/crit/ - Writing Critique General

(5/5)

well it isn't grandiose.

solid user
would reword bits but like it all

As a Palestinian, some of this doesn't make much sense. Is Silverlight just a bastardization of Salfit? What about her washing more than the Quraan dictates? Off the shores of Jericho? Much of this is inflated, but you have diction power.

I edited this heavily after some anons remarked on how the flow was horrendous. Take a gander: pastebin.com/58jyN6uV

>who first stepped this into being?

Was concerned about this at first cause I thought you used stepped wrong but, it's a pretty good line. Watch out for passive voice though
>a thin long road which trails through the field and up to the forest

Delete "which", there's no finishing clause.
Combine the last two sentences of your first paragraph.

>a man come
A man came?
> What is seen on his skin is a story written in scars of a coarse man.

Bad flow, I like your unique style but that sentence is hard to read. Also, passive voice again. Stop.
The next sentence is also hard to read, you use "where" twice.

>rasping voice groans
Pick one, rasping or groans. Either achieves your desired effect by itself.
>He begins clearing, stopping to drink from the steam, eat, and sleep.

Parallelism. Add "to" to your other verbs.
The rising with the sun line is nice.
All in all: fix the flow, chill with passive voice. Your style is nice though.
You've got the voice.
>I worked my way through the shelves until I had exhausted their reserves. It was a few months after my twenty-fifth birthday that I found the chamber. I had observed the ancient door in my prior years, but my attempts to open it had been futile.
Okay so he knew about the chamber before, why say found? Say "after my 25th birthday the chamber was opened to me."
>I intrepidly
Delete, I know he's scared so it must've been a bold thing for him to open the door at all. Or say "I rushed to open the door," conveys an immediacy as well.
>appropriate fitting,
I mean if you're going for Joyce purple prose is warranted but, just delete appropriate I don't need it.
>singularly, perplexing tomes
How does he know they are perplexing? He hasn't read them or even their titles yet.
>rubbed my deceitful eyes, for what I saw could not be real.
Delete deceitful.
All in all you captured the tone well, although I question why he was afraid of the sea yet, his biology was naturally inclined to it? Wouldn't he exhibit a proficiency for swimming or fondness for the sea? I mean, this is a mini Shadow Over Innsmouth story right? Most of the people were fishermen in that no? Great story by the way, the Shadow Over Innsmouth.
I'd say your prose was purple but you are copying Lovecraft here so, I'll just have to shrug it off. Good job.
Second sentence, "delete though".
> Evidently she manifested the same behaviours when freshly fucked by her husband as this was what told him that she was finding hers elsewhere, not long after the first consummation of our affair.
This sentence doesn't flow well. Break it up into two.
>I picked up first from a soft and pasty young man
Delete from.
I like the last paragraph, althought the flow is weird. You really build up the atmosphere before that brutal last line. Nice.
lol give some context.
"

Forgive me, you're not going for "Joyce", you're going for Lovecraft lol.

complete agree the first point
second yep, now seeing that
three, think its important to clarify i picked up FROM a pasty guy not taking him home...
trying to keep the flow weird and disconnected like the mental state, think it flows with the rest of the story though it needs some work if you'd like to critique user? not sure if its too long to post though much appreciation thus far!

pastebin.com/j7ytLnSw

Opening scene to my shitty novel about my autistic childhood story. Actually, this is the prequel to the actual stuff that "happened." Essentially this kid grows up in a little valley, walls around it, isolated, the place is very much like 1950s America. Then one day while he's in the woods about to make out with his girlfriend, they see a bunch of ships looming in the distance, which fly in and attack and they are forced to flee and the whole war story starts.

The problem is that everything in between sucks. The main character (peter) is part of this "expeditionary battalion" that get to fly outside the valley and do experiments. He is curious about what is outside the valley and this is a driving part of his character. His girlfriend, Emily, doesn't care at all and thinks Peter has his head in the clouds. His dad wants him to get a real career. Yeah this might sound like a decent premise except it sucks, the scenes where he tries to get with emily are awkward as fuck, the scenes with his dad are just me projecting from how i was a couple years ago, and it doesn't matter because his dad dies when the enemy attacks anyway. The expeditionary battalion completely destroys any semblance of mystery to the outside world, it makes zero sense they have an entire fleet of cruisers yet no one is allowed to leave. I feel like deleting the entire thing but I don't know what else to put in the prequel. Should I even bother? The only issue is that Peter's older sister dies in this "expeditionary battalion" years before, except she actually survives, and Peter's grandson eventually meets her. But this is years later.

