Havent seen a proper /crit/ thread in a while...

honestly i should take it out. i was giving it a try and it doesn't fit

the rest is nice though

thanks man

>nobody commented on my rubbish scribbles even to tell me they were shit

feels bad man

Wait a minute.. are you advocating the poisoning of autistic people, or just of autistic Apple fans?

If you were to poll people on the streets as to the smallest countries, you would mostly get strange looks. The usual answers might be Monaco, Vatican City, Liechtenstein and maybe Nauru. You would almost certainly not hear Belanglosland mentioned, unless you spoke to certain history and political professors who shouldn’t be out on their own anyways.
Belanglosland is a very small county, around 5 km2, with a population of around two thousand people. It is unlike other small countries, in that it does not have casinos, it’s bird poop is not particularly valuable, and the Pope does not live there(although they did try very hard to get him to move). It lies somewhere along the mountainous border of Austria and Germany, and, as far as they are concerned, is the other one’s problem. You see, Belanglosland lies on a small flat section of a tall mountain, making it hard to get to, for a view that’s very underwhelming, is cold most of the year and has no natural resources to speak of, making it a very unpleasant prospect for the person in charge of officially invading and annexing territories. And so it is that Belanglosland has been effectively ignored into independence.

On this particular ignored morning, the President woke up groggily, and stepped from his bed to use the washroom down the hall. It was a long hall, the longest in Belanglosland, because it was officially the Remembrance Hall. It was filled with portraits, and more recently, photographs of the previous rulers of Belanglosland. The President was currently the twelfth ruler, and the first president. Ten years ago, he had declared himself the last king, and instead titled himself ‘The President of Belanglosland”. Very modern, it was agreed all around.

Currently, the very modern President was emptying his bowels in a very modern bathroom, complete with foamy handsoaps pumps.

I haven't worked on this in awhile
I've been practicing writing by writing /co/ fanfiction
forgive me

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Hutt_River

bumpo

6/10, would rather read about Sealand

I wanted to post another piece but maybe I will later once I have time to actually give some people critiques.

pastebin.com/8hn5Z47F

This isn't from a romance novel or anything like that, but it's an important part. I really want to drive home the woman's vulnerability in this part. Normally she has a sort of sarcastic attitude but I want to show her different here, she acts that way to cover up her shitty life. Essentially she was married off to a rich merchant at age 17 and had a kid by him, then he died when the enemy attacked, and Orion helped rescue her daughter despite having no stake in the matter (he was basically suicidal and wandered into her village because he'd lost everyone) and Trielle was already attracted to him but that pushed it along a bit. This is after they start hooking up, Trielle is in love with Orion but Orion is frightened of another relationship because every woman he's been involved with so far ended up dead, and the city he ruled has been destroyed and he's been a dead man walking for months now.

So there's a bit of context.

Unfortunately, my occasionally browsing of /pol/ and /r9k/ have corrupted my view of this whole thing, there's a little voice in my head while I'm writing this saying "lol this single mother roastie whore just wants her beta bux" but I'm really trying to write her as a good-hearted person who had a horrible life. It's not as if she cheated on her husband either, he just was killed about a year before said scene takes place.

Playing he said she said "Why's dad still play in a playpen?" spreading some ghee across bread.

He only held the microphone about most of the time but when he did the feedback would grate against everyone's heads.

Cat and mouse inhabitants picking off one another. The lower brow humor attempts to whack the mole while the raised maintain not to play at all; ignoring their inner adolescence.

Looking into her eyes. She had lacustrine eyes. Spoiled eyes. A big black oil spill right there in the middle. I wish she was all iris, but somehow the negativity keeps me from handling the microphone.

I'm more of a theater person.

Skull-faced and ageless, clutching a spear
I found Cihuacoatl amid a sea of empty bottles,
And did my best to evade her gaze lest I fall
Within the domain of the quarrier.
I saw her take offerings of bone, grind them up
And mix it with the the blood flowing from my chest’s hollow.
When it came time to march dagger-ward with the warriors,
I did not follow.

This is the first paragraph of A Man In Full. Read it.

