ITT: Post your literary works, pastebins, google drive links or excerpts of your creative writing.
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Critique thread
Samuel Fisher
Juan Powell
Mason Kelly
I'll review the next one posted
Jace Cruz
are there any writing guides around?
Jordan James
On Writing by Steven King
Thomas Mitchell
Something I wrote a year or so ago. Reading the Pastebin file.
Did something just move? Or was it just a flicker from the blub casting yet another shadow on the wall. No…There were no shadows on this room, everything always looked the same. Yet, there was something different, he sensed just a slight shift in the universe.
He looked straight ahead for a moment. Nothing but yellow stared back at him. He could see each and every crack in the wall. Even just a small one was not enough to escape his all-seeing gaze. Then his eyes landed on a gigantic crater, how had it been created? Was it some comet that had smashed or was an operation to somehow reach the center of the earth? Perhaps it was the spot where someone had tried to hammer in a nail. Each crack and crevice had its own name as well as the residents who lived there. Then the all-seeing gaze passed over its domain and leaned its head back and blinked for only a second.
When he opened his eyes it was as if the universe had turned parallel defying the laws which it had set. It was the same yet so different. The yellow was much more concentrated his gaze could not spot any cracks or craters. Had the people of this universe truly taken so much? Perhaps not since all he could see were hills, mountains, and valleys. Had they had once a great war in which had changed them so much that now they had connected everything into beauty? Maybe they had applied a layer of paint just an inch too thick.
The man clutched his head, he could feel that the change had just ended.
Bentley Jones
Alright, I'm about a hundred lines in. Continuing to read as I write this and I've got a couple of things...
1) At some places, you give a certain accent to the narrator but then the narrator changes to someone who uses 'rad' and so on. Pick a narrator style and stick to it. Now, she seems like a chick.
2) Sam Harris? Always right? Really? That's too on the nose. Pick someone more obscure.
3) Exposition should be weaved into character dialogue and action as you did later on. Chapter one seem hamfisted.
4) Distinguish your characters more through dialogue and action. They're blending in with each other. Except Sam but I suspect that is because you're using a real-life template for him.
5) Character distinguishing features still seem ham-fisted. Although I cannot point out why.
6) "In his dream that he saw during the night – as he saw many dreams over the night, and as the scooters droned outside of the open window in the street –" What?
I'm guessing you like playing video games? Decent references. Nice descriptions, although you lack something I call the "Aha!" sentences which give pleasure from simply reading them. Out of time though, read till the end of Chapter 1. This is what I got, don't mean to sound overly critical and I may be wrong on some of these points but that's what I picked up. Hope it helps.
Blake Jones
Pretty psychedelic
Brody Lewis
Thank you? This one is pretty short, I'm writing a bunch of essays like these and this one is basically the template. Still, thanks.
Cameron Martinez
>Maybe they had applied a layer of paint just an inch too thick.
beautiful
Joshua Fisher
It's on Spanish and I'm not a translator, so I hope a hispanon helps me
Lo siguiente está escrito en madera de palma sobre unos escollos que miran hacia la cara norte del puerto de Santa Teresa. Y lo que dice es muy cierto. Y lo que dice es ésto:
«Compañero peatón, por favor y de buena gana dirige tu mirada en dirección al occidente, una vez hayas leído mis palabras.
Éste y no otro es el lugar donde se vio por última vez a Nicho albañil -así se le llamaba para distinguirlo de Nicho profesor-. Se cuenta que durante su último día con nosotros dijo: "Veo que lo único pedía a Dios fue atesorar mis recuerdos como si fuesen monedas en una alcancía"»
Leo Roberts
>pastebin.com
This really isn't for me. The narration alternates between attempting prose and settling into this weird colloquial tone that refers directly to the reader. This might be personal preference but I was put off by that. I don't like it when the author takes me out of the experience by trying to relate directly to me.
