/crit/ - General Writing Critique

>The sheet of slime encasing the slender legs of the elf gradually receded, as each pitfall proved shallower than the last; sure sign that her course was true. It had been three days since the party set forth from Oakheart; a strange name, for the place neither was peopled with oaks, nor exuded the warmth best described as "heartfelt". Though, following that line of thought, a place most aptly described as swamp-crack would likely not wish to boast of its true character.

That's a tired trope, it would be funnier if a group of people got implicated in a high profile scandal.

user is right, if you feel really attached to the whole "Oakheart" meme, (It aint that clever tho) maybe put it in some dialogue instead. As is its a boring drag to read, and I imagine a snarky narrator will get annoying really fast. I recommend cutting that out entirely.

A night walk. Quiet urban streets creeping along like a giant concrete conveyor belt. The night has a dangerous quality to it. It's past midnight but there's still people about sitting and standing here and there among the shadows. Cars trill by. There's a large motorway. From the bridge one feels their jaw tighten, and their lungs seize up a little.

Tyler looks down below, then pulls back.

“Do you ever get the urge to throw things from high places?”

“Yeah”

“I had the strongest temptation to throw my phone just now.”

“That's normal.”

“It is?”

“Yeah. You're not really going to throw your phone, but you could, even though it's very unlikely. It's because it's an unusual thought that you become aware of your own resistance to doing it.”

“Maybe one day I'll throw my phone. Just to know I can.”

“But you won't.”

“Yeah, I probably won't.”

They walk in tandem along a long road bordering a football field. The road curves, stopping them from seeing the end of the street until they've reached about halfway along it.

Reece takes out a cigarette, lights it, and takes a drag. His thin lips make an 'o' and a ghostly trail of smoke snakes into the open air.

“What?”

Reece looks at his friend, inciting a challenge with his performative indifference, posturing like a caricature of Cruella Deville.

Tyler says “I wonder if its the same temptation to throw the phone that makes people smoke.”

“No,” says Reece, as if he's already given this a great deal of thought and Tyler has made a common mistake. “Cigarettes have nicotine which is an addictive substance.”

“That's true. Phones are addictive, but not in the same way.”

“Well it's all dopamine in the brain acting as a reward system (Reece gestures with both hands, making little circles in the air, the cigarette light dancing like a firefly in the dark). The brain makes these connections, neural pathways, which are like their own little sub-personalities which, when you give them what they want, grow stronger.”

“Like a fat person feeds their hunger personality too much.”

(Reece takes another drag), “Yeah.”

“So why don't you stop feeding it?”

“Maybe I don't want to.”

“Why not, if you know its bad for you?”

“For fuck's sake are you going to be on my case about this all night? Why can't we ever just talk?”

“I thought that was what we were doing?”

“No you're just pestering me about smoking. Just drop it.”

“I'm sorry man. I didn't realise...”

“No, it's alright. You just do this too much.”

“...I'm sorry.”

“It's fine.”

his hand. He pulls back his arm to throw it.

(Read the last half by following the link)

pastebin.com/HYPhdYpy

This started with the potential to be patrician but by the lanterns line you lost all hope. It literally ev came clues and silly sentences after that.

I wish I could say I laughed but it wasn't outlandish enough

This thread...

Yeah it was just something I freewrote in a couple minutes for a short story I've been working on for one of this months deadlines. The lanterns are of great significance to the story, and the last line is a reference to finnegans wake. What didn't you like about it?

pastebin.com/y3emtw3Z

trite and a bit campy. Not terrible dialogue but unrealistic in parts. Good effort though

The wide, round rump straining against the purple lycra pants of the white woman in front of him in line at the corner shop stirred in D'Quan dim, dreamlike memories of the Serengeti buried in his blood, setting his heart pounding like a jungle drum and his long coal-black pestle nudging the fabric of his basketball shorts.

con'td?

Her feelings are just a little to simple if he's only be genuine once. Seems like she's overly sentimental and willing to give up everything but not in meaningful or interesting way because no one is actually like that. For it to work there needs to be some incredible context. A real human would feel a bit or anger or shame or something along with wanting the best for another person if they invested that much energy into someone who just did not amount to what they wanted. There would have to be an actual mental illness with the narrator for this to remain interesting.

Are you simply writing from a woman's perspective or did I misinterpret this?

It's dialogue from the girl to Atlanta before she leaps off of a cliff. She basically caught him sleeping with a girl he didn't even care about and didn't feel like living anymore. The major theme of the short story is sincerity. It's not meant to be entirely realistic.

I don't mean this is a nasty or disparaging way but...are you over 18?

