Jeza posted:

Prologue

Jeza posted:

Prologue - MARK TWO?

Rain lashed the windows, rattling the panes. General Braunschweig looked out as lightning ignited a thick swathe of cloud. It was eerie, out-of-season weather. He was on his third brandy, his fingers were twitching on the cool glass. The palm of his other hand rested on the pommel of his sabre. It had been a mistake getting involved with those ambitious upstarts.

He refilled his glass and retired to his armchair. The cushions wheezed and surrendered with a sigh to accommodate him. The firelight cast scythes of light across his trembling hand. He watched it shake. It was a sobering window into his own past. The missing chunk from his index finger - shrapnel from a misfired cannon at Alacampha. The dark lateral scar across the back – the scimitar slash of a Tarkan officer. The purplish powder scorch - a chance mortar at Belkos. An ancient map of scar-tissue that you could follow back through the decades. Yet those wounds were slight compared to the savaging time had wrought upon his hands. Yellowed skin, liver spots and gangrenous looking veins ruptured up from inside, all vying for prominence. His physical appearance was an abhorrence to him.

Time. One enemy he couldn't fight with conventional means. If he hadn't been so averse to aging gracefully he wouldn't have gotten into this mess. He remembered remarking once that there was nothing more pathetic and undignified than an old man begging for his life. True words – he thought it still – but was what he was doing so different?

He clutched his tumbler a little tighter. Perhaps his principles had wasted away like the rest of him. Perhaps our dignity withers and fails like the rest of us. Was he then to be blamed? He felt bitterness rise. Show him the man in his place who wouldn't have done the same, he wanted to shout. Show him what the better man would have done. He necked the rest of the brandy in anger, then sagged. It was too late now for regrets and remonstrations. His dignity knew that much at least.

He shook his head and walked to the door.

“Report Corporal,” he commanded the man stationed outside.

There was no reply.

“Corporal, report,” he spoke a little louder, alcohol infused bravado draining from his voice.

Still there was no reply.

Sabre at the ready, he swallowed, and slowly turned the door-handle until the latch clicked. He jerked the door open in a quick motion, hoping to catch off-guard anybody lying in wait. But the corridor was empty. No guard, no phantom assassin. Just the sound of the rain and the glow from the gas lamps. If he had abandoned his post, by God, the man would regret it. The sabre in his arm drooped as he relaxed. Perhaps the man had simply gone to relieve himself.

Then, the gaslamp at the furthest end of the corridor was snuffed out. The General blinked, unsure if his aged eyes were playing tricks on him. He tightened his grip on his sword once more and strained to see. The next gaslamp along flickered out of existence as he watched. There was no mistaking it. And then like dominoes they died, each in turn faster and faster, one by one, until they had all ceased burning. He took several steps backwards, panic seizing his heart and squeezing tight. A cold draft blew in from the end of the hall.

He began to whisper a prayer but stopped himself. Whatever had come for Gerhardt and Albert had come for him. And their prayers had done them no good at all.

His only source of light - the fire in his bedroom – was suddenly extinguished and he was engulfed by darkness. He drew his inadequate sabre dropped the scabbard with a loud clatter.

“Who's there!” he shouted.

His words were eaten by the blackness. Still the only sounds were the wind and the rain. Lightning flashed. In the brief brilliance, something appeared at the end of the corridor. A hunched silhouette of a man, swaying. The light from the flash died away but he could still see it there. A man-shaped illuminance.

The silhouette lurched from side to side like a drunkard. Then it began to stagger towards him, horribly slow yet with inexorable intent. General Braunschweig was rooted to the spot. It was hypnotic. The light from the figure grew brighter and brighter until he had to shield his eyes. The carpet beneath it began to scorch and smoke. As it got closer, the outer edges became indistinct, less and less human with every step. It bubbled and dripped liquid light. The curtains ignited at its passing.

“Leave me be!“ screamed the General as he backed away “I don't have it, I never had it!”

At his shout, the apparition flickered and disappeared. The General blinked. Blue and white wraiths danced before his eyes from the sudden absence. For a cruel moment, relief washed over him. Had it left him in peace? He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. As he did, he felt an unnatural warmth behind him. And he knew it was not the warmth of his rekindled fireplace. Dread filled him. He turned, and was face to face with an abomination. It was a nightmare. It looked like man who had fallen into boiling lead. It stumbled towards him groaning and burbling, thick white gobs of its skin sloughing off onto the floor. It was a living furnace. The General felt his skin begin the blister and his eyes drying in their sockets. The sheer intensity of the light rendered him blind.