I feel like abandoning writing and just making an animatic out of it, like pic related (i made this out of the first scene), and adding captions and music. I feel like it'd be better as a movie anyway. My drawing sucks but whatever. Problem is, to work on it I need to solidify the plot of the first book. Honestly, the first book is basically a rip-off of the first episode of that attack on titan show, plot-wise. I don't watch anime normally but my friends showed that to me and I was like ".... fuck"

im rhe gangbang guy btw (not something i get to say much...)

Seems like unreadable pretentious shit to me, but that might just be because I'm a low IQ shitter. Or because I like to speedread in these threads. I dunno. The writing itself is pretty good though. Like "shaking off the prickled fabrics sting," that's a good line. Or how you describe the termination letter. The first sentence seems wonky to me, could be better organized. The quotes for what she is thinking... just use italics. The "stout woman of twenty three years" is pointless and blatant exposition. You could probably get away with "the stout woman" but it'd be better to bring it up when it's actually relevant instead of trying to sneak in these details about the character like you are desperate to include them before you forget. It's got good rhythm though, not too many adjectives not too few. I'd say it's solid but could be improved, but perhaps another user should critique my critique (lol) before you do anything with it.

first paragraph sounded pretty damn maccarthy and then after that it was entirely inoffensive, good start but i think you could make it a little less generic user

You bastards are so difficult to contact! When will I find my Veeky Forums bf?

r8 pls

Hey everyone, I posted a passage in the last thread, got some criticism, took it back to the shop and worked on it. This is the new version, please tell me what y'all think. Thank you.

Charlotte has been watching the sky for years, and as long as it’s snowed, she’s never seen a woman float to the ground, light as a snowflake.

December in Elysfalls was as quiet as the townfolk could make it. Unfortunately, tourists drove through the village as often as they could, eager to see even a fraction of the mysterious beauty of the town frozen in time. But, as the year grew late, not even the splendor of the frigid, icy Shivala Falls could convince tourists to abandon their homes for Christmas. Those who still appeared on the streets those last silent were either locals looking for gifts or a lonely, wandering soul drifting along glittering, moonlit snow.

Charlotte never thought of herself as someone desperate for something else. Her life was as gentle as the town liked, never straying too far from her home. She inherited her mother’s dress shop at the first hint of her desire for retirement. Three years had past since then, three years of somber snowfall, bright-eyed travelers marvelling at her dresses, and the world spinning in blissful peace.

In the deep winter, Charlotte lived her days with modest luxury, the bulk of her business for the season finished up weeks ago. She stepped out onto the cobblestone stairs leading to her store, pulled mittens onto her hands, locked the old wooden door shut, and turned to stroll down the snow-sprinkled sidewalk with the lights left on. The locals appreciated lights left to brighten anyone’s night, enough so that it was tradition to have the lights on when one was out until midnight. By that point, only the streetlamps were left to brighten the sidewalks as deeper darkness covered the town, allowing the world to take a moment to themselves.

It wasn’t difficult to get away from people in Elysfalls. Plenty of sidewalks led to old, winding trails deep into the surrounding forests. It wasn’t uncommon for homes to be deep in the woods, worn cottages lining the cliffs and mountains. Charlotte came to a stop at a railing blocking her path from a gorge, leading down to a crystalline creek, silent in the faint moonlight. Snow danced in the air as it drifted below, glimmering in the light glowing from a line of frost-white streetlamps trailing along another secret path against the side of the creek.
As she shifted her gaze from the trail into the swirling night sky, Charlotte could barely what looked like a single star that gleamed with brilliance through the endless overcast.But, as she studied it, Charlotte concluded that whatever it was, it could not be a star.

Stars don’t usually wear dresses.

if this is YA or erotica keep going, if not back to the drawing board

Sure, just use the site I used for my own story to paste your work in. I'll critique the rest when I've got time.
Either way, "I picked up first from a soft and pasty man," flows terribly. Work ion it. Do you mean "I got picked up by a pasty guy."? If you want it to sound disjointed like a mental state, try stream of consciousness. Fair warning though, it's hard to master.

Lol and nice job getting laid I guess, I'm still a virgin edgelord. Show me whatever you have left, remember to use the site I linked my own story on.

You're a woman.
more like, back to the conception board. A girl wrote that.

Also, try to read your writing aloud to catch the flow bud.