Yeah, I'm 21. Why?

Because the only people I can see actually caring about a story in which a girl kills herself because the guy she thinks she loved cheated or her or maybe didn't even cheat on her but just slept with someone else instead of her in this hypersexual world and she's so saintly about it that she basically narrates as if she's a tragic hero who will guide him like a guardian angel despite doing something so idiotically selfish and frankly silly are girls under 18 and booktubers. Go for it but just know, unless you address this with a little more perspective it will be confined to that audience.

kek'd

>Because the only people I can see actually caring about a story in which a girl kills herself because the guy she thinks she loved cheated or her or maybe didn't even cheat on her but just slept with someone else instead of her in this hypersexual world and she's so saintly about it that she basically narrates as if she's a tragic hero who will guide him like a guardian angel despite doing something so idiotically selfish and frankly silly are girls under 18 and booktubers.

I like your voice - would definitely read if you could get your shit together and write something longer with a decent structure

Not terrible, kind of reminds me of the stuff I used to write when I was younger. Some cliched advice that I think would really improve your writing though: show, don't tell.

You're trying a little too hard to push your idea of what's happening. Good writing is satisfying for the reader because it involves a certain amount of interpretation on the reader's part–you have to give them some space to figure out for themselves what you're trying to communicate.

For example: "The night has a dangerous quality to it." The fact that you've told the reader this doesn't really tell us anything at all about what's happening, it just tells us that you think there's a dangerous quality, without any justification. It would be much more powerful if you could give some reasons as to why the night had a dangerous quality, to describe the setting and let the reader work out that the night has a dangerous quality, rather than just stating it outright.

I hope this makes sense. It's not easy to do well, but once you practice it a little while you'll start to understand what I mean. Just remember the simple rule: show, don't tell.

Keep it up, you've got the potential to be great.

I need basically a sanity check on the premise for a series of short stories I have been writing:

>main character is a government employed inspector for mental asylums and facilities for the mentally infirm in early 1900s england at first just before and then during WWI
>he is employed by the government and essentially given criteria to pick up patients who won't be missed and send them back
>each short stories covered the man at a different asylum and with a different patient he is selling off
>mainly follows the man's own mental issues pertaining to severe OCD and depression
>basically becomes increasingly unstable as he sends these people off and sees the lives of those forgotten in these institutions

Has potential. I don't know about the "follows the man's own mental issues". Hard to care about baby's OCD when you have actual headcases around. In the early 1900s people did not cater to these mental illnesses-lite like "muh anxiety" as they do today.

May be relevant to your interests: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Christs_of_Ypsilanti
As well as the great movie Shock Corridor

The man's worsening OCD and feelings towards the first world war are the main things that continue to follow him between the stories, as he has essentially no contact with those who he sends back.

To elaborate his OCD is to the point it cost him his marriage and essentially caused the death of his mother. One of the major parts of his character is an extremely warped idea of female companionship due to the manipulative marriage and his mother essentially damning him before dying. As well he realizes he is far higher functioning than those he deals with and this fuels an attitude of enforced normality on him, that he is the healthy one surrounded by the ill. In the stories I have written so far this sort of culminates in him becoming obsessed with a patient who is in tern obsessed with an enormous orange tree that only bears green fruit. The end of the story is him sitting beneath the tree picking up orange skins as the man who he planned on sending along to the government has hung himself from the branches.

>May be relevant to your interests: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Christs_of_Ypsilanti
>As well as the great movie Shock Corridor
I will look into them.

Could be way overblown ;damaged; status or could be really good, depending on how you write it.

Yeah. This is more or less what I am unsure of. I have also come to a turning point where I am now considering having a slight gap in time and moving to where he has left his previous life in favor of joining the first world war.

The part one of the story sort of ended with the patient killing himself and I am filling in time between. Part 2 is his life after transferring to run a field hospital for the british forces during WWI. I have laid hints of what really happens to those who are sent by him, the main character essentially turning a blind eye, but knowing it has to do with some sort of experimentation. I have considered Part 2 moving towards his life encountering a few of these people again and discovering what happened to them. However this would them move essentially into science fiction and I am really unsure of that transition.

...

Count ƒ

A humble narcissist:
the Jainist serial killer.
A one-word list
oƒ letters that don't exist.

The phantom limbed genius
ƒorages ƒor truƒƒle ƒries.
The Taos Hum skipped town

and Snoopy dropped Pisa's tower
once leaning as prescribed.
The mayor puked outside the rusted barn,

Byron tumescent with midnight wax.
Baritone kazoo choirs,
parasitic clues track mud

into the ceilingless glass house
cohabited by Goliath and Dave,
the hood's token gay couple.

