/CRITIQUE/

Dubs edition.

Old one's full.

Post your shitty work.

Rate other's shitty work.

PLEASE leave feedback before or immediately after posting your work. Otherwise these threads turn to shit. Seriously.

Other urls found in this thread:

insomwrites.tumblr.com/post/144848742959/moondust-prologue
docs.google.com/document/d/1SmcQtYA5Qli7rRpwY8PuIYBkEoWQ37mSevo6Vv8h43o/edit?usp=sharing
docs.google.com/document/d/13bTMv-eJJiOSbi9q91K_tbT5FKbGChfYRV92RM37hzA/edit
pastebin.com/czaqgnnU
pastebin.com/ct0JjGvr
pastebin.com/iDrMcaNh
pastebin.com/enjvMkKs
docs.google.com/document/d/1K0NgnC7R2qp-wiVaCKrLUNPTPQw3cdWlm6WFaxp4htg/edit?usp=docslist_api
pastebin.com/QT7Qe92Q
pastebin.com/9ViPXpZ1
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

I can't post anything ITT, because I'm bringing back philosophy in the form of aphorisms.

If I post any, people will steel my ideas.

At least you got the dubs.

Post a sneak peak maybe?

The café Claire worked at was built inside a space originally used as a warehouse, presumably to store parts of the boats they used to build down by the river nearby. The original walls were still there, grey cinderblocks stacked on top of each other held together by thick white cement that sometimes ran and left chalky marks there like raindrops or tear stains. Claire had grown more sluggish at work in the past few weeks. She’d subconsciously trained herself to act on autopilot, gliding through the space, spectral-like, but also slow. Her manager often asked her kindly to work faster, but Claire didn’t feel like it was in her ability to do so – her body could only travel the speed at which her mind moved, and lately she’d felt her mind slowing down – the processes in her brain decelerating, growing more simple, monosyllabic. Claire understood that something was different, a small part of her worried that her persistent drug use was numbing her brain – another part was relishing the calm space she now occupied – but for the most part, Claire didn’t think at all. During her breaks she would sit in the storage space behind the café, and feeling a cold breeze coming through the open window, imagined her breaths slowing down, her mind slowing down, her body slowing down to the point where she could subsist near-comatose, not dead but hibernating, like a bear in the forest.

Then her break would end and she would go back to work and carry plates around and take orders, writing them down on a small notepad because she could never remember them all in her head.

>Claire
I despise Claire, I hope the insipid bitch drops dead

I posted some of this in the last thread, it's part of my book I'm about halfway through writing.

It's about a man who finds a rabbit dying in a parking lot, and nurses it back to health. He soon finds the rabbit is much more than it appears, however. Meanwhile, a strange new drug has become popular in his tiny podunk town.
I'll drop a link, read as much or as little as you'd like.
insomwrites.tumblr.com/post/144848742959/moondust-prologue

I'll do some critique in a moment.

A mostly humble description of what sounds like a combination of nihilism and depression. It makes me curious about the further details of the character's life, so good work there.

>monosyllabic
The writing was very humble until you decided to use this word and make the whole thing very slightly pretentious-sounding.

Will I ever be able to publish a poem in English? It's not my first language.

The End of Love

Alone I rest my life upon the hands
Of unforgiving time and prizeless seeking -
The birds have flown away that once were squeaking,
And on the river's place is now dry land.

I tried so much to keep in my command
All my knowledge of joy and tender speaking
As youth was going down and age was wreaking,
But now my voice is dry, my mind's bland.

So will I see again that rose of roses
Who came to kiss my brow when I was young,
And flew like flowers fly when winter's coming?

I don't think that I will. My mind reposes
Too much, and tries too much to end my song,
While my heart has no force to keep it running.


I wrote it in 30 minutes, but it sounds wholly artificial. Should I stick to Portuguese?

>If I post any, people will steel my ideas.

Is this some sort of intentionally philosophical statement?

'Steel' being used in the same manner as 'Steel yourselves'?

Or am I giving you too much credit.

>her body could only travel the speed at which her mind moved

CLAIRE, YOU SON OF A BITCH!

EVERYTHING WAS GOING SO WELL UNTIL YOU WENT FULL PSEUD, EUGH!

It's a valiant attempt but like you said, it feels artificial. Would get you a nice C in english class.
Don't give up though.

