Writing feedback thread? Post your stuff, give constructive critique or tear it a new one whatever

Writing feedback thread? Post your stuff, give constructive critique or tear it a new one whatever.

I'll post mine in the next post.

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It's way too late for this, I have important things to do tomorrow. I'm a busy guy with a life to maintain, not some slave to desire. I ought to be responsible, that's my imperative, my mission.
My eyes strain looking at the screen, half-comatose. One more... It's only sleep, it's just in my mind anyways. How is counting clickbait articles any different from sheep? Instead of hopping the fence, they leap over logic. Ha HA! I amuse myself, this is the side of me I need to reveal to more people. Then I would be incredibly famous, that would show them.
10 Ways Millennials are Ruining Novels. You won't believe Number 8!
Will I seriously not believe it? I'm anticipating some earth-shattering revelation to be perfectly honest senpai. The sea of exhaustion has subsided into an ocean of kneejerk reactionism. Emphasis on the jerk, but not the fun kind of jerk that I would be usually be doing around this hour.
Scanning intently at this filth I forcefully breathe through my nose to air out the grievance to which only I can acknowledge.
Number 1. Prose is dead!
Number 2.The Young Adult Bildungsroman reigns supreme!
Number 3. Page turning culture!
Number 4. They aren't buying Books!
....
Stop, stop, stop. I'm not getting to number 8, it's too painful, it's too much!
Comments 94
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- I get public transport all the time, and I've noticed that these young people "Milennials" are always on their phones! They're not getting stuck into a good book like the old days. My grandson never talks to me anymore... :( Likes: 4 Reply to this comment?
Yes I shall and with a burning desire for vengeance. My fingers are already doing the work, tapping away in a frenzied mania, this is it, my magnum opus.
- Shut up you old cunt! Maybe if you weren't so fucking boring your grandson would talk to you!!!! Some of us don't have time for your boring old boomer ways! I have a life to maintain and you aren't part of it. It's called life in the fast lane grandma and it's accelerating, you on the other hand are crawling towards the grave. Likes: You liked this comment
My work here is done, I close my trusty laptop (It's a Mac by the way) and the bright blue light encompassing the room is replaced with blackness. Now I can rest peacefully alone knowing that I said what needed to be said. I've always prided myself on that ability, I'm relentlessly honest, a free spirit, a real provocateur. Rummaging through my blinds I can see some light peering through the clouds, It must be close to morning. If I'm lucky I might be able to squeeze a couple of hours of sleep out of this dry sponge of night. Good grief. I lie still, eyes closed staring at the back of my eyelids. Nothing. This continues for about two hours.

I open my eyes and find myself engulfed in a syrupy haze, thick and viscous. A little caffeine will do me good this morning I reckon, it'll get me through this upcoming drive, the same drive I've been making for 5 years now, I will clear this haze and ignite the day. The window is cracked open and through my blinds the sun seeps in. The heats continues to pour down on me like a glaze. Where's that drink? I left a 500 mL can of V (tm) The Energy Hit That Improves You a Bit! (tm). Bought for $3.50 on sale at 7 Eleven yesterday. What a bargain! There it is, right where I left it. The fridge hums and glows as the can sits there majestically like an idol, ready to be taken and drank. The nectar of the Gods.
*Crack psssh* The sound rings in my ear, I've heard it so many times. Orgasmic. The bubbles ignite my tongue, jumping around as I swill the liquid around my gullet. The doctor tells me to stop, 'heart rate this', 'blood sugar that'. What does he know? I need this to survive, without it I'm just living. A fate worse than death, or at least about the same. My heart starts pumping faster, an uncomfortable but necessary feeling as I jolt to attention. Caffeine used to work so much better, it's more of a dull jolt nowadays like an old car starting up. My doctor did mention that heart disease is the most deadly. People seem to think that the heart is a symbol of love and compassion but that's the thing they don't tell you about them, they will attack you at a moment's notice. It will seize you in your sleep without mercy.

How old is the protag? He's drinking energy drinks and making snarky entries in comment sections and yet he has a doctor warning him about heart disease. Do millennials go for regular physicals? Also, I would watch the metaphor follow-throughs; '... as the can sits there majestically like an idol, ready to be taken and drank. The nectar of the Gods.' Are idols meant to be taken down and drank? A comma after majestically might improve it. Otherwise, a compelling read, good descriptors of modernity.

I imagined him around mid to late 20s, it's good you bring that up though I'll try to be more consistent with the character as a whole.

Can someone let me know how I can punch up the humor here? I want to write more like Douglass Adams or Raymond Chandler but I'm seriously underskilled in that department

>“Sorry…” she petered out. There was so much she wanted to say, so much she wanted to ask but she could feel her heart pounding to rush what little was left of her blood into her face. Her spine felt like jello and it was all she could do to remain upright.

>“Did you just pee on m-” he started. “Holy fricking cra-” the tray hit the ground with a clatter as Remy wheeled backwards. He was soaked from the knees down and was only just noticing the bloody hole in her shoe that seemed to be leaking faster every second.

>“Oh god,” he breathed. It took him only a moment to pry her shoe off, but now his hands were shaking several inches from her blood-soaked socks as if he were trying to remove them with telekinesis.

>Vaguely conscious she was going to bleed out of she didn't do it for him, Eve started rolling them down, but before the fabric was even past her heel Remy turned away, making gasping, choking noises like a house cat that was moments away from giving the carpet a new wig.

>“Are you okay?” she asked, painfully aware of the irony. She was having trouble focusing her eyes but, but as Remy glanced back at her over his shoulder she could make out enough to tell that his face had turned redder than her sock had.