What if "she" is a "he"?
>9850499
A-are you a trap, user?

medium kek

but user isn't sexist...
>or is that sexy?

I always forget

thanks user

I try to but it sounds right to me as i know what its supposed to sound like. For the picking up from I mean getting drugs from I guess if thats not clear I need to look at it though, not after pasty boy seduction in this particular story

Don't bother user, it'll come eventually and its not better than a good meal, ,a stiff drink or a well lubed handy and I mean that in the least patronising way possible... Wish I loved sex but the only appeal is that your body wants to replicate more than you know.

stuck it on pastebin
pastebin.com/YauW3aax

again a work in progress

b...be gentle user-chan

I like this one, is so cute.
I wrote a fanfic once in the same way you wrote this, user. Our styles are similar I guess.

Thank you, I really appreciate it.

It's gonna be a short story that I'll try to get published in some sort of YA magazine, an actually decent publication. I'll keep going on it and post in a later thread.

You actually caught me, good job. 1 year HRT.

thanks for the notes on I'll make these changes and I agree, the writing is a bit flowery. I was trying to use his change of opinion on the ocean as a device to show his transformation, but i'm not sure if that's neccesary. Ill workshop it. thanks again for the critique, really good points

also from gangbang user to new flow joyce user, this is breddy damn good!

>maccarthy
?

Laying besides the roots of the world tree, Jacob Anil basked in the shade that the enormous trunk of the tree provided. The almost scathing heat of the summer day forced him to take a short detour away from his intended destination. He was rather lucky that the deadline for his task in Bronzehill was more than a week away considering this was the twelfth time he had stopped on the road of wonder. A regular person could hardly blame him; the road of wonders did lead to some of the most wondrous landmarks in the world but at the same time it would often lead travelling tourists to their graves if they weren't lucky enough to avoid the numerous bands of outlaws that preyed upon their kind.

"Well you look at that." a scraggly voice said from a distance, "Looks like we got ourselves a tourist all on his lonesome with no bodyguards to protect his sorry ass. Ain't that right, Freddy?"

"Yup! That's right, Jim. You want me to smash his head in?" an oafish voice asked with the fervent of a child.

"Nah, look at them fancy clothes of his. We get blood on that and we won't get to fetch as good as a price we'd get if it were clean, besides, the blood stains would get people asking even more questions on where we got them." the scraggily voice answered.

Wrote all this just now and got tired. How'd I do so far?

Posted a bit of this a few threads back. People seemed to like it so I figured I'd post a little more. Hope it's decent...

The Crusader walked down the beaten, dirt road for the first time in twelve years. Once, he was bright eyed and wasted countless nights fighting the moon with a wooden sword. Now, he mostly keeps his eyes to the ground.

The rolling hills surrounding him form a miniature gulch, with dying clouds overhead. Dawn has long gone. The Crusader grips his brown cloak tightly as winds begin hurling frost. He raises his head from under the clothing, with only a beard and mangy hair to keep him somewhat warm. A row of shabby, half ruined cobble walls a meter high come into sight. They’re dotted along the side of the expanding road. Man is not far.

The road has become much larger now, as the Crusader stops to study his surroundings. He understands the risk, as standing still isn’t wise when wanting to keep warm, but the widening road brings back too many memories for him to ignore. Looking down, the Crusader sees a mural of prints fossilized in the dirt. He can almost visualize the moment he was a boy, when him and a band of soldiers rode the opposite direction on a quest for glory, which eventually became a quest for survival.

Pushing against the wind’s ferocity, the Crusader soon reaches a small incline. As he gazes far ahead, he starts blinking back tears. It’s hard to tell whether it’s from the wind or where he finally is, after twelve years.

The road filters towards a conglomerate of stone and wood. Fourteen or so houses, cattle and crops at least two acres far, a windmill and a church plotted right at the center. For many travelers, looking for shelter from the cruel landscape, the village is a beacon. But to the Crusader it’s a museum. A showcase of a life he’s found hard to remember.

Taking a deep breath, inhaling the freezing air that shocks his teeth, he proceeds down the incline towards the village.

Within the settlement, villagers are bustling about, finding it hard to get labor done in the stinging breeze. A few are cleaning up cow dung, some are migrating sheep and others are keeping stock of their potatoes, carrots and wheat. All the while, many are encircling whatever fires are around.

