Critique thread time. Remember to comment on the people who posted previously after you post yours

I feel like the comma between hides and perpetually breaks the rhythm. Also not sure I get the second line.

"Ponderance" is not a good word. The posthuman description is weird in that it is written in words and describes what words are. In general though I think the later paragraphs are more involving than the scene setting at the start. Then the race stuff, whatever you're up to there.

>goo lagoon!
What? Anyway, I like the first 8 lines fine aside from the tongue jabbing bit. Everything after the cup lost me.

Not quite as fulsomely shadowed as the stairwell, the top floor of the house had its own sort of gloom to offer to the boy. The open doors along its central corridor let light in, but the various stacked items in the storeroom, the shelves of the empty bedroom and the occasional buckets or cleaning tools leant against walls all cast long and mutant shadows in different directions across the bare and beaten floorboards. The crossing of the shadows gave it the feeling of a graveyard's grove.

There was something else though, another sort of light. That was why the shadows were so very long and so strange – they weren't only cast from outside. At the far end of the corridor, there on the left, was the always-closed door. The white one with the padlock. He could see an outline of the warning sign on its door, though the black and yellow were now indistinct. Light was creeping out from the bottom of its frame.

Something told him that the lock on the door would be gone. Unsure again of his footing, he began to step down the long central corridor, hands against the walls, fingertip tracing a diagonal path across the space's inside. A sidestep for a miniature crate, a second not to bump into a leaning broomstick. He waited for a sound, a click or a clack or only the rustle of another person's movement behind the door, even something as soft as the sound of fabric on fabric. The only sound came from his own breathing.

The boy came closer still, hearing nothing from beyond the door. It was warmer upstairs and his winter coat's collar seemed to press against his throat in a way that was no longer comfortable. He looked at the door, close enough to see that the heavy padlock really was missing, and for a second considered whether to knock or else politely cough. Could there be somebody behind it listening to his steps and holding their own breath? Was the light on for some other reason? He was close enough to make out the “!” on the warning sign and remembered that a symbol like that could be for electrical current – a current that was running right at this moment. He wasn't sure any more if the door had ever been sealed with a padlock. For the first time ever the boy had a sense for the building as something dangerous, coursing with deadly electrics - a place where the vents could suck the air away from him or the walls suddenly tilt inwards then crush him. The fear felt instinctive – like that of a child who sees its first spider or snake and remembers an ancestral distrust. He felt as if laying a hand on the door would be be the beginning of something unnameable. He paused, then turned and left the roof-space, telling himself on the way down that at least this way everything might stay unchanged.

strange how some critique threads last for a week receiving over 200 replies while most receive less than 30 and putter out in a few hours

Might be the semester starting, might have been me and a few others going on a reply spree

I will preface that I did not read this in full, because I have some serious questions/ concerns about the tone, and who the narrator is.
Your first two sentences are great. However, the following paragraph should, as a rule, relate more about the relationship between "Pop" and the narrator, but it doesn't do that.
Our narrator is a self-considered country boy, "no-good" and "rowdy," but the narrator then goes on to describe himself among the "most intellectual" of the bunch. Is the "Pop" character upset with the narrator's rowdiness, or his intellectualism?
More on to the tone itself: I do not know who this narrator is supposed to be. The first few lines are pretty good; the diction is simple and reinforces the idea that the narrator had a bucolic, American upbringing. That being said, the vocabulary further on does not reflect this. Words like "autumn" and "perhaps" should be replaced with terms like "fall" and "maybe" (and who the hell says "autumn night?" That should definitely be "a night in autumn" if not "a night in fall").
However, maybe you're trying to show that the narrator has outgrown his rustic origins (at least somewhat). Maybe he has realized himself as an intellectual, and is now trying to pursue in his words a "literary" tone. If that was your intention, I'd hate to say it, but I don't think it was executed very well. That's not to say that you can have one mood/voice transition into a new one as the character is shown to evolve, but here it is far too abrupt.

It’s first person and intentional. I’m creating a character not a setting. It’s raw and a first draft, but I’m unsure if u thought it was something different than it’s supposed to be.

I’m trying to create a character who can’t take on an identity leading to contradictions.

You don't get to fall of your skateboard and then call it "the faceplant" like it's a new trick. You can write about as many faceplants as you like, but the writing has to contribute something in the process. If I just wanted to read the half-baked opinions of some noncommittal author speaking through a, daresay, on-and-off pompous character, I've got the entirety of Yea Forums's catalog to read through instead.

That's great. I hope it works out for you. It didn't here.

>I have to tell it, I have to tell you
>About it, but I will tell you truthfully and with style!
>tell
>tell
>tell
>style
showing is more than just fashionable telling

Alright let me edit it and then repost.

Attached: writing excerpt.png (793x487, 77K)

>with each foot placed with
I have mixed feelings about how tight this double is, but I'm not confident just getting rid of one is better.

I'm seeing the three toes as something which happen after the taps, with them both being three just a coincidence.

Why the asterisk? Did you want to cut one of the things you ended on? You could, or not. Keeping the adjective outside the pair might help, but it might not be right with the words you have. I'm just trying to guess why it's there though. More importantly, I didn't like running into "but," only for you to introduce something not-so contradictory to the tone. "only" might be a softer way to redirect, while still being a redirection from the intentionless feathers.

Ethereal is a little much.

I still think you should end a line on Jason.

The wisp line has a lot of repetition due to the corner you painted yourself in with tense. Not that it's wrong. "passed" and "fast" sound weird like that, you could change the latter to "quickly." Alternatively, end the line on "view" so that I finish with the wall.

Consider leaving more to the imagination when Jason follows her in. You said "followed her," ending on her, instead of "followed her in," which would have ended on the exit, actually causing you to lose sight. "to catch up" at the end also feels like it's putting me outside the character's perspective, around the corner.

>out onto...
>into...
I would just go with onto/into, or have an auxiliary term in front of both of them and not just one, like "and into".

Next line is good. I look down at his feet then see him looking down at his feet with a runny nose, as he's trying to look on the bright side in a somewhat desperate kind of way.

What time is it? I was seeing a rather dark blue before-bed scene, which I thought went well with the character's emotions. Now it's actually morning, and late enough into it for J and the girl to be frolicking. Is this supposed to be an optimistic sunrise? But you go back to the bottle and water and nostrils. And then back to bright flowers. I'd rather you just had one gradual dial-turn if any at all.

I have mixed feelings about the ending. I don't resent it at all but you also shouldn't feel like you're obligated to leave it there. The rest can work on its own.

Thank you, you're a godsend. Implement most of your recommendations. Asterisk was because I wasn't sure about the word intention. Keeping the word ethereal because it's a POV and the character feels like she's vanishing from his little world. It's the morning sunrise.

>per say
It's "per se" you pretentious pseudo-intellectual.

It's very simple.
All it takes it one single dedicated person to keep it bumped.
Without that one dedicated person, it dies.

A farmer who lived in times way before cars or even trains and bicycles had probably got to live a simple life. He'd know the different tufts of grass along each path and the growing wrinkles in the skins of every tree. There might be a hill in sight that he'd never ever cross but would gaze at longingly. A hill with some more fields on the other side of it, that is, but the sight of the hill would be romantic just because he'd never seen them. What a life that would have been! Imagine if you worked in one place all your life long, slept with the sun every day and never had any good reason to travel further than the village a mile or two away. She reckoned that if some time-travel magician had gone and magicked her colleagues onto a farm like that they couldn't have handled it, but that this was a sort of education and training problem for modern people and not a basic human nature thing. People these days acted like a trip to Mallorca was a fundamental human right; they weren't equipped to stay still and just stay in the places where they were.

What she reckoned was that people who'd lived on farms way back when had been able to be happy without Mallorca. Not just that, those people had known something that people nowadays didn't know.

Everything was all about travel now. She knew that from dating website profile pages, of which the really interesting ones weren't the ones that men wrote, which were just written up versions of what men had always said to women who didn't know them – no, the interesting stuff had been other the women's profiles, because they showed her that loving travel had never been something they said to impress the likes of her but actually to impress boys. Before that, she had thought that travelling a lot was to show that you were rich and also sort of educated in this practical way which made you smarter than the sort of educated people who'd only got more education than you had. It turned out travel wasn't just a status boast, it was a sexiness boast. Travel meant that you were open minded. Which meant the same as being ready to betray what you'd known.

People who left their fields for the winter were the ones who didn't see. When you went away you lost something that was then gone forever, you lost how it felt to have always been in that place. Even most of the farmers way back then in the way back times probably didn't get it – they tried to go to the next village every chance they got even though they had this amazing opportunity to live their whole lives in the same field, if they'd tried to. To live in one place and to really know it, to see it as much as it could be seen in every weather and through every season – inside-out, that would have been something amazing.

Travel was hardly amazing. When she remembered her childhood holidays it felt like doing a geography test or some game where you'd memorised the photos people had taken of you. When she remembered places she had lived in, then she really remembered, she remembered from knowing, and it seemed like everyone else around her with their love of travel and finding these new fields in other places was running away from actually knowing where it was that they were.

She had set up her new apartment in a way that made it as much as possible like the old place. Her bed and furniture and alarm clocks were in the same positions that they'd been in her other flat, and even though the setup of the walls had stopped her from totally copying how stuff was laid out in every room, her new bedroom had the exact setup she'd wanted. She could wake up without that scary hotel feeling of not knowing if you're upside-down or not in the bed or even awake yet. The only change in her homelife since the move was that she was sleeping longer thanks to travelling less. Her duvet cover was the same pastel colour as the one she'd first masturbated under as a teen and, in some ways, after the chaos of her early twenties, she had returned to that time. She could wake up and look at her alarm clock's red digits, then switch it off at fifty-five seconds so as to wake up properly orientated. She could do it every day.

Brought to task, a hefty ask,
The cellophane rips.
I burped before the dinosaurs,
Came here ill-equipped—
So sudden the venture,
So adventurous the slip.

I had to hand it to her,
She whose naked eyes weep;
I tried to please the kingly court,
A jungle of tea unsteeped.
The senescent scene penetrates my dreams
And my soul lets out a peep,
“Woe was me, he who bleeds,
He who needs no longer things;
Hiding feet in roughshod reeds,
Riding images of the peak.”

