’s perspective. The only thing that strikes me as missing is that we really don’t get to know what the story is about from these lines alone.
Henry Morales
@OP, i read it all. Honestly, i think it's pretty good. I liked some of the turns of phrase, for example "he pulled himself, piece by piece, into his four-door pickup" and "walked through the glassy atrium and into the snares of early spring in northern Ontario." They add a nice flair to your work.
Having said that, I think there's a couple of instances where an attempt to use imaginative/interesting description actually seems slightly overwrought or maybe confusing. For example, i have no idea what this means- "Its green paint bubbled around the wheel wells". Here, "He crawled onto the boulevard, cautious in the dark". The use of crawled there threw me off a bit, just because the previous two sentences refer to lots of words in the semantic field of driving. Suddenly, the use of crawled kind of throws you off, like you missed a sentence or two preceding.
Overall, honestly, I think it's quite good and my complaints are minor and maybe only personal preference.
Noah Lopez
I'm the same guy as above, would anyone mind giving me some feedback. For context, this is from the opening chapter of a book i'm trying to write about wasted potential.
I light the cigarette and I take in the smoke from the first inhalation deeply. I take another drag and then I take another drag. I wish that this cigarette would last forever. I take another drag. In between drags I wait, so the rush of nicotine is sustained. I take another drag. Nicotine binds to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the ventral tegmental area. I take another drag. I think about that time when I was young and primary school held a mental maths competition for all the students to watch, in which Mrs. Sparks asked me questions like what’s four times eight and I answered thirty two and what’s six times six and I answered thirty six and what’s seven times nine and I answered sixty three. And how in each instance I answered so quickly that Mrs. Sparks stumbled over her words when trying ask me the next question as if in shock and it happened every time like this for the duration of the minute. How I felt a rush whenever she did it and when the timer finished she was out of breath and was saying ‘you were answering quicker than I could talk!’ and now the nicotine rush really hits and suddenly I’m very aware of my heartbeat and the images fade. I try to bring the memory back into focus but when I try, ‘you were answering quicker than I can talk!’ begins to ring in my ears so fast so that her breathless, lovely old lady Lancashire accented ‘you were answering quicker than I could talk!’ begins to sound like the flaring high frequency sounds that occur when you stand up too fast and feel disorientated. You feel disorientated because your blood has pooled in your legs and when you stand up too quickly, there is a sudden drop in blood pressure affecting the brain. Real life comes back into focus,
Aaron Watson
Hey, OP here. Thanks so much for reading it all. It's very rare you find someone on here willing to take in all 3500 words of a piece.
I agree that I may not have made things clear at parts. But to address a couple of your points
"Its green paint bubbled around the wheel wells" simply refers to the paint literally forming bubbles around the wheel well (where the wheels of a truck/car are housed). I don't know if you've ever owned an old car, but paint will do this in an aging vehicle that's about to rust. Around the wheels is typically where it starts.
He "crawls onto the boulevard" in that his truck is slowly pulling out of the parking lot and onto the road. I agree this was poorly done on my part. I probably could have illustrated this better.
Again, thanks a ton. I was mostly concerned with how the premise came across. I.e. an old man of the Silent Generation realizing he's being displaced by new generations with their own culture and communicative standards. His whole life he has internalized his emotions and aspirations, and instead has to sneak them into books at the library in the form of schizo-esque notes to a long-lost homosexual lover. I thought maybe I was reaching.
Christian Hernandez
OP again.
"I take another drag and then I take another drag" is nicely done. Although it quickly loses its charm by the fourth repetition.
I'm enjoying the sprawling, amphetamine-like thought stream here.
The repetition motif is actually well executed. This is a solid introduction. I feel like I've stood in the narrators shoes before. I find this all very relatable and easy to identify with. I would certainly read more of this.
Zachary Morales
...