He swung his sabre wildly, trying to fend it off, but it was useless. The apparition released a tortured wail. The volume and dissonance of it seemed to bring the storm into the room, ripping books from the shelves and smashing glass in a deafening fury. In the eye of the maelstrom the monster and the General stood together. General Braunschweig couldn't see, couldn't hear. He shouted incoherently. He felt the thing wrap him in its melting grasp. And in a seething column of smoke and fire, the General burned.






Sheer weight of crits encouraged me to get stuck right back into this. I'd like to think I ticked most of the boxes that I set for myself but in doing so I probably made a whole bunch more boxes to tick. To me this feels tighter and slicker, then again that might just be a case of pride before the fall.


P.S. Sabres can totally rattle so , but I too wondered whether it was too idiomatic.

Nubile Hillock posted:

The 'cool' part of 'his fingers were twitching on the cool glass' really bugs me. If it's his third, the glass wouldn't be cool. I'd be more inclined to something like "his fingers still twitching against the tumbler's glass"

Jeza posted:

Coincidentally I was reading some earlier parts of this thread and saw that you really have a disliking for Perdido Street Station. Yeah, I definitely think I know what style of writing really pushes your buttons

Mike Works posted:

This isn't a critique. It's completely detrimental to the entire purpose of this thread. No matter how high or low the quality of a submission, if you're not going to bother trying to help someone's writing, then don't bother loving posting.

SpiderHyphenMan posted:

First thing I've written in a while. It's subtle as a brick through a window, but it felt good to write.

Shots were fired
I am hiding behind a sign advertising a dating website, the sound of screams and gunfire fill the air.
That gun. Semi-automatic. I don’t know how much he’s got left in that clip, but those belts attached to him means that that doesn’t matter unless somebody stops him.
In some sick way, a part of me wanted this to happen.
All those drat liberals saying guns never solve problems. They don’t know what they’re talking about. I’m going to prove them wrong.
Keep hidden. Low on the ground. This mall is filled with waist-high furniture and kiosks.
About 40 feet away. Need to cut that distance in half.
He’s going into that store. Does he have a grudge against the company? Someone who works there? Doesn’t matter. I’m not going to ask him.
Hide behind the display shelf. Security cameras can see me, but he can’t.
I hear clicks. He’s out. I have between 10 and 20 seconds, depending on how good he is.
In front of him. A woman. Holding a baby. She’s frozen in fear. I’m going to save her.
I pull it out in a motion I practice constantly. 9mm. Keep the permit in my glove box.
I’m going to be a hero.
He’s fumbling. His adrenaline is working against him.
I’ve got him.
Aim. Go for the head. He could be wearing Kevlar under that shirt.
Pull.
The mother screams. I got him. I got
No.
That
On the floor
He’s turned around. He’s looking at me.
On the floor
Bleeding.
Blood.
The woman, knees on the floor, cradling the blood.
Cradling the baby.
No
No
The baby
No
What did I
I don’t
I never
99 times out of 100 I
Oh god
The man is gone
I don’t see him.
I don’t hear gunfire.

SpiderHyphenMan posted:

It's funny, when you make "The man is gone" and "I don't see him" separate lines, and end on "I don't hear gunfire" I almost feel like that makes it sound like the gunman was never there at all, and this was some psychotic episode thing. I didn't mean it that way at all, though I suppose that that interpretation makes a point about background checks, especially for those with a history of mental illness, need to happen now.
I was also thinking that the reason he didn't hear gunfire was because all he could hear were the mother's screams, not because there wasn't any. So I quite like that last line.
Honestly I just wanted to write a counterpoint to the inane "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" hence the title. I never intended a "No Jon, you are the demons" ending.

Symptomless Coma posted:

I can't see anything fresh to crit here but I really want something, so the next person to put something up will get close reading from me.

In pre-emptive exchange (I'm taking out a crit-loan. A cloan.) here's something. I'm planning to submit to this competition (sub-500w, everyone have at it), but I worry that I've been led astray by discovering Borges. If you read this, would you go "nice idea but I don't give a poo poo"? If so, is there a way I can fix that? Ta.

