Critique thread
/actually criticize each other/ edition
Post your work, receive critique and return the favor. If you are posting pastebin links give some context, same with novel/short story exempts.
Critique
Zachary Lee
Other urls found in this thread:
drive.google.com
pastebin.com
twitter.com
Justin Gomez
We have like three of these but ok. I posted this in the last one. It's nonfiction, so I hope that's okay. I'm writing a series of articles on India and its history.
In 1923 there were over a thousand Hindus studying in England, presumably an equal number in America, perhaps an equal number elsewhere.
They marveled at the privileges enjoyed by the lowliest citizens of western Europe and America; they studied the French and American Revolutions, and read the literature of reform and revolt; they gloated over the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Constitution; they went back to their countries as centers of infection for democratic ideas and the gospel of liberty.
The industrial and scientific advances of the West, and the victory of the Allies in the War, gave to these ideas an irresistible prestige.
Soon every student was shouting the battle-cry of freedom. In the schools of England
and America the Hindus learned to be free.
These Western-educated Orientals had not only taken on political ideals in the course of their education abroad, they had shed religious ideas; the two processes are usually associated, in biography and in history. They came to Europe as pious youths, wedded to Krishna, Shiva, Vishnu, Kali, Rama. Then they touched science, and their ancient faiths were
shattered as by some sudden catalytic shock. Shorn of religious belief, which is the very spirit of India, the Westernized Hindus returned to their country disillusioned and sad; a thousand gods had dropped dead from the skies. Then, inevitably, Utopia filled the place of Heaven, democracy became a substitute for Nirvana, liberty replaced God. What had gone on in Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century now went on in the East.
Lincoln Young
smooth read, reminds me of a film I saw, but India is still one of the most religious countries mate, don't you dare kill a cow or you get the poo
Robert Cook
A tv script I wrote. It's YA stuff, but I am trying to be as Veeky Forums aa possible.
drive.google.com
Charles Miller
Spirits of the woods call me.
And the night sky feels not strange.
We walk hand in hand together.
Into the eternal abyss.
Reunited with ourselves.
We lose our humanity.
But we find something greater.
Eli Ramirez
>first line of dialogue has profanity
dropped it instantly
Tyler Roberts
I'm looking for the guy who wrote a little short scene with a Mexican Ambassador getting fired, who suggested exchanging emails. I'd definitely enjoy giving and receiving critique like that. I didn't see your post until the thread archived, but if you leave an email, I'll check back and contact you.
Michael Bell
Cliched, melodramatic writing riddled with historical inaccuracies.
Don't give up, user -- Indian history, from ancient times until the present day, is a fascinating topic.
However, you seem to be quite biased toward interpreting events through a Western, neocolonialist lens. While exposure to European education and ideals did influence the struggle for Independence, you appear to underestimate how remarkably wealthy India was in the 19th and 20th centuries. Cities like New Delhi and Hyderabad rivaled their European counterparts in terms of cultural sophistication and economic output. Only after the East India Company solidified its stranglehold on domestic agricultural and industrial output did the subcontinent's traditions begin to fade.
A very cursory glance at modern and early modern Indian history shows that the struggle for independence -- from foreign oppressors and feudal hierarchies -- often had roots in class struggle fueled by the peasantry, armed forces, and working poor. The Sepoy Mutiny is among the best known instances of homegrown resistance, but it isn't the only one, either.
Take Hyderabad -- present-day Telangana -- between 1946 and 1947. Coordinated in part by the Communist Party of India, a substantial segment of the agrarian population revolted against the British, the Nizam, and, later, the Republic itself. Such unrest in response to oppression is not unique in Indian history.
Of course, we cannot deny that 'modern' education played a role in shaping Independence. Many of the movement's leaders were educated either in Europe or at Indian schools modeled on the British system. But it's disingenuous to suppose revolt -- passive or armed -- depended on its existence and diffusion, especially considering that imperialism snuffed out indigenous institutions and schools of thought.
Moreover, many of India's independence leaders subscribed to theocratic, socialist, communist, or anarchist philosophies. Was Bhagat Singh 'inspired' by America? Did Nehru attend Cambridge as a savage, enlightened only by the same and supposedly egalitarian society which had systematically exploited his own?