He only notices the electric hunger
aƒter the manhole cover ƒalls
and hits the ground running.

ƒamiliar ƒoreigners, longitudinal studies,
what in God's name (God)
is the meaning oƒ this? The boss yelling

zealous ƒor z reports, eyes Cheryl
ƒrom HR. The comet plods blithely
towards the Genie and his gypsies in Limbo.

Spectographs to Jelly Bean™ ƒlavors
(spoiled milk or cut grass) to gravel
to Braille sonatas, oath sworn:

A deity's sorority oƒ textile quanta
neatly packaged as ƒabergé Humpty Dumpties
or a monsoon oƒ Eve's uncomsumed ƒruits oƒ loom.

The minstrel show ends at gunpoint,
the curtain ƒalls over pupils,
guns blazing away at ill-tempered windshields

in traditionally sunny Sunday weather.
Intermission, the buƒƒer warrants
something tangible to marmite yeasts

but neural nets cast behind broken ships
catch only mites in spider vein silk.
Then Valentine's X-Acto® exposes the ƒlesh.

Bullseye: necrotic sulƒide daydreams
incarcerated in gold-leaƒlets, grassroots garnishments,
and grandma's chocolate chip ash kisses.

However and ever, the territory's lost
along with the maps app.
Nowhere, here, ƒast at last.

How we sigh ƒor an Athenian astronomer's prints,
discovery in this rubber rubble rubbish and brush,
photos oƒ imperial ambergris and Lust's

six sisters sweetly named sin.
Iƒ only it were love I was in.

Shark–ƒin.

Honeslty, I would just describe the branches of the tree as if they were looking like a hanging man. To have him under the literal tree sounds to me to be too much.

As for the rest of what you wrote, that's just a totally new direction and you're only going to know what works by actually writing it.

For reference the whole thing with his mother and wife is never stated but told mainly through letter he receives and refuses, and a continual talk his boss attempts to have with him about a concern to his stability.

>Honeslty, I would just describe the branches of the tree as if they were looking like a hanging man. To have him under the literal tree sounds to me to be too much.
How I have wrote it is he felt a great weight and could not look up. He saw something from a distance and went to the tree, and basically stared at the ground and picked up peels rather than look up to confirm. Merely felt a great coldness and loneliness somewhere above and inside him.

>As for the rest of what you wrote, that's just a totally new direction and you're only going to know what works by actually writing it.
Yes, you may be right. Honestly I am just unsure of the entire idea from its inception. From the beginning I have not known if this is at all interesting as a concept.

If it sucks, you tweak it.
Some of it sounds like damagedporn but like I already said, you write it first. Probably as you write it you're going to hate it. You finish it regardless.

Would you read a short story about a guy who found out his female neighbor is a serial killer and is targeting her in an attempt to get her to kill him?

here's a little river of consciousness

Nettles, cured by Nestle, that is unless the powder is caked, cake turned to power, get that guap so you can get that guac at Chipotle (pronounced chipottle) then ask the oblate spheroid named Symphony before you to hit Cheddar's for a little dine and wine, order the legs and eggs special and watch your life flower before your eyes, manifesting as wonderful wife—married to the game—sad wife, sad life, rad strife, de Sade tonight: the new strain of gonorrhea is antibiotic resistant, time to kill with fire, burn the infidels (those unchaste whores of modern day Babylon) and ostracize giving them an ostrich ovum and ask to try this one on for size, easier to squeeze out the utero toothpaste tube than last week's abortion, sure to make the picket wrist flickers wince and remember how they survived the cultural abortions, kulturkampf, of past passed like a bus driven by Keanu Christopher Reeves, drunk homeless women wielding wicked eyes and a bagged fiveloko his kryptonite, cryptocurrrently making making money look as easy as growing lbs and a beard of the neck in mother dearest's basement, not her frumpy undercarriage but outmortgaged houses basement home to panoramic debasement where cement erased evidence of avuncular Vinny's collateral byproducts of doing business in the biz's documented spirit of Alto-similar italiano's turned meat sauce on internet post-its stuck with saliva to digital didgeridoo's humming the rainforests sounds of teenage caterwauling and blasé middle-class moral philistines—oh be good Johnny, this less than/holier than thou mentality leaves much to be desired, cop the austere, sprinkle on the vanish, the veneer of cult leaderboard topping misandrists so popular these days, when Sunday just means another Tuesday, and so forth till the cookie crumbles and the tinder singes only itself leaving cannon fodder begging to be impregnated with potential pecuniary rewards for the ethnomycologists life can't thrive on dead meat and garrulous garbage like it's subject of study—the scholarship won't save you this time Stallone! you're on rocky ground! this ain't the streets, you're not Rhode's Colossus!—sheesh, you don't have to live at 221 Baker St. to see the writing on the wall, that lead drape barricading this motel room from all electromagnetic and radioactive radiation because by Jove's buttbuddy Jesus H. Christo nobody on the radio is active.

