General Citique

poopy poopy
my butthole
so poopy
i wipe but
it still
itches

the idea i had in mind whilst writing this was a maid with a very strict mistress. she will surely get in trouble for being late with the rest of the work she had to do.
i imagined a story about her, admitst the pompous air of the family, showing the side they would never show to people they care about. depending on how elaborated the story would get, i might have incorporated her finding out a secret about the mistress, suddenly putting her in a position of power over her, which would change the dynamics completely.

my crit for your work:

what i liked:
the face i cannot cover. my arm's a little busy right now.
>i like how that makes you think of why it's busy

what i would change:

the ... and the ?!

and you could easily leave stuff out. for example, the soft hills or the rolling hills instead of both. also, turbulent, breeze and rockets seems oberkill. how about a turbulent breeze or a breeze rockets instead of both?

"in my life" could be left out, too.

still, i would want to know what keeps those arms busy.

The small girl pedals
on the bumpy sidewalk.

Training wheels
just removed

Mother five steps behind
glances nervously at passing car

Girl looks back and frowns
Continues her path

what am I supposed to take away from this?

>as evening washes over fading daylight
This phrasing is redundant. It being daylight is already implied by fading. Just say light.

>a thin, fleece throw-over from the backseat, covering his lower body
First comma is unnecessary, and I'd consider changing to: a thin fleece thrower-over from the backseat.

The last part isn't really needed. It's already implied that he's putting it on his body.

>Already with his head to pillow, the driver's seat is fully reclined and receded.
Very awkward. Consider changing to something like this: He rested his head on a pillow in the fully reclined and receded seat.

>the floor below it
Drop the it.

>plastic bottles, mostly water and coffee
Comma splice. Use a dash if you want to keep the phrasing.

>The backseat is divided in two;
Use a colon here.

>Lord
Lawd. Have to keep your dialect consistent now.

>It'd be too weird after her and his few hookups in the past.
Exceptionally awkward phrasing. The subjects are already implied. Just say: It would be too weird after a few hookups in the past.

There are more things I found issue with, but those are the main offenders. It's decent overall, I suppose. I'm not too sure what the point of it is, though. Reading about a homeless bum is not very interesting.

Really really bad with grammatical issues attacking me from all sides. I guess i'll just go through the biggest offenders.

>Obviously that hasn't been the initial intention and that was made clear by her aghast expression and the awkward try to fix the mishap by bunching the fabric upwards
Should be : That was not her initial intention, which was made clear by her aghast expression and an awkward attempt to fix the mishap by bunching the fabric upwards.

>her face grew dark in anticipation of the turbulences this one hasty gesture will cause
Misspelling and grammar issues abound. Change to: Her face became dark with anticipation due to the turbulence that this hasty gesture would cause.

>with a weary sight she got down from the step, gathered her skirt, only to come back with
Comma splice. Change to: With a weary sight she got down from the step and gathered her skirt, only to come back with

>only needed seconds to think about how
To think of how.

>after she has put everything back in the box, she paused a moment to look at her work, a short smile crossed her mouth, before she was gone again
Comma splice. Change to: After she had put everything back in the box she paused a moment to look at her work; a short smile crossed her mouth before she was gone again.

You could put a comma after box and mouth in my rewrite, but they are not necessary. It's overall pretty bad and awkwardly written. Seems like the writing of someone who just started writing. Don't let that discourage you, though.

roast mine pls

>Seems like the writing of someone who just started writing.

pretty true. plus english is not my first language.

thanks a lot for the crit, it's greatly apprecciated.

>don't let that discourage you, though

i would be stupid to let constructive crit discourage me. how else should i learn?

>She was wearing
Introduce the subject before you refer to them as he/she. It is really confusing as is, since you are implying that Evan is a she.

>Her arms bent at an awkward angle to adjust for how close she sat to the steering wheel
Unnecessarily long phrasing. Just say: Her arms bent at an awkward angle to adjust for her position at the steering wheel.
Drop the dash and the following clause, because it's not needed.

>perhaps Evan had had too much to drink, nevertheless.
Comma splice.

>Something similar was bound to happen again, although he
Splice, again. Change to: Something similar was bound to happen again. Although he dreaded it, he would do nothing to prevent it.

>Selfish as it was he knew
You're actually missing a comma here, for once. It should be: Selfish as it was, he knew that in order for him to enjoy himself others had to not.

I won't go through the second paragraph, but just know that it read very awkwardly. Overall the short story is very trite and uninspired, poor technical writing skills aside. Just scrap it and move on. There's nothing there that I have not seen a thousand times already.

>A turbulent breeze rockets past my face.
this is tonally muddled
>The face I cannot cover.
Cannot lies in a formal register you don't use anywhere else.
>My arms a little busy at the moment..
*arm's
>I'm here now and more inclined to work on what I'm going to do next.
>I have no time in my life to dwell on the past.
>Where should I go?
To much statement. I don't need you to tell me, I need you to make me feel it.
>The soft rolling hills over there look endearing.
"look endearing" does nothing for the image, i'd just cut it and trust the image
>?!
unnecessary

final note: please enjamb it's give you work more to do and can allow subversions that'll heighten the piece as a whole

>on the bumpy sidewalk.
this image isn't used for anything, consider cutting it.

>Training wheels
>just removed
p good enjambment here

>glances nervously at passing car
nervously is already implied, and just bloats the line

>Continues her path
this sounds weird, not sure why

final note: I liked this piece as a whole, and appreciate the belief in your own imagery, just be careful about bloat, because cutting in a short poem is hard but important (even important than longer pieces i would say)

an image of mistrust

Help me guys:

Unnut the Bee-Keeper

There’s a shaman with a hand
wrapped around his eyes
like cloth. His hand folded
like a beggar’s shroud.

As he spoke I saw his gold
tongue, his amberous,
honeyed tongue. And it:

The sun reached down
with its rays and picked
my eyes like white flowers.
Do not be afraid.

The meadowind will guide me
with gentle hand. Spring-scent
will lead me. I will forgive
the sun in time.

The heart of my cattle
has been planted in the womb
of the earth-- to birth my help.

And I will tend this garden.

A gourd cracked open and
his bee crawled out, wet-winged
and trembling. Its quivering
polyhedral eyes shone.

[i'm playing around with the idea of fantasy lyric-poetry, so i'm working on trying to world-build while getting the point across]

Thank you the technical critique is very helpful. I was bored with writing it, and it comes across. I just started writing and this is one of the first things I wrote. A good thing to scrap early and learn from

A project I'm half-working on when I can't focus on my main project. I hate this character even more than I hate epistolaries, but let me know what you think about my diction and flow.

June 22nd, 1999.

The night air was palpable, the kind of insufferable muggy that clings to your skin and refuses to let go, drawing mosquitos from the absence. Above my head, a convenience store lamp flickers below a half-lighted neon sign. I'm uneasy, but I've grown accustomed to that sense. The clock inside reads roughly 2am, but it would seem its second hand had long been caught by the arm of the 7. Appropriate, I suppose — at these faint hours, these liminal spaces ought to possess the will to freeze time.

I'm with a man who stands barely 5'10" in leather boots. He's wearing tight-fitting indigo jeans, an aged leather jacket, and a ring he claims belonged to his grandfather. He gestures with a nod to a pack of Reds behind the counter, then flashes me a signature crooked smile before I dip into the restroom to roll a joint.

Although the outside is stiffling, with the top town the air inside is just on the chilly side of perfect. We're heading southbound down the 405, just slightly buzzed. The nearest car is maybe a thousand feet ahead, and city lights are fading from view behind us. I glance aside as he lights a cigarette and drapes one arm out the door, the other around my shoulders. My grip on the stick shift relaxes and my body begins to melt into his.

David Bowie plays on the stereo, slightly louder than the purr of the engine.

Closeness can sting.
November 1st, 1999.

Whatever notions of decency or self-respect last night might've left me with were summarily drained at the first offending morning glare through the blinds. The migraine overloads my senses nearly to the point of vomiting — a fate from which I'm saved only by the lack of available bodily fluid.

I stumble through the living area to the front door of a strange three-bedroom apartment. As I turn the knob, the lingering stench of vomit and stale weed gives way to the lifeless chill of autumn air. I count the steps to my car and fall asleep till evening, at which point the hangover has passed.