A particular villager is rinsing muck off vegetables with a wooden pale. Maria. She has the face of a princess but the hands of a retired farmer. It’s clear through the rate at which Maria stacks baskets with crops that she’s experienced in the trade. After drying her palms with the long skirt she’s wearing, she hauls the baskets over to a stockpile. Winter stunts life, so the village must be well supplied.

I mean, this is just practice anyway. If anything, you succeeded to capture Lovecraft perfectly. About the transformation thing, that's a bit of a dilemma: on one hand if you keep it, the plausibility is questioned, if you delete it, the ending is a bit expected. But it doesn't really mattered if the ending is expected probably,
since Lovecraft already told us the ending.

Have you never seen No Country for Old Men? Haven't even read the McCarthy copypasta?

Thanks man, took about a month. I'll have an indepth critique for you in the morning.

No context but you thought it was funny and we'll written eh? (Brass balls guy)

No.

>I don't know what I'm doing

As the sand beckoned to the waves, so did Elle her lover. The water lapped at the shore, unsure, rising and receding. Gently splish-splashing. Each nubile surge coated the surface and dissipated, both returning to the vast distant ocean and soaking down in a little bit. Was it always that the static body maintained control?

And so the tide rose, bringing in foamy vestiges, embracing the sand further up its top; and by nightfall it had gone back out, washing away its marks and taking something extra, as if to compensate for the evidence of its presence that was no longer there.

Of course, when all was said and done, the beach retained its definition, and there were even now too many grains of sand for the liking of Elle's feet. As they paced towards the horizon in the day's early hours, the blue paint on her nails chipped away and the brisk wind sent her thin cover a-flutter, stealing a look at the tight stomach and fitting pale bikini underneath. She thought of the warmth waiting for her, the coffee and donut, balcony and birthing dawn, baby face and muscle, single blanket. Her pace changed subtly and she chased still the rising sun.

...

how the fug do i write a epic fight scene between two absurdly powerful mortal beings.

I don't mind it, quite a comfy read, if not longwinded in some sentences. Keep up the good work. If this is just you messing around, I'd like to see what you're like if you give 200%.

Watch less anime, and more boxing. Detail how proper fighters fight, or something.

maybe I should have included that weaponry would be involved, of the medieval variety.

>no

Provide reasoning for your "no", you critiqued, you are obligated to give it to him. Or else your response is meaningless.

Cool, comfy is what I was going for. I'd give 200% if I knew how, I don't think I've written anything outside of assignments, and hardly read anything in the same way. I really enjoy writing but have always found I have nothing much to say. So my plan is to keep writing some for fun, and keep reading, maybe get serious later down the line.

As for yours, I really like a lot of the word choice (indifferent to the saline, joyous rancor, bake the wetter garments). They grab me and offer a unique description. However, I would say they are set apart by some clunkiness, the main clunk that stands out to me being repitition. There are a couple similes (can of sardines, steam) and I find those to often feel cheap or unnecessary. You say "I could" three times in a couple sentences and then blight four. Even
>their blight for centuries. A moral blight, if you will, if that be one at all.
Would flow better. The sentence before has "some" twice, the second being unnecessary. Later on, "silent" is used twice as well.

Content wise, I like the sense of adventure and exploration. Just work on the flow and clarity of things, a good first step being watching the repitition. It can be a good technique, but only at purposeful times. Hopefully this helps, thanks for the kind words

Thanks for the feedback, will definitely take your points into account.

Leave much if the detail to the reader's imagination. Erikson did this incredibly well in the later books of the Malazan series, if you want an example.

...

I tried.

But it's been like a year since I wrote these.

Part 2

Part 3

No.

Negative Nancy
It was always her fancy
To rain on others' parades
Because she was a whore
And had sex with four
She soon died of AIDs

Any suggestions?

1) Silverlight is a humanitarian organization that is keeping the hospital funded. Comes play next chapter.

2) The Ablution ritual. Basically, a practice that was drawn from Zoroastrian/pagan rituals by Muhammed, wishing to foment a more pure religion dedicated to Arab nationalism. This is evident in the steps the Quraan enforces:

The Ablution prescribed by God in the Quran consists of four simple steps:
1- Wash the face
2- Wash the arms to the elbows
3- Wipe the head
4- Wipe the feet to the ankles.
5- Washing the hands to the wrists
6- Washing the mouth
7- Washing the nose (nostrils)
8- Washing the ears
9- Washing the neck

3) Amira and her mother were raised in Jericho.

beautiful

Would /crit/ be interested in a novella translation?
I haven't started it yet, but I want to know if anyone is interested.