That Eggshell. (200w)

In that epoch the people were born not only along different imagined lines of latitude and longitude but at different heights, so that a baby girl might wink into being miles into the ionosphere, into her own starlit darkness to which she was adapted. Just as many children were born into earth itself, womb swapped for a chamber of liquid mantle.

A minority walked on the surface of the Earth itself. To the sky people it was a green carpet covered in specks, to the ground people it was a brown ceiling that buried them. To the people who could touch it, it was as delicate and unlikely as an eggshell.

As they grew older, those few people grew bored of that land’s flatness. They used their tools to dig into the earth, and they piled that stolen earth into towers that reached the sky, so that they could experience the two parts of the world denied to them.

But the holes rent the ground, and the towers abutted the sky, and the people found they were unwanted in these worlds. And when they climbed back to where they’d come from, they found that mottled eggshell no longer worth walking on.

Martello posted:

Real talk that little vignette owned. It's not my favorite type of thing but obviously I love Calvino and that piece starts to capture his magic. Keep it up.

quote:

Cities & The Dead

What makes Argia different from other cities is that it has earth instead of air. The streets are completely filled with dirt, clay packs the rooms to the ceiling, on every stair another stairway is set in negative, over the roofs of the houses hang layers of rocky terrain like skies with clouds. We do not know if the inhabitants can move about the city, widening the worm tunnels and the crevices where roots twist: the dampness destroys people's bodies, and they have scant strength; everyone is better off remaining still, prone; anyway, it is dark.

From up here, nothing of Argia can be seen; some say "It's down below there," and we can only believe them. The place is deserted. At night, putting your ear to the ground, you can sometimes hear a door slam.

Cities & Desire 5

From there, after six days and seven nights, you arrive at Zobeide, the white city, well exposed to the moon, with streets wound about themselves as in a skein. They tell this tale of its foundation: men of various nations had an identical dream. They saw a woman running at night through an unknown city; she was seen from behind, with long hair, and she was naked. They dreamed of pursuing her. As they twisted and turned, each of them lost her. After the dream, they set out in search of that city; they never found it, but they found one another; they decided to build a city like the one in the dream. In laying out the streets, each followed the course of his pursuit; at the spot where they had lost the fugitive's trail, they arranged spaces and walls differently from the dream, so she would be unable to escape again.

This was the city of Zobeide, where they settled, waiting for that scene to be repeated one night. None of them, asleep or awake, ever saw the woman again. The city's streets were streets where they went to work every day, with no link any more to the dreamed chase. Which, for that matter, had long been forgotten.

New men arrived from other lands, having had a dream like theirs, and in the city of Zobeide, they recognized something from the streets of the dream, and they changed the positions of arcades and stairways to resemble more closely the path of the pursued woman and so, at the spot where she had vanished, there would remain no avenue of escape.

The first to arrive could not understand what drew these people to Zobeide, this ugly city, this trap.



Trading Cities 4

In Ersilia, to establish the relationships that sustain the city's life, the inhabitants stretch strings from the corners of the houses, white or black or gray or black-and-white according to whether they mark a relationship of blood, of trade, authority, agency. When the strings become so numerous that you can no longer pass among them, the inhabitants leave: the houses are dismantled; only the strings and their supports remain.
From a mountainside, camping with their household goods, Ersilia's refugees look at the labyrinth of taut strings and poles that rise in the plain. That is the city of Ersilia still, and they are nothing.

They rebuild Ersilia elsewhere. They weave a similar pattern of strings which they would like to be more complex and at the same time more regular than the other. Then they abandon it and take themselves and their houses still farther away.

Thus, when traveling in the territory of Ersilia, you come upon the ruins of abandoned cities, without the walls which do not last, without the bones of the dead which the wind rolls away.

crabrock posted:

I could understand what you probably meant, but you left so many things open-ended. There's a difference between teasing and having a payoff later, and just being needlessly vague. The problem with your "what the hell is going on" feeling is that it isn't being steered in any direction. There's no reason to leave out that somebody is breathing heavily. In fact I want to know why. But to say their breathing steadied is like, 2 orders of mystery. First I have to assume he was breathing hard, then I have to wonder why. That's a lot of mental work to do for something that probably isn't that amazing anyway. Leave that kind of mental exercise for the really good bits.