"Charlie Croker, astride his favorite Tennessee walking horse, pulled his shoulders back to make sure he was erect in the saddle and took a deep breath . . . Ahhhh, that was the ticket . . . He loved the way his mighty chest rose and fell beneath his khaki shirt and imagined that everyone in the hunting party noticed how powerfully built he was. Everybody; not just his seven guests but also his six black retainers and his young wife, who was on a horse behind him near the teams of La Mancha mules that pulled the buckboard and the kennel wagon. For good measure, he flexed and fanned out the biggest muscles of his back, the latissimi dorsi, in a Charlie Croker version of a peacock or a turkey preening. His wife, Serena, was only twenty-eight, whereas he had just turned sixty and was bald on top and had only a swath of curly gray hair on the sides and in back. He seldom passed up an opportunity to remind her of what a sturdy cord no, what a veritable cable kept him connected to the rude animal vitality of his youth."

Here is what I want you to notice: Every sentence is there for the exclusive purpose of characterizing Charlie Croker. Within that purpose, he manages to set the scene, introduce 13 characters, set up a central tension between two of them, establishes the purpose of the characters action at this moment. Take a look at each sentence individually to see how he does that.

Now compare what we learn about Ian in triple the length. I would be asking myself what exactly is the point of this cinematic camera pan around all these details of this building, and I would also be asking what they reveal about the action, the character, or the (I certainly hope) the coming conflict or crisis. You practically give us every step of the journey from seat to stairwell to dark to light, and after about 100 words of that, we leave him, as anonymous and not unpacked as a strangers suitcase.

Think about the difference between watching a movie, and writing a second-by-second description of a movie.

If you hate Tom Wolf, fine. Go pick any Big Book from the last twenty years and dissect the opening. You will find economy and intention every time.

Opener of The Secret History:

"The Snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation. He'd been dead for ten days before they found him, you know. It was one of the biggest manhunts in Vermont history- state troopers, the FBI, even an army helicopter; the college closed, the dye factory in Hampden shut down, people coming from New Hampshire, upstate New York, as far away as Boston."

We are in a murder mystery, in reverse. We are in New England. Someone named Bunny has been killed and the killer, or one of them is speaking to us. The setting is a college. Even the melting snow is there to imply something beneath about to be revealed. It is not just a weather report.

Nicely enough done. Tone and scene established. Character introduced. Comedy is signaled.

From here, I hope something happens soon.

Posted this in the other thread but received no feedback. I have not written in years, so please be gentle, but honest.

There I stood beside the edge of the canyon, below me was sheer nothingness plunging several hundred feet to the ochre-coloured rocks below, and above me was the same except it rose so far that I could not ever hope to see the end of it. It was that sensation you feel sometimes when you gain a sense of scale, of how miserably puny you are in this realm. Nothing could overcome it because it was the God's honest truth. I am miserably puny. I am. I am. I am. But that was not this. What this was, was escape from the traitorous priests who will chase you down and gut you and pull your teeth out and cut your limbs off and curse your name. I lived in a greener place. I don't live there anymore.

What is truth? What determines our purpose in life? What is just, what is the way we must not venture, what is the path we must crawl? I'll tell you these things are questions to be made to God, He the Holy One who saved us from our sins, He who knows the answers, He who loves indiscriminately. The sun is like water trickling through a crack in a stone wall, the windows and doors of the abbey being the weakened spots where it dribbles. It is a nuisance sometimes when it gets in your eyes, but you would die without it, so really, you are happy even when you think you are not. What is that? Is it a bond?

I strike the rocks together to make a little spark, and the wood goes up in flames, doused in oil to get it blazing quicker. I brought oil because I know it was cold out there at night, and by God there are no inns out there to speak of. There being the desert, the wilderness, the mountains, the everything outside of the city. You think you want it, the adventure and the dirt, but really it is a fantasy in your head. You taste the copper taste of your blood and you look over your shoulder in the dark and you wish for a haven, to be back in a comfortable bed and copying scripture directly from the tome. You miss being shouted at, even if you resented it, and then you realize that it is a bond, and I then think; what is love? Is that love?

bumpin

bump

you arent empathetic enough to write this kind of story and you are correct in thinking that pol and r9k have seriously hurt your ability to view things in a considerate, personal way.

not flagrantly bad in the least. I don't know what kind of story you're aiming at, so I can't advise you there.

A little jarring to be honest, you switch a lot between "why do I feel this way," "why do We feel this way," and "why do You feel this way"
Try to keep a consistent perspective, even in terms of vague introspection. It makes the story a lot easier to read.