You're not a writer.

I've written a screenplay and could do with some critique, but this doesn't seem like the sort of general to link to an entire work. Is there anywhere more appropriate to get the whole thing evaluated?

It's an introspective/existential drama about the current ongoing crisis of security (both societal, political security and consequently individual, emotional security) and how it affects people. I already have an indie filmmaker from Glasgow who was pretty interested in the initial synopsis I sent out, but want to have the screenplay itself checked over from outside before I send it because first impressions count.

Brother, these people don't know shit, and will steal stuff if they like something, do not advise

I've already registered the copyright so I have legal proof if anyone steals it, but yeah, I thought here might be a shot in the dark

k

Are you that shitty underage writer with the broken english?

fuck off you ruined the last thread

If it's stolen, published, then taken down, the damage is already done, too late. Ideas are PRECIOUS. the first time they are experienced can't be recreated.

Whose that by chance? Good try charlatan, this thread was excrement to begin with.

lol

>btfo

pastebin.com/Zw6jbmbH
You're critique, freshly delivered. If you wanna exchange emails or something to follow up that's fine.

YOUR* gosh darnit im dumb

1. I see.

2. The only verse in the Quraan I remember that deals with ablution is Al-Maida, verse 6:
>[...] يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِذَا قُمْتُمْ إِلَى الصَّلَاةِ فَاغْسِلُوا وُجُوهَكُمْ وَأَيْدِيَكُمْ إِلَى الْمَرَافِقِ وَامْسَحُوا بِرُءُوسِكُمْ وَأَرْجُلَكُمْ إِلَى الْكَعْبَيْنِ ۚ
The actual steps and their sequence is delineated in the Hadith.

3. It wasn't that as much as throwing her ashes off the shores of Jericho, which in my mind is the Dead Sea. Seeing as I've been to the Palestinian side - heavily controlled, I don't think they'd let ashes in.

Is erotica welcome here?

Sure. Just post the source material to see if we can do better

>basked in the shade that the enormous trunk of the tree provided.

'Bask' is a pretty bad word. Try escribing instead what the person is actually doing. Basking seems more like a description of intent rather than description of action.

sure, its over 18

The only motor to get you this far was in the Sahara and even then you lost the keys in Tacoma. Crayons spell out moldering Spanish fly dreams to the garbage men stink they bring home to their dancing wives. Lampoon a grey cigarette with a penis - smells just like a burning molten fury and I am growing tobacco on your ten acres. Spend the summer growing blends and packing a bowl for one two people lonely and forgetting about the real growing evolving type in Tacoma Washington back from the spaced-out gummery of tidewater frenzy when we picked the anenome remnants and packed a bowl with the teeth of extinct fishes. Spanning about five-thousand miles we parsed a groundedge section of pipeline with vengeful polar bear stalking on the trunk roads out to Alaska and beyond into Russian territories long forgotten and still unclaimed by animals. Spanish fly is the solvent that melts a brain well and stops all thought in the mush brain beyond the walls of southern comfort. Cowering brain makes a hasty escape but the exit is just a needlehole in the direction of a bleeding bathtub. Chores all week to blend tobacco and weed and brackish hellwater and the spiny skin of a Mariana-Trench-creature. They washed up on the coast of the Mexican Gulf. Power bled out of the low-tide smell and I remember burning the nostril hair and I remember feeling a familiar memory bleed through imperfect like through cheesecloth. A delicate spider swung down from a dark cactus menacing. Its deadly and completely fatal toxin dripped from fangs only about 0.5 mm wide. Man skips daintily and gaily outward in concentric circles and blends with the wildlife. A man sparks a cigarette. Too bad for him – I loaded the thing with Fly and for a moment he was happy but always wanted more more more. A bathtub was loaded with the stuff and bled secretly and secreted balms of high Olympus gum sap from the laurel tree tortured from white branches and brought back to your pancakes with adulterants. Woman spits her tooth out on a highway littered with urine bottles. Trapped in that urine is the precious lifegiving water extracted by the body from cola. A movie was playing in the cinema, some Warhol trash – I jumped when a seagull made his appearance (uncredited). A loser cacophany thickened until I could not swim and blood clotted in the bathtub and blood clotted in the needles of the sea anemone.