Thanks.

Next time I'll try more seriously, and during a lot more time, maybe by translating a Portuguese poem, so as to focus more on language itself rather than on the meanings and concepts. It's kind of difficult to make something come naturally to you in a language that's not your own, even if you're already fluent in it.

Meri loved the night sky, sparkling with stars that would never leave.
It was when his mother, embracing her son, would sing lullabies to him until he fell into a deep slumber.
Meri loved the river, sparkling with the reflection of the clear water that would never leave.
It was where he and his father caught the largest fish that they would ever see in their whole lives.
Meri loved reminiscing when he saw the objects connected to his memories. Meri loved reminiscing the time his mother read to him his first book and told him that she would never leave him. Meri loved reminiscing the time his father appeared a little teary-eyed and told him that he'd be there for him forever.
Meri, however, did not like how they broke their promises. How they told him that they would stay by his side, no matter what.
If there was one thing that truly lasted, it was his fondest memories. Memories that even then could only be remembered when he saw the things that emotionally connected to him.
Meri closed his eyes when he realized that in the end, those memories were limited and will never continue their story. Those memories will never substitute the warmth feeling of being with his loved ones.
He wanted affection, but all he had were memories.

I wrote a magical realist-ey/Southern Gothic short story (only 770 words) for a microfiction magazine.

Reddit didn't like it because I used the word "marmoreal".

Give it a read pls.

docs.google.com/document/d/1SmcQtYA5Qli7rRpwY8PuIYBkEoWQ37mSevo6Vv8h43o/edit?usp=sharing

The writing is pretty good. Simple, clean, but not pedestrian by any means. I'm not the biggest fan of the subject matter (Claire sounds like a bloody cunt), but I give you props for style. Very readable.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. The writing isn't bad by any means, but it with the subject matter was...an interesting mix, to say the least. I feel like something a little more whimsical or ornamented would help you here in conjuring the atmosphere. And how does the space mission coincide with the rabbit story on Earth?

I agree with the other poster--definitely not bad considering that English is your second language, but the rhyme scheme definitely needs work. I'd like to hear your work in Portuguese. An off-topic question---how do you codniggers speak English so well? I visited Portugal twice in the past 5 months (I loved it) and was amazed at your people's ability with language.

This has some potential but I think it's too short and is very over sentimental. Subtlety is the name of the game user.

They once said I would never become a writer because I used the word 'pernicious'.

LMAO

How do these people even get through Charlie and the Chocolate factory?

I hate this fucking world, too many god damn fuckers in it.
Too many thoughts and different societies all wrapped up together in this fucking place called AMERICA.
Everyone has their own god damn opinion on every god damn thing,
and you may be saying 'Well what makes you so different?'.
Because I have something only me and V have; SELF AWARENESS.
Call it exortenstiolism or whatever the fuck you want.
We know what we are to this world, and what everyone else is.
We learn more than what caused the civil war and how to simplify quadratics in school.
We've been watching you people and we know what you think and how you act.
All talk and no action.
People who are said to be brave or courageous are usually just STUPID,
then they say later that they did it on purpose cause they're brave,
when they did it on fucking accident.
God everything is so corrupt and so filled with opinions and points of view,
and peoples own little agendas and schedules.
This isn't a world any more.
It's H.O.E and no one knows it.
Self awareness is a wonderful thing.

pic is me btw

Settles into a nice atmosphere, though I'd take reddit's advice into consideration. In the first few paragraphs especially you're flexing, and in service of what? Setting a scene that isn't terribly relevant to the rest of the story.

The opening paragraphs and the metaphor of the trees ties into the central theme of the persistence of "loss".

And the opening paragraphs are mostly just about setting the "setting"---early 1910s in the South. The suggestion of the milkman looking like a ghost echoes what the narrator will later see.

It might sound terribly "constructed" but the word limit was 800, so I had to think about what was going into it pretty hard.

I posted this yesterday too, and I never got a response. I wrote it for a short story competition with the theme of fear. My main concerns are I don't describe how others feel fear well, I'm too repetitious, and my story is boring. I already know my grammar is awful.

docs.google.com/document/d/13bTMv-eJJiOSbi9q91K_tbT5FKbGChfYRV92RM37hzA/edit


I didn't have any trouble with your word choice, but I did find the ending a bit jarring at first. Thinking about it, the ending works. Your protagonist is walking about the city so of course it ends when he goes home. It's suddenness surprised me at first, though. Such shock was definitely from the lack of direction. A lack of direction isn't a problem of course. In fact it seems to fit the work as a whole. Basically, I enjoyed it, but I was surprised it ended so suddenly.