Crises celebrated by bated breath,
A verse uniformly met,
With perfect crumbs of phantom’s depths,
The stores of solid’s love upset.
Can’t they stop the silly fray,
Beyond the curtain, past the grey,
From singing singeing electric pops,
Extinguished in that eternal day.

Black Lightning

Is what I am
Destructive, Spontaneous, Mercurial.
See, the furrows of my brow.
Hear them like the roar that warns of coming fury.
Watch out, that lightning might hit some fuel.
And there’s a lot of it lying around outside in the field these days.

And once we light it, I don’t know how we can put it out.

It’s a burning heat, the greed of the bushfire, he’s grown.
Not Young Spark, nor Tiny Flame, now I am
Old Man Fire!
And it’s beyond anyone’s control.
Rapacious, bottomless, purposeless, pointless

fire

It is I, yet I also burn.
Dare I douse the flame?
What will I be left with?
Black ash
And no more fuel.

>A farmer who lived in times way before cars or even trains and bicycles had probably got to live a simple life.

I think this can be rephrased to be more elegant, would remove way for sure and maybe trains and bicycles

>but would gaze at longingly.
cut that

>She reckoned
reasoned is better here I think

> Not just that, those people had known something that people nowadays didn't know.
change that to

> Not just that, those people had known something that people nowadays didn't.

>Her duvet cover was the same pastel colour as the one she'd first masturbated under as a teen

which color tho

I prefer this part, I think it's better written

I don't get it

I'm gonna do something different and instead rewrite this whole thing as I would like to see it written.
>"She took small deliberate steps, each foot placed with grace. Three taps on the tile, one, two, three, toes prodding the ceramic. A beautiful lightness in each pace, her feet settling on the ground like a falling feather, but with forethought and intention. She revealed a smile to him as she danced across the room, ethereal over the golden light spilling from the windows. I could feel my heart swell into my throat when I saw the flash of her freckled smile for Jason. I choked on my own longing, my own shame at my trespass to this intimacy undefiled. Then, like a wisp, she passed the proscenium of the dining room door, disappearing from view as fast as she had arrived. Motionless silence gripped at the space, and then Jason got up from the couch and made after her with his long, indelicate, strides. I tried to drink from my bottle, but the clot in my throat kept the spirit from me. My head pounded and pulsed. I exited through the kitchen and stumbled my way out onto the verandah. My feet were wet, soothed by the morning petrichor. Fern and fence, pangolin scaled monkey puzzle hidden under the sameside seabreeze, morning mists laid out like the splendor of a bouquet. My bottle was empty. I had not been chosen again. I could feel water climbing up my legs, and soon it would be up to my leaking nostrils. Pastel painted snap dragons flamed out from the damp. Hot streams misted off of my cheeks. I sobbed. So freely did I weep, that I gasped for air between heaves.
>"Women speaking in softer languages."

Overall, I really liked what you did here, user. Take a look at what I did with it and see if there's anything you like more, or anything you like less.
That last paragraph of yours... I think I know what you were trying to do, but I wouldn't go with it. What you have before it is just too dang good for it all to be bamboozled later on.
The only thing I have trouble with, which I think I kept in my revision because I didn't know how to deal with it, was the line "disappearing from view as fast as she had arrived." Deliberate steps, like the one the girl had been making, are very far from fast, so it didn't make much sense to me.
Good work. Keep it up.

oh woops, got ahead of myself with that "softer languages line." accidentally made the tense progressive. Should remain as it was in the present habitual.

Think of me more like a metal detector than someone who gives good suggestions. I'm a reader, so I van do that much, but I'm here, so I'm probably not a good writer. If I make a suggestion, it's more for the sake of communicating my perspective, and not for the sake of being actually taken. I don't want my words to look like a limit from which you can't deduce better from.

>Watch out, that lightning might hit some fuel.
This is has too much zazzle. Sounds like you're ending on an exclamation point, or snapping your fingers in a Z formation.

>around outside
>in the field
Were you afraid I was going to think of an indoor field? I mean it's possible, but I doubt anyone defaults to that, and you're already talking about lightning: the weather.

>now I am
>Old Man Fire!
This seems unintendedly pathetic:
youtu.be/cOaQzA971n4

Personally I saw a swarm of burning old people, fleeing a retirement home, combing the fields like... well, old people. Which isn't to say the image didn't hold up.

Mechs

pastebin.com/pKV99EHU

any criticism from last time I left unincorporated is likely just stuff I haven't gotten around to.

edited

Attached: Screen Shot 2019-09-06 at 12.31.42 PM.png (1014x654, 180K)

I say put "each foot placed gracefully, placed attentively". In some ways it conjures up each foot being placed, both forming a whole of "gracefully and attentively". My hack opinion.

Thanks user, I'll rephrase further, but this is a good start.

Fourth line isn't a sentence. It doesn't have to be, but it'd odd that you'd add an "of course" to split it off from the prior line, only to not let it stand on its own. It's like taking a shortcut that's longer.

A comma after "Football field" would make its line smoother I think.

"to pass the frequent vengeful moments in those study sessions" could be cut; it seems like it's taking over the purpose of the sentence, but sounds like an aside rather than the takeaway. Or if you want it to be the key point, then restructure everything around it instead. Otherwise it's a good line for making the speaker's country-attitude to be a bit of a ruse.

You could break the paragraph as you begin with the autumn night line. I'm just pointing out the option though.

Comma after "afternoon," or maybe use a colon and cut "as." Not having him directly call himself a writer, while still getting as close as you do, is a good move.

Comma before "including." Or really, everything in that line from there on seems insincere. He knows he's not retarded, just end the line on "sky." I think what made "simple man" from earlier okay since it was followed by a "but," an objection—but the "feeble mind" thing seems like a self put-down he doesn't really believe in, and just kinda says anyways, like we're dumb enough to fall for it. Even an self-acknowledged idiot would feel offended by how easily caught this lie is.

The spine line and how it changes to mechanical work is odd. I guess I expected him to go to a doctor? You went from grey sky down to the depth of his spine, and then just kinda poofed me into a garage. I don't have a better way to describe my concern here.

>my friends
Not to be a cunt, but cut this. Or maybe just use "friend" in the singular.

>Perhaps God was testing me; not sure why old Abraham...
Just end the first half on a period then begin the next line with "I'm." I think you're departing from the subject of the test (and onto Abraham) for too long to let a semicolon last (you only get back by, "when it all happened," and then continue from there).

>but... for lawyers and academics. School kids
good alternation

>girlfriend of the time
I'm tempted to suggest hyphenating this entire thing.

>ah what a wonderful time [of the] a year
???

>God was testing me ah what a wonderful time of the year
Sounds like a positive-version that Norm Macdonald joke where he describes someone terrible then ends on "he was a real jerk," only it doesn't look like you made it funny on purpose.

Overall what parts of this that are similar to the original are actually well improved, except for what I said about the "Of course," in the new fourth line.

Mechs, slightly improved:

pastebin.com/vGRRwcsx

any criticism from last time left unincorporated is likely just stuff I haven't gotten around to.

Attached: pred.png (692x1080, 1.13M)

Forgot I couldn't delete a post this old. Oh well.

brilliant i wrote this

Attached: Screen Shot 2019-08-18 at 8.51.16 PM.png (1100x1136, 319K)

i jerked off thinking bout this

i'm sorry

oohhhhhhhh maybe not

?

In my youth, the last year of school before University, I fell in love with a girl. My love for her was even more irrational than most teenage loves, and I believe it was also more intense, but I saw beauty not just in her, but in my love for her, and so I continued loving her, though it was not a choice. She dominated my thoughts and emotions, both in the last year I ever saw her and after, and, although I always was aware of an element of psychological self-deception, I only now know that it was because in her I personified beauty and perfection, and so every pursuit of beauty or perfection led to her, as all roads lead to Rome. When I listened to beautiful music, or encountered beauty in nature, she would arrive at the front of my mental stage and remind me that I would never have her. This, as you can imagine, led to some deal of unhappiness - I physically denied myself the ability to ever see beauty in person once I left for University, and could only catch fleeting, watery glimpses of her in my dreams, which only left me thirsting for the more real and more potent liquor...

>he doesn't know

Attached: old man fire.jpg (373x499, 52K)

I'll confess I'm not an Australian lit buff. But on the off chance you're the same person I responded too though, it wasn't just those three words in isolation which sounded odd: the lead in etc was concerning.

Ah fuck, I wrote some things really wrong here:

>what made "simple man" from earlier okay since it was followed by a "but,"
what made "simple man" from earlier okay was it being followed by a "but,"

>a positive-version that Norm Macdonald joke
a positive-version of that Norm Macdonald joke

"The lone general had become the army he recalled."

Is this sentence confusing and/or pretentious?

someone confusing I suppose because did he become the army he recalled or is he remebering how the lone general had become the army.

To me it'ssaying that this lone general had disbanded/recalled his army and then became a one man army doing their job

but yeah it's confusing

He commanded his army to retreat, but had a back-up reserve of the souls of his dead friends. He used their power to become a one man army, in a physical sense, and in a spiritual sense, even though they're not manifested as beings, they're right at his side encouraging him in his thoughts while granting him power.

I ended up with this: "The souls of his allies rallied to his figure, and so the lone general became the army he had recalled."

Why is the question always "what do you do for a living?". Certainly it is uncanny that whatever one is forced to fritter most of his time away with -- his vocation -- should be spoken of with such an ironic and cruel name as a "living". But more pressingly, we surely do more to kill ourselves in our quotidian existence than anything evoking the vital an efflorescent. So wouldn't a more acculeate question be phrased, "Well, what do you for a dying"? No, not even just "A dying" but dying in general, in it's varied manifestations and disciplines. Your interlocutor would say "What do you do for dying?" And then you'd say in response, oh I sleep about 9 hours out of every day or I smoke crack or I study philosophy. Yes, that would make a great deal more sense.

Attached: a38.jpg (1024x962, 67K)

I would definitely read a "comedy" book like this. Complicated words and some philosophy mixed in with humorous undertones. Would be pretty cool.

Attached: sauce.jpg (510x381, 79K)

based

Attached: 1556765588149.jpg (771x807, 96K)

A lil something I've been working on for a while.