>“Bare ankles,” he whispered, trembling as if he were having a religious experience. “Dear penthouse, I never dreamed this would happen to me…”

>“Focus!” Eve groaned. Somebody had set the room to tumble dry and even forming words was becoming difficult.

>“Right. Sorry. Okay, tourniquet. I need something to tie off your foot and stop the bleeding. Where can I find… Sock, I need your other sock!” The second shoe came off faster than the first but she could still vaguely feel her foot shaking as he tried to take her sock off without touching her. She could feel herself drifting off now, and with all the aches and wounds and dirty clothes she couldn't remember a bed feeling more inviting than the cot she was laying on right now. Giving in, she slipped into unconsciousness, this time for a much longer rest.

I wouldn't know, perhaps by experiment with sentence length and putting in more jumpy prose. Punchlines?

I'm probably not ready.

bump

A good start and I like the tone. The character seems rather paranoid and overly formal, intentional?

tear me a new one. this is the first page of what i'm working on & the project is my first serious attempt at fiction writing.

The two woke up on the floor, heads pounding. To the beat of movement outside the room both pairs of eyes inched open to a spinning world. Slowly, careful to avoid upsetting already upset stomachs, they rolled to face each other.
The man said, “Hi.” His voice was low and grave with sleep.
“Morning,” said the woman.
“What time is it?”
The woman paused, exhaled. She rolled over, groaning a bit as she did so, to turn on her phone. “8:12,” came the reply.
“Jesus Christ,” and the man turned away from her as she hurled herself parallel to the floor once again.
The movement outside the room had ceased but the sun glared in through white curtains, a presence which was overwhelming and inescapable. In no short time the pair brought themselves to a seated position and began to survey the damage. Bedspread strewn across the floor where they had slept. Cups, glasses, bowls, and silverware, all dirty. An ashtray that had thankfully not been knocked over in the night, and shoes. The man reached for a pouch of tobacco near to him and rolled a cigarette with trembling, tired fingers. The woman grabbed the night’s liquor bottle for inspection; it was nearly empty.
“Jesus, Al,” she said. Smirking: “This was mostly you, you know.”
“Bullshit.” Al’s eyes lit up in good humor. “If that was mostly me I would have fallen asleep on the toilet by 3.”
“That is totally untrue. You were just pacing yourself for once.”
“Okay,” he said. “Explain to me then, how I feel fine right now.” Al did not feel fine.
The woman scoffed and got up to make the morning’s coffee. Al lit his cigarette, haggard, plump in the middle with a thin pinched end. It succeeded in making him feel worse than he already did and he quickly set it down and arose to meet the woman in the kitchen, staggering as he did so.

Good prose, waking up cliche aside It seems solid so far. Start on the plot.

the waking up cliche is something i intend to edit out when i finish, i just had to get everything started. thank you on the prose, that was my primary concern.

He was part of the hallucination generation, from a netheregional “place” in which tele becomes established, crackling and fizzling across time and space. Sirens broke through the rushing wind and Jimmy fell back against his chair, eyes buried in furrowed brow. When he unblinked, the high tide was gone, but the rear-view mirror was still no good because flashes of red and blue lights dripped from its frame onto his lap, staining his jeans. Jimmy wiped his leg with one hand, regretfully putting the other on the wheel. Tangled tarmac rose and fell, but gentle and without break, becoming like white waterlit dunes. He glanced behind him and moaned, sensing brighter flashes and seeing a wild elephant lumber away from a four-wheeled game-chaser, pounding ferocious clumsy rage, and Jimmy muttered “fuck,” and then, “no…” because even he had the instinctual animalistic bliss. “Remember…” hunter and prey both enjoy the thrill of the chase, with no thought to twist the passionate terror into worry or regret. Jimmy and the Lawman enacted the same natural hunt, their humane, self-conscious passions of shame and ambition were not a blockage to the bliss but, with the sweat bands forming on the edge of Jimmy’s nose, simply another part of its being. He activated warning lights and eased on the brakes. In the side-view mirror the police car grew and then slowed. Before long, Jimmy’s Kingswood was parked alongside a sun scorched highway. From the driver’s seat, he looked calmly into the eyes of a fifty-something Government agent, who stared back with severe nonchalance. “Thank God you’re here,” Jimmy lumbered, “I’m lost,” and the policeman was quietly taken aback, but quickly recovered. He made a slow show of peering both ways down the long stretch of road, which cut impenetrable raw bushland in a clean slash, and then said, “It only goes in two directions."

“Oh great” said Jimmy, "thanks," but his agreeable countenance met with a scowl. The policeman peered down the driver’s side window into the spill of trinkets piled over Jimmy’s ankles. “Get out of the car,” he ordered. Jimmy gulped, sensing tension rise like the edge of a highway, “I can’t…” he said, faltering, “…without my cane,” and hunched over himself to search the mess at his feet.

Been having a really bad case of depression and writer's block. Trying to slowly get my way out of it, but I don't know if it's worth going anywhere with it or just view it as nonsense sketches. Any good?


The thing that most repulsed me about Dayna is that she would brush her teeth in her underwear, and emerge from the bathroom speckled in white. Each little dot marred her skin so that--when she leaned to talk about whatever it was she felt important to relay at that time--I could not follow her for want of passing a facecloth over her forearms, her collarbones, even the line of her jaw. She reduced me to cat-like behaviour, and, like a cat, I would leave and stay gone without telling her where or for how long.