Nothing much to say about the writing or the characters. In the first chapter they take a hike through the mountains, then appear to barely survive a plane crash. And it's all very plodding and monotonous. The dialogue is strange, the character descriptions seem like they're trying to convince me of how boring and generic these characters are (which is not a good thing!) and I cannot relate to anyone at all. There seems to be a protagonist set up at the beginning but the story doesn't revolve around him, he's just as much of a non-entity as everyone else. From the way these people talk and interact with the world I'm not convinced that they're even human. Scratch one of them and I'm half convinced that they'd sag and puddle to the ground like a deflated balloon. Of course, at least a balloon would have helium in it, something other than the nothingness that infuses these people.
The thing is, I liked the twist. I liked that the main characters were sent off to another world at the beginning of the second chapter. I had a moment of hope that perhaps the first chapter had been boring on purpose to contrast against this new setting, and now that the main characters were in another world with a crystal city and a strange beach that maybe the pace would pick up, but...no. It didn't.
I gave up in the middle of the second chapter so perhaps from there this story turns into a thrill-ride or the next great American novel, but if it does I will never know.
Isaiah Gomez
It would make a nice anecdote for the start of act 3 or perhaps the ending of a melancholic novel.
Jackson Smith
Awesome review though, friend. You sound like an Amazon reviewer. So how many stars would you give your reading experience?
Oliver Sanders
Oh, why did you stop my dear brother? Keep reading! I skipped a few chapters and discovered this is a furry novel. With cat girls included.
Jordan Brown
I don't do long stuff, never liked novels but I would give a try to drama someday. This is the first thing I've written with which I'm somewhat satisfied
Grayson Bailey
>novel
>not play
Aaron Stewart
Wyatt Harris
Resposting aince nobody responded.
"Out across the city, the chorus of yellow taxicabs and turquoise trams roared against the concrete, yet in the Weston Café the only sound to be heard was the sweet, lightheaded humming of the bartender. Jerry was a brass-plated android, broad-shouldered and infatuated with the tunes of modern jazz. He said it was those “deep, carbonized notes that never came to a stop, twisting and turning til the world stopped breathing.” Every time I’d come in he’d be leaning against the fridge, eyes shut, singing to himself the latest single from Bluespace Blues. Journeying through space on a ship fueled by moonlight and wishes… yeah, Jerry desperately wanted to leave the Café. He hadn’t left in fifty years, bound to some corporate firm and forced to work until he couldn’t. But as long as he had his songs, Jerry was alright."
Zachary Wright
A robot longing to leave his job? Why not take Jerry for an adventure? Why won't the sounds from the streets carry to Weston Café? How loudly does Jerry hum his jazz or does jazz play at the coffee shop?
David Wright
>pastebin.com
This is free on amazon rn if someone wants to review it: amazon.com
If this is self advertisement or something then I'm sorry won't happen again. It's just boring how amazon customers never leave reviews, they just grab your book and won't bother reviewing but guess one should write better stories to get those or try different genres or something.
Connor Brown
Thanks user
I'll take the time to read it
Posting my work here once again
It's about 16000 words so bear with me
:drive.google.com
Liam Powell
I'll give it a read then.
David Kelly
OK I read it. Interesting and pomo.
Adrian Flores
Haha user what the fuck
You're the guy who wrote Misaki the Vampire Hunter
I hope your writing chops have improved significantly since then, if so, I congratulate you in advance
wagecucking now so I'll read the book later and give my thoughts on it properly
William Scott
U wagecucking? I'm sipping beer.
>You're the guy who wrote Misaki the Vampire Hunter
That's true. I'm borderline retarded which is probably why. But I guess the new story has less comma splices since I figured I'd try eliminating those as an exercise.
Brody Allen
10k words in and i think I finally understand what the hell ive been trying to get at with this novel. in any case, pretty happy with how things are coming.
Juan Price
I swear I didn't write this, but I thought you guys might get a kick out of critiquing it.