Also unless this is an excerpt you establish actual events poorly
>I strike the rocks together to make a little spark, and the wood goes up in flames, doused in oil to get it blazing quicker. I brought oil because I know it was cold out there at night, and by God there are no inns out there to speak of. There being the desert, the wilderness, the mountains, the everything outside of the city

what do you mean 'the' rocks, 'the' wood? "the" is a signifying term for referring to an object you already know about. you never mention the fire before this.
Describe it as "I strike two rocks together" and "my small pile of wood goes up in flames"

also the dependant clause "doused in oil to get it blazing quicker" should be its own sentence. In this context it could refer to either the flames, the rocks, the spark, or the wood.

And then you stop your exposition to explain why you brought Oil, and then segue into describing your surroundings. It's a little jarring. keep each paragraph at least vaguely on the same track, or at least make a paragraph moving in only one direction thematically speaking

i don't know if that made any sense, i'm tired as fuck but hopefully its something to think about

Thanks for the advice! I'll take it all on board.

Not sure if this is the right place but writing a rhyme and was looking for some suggestions/critique. Have zero experience of writing poems/rhymes before.

Full of wonder three children set out from the hamlet of Rook
Clambering west a rickety oaken bridge they took
Slaying wolves and snakes the plains they stout-heartedly crossed
Until a crevice encased by standing stones found them engrossed
Deep into the spider lair the three adventurers fought
Fighting hard the monsters poison left the explorers distraught
Reaching the innermost cavern a vicious rotworm did fiercely attack
With a hard fought victory the trio grabbed the loot and headed back
On the surface the leader proclaimed when we grow up this valorous tale will be retold
Of the three impetuous children who first ventured out back on Antica old

Well this is only part of the story.

Are there ways to improve this?

this is all fucking shit.

Eu vou criando meu jogo
Mas no fundo sinto um vazio
Que sei que nem meu improvável sucesso irá preencher

E esse vazio toma forma
E é com ele que forjo minha indignação
E é ele que me dá forças para vencer, mais uma vez, a batalha contra a solidão, o tédio e os novos dias

If there's a God, he made an indiscretion
I know for what it's worth
He can't have kept the best women in heaven
For he's left one on earth.

I have nothing to lose: at least I can be frank,
And say the silly lovey things I want
To say. For example: what poet could craft a phrase
That describes the beauty of your gaze.

The fleeting smiles of Xezal show
A range of mountains clothed in snow,
Or sweeping clouds that drift above
And fly as changeably as love.

A pair of lips like honeyed dates, that charm like wine,
As sweet as grapes that ripen on the vine.
A pair of cheeks as sumptuous as an ocean
To frame a face demanding pure devotion.

And in your every moment you project an air
Always entrancing à ta manière.
And every soul whose sense and logic's there
Should long to see you dancing.

I tried to paint the world
But found that it was too big

I tried to paint myself
But found that I was too small

I tried to paint the sun
But found that it was too hot

I tried to pain the moon
But found that it was too cold

I tried to paint the past
But found it was too long

I tried to paint the future
But found it was too short

I tried to paint you,
And found that doing so
Filled the void
Of the world, myself, the sun, the moon, the future, and the past

And when I had finished
painting you
I found that I had painted the world and myself
the sun and the moon
the future and the past;
at least in all the ways that mattered to me

Great critique! Especially the part highlighting "economy and intention."

bravo!

I translated a text for a critique thread a couple days ago
Took 2.5 hours to do 5 pages, I never realized translating is a shitload of effort
If you spot any mistakes, please let me know

docs.google.com/document/d/1yNjMymqgSwhuzXQ-NxzzRmJ_dq5AVVYfxj4skdV29nc/edit?usp=sharing

Rate, mate, don't be eager to hate.

Satan followed our tracks. The fields of wheat gently swayed with the wind, bending at the sight of us. One could not quite see how many mountains were in the distance, but could certainly feel their presence that night. Alexander had been in the lead, tugging the reins of his horse every now and then. We did not speak, and I could not. We each held heavy metal shovels with our breath and carried ski masks. Our horses were hardly noticeable.

Rate please. Looking to dump my heart and soul into this one

I enjoyed it. I don't like the questions that pop up every other sentence but maybe that's me.

The glazed eye of god danced blindly in the sky, its divine gaze madly shifting across the earth in search of the two ghouls who tread across his domain. But in this current age of existence the aphotic cloak that accompanies night has become impenetrable to the Warden’s sight. A blind eye can see no sin and it was sin that blinded his eye. No man living or dead can recall the moment in which the lunar cataract took form and spread like spilled milk across the ocular surface, but all creatures of the earth know in their hearts what tipped the cup. How sensitive a soul our maker must be. To be wounded so gravely by the dark deeds done in the dark by his own dark creations. And was it man or primordial beast that hurt him so. I wonder, is all life damned, or just the kings of the garden? Even darker yet, maybe that too was in his plan. I dislike such an idea. I prefer to believe that we hurt the cunt ourselves.