Adore this. The oblique almost surreal style adds something that's hard to describe. That said i find the rhythm a bit messy, kind of falls apart in the second verse, particularly in the dialogue.

Attached: Screenshot (253).png (467x799, 38K)

trying to write a dark fable in the language of simple childrens literature, thoughts? this is the opening of the draft

Attached: childrens story.png (761x693, 86K)

bump

Attached: lol.png (621x308, 26K)

Became

But your sentence is false. He didn't become the-army-he-recalled, because by staying, he wasn't part of the recalled group. I thought you were calling him a coward when I first read it.

The added context at least sort of brute-forces the right interpretation through, I guess.

>...his brothers'...
>...the mother's...
It'dve been fine to use "his" twice. It's also unusual that you have a stanza with an odd number of lines, but let the middle line be the one to hang out. Not that I dislike the stillbirth line on it's own, but it sticks out.

>A man like...
>...
>A waste just like...
The latter "like" being interrupted by the word "just" sounds wrong, and the T-sounds in "waste just" come really fast.

Wrote this when i was bored yesterday:

Crushing of bashful waves underneath concrete shelf
A sombre bell tolls in relief
The clamour of metal links against the underbelly
Rising and sinking,
The dry edge of the sea’s surface unsheathing the hull of froth.

An anchor heaved from dormancy upon the sea bed
Snapping whiffs of sea salt whipped onto the deck by gusts of wind
Beams of smoke explode into plumes of bulbous white that gyrate about themselves.
It’s width tapering gracefully into the blade of its nose
Effortlessly parting the waters.

Mounting the horizon,
Its levels collapse into themselves.
The discharge of smoke threaded across the sky.

Reads nice and smooth, imagery is quite grimey but I guess that's what you were going for.

>hull of froth.
something about this seems inaccurate or wrongly phrased to me

>...sea bed
>Snapping whiffs of sea salt whipped onto the deck by gusts of wind
This line genuinely feels like I'm bracing for another crash from one side only for it to come from the other, and then again. It really reminds me of being on a boat, disorienting yet fresh. The lines about smoke have a nice scheme too but they don't relate to their own subjects as well.

pastebin.com/6xJSeh7v

Trying to write in the voice of an egomaniac, more or less the opening scene.

Feels bad man. I guess I'll change the army thing

Im new to writing so I will not review as I probably wont be much help.

Heres a song i wrote a year ago:
Verse 1
See all this time,
And how these Days turn into weeks,
No more standards to keep,
Because there's no-one for,
Glass eyes shine,
Through my windows reflection,
To the pale complexion,
And nothing more,

Chorus 1
But you are so close,
Almost close to touch
Expectations so low,
Nothing can mean so much

But If it's something I have,
Then I'll just have to say,

Verse 2
Dream addicts lie,
In the ooze of wasted time,
That's how I spent mine,
But I knew I couldn't stay,
Not much to life,
Without hope for a rise,
I still choke at your eyes,
All the same,

Chorus 2
And through sleep,
You led me astray,
Mannerisms noted,
But I could love it anyway,

Why don't they force me,
They could see all the goods,
Isn't that a nice thought,

Bridge
5am greys,
Pierced by medallion shades,
We speak as we age,
Ain't it funny how I haven't heard a thing,

Outro
But the best we can do,
Is just channel it through,
These ways
Because we know that nothing will change.

Last to lines of verse 2 i dont like so any suggestions to fix that would be cool.

For context, this song is about leaving a relationship and finding a potential partner.

Last two lines*

It's too abstract for me, Expectations are great but I can't see them in my head.

That's strange i've always thought of this being a very straight forward one, thanks for the input though.

The cool breeze line seems a little off tone.

>...she's done this same exact same stunt three times before now. The past two years and that minor incident for Father's Day, I would instead not think about.
Either remove the comma or add the word "which" after it. And "instead" should be something like "rather."

>she's pulling back her hands and running them through her hair.
What is the text before "and" doing?

>Although... stupidity, she should know day by day I grow more and more disillusioned by this garbage job, I keep up... respond
This sounds like it should be between parentheses or em dashes, or restructured. Either way, it took me a second to realize the "Although" was linking the first and third sections, and not the first to the middle. Originally I thought you meant, "Although I'm now angry by Betty's stupidity, she should know ______" or "she should not be quite this stupid."

>Betty... rattles out a line of Kirkiregard or Nitchize
...are you sure about that? And are these names misspelled on purpose?

>her hair, make-up, or wrinkles.
Adding another "or" before the makeup might better emphasize his frustration, if you want to.

>"I just said that Mr.Big Brain. Were you even listening?"
Comma after "that" so that I immediately know it's referring to what she'd said prior, and not "that Mr. Big Brain [did something]." Also, just say "Mister" if you're worried about the period "Mr." has. Otherwise put a space after it.

Egomaniac is a strech (more of a negligent doomer), but his voice is pretty consisten, and mostly believable. Betty is the bigger problem. She flips from being a petty moron, to then directly stating your story's glow-in-the-dark moral. Our narrator ignores a line "of Kirkiregard or Nitchize" to the point of not even narrating it/spelling their names right, yet Betty's supposedly "inane" comment on "experiencing life" gets jotted down verbatim. What does that say about how smart you, the true-author, think Betty is? Yet she's written as constantly saying dumb shit otherwise.

In general it's just too obvious which character is right/wrong. You don't seem to build a real case for the narrator's point of view, beyond "work sucks." Try and think of a place where you would be really annoyed by happiness: you're at a funeral. Maybe it's yours, maybe it's a loved one's. And there's this snot-nosed kid sitting next to you, playing his nintendo switch. But when he feels the weight of your gaze, he just looks up and asks why you're so distracted by the casket. And you pick him up by the neck and shout that it's because he and everyone he loves is a walking time limit, and that you're going to break that dumb videogame machine so help me god. Except, you don't, because that's not the proper response.

But where's Betty in all this? Painting her nails in the front row? Or, if not, what's stopping her? This is the needle you need her to thread if you want the husband to take her as seriously as you've had him.

>First, I was an engineer for an advanced audio-sensory system. Then, being deaf, and thus the perfect hurdle for it, I was a test pilot for the mech with that same system. Then last, being the most accustomed to it, I was eventually put out into the field for espionage. And then I was put out again, and again, and again, because we either had too few pilots or too many engineers.
I think you should use "I was" fewer times in this paragraph

>Ten years ago a man asked me, "How did a deaf guy like you become a pilot?"
>I was deaf.
>Eventually, he wrote the question down.
Now, I'm no comedian, but maybe this joke would be funnier as:
>Ten years ago a man asked me, "How did a deaf guy like you become a pilot?"
>Eventually, he wrote the question down.

I agree completely, thanks.

>>she's pulling back her hands and running them through her hair.
>What is the text before "and" doing?
Actually, just moving the word "back" to after "hands" makes this look better for me.

Damn man thanks for the detailed advice, not used to getting that out of a critique thread here. But you're right about Betty being half baked, she's actually a smart person but Jerry refuses to acknowledge anyone being better than himself. Because I was writing it from his perspective I've tried keeping her power level hidden for the most part. Also the spelling mistake wasn't intentional I'm really that dumb writing first drafts.

No problem, I enjoyed your story. Good luck

Thank you user for the feed back. I'll try explain the imagery i was going for in that line. Imaging the hull of the ship has foam that washes up onto it from the water. When it rises and sinks the surface of the sea washes away the froth.

I have no idea why I wrote this; figure it's just ramblings that I'd be okay with getting completely eviscerated for.

So, here's the deal:
We've made too much progress, we're in need of a little reductionism.
Not of the average flavor; cognitive dissonation isn't cutting it, these days.
We're gonna have to do a full nanoneural scan before we evacuate the contents.
Not much left of him, anyways
Only charred skin.
"What's the prognosis" a chubby nurse with androgynous features pipes in.
"We're not gonna be able to recesetate after the N.N.EVAC, we'll have to notify the family to prepare themselves for the worst. The clean up crew hasn't even gotten to mopping up the puddles of excrement left behind after the surgery.." The Intern doesn't have the proper training to handle a procedere this critical. All the staff are completely tied up, today. Must be the time of year. The only ones available to perform the NNEVAC were The Intern and the non binary nurse.
A new customer walks in...She must've had a tracheotomy. "Y-y-you g-g-got any sage?" She hacks and gasps trying to sputter out what she wants to ask. I deny her; no sage in here, and no other place to check. "W-w-when w-w-will you g-get s-s-some?" I don't even answer. She waddles away with a smug look on her cancer ridden face. Then, before I could return to The Document: another customer walks in. This one had the angular face of a harlequin performer who had gotten off the stage and removed their powdered contour. As soon as he spoke, I could tell he had been somewhere on the specturm... After briefly parousing the store of its contents, he made his purchases; after asking me what I would've bought, and blindly taking my suggestions.

Ah. I saw it as "unsheathing {the hull of froth}" and not "unsheathing {the hull} of froth."

SHIT I FORGOT TO FIX TYPOS!

>We've made too much progress, we're in need of a little reductionism.
If you're willing to razor-off certain details via reductionism, then those details probably should be called "progress."

You also flip in and out of this metaphor too fast, assuming that's what it is. Sometimes you're talking about ontological reductionism and referring to androgynous nurse, other times you're actually "reducing" the mass in someone's brain.

>pipes in.
Why wait until the very end of the tag to say "pipes in" of all things? Put it directly after the quote. Also, you say "a chubby nurse" like the narrator's never seen her before. That and the rest of this has got me thinking "wait... this guy's not a doctor!"

Sorry, i have no idea how to make it sound like the second one, and i see that it would confuse people. "Maybe unsheathing the hull, of froth" ?

I think I was purposely trying to be contradictory; tend to do that a lot for my own amusement. I suppose I should flesh it out a bit more to convey this.
> Why wait until the very end of the tag to say "pipes in" of all things
I think I was going for someone sort of popping in out of nowhere from behind the curtain. I could see this being problematic.
>"wait... this guy's not a doctor!"
Exactly! Imagine getting opened up by someone donning all the right appearances, opening you up, and then you discover you've been operated on by a drugstore clerk or something.