Before their was anything their was nothing, just void and but then a huge expansion of matter and universe, happen and then at some point stars start to form, and then they supernova and some formed black holes. But one point in the universe something new, happened black holes started to spin and then spin to each other and smash together and galaxy colliding together, and star smashing together supernova and then all at once this form a outline. This was a new being and new life form..these action then formed a body and their it was a creature that was born from cosmic events. Its eyes open and saw the universe from the first time and then looked down at it self and took the form of a sixteen year old white male human. As humans were not here yet he had to see them in the future. He said “Warlock, Warlock is my name”
Full story so far: docs.google.com /document/d/1gkkWaa-euxODKcmLt_FdtCj-JdCWJJ_0l2yziBDM9J0/edit
Ethan Torres
Robots are bound by laws, you see. They're slaves. I would explain that in the next paragraph if I were to continue. Are those questions asked in an interested manner, or are they more confused in a bad way? Thank you for responding, though.
This kind of sounds like an otaku bordering on the line of melodrama attempting to imitate a hemingway novel after realizing that he needs a wife. Charming in a way, but I felt the prose itself was awkward to read in general and highly cliched rather than profound. That's my take on it, anyway.
Juan Rivera
This is good. I think the sentence about being able to see his frame hidden should be reworded. You are also missing a possessive apostrophe in para. 5 and later on "conquer" should be "conquest". "Slow burn suicide" and "hooking up" are maybe a little a little too heavy on the linguistic whiplash what with the tone of the rest of it, but in general this is working for me.
My own rubbish follows.
Jeremiah Ward
The storeroom made for a warm but unlavish hideaway. Twenty square metres of cast-offs and spares lit by a pair of hundred watt bulbs which hung from the ceiling by naked wires. Most of the stuff there was furniture, some used some new, but here and there atop a pile of boxes were other odds and ends that Ala had stowed away for later - Allen keys, folders of receipts, even the occasional polystyrene corner piece thanks to which the room had the air of a collector's den, the nest of a magpie attracted to the colourless, the dry, and the convenient. The place was chaotically oversubscribed, whatever order the things had originally been stored in having been repeatedly disturbed by Ala's need to go fetch a piece from the back of the room and so shunt several other things aside.
After picking two seats off a stack of spare chairs they had made a little space by shifting some unused desks closer to the window. Everything one did up here meant dragging plastic over the scuffed wood of the floorboards. The cushions they sat on stayed in the suppliers' cellophane; Ala had her boots up on a cardboard crate once used for a delivery of shelf-brackets. Although none of these roof-space rooms were decorated they were all also dustless and truly, almost uncannily free of smell – a lot of the furniture still being wrapped in heavy plastics. Connie was glad to think that she now belonged to the very select group of people who had been allowed up here. Most of the staff had to do their business with Ala by phone or else on the verge of the roof-space's door.
After finding his wheely chair abruptly unwheelable Kevin had tried to have Mo the janitor fix it and when that turned out to be impossible he had rushed upstairs to bang on Ala's door and give her hell for wasting the company's money on cheap and defective brands. From the point of view of the staffers on fifth the drama consisted of Kevin going off red faced and fuming then returning to his desk with his jaw set, letting it be known that he'd given 'that woman' a piece of his mind. No wonder, Jen said, it hadn't taken long.
Anthony Thomas
Why not just write like you speak?
Brody Diaz
Thanks for the feedback. The "philosophy" here is intended to be charming, but sort of "lacking" - the main character is going to come to a better conclusion towards the end of the book. It is kind of awkward and cliche, i still havent found this characters "voice" as well as id like. id like to make it less so cliche and a little more compelling because id like to argue this guys points as though they are what the main character actually believes. trying to pull off a sort of BAP/"person who read beyond good and evil and really liked the idea of master morality" kind of thing with this character.
thanks user, will fix those. youre right about how some of those words are a little bit much. as for your writing, "here and there" followed by "odds and ends" doesnt sit well with me - two "x and y" type sayings one after the other. second sentence is a little bit run on and a bit over descriptive in my opinion, might shorten that up. otherwise, good writing, nice flow and pacing. moves well.
Josiah Martin
Agreed and appreciated, will change 'em.