Left hand / right hand
Quiet contemplation / tangled complexity
Coils /from lips
Like serpents/split tongue tasting air
Sensing vibration /from two things at once
Echoing off immobility/echoing against each other
/when I
Can't see it/ feel it against my skin
Beneath dark / water
Am I / are we
Drowning/ swimming to
You can/ feel the warmth
Not see the ripples /
From the deep/ I can't see what I feel
I know you can feel it/ I can't place it
I had to hide /when I tried
This:this
Happened:happened
When I : when I
Open up to someone I can't / put on a happy face and
move the surface of the water /like everyone
The surface moves itself/ like I don't know why I'm
Holding my breath, walking on water/ dancing until my feet fall off
Sun below me/and it was never
Midnight/ over &
Above me/ left
Dancing stars/ alone at the end of the night
Themselves shattered / right
/before the time
And distance was right/

Most interesting part is satan, and he doesn't show up

uh ok who the fuck is this guy

My mind feels unsettled, as though, without being committed to a single track, its contents have pooled all directions, until it is thin and spread all over the floor, a watery toxic fluid. I tell myself that everything will be okay, that it will eventually gather itself again, but the truth is I don't know that. There have been times when my mind remains fractured for months, years even, and this could very well be one of those times. I have no way of saying that it is not. What I do know is that at this moment my mind feels threatened, exposed, and it is only by becoming a different person that I could feel safe again.
--
Tall dark faces with clean-cut hair and jackets. Their loud laughter unhinges me from the core, and I feel intimidated by those who are doubtless highly friendly, amiable. But why do they have to be so goddamn tall. Towering over me with their dark blank faces, full of untold jokes, tales, and charm. No doubt they would laugh at my jokes too, and feel uncomfortable when I have nothing to say at all. I cannot be a part of their tall darkness, because I am small and breakable. I am sorry though, I really am. I wish I could be friendly with you the way you are with me. It is not your fault, at least, not in the sense that you should feel bad, anyway.

Feedback. Bueller?

you have an exquisite taste in prose

bump

Thank you friend that Is very validating

I don't get it

ooga booga

kek kid* every time you post a famous opening I'm inclined to criticize it lol.. maybe I should tone it down

or maybe the people you're posting are forgettable plebs who will be obliterated by the march of time

jk jk. thanks for your service

*ironic

bravo, m8. the rhythm needs more work (strikes me as somewhat musicless when read aloud) but this poem alone redeems the thread

ah, sweet and honest. a great combo

I don't usually r8 poetry but bellisimo

gayest trash in the whole thread

I'm amazed that someone praised you, but maybe every writer has his mate?

Listening to Sun Kil Moon in my parent's living room, alone, drinking a margarita

All the lights burned out in my room
two weeks before I left
to spend the holidays with my parents.
Is that a metaphor, I can’t tell;
is my laptop,
with half of its screen not connected to its base,
a metaphor? I’m asking earnestly. I
have a new laptop, so if we’re speaking in metaphors,
it's going well. I have to get back to cleaning up,
non-metaphorically.
I've promised myself that I would start eating
better, brushing and flossing more often, and that I won't use my new laptop for porn. When I tried
to write porn my phone autocorrected to poem

>Think about the difference between watching a movie, and writing a second-by-second description of a movie.

I've noticed that a lot of amateur writers have trouble organising and arranging what they've written and write as though the narrative gaze is a camera panning across a scene. Books aren't movies.

You use way too many adjectives and descriptors. If you want to do that, you need to make your sentence structure more varied and rhythmic. Consider what does and does not deserve to be written of in such detail, especially at what I assume is the opening of the story. I don't really need to know that the press pen is increasingly full, or the exact arrangement of the hall.

here's my short horror

pastebin.com/X9m2CtR7

>somehow not a picture of user's dick

You are just one step away from the glorious
Pace of nature, my sway
Will be slow like a wave that happens at night
Thundering to the moon’s delight
As you step in my step
One foot forward
Though your spine arcs back
I am there to catch
The bend
Of your world
Through your perspectival eyes
In the space of your head
The world dances
Through your eyes
Again and again
But I am the puller of levers, the stepping
Stone of your heel
And I will guide you like marble guides the statues kneel
And I will sculpt you like the weariest wood
Has grown through the rings of ages
The rings of spent love
And cold desire
And I will enter you as a nighthawk enters the wood
Swiftly, with one understanding
Of the paths
That you have grown around
And made yourself into a closed off bush
Shielding yourself in the sparkling flowers
Of rose & open delight
I understand
The breath that is not yours, and what is yours
And I will dance this with you
Make you mine
As much, as what can be made from your Time