Here we go.

;^)

Danke name-fag kun.

>waiting for elf erotica
I think in retrospect that is my target audience.

I might work with it a bit more, I think dry comedy is my forte but your dialogue suggestion is bretty gud.

He stood adjacent to the argyle Agamemnon, smitten by a lovers quarrel
They fucked

there's this warehouse
out beyond the corner of the street
it's been under lease for 23 years
by the same owner
nobody knows his name
just his face
neighborhood kids like to throw stones at it
occasionally breaking the dusty windows
that get replaced daily

it's open to the public
but the hours don't make any sense
"Open 3:30 AM—7:45 PM, Tuesdays only"
and they change daily
sometimes contradicting themselves, sometimes not

if you're lucky, you'll catch it open
lavender velvet curtains hanging over the entrance
like a NYC psychic's shop resignedly hocus-bogus

inside, you'll find half of everything.
Partial Dupont Registries, bifurcated finger-traps,
the Parthenon's third column from the left
a sample of Paul's simple columnar epithelium tissue,
the first act of an inner-city Detroit middle school's production of Waiting for Godot written in Esperanto,
and Jolene sung in Logban, played by Cain and Abel.

some of the treasures lend themselves to sale
for a decent price, really,
but the whelming majority deny apprehension
reminding the lucky visitor
that his or her reach rarely exceeds his or her grasp.
and so most leave without so much as a tchotchke—
let alone the north tower of the WTC where she died
649 days from now.

Once in awhile I'll boil some water and wash the filth away from my body, the cleanliness certainly doesn’t last and only keeps the flies away for an hour or two however it gives me a sense of accomplishment and some existential realisation, something that doesn't come often in my lifestyle. the splashing of plain lukewarm on my chest and waking before 12:00 pm fills me with the greatest of temporary hope, joy and clarity the close friends of productive thought with no intention of being manifested. Time and time again I fall for the empty promises and embrace my own creation only for it to betray me with a fatal kiss harboring the essence of sloth. I contemplate “maybe tomorrow”

>Once in awhile I'll boil some water and wash the filth away from my body
Doesn't the boiling water scald your skin and leave burn blisters? Unless you got something i don't know about, I think that's what would happen
>keeps the flies away for an hour or two
where the fuck do you live, Uganda?
>existential realisation
in a sense, every realization is existential. did you know that user
>with a fatal kiss harboring the essence of sloth
i like what you're going for here, but i think the satirical verve lands a tad too heavy for it to be as funny as i think you want it to be

>in a sense every realisation is existential
so if I said recycled existential thought/realisation would that be better
>where the fuck do you live Uganda
It set in the developed world the character just lives in poor conditions
I'm a novice when it comes to reading and writing so please forgive any ignorance

is english your first language?

yes

Idea for a fanfic parody in which the real character is the fictional writer of said fanfic. Details of their life leak out into their fantasy and the reader is simultaneously intrigued by the writer of these schlock as well as - perversely - the story which they are telling
Never quite sure how to critique pieces like this. I do admire the creative courage it takes to write something this experimental though.
You jump right into the deep end of your characters' emotions instead of teasing it out of them. In other words: you should show instead of tell. The emotion comes across as cheap because we haven't earned it. This is what makes it "trite".
Also >tfw I am going away to teach in China
Made me smile. Keep it up, even if this was just a meme post
2sincere4me

Just experimenting with new styles:

williamguppyblog.wordpress.com/2017/07/08/sensua/

Once in awhile I’ll take a shower and run the water over filth of my body. The water mundane as the cycle of seasons, has no thought nor concept of cleanliness and exists only to ward the flies off for an hour or two, however it offers a slight sense of achievement and entertains my own recycled existential thoughts. Lamentations of what could’ve been, inspiration what could still be; the mark of a self pitying fool holding himself to the standards of the world who had rejected him, one like I could only wander into a future that had neither mercy nor anything in store for my kind
“ I open my eyes as they flicker I make out the numbers on my clock ,“3:34PM”. They would be home soon. I turned my body to the high window at the top of my bedroom. 3pm and still no light so much as peered through the gateway to my solitude, it hadn’t for a long time now the cobwebs and mold had been enough to “blot” out the sun. The room would’ve been enveloped by the dark if not dimly lit screen of my desktop.my pleasure from last night was still frozen at exactly 6:21 “She” would forever be there for me whenever I needed her and I appreciated it whether or not she would become aware of my gratitude.