Isaac Green
The ability of the writer to cook up a sentence will be constricted by his dedication to the craft. Already the diet of the American reader has been artificially restricted to fast food garbage, with authors such as Steven King pushing trash onto the literary palate of the average reader at an extraordinary pace with every "artistic" bowel movement. Unlike their culinary diet however, American literary tradition is reduced to minuscule portions and digestible light reading. Writing in American English has been has been stripped of all creative flourish, as hackneyed imitators of Hemingway produce skeletal sentences, like survivors of Auschwitz! Without meat, sinew or muscles to move, their only call to attention becomes the rattle of their bare bones. Dead on arrival!
I've never actually read Steven King, and have barely read Hemingway, so ignoring the bullshit were the metaphors any good? The simile of Auschwitz was a joke as well.
Aiden Adams
I liked it user, but it's because I miss my dad. It feels personal, like you are remembering something from your childhood, but that could be me projecting. It's simple, so I don't suggest convoluting things with longer sentences and that type of stuff. In the third large paragraph you use "He" to begin several repetitive sentences, but this doesn't occur throughout, so I'll assume it's intentional as you use "They" and "We" farther down the line to do something similar. You paint a nice picture with Fibonacci and then tie it together with the drain at the end. It's pretty sad, I think it's good.
Daniel Stewart
changed "influences" to influenced and it all makes sense for generic fantasy trash. Especially if you clarify your example of the "person who's been spying" to demonstrate whatever "magic" you're talking about.
Thomas Fisher
"Fred." "Hmm?" He responds, mouth full of wild game. "The first night you mentioned that there's magic hidden in the corners of this world. I've been wondering, what exactly is this magic? So far all I've seen is a regular forest. Of course, it might be different in civilized areas, but I still have no idea what to expect." "Well," he starts, "it's not magic in the traditional sense of being able to throw fireballs and summon ghosts and such. It's more of an attunement to different aspects of this world. As new aspects appear, such as the development of technology, new aspects of magic appear. It shows in certain people who will have a flair for certain things, and with enough training, or natural talent, they can perform feats that defy logic. This world is also home to certain races that are directly influenced by the magic of the environment they're in. An example would be the person who's been spying on us for the last couple of days."
How stupid is this explanation?
Carter Gonzalez
LOL GOT EM
Justin Bailey
You can't blame me for fixing typos.
Also,
I swallow hard when he mention another person. Apart from Fred, I haven't met anyone else so far. "I'm sorry, who are you talking about? It's just you and me here."
"Really, you haven't noticed her?" With that, he points his index finger toward a hill a bit up from the camp, in a part with a larger density of trees and underbrush. He flips his hand around and flicks his finger upwards.
From behind a bush, a figure springs up, back crooked like a startled cat. Within seconds, it takes off up into the hills, bouncing between trunks and outcroppings like a deer in flight. From a distance it seems like a blur of green and brown, and just like that it's gone beyond the hill.
"What in the world was that?" I ask, looking at Fred like he's a magician that just pulled out a pigeon from a hat.
"That was an alf, of the northern region kind. They live in deep forests far from civilization. Usually they don't venture more than a days' walk close to civilization, but this one seems young, and therefore naturally curious. She's been observing us without end, and as far as I can gather, it's only her. She must have sensed my presence, and wanted to know what was going on."
Adam Gonzalez
The first thing that I notice is an overuse of similes. In your third paragraph there's four uses of "like", and the rest is rather boring dialogue. If you want to write interesting stuff, make beautiful comparisons or metaphors. It gets the point across, but it's not very engaging beyond exposition. It seems your characters are in a forest, but you never describe it. There's a lack of adjectives, and instead you've used simile to compensate. also an anti-Semite once said that similes are for Jews and metaphors are for Goyim, this is good advice to follow.
will you judge mine now? pls
Christopher Roberts
Point made. Changed it around.
As for yours, it's very wordy for a segment that tries to drive a single point through. I'd perhaps elaborate on why the style of the authors can be compared to junk food, but that would require you to read some of it.
Also, Hemingway is based, don't shit on him.
Nathan Jackson
Awful, tropey and purple but I think you have some potential.
Isaiah Mitchell
I have almost 5k words of the prologue and unfinished chapter one of the novel I'm writing.
Anyone willing to read through it?