Sadly no.

pastebin.com/n4ZtnF6G
Could you rate my sex scene? It's not an erotic story, but for some reason it felt "right" as I was writing, even though I almost always hate sex scenes in movie or books. It's probably terrible cause I've never had sex so i don't know what it's like.

lol are you me? Literally did the exact same thing and have had no sex either and get queasy when reading sex scenes. Here's mine, pastebin.com/58jyN6uV

Yours seems pretty typical imo, not too bad. make it longer and describe their emotions more. Some of the dialogue is cliche too.

>I've never had sex

Unfortunately it is a prerequisite. Fortunately, the need to do research provides you with an added impetus.

Read more erotica. It doesn't come across as if you've decided to tastefully omit the ugly details of a first-time sexual encounter such as awkward grunts, awful positioning or other distracting noises. It actually does read like you're a virgin - being one does not automatically mean that you can't write scenes like this, you just need to inform yourself so that it doesn't seem like the scene's your own weird fantasies come to life like in Twilight. The post-coitus talk is kind of sweet, I suppose.

Can someone not retarded critique me please:
pastebin.com/n4ZtnF6G

I'm trying to be honest with you, but as for whether or not you take my advice at face value is up to you. The elements in the beginning of this excerpt are interesting enough that I wonder why they're wondering in the wilds, what history Orion has that he's a half-decent shot and so on. So it's not a bad initial hook. I enjoy the imagery of the campfire as an orange smudge, I can understand the progression of the intimacy between him and Trielle until the paragraph that follows“You're really gonna say no?”.

It's just kind of a clumsy read at that point. Jacket tugging is fine, island of heat is good, her own stripping sounds a little odd, but perhaps that's because it makes me think she's going to be uncomfortable laying topless among dead leaves which may act as a distraction to the rest of what's going on. Perhaps your story as a whole has more information on Orion or elaboration that would show us why her comment pushed him from uncertainty to reciprocation, but there's not enough in this section alone to clarify that. As I mentioned before, the conversation thereafter is sweet, it cuts off in a slightly weird place though, because I don't know what she wants to linger for.

But sure, call me retarded rather than asking for further clarification.

>pastebin.com/n4ZtnF6G

Some suggestions for cleaning up your prose:

" and the steep terrain accentuated the pangs in their stomach." to: "and the steep terrain increased their hunger pangs."

Cut out the second clause of the second sentence.

Switch to "The forest broke apart"

If you are going to personify Winter, go for the gusto.

"that leaked what little warmth was left inside."

This is a good example to tackle what I think is clunky prose. "that leaked the weak remaining warmth inside" is what I would rewrite to. Alliteration, etc. Also, the weakness of the warmth attaches itself to the presumed weakness of the travelers.

"Orion stoked a fire in the fireplace."

Okay, but I'd like you to paint a better picture. Where did he get the fuel? Were there fire pellets cached in the house? Did he find a stack of firewood? These kind of details empower you to leave a ghost of the absent inhabitant of the house.

"a living soul"

This is neither colloquially nor formally comfortable prose. An "anyone" or "anybody" would suffice.

"They came to more mountains"

I would enjoy this if you allocated a paragraph to a description of the mountains. The sight of mountains is difficult to forget and your descriptive prose should reflect that.

"paltry"

Simply saying two meals is fine enough. Given that this is purely fictional, two meals isn't even particularly 'paltry'. Shit, I had only one and a half meal today.

"the jerky"

implies that the reader was previously aware of their jerky.

"fire dwindled"

Describe the state of the fire. Embers? Coals? Ashes? Positively describe what's happening. Here you simply negate a full campfire.

“You must think I'm a whore,”

No one has ever said this - at least not since Fanny Hill was written.

"Trees rattled"

Use these sorts of descriptions for metonymic devices. Maybe evokes a 'death rattle'. I would be more satisfied if your descriptions added to the momentum of the story's attempted effect.

Overall, try to constrain your writing to emulate a single style. Maybe crib from Hemingway for what I assume was intended to be quick sharp and sparse prose. Honesty: I am not at all interested in the cause that led these characters to where they are. I don't give a shit about their apocalyptic scenario. Implied cataclysm alone isn't enough to instill in me an interest in what feels to me like a couple of teenagers slipping away into the woods on a high school retreat. I would actually be exponentially more interested in a description of that scenario without the cliched apocalypse.

>pastebin.com/n4ZtnF6G

>"They laid there in silence for several moments."

Something needs to change here. Let them lay for a moment or several minutes. Several moments sounds off

>“You must think I'm a whore,”
>No one has ever said this - at least not since Fanny Hill was written.