Give your character a name, for starters. Even just using "he" would be better than "the man." Boring is right -- what kind of pathetic fear is this? Afraid of dying out on a domesticated lake, at a summer vacation spot? user please, you can do better than that. Why did you decide to write in the present tense? Some stories can benefit from the feeling of immediacy lent by it, but this isn't one of them.

Paragraph breaks are for psueds

Simply dreadful. Too on-the-nose.

The tense choice stems from my inexperience as a writer. I thought it'd lend an urgency, which I clearly failed to do. I'll fix it up. Thanks for the help.

pastebin.com/czaqgnnU

This was spawned from a single sentence that wouldn't leave me alone:

"Simba has defeated his evil uncle, but can he defeat the forces of revolutionary socialism?"

I doubt I'll ever add any more to this, but I'm interested in whether this comes across as tongue-in-cheek and somewhat satirical, or just wordy and pretentious.

While I don't think the way you quantify everything is necessarily bad, I just want to ask, how long can you keep it up? At some point you're going to have to change the narrative voice so that these meticulous, quantifying descriptions (which are obviously set up to reflect the personality of the character) and what are you going to do when that happens.

While this looks promising, how is you narrative going to stand up when you actually start writing, because this kind of storytelling doesn't seem to be sustainable for anything beyond the initial hook.

I'm still writing solomon king stories if anyone wants to read my newest one

pastebin.com/ct0JjGvr

>And how does the space mission coincide with the rabbit story on Earth?
The prologue is a sort of preview into the themes and challenges the characters in the story will face. It's also kind of like an intro to moon rabbits... if the reader is unfamiliar with the concept.
It's not a whimsical story. I wanted to have it somewhat grounded in a feeling of reality and urban malaise to give the mythical beings in the story an urban legend sort of feel.

(1/3)
(2/3)
(3/3)

And here's a later writing from the same story, hot off the press: pastebin.com/iDrMcaNh

What do you guys do when you don't know much about what you're writing? It's a bitch that inspiration should ever act on such impulsive commitment to history, but I can't help it. This is what it is.

I'll be back later tonight to critique I hope.

Honestly, it feels like you're trying too hard to impress the reader. That's the feeling I got.
You don't need to use a complex, uncommon word at every opportunity and every description. A common word, used in the right way, can be just as powerful.

For example, I really liked this,
>It smelled of moss and soil, and [...] the frail suggestion of smoke.
A simple, but elegant description.
Conversely, I didn't like this.
>They say it was a miracle that the fire didn’t eat up the house entire,
You're trying to use the word 'entire' in a fancy way that sounds like some person of nobility speaking or something, but it's just awkward to read.

Dubs get

I wasn't trying to evoke nobility, but rather the way that Southern people of that era spoke.

Also, tell me, where are the uncommon words?
There's:
>indefatigable
>marmoreal
>atrophied
>lozenge (not cough drop but w/e)
>liana
>corbelled (an architectural term)
>umber
>keening

And those are not entirely uncommon.

I was trying to evoke a certain style, which is the Southern Gothic of Cormac McCarthy, Faulkner, and Gaddis. The writing is purposefully baroque and the story is told in a purposely ambiguous way. Otherwise it'd be just "Kid go into spooky house see spooky ghost oo!" The writing requirements for this magazine were a max of 800 words so you can't exactly develop a real story in that time.
So I settled on atmosphere and the WAY the story is told over an actual story.

I wasn't aware you had a word limit. In that case, fair enough. You did well with the space you had.
>Otherwise it'd be just "Kid go into spooky house see spooky ghost oo!"
I mean, if you say so? I am simply coming from the mindset that you don't need to 'impress' your reader with your writing in order to tell a good story.

>PLEASE leave feedback before or immediately after posting your work. Otherwise these threads turn to shit. Seriously.

lol

Good, but nitpick:
"Claire understood that something was different, a small part of her worried..."
Should be split or you should add an "and."