Title: To The Essence of Music

Inside a polished chamber, brune, and with the wind
Climbing in from the paneled drawls. The mountains
Rise from this gramophone set. A holiness like a
Noisy rat. At first basking in the corner of one ear.
Then here. Then there. The creepers and vines
Of sound, come down from the ceiling of the mind,
Or the trellis-webbed neurologies. The suddenness
Of the cacophony, has settled into something more
Like bricks laid before a doorway. The statue
And the storm. The idol of an influential god
Telling you one ear, as much tears as could fall
From divinity, from their splendid pall.
The destruction of one’s mind, and life, by nature
Could not consider it. That is all in one tear,
As much as armies could be building up and rising down
Day by day, and their clanging clashes desolate war
Into its separate parts. Different modes of the drum
Baking against the reddened sun. They fight till dusk
Has crept its lion cowl among the land. This is the oldest symphony
And we play it again.

O, you shall be the dragon standing castle
Against the gates of the cavern. The last crake
Lifts itself from the hiddenness of its embellishment.
How many suns and tides must pass before the dream comes
Again? A dream we had forgotten once. It existed within
Childish breath and infantile tautology. The moment you were loved
You wanted breath. The moment you were mothered,
You were long from death. Little child in the flowery down
With the airness of a head elusive. Before the child knew
Pain, and harm, and the graven mode of life. You took it
There and then. You stole it away from him. He has to find
The rocketship in blessed sound. It rises inside him. It frowns
A frowny smile at the compatriot once born to be a friend
And music is your lover once again.

Settling noise can only be the end
Of a long relationship. Your bosom friend is gone
Back into the significant aurals of the wind. The significant
Silence, of a single room upheld. The brune returns like a spell
And masks the world in a shade of heaven & hell, once again
You will find. You know evil & good. The lair & the beast.
You understand within time, and not out of time.

Wow very powerful and illuminating criticism there

]Out of the Giants Mouth[

Inn began God wayward northern
lights shimmying (dance_glow.yhwh)
till the tetraheathen quaked awake
]hohohohoho[ the sorror, the drawer
tis’ OPEN agape agrape am orchard!
Winepresh schlurrs pashh the inn’d
so sober, so cold, so-so wishy (again
with schlurry ov frusshchrTREYATION!
-k it, ten) paws so soft, so-so warm
skin (my skin?) buh-bye, buh-buh-buh
Bum! buh-buh-buh-BUM! Bum looking a
round for Wehs to grow to blinding
Trees across shapely and uprighteous…
(but this is where I draw the line)… … …
through lines and through planes
through cubes, through hyper(cubes)repyh
Recurse, recurse, recurse! that wretched
fractal! So alien, so bright, so-so God
ly down and hope for noon to fold
Into itself. As on is in my mine laid up
On, the altar of is, laid up and up until
There it’s gone! And my wine unclouds
My water is cool and I understand everything.
My fears are real, and I embrace everything.
The giant has spoke, and he said everything.

Why do people keep writing like this? It's just like jizz on a page.

The main reason why people write in a style like that, like ee cummings, is because even though he screws with the form, his lyricism is still top class. e.g.

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

But yours is just obscure schizophrenia.

This gal. Donna Tart is the Pulitzer and Carnegie medal winning novelist of Secret History, The Goldfinch, and others.

Tom Wolf and Donna Tartt are here to stay. I get the joke. The point is, I'm showing what sells. Every now and then, somebody comes here who is actually trying to get published. This guy sees it too:
I often wonder if the cult of "Patrician" is the thing that's keeping them from just writing screenplays. Best sellers all get optioned anyway, so why go down the roughest road to get there? If I could have come up with Ready Player One, I'd have laughed past all the "Patricians" all the way to the bank.

You grabbed my attention with Satan in the first sentence, but then you instantly lost me when nothing came from it and starting talking about nature.

In other words, you grabbed interest with one thing and do no follow up for that attention. Why is Satan following your tracks? And all the more still, why should I care about fields of wheat, mountains, or who is leading who when the far more interesting thing whatever it is you did or are about to do?