I changed up my first paragraph so it would make more sense and added the second. My main question is if you were given only these two would you continue reading or not

bump

>I changed up my first paragraph so it would make more sense and added the second. My main question is if you were given only these two would you continue reading or not
the feeling i get is that you are clogging up your sentences with pointless words

see your first sentence:
>Once in awhile I’ll take a shower and run the water over filth of my body.
why not simplify this to "I shower once in a while."?

the second sentence is grossly overengineered and seems pointless/meandering/unclear

you are in that weird insecure phase where you use verbosity and unusual expression to try to create an exotic quality and/or intellectual virtue in your writing - you need to realise that it's actually not interesting or beautiful to try to cram so much style into these mundane sentences

readers will get lost and confused easily in that shit, and brevity is way more effective anyway

"I shower once in a while. The water doesn't speak, but somehow the sound helps me think. I remember my mistakes and I try to plan the future."

i mean, unless you are intentionally going for a pathetic NEET / elliot rodger style self-absorbed purple prose thing?

My team made some weeb designed illustrated fiction.
The illustrations are still on going but the story is done and we would really be happy if you guys could leave some criticism about it.

>sigilworks.wordpress.com/2017/07/09/violas-chapter-1/?iframe=true&preview=true&calypso_token=0e8c63ab-dad2-4b54-a3ef-2e065c72917c

It's just some 30k words divided into 3 chapters

It's still a work in progress. It's for my sex novel.

--She unzips my pants, and my flaccid footlong unfurls upon her face. "Ooh yes, you like that dontcha?" I mutter. "No, it's not thick enough, this won't work!" This bitch proclaims. She must not know who I am. Maximillian Thor'us is the name, and many thots have been slain for insulting my girth. She is no different. The fingers on my left and right hands fuse together, giving me two blade like appendages. Neato. Time to get to work.

*Various metallic friction noises* suddenly ring into the air. Heh, tough luck thot.

thoughts?

If you ever happen to find yourself in Wernigerode you should make it your duty to hike up the Brocken. Once you reach the peak of the mountain you’ll find a rail terminus, where inside you will find a steam train. Get on that train, ride it down to its final destination and you’ll find yourself back in Wernigerode. The train journey itself isn’t the longest—about ninety minutes or so—but the unchanging scenery makes you feel like you’re in a form of peaceful stasis; snow-tipped forest covers the entire descent, white horizon making way for yet more white. The towns through which the train passes, with their traditional Gothic timber-frame architecture, are only distinguishable via the signs signalling that you are in fact in a different location. Being in that almost sterile-like surrounding of similarity you find your mind free of needless thoughts, of pointless distractions, and with it you can find some sense of what is really important to you. I made that same journey several times. It helped me to clear my head. After a year of repeating that same journey my head was pretty clear — after a year of repeating that same journey think I finally knew who I was.

I think it's a bit wordy. I'm not sure if my grammar and punctuation are good enough either.

Intro to my novel, please critique:

It was bothering me from the moment I left for work to the moment I got home and turned on the shower. All day making its presence known with every step. Even when I was sitting down at my desk, I couldn't be comfortable. I couldn't focus on anything, my mind was clouded. I felt like I was driving through a snow storm the whole day. The day seemed like an eternity.

I decided to investigate within myself. This would be uncomfortable for me but it wasn't the first time. In fact I would do this for fun in my younger years when I was less afraid. An internal investigation, a deep one.

So when I got home I turned on the shower, stripped naked, soaped up, and my finger dove head first into my asshole. I dug around in there, loosening it up, it's been too long. I finally detected the source of my discomfort. I pried it out with my finger. I held to close to my face to see it in the shower. It was half a peanut. No, pistachio. Not thinking very much I had this strange urge to eat it, habitually, the way I do when I pick my teeth, but the smell reminded me of the situation. I flicked it into the drain. Washed off, victorious.

This made my asshole wet

That's some classy murder porn user.

...

>wrong place

Out gathering timber from trees you do as you please, its like you don't need any heat from the fire,

waters' run out of the well, I hope you can tell by the smell of a badly burnt dinner, can't see a sinner, see who's around, seek out a sound in a brand new attire.

The pot and the kettle are totally black, Hell broken loose with their well meaning acts acts, the lick of the flame warms the back of my sack, as pillars of salt, assault, attack

?

kys

Something I wrote and posted a couple days ago, but I'm posting it again.