It reads dense, which is good, but I can't get behind the poetry aspect. Maybe it's a me-issue, but the style is distracting in a negative way. I'd love to read some of your prosaic worldbuilding if you don't mind.

Yes, I meant to add a few line breaks between excerpts.

Yes, reading about a homeless man isn't interesting. But it very quickly picks up immediately after where I ended here. My main interests were what you have critiqued so far, which I agree with everything you said, and if this is at least interesting enough to read before quitting. Because like I said, it picks mid paragraph following what I posted.
--.
To all posting, keep em coming. I'll be on tonight to give crits and I'll keep em juicy until I tire out.

>I'd love to read some of your prosaic worldbuilding if you don't mind.

I don't write prose really, but this piece tries the same thing in sci-fi (so i was easier) and is less affected, because I didn't feel it called for the same type of Semitic parallelism.

[Title Needed]

In Year DF847580 the sun will die,
and we will no longer deal in decimals.

Cold fusion will only be 40 years away
from keeping us warm and alive
on some jovial moon.

God will have came back to find
an empty planet and a note
laser-cut in gold saying
something bittersweet about leaving.

We’ll be burning up on Mars’s new beach
front property, huddled up against the blood-sun,
and everything will be red. And we’ll sleep
during the day. And nights will make us feel
strange about the new galaxy.

All the reanimated will have to be put down,
because we couldn’t afford it. Some will cry
when Elon Musk dies again. Some will cry
watching the frail, demented, currently unknown,
unread, undead poets struggle with their meals
and speaking. The process will be perfected
shortly after cold fusion, on some jovial
night. And we’ll dig-up the dead again,
as we always have. And we’ll have them read to us,
as they always have.

this is bad, and the attempt at dialect is embarrassing.

'They actually voted her in. I can't believe it!'

Ms. Tate was pacing in circles around the dirty tile floor.

'This can't be real..Oh my god, this is real..Oh, what the fuck is going on! Oh my god this actually happened..Fuck, I don't know what to do..'

It was recently announced Mrs. Tate had won the leadership campaign for Great Britain. Problem is she's..How can I say..One of those from a dying breed. Someone who took the Bible seriously, though unfortunately not only that, she took it seriously when it was read backwards

Funny because all that dialog is pretty much word for word as spoken from an actual experience. So... yeah. Don't know what to tell you brother.
---
Starting up some crits in my next post now that I'm off.

It's a bird. That's my crit. Don't know what else to say. It's short, and obviously self reflective. But nothing outstanding or noteworthy. Just something I'd expect to see in a writer's scribble journal.

gave you a great crit.

also gave you a great crit. I'd add to pay attention to tense when describing a scene. You say "Her arms bent" when it should be "Her arms bend". Certain actions, even in past tense, don't need to be in the past tense if the primary verb is in the past tense; "Sat" was in the past, so her arms can bend and don't have to be bent.

Simple and clear. Overall kind of flat. Though it's not bad, it's far from memorable. You also stop using punc after the first two lines, I'm not sure why. But it doesn't help that you stopped. Also, make the last line "continues on her path" or change path to someone more implicit such as "trek" or "venture".

Fantastic poem, I love it. Don't have anything else to say. Keep writing.

>I'm uneasy, but I've grown accustomed to that sense.
Change 'that' to 'the'
-remove the comma after 'Above my head'
-its should be it's
-spell out seven
-in 'these liminal spaces' make -these- either 'the' or 'those'
-make 'a signature crooked smile' 'his signature crooked smile'

You've got a bunch of little errors like that throughout. But it's overall not terrible. You've at least got an idea of what you're doing. Watch the order if your descriptors though. When you described the guy in the second graph, don't start with his boots. Think about the order you'd actually notice his clothes. For most people, it'll be face/head, top, legs, hands/feet. So pointing out his boots first is strange.
Just a pointer.

This very meh. Doesn't draw me in, isn't very notable. Maybe if you had more? But I still doubt it.

I appreciate you taking the time, but you're a bit confused on a couple of points.

Most of what you gave me are stylistic issues, which I wasn't asking for. The possessive of 'it' does not have an apostrophe. That/these/those are dependent on the mood I'm trying to convey with the words that follow it.

The narrator notices his boots in order to draw attention to his height, and poor self-confidence thereof. I wasn't describing his clothes, but rather his person, and who he is—a man who wears leather boots, skinny jeans, a vintage jacket, and a pawned ring in order to make himself seem taller, cooler, and mysterious.

Yeah my bad on the its. But I stand by everything else. How does starting with his boots help establish his height? Comparing him to something in the surrounding would do this. Not pointing out his boots.
No kidding you are describing his style: "I'm with a man who standby barely 5'10". He wears a leather jacket, indigo skinny jeans, and leather boots; his (left/right) hand bears a ring he claims is his grandfather's."
You're trying to make all these correlations through his attire and it's not working man. Just throw in some little action on the man's or narrator's part that actually states what you intend to imply. Otherwise it just sounds like you're describing a 5'10" man in greaser attire. No insecurities.

Keep these then, but remove the these shortly before it.

First few sections from the novel I'm working on.

The frigid midnight breeze slithered into Cyril’s nostrils, where it writhed and seethed like a wounded viper. As if rejecting it, the specter-like vapors uncoiled from his lips and into the night, signaling the winter creeping nearer into the land. He sported a black long-sleeved jerkin with soft leather bracers strapped to his forearms. Scarred gloves served him well in the cold- just thin enough not to stave off the subtle tingling in his fingertips from the crispy air. His jerkin had been adorned with a satchel stitched at his hip that remained buckled tightly at all times. His black trousers possessed a small amount of padding in the thighs and calves for the unforgiving winter that drew ever nigh. He stifled a grimace; the breeze was seasoned with the scent of sulfur and stagnant water.

Cyril had a habit of checking the twin daggers that rested on his lower back. He kept them held securely in their sheaths by a leather holster that wrapped around his torso in a series of straps spanning from his shoulders to his waist.

He wore a cloak for the dual purposes of draping over the daggers so attention wouldn't be drawn to the unusual arrangement of his weapons as well as to keep him modestly warmer. His boots had been stuffed with cloth to keep his feet in working condition so that his concentration could be focused into the task at hand: the floorboards within the bedroom of the tax collector's daughter, which is where the weasley man stashed away a small margin of his day's collections. Nobody would ever think to search for such a thing within the woman's room.

Nobody sensible, thought Cyril confidently.

I establish his height when I tell you that he's barely 5'10". The boots indicate that he's somewhat shorter than this given the elevated heel.

I'm going for minimalism, here. Assume that what I'm describing and the way I'm describing it are crucial details. An aged leather jacket on a man barely out of his teens indicates he bought it specifically for the vintage aspect. Together with the boots, I'm suggesting he cares very much about what people think, despite putting on the 'cool guy' front with the signature smile and smoking habit. On that note, I would never include a word like 'claim' unless it was relevant.

I'm not trying to sound harsh or ungrateful, and I appreciate your input thus far, but I'd like to ask you to read the passages with the lens I described and tell me if you feel any differently about it. (Specifically, what you, as the reader, could infer anything about the main character.)

> The frigid midnight breeze slithered into Cyril’s nostrils, where it writhed and seethed like a wounded viper. As if rejecting it, the specter-like vapors uncoiled from his lips and into the night, signaling the winter creeping nearer into the land.

As the reader, I'm led to believe that Cyril is some sort of fantasy being, either a user of magic or something similar. You don't clarify that assumption in your piece, but perhaps you do later on. I'd probably enjoy a confirmation sooner, so I'm not distracted when reading the following paragraphs.

You get a bit redundant at times, but I think that's a symptom of your wordplay. You're at around a 7, trying to be Nabokov's 10, when you should be around 5 or so for a piece like this.

That is a valid crit that I have yet to receive concerning the phrasing which implies magical origins. I appreciate that. Redundancy is an Achilles heel of mine, almost as if I compulsively commit to it. I have to consciously scan every sentenceto be sure I don't make that mistake.

The goal is to establish that Cyril is an antihero with the atmosphere that he suffers as he undergoes his escapades. What's important is conveying that the anguish is a result of masochism or symbolic atonement. The later paragraphs lay this information out.