The morning she lost her job, I remember seeing a white feather waft past our window. It was one of those ugly things discarded by the pigeons who lived on our roof, and that, coupled with the raspy crying she was emitting, made me so disgusted I had to pour a drink just to mask the taste of rising bile. Naturally, Dayna only shrieked louder. I made her a glass, too, and left it for her on the counter, but she didn't want it. She probably wanted me to hold her, tell her we would figure it out, and that she was pretty, and smart, and talented, and that this was just a setback. I probably could have, but we both knew she was lazy. Her sloppiness got her sacked, and the toothpaste stain she had on her chest made me loath to touch her.

Paragraph 2
>Before I could continue...
You've already established going through boxes in paragraph 1, maybe a better way of putting it/jumping into the action would be something like
>My search was interrupted by a soft tapping from my apartment door...
I would also replace "light" with "soft" because I originally read it as "repeated light" like some kind of S.O.S morse code signal from a flashlight, rather than "light" as in volume/intensity.

>I felt a strange sinking feeling in my chest followed by fear
A bit cliche maybe. Also may be a good idea to avoid "I felt", and just go straight into it. (The man felt angry vs the man clenched his fists and shouted).
>apartment door as my breath went with the familiar twang of fear.

>I felt... it only lasts... goes back... not expecting
Verb tenses need tightening up.

>before opening...
I'm sure there's a term for what I'm trying to say, but essentially it makes the writing more heavy and passive to list what a character does in sequence. For more direct, punchy, action-y writing try to limit your use of this. It also makes it sound like you -have- opened the door, which isn't the case.
>As the tapping turned to knocking, I looked through [not thru] the peephole only to find the gaunt figure of the landlord's husband waiting. His receding hairline made him look pallid and impatient, as he whistled and checked his wristwatch while I worked the latch from the other side.

>I nod my head
Nodded. Again verb tenses.

>To whom I can speak with
To whom I can speak, or whom I can speak with.

>I told him straining
This seems off. Maybe swap "told" for "asked"/"requested" and put a comma before straining.

>jean's
Jeans'

>I grab
grabbed. Verb tenses.

>whom I am working with mutual goals
with whom I am working for mutual goals

>I return it to him
returned

There's a few more points but I'm weary of post length so I'll stop there. It's good, it's intriguing, but be mindful of repetition and passive language as it ultimately bogs down the piece. Be ruthless, cut down anything that doesn't immediately offer anything, otherwise it's just filler.

Has potential but the events ran too jagged. You need to smoothen it out a bit more friendo? The events and ideas keep changing to fast without further elaboration.

Also, what genre is this?

Thanks for reminding me why I don't read fiction. What abysmal, meandering fluff. It's like reading a day in the life of someone so overlookably average that no one would think to even chronicle them in story. And then someone did, and the story was so palpably disinteresting thag even the author succumbed to depression while writing it.

To relieve your writers block you might as well Shift+DEL the file that contains this text. It's better for you to start over unconstrained by your current premise.

>comments 4 comments

All Aboard The Hyperreality Tour flew straight through the sides of probable universes and came back numb. Earths sent Gships to identical realities. Blone’s stream had a spat with its media. City buses gathered outside Gelepo. Memos asked to arm tactical nuclear weapons. Parliament was not adjourned. At universities, anti-universalization protesters were dispersed with microwave beams, dosed with aerosolized calming gases then beaten with batons. Throx prices went up with grinning anticipation for the weekend.
On Wednesday hours before midnight, on a foliage covered hill in the SubCon, Captain Roky of the 313rd Insurgent Air Defense Brigade, was squatting under a camouflage cover as he slapped a screen of his S-343 Zava radar guided surface to air missile platform. He peered, squinting at the what the sensors saw. Two small dots flying 6,000 meters above and on the other side of Gelepo province. Sergeant Milsevic shrugged and said, “looks like some tennis balls Captain, probably interference or birds.”
“Those are not tennis balls, those are planes.”
“I don’t understand comrade captain.”
“Government stealth planes, those signatures are going to City. Look at the online flight manifests, two lanes are kept open for a landing, but no planes logged. We saw the same signatures come from there a few hours ago.”
“How can we know?”
“Shoot at them, four missiles, manual control in and thermal when we close.”
“How are we going to explain this to HQ?”
“We tell them tennis balls can’t fly.”

This reminds me of an awful hangover I had last week. Which means you can elicit feeling in the reader, even if it makes me wanna barf. Good work.

Do go on.

I would've added more detail, but I spitballed this just now.


I stepped into Barbara's "house" with grains of those chalk white lines I had inhaled earlier lining my stubble.
She was wearing her usual collage of fabrics that, in an act of synergy, realized a crooked state of being a dress.
I watched her knuckles shiver in their grip of a wooden spoon stirring in a silver saucepan on her stove.
Barbara.
That mess I drooled over when semen and pubic hairs were still an excitedly welcomed foreign product in my body.
"Barbara."
Her upper body snapped backwards to look, and there, with eyelids failing me and a brain cell or more rattling with white, I became drenched in feeling.
"I just came by to see how this project of yours is going. Do you have a better idea what it's like to be a poor girl now?"
Her paint smeared teeth dulled any light that cared to reflect on her smile.
"Maybe a bit, but baby, what'd I say about rushin' art?"
"I know, I know, 'It ain't perfect 'til my gut and brains say so.'"
"Exactly. Now get that damned poison offa your mustache there and come have some dinner."
I smeared my crumbs of coke off of my face with the back of my hand.
"So what are we having?"
She clicked the stove off and lifted the saucepan; brought it to my nostrils.
"Motor oil," she said.
This screenplay of hers better bring us plenty of goddamn green.

I think there's promise her. It's impossible to know how effective this bit is without knowing the context. If the entire story is just him bitching about the inadequacies of his GF then it would be a slog to get through. However, if this is a man spiraling into something much worse, that he's a sociopath, then I would be keen on reading more.