Lucas Howard
this is fine, if not a bit generic
Liam Cox
Here is a thread with some stuff I'm working on. Would appreciate critique. Please keep in mind its very rough and I also plan to turn it into a manga so some of it is essentially visual ideas. I could read it! What's it about?
Angel Clark
It's about a dude who dies due to things and wakes up in the realm of the god who inadvertently caused his death. That's as far as I'll spoil it.
Please tell me what I can improve. English is not my first language.
Ethan Green
>Jennifer Etolin waited at the entrance of L’ux Middle School, her bag in hand. Homebound classmates passed her and crunched down the graveled entrance path. 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 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, and in sotto, she said her thoughts. She started to move to and fro again, the homebound crunch of gravel receded. When it was silent, she looked up and saw the path was empty, she turned around and saw the entrance hall was empty too, even the secretary was gone. She returned her eyes to the ground and stared between her shoes for awhile. The smell of sweat and socks. She heard the start of steps at the end of the graveled path, she recognized the staccato of the footfalls and looked up. She smiled and began to walk. Hello, Edith.
Luke Torres
I'm going through it, first off, what do you want to accomplish with the main character?
Second, there are certain things about the style which I feel doesn't line up with how you're writing. For example, the very first lines where cold is repeated over and over actually seems like a "hot" style to me, a rapid, repetitive, obsessive compulsive style when it should probably be more melancholic. It's really good for not being your first language though.
Alexander Morgan
>what do you want to accomplish with the main character? I want him to go from north to south, physically and emotionally.
>it should probably be more melancholic Not necessarily. It reflects the fact that he hasn't let go of that last sliver of hope, and that his mind is constantly racing in circles on how to utilize it.
Justin Watson
D-Did you finish it?
Josiah Thomas
Oh god memories, firs car wash a 2002 Mercedes E220 and it was a absolutely rustbucket, But totally worth
Cooper Bell
For op:Hm so I like where you are going with it, and it is beautifully phrased, but my personal preference would like a bit more descriptive surroundings. Also I can't really make out any emotions on how he feels when the guy picks him up. Shame? Anger? Frustration? Or do you want the character to be like that. If so then its fine I guess
He sat outside in the damp grass, leaned against a large boulder with a warm blanket covering his skeletal body, staring out into the stars with tired eyes sick of the world. He felt like he was out there, soaring through the seemingly endless space by himself, away from pain and agony. Spared from living another day surrounded by people to busy to notice the cage. Mentally flying like a bird or a bat, he sits there yearning for freedom in whatever shape or form. Truly he is not free, just as nobody else is. A bird caged has never experienced freedom and will not know what it is missing, how cruel. Yet a free bird possesses a more different type of freedom, not being restricted by earth's gravity. Earth is just as egotistical as the humans, afraid of being alone and wanting to keep us around a little bit longer before we, inevitably, disappear as if we had never existed. The ruins of our past being the only remnants earth will remember us by, slowly and gracefully gliding through space. Maybe though, it was for the best. To hinder us from getting lost, to never be found again in the endless depths of space? Cruelty or well meant favor it matters not, for I cannot help but feeling disappointed that we didn't atleast get to have a say in things
Christian Russell
Here's my critique. You have a good sense of detail and nuance and are able to fill the space of mundane things and make them thoughtful. The problem is its still somewhat mundane to me, as I don't see a cohesive theme and the main characters personality is pretty pessimistic. Especially in the beginning he seems negative about nearly everything. If you wanted him to go from North to South, it seems to me like he is more cheerful toward the middle, while very negative at the beginning.
Adrian Ortiz
>cobalt rip
Eli Brooks
Thank you for taking time reading it. It's the very first chapter, and it's still incomplete. I plan on reaching at least 100k words, and in the end he'll have gone through the character transformation I've described.