You don't have to give me all the details, because if it's good I'll keep reading to figure out, but now it's so withholding that my brain is like "no, not fun" and it's only a very short section. You could have had me hooked with boom. "Lady was in a dead-end ally, holding her rifle up to the face of a child."I still don't know WHY, but I know WHAT is happening. People will keep reading to figure out why, but they won't keep reading if they don't know WHAT is happening.

ViggyNash posted:

They're all drunk. I'm not sure what you expect.

In all seriousness I see what you mean in some of those instances. However, most of those fit the way I imagined the characters would speak. They aren't linguists, and even if they were, the majority are piss drunk. They're going to need transitional phrases to keep their thoughts in line.

On a different note, they aren't in there to convey the meaning the characters are trying to convey; they're in there to keep the persona going. If I were to take all of those out, they would sound almost like any random guy you meet on the street today. That's boring and doesn't fit the setting I was going for. Imagine the same dialog in a modern sports pub, then try it in what you imagine a turn of the century pub to be.

If it's something that simply annoys you then .

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

To everyone else: If you were as good a writer as you think you are, you probably wouldn't be on CC hand-holding newbies and making fun of them when they trip. Keep some perspective.

quote:

And at the end of the day, even if someone is being sarcastic and abrasive, it demeans ourselves and the spirit of the forum to succumb to mockery.

Cervid posted:

To answer these questions:


The wager was between the Governor of Java and the captain. The basic event actually happened in 1678: the captain got to Java in three months with the governor's letters and it was a huge deal because that was a really short amount of time. Whether or not it was an actual wager, I don't know, but I had to include that event or it would not have been history. I just turned it into a wager because that's the easiest reason for everything to center around that ship. It was mentioned in the paragraph with the letters.

The saint part was because they weren't taking part in the usual rowdy sailor behavior and always looking up. Then he says "or maybe they were doing that because they're people who know they've incurred the wrath of God", which was in the Sodom and Gomorrah reference right after.

But hey, if it was done poorly, then I accept that criticism. If a bunch of people are saying it sucked, then it must have sucked. I'll get back on that pony and try again. Thank you for your inputs, Jeza, Seb, Mercedes, and Erogenous Beef. I will definitely take them into consideration.

quote:

Your story will be structured into two scenes of roughly equal length. There's flex room there, so if you need 420 words in act 1 and 530 words in act 2, don't sweat it. Just make sure to obey the word limit.

In the first scene, establish your character and a problem that challenges the character in some way. Both the character and problem should be clear within the first two paragraphs. By the end of the first act, the problem has forced the character to make a difficult decision that reveals some inner conflict about the character's morals or motivations.

In the second scene, your character deals with the consequences of the decision at the end of the first act. The decision has backfired and made things harder on your character. By the end of this act (and your story), the character must face some sort of critical personal crisis - a conflict of motivation or ideals that forces them to make another, more difficult decision that leaves them a changed person. This decision should be somewhere in your final two paragraphs.

Helsing posted:

Thank you Jeza and sebmojo, those are extremely thoughtful and helpful insights. The time and energy that I've been seeing you guys invest into helping other writers is really impressive and your comments on my own work, as well as sebmojo's suggested story structure, are going to be really useful to me as a writer.

the posted:

Thanks, I'll try to work on that.

Regarding the cliche nature, if I'm writing a piece of genre fiction, how can it not in some way be cliche? I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I'm genuinely asking. I've been wanting to write a cyberpunk story for awhile, and I figured the best way to start it would be to drop the protagonist into a hard-boiled situation where he's being roughed up against his will by some nefarious corporation (which I didn't make specifically clear, yet), and also play on body horror imagery with his body being changed against his will.

Anathema Device posted:

I think I'm still a few crits ahead. Here's my thunderdome entry from last week with a few alterations to - hopefully - make it more meaningful. I'm particularly interested on feedback about the characters and relationships: can you piece together enough about Alvin, his mother, and Hank to get a sense of who they are? Are their relationships meaningful and/or interesting? How's the dialogue.

Hank's Used Books
Words: 1115

“...and Aunt May – you know, my stepmother's sister – wore this...” The old phone did no favors for Alvin's mother's voice it sounded and felt like a dentist's tool on the old phone.the simile is fantastic, don't fuzz it up with the extra words. You could also be more specific about the 'tool' - what is it exactly? His neck hurt from cradling the phone against his shoulder, but his fingers were sticky with glue. A paperback lay open on his desk, loose pages lined up carefully. “...scandalous on a woman her age. But you know Sarah, she's too polite to say anything. Needs a backbone, that one. Don't you think?”