Honestly the things that bother the most are the words "squeaking" and "wreaking." But I know close to nothing about poetry so feel free to ignore.

Any context for this? It feels pretty heavy handed, especially for topics like memory and loss.

Agree with this reviewer.

I thought it was both satirical and pretentious. Some funny moments, especially, "It's dead."

Something I've been working on.
pastebin.com/enjvMkKs

"The metal cast, which the sun, now fallen into shelter, had draped over the world of steel and glass which now shone like jewels, made me feel something, whose son they know as nostalgia. My unfeeling, cold frame dolled with fine clothing bent into a pose of battle, and exploded into a violent sprint, which could only be described through meaningless prose and overdramatic angles. Galahad raised his gun, and in that fleeting moment I saw him, like a man sees a beautiful woman amongst a thousand others: a titan tucked into a suit, whose end and the other had been covered in expensive delicacies, polished shoes and top hats. The short dark haircut didn't force itself out of the hat too hard, and instead led way to the stereotypically evil, squiggly Pringles-man moustache- and after that moment had passed, he fired until my right arm clanged as junk onto the roof of the train, the steel footing. "

A translated paragraph from the first writing exercise I ever did, setting is basically a parody of something I did in school when I was 14 (overdramatic steampunk through the eyes of a neckbeard of that universe, a loser cyborg pretending to be a vigilante)

constructive feedback plex

>Moon rabbits
So the Great Lunar War is about to begin user.

Gas the lunarians, race war now.

It's so much easier just staying numb. Knowing that you'll bear those scars, that the sense of aimless dread filling your gut and bubbling into your throat might not ever go away for good, praying for the ringing in your ears to stop and for the world around you to just *shut up* for once, maybe forever... How can you cope with that? How can you possibly face that head on when you know it could have been you? That it could have killed you?

Don't think it still won't. It'll kill you from the inside.

Without any kind of context this just reads like an angsty livejournal post.

It is an angsty journal post.

Would really love some critique on my work here:
It's supposed to be almost like an irreverent science journal description of how a high school/college social group might form and operate. I had an idea for a graphic novel, interspersing chapters of comic with longer prose. Is it too cliche/campy?

What is this character? He hardly seems like a man, but a teenager - it seems a man who has family/has spent time in this area would not make his mistake to begin with. The Nazi imagery also feels out of place. Everything feels so abstract beforehand - the character has no name, there's a loss of hope/feeling stuck but a widely applicable one. The Nazi detail grounds the story oddly - there either needs to be more concrete details before or this detail needs to be removed. I also feel like rather than talk about their truly being no hope, examining him freaking out as he tries to fall asleep would be good. I think the overall idea is good though.

Sorry I didn't read this earlier. It's very readable, pretty fun. The transition into the story about the theft is a little jarring in a way that the chronology becomes confusing, but maybe this is what you were going for. I'd need to read more.

Feels clunky in a not great way, especially the first line. There are some parts I really like, like "only be described through meaningless prose and overdramatic angles." Also, personally not a fan of the Pringles-man thing.

Wrote this awhile just after hs graduation, the breakup, broken leg, oxycotin,...I can't stand to read it again

docs.google.com/document/d/1K0NgnC7R2qp-wiVaCKrLUNPTPQw3cdWlm6WFaxp4htg/edit?usp=docslist_api

>Thinking I'm clicking on Jewgle links
Stop

I received a letter from Berthgurth: "Darling have this cake, and this razor blade. Kisses B.B". There was no cake, just razor. Delayed by the post-office they say, never to be seen again. She came later that night, praised my skin for some reason (a fetish I think, one of a kind), and introduced me to her new fiancé, "l'artiste," as she calls him. He designs trousers, in the shape of birds and mammals. She said goodbye, and laughed and hugged the trouser-man.
Last week I was introduced to another ex, the pamphlet writer, just the day after the banjo man-encounter. Both dropped at my office for some reason, spoke loudly, and called that night while she had an orgasm. "Just a reminder," she said.

You don't need all those commas user, channel Marx and redistribute them to other Anonettes in the thread. Personally I'd recommend trying a Poe-like style for this type of shit:

>metal cast
Sunken sheet

>world of steel shone like jewels
glistening girder

etc.