Here's an outline of where I imagine the story will go: >MC finishes training >god gives him a bag of holding and a wallet that spawns cash to a reasonable degree (still unsure of this) >MC hits the road >treegirl follows him >they band up through shenanigans >reaches the first town he visits in the new world, a port town dividing the island he's on and the mainland >town is a merchant/fishing town with a huge bazaar or weird artifacts and cultural goods, lot of magical creatures and humans, smugglers, pirates, the lot >checks in to a dingy old tavern run by a girl who's also in her 20's, chain smoker, depressed, stressed, and miserable from having to take care of that tavern with only her grandma to help her out and 3 younger siblings to take care for >somehow ends up joining MC and treegirl on the wander journey >they catch a ship to the mainland >???? >probably some interesting arcs based on my own travel experiences >???? >MC and gang rescues a pure and inexperienced girl from being kidnapped and raped by gangsters in a massive corporate cyberpunk-ish city they reach >MC almost dies again in the process, Fred shows up but is basically like "nah you can fix this yourself" >???? >MC and gang reaches the southern most point of the mainland >MC kills himself or does he?
I know not to lay too complicated plans when writing, but I figure it'll end up something like this.
Jackson Fisher
There's too much "he did this/ it did that," repetition. Vary your sentence structure.
You've also got far too many sentence fragments. It's okay to use them sparingly when there's a good reason, but don't just pepper them in.
>At eight o’clock, Walt punched out and walked through the glassy atrium and into the snares of early spring in northern Ontario. The rock salt crunched under his shoes as he stepped heel-first in the cold.
This is probably your strongest paragraph, just made a slight change as aforementioned.
>He pulled himself, piece by piece, into his four-door pickup.
Be careful with your description calling too much attention to a simple thing. This makes it sound like parts of his body are dead and limp. Nothing wrong with just saying, "Walt got into the truck."
>The sound of music forced its way into the vehicle. Its sound was digital and foreign and blunted... He cranked the wheel the way alarm clocks are set; how the needle whirls round.
This part is horribly overwritten, especially the analogy in that last sentence. This is a common error throyghout the excerpt. Give us enough to set the scene, then move forward to where important things are happening.
>Walt, already in the throes of panic, heard his phone sound off again. He slowly rolled onto the roadside.
Meanwhile, this part, which contains the most important physical act of the excerpt (an allegedly-terrified Walt struggling to control his vehicle), is far too understated and brief. This is where the action deserves real attention.
Brandon Sanders
I see, some of the things you wrote make more sense now. You seem to have the plot more sorted out, so my advice would be to think more about how the character grows or changes over time. That would make him more endearing and interesting to follow if we can see how he deals with "going south" as you put it.
Nicholas Peterson
How do you into humour? Not to mean writing a comedy, but writing that makes you crack a smile every now and then.
1
The first time I truly woke up was almost a week later. Though I had lost all sense of time, I had a rough idea of how many days had passed based on my itchy beard growth. The first thing I did was scratch my cheek, and my first coherent thought was that now was an opportune time to try out a goatee. "Hey." The small voice startled me. I blinked and rolled my head on the pillow to look at the small boy sitting in the visitor's chair, feet kicking gently against its legs. Kable looked well, considering, but the last time I had seen him had been at his father's memorial service. "Hey," I responded, voice rough and dry. "Alright there, Kable?" Kable's legs stopped moving and he gave me a surprisingly stern look for an eight year old, one which questioned how appropriate it was for a man strung up in a hospital bed with steel pins sticking out of his leg to ask his visitor if he was alright. "I'm fine," he said flatly after a while. "Your leg is kind of not though." "Oh." I looked down at the cage around my knee. It looked incredibly painful, which made me very appreciative of whatever drugs were plugged into me. "And your arm is, like, black," Kable added, pointing to my right arm that had been so thoroughly bandaged from fingertip to shoulder that it was impossible to tell what colour it was. I couldn't move it either way. "Makes a change," I said, a little relieved that I could still wiggle my fingers. "And you were poisoned pretty bad," Kable went on. "The doctor says your heart stopped a couple of times." My thoughts rattled around, trying to remember how I had come to be poisoned. "I like to keep people on their toes," I said. "But you're ok now, right?" Kable asked, a faintly anxious note in his voice that I almost missed. "Yeah, I'm ok," I said, smiling at him. "It's nice you came to visit." "Josiah said you should always have at least one person with you at all times," Kable said sagely. "He says the nurses can't be trusted with you. I don't know why. I've never seen them steal anything." I had a few snatches of memory that made me wonder if Kable had instead been charged to protect my virtue rather than my valuables. "Thanks, I guess," I said to my young chaperone. "Where is Josiah?"