Why?

...

pastebin.com/k4Gd8e6i

i cant for the life of me
afford the cant life of me—
hehehe, the bearded dragon snorts
squirting blood from its eyes
and into the cistern
full of that holy water, stacks of cash.
They think it be like it is,
but do it really? Like for real,
such a simple simplistic touch of ish
and yet the problem remains horny, sticky, and slippery
like an old spinster hagfish stirring up methane at the bed of the bog
just to fuck with Nessie
who wants no more than a meagre $3.50
for a pack of Puerto Rican smokes to smoke hiding from paparazzi.

I considered ending the impromptupperware meal here
feeling a slight tug from the metronome
but the arpeggiator kicked in, catalytic converter catalyzed
a new Boca Raton Beach House driven riff.

My drug dealer named Riff Raff
sometimes texts me, to see what's good
in the hood, "got dem blues."
And I respond, "I do too."

heheh

this is my attempt at horror which I have just recently started, its the first page:

pastebin.com/ZMJfrJqB

please critique

a classic subversion. I thought you were going for internal emotional investigation, but you got me with the classic peanut in the anus.

idk if this is the right place for this, but in MLA, do I italicize words if they are a a scientific name/term/lingo/name of place? like in the sentence in the paper I'm writing when referring to a name of a human ancestor. Also, if I do italicize it, do I continue to do so when I refer to it again or do I leave it as is after the first time mentioning?

This makes no sense, are you even trying to make sense?

>inb4 this is pasta

owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

>literal-minded brainlet can't grasp anything without spoonfeeding
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>youll find a rail terminus
>youll find a steam train
>youll find yourself
Stop repeating words. It's dull and wearying. Also makes me wonder if you've got the vocabulary to write with precision

Gr8/8 rspnse

merci

It was with great consternation that Alex took the first. The second came with ease. The third pill he stared at for a good time without any real thought. Then he placed it on his tongue, did his third shot of tequila to sink it, and considered himself lucky.
He was, in many ways. Both intelligent and attractive, he had been brought up in a world free from care, product of his parents’ inability to disconnect him from the wealth which he would inherit.
Yet all the same, here he was in Mexico, attempting to take his life yet again.
He would not succeed, although he does not know that yet, until his fiftieth birthday and sixth attempt, wherein he finally resorted to the “Hemingway”. A shotgun in his mouth, he would pull the trigger with the big toe of his left foot.
At that moment he would simply cease to exist. Far less romantic than he could have imagined.
Yet that is not the story you’re here for.

I feel like a jerk just giving the same advice over and over itt but basically there are three skill-levels:
>1: doing wordy in a way that imparts a slightly pretentious and fanfic-y character
>2: doing punchy and concise so that the eye moves swiftly across the page
>3: doing wordy with expertise in precisely that way which enhances, rather than clouding, your voice, not just in general but for the specific needs of the work at hand

>They came to this world like rain from the heavens. With streaks of flame and deafening explosions to herald their arrival, they descended to the anthem of war. Warriors from a different world, creatures armed with tools of conque(st) and ruin. In their wake, they bestowed their song of desolation and carnage. They were unknown to the words of peace and blind to those they deemed lessers. They wrought upon this world a deranged parade of screaming souls, lost to the merry cheer of the blazing cities.

I don't rewrite people's stuff to be a jerk and say "I could write that so much better" but because it's easier to show you what kind of editing I advise than to exhaustively tell you it. Were I handed a manuscript, I would spend most of my time scratching out superfluous segments and suggesting alternate words and sentence-structure because this unglamorous aspect of writing is what the vast majority of people have difficulty with. Every time I open a doc I've written I do a little of this kind of editing to it, everything can always get a little better.

Also, decide if you want the opening intro paragraphs to "sound" so much like the character narrator that one is led to conclude they are the same person. It's kind of uneasily sitting on the line between first and third person right now. Also typos trigger my auntimsm pls proof-read thnx

I like it, do you have an idea where you're going with it?

I am inclined to write and appreciate extremely long sentences, plenty of 19th century writers do this well, but sometimes one simply goes too far, as with the lion tamer bit and a couple other sections.

I have to actively force myself to trim sentences for clarity, so I sympathize. Even were it left as long as it is, it requires more punctuation unless it is meant to sound breathless.

Interested to see where the story goes, but the text itself (as opposed to the plot) needs some refinement (mostly for clarity).