“Umm.” It wouldn't be worth selling, but you didn't throw a book away. Someone might want to read it. People here didn't have money for books, but the free ones passed quietly from hand to hand.

“Of course you do, you're a smart lad. Always were. Except for that store. Still losing money, I expect?” There was a tinkle of ice and a swallow. the mother needs to be toned down. Find the scalpel thin places that words get inserted in this kind of relationship.

“Yes mom.” The margins were filled with Hank's cramped handwriting. A customer had traded the book in last week, but it had clearly been through the store before. Alvin stroked the back of his finger down the spine.

“Such a lovely storefront. You could sell the place for a fortune. It'd make such a nice coffee shop, or a restaurant...” Another swallow. Ice squeaking between teeth. The last pages settled into place. “Are you even listening to me?”

“I'm not going to sell the bookstore.” He pushed back from the desk, hard. His chair clunked as the wheels skidded over the uneven floorboards. The desk-lamp was on, casting a pool of yellow across the high wooden desk, the scattering of bills and paper, the pile of books. Beyond it the store was dark.

“You've never made a cent off it.” Clink. Crunch. He picked the dried glue off his fingers as he walked, fingernails pulling at his skin in short, sharp pinches. “What you should do is raise the prices. I mean, I know most of those books are junk, but some have got to be worth something. Sell them on e-bay, if you insist on staying in that stupid little town.” I love all the precise details.

“You raised me here.” He kept his voice mild, affable. Junk. Books weren't junk. Especially old books, with accumulated years of scribbles, broken in to open to the best parts. You didn't just read an old book, you read all the people who had read before you. “I don't want to sell on e-bay. I like meeting people.” The pipes clanked when he turned the sink on. Water sprayed over his hands.

“Meeting people! Nobody interesting ever comes into your crappy shop.” She was swearing, which meant she was on her third drink. At least. Of course she wouldn't find his customers interesting. They were usually shy, quiet people, adrift in a town rife with anti-intellectualism. Ugh. Nice point, but find a different way of saying this. Useless people, she'd call them. Don't let her get to you.

“I think they're interesting.” The faucet squealed as he wrenched the knob. On the other end of the line there was a clink of glass on glass and a splash. He should ask her about the drinking, but in the end, it was never worth it. She only liked talking about other people's flaws.

“Have you been to a psychiatrist about your book hoarding? Just like your uncle. I knew we shouldn't have let you spend so much time with him when you were a kid--”

“You left me here because he'd babysit for free--”

“Your dad was sick, and I was busy. And now you're crazy! Pouring all your resources into that, that shop and ignoring your family. You know, the gardener hasn't been by in three weeks. I thought you were going to take care of it.” There was a quaver there. Was she really scared, or just manipulating him?

Alvin found himself staring at his own dark reflection. The lights were still off in the shop – he knew his away around too well to need them – but his face was a twisted shadow. His hands were shaking. He took a deep breath, but the nausea didn't fade. She was old, broke, lonely. She needed his help and his support.

“Are you even listening?”

And then all the words he'd never said came up, hot and angry. “I always listen, mom. About every party, every flower show, everything. It's you that doesn't listen, or you'd know the gardener's out for surgery and he'll be back next week. Or were you too drunk to remember?”

“How dare you speak to me like that! I have a drink now and then. It helps with my joints. At least I know how to have fun. You just sit all alone in your store and read your books and pretend having customers is the same as having friends!”

“I don't have to drink to have fun, and I don't have to have people around to insult to feel good about myself. I'm not you, mom.” He regretted it as soon as he said it. It was true, but it was the mean truth, the ugly truth. The truth you didn't have to tell.

The line went dead. He braced one arm against the sink as he watched himself lower the phone and press the button. He'd wanted to say that for years.

He felt sick. He'd never talked back to his mother. Maybe that was the key – maybe she'd just leave him alone now. Maybe he'd be lonely.

The phone rang. “Hello?”

“And don't you ever speak to me like that again, you ungrateful, disrespectful--”

He pressed the “end” button and set the phone down. When it rang again, he left it in the bathroom and walked back through the darkened bookshelves to his desk. He'd have to leave her a message in the morning about the gardener. She wouldn't remember tonight.