It was daytime, and you were sleeping. Think back to when you were sleeping during day. So, this sleep you slept was a slumber since they're synonyms. Keep thinking about sleep, nigga, keep on thinking, you nigga, especially refreshing sleep. Thinking about unrefreshing sleep would be worthless to you, because if you were to think of unrefreshing sleep you'd be wasting precious life time. You're wasting your time reading this crap. Sleep on, sleep on, sleep. On your stomach. WOOHOO. Farts sometimes while you sleep slip out. Keep reading, man, because that's what I demand of you. Pay no attention to how the fart sentence doesn't belong. You don't belong as Being who reads This Opening Paragraph; so, now I'm going to end a sentence with a period even though that's the standard rule for ending a sentence

.

I like how your piece starts off with minimal description, sluggish almost, which fits the physical states of the characters. Very few metaphors and you don't describe the colour of the bedspread, how big the room is, whether her phone is a Samsung Galaxy or iphone 5s...etc, This keeps me in the game and you can focus on story, message, the important stuff. I'm not a fan of bloated narrative. Let the reader do their job of filling in the details. It's good. Flesh it out, keep it going.

>Farts sometimes while you sleep slip out.

Farts, sometimes while you sleep, slip out.

Fuck yeah, I like it. Call me old fashioned, but I'd have wanted just a LITTLE bit more description of the voices/tones during the back and forth of dialogue. Not too much, not for every line, but just a bit more of a sense of what kind of attitude these two have in their exchange.

This sentence sounds fucking amazing phonetically.

Last thread died before anyone could crit mine:

Before she had wore short skirts and high heels that drew attention to her well-turned calves and smooth, pale legs or low cut dresses that showed off her lacy bra and medium-sized, firm breasts. Now, in high necked gowns and flat shoes she had a different kind of beauty. More mysterious and less slutty, knowing to keep her body hidden like a privately owned work of art instead of showing her contours and curves off like graffiti, desperate to be noticed by the crowds. She was once a promiscous girl, now she was an elegant woman. She looked nothing like herself, and so could live anew if she wished.

>tele
?
>When he unblinked
I'd personally say 'opened his eyes' - unblinked isn't a word, is it?
I would like to read more, I like it so far. What inspired you?

You could delete the first paragraph and I think it would be a better opening. Throwing out Throx and GShips feels like world building without consideration of pacing. In a way it reminds me of Dune's melange, CHOAM, crysknife etc but rushed.
>
>“I don’t understand comrade captain.”
Pick one, unless everyone is going to speak like that.
>tennis balls
It seems contrived that Miselvic would see them as tennis balls, like you though of "tennis ball don't fly" and made the story fit the quote, not the other way round. Maybe I am missing something.
>those signatures are going to City
Is City a placename?
Not the worst thing I've read. I agree with about more tone description. More characterisation overall would be good too.

>She was wearing her usual collage of fabrics that, in an act of synergy, realized a crooked state of being a dress.
I like this line a lot.
>That mess I drooled over when semen and pubic hairs were still an excitedly welcomed foreign product in my body.
He's putting semen and hairs inside him?
What is this about?

It definitely has a sibilance to be appreciated.

Alright here it goes...

>In my first year chemistry class in college, the was a girl that sat right to the left of me who looked sorta like my first girlfriend I had in like the 7th grade and there was a guy that sat two seats to the left of me, so on her left. I was an odd bird back then, I didn't really care for talking to anyone, and I probably felt like I just really wanted an A in that damn class and chitchat wasn't going to get in my way. So I would smile at the girl that sat next to me, and whoever that was that sat to the right of me (he hardly showed up so it didn't really matter), and that guy that sat two to my left, the class would end, and I would walk out without saying a word. Over the course of the semester, the girl and the guy started talking to each other about television series and their favorite foods and the tiny things that ticked them off. Obviously, they weren't talking during the lectures, but before and afterwords they talked it up. I was really too busy to notice anyways because this class got out at eleven in the morning when the lunch line started filling up, and I had a class from one to three. One day I filled into the class slightly late and I noticed they were holding hands under the table. Huh. This was the day before thanksgiving weekend, by the time I got back, I saw them walking together everywhere now, arm in arm like a 30s movie. But one day I got to class, and they weren't holding hands. In fact, they walked out the door without having said a word to each other. Then came the day of the final. The girl was sitting in my chair. She turned to me and said.

>"user, can we switch seats?"

>I understood what she meant. The guy did come in, and I sort of swiveled around to look at him when he was walking in and taking his coat off. He sort of just stared at us for a while, and then he sat down in his same old seat. We took the final, and everyone walked out of class into the winter.

Working on my grammar:

Many a times I’ve been gifted with the visions which now have come into fruition and constantly I’ve held belief in them to be credible, despite the general skepticism with which people aggravatingly chastised me with. Oh, how they deplored me and with impertinence sought to disregard my visions as a madman’s tale. And of course, a great pity to me that although my forbearance in the matter deserves laudable commendation, I am neglected still even though the events which I have envisioned have been brought to life.
Now, a couple moons ago, visions were graced upon me with which I saw the final destruction of all matters of life. This presage, I knew came to me so that I could warn my fellow man of the oncoming ragnarok. The vision impressed onto me that the Earth of ours was no Gaea but rather a celestial power of its own inherent being. As according to Darwinian theories, our Earth strives for the survival of its species, and thus desires recreation with an indifference to what vivacious activity proliferates on its being. In my humor I admit that people who claim that humans are of semblance to viruses are correct in a certain sense as we are just organisms mingling in the body of the Earth. Enough with the initial introduction and apologies for my unappreciated tangent.
I warned them. Really I did. I foretold about the giant monolith which those insatiable men of science are currently scrutinizing. In my visions… I tell you in my visions! Oh, proper apologies for my excited mannerisms, but you must forgive dear me but I believe this to be the propensity of those who had hindsight in a grand scheme in which the odds were astronomically stacked against. To continue, in my visions, a giant earthly structure rose out of the depths of the water, with water sliding off and cascading back into the ocean, and it stood erect accusingly at the heavens.