This reminds me of clicking a link on a lofi band on band camp, its somewhat good, basic, slight impressions of that amateur trying hardness, slight bit of magical whim, but rather sad and so caught up in that still life prose, ultimately relatable (well, for some of us I guess...) and just too short...but it had a nice voice and feel about it, you wouldn't mind it again. Tldr, I like it

Well I spose if it sounds artificial it is....but heck, learning another language is crazy enough. If you kept at it and just got more natural in it I feel you could do well, its just awkward at bits like the -ing rhyme first two and the sentence mid-line fourth stanza, though I enjoy the poignant break it offers. Feels are there, reminds me relatively of a foreign man at the bar counter going on in a second language.

Man, that repetitive sentence start and basic structure really established that mood. The sentimentality comes at you like a sledgehammer, I feel some more abstraction like the first few would help. Feels like a don herdzfeldt without the humour, love the imagery tho and na!me casting (I mean assuming you were....meri, sea, cuz like...but if not that's cool too)

I'm trying to decide If this is a shitpost or not...but hey, postironic obsessiveness interests me, just look at my piece. Its exploitation is nice tho.

Rather liked this. So dry and perniciously biting in its lack of emotion, really reflects the life of a NEET. really reminded me of one of those nostalgic dfw endnotes

Those commas....then I read that it was translated so I mean, unless the jilted style was meant to reflect the character. I love how each one of these sentences just seems to ultimately work against itself, especially "which could only be described through meaningless prose and overdramatic angles" made me lol. I feel like I'd want to read the rest of the nonexistent story this must belong to just for that weirdness of it all. Also the cartoonic imagery...seriously its like each detail is so much as if a robot were trying to create human description and expression but can only use some algorithm giving the most ironic effect. Its delicious

Hopeless post internet culture...the epitome like,

>this
Oh so edgy...
[Insert expletive backlash]

Would like to read more to this, ppigniant and nice, just good...

This is mine, it actually took awhile and just want ppl to giuve feedback since its like the first thing I've been proud of...i know its long tho and weird postmoderny shit but I mean I've put so many puzzles in it, please...

Yeah my policy is critique what I want to and it won't change shit. One guy going through the whole thread is just one guy with a lot of time on his hands.

I did pick Meri for the meaning of his name because it relates to his backstory. Thank you very much! I didn't think it would be this good. I will try to write more pieces.

Meri was just reminiscing as he was completely alone, with the only companions (his parents) he had leaving and turning him into a one-man island. I wanted to establish his character.

The Weaver

Sitting in the center
sits the Web Weaver
connecting threads, spooling
scattered swatches and
switching switches
swiftly wrapping cogs
with these threads

The Weaver works with old hands
knotted and gnarled
from bringing strings together
It is. It is.
He plucks and He pulls
twists and connects
makes life and
makes nuisance

A Weaver sacrifice
you want him gone
to connect on your own
Aware.
of the strings
threads
dangle
but don't know
what goes
where
got bad connection
let the Weavers weave
or be free to
be them

First paragraph of a developing cowboy story

Early Chitwood was cold. He had been cold all night, and the fact his condition had endured into the early morning only deepened his discomfort and irritation. He shifted himself in his overlarge saddle and looked up and watched the shining beams of morning sunlight trying, and pitifully failing, to break through the thick grey cloud bank that filled the Texas sky. Last night the sky had been crystal clear. He’d tried to sleep in his tent, but the icy wind had cut through the cheap canvas like a knife. In desperation he had dragged his kit outside and had fallen asleep huddled as close as he could to the campfire,looking into the dark void of the night sky and counting the innumerable pinpricks of starlight unfathomably far away. It seemed though now that that same devil wind that had bitten into him all last night (and had made it so hard to get that campfire started in the first place, goddamnit) had brought on its back the ugly bank of grey cloud that now filled every visible corner sky.

Sometimes I feel like I need to encode my actual writing into something ridiculous and full of memes just to get someone to at least partially read and respond to it.

I'm always down for a good story but the prose and structure needs work. Less similes, more metaphors. I'd also seriously recommend making the narration style bleaker. I want to feel like an actual rugged cowboy is telling me this, y'know? Don't be afraid to experiment

I shouldn't like this but I really do
It intentionally starts getting messier towards the end, and I actually wouldn't recommend making it pull together for the last few lines. I say let it end messy and incoherent.

Posting mine below...