Again, thank you.

And before I read with your lens, I ask you to read without it.
I read it brother. I'm your reader man, and it just wasn't there. You're not going to try and sell this piece with a foreword that says "Please read this through my descriptive lens."
Of course since you explained your reasoning I understand what you're going for. But you really expected to see that man as is his teens by describing an 'aged leather jacket'? Obviously I'm paraphrasing, but only a little when compared to what you're trying to say to me. I tried to still give you tips, and if you're going to keep fighting them then just ignore me before I have to start ignoring you.
It's Veeky Forums; no word here is law.

I received a good idea of the MC, but it just didn't work with the other guy. Sorry man.

I tend to get wordy and can always use some grounding to make sure I'm getting into purple prose territory.

I write with the assumption that any piece worth reading will be read by someone who's not an idiot, fully capable of finding meaning without having every intent spelled out for them. Keeps me in check.

Keep writing.

Understand I'm not trying to reach every audience. Reading and writing are both selfish activities. You mistook my request—for you to pose as the intended audience—as fighting. That wasn't what I was doing.

But, sure. I can see why it's relevant that we're on Veeky Forums.

opening to the second chapter of this story im writing

it is a third person account of a birth already described in the first chapter in first person. also a brief description of a bus route into New Delhi and a description of diwali

many of the textual oddities have a purpose given the story as a whole

whaddyafuckers think?

I have kept writing. The novel is 750 pages. But maybe I can condense it with that idea in mind-blowing that my reader is competent. I find myself writing in a shifting manner to appeal to both ends of the spectrum, one where intelligence might not be required but you get a great deal more from the story if you can infer from what is presented. I'll take that into account. Thank you.

That might have not made sense. It's been a long ass day; rambling comes so natural when you're reduced to running on fumes.

Going to bed, will give you a crit tomorrow morning once I've had my double expresso.

>pic related

>The night air was palpable, the kind of insufferable muggy that clings to your skin and refuses to let go, drawing mosquitos from the absence.
It is a sweaty night. I batted another mosquito away from my ear in irritation.

>Above my head, a convenience store lamp flickers below a half-lighted neon sign.
Are you inside a convenience store, outside a convenience store, or inside a bar?

I glance up at a flickering sign that spells LIQ-OR, with the U dark.

>I'm uneasy, but I've grown accustomed to that sense.
There is a weight in my stomach, as usual, but I've learned to ignore it.

>The clock inside reads roughly 2am, but it would seem its second hand had long been caught by the arm of the 7. Appropriate, I suppose — at these faint hours, these liminal spaces ought to possess the will to freeze time.
I peer in a convenience store window. The clock reads 2. It feels as if it will read 2 forever.

>I'm with a man who stands barely 5'10" in leather boots. He's wearing tight-fitting indigo jeans, an aged leather jacket, and a ring he claims belonged to his grandfather. He gestures with a nod to a pack of Reds behind the counter, then flashes me a signature crooked smile before I dip into the restroom to roll a joint.
I enter a building what all has a door and is a setting in this story.
A man whose cowboy boots do not hide his shortness moves his chin across the room and prods a box of cigarettes, giving me that seductive smile I know as well as his handwriting. It's possible that I just met this stranger, but god knows I could have just as easily been walking with him this whole time, you know, walking in this setting we have such a clear picture of. I go into the powder room and lay out my vanilla-flavoured snuff on a freshly laundered doily, and think about persons of colour passing away in their happy homes in their twilight years.

Nice, exactly my thing style-wise. I think short/incomplete sentences really add a lot of life to a text, but that's just personal preference.
Just, maybe don't type out accents, that's a little lazy. Describe the way the tourist turns all the hard vowels into something mushy and thoughtless, take a guess at where he's from and reference the clichés that come to mind when you think of that place; don't take the easy way out. And (this is really minor and probably super petty of me but) I don't think you should ever repeat a vowel more than once, "ooh" is perfectly sufficient, "oooh" kinda looks a little unprofessional. Speaking of professional, when you're spelling out what a street sign says, I'd suggest small caps, but again, personal preference. I'm just really into lil typographical details that don't actually matter is all. One more thing, caste names should be capitalized because they're names.
That's all I got in terms of complaints though. I love your style dude. It's so important to describe the ugly details when you're setting a scene, it really puts you there. You're going in a great direction imo, it shows you've been doing this for a while. Keep going where you're going, there's a whole lot of potential there.

aw shucks thank you. i just added the tourist dialogue a few minutes before I posted, the rest was from this past week.

Have you posted anything? I'd be happy to read it

Already 10x better, though I feel like you're describing coke over weed in the end.

Don't know if it's you or another critic, but you gave him the crit I wish I had the effort to give.
When I rewrite for people on here, I just feel like my time would be better spent writing for myself. Sometimes before becoming emulsified by reading these posts, I will rewrite for people. But that's usually a -very- brief settlement.

>There’s a shaman with a hand
>wrapped around his eyes
>like cloth. His hand folded
>like a beggar’s shroud.

I like the language, but the images seem to contradict each other, and that's a frustration. His hand is shielding his eyes while simultaneously being clenched, or are they literally holding his eyes? And it's a bit like a bad romantic love-scene, where you're not sure which hand is doing what.

>As he spoke I saw his gold
>tongue, his amberous,
>honeyed tongue. And it:

Nice linebreaks. Be aware the verse is saying the same thing three times though.

>The sun reached down
>with its rays and picked
>my eyes like white flowers.
>Do not be afraid.

Liking this very much - it depicts a religious experience really strongly.

>The meadowind will guide me
>with gentle hand. Spring-scent
>will lead me. I will forgive
>the sun in time.

Not sure if this means the writer is literally blind, or figuratively - as there are clear images later on. The language here is beautiful though.

>The heart of my cattle
>has been planted in the womb
>of the earth-- to birth my help.

>And I will tend this garden.

And out of fucking nowhere is this cow's heart being sacrificed. Except we didn't know the narrator owned any cattle, or had just slaughtered one. Also womb-earth is cliché. Sorry.

>A gourd cracked open and
>his bee crawled out, wet-winged
>and trembling. Its quivering
>polyhedral eyes shone.

Loving this picture of rebirth though. The writer has become one of his bees? The polyhedral eyes suggest all-knowing. Again,be aware that trembling and quivering are saying the same thing.

Overall the piece is technically good. There are just some loose ends that I'd want to tidy.

wings of scarlet on my tongue. slaked, her virgin cherry cunt. the sound of barrel when i'm done.
street in morning is empty, cold. my prick's throbbing, thrumming; dense.
dense. like a log. or maybe a brick.

The breeze of the fresh, cool morning air provided respite from the stifling smell of burnt hair and decaying flesh. Foliage danced and glittered under the amber rays of Utopia; tree branches were swaying ever so slightly. Rolling hills and plains stretched into the distance as far as the eye can see; awash with a golden glow, they looked like fields of wheat ripe for harvest. The soft rustling of leaves and creaking wood mingled with the sound of murmuring water from a nearby stream. The scenery looked even better than what was shown in the vids. Not a bad place to spend his golden years, John thought—without all the blackened bodies, of course. It didn’t help that the dig site looked like an unsightly wound from the otherwise unblemished surface.

This is my starting paragraph. Does it pique enough interest for you to read the rest of the chapter?

This is easily the worst thing to ever happen in my entire life. That’s my first thought. I should be screaming louder. That’s my second. Although I don’t think it’s possible given human limitations and lung capacity; was the third, oddly. Honestly a lot of things are going on in my head right now but it’s mostly just panic, a diamond pure amount of it. Am I going to die? If not then where am I for a start? Is it a portal or a wormhole? Why is there no wind? Am I falling or being pulled? Shouldn’t there be some wind, is there is no air? If there’s no air will I suffocate? That’s a horrifying thought. The only thing that is certain is that I must be moving or I’m falling or I'm being pulled. Never mind I’m not certain.

These questions are pointless at the moment. But what else am I supposed to do while falling though an endless portal formed with purple rings? Call for help? That’s not going to do anything for me. It’s also impossible. No all I can muster out of my mouth is "Oh my God!" Those are the only words I can really understand myself; everything else is just your standard generic screams and assorted gibberish. The usual sounds people make in these situations I’d assume.