Thanks a lot for reading. I was hoping somebody would enjoy that line about the dress in particular. And what I meant was puberty. He realized his attraction to her when he went through puberty, hence the semen and pubic hairs.

"Slutty" smashes the tone you had going

Feel free to reciprocate. Your explanation may be perhaps too esoteric but if that is your style then power to you.

You're right, desperate is a much more fitting word.

>Before she had wore short skirts and high heels that drew attention to her well-turned calves and smooth, pale legs or low cut dresses that showed off her lacy bra and medium-sized, firm breasts. Now, in high necked gowns and flat shoes she had a different kind of beauty. More mysterious and less slutty, knowing to keep her body hidden like a privately owned work of art instead of showing her contours and curves off like graffiti, desperate to be noticed by the crowds. She was once a promiscous girl, now she was an elegant woman. She looked nothing like herself, and so could live anew if she wished.

You commented on of mine, a few notes:
lose "less slutty", like the other poster said.

lose the graffiti metaphor

think about replacing "promiscuous" It would read better to said, "she was once a girl, now a woman."

Might want to cut "if she wished", the "so" and "could" is effective enough at showing that possibility.

Thanks for the comment,
I have to run through the whole thing and be more descriptive when it comes to dialog, hard to know how much is too much though.

Holy shit—get yr grammar down before bothering anyone w/this crap.

“Wheretofore, upon a viewing and analysis of these specific files, we determined that the plaintiff is nullified.”
“It's not true! Those files were hyperbolically sealed!”
Now: thoughts blown in paper skins out the seaward window into a deep azure band of the spiral galaxy. Transparent mirrorclear scrutinizers scan and analyze them for vandalizing document modifications. No human meddling is uncovered, only secret symptoms of viral infection. Black. Right in the spine of the matter. No positive action toward anything; just a sinking slowly and furiously into a big murk. This type of power needles straight into the brainstem and electrically starves the powerful lobe folds which silently hum to a stop. You suddenly run to the dark in a feint. You've crashed to a halt in a heap of crackling fuzz. Haze of inncence shooting from the room in a hurry as the cold swells back into primeval place – nothing between the cold in here and the cold out there. A short metrical climb up one ladder rung to the next and you have woken up finally with an unease as though your body had left you behind in an arctic wasteland of phenomenal vacuum without warning and returned too late.

>
>chalk white lines I had inhaled earlier

Just say cocaine or speed or whatever.

I just wrote to a writing prompt on leddit that read:

[WP] Several hipsters have tangled their man buns forming a rarely seen"Hipster King". What is their story?

My response:

It was okay to be a part of the Hipster King, I guess.

We were on that rag the local news, and later on that show of charlatans, sock-puppets for the corporate elite, the Nightly National. To be honest, I thought Hipster Kings were beyond overrated. I had heard about them long before just about anyone else who was a part of this one had, and though I might have feigned excitement about it all for a moment, it was just that: entirely feigned.

My buddy Ray, whose hair had also insinuated itself into the fabric and fibre of the body of the Hipster King, that regal Dismisser of Big-Box Stores, that stately Commander in Chief of Scoffing at Fools Swayed by Social Media-Based Misinformation, was like, "This is unprecedented."

I was like: "No, man. The precedents are almost too numerous to even bother mentioning. Read Lawrence Valleyworth's "A Crown of Cassava: How Early Hipster Kings Introduced the Nutritious South American Root to Southern California." He traces the evolution of Hipster Kings all the way back to the proto-Hipster Kings of middle nineteenth Century Denmark."

"I knew that," he scoffed. "I read Valleyworth before he'd even published his book."

"That must have been on his blog "The Verbose Vegan"."

"Yeah," said Ray, with a superior's indifference. "And other places too."

The thing about Hipster Kings is that they are inherently unstable. The Hipster King is of course the monstrous unity of a number of individual hipsters' bodies, man-buns, plaid shirts, rare Japanese shoes, hand-crafted leather book-bags, and dog-eared and highlighted copies of Derrida's "Of Grammatology." The salient point here is that the Hipster King is a *unity* of a number of *individual hipsters*. But the individual hipster by his very nature hates being a part of a definable group, hates being lumped together as a uniform type, hates being likened to other, individual hipsters, as if they all shared something fundamental in common.

As soon as we realized what we had become, we set to untangling our hairs and disassembling the royal personage we had collectively instantiated. Then we shuffled off to our own, particular pet ethnic restaurants, each in an area sheltered white suburbanites would problematically call "a dangerous part of town." We continued where we left off in Derrida as we waited for our meals to arrive.

(continued below)

When we spoke about the event at all, we spoke as if it had not even been we ourselves who had comprised the Hipster King. We spoke about the people involved as if they were characters in some story we'd read in the Huffington Post, as if it had all happened to somebody else, in some other, typical, Middle-American city. Some involved even called the news stations to ask that their faces, as well as their unique and therefore identifying hemp bracelets, be blurred out, so that they might retain their anonymity.