Nathan Cook
Lol imagine thinking a society that still has the caste system gives a fuck about the ideals of some French and Americans.
>In 1923 there were over a thousand Hindus studying in England, presumably an equal number in America, perhaps an equal number elsewhere.
How about you transition to the amount of streetshitters that are clogging the toilets that are commonly referred to as Universities in the present day?
Dylan Evans
I know it's a lot to read, but any amount of feedback is welcome! I'll return all critiques.
Jonathan Foster
Number it.
Thomas Stewart
This is an anonymous board
Andrew Martin
Dear CIA,
No, you may not see my time machine.
No, you may not see my secret documents
from the future.
But I'll tell you this:
The human race is doomed
beyond all measure.
The factor beyond space and time
has already set its scythe
upon us.
No, no, no, CIA!
You may not meet me
under the apex of
any moon or planet
or sun or star
(lest you already found the Omega Nexus, or something similar).
To sum it all up,
leave me alone, CIA.
Unless you're ready
to find me
in a place where time does not exist.
Grayson Morgan
Ok
Logan Sanchez
>cold eyes of a serpent
>body of a serial killer
cliché
Why don't you use quotes for the Mexican manager?
>"d'ya think retards get into heaven?"
I am awestruck by the banality of this take on American Protestantism, it's been done to death.
>"This ain't a gee dee Mayan temple."
lame.
>conversion therapy
lame, stereotype.
>laying a profusion of thanks upon him, and the men, gods, and holy spirits he represented.
>laying a profusion
it doesn't sound good and it doesn't read good.
The only humorous thing is the setting, and the use of scooters. I also laughed at the Cormac McCarthy reference, in part because it's coming from such a shitty writer.
>Atop stained tile sat she
what the fuck are you thinking? I'm not reading the rest.
Liam Young
>wealth can only be measured in money
>people inspired by neoclassicism would not respond with the same modernist ideas that had already sprouted in response to neoclassicism.
Neoclacissim revitalized the idea of liberty. Their successes, or lack thereof, say nothing about the initial idea itself. That many people in India began striving for freedom, via the various ideologies which champion it in one form or another, does not disprove the potency of the idea, but rather demonstrates it to the fullest extent. While great wealth has almost always existed in India, many things that would have been considered ordinary in Britain at that time period were uncommon, if not luxurious, in India at the same time. No one is suggesting India was a land of pure filth. user was simply pointing out an obvious truth that certain forms of material wealth were distributed far more evenly in Britain relative to India. Whether that is all there is to it is not in question. Whatever the ultimate truth is of right and wrong, it had a profound effect upon the Indians studying in the west. It doesn't matter if they came to this perspective because they had a false sense of what life was like in the west, they came to it anyways. We know they came to it not because it was necessarily true, but because they responded as though it was true, and we see this in the many political responses that followed, which were unlike many prior political movements in India, at least in terms of their semantics.
Samuel Carter
I'm not really sure what you're getting at or how it disproves anything I wrote.
user is very obviously not well-informed about the realities of the Indian independence struggle. Rather than providing any evidence for his or her claims, they simply waxed nonsensically about the 'casting away of idols.'
I, for one, would love to read an article about how Western education influenced Independence, its leaders and its outcomes.
But the text posted for critique doesn't offer anything in the way of references or citations. If anything, it seems to be a superficial, biased interpretation of events and influences. The tone suggests that Indians were primitive, incapable of independent thought, and unable to comprehend the injustice of colonialism without benefiting from education abroad.
user's post rhetorically implies that Hinduism is akin to idolatry, contrasting religious belief with ideals pertaining to democracy and enlightenment -- despite the fact that the British colonists themselves justified their conquest, at least in part, through Christianity. Also worth noting that there were hardly any Indians in the United States in the 1920s (maybe a couple thousand), so I'm not sure where user gets off saying there were "presumably" as many students in America as the UK (it's actually a very ridiculous proposition, considering that Indian immigration to the U.S. was legally restricted during that period).