He pulled open the top drawer and lifted out a battered old novel. Inside it was dedicated in neat, cramped handwriting:

To Alvin,

The only person worth anything in this whole misbegotten family. This is my favorite book. Treasure it. The money and the store are yours. I'm sure you'll spend some of it on that old nag you call a mother, but keep some for yourself. Take in the strays and the lost souls. There's love in the books, boy. Don't forget it.

And I love you like a son. Don't forget that, either.

-Hank. No. This is a sledgehammer, and you need a ball-peen.

Alvin held the book carefully so the tears wouldn't smudge the ink. He let it fall open to the best part and began to read. I think this is all you need here.

Sitting Here posted:

I didn't think I was gonna have time to Thunderdome this week so I didn't sign up. But it was a neat prompt and I ended up writing something in that vein. I'm trying to practice atmosphere for the Goonreads horror contest, so this was a good chance to do that.

I will crit the next story posted or a dome entry or something.

528 words

The draft that fills the room whistles through gap-toothed window shards. There is the gentle, dry trill of magazine pages flipping back and forth as the breeze stirs a travel catalog on the desk.

Above the bed, which is made but rumpled into ridges and canyons of fabric, hangs a print of a painting, one of those nice reproductions printed right onto a canvas. Tink. LCD glass falls onto the armoire from the wall-mounted television. The painting hints through broad brushstrokes at brooding cumulonimbus clouds over a low prairie horizon, and dripping wine on the surface of the print leaves lines like slow, red rain.

The phone that is askew on the floor has a sticker that says 'Dial 0 for Front Desk', but the cord's been yanked out of the wall, and the handset is silent. Just below the number pad, another sticker reminds guests to dial 9 before all outgoing calls, including, the sticker emphasizes, 911.

The catalog flips faster in the draft from the broken window. Shhh, the glossy pages go. Shhh.

There's a cosmetics bag on the marble vanity, alongside a travel charger big enough for three electric toothbrushes, only one of which is in its plastic dock. Puddles of water and something red sit like convex lakes around the raised lip of the white porcelain sink. A particularly strong gust of wind pushes one of the little lakes to the edge of the vanity, down the front of the cherrywood cupboards, onto the largest of three sets of Sandals® Resort souvenir flip-flops.

Thwap. The first drop hits the rubber insole of the shoe.

Tink. Another fragment falls from the face of the television onto the armoire, which is the same polished cherry wood as the cabinets below the marble vanity.

A Pack n' Play crib is crumpled against the wall just below the window, so that the heavy curtains catch every so often in the tangle of mesh and plastic rods.

Shhh. Tink. Thwap. Shhh. Sirens rise from the street far below like the disjointed crescendo of a tuning orchestra. Shhh. The curtain is caught in the Pack n' Play again, billowing in and out like a sail or a lung.

On the bed is one suitcase, open. On the desk next to the travel catalog is one bottle of wine, and like the suitcase it is half full or, possibly, half empty.

Thwap. Thwap. Thwa--thwip. A second rivulet has made its way down the vanity cupboard, leaving a translucent burgundy trail of water and the red something-or-other, and drips onto the smallest of the three pairs of Sandals® Resort souvenir flip-flops, which are less than half the size of the other two pairs and decorated with cartoon fish.

Thwip-thwap-shhh-shhh-shhh-thwap-tink goes the room as the sirens move from the background into the audio foreground. The diastemic window is on the side of the building that overlooks the portico that shelters the valet parking stand. There is a smear of something red on the top of the arch of the portico, one broad, lazy brushstroke where something landed, left its mark, then slid down to rest on the cobbles of the valet car park.

inthesto posted:

Quick responses:

*I honestly thought I was being economical with my words, but apparently I was wrong! I'll give this another go and raise the standards when it comes to being redundant, see how it goes.

*The protagonist not being particularly sympathetic is indeed intentional.

*I didn't even think about Skyrim when I was writing this. There's enough differences that it shouldn't come across as a ripoff, though.

I absolutely see what you're saying about difficulty with sense. While I do write a lot, the vast majority of it is through essays. I've never had trouble describing or explaining ideas, but doing the same with things and actions always befuddles me. Should I take it to the general fiction writing thread for help there?