But I have a secret to confide in you, dear reader. Something I am willing to confess in large part because I believe I shall be the only one to mention it out of the group (I would loathe to find out later that I had the exact same inner, personal experiences as any of the other so-called hipsters with whom I made up the Hipster King--I am far too distinct an individual for that). My secret is this: it was deeply rewarding, in a way that you, not so solitary as I, with not so choice and discerning a spirit as I have, likely cannot understand: to be a part of something bigger; to have, for one blissful moment been one with other people; to have been connected, unified, and not so utterly, despairingly, alone.

But overall it was hardly worth mentioning. Hardly worth bringing up now, though I felt sentimentally impelled to.

I really like this, actually. Keep up the good work!

your grammar is bad but your voice is worse. drop the pretense.

Quick question. Should I rewrite only the sentences you mention or everything?

Thanks!

For the record, the cartoony dialogue is intentional. I want the characters to be memorable

>“So let me get this straight,” Nicolai said when her story was done, “you got lost in an unseen garden, inhaled a bottle of one of the rarest substances known to man, chased after a dangerous cryptid that killed you nine hundred and ninety-nine times in a matter of minutes and then jumped through a third-story plate-glass window with a half-eaten foot because a piece of paper scribbled on by an anonymous individual – who for all we know could have been the witch with a vendetta against your bloodline – told you it seemed like a swell idea?”

>“Uh...”

>“Well, I'm convinced. Rachel, get that kid back in here and give him a nickel for his troubles. Also, let him know that yesterday's coming out of his sick leave so he'd better try to avoid getting the Spanish flu. Now if you'll excuse me I've got an act to set up. See ya around kid!” With a flutter of his cape he was out the door. Before she could breathe a sight of relief Nick popped his head back in to get the last word in.

>“Almost forgot! You'll be starting for real this time at tonight's running show. From here on out you're going to have a chaperone watching you 24/7 until I'm convinced that you're not going to get yourself killed. If I were you I'd hurry up, because with your face like all that you're gonna' need some makeup and as with all things you can't have it both good and fast. Toodles!”

It's well written, and the writing style syncs up perfectly, but your issue is the framing. It's too tongue-in-cheek for something that's already patently ridiculous. Your narrator needs a lack of self-awareness for this to be funny. You can't laugh at someone who's laughing at himself

It's a lot of information unloaded all at once for the reader to get a feel for the characters, but it's zany and high energy and engaging. If it is mid-way through the story then I'm sure the reader is already situated so as to be able to follow who is saying what and why without much pause. If not, I'd linger for a moment and explain where the two are, who they are (even if only in a sentence or two) to ground the reader a bit before/during this flurried exchange. Overall very readable and engaging, though!

Thanks for reading mine. You're probably right. Rewriting it in the third person would probably make it easier to laugh at the protagonist.

To think, the next Vlad Nab, the next Joyce, could be posting on this very board.

>I would like to read more, I like it so far. What inspired you?
Thanks user. It's a novel that encompasses everything Veeky Forums cringes about that I've been writing for the last 10 years. Here's another piece:

“No,” the policeman started – but Jimmy maneuvered his hands to the window, holding the pole, which turned out to be the bottom half of a crudely broken fishing rod, rusty rings snagged with pieces of grass and dirt. “Times are tough,” Jimmy said, grabbing the fishing pole tightly with both hands and launching the snapped, jagged end of the stick upwards through the window, digging with great speed into the top right slope of the policeman’s forehead, flicking red specks across blue sky. Jimmy howled. The stunned officer pulled the rod from Jimmy’s grip and staggered backwards. Jimmy twisted the keys clockwise as the sun pulsed, covering his eyes as the policeman stumbled away from the car emitting guttural growls laced with insectoid clicking, silhouetted by bright flashes of red and blue lights, spinning circular throbs. Suddenly unable to draw air into his lungs, Jimmy convulsed into a violent coughing fit, wheezing frantic tremors, eyes squeezed tightly closed, a sickening panic simmering the bottom of his bowels and his foot pressing decisively on the accelerator.

General writing question:

So I'm starting my first... writing thing (I wouldn't call it a novel, and I don't know if I want it to be a short story), and right now it feels like I'm in a writing freeform purgatory. Is it good practice to commit to an idea or is it common to just let things develop as one writes? I'm literally just making shit up as I go along and seeing what happens/what ideas come to mind.

I wouldn't recommend you to write as you go along, it is better to plan it all. That way you can foreshadow stuff, have a non linear narrative, that kind of thing. Although it might work for you, idk

I am writing a little 40 page story called "I knew all but nothing about my parents". I would like some feedback on this little passage I wrote towards the end.

>Upon the wall, surrounded by photos of his wife and children, cutouts of Sunday morning comics, photos of himself in various exotic locales and his framed diploma from the State’s flagship university where he worked, was a portrait of a girl. There was a portrait of a girl on a half folded piece of paper stapled to the wall, with two dates under it, a beginning and ending less than two decades apart, and the words “In the loving memory off..”. When I was called to stand in there for one reason or another, I would look at the girl in the photo. The printed photograph had been weathered by time, and the colors were faded by creases and sunspots. One day when we were both sitting down finishing up a conversation, I asked the man, “Tell me, Who is that Girl?”.

>“She came before you”

>“Ah. I see.”

>We sat silently for a while.

>“She reminds me of you, John”

>“What do you mean?”

>“You act the same, I mean, you have the same kind of personality… she reminds me of you”

>We sat in silence for a little while.

>I looked left to the portrait on the wall, and in a little time, I knew his words to be true. I could see it in the smile. That toothless grin we both held when I sat down for a photo just like she once did. We held our arms crossed, forearms barred, and lifted our eyebrows up but a bit to get a view of the camera, as if to appear like I didn’t care. Short hair, eyes, ears and nose: “I think I know what you are getting at Dr. Solomon, I think I know”. The girl in that photo was myself in a funhouse mirror.