I'm not saying you can't do the other parts, but at the very least expand upon your hook to keep our attention longer than just as we see the word 'wheat'

I get what you mean. I immediately began to build upon that after what I posted, but maybe it's too late? I'll amend

This is how and (only, ever) why to do a weather report at the beginning:

The tropical rain fell in drenching sheets, hammering the corrugated roof of the clinic building, roaring down the metal gutters, splashing on the ground in a torrent. Roberta Carter sighed, and stared out the window. From the clinic, she could hardly see the beach or the ocean beyond, cloaked in low fog. This wasn’t what she had expected when she had come to the fishing village of Bahia Anasco, on the west side of Costa Rica, to spend two months as a visiting physician. Bobbie Carter had expected sun and relaxation, after two grueling years of residency in emergency medicine at Micheal Reese in Chicago.
She had been at Bahia Anasco for three weeks. And it had rained every day.

Those tropical rains are going to become central to the story when the kids are trapped out in the park with the dinosaurs, and when Dennis is trying to make his getaway.. The rain is also internalized by the character, so that we feel the contrast between expectation and reality - another central theme of the book.

And by the way, we now know where, when, who, what and why about her. A bonus.

Now run down Chrichton as an airport book store pleb sellout. It shows you don't know where to look for models of how to write what sells. The fact that Jurassic Park got turned into a kids' movie franchise takes not one iota from the fact that Chrichton knew what he was doing with written fiction.

Typically speaking, on the average night I would find myself here at this window, staring at the city, and my accomplishments thereof. Tonight however, Nature had conspired to steal the world away from me, and so there was nothing. Nature, I learned a long time ago, largely creates unfortunate, unchangeable realities.

Either way, to their existential spite of Nature, Fritz and them were roaring in the courtyard, which was unusual for this hour. Normally speaking, the delivery cart of carcasses would arrive, they would glide through the carcasses like wet soap on oil, and their lust would be sated. And yet, here they were, hyper-primally howling as I once knew them to do so, lust dripping from each guttural vibration. Of course, due to the weather, I could not see them, but perhaps that was the point. So they could revel in their inhumanity without having to see it, or their monstrous figures.

Of course, out of all of us, Fritz and them cared the least about their inhumanity. I know this simply from how long I knew them. To be honest, everyone involved gave up their humanity a long, long time ago, though it could be argued that the Colonel and the Captain embraced theirs’ like one does a dying family member. Still, time made us perfectly content with this fact, and our actions. Still, when you are in the position we were in, a certain humane nature is required, even if I carried the brunt of it for us. In the end, even if it was in the embryo like Fritz and them, we were all human at some point or another, and that came with the strings of emotion attached to it.

i'm trying to write a poem but i can't
i have no feelings and i am dumb
fuck all of you niggers

i like cummings, but i was looking more towards Joyce in mine
>obscure schizophrenia.
that's an apt description, but it is a fun way to write

A troop of ants carried a grub to the main entrance of their fortress. They tried in vain to drag the wriggling thing down into the hole, but it was too fat. The ants lost their grip of the white worm when its spastic defensive wiggling became too much for them and its stubby orange legs groped the air and kicked up grains of sand uselessly. Its futile scramble away from the entrance shoved sand down into the hole and countless ants poured out of the hole in a dozen different lines, carrying with them each tiny bit of earth that the grub kicked into their colony. When they had all deposited their respective portion of sand away from the hole, they did an about face and descended on the helpless grub all at once. It's ineffectual mandibles gnashed at the ants, who avoided each bite and coldly twitched their antennae to communicate with their brothers and sisters. The chubby grub's pale skin was snipped by an ant's tiny pincers and its milky gray guts oozed out onto the sand. It writhed and resisted only a moment longer, until several ants went to work on its legs and tiny head, sawing away with their mouths and carrying pieces down into their hole. The grub's flaccid body spilled its goo and gave up its inconsiderable ghost. The ants finally nipped away chunks of its body until the rubbery husk was small enough to drag into the hole. It disappeared underground with no grace and all of its dignity taken by the ants.