The view isn’t giving me any positive feelings toward the color purple either. An endless ever lengthening, purple ringed portal isn’t a great view at all; I’d call it a visual terror. A purple terror isn’t something I’d ever expect to ever see in my life but here it is and it’s made of rings like an anus that’s got a lot of explaining to do. Purple shouldn’t be doing things like this, purple is a regal, imperial color, not a color of terror unless you’re Bulgarian, Basil II is nearby, and you still have your eyes.

I don’t even have the decency to flail my arms like any sensible person would. All my body can manage is be stiff as a board, eyes open wide in terror, staring down at the encroaching purple hell while my mouth does its best at removing all the air from my lungs and maybe a few organs too if they’d so kindly dislodge themselves and kill me.

Then I see it, something strange, something green. The ground, covered in familiar grass, moving in my direction at a speed that’s probably going to kill me. Thank god. This was getting tedious. There’s plenty of worse ways to die I suppose, but I’ll admit dying will be a bummer, a huge let-down, but hopefully a quick bummer.

What's substitute for 'and'?
Can I use '&' without being a "pseud"?
Whenever I read 'and' I always read it, and I hate that word. (Not when used like I just did).
But if I put a '&' there instead, I can "skip" it, so to say.
>...merchants and traders haggling...
>...merchants & traders haggling...

>This is easily the worst thing to ever happen in my entire life. That’s my first thought. I should be screaming louder. That’s my second.
Sounds superfluous.
>Easily the worst thing to ever happen in my entire life. I should be screaming.

>The frigid midnight breeze slithered into Cyril’s nostrils, where it writhed and seethed like a wounded viper.
Unless this breeze is some kind of malevolent spirit, you have no reason to immortalise it in song.

The frigid air burned Cyril's nostrils.

>As if rejecting it, the specter-like vapors uncoiled from his lips and into the night, signaling the winter creeping nearer into the land.
...and his breath came out in clouds.

>He sported
He wore

>Scarred gloves served him well in the cold- just thin enough not to stave off the subtle tingling in his fingertips from the crispy air.
His old gloves were thin enough for grip, but too thin for warmth.

>His jerkin had been adorned with a satchel stitched at his hip that remained buckled tightly at all times.
A buckled satchel was stitched to his jerkin at the hip.

>His black trousers possessed a small amount of padding in the thighs and calves for the unforgiving winter that drew ever nigh.
His arse cheeks were grateful for the thick lining of his upper trousers.

>He stifled a grimace; the breeze was seasoned with the scent of sulfur and stagnant water.
He nose wrinkled at the smell of sulphur and rot on the wind.

>Assume that what I'm describing and the way I'm describing it are crucial details.
Not to beat a dead horse, but what building you are in is a more crucial detail than the age of someone's leather jacket.

>Already 10x better, though I feel like you're describing coke over weed in the end.
Thanks. I was just amusing myself at the end. Snuff = snort-tobacco, comically old fashioned and chintzy.

>the sound of barrel when i'm done.
This phrase doesn't communicate anything to me, probably because I don't know what a barrel sounds like.

What is this, an episode of Bakemonogatari?

I think your sense of humour would be better suited to dialogue than monologue. You would need to snap right out of your self-absorption to write play-like dialogue though.
t. equally self absorbed but slightly more self aware user

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: colorful pictures of vibrant valleys ravaged by thundering storms, painted by long-dead men, hung on walls covered end to end with small, winged, wallpaper men standing on golden canoes and surfing rampant waters, their eyes mad with greed for a land that they would never reach. The furniture was equally fanciful: each piece came from some foreign company that overpriced its products because it knew that we could, and would, pay. 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 pomp on my way to the kitchen, I was faced with pretentious ‘beauty,’ so tediously put together it brought my stomach to its knees. The older I grew, the less amused with beauty I became: my excitement manifested itself in repugnance.
I sat on the edge of the dock, tapping my fingers rhythmically along the grime of the aging wood. I hung my legs below me and kicked as water brushed against them in sporadic patterns. Rain feathered down onto my head, each droplet disturbing me more than the last. The boards of the dock groaned behind me, prompting me to turn with a jolt. There Sam stood, staring at me in the distant way he did. “Follow me,” his eyes sank into rugged, sandy skin, his lips scraped against each other and chiseled the fronts of yellow teeth, “it’s going to start soon.” Sam backed off the dock, turned onto the busy street, and began to hurry down. Startled, I had had to half-jog to catch up with him—the way pedestrians do when a car lets them pass.
“So where exactly is this place?” I asked, sweat already racing down my cheek.
“Not far now.”

In regards to this piece here, I noticed you set the atmosphere and environment before you got into the story.

Couldn't this put readers off by not grasping their interest immediately?

Not him but I dont agree with his critique of your piece one bit. There is absolutely no implication of magic and your atmospheric personification of the air was great.

>Dripping air burning
Awesome. Powerful meaning, you know exactly what that would feel like!

Great descriptive words for things, It makes the piece come off as intellectual, and it is very clever how you word your sentences. Great talent. Would read.

>like an anus that’s got a lot of explaining to do

Great! It's direct in painting a picture, the atmosphere comes from the implications the items you described hold. I'm more used to atmosphere being built by feeling, this one is more visual and conceptual (If you know what I mean), and that makes it intuitively easy to read.

I especially liked Sams sunken eyes, you get this cartoon-esque image of a solemn Tim Burton character. Just that tiny description on it's own carries massive implications as to what Sam look likes and the kind of person he is.

Loved it!

As a critique I would say, one paragraph like this is fine to read but I'd expect more intellectually-stimulating content coming straight after, and by that I mean: The story progressing at a more rapid pace or something that stimulates the senses.

Do you have another paragraph to share?

the first part to a short story.

prot:
elin and marc

issue: be loved

theme: rejection, love

plot: elin has a fling, catches feelings and wallows in selfpitty over the rejection. marc has given up on love due to past hurt and only wants sex. he desperately tries to keep his distance, even thought he really likes elin.
they dance around each other but never find together.
elin awoke abruptly. the glance she took at the room around her seemed alerted. only after she noticed the unfamiliar body lying next to her, she calmed down.

waking up next to strangers wasn't new to her, but she never really got used to waking up in a place that wasn't her own.

with a sigh of relieve, she let her body slide back under the blanket. there, her leg found another leg and she buried herself as close to that body as she could. elin took a deep breath, sucking in the smell of sleep, sweat and sex.
the hairy chest tickled her nose, but she only pressed her face in deeper.

for a short moment, she was allowed herself to drift off into fantasies she had long given up but she could already sense the morning dangling over her.

she knew what it would bring. awkward "good mornings" and insincere offers to grab a coffee together.
for her own sake, she silently got out of the bed. over the years, she has become a master in the art of getting out of people's bed unnoticed.
it was a matter of minutes till she had gathered her belongings; pants, underwear, shoes, shirt. she hadn't come unprepared. in her purse waited fresh underwear, a deodorant, a toothbrush and everything else she needed to feel clean again. on the train station was a convenient toilet, that will be her next stop.

before she closed the door, she looked over to the messy bed one last time. the man inside it stirred, so she hurried up.

-

marc had observed elin in silence. he had strategically snored and stirred a few times, to make sure she was sure he's still fast asleep.
he had hoped she would stay a little longer. it must have been around two in the morning, when he woke up to get some water.

as he returned to bed, he paused and looked at the girl stretched out on the sheets. her rips slowly expanding with every breath. he waited a bit too long, the nightlamp started disturbing her sleep and she turned on her back.

he hadn't noticed the scar that went from her collarbone, between her hand sized breasts almost down to the bellybutton.

her mouth had a peaceful air and he felt a sting when he remembered how long it had been since someone looked at him with such a lovely expression.

Its got a great flow to it, so it's intuitive to read. I like how you jump perspectives, I've never come across that before (don't read much) so it's wonderfully refreshing.

You do a great job of conveying what the characters are feeling and what their motives are.

I would of read if it were more than a romance..I just don't like the genre and that's my only complaint, otherwise everything else was captivating!