I made this last night. It's very rough and I would appreciate any thoughts.

congratulations to the—the inevitability of passing, the
sand into the shore the
single clap in a crowded stadium, the
tides’ titanic trumpets blaring
nature’s resounding song,
an alarm that the continents
will shift my skin.

what have i done with her cornucopia but mope
as the world rotates without me.

aristotle must have seen his grain fade away, surely—
hadrian in his meditations elsewhere acknowledging
“i am a blink,
and my wall will fall to dunes beyond my years.”

to laugh with giants
as the world rotates without me
is fire from ashen anxieties.

to fade into an empty as an idea alone
a figment of aeons past,
an—an imagination of the human—
gold in a gravel pit.

thank you

hi, i'm the proprietor of heretofore poetry, this user is not me. however he is partially correct. just because you don't understand something does not mean it's not meant to be or capable of being understood

Bit of navel gazing...

"Sam and Tony waited in the car while I and she lurched loose-limbed into a liquor shop to get a box of beers. Now we’re sitting in the long damp grass at the top of a cliff looking out over the harbour like a mirror, reflecting a mottled layer of leaden cloud. Tony’s rattling off more self-aggrandising stories and I’m trying to participate, making solemn observations and complimenting his sunglasses when he forces me to try them on. Sam’s quieter now and J’s irritating me as much as Tony, sniffling, complaining she’s tired and she’s going to get sick, she wants to go back to the city.

I’m starting to feel a tenderness for her, supporting her as we struggle up the bank to the wire fence and clamber over it. Tony’s started to bully her, she’s started to bully him, pointing out holes in his stories, they keep sniping at each other as we trail back to where his car is parked. I think this is the point my attitude changed, rewarding her solicitation with solicitous concern.

There’s more of the same on the ride back to the city. Tony’s driving like a maniac and they’re still sniping at each other as I feebly try to situation. I’m thinking he’s mad because he wanted her too and he feeling of victory comes sneaking back. Now it’s us in the back seat against him in the front, I’m constantly aware of her presence in the other seat like a physical feeling, even when I’m looking up and away at the vast foothills of cloud hanging overhead, portentous and still, lit by ornate light like the sky in a rococo painting. The sky that day is still my strongest memory of it. I felt as if the real world was the landscape in the sky, hanging inverted over us, inert but fleeting, like the quality of new experience. The tiny words and movements in the tiny car below were just a reflection of one of the smallest edges of cloud in the sky above us."

an old excerpt from my diary desu. if you want part 2, ask and ye shall receive:

The delivery driver said in 10 years of driving, the alley behind the Orpheum is the worst in the city, the most busy and most likely to get stuck in. I nod sympathetically. With a hardhat on I’m a man of the people. The sun reflects brightly off of skyscrapers, multiplying itself. Pigeons flutter in crooks of alley windows. A cook from the adjacent restaurant comes out of a doorway for a smoke break, right where I’m standing. He’s Igor from Ukraine, Simferopol in Crimea. He’s 21 and has been working in Canada for 3 years, saving up to take a two year IT program at a technical college. His girlfriend wants him to come to Japan for the New Year. He asks me,

“Have you got a girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Good question. He disappears, an hour passes and he brings me a hot chicken wrap. I say “Time goes fast… faster and faster the older you get,” the last words between us.

navel gazing done right can bear good fruits. i haven't read anything else in this thread but your post has to be one of the best

We flung our dung into xyrs throat as xyrs ecstatically writhed in a pool of poo that we took from the lou. I pulled apart xyrs poopy thighs to reveal a gargantuan, throbbing cock and ghastly gaping anal gash of funky flesh. As I gazed upon this creature, I noticed that the dick was thick and the ass was fat.

Henceforward I plunged my staff onwards and into the great dark hole before me. Taking care to keep our testicles from touching, I knew at that moment, that truly I was still neither a homosexual, nor even a bisexual, as I had successfully abided the law which stipulates that the touching of two pairs of testicles constitutes a homosexual act indeed, not that there's anything wrong with it, of course.

Thrusting my saber back and forth repeatedly, xyrs began screaming "That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it".

Invitation to Dinner

Your body gives you
away to the air,
the plumbing, the dust
of the house. A few lost hairs
cobweb a corner. You exhale
the fumes of that engine
which churns out movement
and thought, fueled only
by its own burning. Me too.
I would like to remake you:

I can replace everything
you've lost since last
you remade yourself. I'll fill
the day's erasures
with blackberries and fennel--
food out tongues agree on--
so tonight's changes
(we can't change changing)
will change is closer,
liking our seedling likeness.

fluidly written and at least it's not fantasy. well-drawn. i'd read more

what is the point of the she. silliness.

interesting, I especially enjoy the description, but you could tighten the dialogue a lot.

that's not really stream of consciousness....i can't imagine anyone having this series of thoughts unless they were writing. it's more like language poetry. Just letting you know

breaking a line right after "the" always feels like a waste to me. overall it gives your poem a very "slam" feel.

better than john ashbery at least

but is it dope?