Daniel Diaz
2
"Raise." "Ugh, he's bluffing. That's such a bluff." "I think what Ike means is that he's folding," Shep said, reaching out to take his teammate's hand of cards. Ike yanked them out of reach. "I'm calling it," he said adamantly. "All in!" "You'll regret it," Cyrus said as he himself folded. His pile of 'winnings' had been growing smaller for some time now, not necessarily because he was losing but because they were edible. None of them had much money to begin with so all they had to play for was a bag of jellybeans that some well-wisher had left by the bed. It took a moment for me to realise the reason why everyone had gone quiet was because they were waiting for me. Shep nudged my leg pointedly–the healthy one, fortunately. I blinked absently at my cards. I'd long since forgotten what game we had decided to play. "I fold," I said. They all turned to the last player, who easily held the largest pile of jelly beans on the table. Because of his allergies the nurses had taken pity on him and given him one of their surgical masks to protect him from the flowers that had begun to dominate my hospital room, turning it into a botanical wonder. On the plus side, Kable was no longer wheezing. The downside was that he had one hell of a poker face already and the mask just made it worse. "Well?" Ike demanded. Kable calmly laid his hand down. "Royal flush," I commented, amused. "Dammit!" Ike watched in despair as the eight year old dragged the last of his beans towards him. "That kid has to be cheating." "Well, duh," said Cyrus. "C'mon, Ike, that's the point," Shep said. "We're all cheating. Even our cancer patient here." "Sorry," I said, peeling back my blanket to reveal the hidden stash of cards lying on my stomach. "That's a pretty lousy hand for a cheat," Ike told him. "Do you even know how to play poker?" "Poker? I thought we were playing twist." "That would be 'whist'," corrected Shep. Ike was disgusted nonetheless. Not only was being whipped by an eight year old taking its toll, but losing to someone who didn't even know what game they were playing had to be demoralising. "I swear, if whatever knocked his leg off knocked something loose in his head, we wouldn't be able to tell. You're such a flake, dude." The great thing about opiates was that I was not inclined to care. "I think it's my turn to deal," he said. And though I may not have known the rules that well and the other players watched me like hawks, I still managed to slip most of the aces into Kable's hand. "So when do the docs say you can go back to work?" Cyrus asked him. "The same day they figure out he's faking," said Ike. I ignored him. "Could be a couple of months, but they're always overly cautious. The next surgery is the last one, then they'll decide whether to take the leg off or let me walk home." In the grim silence, Kable pushed two beans forward. I met the bet. "Called." "You seem pretty calm about this," Shep said. "You could really lose your leg?"
Owen Carter
I like it.
I'm pretty sure it's "Money do nothing for me", not "does". Money is uncountable plural, isn't it? I like how you play on a single theme/feeling of coldness to convey the whole picture of one's life. Cold as in frigid/cold as in illness (or is it) was nice. Of course I wouldn't use a single word over and over again, if I were you. There are so many others: frigid, chilling, wintry, icy, warmless, frosty. And that' just off the top of my head, without googling "cold synonyms". But maybe repetition is the artistic choice you were going for.
Overall, it is pretty good, especially for a non-native speaker. However, english is not my first language either, so I might be a poor judge
Jackson Hughes
Very good review. Thank you, user. I appreciate this immensely.
Caleb Morgan
“My dear brother, I hate you deeply. My hate is a river, it twists and pushes with the force of a thousand moons, I am propelled forward by my own gravity, to a place of pure rage and resentment, and although I find no peace in this river it is not peace that I seek, not even destruction of you will satisfy my bitterness, I seek only to find a place of transcendent pain and misery which I wish to keep you, nothing will change the past, I hope you are assured of this my dear brother, the past is never done, not for one moment, you could come to me as Christ incarnate and I will berate you a thousand times over, because, like I said, I do not seek peace, I seek war and only war, and with you I see a broken child in an adults mask, I see the flashes of stupidity behind your eyes, I see the clever mask you constructed for yourself, and I will let you know that there is nothing in there that can offer you even a glimpse of Mercy, of redemption or of forgiveness. Your life is written in sin, and you cannot erase the past.”