Why is waking up, still drunk, so hot? The sun has just started to illuminate your corner of the apartment. This isn’t good, you said. Your legs require force to lift up from the sheets; you can feel the sweat. You can feel your body. It has weight. But you’re so damn warm. Sticking a leg or two out from the covers doesn’t help. You’re dry. Water will do no good. You dreamed of floating above the waters in an ever-hydrating dance above the surface. Somehow, the sun is right in your eyes. You’re stuck trying to remember if the sun rises in the west. But wait, you commute home westerly, and the sun is in your eyes then, so it can’t be, but again, wait. Let there be darkness, please. You will yourself upright, then out of bed completely. You close the blinds; now there is darkness. This is good, you said. A few glasses of tap water from the bathroom sink, down your throat, then back to bed. Now it is time to rest.

I found this to be quite lovely, but also disturbing. I'm not completely sure what's going on, but I've been the sticky hungover mess baking in the sunlight, before. So, I can relate. The only part that I found a little jarring was "commute home westerly". Other than that, I like this. Reads like a hungover dream sequence.

I don't like how the first like starts with "crushing." If anything, I would like to reverse the order of lines 1 and 2. But there are some nice phrases. The biggest thing I would say is that in some parts >gyrating
it seems like you're using a big word just to use it. So, maybe try to work them in more naturally if you're intent on using them, or just leave them behind.

thanks fren, I was doing a number of references to the jewish/christian creation story in there. That ones a bit more vague

>pipes in
the word choice wasn't an issue

>donning all the right appearances
what I mean is that he barely seems to don the right appearances

No problem at all.
>references to the jewish/christian creation story
Ah, okay. That must've just gone over my head.

>i have no idea how to make it sound like the second one
Me neither. Maybe "of its froth."

I'll have to work some things out to make it more clear. Appreciate the criticism, though.

The third line is a non-sequiter. You were describing characters in expositional tone, and the sudden shift to scene setting is disruptive.

Neck tingling as the rush comes on and the lights buzzing at their illogical pace, brassy timbre ringing down aluminum pipes, the long beams of afternoon falling away through curtains of spinning dust. Caught in descent’s embrace and spinning tethers, tension pulling at tent poles where enormous violet canopies stretch, their angles approaching maddening heights at intense velocities. Falling through packed dirt, watching layers of caked rock passing like an ocean, blurring together in decades of unforgettable snippets, visions of gospel and trumpets blaring.
Molten core now rising, center sought through harmonics, fingers tingling against velvet curtains, scratching. There’s something in the box, and it wants out. It’ll dig and dig, and pull itself from the grave, dragging clumps of hair and skirts.
Mouthful of sweet and burning wax searing open thighs, back against silk metal and eyes wide shut, screaming as the whistling comes cracking down like lightning in fresh meadows. Sour yellow violets parade about, laughing down at twilit veins, restrained, sinking, explosions of present tearing away with every bolt. A sudden splitting and there’s a guttural desperation, pulling from the pressing point, but there is no escape and it punches through, a solid line down the inner leg spitting oil and perfume. No screaming but more whistles, the thrashing against has ceased in whimpering, cowering.
Trying to tuck away into sound or smell, the present keeps tearing, snapping down on tempo. Binaural groaning comes with spinning, the steel gone from back to stomach, exposed now to bleeding edge. Piercing inwards, there is violent intrusion in the sinuses as the stomach churns again, now cycling, perfectly circular warmth as the pumping machinery continues, oil slippery against the increasingly potent perfume. Gasping smoke from ashen immediacy, gone now deep and inescapable, the intrusion is ceaseless and yearning, hungry, insatiable.
Regret now far gone, the blue light has burnt a righteous orange, monstrosities in shadows illuminated as wicker patters away in darkness, thick liquid sealed in the mezzanine, delicately plucked open petals unfolding in polite synchronization. Twirling stars and a black sun in the sky as the rain comes down in stones, nerves lit in gentle candle light. Vigorous pulsating, hysterical, egregious violations cast away as dying leafs, soft snow touching down against cobblestone.

That sounds a lot better, thank you
I used gyrating to sort of illustrate how smoke sort of spins, I do see how it seems a bit weird to use that word. I'll switch lines 1 and 2, since you're right it does flow more nicely that way.

There's a few details here that could be cut for the sake of reductionism, if that's what you're going for, otherwise this is fairly enjoyable. The only thing that really sticks out to me is 'she hacks and gasps trying to sputter out', this seems to repeat itself without furthering the detail of the scene.
I really enjoy this, it captures a very human moment. I can't quite place my finger on why, but the word 'westerly' sticks out, though it conveys the message in the right way.

>seems to repeat itself without furthering the detail of the scene.
I could see that. I suppose the alliteration I was going for didn't flow too well. Thank you, though. Glad you found it enjoyable. I take that as a passing grade.

user, I find this absolutely beautiful. Not sure if I'm witnessing an oncoming apocalypse, or what. Don't think I didn't notice your little references either, bud. Great job, though.

thanks fren, that's nice

This is fucking gorgeous.
Thank you very much, I appreciate that.
And it's definitely a passing grade, I'd read more.

Aw, shucks. I was so nervous to post in the critique thread, and you've boosted my confidence quite a bit.
Keep up the good work, as well.

For awhile, I had to be, what business owners refer to as, “the face of things.” An opportunity arose for me to manage a little bookstore in a small, undeserving corner of the city. A new developer had come in and bought the entire block. Everyone who knew this fact thought that the businesses would be eaten up by newer, fashionable restaurants and luxury apartments, and almost all of them were, save the bookstore, which the new owner passed over by a chance occurrence, surprising the neighborhood association and city in general, as the store amounted to not much more than a long hallway that was notoriously messy.

The opportunity for me came, supposedly, without any additional work. I had already been working in the bookstore, allowing the hours to pass in silence while walking from shelf to shelf, examining the inventory, picking up books, sometimes even flipping through them and reading a page. I never attempted to finish or ever actually begin any of the books during this extended downtime, as I felt no joy in pulling down the books from the shelf, much less any captivation by the works themselves. A job was a job. Whenever a customer came in asking for a recommendation, I was able to sell a book or two based on the titles and covers alone. If I felt stumped, I glanced at the table of contents or publisher’s information before handing it over and saying it would be a good read. For these reasons, I was considered to be an excellent bookseller. Customers came back and thanked me. These niche books I plundered from the shelves supposedly raised the spirit and tickled the intellect. I knew nothing about that. Everyone took me for an autodidactic with a gooey, empathetic soul hidden under a mean-spirited shell, which made me smile on the inside, as, I suppose, I have always enjoyed appearing different from what I actually am.

My “secret formula,” as I noticed customers referring to my ability as, lay in no particular method, besides my constant browsing of the inventory. I simply realized that every person, over the course of a lifetime, only really harbors one or two distinctive interests. Everything else goes by the wayside. If I was totally cynical, I would say that most people are lucky to find even one true interest, or that true interest gets lost in the hubbub of life with its promise of compromise, but I legitimately disagree with such a claim. Most people retain an interest even if it ends up haunting them. A lucky person might find two interesting things to relentlessly pursue, so long as that person never falls away to mental illness or idleness in the process (my problems). As long as those interests are kept in a state of renewal, a person will think they are developing whatever part of themselves they wish to work on. All I had to do was find a book that would give the illusion of progress. Think of the famous image of the carrot held out just in front of the donkey.

Here’s a little poem I just thought up of, first poem I took out of my head

Down in the meadow of doom
Lived a captor, sailor, and perpetual groom
The captor was a slaver
And our sailor was a whaler
As for the last he was a minor jailer
Three burning sinners in perpetual gloom

The opening and first half is, in my opinion, fairly cliche, but you really start to get into something pretty by the end.
I'd say it leans a bit too far into the hard to understand side.
This is gold. It strikes the sardonic chord in multiple ways.

I really enjoy this, but I can't figure out why. The first time reading, the last line feels off, but reading it again made it fit better, somehow.
>passed over by a chance occurance
The 'a' is bothering me, it throws the flow that you establish fairly well up to that point, but that could just be my reading cadence. The rest of it retains that flow, which I quite enjoy.

Sensory overload, I'd love to read this when i'm tripping balls.

Attached: screencap.png (767x647, 109K)

I really enjoy the story, but the composition feels flimsy. If this is part of a larger piece, that would definitely help solidify the style.
Good work, enjoyable.

Please write more. This borderline absurdist style is fluid and entertaining.
This has very entertaining flow. I'm sure someone's gonna knock you for being (((edgy))) if they haven't already, but that's missing what you're getting at, I think.

thanks, yeah it's from a book that I had stopped working on but just picked up again.

My only issue with this, and it's entirely a personal preference, is the use of you. I find things to be more impactful when the you is implied. An example would be
>imagine if you worked in one place
to
>imagine working in one place

Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Three black SUVs. Men in dark trench coats. Beating their drums of war and veiled under a cloud of ash. They think they can keep their prying eyes covered under black wayfarers: spooks, abstractions, and illusions is what these shadows are. Hazy silhouettes that aren’t even beings-in-themselves they’re the darkness closing in on my peripheries that soon will tunnel in my reality. I’ve seen too much.

Trying to make a 1st person short story about 'gangstalkers' who unbeknownst to the protagonist are just mafia.

Attached: Shizonomicon.png (977x672, 81K)

Dig it so far.
Get weirder. Get crazy.
You know what it feels like. Don't lie on the page.

I can get down on this.

>Hazy silhouettes that aren’t even beings-in-themselves
>they’re the darkness closing in on my peripheries that soon will tunnel in my reality.
I'm not confident in the absence of punctuation between these lines, but I can also see why you'd want to run on here. I'll just say that I noticed. If it serves the rest, then nevermind.

>eyes wide shut
This one stuck out a little. But good job making the sexuality look dark and threatening without making it any less sexual in the process, and with how you procedurally contort the elements of past images in general.

their*, it's even marked red.

The stilted flow is good, particularly in the quotes, but the Lindsay-Lindsay-Lindsay in the first paragraph was annoying.

>Lindsay looked at the person holding in.
Huh? Were they just performing the act of holding-in, itself, or was there something being held inward? And if Lindsay is the person doing this (rather than the person she's looking at being the one), then you should have a comma after "person"

#
Phonetically cheeky. Forces little pauses, but remains simple enough to not look sloppy, instead putting the pauses on the audience. I would say it feels like learning to read, I guess, but not much else.

