Thoughts on this essay I wrote for a nonfiction workshop?

Thoughts on this essay I wrote for a nonfiction workshop?

I cringed 7 times just reading the first page. Had to stop here:
>I'm surprised at how many people are in IHOP at this fine hour

Bump

Ask yourself if any of this needed to be said.

The answer should be no.

I like reading about diners in the wee hours of the morning but I feel like you are being too dramatic and shifting topics too much. I also feel like you are putting too much significance into rather mundane events.

Bump

I already wanted to burn it after the first sentence. That was the most reddit account of going to IHOP late at night that I've ever had the displeasure of reading.

Proof that not everyone deserves an education.

>I'm surprised at how many people are in IHOP at this fine hour

Jesus. . . I'm in tears
Screencapped

This cannot be real. How much are you paying for this workshop?

it's bad

I don't mind you guys shitting on my work, but at least try to be constructive in your criticism.
I'm just trying to get a little help because obviously I need it.
I don't claim to be a great writer. I just want to improve.

> but at least try to be constructive in your criticism.
Alright, sorry, I'll be more constructive:
A waffle house is a nice place to set a story with a sort of cozy atmosphere, I think. But you pretty excessively dramatize the experience the experience to the point that almost every sentence seems to exaggerate details that probably should've been articulated better in the first place.

Why are you trying to improve your prose writing in particular?

>I'm surprised at how many people are in IHOP at this fine hour

KEK

>in this fine hour
Cmon, man.

>It seems that one does not willingly go to IHOP after midnight. One only ends up at IHOP after midnight.

>I'm surprised at how many people are in IHOP at this fine hour
So Veeky Forums is he /ourpasta/?

We're harsh because we care. That's one of the qualities of this board.

A lot of the phrases are just really cringe, such as "I set the bar low, and those chicken strips still managed to shimmy under it like the reigning champ at a cruise ship's limbo competition." I actually felt like punching you after reading that.

It seems like you attempt to describe things in the paper, but then just completely drop it and jump to something else, which makes the whole story seem pointless and without direction.

For example, you say "a feeling of unease creeps up on me," but never explain what exactly made you uneasy, or develop that thought further. You just drop it and jump to an explanation of the menu.

The punctuation is juvenile: there are passages that would greatly benefit from the use of semicolons or colons, such as the passage where you start multiple consecutive sentences with "Some of us".

After reading it, I didn't really feel like I had a better understanding of what it's like to be at IHOP at 3am with some bros than before. There was no atmosphere. You could have been anywhere and it would not have made much of a difference.

>We are the ones who don't follow the rules

What the fuck is this?

Okay, I'll try to explain. Your prose is flat, and then words that do not fit the tone of your writing as a whole pop up unexpectedly, i.e. saccharine. The word choices are odd, the thoughts are not cohesive, and it seems like you're forcing yourself to think of something to say without wanting to say anything.
Do not talk about the reader.

I'm in tears.

The more you read it, the more you laugh.

Thank you. I appreciate the feedback.
This is one of my first times writing prose, so I'm trying to get the hang of it.

"fine hour" sucked. how is it a fine hour and a purgatory?
the part about ending up rather than going was good, but probably because i can relate.

>Some know it all too well

Is this a war novel? A concentration camp tale? Is this an elegy?
what is going on

"Fine hour" is meant to be sarcastic

The extraordinary should be written extraordinarily and the mundane mundanely. Don't write everything so dramatically faggot, match the rhythm with the narrative.

>as long as there isn't a severed finger in my waffle, I'll be thankful

>wake up in the morning rise from their slumber
You don't need to say both. If you do one, you're doing the other.

So far in the essay he had only spoken affectionately about the experience.
"undeniable charm"
"a certain camaraderie"
He acknowledges how its gross and shitty, but he still likes it. There's no context to indicate that was sarcasm.

Ah gotcha thanks

>aww hell naw son, alex jones is woke
>Sir, it is not my intention to add a negative tone to our thus far marvellous late night dinner; but you seem to have given me no other option but to wholeheartedly, but kindly of course, outright reject your silly statement regarding Mr. Alex Jones. He is simply a brute and I find his buffoonery offensive. Now, shall we return to our chicken nibletts?

not OP, but i dont feel like it came off this way.

For the most part, it seems like you're just describing the passing of your thoughts in a very distant and passive way. It's one thing to speak in roundabout ways for effect, but it feels like you're just trying to up your word count, limply. What you demonstrate is irrelevant to your musings, and your musings go completely undeveloped or supported. There is no feel. Take a look at this passage:
"I'm suprised by how many people there are in IHOP at this fine hour. I wonder what has brought them here. Then again, I could ask myself the same question."
How many people are there? How could you describe it? Is there another way to convey your surprise? What kind of surprise is it? Are you shocked, or bemused, or perplexed? It is really a passive experience that happens naturally and without direct cause, or is there force behind it? Is it cold? Is it warm? Why do you need the second sentence of that passage? What are you really trying to say? You already said you were surprised. Why do you say "I wonder"? The essay is already in the first person, and question raised will be attributed to your active thinking. And if you could ask yourself the same question, why don't you?

You reach a lot of conclusions, but you haven't done the work to earn them, nor have you created a character that can get away with it.

For how much you are explaining the thinking process, there is no sense of emotion. There is no flow.

This isn't an essay, nor a story. Nothing is described. It's just a sequence of transitions.

A strange axiom. And it doesn't make any sense. A reflection of taste, not truth.

Reads like an attempted pastiche of DFW

Me and Georgina were at a Waffle House at 3:30 am. You know how the government is putting poor people in cars? Well, at that hour only the most basal and zombified of car-people hang out at Waho. There were these two cops with matching fat rolls crinkling down the backs of their necks. The more obese of the two is preparing for the next attack run on his chocolate chip waffle when he accidentally takes out a kid. He's repositioning his holster when he manages to get it caught between the vinyl and his ass. So he fumbles with it and when the gun finally flies out from under his buttock it hits this second-grade looking niglet with enough force that he gets launched right out of his seat. Then his head ricochets off of the counter. So he's still sitting there dumbfounded except with a chunk of his cranium splattered across the counter. Then his obese mother grabs him by the shoulders and tries to wake him up by shaking him like a can of spray paint so blood flies out in arcs all over the kitchen...

>the rhymes
>THE RHYMES

write the extraordinary as extraordinary --> homer
write the extraordinary as mundane --> modernism
write the mundane as extraordinary --> New Sincerity
write the mundane as mundane --> my diary desu

I'm editing your story. For the most part of rewrite the whole thing if I were you, which isn't to say it's compleatly hopeless, you just lack the voice to command an interest in the piece on behalf of the reader.

Pic 1/3

2/3

Keep in mind most peer critiques are fucking useless so do with it what you will.

Sorry bout that image quality but I don't give a fuck considering you probably won't follow any of the recommended edits like most people who receive them

Good luck to you anyways

That whole second page is sinful

Well the whole thing is pretty shit but the user knows that