>But far, far, clearer.

>Before I moved back east for school, and before I learned to tie my shoes (until the age of 11, I mainly wore velcro). Before I learned how to count, and before I spent my afternoons watching Blues Clues.

>Hell, it must have been before I was even born.

>The girl in the photograph stood right here. In this same building. Looking at the same photos on the wall and having the same sorts of conversations with the man who was seated before her.

>“Dr. Solomon, I will see you on Monday!”

>“On Tuesday, John. Remember my house is getting fumigated and I want to be there”

>“Sure. See you then.”

...

All the words are gross.

I looked up. It was my new locker neighbor.
She inched forward and motioned me aside. Slouching, she pressed against the door to glance the insides of the old library. I moved up against the wall and kicked some rocks around. I still didn’t know her name and she hadn’t asked for mine either. Maybe she didn’t care and maybe I was too shy to ask. I reflected on the size of the universe and how insignificant everything actually is. Perspective pushed me to speak.
I turned to her direction, “So what’s your n-“
“Shit!” she interjected as she pulled the front of her sweater away from her body in disgust. “What is this stain from? I literally just bought this sweater.”
I look over and pointed to the only clean spot on the door. “I think it’s just dust.”
She pulled the sweater off over her head and whipped it back and forth while simultaneously declaring she was a cowboy.
I tried not to roll my eyes. “What are you doing?”
She continued participating in her imaginary rodeo before releasing the sweater mid-swing. We watched it fall onto the top of a juvenile tree.
“Score, mothafucka!”
I was speechless, but yet had so many questions.

What do you mean user

Would appreciate any critique

electroniquecritique.wordpress.com/

The curse words just make the writing feel bad to read.

I've been attempting to write a dark fantasy novel, with one of the major themes being the blurring of the line between good and evil. For the world, imagine if Metro 2033's world degenerated into a medieval society.

My problem is that whenever I try and write everything seems too corny and happy. The interactions between characters are too happy and artificial. I was a child prodigy, which doesn't really mean dick and I want to delve back into writing. I'm not sure what to do to get a more realistic idea of interactions between characters.

R8

I wish it could be clearer
our mutual intentions
are we out here forever
or do we still need some lessons
Cause if it’s you I had a test in
I’m confident I’d ace it
your kiss is my crack
don’t even have to lace it
I mean lets just face it
it’s hard to look into the mirror
but I think I have the blueprint
I’ll set the speed and you steer
I just wish you were here
so we could set this thing straight
babe I don’t want to debate
no need to exacerbate
cause when I hold you in my arms
you inject ecstasy dear
no pain, no worries, no regrets, no fear
Is it not clear? I was made for you
and you were for me
you’re the water to my tree
and my seat belt is fastened
you’re the pearl to my oyster
my roller coaster of passion
we could sail into the sunset
and for eternity chill
forever and always,
yours truly,
Dyl

For it was not the drunken stupor that was talking, it was the lump in her throat hitherto submerged bursting from the seams.
“I’m scared” she whispered with a palpable uneasiness.
“Of what babe”
“Just scared”
“Why”
“Scared because… because I love you Caster, I love you so much” She softly bellowed, with tears starting to from in her eyes and in her voice.
“I love you because you make me feel like it’s worth it to get up in the mornings, I love you because how nice you are to me, and how special you make me feel and how warm and peaceful you are. But most of all, I love you because I’m home with you. You are my home, and I couldn’t stop loving you if I tried.”
Especially for a person who is easily perturbed by change, the experience of something new when unexpected is quite bemusing, and for Caster Banks, this was the first time that a significant other had divulged this type of information, and he didn’t know how he was supposed to feel let alone did he know how he actually felt. He did however, know that it didn’t matter what he said if he hesitated and held his tongue, as any girl who would throw herself that far out onto a limb would certainly retract her words instantaneously.
But out of this shock came a glimmer of truth, and, seemingly for once, Caster told it right away. Maybe he loved her, maybe he didn’t, he didn’t know for sure, but what he did truly love were the moments he spent with her, the late nights and eased pains, the waltz’s in the kitchen, the kisses in the rain, the smoothing affection and hours spent in bed, clutching each other in their arms as if holding on for dear life.
And as her bumbled, jumbled, honest gushing came to a close, he pulled her as tight as he could, nestled his face into her décolletage for a few comforting moments, pulled back and looked deep into this tormented woman’s exhausted eyes with the most sincere, beatific glance that one could give, and said
“Zora you’re the first to ever let me hold on this long, you’ve given me something I feel I’ve never truly felt, unconditional love. You’ve set me free Zora. I love you just as much as you do I, and I hope you never doubt that”. “I want to hold you until the end”.
For whatever else had bad or worse happened that night, this moment made it worth it ten times over. It was as if the previously unyielding gates of freedom had finally opened, the cloudy skies yielded to golden rays, and the demons, however rational they were that accompanied him there, had been washed away by the cleansing waves of euphoria and forgotten about. As he laid flat on the king, with his lover in arms and her head on his chest, he blissfully drifted away into a semi conscious half dream state…

I liked it, very intricate.

youtube.com/watch?v=U4Ue08j1PG8

Writing is a trial and error process. Never be afraid to revise something you've put down.

Please use punctuation. Don't ask other people to use their time when you clearly haven't contributed it yourself.

I liked it, very fresh seeming. She seems like a tomboy to me, and you have left much room for wiggling around her personification.

Good usage of grammar mechanics, the words flow well.

I'd read more.