#

It feels kinda cheap / kitschy but it’s appealing despite that.

#

It’s vivid and powerful without doubt, but feels weirdly derivative of its style. There’s the Melvillian quality that is pleasing but not necessarily fresh for what it’s trying to do.

#

A lot of the diction is archaic and should be avoided imo. “Amongst”, “lest”, I don’t think this helps the poem at all. I like “they talk and talk spreading hatred and platitude”, reminds me of Hemingway. I wish the poem had more of that quality than what felt more like underwhelming “dark” poetry. You need stronger, more unexpected imagery.

My poem is pic related.

Attached: 280D6D07-3BC1-47FC-A3CB-C19FEB69DFE1.jpg (1536x1364, 229K)

Lunch at the cafeteria on Wednesdays is usually flank steak, but when Tania arrived for her witching hour feed, Paul dourly pointed towards creamed corn and questionable chicken tenders.
"Where's the steak?" Tania asked. Her driver, Erin, shuffled past her towards the sandwich fridge, ignoring Paul like he was never there.
"Dunno," Paul shrugged.
Tania blinked but produced her lunch card, sliding it across the buffet bar. Paul sighed before feeling around his apron for a pen.
"You don't have to sign it," she offered, spooning sluggish tan goop onto a too-hot plate.
"Wouldn't have if you hadn't brought it up."
Tania took her plate, bearing the goop and mystery chicken product, and filled herself a badly mixed soda. At a faded table, she took a seat with Erin, and was soon joined by Derek, another EMT, and Josie, his driver. Only Derek had dared to take the buffets offering, with Josie's wife sensibly packing him a club sandwich.
Looking from her lifeless meal to his colorful BLT, she felt tired.
"That wreck was pretty bad," Derek started, shovelling cream and a single corn-like nugget into his mouth. "That one on Melanie Place."
"Dispatch said that guy ended up in a tree?" Erin asked, picking limp lettuce from a pink tomato. It dragged from his finger to the grubby table. Tania eyed the slime path it drew through scattered salt specks.
"Yeah, his top half," Josie's BLT churned between stubby teeth. "His legs were crushed under the dashboard, the tractor tire just pinched his spine like a shrimp."
"Sick," she added. They all hummed like it was normal, because it is, and paid weak attention to the news anchors arguing with a political commentator. A scrolling headline announced ten deaths from Hurricane Maggie.
"This dude came out of the bushes, kinda smelled like patchouli?" Josie drew their attention away from some scandal involving some interns tax returns, "Scared the shit out of me."
"What, was he injured?" Erin asked, brow furrowing in this impish quirk Tania had grown to hate. It looked like her brothers pre-tantrum tells.
"No, he wanted change," Josie laughed, hacking a shred of cheese into the napkin dispenser. Only Tania noticed. It would be rude to point it out.
"Wait... so, he wasn't hurt in the crash?" Erin slowly put his floppy sandwich down. His thinking face hurt to look at.
"No, like he was just some dude in the bushes. Cops told him to scram. He was nice about it."
And then they laughed because it was funny, but not really, only if they didn't laugh then it was quiet, and when it's quiet you become tired.
Tania finally brave a spoon of goop, the thick creamy substance slow as it finally graced her mouth. It tasted like .. starch. And maybe onions? Something gelatinous, and bland, and too salty. She swallowed it forcefully, taking another spoonful and then a third, all of them heaping like she had been deprived for days, until only the difficult little entrails of cream and minced corn painted the plate.

I don't like the first comma

>The opportunity for me came, supposedly, without any additional work.
I'm not sure why this is just supposedly. Is he not aware of his own work? It doesn't sound like you're talking about the work of others in this paragraph.

>particular method,
didn't like this comma either

I think what the narrator discusses in the final paragraph does well to characterize him. But he seems a little optimistic and honest for how deceptive he almost paints himself as at the end. Does he ever actively prevent people from developing? Or does he just sort of benefit from them not doing so, without forcing it? He didn't seem otherwise treacherous, so it's odd.

I'm writing a cheesy fantasy romance novel about a young knight and a tsundere warrior princess. I'm deeply sexually repressed so the affection is limited to kissing, blushing, cuddling, etc. It's essentially a high school romance with 20-somethings

Attached: 07-213952_Firefox.jpg (1080x1979, 825K)

Thanks anons, I’m glad you all sort of liked it.

Here’s another I can up with,

Beech trees of cellophane and glue
Give shade to the people of blue
Who fill our minds with degeneracy and rhymes
At the death of all we hold true
At the death of all we hold true
Who fill our minds with degeneracy and rhymes
At the sanctimonious death of all that was held true.

if he's a knight you need to describe him in vaguely homoerotic terms, talk about his bare feet on the cold stone of the floor and stuff

Attached: galahad.jpg (400x750, 60K)

The weedo
is a curious case
that surely proves that there are slaves

They say that white girls fuck dogs, but be that as it be
I can assure you, they are not fucking me

>Melvillian
Really? Shit, i've never read his poems so i didn't know that i was writing in a similar style to him, but thanks for the heads up.

Oh that’s funny. Yeah it’s a combo of Melville and Roethke for me. This Roethke poem in particular:
poets.org/poem/storm

>poets.org/poem/storm
Really like that one, thanks for pointing me in his direction.

I think I see what you're trying to pull off with this, it seems like it could use another line between the 'at the death of all we hold true' lines to help the reflection/inverse.
This is the most stupid thing I've laughed at all week and I love it.

Beginning of a short story I'm working on.

Attached: gnome.png (839x594, 101K)

old

old!

the first paragraph can be cut in half. The first half does what the second half does, so one half is redundant (probs the first). The voice sounds like a 19th century amateur scientist, which is cool, it gives off the impression that we're going to have some marvellous adventure, though sometimes the lexicon you use can be a bit much (sorta camp, and not in a fun way). also maybe revise plotting. the story comes across as unfolding paratactically, for example; going to the bookcase, getting the meat - all that can be cut and edited down. it doesn't really reveal anything, and gets a bit tedious to read. that's all i have to give. good luck with it.

Now that I think about it the first sentence is indeed redundant. Regarding the vocabulary I was trying to make the narrator come off as a scientific person like you said, but also as a gullible and stupid person. The parataxis issue is probably right as well. Thanks.

The first two paragraphs are fine at this stage. It may be a bit repetitive, but I don't find it redundant. It flows well enough, and the vocabulary fits your intention.

The third paragraph is where you really need to put in work. It comes off incredibly stiff and verbose, and feels that you were flipping through a dictionary to sound smart. I understand the intent is for characterization, but you pull this off much more successfully in paragraph 2.

I'll work on revising it then. Thanks again.

No problem

This is bait right?
If not, you're writing style is extremely monotonous and clunky and the ideas you present can be found just by reading Yea Forums posts for an hour or two.

Piece of dialogue from megalomaniacal ruler of humanity two centuries from now explaining why some people want him gone.

Attached: litexcerpt1.png (670x154, 17K)

bread
bread
what man would do for a crust of bread
he’d chop off your head
and leave you for dead
as your gaping neck wound bled
bled
bled

thanks yous genteelmen

I'd been here about four weeks. Sitting here playing rooftop cop for some ramshackle government body trying to do something, anything about the homeless. This little corner of the city was known for it's relentless misociability – drugs, violence, swearing and shouting until the upteenth hour of the morning; and yet none of them previously lived here. Probably all too slighted in their own communities they'd come together over the mutual love for the inane. Four AM by my wristwatch, a casio thing I'd found on a rough sleeper. Wouldn't let me alone until I took it from him, only God knows why he's being so generous, couldn't afford a coffee yet this little hipster fetish was valueless enough to spare. Always the same with homeless people, that bipolar giving mentality. Always too generous and ending up bitter, or too miserly and ending up wounded.

Frankly, I’d come to giving less and less of a shit about my job. I now consider it a demotion. Fuck me, a new project – my face lit up. Maybe something that would steer my career clear of the home office in future, or even better, a powerful little housing scheme, something that would make this borough a little easier on the eyes when the broadsheets came to print. That stint I spent as department pincushion after gaffeing it up with the local MP wasn't music to my ears, so being alone and spearheading something gave my ego that little boost it needed to sit comfortably in the delusion that yes, once again I was making headway into something worthwhile and I was indeed a valuable productive member of society.

So, here I am, taking pictures. That's it. That's my marvelous project. Record the movements of the homeless so the police can be there to move them on before they even sit. Shift the problem to a local borough. Maybe Camden would have them back, that's where we suspect they've all come from. Pushed out by poorer tourists and sketchy dealers they've made their way closer to the city, ready to pounce on the unsuspecting 'ching-a-ling' of change in your pocket.

Bastards, apparently.

I humbly submit myself before thee, Yea Forums.

I'm afraid of my heartbeat
when I stain the hard sheets
I'm deranged and hardly
capable of feeling
come inside my head now
and please take off your clothing
babe lets crawl bed how
I plead you with my hoping
of being not so dead wow
this is not so healthy for me
can't we break the bread (chow)
I want you to hold three
fibers of my gleaming
not so beaming being
can't you shed the lead now?
that's holding me beneath me
oh wait why don't you hug me
this careful heap of weeping
a shard of hidden feelings
let's out a sudden fealty
to ridden bouts of heeding
your worries and your beatings
I can't fathom the ceiling
you hold above the seams and
shatter the glimpse of seething
gases warping the kneeling
jesus just hold me
that's what jesus told me
jesus she just told me
jesus i can't hold you
silently I'm now creeping
upside down and peeling
off the ground free wheeling
the sundial is teething
baby I need your wheezing
let's just finish stealing
time from heaven's teal things
a bounty of devil dealings
time to curry favor
with christ my lord and savior
christ my hoarded mayor
christ my tortfeasor bayer
christ my christ let's stay here

dropbox.com/s/inrzkdrqi4h745o/The Little Man.docx?dl=0

First draft of a short story. It is thematically part of a larger collection but the plot/setting stands alone, so that effects the pacing, for brevity's sake- plot points and transitions from scene to scene that would get more detail in a longer story are glanced over. I switched from A4 to 8.5 x 5.5 inch paper size, so I apologise for the length and formatting of the paragraphs, which will be revised. The intended tone is one of awkwardness and impotent frustration, mildly surrealist (very, in one obvious section) but mostly rooted in the rules of reality.