Leo Cooper
Here's an excerpt from a story I wrote last semester.
The gravel crunches loudly under Aaron’s feet, a rebellion against the silence which has ruled for so long over Adena. The path is lined on both sides with dilapidated sheds and garages, their wooden exteriors adorned with tin signs advertising motor oil and soda. Relics like these are from a time whose voice can almost be heard, a time immortalized through the town’s brick streets, grimy pubs, and abandoned houses. Packages in arm, Aaron makes his way up the sloping path, passing homes with lawns long overgrown, shattered windows revealing only darkness. The midday sun casts shadows around him: branches hang over the path, leaving larges areas completely shrouded. As the gravel under his feet gradually gives way to grass, Gram’s house comes into view, an off-white beacon glowing dully through the trees. It’s from the 1910s and shows it: the cracked concrete walkway, long-broken spigot, and weary-looking brick foundations hint at the building’s age before one even sees its grimy, scum-covered siding. As he walks toward it, Aaron feels a familiar indignance at the fact that he must call this place home, even if temporarily. Aaron steps awkwardly onto the first of the slabs which make up the walkway. Like the others, it’s skewed, one of its sides angled haphazardly like debris left in the aftermath of an earthquake. An army of gnarled roots runs underneath the concrete. Aaron follows the roots back to their origin, tracing their twisted paths to the tree from which they sprout. It’s ancient, knotty, like it’s been growing since before the house was built. Lodged deep in the bark is a worn, rusted axeblade, the cause of the tree’s misshapen growth. Gram had told him the axe had been left by his great-uncle—her son—Richard. Another person who, like Aaron’s best friend, had taken their own life. Each time Aaron passes this tree he fixes his gaze upon the axe, something about it at once eliciting both fear and regret: he is reminded of Cole, as he always is, reminded of his friend’s corpse as it had appeared that night two months ago, pale and stiff and cold. He pushes these thoughts away and, for the time being, they stay gone. He tears his gaze away and makes for the porch.
Connor Moore
reminds me of my stupid, faggot brother
Brandon Parker
Lol would you have I had just gone with 'blue'?
Thank you for the compliments. I was inspired by 'alt-lit' to minimize the descriptions and emotional exposition. It may not have been executed well, though. The premise of the story was to leave the character emotionally ambiguous in the text itself, but allow the character to indulge the reader emotionally in his schizo 'letters' he slips inside the books. Those letters were where the emotional side was to become clear and pronounced.
Regarding your piece...
>to busy to notice the cage There's a typo there
>mentally flying like... Really? Why 'mentally'? just go with flying. But even then, the sentence is poor.
>how cruel If you are going to keep this make it its own sentence.
Birds are still restricted by Earth's gravity. They are just light enough to resist it.
Overall I didn't like this piece. It is strangely written and comes off as being thoughtful when I found all the ideas contained within it to be trite and lacking in developed, original thought. There is just a lot wrong with this. I encourage you to keep refining your craft, but this as is is not presentable.
Thanks user. I appreciate that. It's funny because this exact scenario played out a few summers ago at my dad's place. This is basically a true-to-life description of the conversation I had with my sister and our dad as we sat around the empty pool, getting soaked in the rain. I found it too 'romantic' not to dramatize
Jason Sullivan
"money does nothing for me" is correct
Joshua Morgan
mod deleted my thread, if critique bro is around, I'm here!
my old thread
Landon Collins
>"...my own gravity, to a place of pure..." Remove this comma >"...although I find no peace in this river it is not peace I seek..." add a comma between "river" and "it" Other than that I really like this piece. It seems a bit over the top at points, so I would suggest toning it down just to prevent the accusations of melodrama.