From a religious text I'm writing. I'm still writing the creation portion

One more sample, maybe this one makes a bit more sense out of context

It's from earlier in the text

Thank you! i think that makes a lot of sense.

Sorry, *good cowboy story

bump?

Not really happy with it. Mateen and wolf just don't match well enough.

Darken the city, night is a wire
Smoke on the dancefloor, club is afire
Do do do do do do do dodo dododo dodo
Faggot, you want me, give me a sign
and catch my breathing even closer behind
Do do do do do do do dodo dododo dodo

In touch with the ground
I'm on the hunt I'm after you
Smell like a goat, I'm lost in a crowd
And I'm hungry like the Mateen
Straddle the line in discord and rhyme
I'm on the hunt I'm after you
Mouth is alive with juices like Qaswa
And I'm hungry like the Mateen

Stalked in the gaybar, too close to hide
I'll be upon you by the moonlight side
Do do do do do do do dodo dododo dodo
High blood drumming on your skin, it's so tight
You feel my heat, I'm just a moment behind
Do do do do do do do dodo dododo dodo

In touch with the ground
I'm on the hunt I'm after you
A scent and a sound, I'm lost and I'm found
And I'm hungry like the Meteen
Strut on a line, it's discord and rhyme
I bleat and I brey, I'm after you
Mouth is alive, all running inside
And I'm hungry like the Mateen

Hungry like the Mateen
Hungry like the Mateen
Hungry like the Mateen

Burning the ground, I break from the crowd
I'm on the hunt, I'm after you
I smell like I a goat, I'm lost and I'm found
And I'm hungry like the Mateen
Strut on a line, it's discord and rhyme
I'm on the hunt, I'm after you
Mouth is alive with juices like Qaswa
And I'm hungry like the Mateen

what are some good books that can help with writing?

All of them.

Hahaha but I really like How to Enjoy Writing by Isaac and Jane Asimov.

One of John's rooms has what seems to look like steel grated wall, stretching miles-- wide and length. The wall is the skin of the engines. Looking at the right corner of the wall is a hole. It helps the thousands of wires to connect John's quasi-supercomputer to the gear hidden inside the wall. John's a digital librarian. He makes six figures. What does John have in his exabyte worth of digital information? Almost every paper (scientific, criminal, legal) published in Arizona. Almost.

You're intriguing me now... stop that

Stop

Don't be a petty fag.

>Moon rabbits.
Gas the lunarians, race war now.

>The ferocious snowstorm blew thick flurries to cover her tracks from any unwanted pursuers, but the downside of this, it also made hunting nearby game harder.
Consider breaking this up or rewording it, it reads awkwardly.
You might do,
>The ferocious snowstorm blew thick flurries to cover her tracks from any unwanted pursuers - the downside of which that it also made hunting nearby game harder.
or,
>The ferocious snowstorm blew thick flurries to cover her tracks from any unwanted pursuers. However, this had the downside of nearby game becoming more difficult to hunt.

>Ignoring her growling stomach need to eat something
Is english not your first language? I mean no offense. I assume you meant something like,
>Ignoring her growling stomach telling her she needed to eat something

Also, watch your tenses... Is the story happening now or is it happening in the past? You suddenly switched to present tense during the second sentence of the send paragraph and never switched back.

Meant for

so any actual critique?

p-please

English is not my first language. I am sorry for the mistakes

I said I was intrigued. The writing was functional, I could see it as being a little idiosyncratic but good with context.

It's alright, that's what peer review is all about. There were a ton of errors in my current project I had glossed over that others noticed, and I've read the whole thing (77k words) several times over.

there's too many things happening in each sentence, spare it down, you're not a good enough stylist to have that many things happening in each sentence

is Early Chitwood the dude's fucking name? That's a shit opening two words

Show, don't tell. Don't say things like 'in desperation' - show me that he's desperate.

There's no fucking way it would be warmer outside his tent than in, especially if its windy. Why are you writing a cowboy story if you don't know shit about the outdoors?

says don't be afraid to experiment. At the technical level you're at, DO be afraid to experiment. Get the fucking basics right first

You've wasted a whole lot of the reader's time saying nothing except there's a cowboy who's cold. You can do that in a sentence. Have a little more respect for your reader's time and patience.

Otherwise, ok

>the ferocious snowstorm blew thick flurries

you have nothing to contribute, you just use a lot of words

First poem I've made, please critique!