__________________________________

Here's my attempt, below.
__________________________________

My smokey wooden desk is my favourite place. My sturdy solitude, my palace. I'm one of those types that likes to keep some of the old world, and by that I mean: I write on pen and paper. Alas, it's not only that, I spend a good deal on my pen and paper. Ivory textured A4 and my scribbles flow from an artisanal fountain pen, the kind you need to dip into ink to use. Would you be surprised to hear these are my most expensive possessions? The only items I own I thought were worth paying for. I still stand by that notion.

I start my day with a deep whiff of cold morning air. It almost tastes sweet as it rolls down into my lungs. I love the mornings! The feather balls are whistling their 3rd movement and the world is bathed in morning glow. What colour is that? I've never been able to assign one, all I know is it feels clean. Whirling steam carries the scent of my roasted black coffee, decorating my room, and a dozen ideas bombard my head as I sit down at my sturdy wooden desk.

at the risk of seeming defensive,

>I like the language, but the images seem to contradict each other
I'm attempting to use the same type of parallelism used in Ugaritic myths to help create a very specific type of religious feeling, close to biblical, without ripping out of the KJV. Here's a bit from the Kirta tablet that'll make this affectation make more sense to you hopefully.

>Take a Lamb in your hand
>a sacrificial lamb in your right hand
>a young animal in both your hands

would you say my use of parallelism and repetition evokes a similar cadence?

>And out of fucking nowhere is this cow's heart being sacrificed. Except we didn't know the narrator owned any cattle, or had just slaughtered one.

do you need to know beforehand? if so I'll try to figure out a better way to handle it for sure.

>womb-earth is cliché
I'll try to fix that, thanks.

I don't want to seem ungrateful, thank you so much for the reading! I just was curious how the Ugaritic text info would change your mind.

First sentence 'comes off' weird. I would say it's your solitude and it's a sturdy palace. Here it's getting pretentious. Alas, might just be pompous. And? Really, you choose and? A bit inconsistent there buddy.
>On ivory textured A4 my scribbles flow from an artisanal fountain pen... (although, wtf is ivory textured A4?) No, I didn't think it was that expensive. Do you live in a big barrel?
>deep whiff
Novelty for the sake of novelty is no novelty at all. Especially with all this inconsistency. Why not use 'adore' instead of 'love' while were at it? ...

No merits at all?

Could you elaborate on what exactly was pretentious and what did you mean by novelty for the sake of novelty?

Roast me pls. Im not really good but i try
"Gorgeous, large tits that made me say my graces?" says Don "That girl always gave me a chub". He reaches for his Superman sippy, pulls off the lid and shoots the contents in his mouth.
"You placed cinnamon in it?" Don say, smacking his lips and gagging.
"I thought you'd find it revolting with the apple cider and Jacks" I say with a grin.
"It was not so bad but real weird"
He passes me his empty cup, shaking it once.

I take it as I turned back to the cold chest, Good O'le Donny and his fucking money. You should see his car. Range rover, paid over the counter, three year insurance, and grey suede interior. Installed inside was top dollar sound system that would make any audiophile cum in his pants.
"I call this one Orange Jack!" I smiled as I fill my Batman sippy cup.

We toast above the sleeping city
"Her name was Cassidy"
"Who?"
I flash the photo again, saying "Tiddy girl"

Try hitting 2,500 words and then ask for a crit.

thanks for the feedback. are there no weird sentences? english isn't my first language, so it's a bit hard to tell if they sound right.

kek, i didn't meant to include the plot and such.
whilst writing, i though i'd have to spruce this up a notch to not let it get too boring, so i agree with you on that. i don't really like romance myself. that's why i thought it would be a challenge to try my hand at it.
maybe i'd incorporate some crime elements. but it's not a very serious project. basically what i came up with during lunch break. i might continue it just so i finish something for once.

my crit for your post:

it instantly evokes vivid images. what i like in particular is how the first and last sentence string everything together. not sure if it would enhance the effect if you used "sturdy" both times. especially since a smokey wooden desk doesn't automatically make sense to me.

the question was a surprising twist! caught me off guard and i loved it.

the bit about the mornings, birds and coffe seemed a bit much clichée, i also stumbled over feather balls.

all in all, i would really like to know more about a person who's most expensive belongings are pen and paper.
great job at making the reader curious about your prot in just a few sentences.

If I posted here the painting analysis paper that I've been working on; what are the chances of my professor running it through a plagiarism-checker, and it returning results to this thread?

Also, do you any of you have tips on writing art analysis papers?

well, if he has any brain cells, he will be able to recognize the circumstances and realize you didn't plagiarize.
i've never written anything like it, but i guess a lot that applies to writing also applies to your work. might be worth a try.

>>the sound of barrel when i'm done.
>This phrase doesn't communicate anything to me, probably because I don't know what a barrel sounds like.
meant to be a gun shot, but you're right, the vagueness doesnt justify the assonance

Just look up a respectable guide on term and analysis papers.
Really, unless he gave you a particular theme or idea to pull from the piece, try your best to allow the piece to evoke something within you and remind you if something. From there, you can draw correlations from the piece, the artist, past and modern themes, and how all of it is still applicable today.

The lack of capitalization throws me off a little, but I suppose it's a legitimate stylistic choice. The prose seems fine to me, it flows well and you can sense Elin's ennui as she sneaks from her fling's bedroom. Keep working and refining your style, it'll take you someplace.

ah, that's because i wrote it on my phone. i would normaly use correct capitalization.
thanks a lot for the heads up!

>The start to a historical fiction story set during the occupation of Japan

Lieutenant Conway didn’t see the dead boy at first, hidden as he was by the flickery dimness of the station. There were lights, but they were failing, filaments glowing uncertainly, drawing and redrawing an ever shifting map of shadows across the grimy platform.

Before the war this had been a grand place. Conway had seen pictures of the Tokyo subway system before, and could echoes of the past all around him. Colorful tiles, dulled by grime and neglect, adorned the floor and spangled the cracked ceiling like stars. Pillars stood in orderly rows, some slivered and half crumbled from the shock of bomb blasts up on street level.

The boy was leant up against one of those, spindly legs stretched out in front of him, chin tucked into his skeletal chest. He looked to be dressed in the filthy rags of a patriotic youth uniform.

If we’d had to invade, Conway thought dully, I might’ve had to kill him myself.

But they hadn’t, and so he hadn’t. Hunger had taken the boy instead of a bullet or a bomb. Whatever difference that made.

For a moment more Conway observed the dead child, then turned sharply away, feeling ill. The boy hadn’t been dead long, the flies had not yet gathered. He had certainly been alive this morning, had greeted the dawn along with everyone else who still drew breath. Or had he swum into a dim state of syrupy lethargy before drifting slowly back out? And when had he done so? A few hours ago? An hour?

Had he died at all?

Suddenly Conway felt an intense rush of fear roll through him, heart clenching into itself. Had he been sitting here, sharing a ruined subway platform with a dying child for all this time? The fear curdled to guilt. Perhaps the boy knew he was here…but remained too weak, too diminished, to muster so much as a whisper for help.

Slowly, Conway got up. Took a tentative step forward.

“Hello?” He asked. Tried to summon the Japanese equivalent to his mind but failed.

The boy offered no reply.

Conway couldn’t see his face from where he stood, the light was too uneven,and the boy’s slumped position didn’t help either. His hair hung in front of his face, brittle and unwashed, a beige cap lying between his outstretched legs like a beggar’s bowl. It was empty.

Crouching down just in front of the boy, Conway reached a hand forward. Hesitated an inch short of ratty beige fabric and sallow brown skin. He still felt uneasy, torn between an instinctual fear of the dead and an all consuming pity for this poor thing.

“Hello? Kid?” He tried again.

No response.

Not that guy, but as a future note, try and refrain from posting something you know isn't fully edited or complete. If you want the best critique, you've got to post your best effort. It may hurt more if you didn't do great, but you'll know for certain what is lacking rather than being told the obvious, such as lacking capitalization.

Yeah, that wasn't thought trough. It didn't even cross my mind, desu. I'll only post completed stuff next time.

Absolutely no weird sentences, it was all incredibly intuitive!

Thanks for the critique, I just jotted that down in 5 minutes after I had reviewd your piece. I am still very much a noob trying to make something impressive.

Hopefully one day my writing will be so good I could write a poem that would make my reader cum instantly.

kek. so you are the guy who writes about that girl he wants to marry?