Invitation to Dinner

Your body gives you
away to the poo,
the plumbing, the poo
of the house. A few lost poos
feces a corner. You exhale
the poos of that engine
which churns out poo
and thought, fueled only
by its own poos. Me poo.
I would like to remake poo:

I can replace everything
you've pooed since last
you pooed yourself. I'll fill
the day's erasures
with poopoo and peepee--
poo out tongues agree on--
so tonight's changes
(we can't change pooing)
will change is closer,
liking our pooing likeness.

A fly was zapped in my bug zapper. It managed to crawl out and get trapped under my piano's sheet stand. It spun around with one broken wing under the stand for several minutes. I pitied it, walked over, and with an abrupt blow of breath, it landed on the floor. I watched this fly walk on the carpet in this dismembered state, with missing legs, and one missing wing. It could not crawl over a cord laying on the floor, and with difficulty it traversed stray hairs. It was so gentle and innocent, I pitied the fly. I decided upon ways I should dispose of it, because I can't have a fly crawling around on my apartment floor. I took a sticky note and placed it in front of the fly in a slight ramp. The fly obliged and walked onto the sticky note. I lifted it up and tilted it on a gentle incline into a cup, as not to make it fall in. I gently carried the fly in the cup over to the trash can, and with respect, I emptied it into the trash.

Aye, In all the days I have known doodoo, in all the years that I have watched and longed for doodoo and doodoo alone, my beautiful wild Poo, I have seen only one moment where you have been liquid. In all of your entire life, only once. Only for one instant. It was when your sphincter met mine and you were both dazzled and delighted as our feces floated up up and away over the sparkling ocean and twilight sky. So long ago that it may well be a childhood dream, and thinking back on that time seems to be peering into a past and distant bowl altogether. As our doodies parted in the great sky that night, our doodoos appeared to drift apart over this vast toiletbowl of time. I saw you less and less and you smiled even less and stuff, and I always wondered why you've left my bowl empty, and thought that perhaps there was something wrong with my cavity, that I was not friendly or girlish or bleached enough to hold your genuine attention for more than a brief moment. Do you know how lonely I have been? Your poor Mudpie, thrust to the outskirts of your seat to only peer in at you playing and associating with poopoos and peepees that are altogether unlike you and nowhere near as great as you. To only watch you, day after day, become dark and grey and lose the solidity and warmth that you once had as a toot. When was the last time you felt the wind on your thighs and under your feet, Oh Ho-oh? When was the last time that you felt the loving kiss of that beaming bum heating up this black muddy hole. When was the last time that you thought of me? Have you loved at all, Miss Cosby? Have you loved for even one second of your defecation? I have loved you every squat, and I shall love your taste for eternity too. If ghosts do indeed exist, I will haunt you for the rest of your days, never leaving you alone, especially in the loo, when you poo, and prodding you towards emptiness with my ghostly toiletpaper wielding hand. I made you a chocolate cake, my sweaty chocolate kiss. It is colored just like the one you made with me as a child, light auburn brown. Did you see it? I have a stool sample too, safely placed upon my bed. Smell both of them for me, will you? Let them softly float forever above the swirls, above this cold tile, telling everyone and everything that we are. I feel so silly standing here and crying muddy tears, but I cannot stay.

definitely the best thing i've seen on lit in a long time

this is shit

i really like what you did here, and nice trips

kinda falls flat t-b-h

I think your issue with it is that it lacks shit.

Two milky eyes refract over the ridges of triangle-folded waters, vibrating with each fizzy crease, bent into a swan. Oak-tinted pantlegs, each rolled at the heel and pulled tight, dance back and forth, dangling loosely over the sputtering foam. Bare, tanned feet point out into the horizon, wishing to come along. The sun sinks, desperately hurtling a violet pass downfield, received by a cotton-candy cumulonimbus. Behind the distance a Cicada chorus tunes, preparing for another showcase. Mossy vomit and spiked crusts beat against the pier’s wooden supports with each messy flush, back and forth, sticking and peeling. The wood creaks a little louder, just this time, as the bright orange beacon fully submerges. Immediately, neon-soaked taste buds pour from infinite swinging doors and crowd the soundscape. From the pier’s edge, overhanging damp swells, that party listens to me, more than I overhear each.