Jeza posted:

Jeza posted:

All I know is I want to find out what happens next. The scene I'm currently envisaging is that the character's Dad been mean to him and/or repeatedly molested him, and, in order to repent for his sins to his son, he pretends to be re-enacting another bath-time rape scenario when in fact he has somehow hung a million dollars worth of hyper-dense gold bullion in the shape of a bean from his pubic hair as a kind of make-up gift to discover when he leans in to give steamy father-son head.

sebmojo posted:

I sense there are subtleties in the mise-en-scene we've still to explore.

VomitOnLino posted:

Here again (148 Words)

The clatter of the crowded restaurant fades, as and I find myself in a familiar place and time. time?

A door lodged into a tall wedge of a building, standing betweenby a placid river, embedded in concrete. So the river is embedded in concrete? You're trying way too hard to be allusive and poetic here. To the right - a secret bamboo grove. The road is worn and uneven. What road? I thought we were by a river. Pausing on my bicycle, What bicycle, I thought we were in a restaurant? the summer heat waning in the failing light. The air still you want a comma here, I think heavy and motionless. It smells of nothing. Then why mention it.

Recessed into the entrance what entrance a slender a perfectly wrong adjective vending machine hums quietly, chilling its meager selection of beverages. It feels alien. This is meaningless.

Warm light spills quietly HOW DOES LIGHT SPILL NOISILY out of the frosted window - onto concrete steps below. There is indistinct chatter coming through the other side. Being part of it would mean everything. 'everything' is a completely meaningless word here because you have given us no insight into anything about your narrator The desire to step trough the doorway condenses the entire scene to a brilliant single point, the door becoming achingly real, again. WHAT WHEN WAS IT NOT REAL ACHING OR OTHERWISE And then, without warning, it fades.

I never entered. gOOD THE SLENDER VENDING MACHINE MIGHT HAVE BEEN MEAGRE AT YOU

VomitOnLino posted:

Thanks for the critique, I needed that.

I guess, as I don't write very often, I should take my time instead of throwing half-cooked stuff around.
Cheers.

TheRamblingSoul posted:

I really respect and admire people like this guy (apparently) and other creatives like Akira Kurosawa who are incredibly demanding with their work and wanting to put out only top-quality material, no matter the cost.

That's the kind of writer (fiction, film screenwriting, or otherwise) I want to be! I want to stand by work I can be proud of, the kind people would still be reading and talking about after I am dead and gone. That's huge for me.

(I don't care about fame per se, but I do care about writing fiction good enough that would turn heads and warrant attention. So, I'm willing to work really hard for that.)

I think I'll take you up on your offer and try reading more novellas and shorter fiction that still have great writing and stories.

[e]: Also, how can fiction be "Not Genre"? Doesn't every piece of writing fall under a Genre somehow?

God Over Djinn posted:

That's really interesting, it's jarring to me but I'm also notoriously hypersensitive to that kind of thing. I wonder which of us more English speakers would agree with...

jeffLebowski posted:

What's the prevailing thought on critiquing query letters in this thread? I've just finished six months of rewrites and edits on my novel, and that process now seems painless compared to the horror of compressing the entirety of two intertwining narratives into a few hundred words of marketing hype. I have an early draft, but it's overly-wordy and far too long. Is that something you guys would be willing to take a look at (by which I mean 'tear to shreds')? Or is this not the appropriate thread for that sort of thing?

jeffLebowski posted:

I have. It can be pretty illuminating, but at the same time, she is clearly targeting YA material. She specifically mentions middle school age ranges on several occasions. The sample query letters I've read from genres more in line with my own (crime/historical/literary fiction) seem considerably longer and far more detailed. I find the entire concept to be utterly confusing. I'd gladly sit down and write a fresh chapter over writing one single-page query letter. For every bit of query advice I find, I soon find another that states the exact opposite. It really is an odd science unto itself.

I've posted my own bit of meandering word salad below. I'm really trying to emphasize the fact that there are two alternating narratives going on here. I've read that many people suggest picking one protagonist and focusing your query solely on that single character, but I'm not sure that will work for me. The alternating timelines and their interaction is the exact hook I want to push. Regardless, it's obviously far too long.

And here it is, presented for the thread's summary brutalization:

Foster Ettinger will be dead inside a week. He trudges west through the endless pinewood expanse of rural Missouri, tugging at the reins of a gunshot horse and peering over his shoulder with growing desperation. Inside his saddlebag rests a fortune in stolen cash. Behind him rides the host of furious men he stole it from.