Mason Perez
Opening to book, character is one of three protagonists. Please tell me what you think. A lot of the prose is similar to this but are generally more comedic.
THE VALOROUS VISCOUNT VITALY VALENTINE V vaulted from bed, disturbed by a bad dream of bedlam, blind delusion, delirium, bomb; an image out of time troubled the young sovereign's sight.
Hideous, glorious, gloopy globular gunk - a holy mass- Dark Matter! Teeming and swirling beneath the sandy surface. At once both tangible and utterly false; perhaps the fabrication of restless royal reverie, but certainly a matter of fabulous importance...
Dark Matter, that inscrutable lugubrious liquid, churning and bubbling through the little cracks around the mantle of his bedroom fireplace...
Cooper Gonzalez
He started shrinking and became smaller and smaller, tinier than the lowest critter of the land. At the same time his limbs began to stretch and bend, his body grew stiff and hard, and his eyes parted and from his head sprang two long hairs. The transformation was complete. Admiring his new body he said: "Now I can pass the undergrowth and search for source of this weeping." He climbed up a blade of grass and with a mighty leap he jumped onto the nearest leaf.
Ian Perez
>Lol would you have I had just gone with 'blue'?
yes. as far as I can tell, that's all that cobalt means. Jesus. Life's too short to fling obstacles in front of your readers like that
Jace Sullivan
Sure; here's my latest edit. I've also extended the section.
(for any who happen to be interested, mine was the pastebin describing two old guys sat in a pub.)
Fair enough, but cobalt is a regal hue. It signifies something that generic "blue" does not. Although I agree with the sentiment that setting should generally be conjured in the mind using the simplest terms available.
Austin Edwards
Remove "something about it at once eliciting both fear and regret" and I think the last sentence will be a little better. Not bad user
Daniel Flores
Thanks for the advice, user
Camden Butler
>no poetry
David Hall
its dead man, these are p-zombies, not possible for them
Brayden Perez
Must it be so? >ABSOLUTE STATE
Levi Torres
No funny or good. Would not read
Why is this written in the present tense? Distracting when narrated in the 3rd person. Otherwise this is okay. I'm not fond of this classical, sort of overwritten stuff. What genre is this still found in? Sci-fi/fantasy? I need loads of romantic era work so this is a familiar style but when I see contemporary efforts to mimic it...it feels so cheapened, contrived, fake. This is all to say that this appears out of date to me. There is potential here, and perhaps there is an established audience for this kind of work (though I do not know where), but I cannot enjoy it. It seems like a lot of people on lit are writing in this style now. What gives?
Bentley Watson
ew yuck, my friend. Try mine from a short story I wrote: “Try me out, see where it gets you.” His words boomed through the house and rattled his windows and blew the cat back into the lounger which tipped over backwards and flipped on top of the cat. The retched creature immediately emerged from the wreckage, staggering on its hurt paws on account of its tail suffering multiple breakages. “Now you know how it feels, said the man. Try Me Out, See Where It Gets You!” The ceiling fell through and its tumbling rafters revealed a man and a cat in the same room. The new man seized the room’s hatstand and pole-vaulted with it over the tan lounger and the cat into the middle of the room. He twirled the hatstand around in his fingers and behind his back to confuse the cat, finishing by catching a flying fedora on his head and tipping it. The cat was dazzled and impressed. It rose on its haunches as though to applaud and caught the fedora thrown to him. The morning’s sunlight was now pouring into the room. At a wonderful moment it hit the man’s disco light and sparked it into life. It spun, and reds and greens and pinks and blues flittered madly in circles around the room and put a boogie in the cat. One of his whiskers became a cigarette as the cat danced and as he smoked it the others were singed and turned to ash. He blew the hot smoke to the man and his hatstand became a propeller and he sucked the cloud behind himself like an airplane pushing through a storm. The man and the cat danced back to the centre of the room and he took the took the cat in his arms. It purred and rubbed the man’s thumb with the glands on his face. The man on the cold grey steps looked up and the scene and smiled. He was with Alessandro.