Yeah this part was awful. You're basically accidentally making your bias against casual sex blatantly apparent and then having a character respond by saying "no lol"

If he thought she was a whore why was he cuddling with her? Why does your female character have to be ashamed of having requested sex?

Even young girls just entering sexuality don't do this lmao

how does one stop using "he" or "she" so much? I always have to keep in mind to not start all of my sentences with "he" or "his". Is it something that get better as you get more experience or is there a trick to it?

Yesterday I was drunk and wrote this. Just in case some hispanic is lurking this thread. I don't know what else to do with it. Already posted it on the spanish thread but whatever.
Al suelo que me mata y me reclama
con vicio cavernícola, de fiera,
tan solo como excusa apelar puedo
amor, el loco amor que me reclama
a corpóreas apetencias dar suelta;
atávico apetito, corre en busca
del cárnico alimento de mis sueños.
Pues aun con ir con atavíos bellos,
con la lustrosa capa del idioma,
persiguen nervio, reclaman sangre viva
aquestas apetencias de mi seso.
Masas grasas, en cúpulas reunidas,
concentran más mi voluntad herida
que vistas de vidas santificadas.
Si no vienen conmigo, anacoreta.
Estilita si son luciferinas.
Feliz si me prodiga sus dos tetas.

The bear’s hammer rose and fell with the flowing tides of battle. But the emperor pondered his wine.

Beating his chest and shattering the air with his voice, he said: ‘reveal yourself, emperor’. And when there was no reply, he scattered his opponents with his burly arms and roared, shaking the ground with his shoulder charge.

The emperor’s expression revealed surprise. But only for a second. He covered that quickly enough.

‘Guards’, he said, with a vague gesture. ‘Stop this … thing’. They ignored him, pretending they didn’t hear, subdued by the presence of the creature. ‘Guards’, he said, louder this time and with greater intensity. ‘Protect me’. And still they didn’t hear him. ‘Fools’, he shouted. ‘When this is over, you will be as dead as your minds’.

With that, he unsheathed his sword, letting the scabbard hit the soft grass beneath him. And standing up, he met the bear’s charge, grunting under its weight on his sword. At that moment he wished he had a spear.

The bear let out another of his roars, shaking the plains and the hearts of his opponents. But the emperor didn’t flinch, not until the bear shook his sword off like a paperweight and choked the ebbing life out of him.

In his dying breath, the emperor said: ‘tell my daughter … I love her’. And the bear released his grip and the emperor collapsed onto his throne, drenching it with his fluids.

Yo check this out.

In a woolly cloud I submissively disappear again.

(sorry my english is not very good)

Into a wolly cloud I slowly disappear again. The time is right and the fruits are ripe. Gravity is weak again now, the cunning beast. If it rains I will go offer something else.

I've not written anything before and this was just something i started to hone my skills so b gentle:

In one of the many winding white-grey span estates which make up the Wilshire small town of Highworth, and on a sunny day. In the middle of a cul-de-sac off of an avenue off of a road, the curtains to one house were pointedly shut closed.

Inside, Samuel lit his house with old dimming lamps, giving the whole house a musky claustrophobic feel. The occasional beam of light illuminated the dust falling from the ceiling like a strobe between the piles of old newspapers and videotapes. Samuel was safely over 6’5, he was an older, English looking man. He had the aura of, and the build of, a tree trunk. Newly awakened and fully dressed in corduroy trousers and a red cardigan, he slowly lumbered through the living room: in reality a small TV and an old lounge chair, the rest of the room was taken up by the videos and newspapers. In his small kitchen Sam thought about opening the window so he could see better, but decided against it. He poured some instant coffee, spilling some on the side (which he would have done even if he could see) and started back towards the lounge chair.

A good few seconds later, as he was a very slow mover, Samuel reached the lounge chair and sunk himself into it, his head and shoulders still firmly above the headrest. Clinking on the reading lamp rested precariously on the armrest, he began his daily routine. Grappling one of the old newspapers, he began reading.

The newspapers were mostly out of date, and radically so. Showcased on the top of the pile included articles on the Falklands War, the 1992 election - Samuel was engrossed in a piece about Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. It may have been 2017 but in Samuel’s lounge it might well have been any year from the previous five decades.