You say some things that catch the eye, but I can't help feeling the vocabulary doesn't match the setting or the vernacular grammar. I suppose it depends on the character of your narrator. Also this isn't very readable.

Some commas unnecessary, nice unfussy tone.

Nice.

Very cinematic but if words are action in a story, consider where the focus of the action is. Some of your description starts to sound like you're giving instructions on the design of a film shot at the expense of things/feelings/thoughts happening. Last paragraph hits the balance better.

Depending upon where it's situated in a larger body of text, this could do with some interspersion of "present-day" action to give context to why these things are relevant to the story you're trying to put across, but the prose itself is good.

Nice, won't pretend I know what it's trying to achieve if it's not purely absurdist, but it's well written.

Very different in tone but also well-written.

Second sentence could be broken up, other than that, good.

Very wordy but a witty sentiment.

Post-apocalypse: my dreams often are
art reinstored into a form doing deformed things with storms
of fibrous elements using intimation tactics
such as those use by the CIA, or other
bodies, not entirely unlike yours, sweet reader and breeder—
count me among your blessings when you deal out the days seconds,
like a firepole lit by a sundressed goddess, bearded with fire and light,
pouring out from the countryside with heavens full of mirth,
a berth wider than Andromeda, wilder than Philomena,
can't the unsee the seemingly seamless seams that seem?
Can't the recondemn the lack of condemnation of their followers, their foes?
Who snider than me, when I campaign for peace, for love, for something above?
There's nothing the redeem us here, cancel it all.

*they
*to

Really bad

I enjoyed this. It's like slowly drowning in a well but somehow I can breathe.

I only got four pages deep -- mainly because I am busy, but there is quality here. The kind of quality in a tale well crafted, but for me it lacks a certain gravity, the kind of feeling you get when an author knows when and when not to eschew tradition, form or established rules. Keep reading and writing.

The constable killed his wife today,
only to turn himself in, past the turnstile
and into the murky waters of gloom in flight.
His heart penetrated its own compartments,
reeking havoc across the far forgotten lands
stretching beyond the giants gates, stopping
before the Sunday steak—a simple rejoinder—
the judge shook his gavel, remained stern, stolid;
the jury, hung on the executioner's slack, sang their song—
in excelsis Deo—the witnesses witnessed, press pressed,
he held his head high, gaze low, and let out a sigh;
a typhoon of five Ws assaulted the geist,
a lemon spritzed sip of delights drenched the night,
the game of waiting weighed on many souls
pressured the flesh of their wiry whims;
this hall made of horrors held in the hands of serpents,
devils dressed in human hides, crackling away—
their trails end where the water flows,
at the edge of the microcosmic: Chesapeake Bay.

This is total and utter shit.

>It's like slowly drowning in a well but somehow I can breathe.

well this means i somehow managed to express myself

thank you kindman

Oh I don't mind

You're welcome. Tradesies?

you're all too tight
pucked and strung so thin
try unwinding
then you might win
my writings shit
my attitude good
so so good, yeah thats good
i woke up in a bed full of money
made out of gold, girls and honey,
they told me, hey you're so great
yeah thots though i was so great
so so great, greater than cheese
they call my dad when the parmesan me
with tits full of cheddar, pockets full of benjers
frankly i'm compelling
when i'm micrometrically stellar
a stalwart mall blart called jose heller
catch 22 gremlins with my grin and chesthair
i write poetry with my nips earning pullitzer meddle
harvey weinstein on the peddle, me-too and stilletoed
i can't lose that amaretto
even when i berrettoad
commas on coinpurse
yeah i got this coin hearse
deader that stalin
ballin on fallon
callin a palin
railin' a maven
maidens a made hen
cock on the fortress
cock is the fortress
horsy is for chess
my horsy is stunted
my growth has been stunted
my stuntman has been stunting
my stungun has stunned him
my stingray has caused malfeasance
that's right malfeasance
manray on the d-list
hairy girls on my d-list
d stand for the dick
that i got as my dick
richard on that feynman
girls always this fine man
girls from 18 to 80
stunting in the AIDies
that's right them 80's
snorting them 80's
oc past the op
obi wan kenobi
hoes wanna know me
hose on my porchy
bitches wan pork me
porkin' pigs i am so randy
that's all folks i'm porky

sure but i gotta warn you i'm p retarded so i don't give foodback so good

i''ll give it a whirl

some comments:
*numpteenth, not upteenth
misociability str8 up isn't a word, i mean i feel you tho
>they'd come together over the mutual love for the inane
I gotta be honest man, that crack is anything but inane—insanity is defintely somewhat ane
>a casio thing I'd found on a rough sleeper
dude you just said wristwatch, why are you calling it a 'thing' now? WWYS
>Fuck me, a new project – my face lit up.
Timescale confused, when are we?
>That stint I spent as department pincushion after gaffeing it up with the local MP wasn't music to my ears,
sentence started really strong, but the end of the first clause was not "music to my ears"

Anyway, the overall thrust of it isn't too bad—it almost sounds like you're talking about Yea Forums. Is it a standalone or an excerpt?

>*numpteenth, not upteenth
Was actually fishing for umpteenth

>misociability str8 up isn't a word, i mean i feel you tho
As long as you feel the sentiment. I want to invent a word someday. One will stick eventually.

>dude you just said wristwatch, why are you calling it a 'thing' now?
'I took home this redheaded broad. A pretty little thing I...'

>Timescale confused, when are we?
In the head of the protagonist, thinking back. I fuck around with tense a lot, not always with good results

>sentence started really strong, but the end of the first clause was not "music to my ears"
It could definitely be better.

Thanks for the feedback.

>it almost sounds like you're talking about Yea Forums
It's a story about a disenfranchised social worker employed to literally fuck up the lives of homeless people under the guise of regentrification. There's more to it than that but I'm not very deep into it yet.

>Is it a standalone or an excerpt?
Excerpt of the very beginning.

OP your prose is garbage.

Judge me.

Attached: lit.png (605x370, 41K)

Folk singer guy here. Recording not great and pre-lyric change in chorus but mic is broken so can’t retake right now. clyp.it/m5g0ppgk

>The Story of a Woman

You’ll find her on the silken sand
Her windswept hair damp from the sea
A silver piece clasped in her hand
A silver piece to set her free

You’ll find her in a uniform
In the service of some swine
Standing amongst kings and queens
Shucking oysters, pouring wine

This is the story of a woman
She’s walked the earth, she’s crossed the sea
She’s been a saint, she’s been a sinner
She’s been around for an eternity

You’ll find her on the verdant plane
Resplendent in the golden sun
The grass still beaded with cool rain
Her fertile womb soon to bear a son

You’ll find her in a booth at night
Where men and women stop and stare
Her flesh turned crimson by the light
Her mind a million miles away

This is the story of a woman
She’s walked the earth, she’s crossed the sea
She’s been a saint, she’s been a sinner
She’s been around for an eternity

You’ll find her in the pantheon
Set in alabaster carved by man
Eternally set in the stone
Her beauty there since time began

You’ll find her travelling on the metro
In starched white shirt and business wear
Her soul the same from long ago
Her conscience clear and unaware

This is the story of a woman
She’s walked the earth, she’s crossed the sea
She’s been a saint, she’s been a sinner
She’s been around for an eternity

Under stars and cypress trees
Tonight she will be reborn
She’ll wash your feet and tend your wounds
And strip you of your crown of thorns

Ignore the guy playing English teacher, it’s a quite witty and original view of a dystopia (which is something as fucking everyone writes about dystopias) and close enough to the present to be believable. Keep at it.

Attached: 8C3210F7-3C44-491A-A716-9F990607F991.jpg (4032x3024, 2.18M)

Coming from a man who didn't appreciate folk music properly until I had the brilliant opportunity to go to a folk music festival a couple of months back, this was very pleasant. It evokes that sense of life and place and time and /being/ that folk music does in that special way. And you've written it in a fashion that doesn't sound overindulgent or needlessly gratuitous. If your song was a boat, it would be a small handmade yacht.

>it’s a quite witty and original view of...
Thank you.

Thanks. :)

Where did you go out of interest? I would quite like to try and play at a few folk festivals next year but it’s a pain in the arse as I don’t drive.

The Priddy Festival, in the Mendip Hills of Somerset. Yeah, I hitched a ride with the guy who invited me, it was a really nice experience altogether, nice to discover this whole genre I'd overlooked.

Was a bloody long drive back though.

>misociability
first word I didn't like

>upteenth
other user pointed this out too

>; and
Just use a comma, or ditch the conjunction and go for a period.

>Probably all too slighted in their own communities they'd come together over the mutual love for the inane.
Reads weird, not for it being a fragment though. "too" could be "so," you could put a "that" after communities, and replace the first "the" with "a." But I'm not sure exactly why this line sounds weird still, so I'm just highlighting buttons to push.

>last line (last half) of the second paragraph
It's good that it runs on like it does, but build a break into it. Stress a word, something. Your speaker sounds like he should manage his air supply well. Try saying it out loud if you haven't already.

Smooth though, especially the opening.

>Thanks anons, I’m glad you all sort of liked it.
this is one of the better lines in the thread

>first word I didn't like
Appreciate that, but I'm keeping it. I feel in the grander context it makes slightly more sense, too.

>Just use a comma, or ditch the conjunction and go for a period.
A better proofread on my part would have solved that. I think at the time I wrote it originally I was in a phase during which I was very obsessed with how to crowbar in semicolons, ignoring proper use case.

>you could put a "that" after communities
I think I will. Thanks.

>It's good that it runs on like it does, but...
I'll have a look at it. I narrate in my head as I write -- in character too, it plays fine with me, but we'll see.

>Smooth though, especially the opening.
Thank you for your thoughts. Honestly, you guys make this whole thing easier for me. It's hard to find good criticism.