Deaf

I am deaf.
I am deaf,
But -
I can hear
The smiles of
Children
Playing so eagerly.
I can hear
The thoughts of
Business
Cold and calculating.
I can hear
The old man
Singing
About his memories.
Most of all
I can hear
You -
Crying in whispers
When I see
The
Big, gloomy eyes
You show to
Us -
My dear friend
Do not hide
Feelings
Because I may
Not
Hear your woes
But I can
Listen.

I'm not usually big on poetry famalam but I'll give it a shot for you.
I like the weird flow going on. At first I couldn't help but read it like William Shatner but by the end of it I was enjoying it. I think the first line doesn't need to be repeated, but it's your idea so make of that what you will, maybe you could do something else other than I am deaf.
>Do not hide
>Feelings
I think that should be worked on a bit, it seems almost out of place. All of the other lines flow very nicely but this one just seems to make me stop reading for a moment to understand what I've read.
All in all I think it's a good poem, for a first start, much better than any poem I've ever written.

As for my own work, this is one short story I just finished, it uses the same main character as the book I finished about a month ago. I'm trying to get more short stories like this out into the world to generate interest so that maybe a publishing agent will finally take a look at my work.
>pastebin.com/QT7Qe92Q
And then there's this one, I think it has a whole lot of promise, but it also needs a lot of fucking work.
>pastebin.com/9ViPXpZ1
I'm not trying to write anything noteworthy, I just want to write something entertaining that people will have fun reading. I'll take any constructive criticism I get.

Thank you for the critique! I should probably have rewrote that. This means a lot to me, thank you very much.

No problem famalam, I know how good it feels just to have somebody else read your shit

no feedback ;_;

I know that feeling famalam.
here
I'm at work now but I'll take a look at yours on my break

Thanks pal

Bump

SHUT UP YOU FUCKING NEW FAG!!! I HOPE YOU GET CANCER WITH HORRIBLE PAIN!!!!! FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111

Re-write.

The plot seems fun, but i think it comes out a bit sloppy. It starts okay and gets worse as it goes, so I'd just start from scratch. Also pick a tense, it loses flow.

A short story

II


Life was simpler inside of her. The world had yet to break me with its pulls and pushes, with its infectious desire. Needs were my only trade and how my heart bolts to think of those days! I meditated nine months in complete silence like a good bodhisattva, lingering about in mother’s womb like Tathagata, eating only modest alms that were offered.
Maybe I reached nirvana before arriving to this world. Maybe we all did. All I know is I’ve never been back.

Nobody clapped when I was born and that’s okay. Mother hugged me and father shook my hand with a firm grip of respect and told me he was proud. They invaded me as if I was a malleable metal, loving and shaping me. Mother who once protected me from the outside world became its ally, allowing it to invade me with temptations and at times helping to get its tentacles round my underbelly. The first betrayal I’d ever receive.

One fateful day before eating, I turned to her and exclaimed:
“Before becoming, you know, I already existed.”

She laughed and hugged me and pinched my cheeks, calling on father to come see my new trick. It was then, I understood.

lol 69

You're story intrigues me, user. Any more?

Also about re-writing the first chapter. Should it be written in past tense or present tense?

Been rolling some attempt at poetry today, but poetry critique thread is dead.

Not done yet but lease tell me what you think, can't tell if its good or not anymore and curious if I should finish it

Somethings lost in translation-
From the Divine

From intercourse with man-

How quick in dirt
the honey spoilt

All of your advice is awful, and im going to break down why.

>there's too many things happening in each sentence, spare it down, you're not a good enough stylist to have that many things happening in each sentence

>You've wasted a whole lot of the reader's time saying nothing except there's a cowboy who's cold. You can do that in a sentence. Have a little more respect for your reader's time and patience.

These ideas are literally exact opposites, there can't be too much happening and not enough happening. Also, to the latter point, reading is not an exercise in efficiency. If you lack time a patience read a magazine.

>is Early Chitwood the dude's fucking name? That's a shit opening two words

This is a metric that has absolutely no bearing on anything. It's like saying GR sucks because the first two words are "a screaming".

>Show, don't tell. Don't say things like 'in desperation' - show me that he's desperate.

This isnt the lead by the nose motivation you're making it out to be, in fact you're kind of proving you're the kind of person who does need to be shown.