Perhaps we had it coming. We put our gods in our mouths and filled them with our insatiable blackness that is our greed and emptiness, our void for riches and expansion and conquering our neighbors for filling our cups with the blood of the conquered. It happened much as anything does: suddenly and with every intention of altering the very fabric of history. The sky tore open like a dagger to a pig's throat and fire and shadows poured from it as if the ocean had given way at its deepest trench and birthed its blackest children into our skies, introducing to our eyes the race known as De’zím: the demons of Maléfor. Fugitives they were, and from an evil whose name they would not speak. With the De'zím came many a creature: wìvryns, cerberi, haunters, vampyrs, scyllas, wraiths, and many more to be revealed in the centuries ahead. The De'zím brought with them many a confounding method of living, most prominently witchery, which the humans took to calling witching. Curses, energy manipulation, hexes, charms, illusions- all a means of power that only the demons were able to perform. These fugitive demons were both good and evil, in their humble opinions, and so many resumed their ways of causing turmoil among humans to feed on the negativity they sewed. This practice perpetuated the primordial dreadborne abstraction that has kept us so afeared of the dark and the unknown: we are prey. It was these intentions that spurred the demons Säelorvorscroedon and Maçpenvarcrímsäovonin to establish the order known as the Wyĉyrí- a demon’s term for “slayer of mine likeness”- to keep balance in the realm that they had taken residence in, later allowing humans and the rare elves to join if they so wished. With the laziness of men to learn such an intimidating and “unpronounceable” tongue did the mortals address the order as the Watchers, for that was precisely what they did: they oversaw the darkness and the shadows within the shadows. With reluctance, the elusive wìvrí agreed to aid the order, and so it was that the Watchers were forged in the heat and pressure of coalition to maintain equilibrium in a world they unbalanced.

>coffee's kicking in

Lieutenant Conway didn’t see the dead child(1) at first, hidden as he was by the flickering(2) dimness of the station. The lights were failing; their filaments glowing uncertainly, drawing and redrawing ever shifting shadows across the grimy platform.(3)

Before the war this station was a grand place. Conway had seen pictures of the Tokyo subway system before, and could hear the echoes of the past buzzing around him in harmony of the dying light.(4-5) Colorful tiles, dulled by age(6) and neglect, checker the floor and spangle the cracked ceiling like stars.(7) The pillars around him stand in orderly rows, some of which are slivered and half crumbled from the shock of bomb blasts above.(8)

1) Boy sounds strange the way you worded your sentence. Unless the gender become an important point of progression, keep it neutral.
2) 99% sure flickery wasn't a word. Even if it is, don't use it. Flickering works fine.
3) Your wording and punc was all over the place at the end of the first graph. Plenty of unneeded words that were cut and clarification of the image was needed. Plus you passed a good opportunity to combine images as I've done in the following graph.

4-5-) There again was unneeded punc and words. Removal and tightening then allowed for easier sustenance of the image.
6) Using grimy before already established a fine enough image. Making the second use of grime 'age' helps retain and expand the image without using repeat words.
7) You started to used the past tense unnecessarily here, so I returned some of the words to their proper tense and tightened the image yet again. I added checker because I'm unsure of your use of spangle. The tiles are described as grimy yet spangled, which is a little contradictory. I went with what I believe you intended, but I may be wrong.
8) Again, more tightening of wording and removal of awkward punc and sentences.

I could keep going, but I believe there's enough there to get an idea. It's not bad, and you had a decent start. Just have to try and use the best word choices and remember descriptions you've used so you can build onto of them.
If you have any questions, please ask.

>7) You started to used the past tense unnecessarily here,
What fucking irony

Relating the ocean trench to the sky's bloody wound doesn't work. It's too contradictory.

You should break this much-too-large paragraph when you introduce the two specific demons by name.

Otherwise this isn't bad. I'd keep reading unless it became overly cliche, as the "demon hunting demon for the benefit of man" is already dangerously close to this.

My smokey wooden desk is my favourite place. My sturdy solitude.(1) My palace. I'm one of those types who(2) likes to keep some of the old world; (3)and by that I mean I write with pen on paper.(4) Alas, it's not only that.(3) I'm inclined to spend a good deal on my pen and paper when I resupply. Ivory textured A4 paper, while my scribbles flow from an artisan(5) fountain pen--the kind you need to dip into ink to use. Would you be surprised to hear those are my most expensive possessions? The only items I own I thought were worth paying for.(*6) I still stand by that notion.

I left some note markers where I made my changes. If you have any questions please ask. You have some issues with punc and sometimes word things awkwardly. I starred my sixth note to show that I didn't change something there. But the way you have it written would require a question mark to follow the sentence, or else the removal of the previous question mark for a semicolon or comma. Or an alteration to both phrases altogether.

There are errors in the second graph also, but I believe the edits of the first graph should give you an idea. "Feather balls" is just weird though, far to whimsical to be practical. Just use birds unless you absolutely feel it's necessary to the character to describe them oddly. I'd still avoid feather balls though.

Hello, Skyler.

I see you in these threads a lot. I wondered if you have ever had anything published before? A short story in a magazine, for instance.

I ask because you speak with a lot of authority about the writing offered for critique here.

I also wonder what you get from offering so much critique. Maybe you are doing so selflessly.

Opening from a short story i made

The end of the world started at a lazy afternoon at the humble home of the Winters.
Mrs. Winters at the kitchen. Pulling out her freshly baked apple pie with large red mittens, while ominous dark clouds gather at what should have been a sunny day if the weatherman on Channel 3 was right. She sets the pie by the dark marble countertop just beside the new chrome sink that Mr. Winters installed after the accident with the Cooper dinner night. Mrs. Winters still thought of it as thoughtless spending, they could just not invite anyone who had no idea to operate their faulty faucet. Mrs. Winters went back to her seat to nurse on her grey earl.

A loud moan exploded across the house, followed by many more, varying from range and tone sharing only the sound of pleasure. Mrs. Winters sighed and reached for the remote and turned for the animal channel, raising the volume enough to drown the noise.

A young gazelle who had strayed too far from its herd was being chased by a cheetah in an African savanna, a placid naration and the beat of tribal drums kept the moans at bay, though the pauses let a torrent slip through every now and then.

'They skipped out lunch, they should be famished' Mrs. Winters thought and altogether left her china and gathered a can of biscuits, a bag of bread, two buckets of fried chicken and a platter of chicken nuggets, she ordered earlier for lunch, in a hug, forming a tower that goes over her head. The tower teeters cautiously as she moved her way to the staircase and into Paul's room. His door was an old oak wood with a brass knob just like all the doors in the house was, and even with his teenage angst, Paul hadnt thought of putting up stickers on it, she would be disappointed if he does so. She gave the door three raps and let herself in.

Mrs. Garcia was sprawled naked infront of the door and asleep. She has been here since Monday night and its already Thursday. Yesterday her daughter came knocking on the door in search of her and Mrs. Winters just gave a shake of her head and comforted the troubled child who was looking for her mom, sending her away with an apple pie and a few cans of beans. Mrs. Winters did offer her the guestroom where they usually sleep or fuck. Sadly she didnt take the bait, and went on back to their trailer, hoping for her mother to come back saying "She probably on some odd job, thanks anyway Mrs. Winters" .

Coach Fredrick was tied to the bedpost, gagged and blindfolded. Piled over him were the missing Lenning Twins, Ms. Denimoore, Paul's biology teacher, and three passing tourists.

I spend my free time reading and mostly studying writing. I come to these threads to offer what knowledge I have. When I attended college for a brief two years, I helped my English professor grade papers. While I don't have an incredible depth of vocabulary and history, nor education, I know enough and grasp English well enough to want to offer help here. I just like helping people, with the added benefit of getting better at writing when I crit or rewrite for people. My crits are never perfect, I try my best to be general so as not to make too many mistakes or overpower what the writer truly intended. Looking over the reply you quoted, I already see a few other adjustments that could be made to improve the piece still.

I hope to be published one day. But I lack the time and knowledge right now to sit and write to the full extent I'd wish. I need to read more first. I only rarely write for others to read.

Also, idk if you wrote that, but it's very good. Concise and well articulated.

