In the short story I'm currently writing, there's a scene where an orphan has a wistful...

Okay. Would you prefer I sent the doc link of the whole story so far, or just post what I've written here?

I've got no idea how long any of it is, user.

If it'll take you more than several posts to share however much you want then perhaps use a pastebin.

Okay. First off, I think I'll post a short description to give some context

It's about A cheerful little goth girl with long purple hair that reaches past her waist, a frilly purple dress, and a frilly purple hat. Dangling from her lips is a fancy black cigar holder, similar to a cigarette holder but a fair bit larger. At the tip of the holder was a huge, tremendously fat purple cigar, the lit ember glowing bright violet.. She lives seemingly alone in an old, bug infested manor. Her name is Lilly Cobb.

Personality wise, she’s very cheerful and casual about things like danger and death, even when it’s her own life. She loves bugs, ghosts, and all things macabre.

A few years ago, her family was cursed and began dying one by one, leaving only Lilly left. Lilly figures that since it’s only a matter of time before she passes, she’ll make the most of it. She often thinks about what her death will be like. She predicts that it will be something spectacular, as a fitting end to her family line.
The ghosts of her family members sometimes manifest in the smoke of her cigar.

The smoke from her cigar is purple, and often forms the shapes of spiders, cobwebs, and similar things.

In front of her manor is the graveyard, where each of her family members are buried. There’s even a grave for her, thought it of course hasn’t been filled yet. She likes to sit on the tombstones while reading or talking to the ghosts of her family.
She’s about eleven years old. She’s quick to cheerfully point out that she likely won’t live to see her twelfth birthday.

She owns a large carnivorous plant in her manor’s garden that she treats like a pet.

How's that sound?

sounds like you read too much Pratchett

Sounds like you could make a killing from the tweens. Is that what you're going for?

I wasn't sure which demographic. Why tweens?

Why's that?

Because the imagery is dripping with simplistic, unthreatening edginess. It's like you're trying to write a story for Emily the Strange, a brand character aimed at little girls who want to be a bit left of centre.

Unthreatening edginess sounds kind of like an oxymoron. I wasn't really trying for edgy, just sort of darkly humorous in a goth kind of way.

What seems edgy about it?

It's edgy like A Nightmare Before Christmas is edgy; Not-your-typical-family-movie (but still fun for the whole family!)

Alright. Here's what I've written of it so far.

pastebin.com/qZeXXxGk

Just so you know, it's in progress so it's not quite refined at the moment.

How is it so far?

If it was aimed at a younger audience (e.g., Series of Unfortunate Events) not too bad.

Already getting slightly repetitious, so I can't see a short story based only on the "quirkiness" of this girl.

Okay. I'm not sure it would be allowed to be aimed at a younger audience with the underage smoking in it, though.

Any parts that stand out so far?

That was why we hit the oxymoron before about unthreatening edginess. It's too "cutesy" to be adult, but then you have the underage smoking, preoccupation with death, etc.

I did like the bit about how many trees might die (though lose the last sentence about general things, just end with the murder line).

Careful not to overuse this style too much, you have another paragraph later with a list of why she would get rid of trees (rather than them just dying) and already there is a whiff of repetitiveness about it. That sort of works in terms of depressive rumination always leading back to the same sort of places, but you don't want to push it to the point where you bore the reader.

Okay, thanks. Any other suggestions for now?

We'll in reading it it seems like you're having fun writing it so carry on, m8.

Okay, thanks

I'll read it, I suppose.

Change mortality to morality and I'm in. Otherwise it's trash.

Why's that?

sounds like you're an anime watching pedofile t b h

>that first sentence

What makes you say that?

What's wrong with it?

It would be a downgrade for J. K. Rowling if she had written it.

Cobb is my last name too

Oh, okay

What do you think of the idea?

Don't really have a comment except they won't let you publish a kids book with underage smoking. Why did you kill so many fellow cobbs

Cobb just seemed like a fitting last name, since it sounds like the first part of cobweb

1. opening sentence is pretty lame desu
2..you use rather too much
3.how the fuck does a little girl burn down trees with a cigar, and how does she do it without causing a forest fire?
4. fix " I think I have something of my brother’s will do that quite nicely.”"
5.A little girl smoking cigars is odd but if thats what you wanna do thats fine i guess

Alright, I'll change those.