He got desperate quickly because he's young and inexperienced, which is the same reason he thought that as close as possible to the fire =Warmer. His quick temper and over-sized gear were supposed to be enough to indicate this without beating the reader over the head with it.

A man wandering up the road, flanked on each side by a row of lamps, whistles to himself in the moonlight and hobbles along alone. Lamp after lamp turns to torch after torch as the whistling man walks.

With each step the man finds his whistle increasingly drowned out by a second booming whistle approaching, until the man is finally passed by a nearly identical man. The passing man is gruff but not disheveled, rough but not rude looking, and produces a sound that leaves the wandering man inaudibly moving his lips and mouth. The wandering man and the passing man pass hip to hip and as the wandering man continues his whistling begins to return.

Whistling and wondering with respect to the passing man, the wandering man shed his perplexion and continued on until coming across another identical passing man, and hip to hip saw the man more gruff and more rough than the previous, and as the wandering man continued again passing lamp after lamp and torch after torch the passing man became passing men and the gruff became disheveled and the rough became rude looking until the wandering man saw stubble turn to beards and the passing turn to crawling.

The wandering man, being increasingly passed by crawling gaunt men one behind the other, came to a final set of lamps and torches, past the set the wandering man could only see that the crawling man inched from the otherside into the lights of the lamp and continued on.

The man prepared to take a step past the lamps but stumbled falling face forward. Laying with a lamp on his left and a lamp on his right the man was piled on over and over by the crawling men who turned to mountains.

I don't understand the ending. Specifically, the turned to mountains line confuses me. Given how weird everything else is, I wouldn't be surprised if they actually turned to mountains. I like the set up though. It managed to keep me interested while keeping me curious about what was going to happen.

Very in your face and tragic, seems like a complete thought already. If you add more too it it may make it ramble on.


Heres one of mine

Lightning strikes the tree
Split from top to bottom
A year later, two trees in bloom

1: Arizona is a shitty setting, no matter the year, or alternate reality or whatever.
2:
>seems to look like
Does it seem, or does it look like? Never both.
3:
>Wide and length
Is English your first language?
The rest is decent enough, doesn't bother my mind at least.
Could be a good story, if you present the story more articulately.

I like this, short, to the point, and the whole chaos causes beauty thing works. Personally, I prefer poems with meter, so if you add that then I feel it would work better (particularly if you made the first two lines correspond to a specific amount of syllables, and the last line corresponding to a different amount).

>Mine, first paragraph from a short story I recently began working on

As grand pianos stand, and they often do, the one that stood in the center of my living room, adorned with pictures of me as a child, decorated with my many accolades, and decorative plates and chalices, was first-class. The room around it followed suit: elegant pictures of fruitful valleys trampled by thundering storms painted by long-dead men hung on the walls, which were covered end to end with small, winged men who stood on golden canoes and surfed rampant waters, their eyes mad with greed for a land that they would never reach. The furniture was equally fanciful, each piece coming from some billion-dollar foreign company that overpriced its products because it knew that we could, and would, pay the price. So each time I sat at that piano and opened my sheet music to begin my lessons, each time I lay on that sleek, leather couch to relax, each time I passed through the elegance on my way to the kitchen, I was forced to see that organized, meticulous beauty, so tediously put together it brought my stomach to its knees. The older I got, the less intricate and beautiful the room seemed to me, so I went elsewhere for excitement.

I am being thorn apart by different alluring directions and I can't distinguish the false promise from the promised land.
Peace is a myth to me and I spy the happy ones from distance, judging them bitterly.
Is writing the cure?

Didn't want to open another thread.

buuuump

The language is pleasing to read, but a bit overwrought. It seems more focused on being literary and "well written" than conveying the meaning effectively. Also, the last sentence seems like an abrupt change from the rest of the paragraph's tone ("so I went elsewhere for excitement" seems almost plaintive compared to the more drawn-out sentences of the rest of the paragraph), so if that was your intention, great, but otherwise consider making that last clause more in line with the rest of the text.

That was my intent, I was trying to show dissatisfaction with the tedious pomp that the character's surrounded with. This paragraph was meant to sound kind of pretentious and flowery, so I'm glad it came across as overcomplicated. Thank you for your input.

Well done then! You should post the rest when you finish.