Attached: Cheers.jpg (600x400, 26K)

I need some advice about character writing. I can write pages upon pages of description and fluff, but when it comes to dialogue and showing how characters think and act, I'm at a loss. For example, a lot of my stories feature royals, nobles, military commanders, and other members of the upper class. I'm not confident portraying them because I have no experience with that world. I'm not sure how they would act with each other, or how they would treat their servants. It's worse when it comes to religious characters. In a work I'm writing now, one of the key background characters is an analogue of the Japanese emperor during the shogunate. They are technically head of state, but possess little actual power. A military junta rules in their stead, as they are kept busy with religious duties. They are considered the avatar of a god, so there is going to be a lot of reverence there, but again, I'm not sure how I would go about portraying them.

How can I better these skills?

>I don;t have much experience with that world
Neither does pretty much anyone else, a bit of creative license is perfectly ok.

>Character writing
Best thing I've learnt about character writing is not to see them as 'characters' but just as people. Ask yourself how you think, how people you know think, and realise that your characters will be little different on a base level.

If you want to get better at writing about a particular type of person or era, just read more on those topics.

>keeping it
It being there isn't the problem anyways I think, it's the spelling. I should've done this before posting, but looking at words like "misstep," "missteer," it seems like the front S is kept.

Can I get some feedback on

In the words of Street Fighter 3
>aw yeah that makes sense

It sounds like you're writing about characters who aren't very similar to yourself. Either aim for a closer target in the meantime, or study people with parallels to your characters.

I'm writing a scifi as well. There's plenty of resources, but don't get lost in it. Often you need to write and feel it out yourself whether the characters seem real.

I'll look up some relevant works and see how the characters are portrayed. I'm writing sci fi and there are a hell of a lot of works about emperors, nobles, gods, ect. in the genre, so I should be able to find enough to keep me busy.

Thank you.

I'm borderline autistic so it can be difficult for me to understand how people would act, particularly people from a world I'm not a part of.

It could be just my perfectionism talking. The character I'm writing at present seems sensible, but again, I'm not completely sure. I'll compare how he acts to major character from other works and see if it's appropriate. He's not an action hero or a savior. He's a beaten down bureaucrat who wants a quiet life, even if it means turning down power when offered. It might be hard to find characters to compare him to, but I'll try.

>autistic
Oh. Is your issue more with voice and minutiae, than broader descision making? Maybe listen to music or study rhetoric/implication. H. P. Grice if you want it straight from a logician.

>autism

I don't really know what to call it. I was never diagnosed with autism, and I don't have all of the traits, so I'm not sure how much it applies to me, but the psychs I seen did put a large question mark over it.

It's mainly decision making. For example, if X happened what would X do and how would they react? How would I write it to sound believable and is that how a person would really act? I don't have any specific examples for you, it's just something I've noticed when writing characters in the past. I'm normally okay with dialogue, voice, ect.

The final line was my least favorite by a wide margin, and I didn't appreciate the italics at the start. Some of your images feel a little brief/lines end without them, if I had to say more.

cheers

Thanks. What do you mean by that last comment though?

Not to gaslight, but if you were super autistic, isn't it possible you mistake tonal shortcomings as matters of broader decision making issues? But I'll assume you know what you're talking about:

Think of it like D&D character design maybe, or thomas the tank engine tracks (no offense). "This character goes left at this kind of intersection," "passing through this gate rotates these turntables," etc. Give them rules. Also, try giving them rules as the first part of conceiving them, and not as the last. It sounds like you're just trying to fill a shoe, when you should building a foot, and then a shoe after. Obviously working backwards is also possible, but it requires a lot more social talent for obvious reasons. It's essentially what you're demanding of an audience in most dramas; that they steadily uncover the railroad tracks, in reverse. But if you're going uphill just like the audience is, you'll have to be quite a bit faster to lead them.

There are lines where you end on things like adjectives that don't hold images on their own. Combine that with the big spacious indentation you have, and I spend quite a bit of time staring at white. Or maybe some kind of imcreased catchiness could help things stick longer, I don't know.

>on things like adjectives that don't hold images on their own
Which isn't to say adjectives can't hold images--I'm picking out those which don't.

I wouldn't call myself super autistic. I'm definitely odd, but I can socialize and blend in with people easily enough. There are elements of social convention I don't get, but I've gotten a lot better with people in general in recent years. I lived a sheltered life before I entered college, so that might have something to do with it.

I see what you mean regarding the tracks. I never thought of it like that. I think I might be able to fit a structure around it. I think part of the problem is that I keep imagining what I would do or what I would think in these situations, which is impossible for me to know. I can write characters interacting and doing basic tasks, and I have written military characters well before, but when it comes to complex things like politics and intrigue, I tend to get a bit lost. It could be that I am unfamiliar with these genres.

The Incorporeal Specter

Fresh flowers by the bedside
A cold dream swirling the nightscape—
How can the fiends flounder
when their wake ignites their own swipes at the gate?
The center trembles as the gentle breeze breaks
At their atoms of simply styled petals dressed in grey.
All the people wonder why the sky is red—
All the people wonder while they lie in bed
Staring at a ceiling caked
In buttresses flying at the gates.
Hold my beer, the summoner says—
Hold his beer, the wonderers do
Spilling a mountain of mountainous dew.

This is really pretty. The flow and cadence threw me for a second, but it's very smooth. Using the dashes as line breaks is also an interesting style.

Six Feet Under. That was the bar's name. It was in a basement off 24th street, and the half a dozen storeys of sixties brutalism on top of it made for a poor headstone. The neighbourhood isn't much in the daytime; mostly cheap office space and a bit of light industrial. I got there around 1am, and it was the kind of deserted that makes you see switchblades behind every blocky, concrete pillar. The streetlights were all out, and the only light was the purple and pink neon sign of an all-night internet cafe. I knew there was a junker's on top packed to the ceiling with old towers and fragmented circuit boards, so I suspected that they did a lot more than provide porn to the homeless. But that wasn't my business.

There are a lot of things that aren't my business these days. Time was, I'd have half a dozen projects on the go and people coming to me from across the city with their hands out. Time was I could put my hand in a dumpster full of trash and pull out a diamond ring, and then make a profit on both. Well, there's no sense dwelling on the past - I had a deal to make.

I rushed past the sixties office block and down the steps into the 21st century. Six Feet Under doesn't have a doorman, but it does have a camera. It edged around a little, tracking me as I came up to the door. It let me in without a problem, but as the joke went the real difficulty was in getting out again.

For all the individuality of its client base, the bar itself is so stereotypical it's hard not to wonder if the decor is ironic. A couple of barstools, a couple of booths, a counter. Stainless steel and polymers rather than wood; cosmopolitan, not comfy. But still, the only thing remarkable about it was the mix of suited men and pierced... women? And the fact that they were all here at 1am on a Wednesday.

I knew the booth from memory, although it was a long time since I'd seen him. I had a smile ready when I sat down.

"Hey, good to see you man. Long time, no see. It's really good... I'm really glad we're doing this. It's a great opportunity." My mouth was running on autopilot. I'd meant to make a quip about his hair, and the $200 a month he spent to make it look like that; needle him a little to show him I wasn't desperate. But... well, the hair was still the same, but there were other differences.

Black eyes and skin you could practically see through. I hadn't realised how deep in he'd got himself - I just assumed he'd stayed a middle man. He smiled, showing pointed teeth, knowing I was staring. And now I was starting to wonder how deep I was right now. Maybe a lot more than six feet.

"Hello Grant. Long time indeed. Drinks are coming, I took the freedom of ordering for you." He paused, and those umbral eyes flickered; not sure how I knew, but I did. Maybe he wasn't sure about this either. Then, casually, he said: "Silk lives as long as you keep it dancing - it takes the shape of the body underneath it. So, can you keep it dancing?"

The worst thing was, I knew what he meant.

I liked the second half more than the first. From 'All the people wonder', it's quite elegant, but:

>How can the fiends flounder
>when their wake ignites their own swipes at the gate?
>The center trembles as the gentle breeze breaks
>At their atoms of simply styled petals dressed in grey.

seems overburdened. Also, maybe it's just because it's 4am where I am, but I'm pretty sure some lines are just gibberish. Particularly:
>At their atoms of simply styled petals dressed in grey.

i like it

Noel Edmonds stares at me intensely with his beady eyes. I am trying to smile for the cameras but I can only fixate on his fixed, false grin. His clenched teeth are menacing and I feel the hairs stand on the back of my neck. I begin to feel lightheaded.

“Neil, the banker tells me £4,000. Deal or no deal?”. Two minutes ago I was in the running for £25,000. I can tell he is getting a kick out of this sudden misfortune. One of my fellow contestants, Angela, gives me a sympathetic smile. Earlier we’d been joking in the green room what a complete tosser Edmonds is. I’m wondering if he somehow overheard. Is the room bugged?

“Deal or no deal, Neil?”. As one of the cameramen pans in and focuses on my face I see that menacing grin slowly turn into movement. I focus on his lips.

“TOSSSERRR”, I see Noel silently mouth. Oh fuck. I look at the few remaining red boxes and for a moment consider if Noel somehow managed to set this up so I would fail. Just fifteen minutes ago he’d been telling me he hoped I would get the money I needed to help pay for my wife’s physical therapy following the accident. The audience applauded warmly and I even found myself feeling slightly guilty for what I’d said earlier.

“Deal, Noel”, I reply.

Attached: D571C9C9-1BE8-4727-B502-41C6D7C8861C.jpg (681x1024, 282K)

I feel like I'm setting myself up for bullying given that this is
1) generic sword&sorcery shit
2) the intro of a pen&paper RPG booklet
but here goes

>"What the hell is wrong with you?"
>Everyone you've told of your plans asked you this question, though rarely with those exact words. You can't say you blame them. It is a mad idea, isn't it? What kind of a person wakes up one day and uses their life's savings to buy a sword, a good cloak, and some traveling supplies? What kind of a person wakes up one day and decides to abandon everything and everyone they know? What kind of a person wakes up one day and sets out in pursuit of "adventure"? And for what? Wealth? Glory? Some lofty ideals? As far as any of them are concerned you are already dead.

>Civilization's nascent fire still shivers in the wind, an experiment no one is quite sure will work out. Beyond light's reach dwell creatures old and primal, agitated by man's audacious attempt to make the world his own. Beastmen raid distant settlements with impunity, butchering all but those they drag away to be sacrificed to their ancient gods. Impossible monsters dreamt up by sorcerers for reasons long forgotten stalk the night. Things man was not meant to know plot unfathomable machinations. Adventurers rarely return.

