/crit/

>rushes towards it like a moth (moths rush?)
>becomes slightly illuminated (after rushing? and this is sufficient to show me her entire character?)
I don't read screenplays much but this is odd to parse.

>amber reaches the source of light/it's a small hole, below
Was she not already there in the first paragraph? And how was this illuminating her? I was imagining moonlight coming through a hole in the roof until now.

>She becomes aware.
>She screams bloody murder.
well that's aware I suppose

>and slides herself away
she screams bloody murder and then smoothly slides away? Like slime, or...?

...and the boy doesn't scream until after?

Gets better from there onward, except I guess the way you use the word "bathes" is weird. I think you're displaying the right image, but it's implying some kind of temptation. Did you mean more like, she almost runs into it like a screen door, and then stops? Not that I'd write it that way, of course, but that wouldn't be tempting the way a bath is.

Generally I think the beginning assumes I have more information than I do, and that the word choice is weird.

Surfer's Lament

Today we put some new dirt into the ground next to a parking lot, because some other people had put the wrong kind of dirt there two days ago. That old dirt didn’t look right - it was the wrong color, consistency and most likely a few other things. This new dirt looked better, smelled better, and was - we all agreed - dirtier. A few days later, we planted trees in the new dirt next to the parking lot, and a few days after that, new trees to replace those ones because the wrong kind had been planted. Now, we stood and sat around on rocks next to the new trees and the new dirt, tired but glad that we wouldn’t have to do that again for a long time.
“That’s the thing with contractors,” said one guy, standing up from a big rock he had been sitting on, “they always mess it up every time.” I agreed that they did. “At least these trees are a lot better looking than those first ones,” and I agreed that they were.

When the day was over I called K and M to meet at the Chateau for revisions to The Work. In twenty five minutes I heard their cars pull up to the small house I lived in the basement of and parallel park beside the sidewalk before shuffling up the brick steps to the door of the little building. I heard the unlocked door creak open, and they came down the wooden stairs in the house which lead to the basement where I sat in a chair holding out an opened pack of cigarettes. They both took one and relaxed in worn out chairs around my table covered with stacks of books, papers, journals, pens and pencils and a few other things.
“I have some ideas tonight,” I said. I got up and walked on the grey hard floor between more stacks of books, crumpled wads of paper and miscellaneous scattered items of little importance to get to the wooden cupboard on the wall from which I withdrew three glasses and a bottle of Jameson. Now with each of us holding a glass of whiskey and a cigarette, we leaned forward with stoic devotion to continue The Work we had started about five years ago and will finish any day now, unless it takes the rest of our lives.

This.

...

pastebin.com/R43Zzmbp

Based.

>Autism
>phased, horrendous horror schlock
>Why would anyone want to read more
>some edgy kid

>>some edgy kid
Well I guess that's what its about

>phased, horrendous horror schlock
this isn't a video game

Phased is the wrong word.
It should have been fazed.

that's even less helpful, I wanna explore an idea of the afterlife and the 'go into the light' trope and just trying to setup an exciting hook, it's not primarily a horror by any means

Misleading the reader with a bait and switch isn't helpful either then.

I think you've misunderstood.
You need extreme proofreading of your writing.
That was only one egregious example.

why is it bait & switch? I don't see any major horror elements in the hook, I'm going for a dark, mysterious tone that sets up the world and challenges that are coming, maybe I should tone down her reactions at the start, eh?