Western philosophers undoubtedly influenced men like Nehru -- that's not up for dispute. Neither is the fact that colonization stripped India of its productivity and domestic wealth, culminating in famine, widespread poverty, and an over-reliance on the cultivation of cash crops.
Brayden Wood
I've been trying to help where it appears help may be of use. So. Anyway.
If the first graph is supposed to be Laura's observations then you have to tell me about Laura before the graph ends. As it is, she appears first, unnamed, in 2:1, and she's barely there. Name her on the first appearance, and earlier. Because if we have to absorb this catalog of artifacts, you want us to know that "these are the kinds of thoughts Laura has about this place - she thinks the church looks like a sports arena; she thinks the air conditioner is like the breath of God." etc. If you don't explicitly link "Laura" to all of that, it's just a catalog of stuff.
And since it has been some time since I've even driven past one of these places - is the church at the head of a shopping mall, or is it so vast and varied that it contains its own dog studio and McDonald's? Because the way graphs 1-4 stride forth, I can't tell. Seriously. I don't know where we are. I've never heard of a either a mega church having its own mall, nor a mall having its own mega church.
I much prefer to learn about the 20,000 seat capacity from the phone call overheard than from the silent reverie. I still don't understand the nature of this complex. And now a social issue with a neon sign over its head. This is not looking up.
You appear to have copied an entire graph directly from No Country For Old Men without attribution and without any hint of why it is there. Page 6:6. If this is Laura sneaking a peek, you need to say that.
Page 7. Look at that conversation about lasagna and explain, to yourself, why it is there. You even say, "the conversation choked." Is Barbara going to be diagnosed with cancer soon? Because that might be one good reason that it would be there.
I am now becoming indifferent to why I am even here. This housing development appears to be lovingly described so that we get more Laura thinking. Grazing over Mexicans, super-villains and that she finds red shrubs tastetful.
Finally, some people interacting. And shallowly, and transparently. So we have a tale of white religious privilege, sprinkled with Veeky Forums-speak. An elaborate troll.
Form rejection letter.
Evan Wilson
This is an excerpt from the renowned, decades-long bestseller "The Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage." The author, Will Durant, has been praised for his prose since the first volume, this one, was published in the 1930s. I decided to post it here to see if these critique threads were worth a single shit, seeing as I've posted my work here before.
You guys are funny, though.
>streetshitters
kek
Jose Wright
That's because it's a few paragraphs from a 1,000-something page-long book KEK
Lucas Ramirez
Thank you both for the good advice.
Jordan Sanders
Are you nine?
Dominic Jackson
Are you 16?
Easton Young
si
Leo Taylor
>presumably an equal number in America
wouldn't the correct word be assumably?
Camden Hill
to dream and die and dream again
to test myself in delirium
love drunk on sorrow
flying high I gladly fall again
my passions their own end
both bliss and woe and death undone
Liam Butler
R8 my outline guys.
Logan Jones
Surprisingly good prose, coming from Veeky Forums. Reads very well and very simple. I notice too many people on this board who ruin their writing by trying to add too much to it. This is very simple but very nice to read.
I'm not really fit to say anything about the actual content, however.
This is from a short story I'm writing; I haven't managed fluid prose, and I feel like I fall victim to some of the pitfalls I mention above, but I've tried to make up for in ideas what I haven't yet mastered in execution:
What a beautiful feeling, loss. It was the very precipice by which men become something greater. Men were in a sense, initially whole, and to lose everything - to be perfectly incomplete - that was to be God.