>What chance do you stand where so many have failed? What madness drives you to bring a torch to the darkness, casting light upon things not meant to be seen? And for what? Yes, the bards spin lovely tales. Ancient hoards containing more coin than a man could ever spend. Forgotten relics whose miraculous powers are as diverse as their origins. Primordial pools which wash away sin as easily as dirt. Now tell me, is your life worth so little that you are willing to bet it on the accuracy of fables told to wrangle silver out of drunken hands?

>What the hell is wrong with you?

10/10

Thanks! I was going to shitpost some abstract crap just to bump the thread but ended up getting caught up in my little story.

I'M GONNA COOM

I'M GONNA FUCKING COOM

AAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURURURURURURRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I can’t believe I laughed at this, I blame sleep deprivation.

Thu, 23 Apr 1993

Mailbox filled to the brim today. Eviction notice. Town council, signed by a judge. Is there really no place for me?

Sun, 26 Apr 1993

Thumbed through the papers. Trailer park vacancy in Nebraska. Reminds me of grandma's. Wheat and cornfields for miles. And a whole lot of quiet.

Mon, 27 Apr 1993

Took to town to drive around one last time. Saw my favorites. Betsy was exceptionally fresh, looking calm. Judy, always good-looking in brown and black. Linda wasn't looking too nice. She reminds me of that damn judge that ordered me off. She's got beautiful offspring though, must've fathered by an alpha.They all look different but they all excite me. I bid my farewell. From afar.

Tue, 28 Apr 1993

-dufflebag

-Tactica Combat Knife Set

-hazmat

Thu, 30 Apr 1993

Houses are far apart here in Poreseen, Nebraska. Drove around and spoke to neighbors in town. Met a certain Mr. Holland, greeted me in his overalls and straw hat, old guy who lost his wife to leukemia. He still looks strong despite his age. He and I have some things in common, both farmboys. I heard something in his property while we were talking. It sounded like laughing. I had to leave. He almost noticed my sweating.

Mon, 3 Jun 1993

First day at the cornfields. I found that I could see Mr. Holland's farmhouse from here. Couldn't stop thinking about the sounds I heard.

Tue, 4 Jun 1993

Goddamned rats in Nebraska. Passed by the Builders Depot. Nothing like the scent of fresh rubber gloves. New braided ropes are rough. These zip ties will do. We don't want them waking anyone, eh?

Fri, 7 Jun 1993

Mr. Holland and I really got along. He invited me to supper. We spoke about a lot. He really loved his wife. He copes with keeping the farm in order. This was right about the time I heard the laughing again. I knew he was about to invite me to see them but I hurriedly excused myself and left before he my erection. Diarrhea is never not a good excuse.

Tue, 11 Jun 1993

Feverish dreams about that which I have not even seen. They must be young and their bodies supple. I've staked Mr. Holland's farm and saw a makeshift wooden gate at the back. His room and the living room are on the other end. I can hear their sounds again. I am erect as I write this.

Wed, 12 Jun 1993

-Knives, zipties, rope, gloves, hazmat, corn grain feed

Fri, 14 Jun 1993

Why are people so nosy, so judgemental? And here I thought Nebraska wouldn't give a fuck. That Landa guy from that Tarantino film was right. We never choose our monikers. People make them for us. And tabloids? Disgusting. I can't deny though, "Local Duck Fucker" makes for a headline.

Now that I think about it, most of my poems are actually like that—all spontaneous streams of consciousness—they start out with one good line, the kernel undergirding the frame of the poem, which then quickly dissolves into shite, only to pick up steam again once I tune into the rhythm. Jesus Christ, I should probably start editing.

Anyway, thank you for the feedback, much helpful

Enemy combatants, gun oil,
Legionnaire's Disease, a miasmatic appearance
on the Maury Povich show, a snow globe,
one devil stick, an ounce of Colombian
ground coffee beans, a Polaroid of Jupiter
in retrograde, receipts from 2001,
January to September, my Dad's CD collection,
an ensemble of tambourine players, a syringe
full of Fentanyl, a cocktail napkin
bloodied by a missing finger, the soil,
the Swiss Alps, Flint Michigan,
a career rolled over belly up, a citrine satellite,
the microbes encrusting our flesh, a shark net,
Beethoven's 5th, Lil' Boosie's baby mama,
Kim Jong Un, an illuminated hallway,
toilet paper made of onions, a jack-o'-lantern
made of wax, the century of self,
the theatre of war, the fog of dementia,
a Nancy Drew book with the last page missing, a note
from a woman to her lover, the Rosicrucian order,
the philanthropic principal, entropic design,
the reflection of my reflection in my eye, the sky:
these are the things we think of while we die.

>they call my dad when the parmesan me
>with tits full of cheddar, pockets full of benjers
>a stalwart mall blart called jose heller
>even when i berrettoad

wut

Pretty good as far as shitposts go, some funny wordplay going on

Yeah I'm trailer park trash,
burning styrofoam
that's that trailer park hash,
cooking trays of ice
to sell to my sister cousin
a member of ICE,
my fingers stay oh so sticky,
boozing uncle trying to stick me
with that shiv he made in juvie,
he's my uncle but he's like 19
yeah you know my sister a fine teen
I pimp her out like my oven
only fool in the park with an oven
every thanksgiving straight turducken
put a squirrel on the grill now we fuckin'
my ballpark frank this whore be suckin'
I skipped middle school yeah for fuckin'
a family of 18 yeah we fuckin'
fuck the east virginians they aint fuckin'
they talk smack get hit yeah that oven
crippling handicap kids straight retarded
mama gave birth to a hurricane farted
mac n cheese made of cheese dick's retarded
fuckin' applebees for christmas str8 retarded
gave the bitch my tip and mentally retarded
fuckin' genius dick n sack game we retarded
so good at grinding pavement yeah we stunting
whose my dad i'm straight retarded
making dollar bills xerox money retarded
i'm out like pitbul butch dike straight retarded

how bout my second one

Aye, I quite like it, if you don’t do music find a Yea Forumstant who will make a backing track for you and rap it (the lyrics are odd enough that I think they might) - I would but I don’t do computer shit, just real instruments.

Lol I actually did this with a dude I met on Yea Forums who I found out lived in my city. We made three songs. They were SOOOOOOOOO bad. It was pretty great. That was about 3 years ago. Still talk today.

I’ve just produced my first album entirely for free with a guy I met off a Bob Dylan forum, I know internet encounters can be awkward but sometimes great things can happen as a result. :)

Indeedubitably

>AIDies
I'm not sure this would work when spoken, especially since it comes before the more standard "80's" hearing

>mac n cheese made of cheese dick's retarded
from here on was worse than the rest imo

both are genuinely likeable

also good

The language seems to get in the way instead of sustaining the "fictive dream". You should try holding back the verbiage a little and be more direct and concrete in your imagery. What is a "deft wind" for instance? What is a "prerequisite of seasons"? What is "school-age children"? And having little asides like "if such an odd couple were to coexist" offers no real insight into anything and also pulls the reader out of the dream.

The tendency to join independent clauses with a comma, while sometimes stylistically interesting, loses its power if you keep doing it. You also have some internal rhyme going in some places (see the first sentence).

Finally there's really nothing here that's interesting, neither the prose, nor the characters, nor the setting, nor the images, nor the situation. I can understand intellectually, the effect you're going for but the entire thing is devoid any feeling. It's obvious you can write, but you should write something that's honest.

seeking general advice for a total beginner, how should I describe character's clothing without wasting too much of the reader's time? I imagine characters with elaborate costumes, and I feel like the description of these costumes is important, their clothes have important symbols of their education, office, traditions, and because of historical divergence an (I feel) interesting blend of medieval and Napoleonic styles, but i'm afraid of it being boring or breaking the flow. It's a fact that most people's impressions of historical clothing is way off the mark from because of fantasy and lazy Hollywood, so I'd feel like I have to correct the image they're likely to have of my characters. that said, there would be a lot of characters I would have to describe in detail.
Another author might describe simply one or two items of clothing "a black doublet with his house sigil", "Boiled leather with a dented helmet". but I feel like describing almost every item that the characters are wearing. They'll have medieval hats, tassels which signify their college, gorgets embossed with ranks and brigade motifs (basilisks, gorgons, lions, phoenixes), decorated and ceremonial weapons that themselves have several features to point out, robes stitched with glyphs, belts with decorative buckles, shoes, gaiters, leggings, codpieces. I don't know how to write this all in a way worth reading.

If you want to see an example of this where it's overboard (imo--but then it was published so what do I know) take a look at American Psycho.

Otherwise I think you should be careful not to repeat yourself too often and to "line up your shots" correctly. That is, imagine the introduction of the character as in a series of camera shots and write in such a way that leads the reader's eye to "see" as the camera would see. You wouldn't, for example, cut from head to feet to torso, but say from feet to torso to head in a smooth movement. Adding the pov character's thoughts on the clothing (while making sure that it doesn't feel forced) can be a way to sustain interest as well. You really have to make sure the reader can see the clothing though, otherwise they're more likely to just skim over those descriptions.

I wear Air Jordans, when I ball
kicking porridge head niggas, when I ball
maintain for so long they call me the singular possesive, cause
when I dunk balls, I gotta
hit em with Jordan's
...PLAP
slap Kanye West
tell a bitch nigga Picasso's not dead
tell Eminem it doesn't rhyme with basement
te--oh, fuck...

I'm black: I'm like a virus
but I can be your nigga if you my Billy Ray Cyrus
no homo: but I like it
I keep Gangstalicious's bitches out tryina find dick
and when they whip out binoculars like
"where did he hide it," I say:
SWOOSH
nah, you ain't gonna find shit

Attached: Screenshot_20190909-140748.png (1080x2160, 125K)

slaps

I hand a small piece of thickened paper
Where useless and unheard is a word
She looks down then up my little waiver
Amid a crowd at once rowdy and bored

She gives the tender back to end my plight
An impeccable azure dress outshone
By the beaming smile tensing her cheekbone
Welcome aboard Mister, do enjoy your flight