Better, now that there's more.
I'm eating and reading my book at the moment. I will return in an hour or so and give you a crit.

>ever shifting map of shadows
Orgasmic. Unfortunately most of your descriptions lack this level of artistry, they are quite bland (see below)

> "Colorful tiles, dulled by grime and neglect, adorned the floor and spangled the cracked ceiling like stars. Pillars stood in orderly rows, some slivered and half crumbled from the shock of bomb blasts up on street level. "

>rhetorical questions - 2nd para
Does a great job showing us how the protag thinks.

>Suddenly Conway felt an intense rush of fear roll through him, heart clenching into itself
Every 3rd person narrative does this factual description of what is happening to the character, and it's boring.

>Conway couldn’t see his face from where he stood, the light was too uneven
Brilliant

Not as suspenseful as I would like, but your descriptions have potential when they are made artsy.

You have nothing to be defensive about - the poem is very strong technically.

Also the context is useful, although incredibly obscure. It is amazing you are researching into this, but I daresay 99.9% of your readers won't be able to keep up. My opinion on repetition is that if it is to be used, do it wholeheartedly, with the same words: i.e. 'Do not be afraid, do not be afraid.', but that's just an opinion. The way it is now just seems to me like one of those annoying people who say what you just said in a different way. Plus I reckon it would tie in well with incantations and the shamanic subject.

As for the cow, maybe if it was 'a' cattle, rather than 'my cattle', it would be less jarring. The way it is introduced it's like it's presuming the reader knows the cattle is there already, and the reader is like, 'eh?'

Definitely sounds like an interesting project though.

*had to repost because I didn't realize you had a line break*

#
>The end of the world started at a lazy afternoon at the humble home of the Winters. Mrs. Winters at the kitchen. Pulling out her freshly baked apple pie with large red mittens, while ominous dark clouds gather at what should have been a sunny day if the weatherman on Channel 3 was right. She sets the pie by the dark marble countertop just beside the new chrome sink that Mr. Winters installed after the accident with the Cooper dinner night. Mrs. Winters still thought of it as thoughtless spending, they could just not invite anyone who had no idea to operate their faulty faucet. Mrs. Winters went back to her seat to nurse on her grey earl.

The end of the world began on a lazy afternoon in the quaint home Winters'. Mrs. Winters, the housewife, is currently operating the kitchen. She is pulling from the oven a freshly baked apple pie using large red mittens. Dark clouds are gathering outside the bay window on what should be a sunny day--had the Channel 3 weatherman been prescient. Mrs. Winters then places the pie along a dark, marble countertop beside the chrome sink her husband had recently installed after the Cooper-family dinner incident. Mrs. Winters believes it thoughtless spending--they could just as well not invite over anyone who was incapable of operating the damaged faucet. Mrs. Winters returns to her seat at the kitchen table, waiting for the pie to cool, and nurses her lukewarm mug of earl grey.

Compare those graphs to get an idea of the grammatical editing you should thinking about as you write. As for the story, I mean, I'm interested. It's definitely out there and is definitely strange. So, if you wanted to get readers hooked, that should at least work for someone who enjoys the bizarre.

If you have anymore questions, please ask.

>The end of the world started at a lazy afternoon at the humble home of the Winters
Lazy writing, and a couple mistakes. Having started be an antithesis of end is atrocious. The proper phrasing should be: The end of the world began. And overall, the sentence should look like this: The end of the world began on a lazy afternoon at the Winter's humble home (or abode, as that's the classic phrasing for a humble house--and still used often despite being archaic because it flows well).

>Mrs. Winters at the kitchen
Exceptionally awkward sentence fragmenting, especially when following the introductory sentence, and grammatically incorrect aside from being a fragment to top it off. It should be linked to the following sentence and look like this: Mrs. Winters was in the kitchen, pulling our her freshly baked apple pie with large red mittens as dark ominous clouds began to gather on what should have been a sunny day.

The last clause of the sentence can be omitted due to the foretasted weather being easily implied beforehand.

>She sets [...] Cooper dinner night
She set. And don't allude to prior events if you don't plan on giving the reader some indication as to what happened. It is only acceptable not to if the event in question is a cultural/historical reference. Or if the short story is in a collection where references are shared between the stories. I know that you do attempt to clue the reader in with the following sentence, but it is really not sufficient and should just be omitted entirely because it leads to much awkwardness.

>Mrs. Winters still thought of it as thoughtless spending, they could just not
This is a comma splice. And the rest of the sentence contains quite a few grammatical errors, but I do not wish to point them all out or rewrite it.

>In an African Savanna, a placid
Another comma splice. Just add a period.

>His door was an old oak wood with a brass knob just like all the doors in the house was, and even with his teenage angst, Paul hadn't thought of putting up stickers on it, she would be disappointed if he does so.
A ridiculous amount of grammatical errors, and again comma splices. It should be like this: His door was made out of old oak wood and had a brass knob like all the others in the house. Even in his stage of teenage angst, Paul had not thought of putting stickers on his door. She would be disappointed if he had done so.

There's honestly a lot more issues with this writing besides what I pointed out. There is something grievously wrong with every sentence. I am just honestly not going to spend more time line editing than you apparently put into writing it. Learn what you can from this and then burn it.

I'll critique more stuff in this thread later. This one took longer than I thought it would and I have to head to the gym in a few minutes. If anyone wants me specifically to look at something, just give me a (you). But please at least proofread it a couple times first.

Absolute beginner with non English native lang here

can I have a crit so I can stop being so shit?

thank u

>Lazy afternoon in the quaint home of Winters'
Should be: Lazy afternoon in the quaint home of the Winters'. Or: in the Winters' quaint home.

>Mrs. Winters, the housewife
Omit housewife, because it breaks flow and this fact is already well implied. (as well as being unnecessary to the narrative).

>She is pulling from the oven
Super awkward. I'm about to be pulling you out of that chair at your writing desk. Should be: She pulls a freshly baked apple pie from the oven with her large red mittens.

Next sentence is ok and comes down to personal stylistic preference more than anything. But again, the clause about the weatherman is not needed.

>Mrs. Winters then places the pie along a dark, marble countertop
The comma is unnecessary and just breaks flow, leading to clunky prose.

>Mrs. Winters believes it thoughtless spending
Believes it to be.

An improvement from the other anons, but still not very great. You try to have prose that flows well but end up ruining it with unnecessary punctuation and awkward phrasing.

".. lazy afternoon in the quaint home Winters' " is grammatically correct. Idk where you got the of from.

I agree, housewife isn't needed. With how he had it originally worded, 'she is pulling' is better. It is easing the reader into the image rather than plastering it in front of them by saying 'she pulls'. Sort of like the narrator 'is pulling' the reader into the kitchen. I laughed at your turn of phrase though, not gonna lie.

I actually agree with the weatherman clause. I thought prescient would help, but it really is not needed. I also wish I would have combined the sentence with the previous as you had done. Much better flow that way.

I agree with the comma. Doesn't need to be "believes it to be thoughtless spending" though. We know she is talking about the new sink, so saying "she believes it to be thoughtless spending" is like saying "she believes the new sink is thoughtless spending". Which can still be correctly simplified to "she believes it thoughtless spending".

I agree that I still have hiccups. Definitely never claimed to be perfect. My whole goal is to show basic improvement and not to make it perfectly edited. That way they can infer what must be done and make connections themselves through their own style instead of form fitting my own over theirs and not really developing.

Copy the text in a reply and I'll give you some edits and tips. But right now I can tell you that you need a lot of work. Punc is sloppy, grammar is weak or all over. Nothing to be too ashamed of if you're ESL. But you definitely need to slow down, compare your work to others, and do multiple read-overs across about a week. Leave enough time between each read-over to lessen your own intended imagery in your head. Also try reading a normal book between and before your read overs. Get yourself into a good rhythm that you can carry over into editing your own work.

I actually agree with you on the thoughtless part. That's how I would have written it too. Not sure why I wanted the to be earlier. I think i thought it slightly awkward to leave out when taking the following and prior clauses into consideration.

It happens. Earlier in the thread I told someone to change their correct use of 'its' to 'it's'. Blew my mind when they called me out on it.

I disagree with the criticism you have received, so here is my own take.