Samuel was upset to learn about Rabin’s death, even though he remembered hearing about it the first time, it was shortly after he left the armed forces to be a family man - his son at this time was only a few years old. There were details in this article he hadn’t picked up on at first, like the fact the killer had tried to murder the Israeli prime minister before, or that he had been killed in front of his wife. His face gurned at these unpleasantries, and the fact he hadn’t had the time to learn them the first time around. Inspired, he neatly folded his November 1995 edition of the Telegraph and put it on the armrest - abruptly standing up and lurching towards the newspaper towers in the corner of his room. He began rummaging, collecting more newspapers under his arm. Although it looked disorganised, the newspapers were in fact organised carefully by Samuel’s personal impenetrable system.

Once he had all he wanted, he moved back to his chair in what seemed like a single step. He now had the November 1995 editions of every newspaper he had. He began meticulously searching through them, starting with the Guardian, for articles about Yitzhak Rabin’s murder.

By the time he had gotten about halfway through Morning Star’s article deriding the peace process as a liberal betrayal of the Palestinian liberation movement, someone knocked gently on his door, rudely and abruptly interrupting his reading time - but Samuel knew who it was. He thrumped the newspapers down to the side of the chair and harrumphed to the door. No matter how much he harrumphed however, he never lost his rigid tree-trunk like posture.

Swinging open the door open he looked down onto the black-curly-haired teenager looking up at him. Samuel took up the entire doorframe with his massiveness, refusing to ever step over the threshold he glared down at the youngster with his forehead resting on the top bar, ‘’You’re late’’, in a rough voice.

Nathan looked down at his phone and saw he indeed was late, by two minutes. Short for his age of seventeen years, he felt like David knocking on the door of Goliath. He always stepped back a bit to avoid being completely intimidated by Samuel’s mass, but even then he had to crane his neck acutely upwards to look the huge man in the face.

His voice was a nasally tenor compared to the very English brand of baritone that Samuel spoke in. ‘’Sorry I did-’’
‘’You interrupted my reading time’’
‘’I’m sorry I’m late’’ spluttered Nathan
‘’Okay’’ Samuel looked around over the boy ‘’give me the papers’’

Nathan had a fresh stack of the days newspapers under his arm, steadily holding them out, Samuel clasped them by the side with one of his gorilla-like hands and heaved them into his home. Almost seamlessly, he violently grasped a ten pound note near the side of the door and dropped it towards Nathan: ‘’cheers’’, and he closed the door.

Nathan began his walk back to the town centre, he could spend that twenty quid on a pint on this sunny day. Even though he was only 17, he was eighteen a few weeks and the people in one of the older pubs near the church had served him since he was about fourteen, the benefits of spending his whole upbringing in highworth. Highworth had an old core surrounded by post-war, grey, repetitive housing estates, which is where Nathan found himself. The bright sun glowed off the grey of the houses. As he got out of the cul-de-sac he looked out on the sight, of streets behind streets in front of him, identical houses, the overwhelming grey beamed into his retinas - it could be disorientating.

Samuel added the newspapers to one of his towers and thrumped back into his lounge chair, he started again grumpily on the Morning Star article and wondered if any of his many video tapes were on Yitzhak Rabin. His videotape collection was diminished compared to his newspaper empire, the videotapes merely flanked his television set whilst his newspapers owned the rest of the house. Nathan brought him the papers, but he couldn’t be expected to record the news every day and bring it to him, Samuel wondered if Nathan even knew how to use a VCR. The disparity between the newspapers and the videos were a constant thorn in Samuel’s side, he scowled thinking about it, and annoyingly every new shipment Nathan brought made the problem more severe.

Nathan sat outside the front of his favourite pub with a pint and a book, he usually kept to himself even when he was out. In front of him on the table was a form his school had given to him. He was being asked to review his time so far as a part of the Highworth community befriending project, a local initiative aimed at stalling old age loneliness.

>comma splices
D.H. Lawrence, is that you!?

Will do that.
I was just looking through the original text and it has a really unique style and vocabulary.
I don't know if I will be able to replicate that in english, but I will give it my best!

“We are nothing, we were born as nothing, we will die as nothing,” he snarled through gritted teeth, his eyes fixated on the infinite darkness that laid beyond the one inch glass.

“Is this all that we were destined for, To drift aimlessly through the cosmic void?” his voiced trembled, he turned around and faced me, the tears running down his face, he reached into the back pocket of his jumpsuit, retrieving a bloody glass shard, blood dripped from the end of it, he brought it to his throat,

“Do you wish to live this meaningless existence, bound to this ship for the rest of eternity? I don’t know about you, but I’ve made my choice.”

I tried... I think.

Filename relevant.