I changed it, though it won't show up on the pastebin

What did you change it to?

OP serious question, how old are you? It is pertinent to my review of your work

Just something less awkwardly worded.

Why is it pertinent?

Because if you're any age below 15 you should probably just give up writing and do what all other animefags do, namely either go work in animation or kys

I'm an adult, if you need to know. How does it make me an animefag?

jesus christ i thought my writing was bad
holy fucking shit dude

"Lilly Cobb was the little girl, probably not even twelve, standing in the manor’s front hallway. She had long, dark purple hair that reached past her waist, whether or not she tied it into pigtails. Her skin was rather pale, and her eyes and lips were both a similar shade of purple to her hair. She was wearing a frilly purple dress and a frilly purple hat. Dangling from her lips was a fancy black cigar holder, similar to a cigarette holder but a fair bit larger. At the tip of the holder was a huge, tremendously fat purple cigar, the lit ember glowing bright violet. She used one hand to hold up the cigar holder in her mouth as she paced around the front hallway."

Aside from the rest of the story, this one paragraph, in fact just the colors mentioned in this paragraph, displays clearly that most of your ideas and your experiences come from anime.

I don't actually watch anime. Why does the story remind you of anime?

What is it?

...

A gust of wind blew through the air, causing the old manor to shudder and shake

3/10
some good ideas, premise could be better, stop focusing on purple so much unless you actually use it for the story (a symbol [it could be for death, but its a little too loose] or something like that)
Make the character cheery or gloomy, not some pretentious pseudo-intellectual. You can do better

I just chose purple for kind of a gothic colour. Nothing anime about it.

...

Ok, I'll keep that in mind

...

...

Because it's the typical edgy death-related excrement that the Bible dealt with in full.

Also kek

...

...

I think you get the idea.

So, other than purple hair, is there anything else anime about the story?

Here, I rewrote a lot of it as to what the point that I might try to make, ending it where you did

pastebin.com/JFkj7pzX

tfw copying from latex ruins formatting

Alright. Which user were you?

im

Okay, then

>pastebin.com/JFkj7pzX
>always hallucinogenic visions involved
just the average Veeky Forums writer wannabe

Do Veeky Forums writers usually put hallucinogenic visions in their stories?

Certainly, they are apparently obsessed with Pynchon. Hallucinations are the Veeky Forums well received edgy-thing

Are they the types who come up with the "everything is a hallucination" fan theories?

Nah, they believe it's cool, just as you believe that edgy gothic thing it's cool.

I guess so

never read pynchon but sorry

Who's Pynchon?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon

Much better.

It's not just the purple hair, you've stumbled upon quite a cliche anime archetype for the MC. Its the aesthetic of her purple, mystical, slightly religious Gothics, wrapped up in a cuteness and almost ditsy light-heartedness in the face of morbid content... It's quirky in a cliche way, I think she needs more depth because that kind of "whoa, she is talking about death but she's a happy little girl" is just a bit trite.

Okay. I don't watch anime, so that was probably coincidental.

Want me to post the full story in a pastebin when it's done?

Of course.

The question is... Do YOU?

Sure

OP, what were the last 5 books you read?

Why do you ask?

Answer the question and I'll tell you why

Of Mice and Men
The Lovely Bones
Metamorphosis
Interesting Times
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Fuck these negative people. I'm stoned so that may be impacting my taste, but I could actually imagine this as a dark yet light humored whimsical Tim Burton-y claymated looking film (or something like paranorman). It may not come across as serious as you may want it too or adult but it's definitely got.a vibe.

I'm not really intending it as serious, more a darkly humorous/darkly cute kind of thing.

Utter shit.
>Prose is awful
>uses archaic language incorrectly
>Protagonist is an edgy goth 11 year old anime girl who drinks and smokes
>No ideas of note are presented
Why would I read this

I don't recall there being drinking in the story.

Based on your writing it seemed that you hadn't read a book since you were in grade 8.

Why's that?

Your writing brings the feeling of a man who has a firm grasp on the rules of the language but only a distant memory of the rules of literature.

How so?

Okay, I Will