>The end of the world started at a lazy afternoon at the humble home of the Winters.
Delete. Please don't listen to the people advising you to pile on more chintz and "classic" cliches.

>Mrs. Winters at the kitchen. Pulling out her freshly baked apple pie with large red mittens, while ominous dark clouds gather at what should have been a sunny day if the weatherman on Channel 3 was right.
Mrs Winters slid an apple pie out of the oven with red mittens, and put it on the countertop just as lightning flared at the window. When she closed the oven, thunder boomed in the distance. The forecast had been for blue skies and sunshine.

> just beside the new chrome sink that Mr. Winters installed after the accident with the Cooper dinner night. Mrs. Winters still thought of it as thoughtless spending, they could just not invite anyone who had no idea to operate their faulty faucet.
Delete. Unless you want to tell the story of how a leaky faucet can explode or destroy an entire sink, it's better not to leave the reader puzzling about it. What, did Mr. Cooper try to arm wrestle with the thing? You didn't offer him whisky chocolates after dinner, did you? He's been on the wagon for a whole month now.

>Mrs. Winters went back to her seat
She sat down

>to nurse on her grey earl.
and sipped her cup of tea, brooding about the expense of her new faucet.
(Dislocating some of your other content.)

>A young gazelle who had strayed too far from its herd was being chased by a cheetah in an African savanna, a placid naration and the beat of tribal drums kept the moans at bay, though the pauses let a torrent slip through every now and then.
A lone gazelle was being chased by a cheetah. The placid voice of the narrator was loud enough to distract her from the moans, but there were pauses. When the cheetah tore into the gazelle the narrator stayed silent, and the moans came back to the foreground.

I'm the other guy. I have question.

>--had the Channel 3 weatherman been prescient.
How did you believe this was an improvement?

You seem to think re-writing consists of grammatical tinkering and swapping synonyms. You have to change the content.
I'm not even sure your synonym swapping is adequate, let alone good.

I don't think anyone who can talk about prescient weathermen has any right to give advice on style.

The Pig Who Couldn’t Participate
Georgy-Pig was a chubby young hog who simply could not participate. While the other pigs would root around Farmer Hob’s yard, Georgy-Pig preferred to rest in the shade. While the other pigs would bathe in the cool waters of the pond and chat with the farm ducks, Georgy-Pig would sniff languidly at his mud-sty’s trough and dream of dinner-time. He had tried to participate, once. Last summer it had been very hot in the mud-sty. It was so hot that the mud had baked into his skin, forming a dry and crusty coat that made him even hotter. He looked out to the pond and realized that he had no choice but to participate if he were ever to be free from this discomfort. Somewhat overweight, he lifted his considerable bulk from his straw-mat and carried himself out to the field where the other pigs had gone in the morning. As he approached the pond, he became aware of the attention he was drawing. The pigs and the ducks had stopped talking to watch him enter the water. But the second he dipped his little hoof into the pond, he was stung by its icy temperature. Immediately he retreated to the mud-sty, where the pigs and the ducks would not watch him and he was safe from the water’s sting. He recovered a store of slop from beneath his straw-mat and gorged himself. That most uncomfortable coat of mud would be worn until a rainstorm passed several weeks later.
One day Farmer Hob noticed that one of his pigs wasn’t properly participating with the others. He decided to take a proactive approach and integrate him into the herd by force. Come morning when it was time to root around in Farmer Hob’s yard, Georgy-Pig would be physically dragged from his straw-mat, screeching horribly. He would stand alone in the yard as the other pigs rolled about and scrubbed their skin against each other, but the second Farmer Hob turned his back, Georgy-Pig would scurry back to the mud-sty. As before, upon his return he would immediately gorge himself on that secret store of slop. Eventually all this extra eating made Georgy-Pig too fat to move at all. Even if he had wanted to participate, he could not.
“Wonderful!” said Farmer Hob, “Georgy-Pig has become a perfectly sized hog, just as I hoped!” And he and his son dragged Georgy-Pig out to the chopping stump, where they sliced off his head with a sharp axe. This time, Georgy-Pig did not screech even once.

Breaking the shafts from his shoulder, the Danaan casts them into the water and the dear soldier is gone. His arm his new. His legs are steady. The ship’s rigging is trailing in the wind and slinging it hand-over-hand the Danaan finds the deck and surveys the shorehead. From where he stands alone on the prow, he can see a hundred torches burning amongst the ranks of men. The torch-carriers make for the ships. He works a spear ten strides long through the chest of one of them from his position over the beak and then another and a third, making red mud of them in the surf.
βάναυσοι (an,08), he cries, fire fire fire!
The long-spear is heavy but the Danaan is strong and twelve Troians are opened by him at the shoulder and through the belly and one split between the ribs and one through the back of the neck as he stumbles so the spear point passes his lips and he falls in the tide, dead even before the spit can be torn free from behind his jaw and the last thing he knows is the foam of the surf and the bitter shock of teeth clenched on bronze (an,09). Overhead the sun is tracking backward across the cloudless sky.
Behind, two hands red and fissured and running with water wrap their crooked fingers over the banister and the rotten face of the first of the dead is hoisted up into view. Sleep and death slide over the roughshod rail quiet like folds of linen falling from a woman's shoulder and and crumple into a heap on deck. The dead man retches up another wash of clean water and wipes their mouth with the back of one hand. His ears are leaking.
No, he says, making a dismissive wave of one hand.
No, no. Stand under the mainmast here--back a hand. On center. Like you’re a God and this is your home.
It’s no home for a God, there’s a column in the middle of the naos--
That’s why it’s like a God, not a God.
Like is good.
The mud around his mouth cracks in tall lines when they speak. His voice is dry and quiet, the whisper of the Danaan's father on his deathbed. His nose begins to drain once he's found his feet like a cup of wine turned over and poured out and they speak in tandem like twins.
If you stay on the prow, great lion, they will see you fall. And that's good. But it could be better, don't you agree?
That's right, that's right. Under the mainmast
Under the flaxen sail
Under that beautiful standard there
Let the Troians fall in a circle around you
Like the horizon
Like the sun
Like a shield
As wide as your spear is long
What a sight
And here you'll be found
Under the mainmast
Under the mainmast
What a pyre--Αἴας was given a warship
Twelve more dead in a ring
A sacrifice fit for a king
A warship!
Or a lover (an,10)
They won't see you fall
They'll see you felled
Oh, Διὸς the fire in their eyes
And in their hearts
The molten silver on their tongues

--
Your pic is well written. If yours, good stuff user. Personally, I am not a fan of the author posing rhetorical questions to the reader--comes off a tad trite.

One, please read what I said here: I am not completely rewriting what they have given me for I do not want to alter their intentions and I do not want them believing they must mimic instead of learn from their mistakes. Yes, the way I edit is that I improve their grammar while attempting to not change their content. If I were getting paid to edit published material, I would edit the content as well. But the people here need to learn their basics before they need to worry about cliches and content. Basic, typical writing makes a piece uninteresting. Bad grammar and punc makes a piece unreadable. One is worse than the other. One paves the way for the other. Do you have a year of practice under education? Do you know how to properly educate and not simply correct and leave the student blind?
Should these people come to me with well edited pieces, I then look to their imagery, descriptions and writing style. But they have to show they know their basics first.

Secondly, the clouds gathering had a supernatural implication. Contrary to your literal correction. As I said, I wasn't pleased with my revision. But using the word prescient implied that the weatherman was not inherently wrong. That he would've had to have known the future to predict the weather right.

You thought "prescient" would help, and you still think people should take your advice.

Content is the basis of literature.

Under-rated piece.

The only part that bugs me is jovial moon instead of Jovian moon, which seems to be deliberate, except why/how would a moon be jovial?

I wrote a piece on a similar subject matter last weekend, which I'll post below. Make of it what you wish.

Space

The eyes of Hubble zoom
to the darkest point of the blackest square.
Galaxies sharpen from the gloom
and on this cosmic bloom
I stare.

The history of a trillion races
told within a tragic dot of yellow haze;
a smear of light two pixels wide
nine hundred quadrillion miles
from side to side...

I can nearly hear their voices.

The enlightened breed of alien birds
snuffed out by a single cosmic cough
and the fish-like beasts who dreamed
to fly between the isles of stars like beams:

Your screams have been observed.