Such an idea Jacques considered briefly before admiring his fingers. He glanced at his hand and wondered at the aestheticism his smooth skin and well-defined knuckles positively radiated. He particularly noticed how the transition from his shirt cuff to his skin was fluid and precise, mechanical, methodical, simple but incredibly intricate, evocative, erotic - she was undressed - colors poured from the heavens into her pale, colorless skin. He held the brush firmly, and gazed long into the eyes of his creation. She was almost done. Complete. Far more complete than he. Did that make him God? He had put something of himself, his emotion, his love, his ideal, and to a literal extent his time and skill, into her. He had lost and she had become whole. She was not living, clearly, but was more alive than he. In but a frame, a single glimpse of her, she evinces more compassion, more introspection, more raw, carnal desire, than Jacques hoped to in his entire life. He had lost, of course, but she had gained so much more. The collective of her machinations would be incandescent as long as she graced the frame that bound her. His hands, his beautiful, powerful, sinful hands had done this. It were these instructors of pain and pleasure - for all hell and heaven in men's minds were made by hand - these that had produced something more alive than he. So alive he could feel himself irresistibly attracted, to her supple frame, to her doleful eyes, to her inevitable, unavoidable, absolute nudity, felt himself lulled into ecstasy, into a lustful rest, and he basked in the rays of his psyche - her completeness, his loss, her hands, his sin, her curves, his lust, his loss…
his loss…
his loss…
Ian Anderson
Sure fooled me, user.
At any rate, I stand by my initial criticism. The fact that your selected passage was written in the 1930s explains why it came across as mildly pretentious and underpinned by condescension.
Didn't like the Prose, either. I think William Dalrymple's depictions of India are better-researched and far better written.
Gabriel Price
and sleeping dreamless lives of no import
we set out for unknown lands, joy and woe
us psychonaughts exploring ocean
and bearing storms and grueling labour
that leave us wrecked and torn apart
and fearing most the depths below
on reaching land we kiss the shore
an answer to our prayers by Gods
and find Pan's vineyard, and his brew
and stealing his possession, drinking wine
we sing Pan's hymnary with laboured breaths
all Orphic heights, chthonic depths
and fire ignites our souls to bliss
we shout out: joy, woe, agony!
and on his mercy maenads take our lives
then throw our corpses in the sea
and cook our hearts on altar stone
all roast by their own fire
souls rising on the smoke
Kayden Watson
It was not meant to be smug or anything like that; I frankly have serious doubts about the effectiveness of criticism from here, so I wanted to test it. Durant is more or less my role model as a writer. Lyrical flourishes are not principal for a historian, but then again I don't plan to be one.
I would recommend you read the book nonetheless. Durant does the subject justice, I feel, and has a real appreciation for India. About half the book is dedicated to the subcontinent and he covers it fairly evenhandedly.
Dylan James
=.=
Even strangers with a chance
To engage me
In mutual tolerance
And tobacco sharing.
Our noses drawn together
Brace a shield
Erected by my Particular Nature.
Idiot nature, keeps me from
The culture of my peers.
I hang before them
A marble apparition,
Sable and demure
Luminous and excellent. Or,
Such is a necessary picture
To keep of my form,
So I may imbibe the impression
That my strangeness is unrecognized beauty.
I assert that it is,
And I do not feel bad
To be unrecognized.
Though I wish I could be
Closer to the cultures,
My prayers dribble over the great shield
And leap to fill the chests
Of my far-away friends.
Cooper Gomez
bugs.. easy on the carrots
Logan Nelson
No worries, user. I'll try reading Durant once I finish my current round of reading.
I wouldn't take critique from me, from Veeky Forums, or from any one source or individual as a litmus test for quality. Others have clearly appreciated Durant -- he won a Pulitzer Prize -- while others have criticized him for a cursory understanding of certain historical subjects.
The entire point of opening yourself to criticism is being exposed to alternative perspectives. You don't have to pay heed to every comment or piece of feedback. Not everyone has the same tastes, as evidenced here.
One of my friends contemporary authors is a South Asian woman who also won the Pulitzer Prize, along with several other global and national-level awards. I would absolutely love to write prose like her, but I've been called a 'pseud' by Veeky Forums for not just reading Nietzsche and Homer.
Don't take it too seriously. Like I said, I think the criticisms I have of that particular passage are quite valid -- but with proper context, in terms of the entire book, my opinion might change drastically. I'm not a fan of the tone Durant seemed to take in that sample, but neither am I a fan of overly-descriptive, metaphor-heavy prose.
Veeky Forums isn't the best place to get advice on any subject, but I think there are enough knowledgeable posters on some boards to make the effort worthwhile. I've traveled extensively, for instance, and have always gotten fantastic feedback and destination input from /trv/. There are tons of shitposters and enough who aren't to keep the community engaging.