The tentative idea is life after death is another struggle of its own, there will be more 'spirited' people that are trying to survive, as being outside of a lit environment long enough fades them into absolute nothingness and they're still not ready to give up. The light near a person is generated by the persons family in their remembrance of them, and the world she lives in now is a patchwork of environments that people have passed away in... the little boy in the opening died in the same hospital she did, but his family wasn't FAZED by it and he was supposed to fade out, it's just lucky he passed around the time she did so he's leaching off her light -- which in our case, it evolves into is Amber taking on a motherly role for the child

plot B, very tentative, is the girl's family and their struggle to come to terms of her untimely death, which might be hard to write in contrast to her current plight, but I have this scene where she's deal with some horrific stuff juxtaposed to them remembering something funny about her, and bright light keeps spawning to help her overcome

hows this sound, how's the hook working for ya now? appreciate

OH you mean phased in my script? yeah, nah, I suck at english, I'm a terrible academic, I'm working to improve that, I appropriate any advice for that but I'm most interested in story when I post for crit

bump, whatcha boys think: bin it or keep writing?

Whaddyall think of JETSTREAM farts? The ones you can whistle through, like PHWEEEEEEEEEEE. None of that BRAP shit. I need something I can fly on, kachoww!

I'm not sure about the quality of critique I'm gonna get here but I'm posting the first two stanzas of a poem I'm trying to write about aspects of the experience of being a male teenager (yeah, yeah, cringey I know). I'm pretty happy with the 'sound' of the first stanza at the very least.

I was the King of the clothes on the floor,
Czar of a cluttered closet,
Lord of the long nights,
Napoleon of a nutshell --
if I were feeling grand.

But what a reign it was,
(Rarely in the rain, sunny persecutions abound!)
in the bedroom, the bus, and the classroom --
but mostly in the bedroom, wielding my scepter
or closing my eyes and imagining I'm a specter.

>wielding my scepter
yeah, you did.

sudden rhymes feel odd for me personally. I like it either all rhymes or no rhymes. The theme is somewhat universal, while the style appears too ironic for my taste. I suppose the ending will be a "revelation" about you being a bum in your filth? All in all it's sweet.

Attached: wow you sure got him.gif (373x280, 1.91M)

Thanks for the input. I like the rhyme so I put it in but I see your point that it comes off a little disjointed in context. Maybe if the first stanza also had a rhyme at the end? Would it be a reasonable option, having two lines rhyme at the end of each stanza after the first? I intended the first stanza to stand apart a bit as an 'intro' so there's at least a reason to have all the others have two rhyming lines at the end and not it. I kind of like it that way, as it sounds a tad off kilter and clumsy like a teenager is. But if it sounds plan bad then I should change it.

Here was another stanza (unfinished, I probably need to add a fifth line) employing a rhyme in a similar fashion:

Story of the eye: twisted bitter wire then,
sleek black plastics, tinge of jaguar now --
A pair of spectacles I was never good at cleaning, in front of
groups of people I was never good at seeming.

With regards to irony/sincerity, do you know of any good poems (or prose) written from a teenage perspective that are sincere? I'm not sure what the proper literary term is but I just worry about sounding too cringey (even to myself).

Haven't thought of an ending yet, I was gonna ruminate more about experiences in school, etc. I might try to take the 'king' metaphor somewhere to a conclusion, like I get 'deposed' upon graduation/maturity, idk.

So to be clear it's an intentional masturbation metaphor. Did that come through? I don't really want it to be too obvious if only because I might want to show the poem to my family or something. I considered 'tugging my scepter' but that was a little on the nose.

you'll find a solution to the rhyming pattern. as in music, repetition justifies anything. so might try a rhyme every other stanza. and yes, the scepter metaphor came alright. a real smasher. it's worth finishing. many will relate to the feel.

Yeah, that sounds right. Praise emboldens me, I may post the larger poem later once I end it and make it coherent.

Attached: writing excerpt.png (790x322, 57K)

Posted it in a different thread that died earlier, this is about an old ghost buster trying to find a missing child in a forest.

pastebin.com/sbM3KUb9

Bump

nobody wants this thread, writers don't even want this thread, let it go

I liked the thread :)

>i like a thread full of pseuds who's only talent is grammar and nitpicking word choice
this shit is going to fuck up your writing

Reading bad amateur writing tells you what not to do at least. And I am a bad amateur writer so it's pretty helpful