--

“I thought I was rational, but I still only know what other people decide is acceptable. My emotions control me whether I listen to them or not, they are deep and powerful and their direction cannot be changed once they've chosen a path- and they twist my arm and use me for their own goals whether I serve in their army or fight in their freedom movement. The only form of protest I have left is to vanish, and hope they spend resources tracking me down.”

“I can't outsmart them. Not that I would even fucking want to. All I can do is ignore them. Go somewhere else, far away... Maybe to Free Siberia... Homestead in the bush for a while and get my mind off this. Not like I've ever helped anything by fighting, or can change any of it now.”

“I'm sorry for what part I had in it sir... honestly. They promised me-”

“I don't blame you for one instant, Alex. Honest. Lord knows she duped me, probably promised you cures for all the world's ails.”

“Sir... she promised me she would hypnotise or blackmail Two, to fall in love with you... So you could be happy.”

I was silent.

“We all knew; I don't know if she did... everyone was so bloody terrified of you that nobody would even breathe the wrong way, much less actually go up to you and rock the boat.”

“Oh, you were scared?”

“...you know you could have had almost any chick you wanted, ya' know? You would have been their Rasputin.”

“Don't remind me. Remember Yu? That day you nearly fucking died? She was all over me.” I exhaled quietly, my breath forming mist into the dark abyss off the deck. The sea almost perfectly calm, scarcely even a breeze audible.

“My regrets have no power over me if I ignore what could have been. It's a miracle I'm still alive after everything I've pulled.”

Silence followed for a good five minutes thereafter, gentle rocks coming forth as the autopilot held the course steady, maybe a 20 knot relatively leisurely pace.
Finally, my curiosity got the better of me.

“Where is she now?” My only question.
I got no answer. He probably didn't know.

“Not like she would have been right for me anyways. Wasn't she a pagan?”

“Something new-age like that. I hear the White Nationalists are big into it.”

“Fucking nutty indeed.”

virgin

>I'm anticipating some earth-shattering revelation to be perfectly honest senpai. The sea of exhaustion has subsided into an ocean of kneejerk reactionism. Emphasis on the jerk, but not the fun kind of jerk that I would be usually be doing around this hour.

this is really bad

Le helpful post my dude xDDDDD

A non virgin wouldn't get that mad

The man who sits across from us in the supermarket café sits alone in a tar stained Henley t-shirt and baggy, wide fitting jeans, timeless in their unfashionability. His neck is sinewy and each time he takes a gulp of his coffee, neck muscles tense and the wrinkled skin overlying their tendons stretches and the man’s neck becomes ropey and stringy. He sits alone and stares into nothing in particular, carrying the same stupefied look that possesses so many others in this town of mine. This town I love. This small post-industrial town in the north of England. This town of grey streets and grey slate roofs on rows upon rows of grey terraced houses. This crooked, sloping town surrounded by rolling green pastures, gentle hills and unexplored little forests, two opposing types of beauty, each separately improved and worsened for being so closely opposed. The beauty of the surrounding area, Godly and immediate, effortlessly inspiring belief in a natural order to the world. The beauty of the town not visually apparent but a beauty of spirit and feeling. A special kind of town that so easily breaks easy maxims that suggest life could ever be easy on every street and every house within it. A town that exposes the lives and actions of men as reactionary, somehow making it possible to see people with more and less empathy simultaneously. My town- full of abandonment and angst, endurance and resilience. The stupefied man finishes his coffee and sits alone with himself for a while longer.

Both, user. Set it up so that you can work on whatever you are most inspired to do. Follow what you are warmed up to, moment to moment. When you get large scale visions for the plot, write out plot ideas, when you get nitty gritty flashes, get them down. It is satisfying to come up with large plans and pull them together, it is equally satisfying to take yourself by surprise by immersing yourself in the process. There is no formula for everyone to follow. Unironically follow your heart.

"Is this Peter Sevy?" asked the grainy voice through the telephone.

"Yes," Pitou responded begrudgingly into the receiver.

"Peter, I know it's late," began the voice with concerning and wholly unconcerned urgency, "but an old friend really needs a favor right now."

"I don't who you are --," Pitou managed to let out before the voice had continued speaking.

"I'm on 7th and Lemon in Huntington, behind a yellow squareback."

"-- and I'm not sure you know who I am." Pitou never had many acquaintances, and a select few that could be considered old.

"You remember me, we both graduated from Escondido!" Pitou Sevy did graduate from Escondido. The voice spoke true. "They called me Arnie, remember?"

"I don't know," said Pitou, who vaguely recalled an Arnie that could have also been an Alfie or an Amy. Despite his doubt, Pitou reasoned that any past colleague who acknowledged his presence enough to remember him by chance was worth appeasing. "What do you want, exactly?" he asked, trying to demonstrate a feigned sense of control over the situation.

"7th and Lemon behind the squareback," the voice started, apparently satisfied with the response. "I just need a ride, real close. I can give you gas money but you're the last hope I got. Whaddya say?"

Pitou considered the idea briefly. For all he knew, Arnie was a complete stranger who never went to Escondido and possessed a frightening amount of information about him -- high school and phone number, to start. On top of that, Arnie seemed to speak under the assumption that Pitou lived in or near Huntington and that the destination would be "real close", which would mean he knew Pitou's location. But with nothing to wake up for the next day, and musing that if nothing else the ordeal would be a sort of memorable experience, which he felt deprived of, Pitou obliged. "Alright, uh, sure. I'll be there. Behind the squareback."

"7th and Lemon," said the voice with an audible, beaming grin. "Thanks, Peter. I always knew you were a guy who could be counted on if I ever --"

Pitou put down the receiver, rubbed the bridge of his nose with one hand and grabbed a pair of sneakers with the other.