>A troop of ants carried a grub to the main entrance of their fortress. They tried in vain to drag the wriggling thing down into the hole, but it was too fat. The ants lost their grip on the white worm when its spastic wiggling became too much for them and its stubby orange legs kicked up grains of sand. Its scramble away from the entrance shoved sand down into the hole and ants poured out of the hole in a dozen different lines, carrying with them each tiny bit of earth that the grub kicked into their colony. When they had all deposited their respective portion of sand away from the hole, they did an about face and descended on the grub all at once. It's mandibles gnashed at the ants, who avoided each bite and twitched their antennae to communicate with their brothers and sisters. The chubby grub's pale skin was snipped by an ant's tiny pincers and its milky guts oozed out onto the sand. It writhed and resisted only a moment longer, until several ants went to work on its legs and tiny head, sawing away with their mouths and carrying pieces down into their hole. The grub's flaccid body spilled its goo and gave up its ghost. The ants nipped away chunks of its body until the husk was small enough to drag into the hole. It disappeared underground with no grace and all of its dignity taken by the ants.

>i hate adjectives
Do people actually enjoy reading stripped down language like this? It's so sparse and plain. This is probably one of my least favorite literary memes.

The number of adjectives make this a slog to read. It is borderline cringe and does not help the read feel anything about the passage. Get rid of 99% of them and keep one or two good ones. Then spend your time building the actual story not the filler. It's not a meme to not waste people's time.

Right, but I write what I enjoy reading, so why would I bother worrying about wasting someone else's time? I don't understand this criticism, since it really doesn't make sense at all.
Why bother writing any of it, when I could have just said "The ants destroyed the grub and dragged it into the hole," and been done with the whole thing? Why draw the line at adjectives, if you think everyone should be aiming for this vocabulary minimalism?

>A troop of ants carried a grub to the main entrance of their fortress. They tried in vain to drag the wriggling thing down into the hole, but it was too fat. The ants lost their grip of the white worm when its spasms became too much and its stubby orange legs groped the air and kicked up grains of sand. Its scramble away from the entrance shoved sand down into the hole, ants poured out of the hole in a dozen different lines, carrying with them each tiny bit of earth that the grub kicked into their colony. When they had all deposited their sand away from the hole, they did an about face to the grub. It's mandibles gnashed at the ants, who avoided each bite and twitched their antennae to communicate with their brothers and sisters. The grub's skin was snipped by ant pincers until milky guts oozed out onto the sand. It writhed only a moment longer, until several ants went to work on its legs and head, sawing and carrying pieces down into their hole. The ants finally nipped away chunks of its body until the rubbery husk was small enough to drag into the hole. It disappeared underground dead and undignified.

I am not discriminating against a part of speech, I am offended by their improper use.

Defensive: obvious.
Uselessly: contradicted by escape
Futile: same
Countless: no, there are 12 lines of them
Helpless: contradicted by escape
Ineffectual: contradicted by ants avoidance
Coldly: contradicted by "brothers and sisters"
Gray: Milk is white.
Inconsiderable: redundant

Defensive and inconsiderable are actually insulting - you presume a reader needs to be told that. It's talking down. You can't hear it because you are enraptured by your imminent greatness.

Watching an episode of Planet Earth versus writing a purple second-second description of an episode of Planet Earth.

not that guy, but you're not as smart as you think

>I write for the desk drawer

Then why bring it here?

Was Hemingway's old man really that old?

Yeah by adding too many adjectives and descriptions you open yourself up to mistakes, like inconsistency, repeating words, talking down your readers or just plain nonsense that is hard to notice unless you're critical.

Better to just go minimal from the start, the words that actually matter will get wrote the ones that don't were going to get edited out eventually anyways.

>Defensive: obvious.
Not necessarily. I used that adjective to make it clear that there was some agency involved, that the grub was actively trying to defend itself and not just freaking out unintelligently.

>Uselessly: contradicted by escape
It escaped from their grip, but wasn't making any headway in terms of getting away from the anthill. So its kicking was useless and entirely futile. All it did was alert ants inside the colony that there was something going on above. It truly is helpless.

>Countless: no, there are 12 lines of them
Each containing too many ants to count.

>Ineffectual
Have you ever looked at a grub's face before?

>Coldly: contradicted by "brothers and sisters"
Right, it's called ironic anthropomorphization

>Gray: Milk is white
Milky is used here to describe the texture more than the color.

>Inconsiderable: redundant
I'm making a careful comment here about the insect's soul, not the size of his body. Suggesting that this is happening in a setting where some lives are considerable and others are not.

In the vicinity of Blone, the Gship Totes Not Moloch emerged into the real, sloughing off energy from a high velocity 4th dimensional romp/combat with unknowable God like entities, Totes Not Moloch displaced a small disposable shuttle, then dived away plunging down out of the universe. In orbit around Blone a zero-gee factory built 70000 tons of mechanical components, shipped them down the space elevator to a NorCon factory for building factories, which shipped output to a complex in the City to build bigger factories to ship via platoons of trucks to industrial zones on the City's edge where they built more complex factories to build smaller factories that built echips. This employed 170 people, and 13,000 lawyers.

The Blone stream vacillated. The ball game finals were approaching; fans burned effigies and flagellated. The physiocratic clique won out in the backroom halls of the NorCon. Worldenders prayed in Parliament. XX Company had a three hour meeting. Acorp was filing an injunction in six universes.The Mayor was tried in absentia and found guilty on all charges. Rebels decapitated the governor of the SubCon. The siege of Gelepo reached its 100th day. The rising star Targris warmed thick yellow air below grey blue sky over the spires of the City.

Gluos lounged feet up on a couch. Heart racing and eyes drooping as he watched out of focus lights in lines move across the horizon. He was in the gov district, on the top floor of a residential building owned by one of the XX Company's front companies. Lines of straight thoroughfares glowed red and white with traffic. Airplanes with running lights blinking steadily, took off in long slanted trajectories above the twinkling grid. One every 60 seconds. Occasionally a spaceplane launched straight up with shocking speed followed by a bright cone of light.

BTFO

He left a fair number of adjectives in. I think he did a good job.

I think it's a mistake for authors to over-describe a scene. I get that you have an image in your mind that you want to accurately convey to the reader, but you should resist that temptation. Creating a satisfying experiences is more about communicating feelings than imagery. People can fill in the blanks with their own imagery and that's usually more effective.

For example, "gray, milky guts" might be the most accurate description of what you have in mind, but "milky" is a much more powerful descriptor than "gray". "Gray" isn't really necessary for the mood of the scene, and diminishes the impact of "milky".

I do understand, of course. However, when I'm writing a first draft I really try to just throw everything out there and then trim it away later. I guess it's my fault for putting up something that needs to be trimmed and then getting mad when people suggest I trim it. So fuck me, I guess.

I'm currently in that first-draft headspace that tells me everything I'm writing is gold, so I don't get caught up trying to edit while I'm writing and never get anywhere. But still, I like my adjectives ;_;

Nobody waits for public transportation without an air of anxiety. From afar, an onlooker could suppose that these waiters were dreading not the promptitude of their mutual means of transport, but in fact they were dreading their destination. This supposition by our fellow onlooker would only be proven correct when at the roar, sight, and squeak of a particular subway train's arrival, these waiters let out a cloud of sighs, not of relief, but of even further dread.

>Nobody waits for public transportation without an air of anxiety
I do. It's a fucking bus. No need to be anxious. This entire passage is horseshit and paints a picture of a human reality that none of us actually inhabit.

it's set in a fictional dystopia lad, which granted, can't be concluded from those sentences. there's a reason why they don't want to go why their headed

I am standing in a bookstore. I pick up a promising looking novel. I read the first paragraph. I quickly put it back on the shelf. Out of nowhere, some mealy looking guy strides way into my personal space and starts haranguing me with this:

as an explanation of why I should fork over $12 for that book I just put down.

Now imagine what happens next.

>mealy looking guy strides way into my personal space and starts haranguing me with this:
the irony

If you put my book down, I'll hand you a twenty and tell you where the YA section is. Or maybe manga is more your speed.

I woke up in the morning to a day like no other. It was the dawn of my sixteenth birthday. I springed down the stairs covered in fuzzy blue carpet and shouted to mom: "hi mom!~

"Hi protagonist!~" she screamed back over the sound of the blender blending bananas. She handed me a dense smoothie, my favorite!

I bet you're wondering who I am. My name is Clara Dark. I have silver hair and purple eyes and can totally kick the ass of anyone I want, and look fantastic doing it.

You can keep the twenty. And the book.

I got this for you. It's for people who hate poetry. You've probably never heard of the poet either. He's famous.

The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am pleased.
In vast quantities it has been remaindered
Like a van-load of counterfeit that has been seized
And sits in piles in a police warehouse,
My enemy's much-prized effort sits in piles
In the kind of bookshop where remaindering occurs.
Great, square stacks of rejected books and, between them, aisles
One passes down reflecting on life's vanities,
Pausing to remember all those thoughtful reviews
Lavished to no avail upon one's enemy's book --
For behold, here is that book
Among these ranks and banks of duds,
These ponderous and seeminly irreducible cairns
Of complete stiffs.

whens the sex scene?

yawn
I'm not terribly interested in praise from someone who lets a greater man do his talking for him. That's why you're shopping for books and I'm writing them.