He is no stranger to the ways of the gun or the trail. He sees to it that the chase is long and bloody. But his pursuers are relentless. And when Foster hears their leader threaten to massacre the townspeople who have unknowingly offered him shelter, he makes a decision that will see the name of a middling train robber enshrined forever in local myth. The money he carried that day is never seen again.

Thirty years later, his son Isaac drifts through the underbelly of prohibition-era St. Louis a broken man. Dismissed from his position as a detective, and embittered by a lifetime of comparisons to a legend he’s never met, Isaac leads a solitary existence hunting bounties for anyone with the cash to pay. His tracking skills are always in demand—as is his penchant for not asking questions.

So But when he receives a cryptic but well-paying job offer from the now-aging criminal who killed his father, Isaac thinks nothing of taking the payday and getting straight to work. But soon he finds himself in an unforeseen confrontation with his quarry that will force him to reconsider his mercenary ways—and the past he’s spent his entire life trying to escape.

His father’s long-lost money has resurfaced. The lives of innocents are once again imperiled by the greed it rouses in the hearts of violent men. And Isaac will have to reckon with an army of hired guns, damning revelations of the past, and his own fatalistic nature if he is going to save them.

Complete at 119,000 words, THE SILENT FUNERAL is a historical crime novel that intertwines the tale of an unlikely folk hero with that of the son he would never know—two desperate men parted by the span of decades, forced to flee the wrath of the same ruthless murderer, and unknowingly bound by the grim truth that for men like them, redemption is rarely bought with anything but blood.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

crabrock posted:

unpossible

Mr_Wolf posted:

I wrote this for a writing exercise. Basically i'm trying to write something everyday and this came out. There are a few examples of British slang in here too (Sound = OK, slag = Whore/slut). I apologise in advance for the horrifying abruptness of the ending.

First Date

I stepped up to her door. I checked my breath for the 23rd time in the 5 minute walk from my house. I did the hand-iron for the last time: that brilliant teenage gift of believing flattening your clothes down hard with your hands would eliminate the creases.

Ok, This is it.

I knocked.

All time slowed down as she opened the door. I almost initiated a last minute breath test but it was too late: there she was.

Jenny Talton was a b-lister at school. Some days she would be higher as she hung around with her cousin who is one of the most popular girls at school. When i say popular i of course mean she is a slag. You knew that anyway didn't you?

Luckily i caught her in her b-lister stage. I'm a firm d-lister. Fairly popular within certain circles. Mainly the circles that comprise of nerds and virgins.

I plucked up the courage to ask Jenny out after an English lesson 3 days ago. We had sat next to each other and i made her laugh by drawing a detailed penis on my hand. It had veins and shading on the balls. It was almost beautiful.

As she turned to answer me i half expected her to gob in my mouth and slap me in the throat for even suggesting going out with someone in a lower listing than her, but to my surprise she smiled at me and accepted.

I focused in on my arm as she scrawled her number along it. It wasn't just an arm anymore; it was a wonderful slab of meat with a load of numbers in just the right order that if i dialed them i would hear a beautiful girl's voice on the other end - a thing i usually have to pay £1.99 a minute for. The added heart at the end of it was a touch of pure class and almost got me fully erect.

For the rest of that week i didn't speak to her. Weird? Of course. Necessary? Of course.

So i did what any normal teenage boy did when an attractive girl looked at you: i nodded in her direction and did a weird "trying to be cool but also could be having a violent stroke" smile at her.

As she stood there in the doorway i saw she was wearing black knee high socks, a short denim skirt, a black, sparkly shirt with rips at the bottom with rebel written across her boob area and a grey hoodie. I almost blurted "Jesus Christ you're so fit" but luckily my brain stopped me. I won't tell you what my penis was thinking.

"You alright?"

I desperately tried to compose myself, straining with every fiber of my being not to commit the ultimate embarrassment a teenage boy could face: the voice break halfway through a sentence.

I cleared my throat in my head..."Yeah sound, you alright?"

YESSSSS!! I sounded like a man! An actual human man. With a normal, consistent tone! This, this is the single greatest moment of my life.

"I'm going Mum. I'll be in by 11"

She slammed the door shut and shoved her arm under mine and linked my arm with hers. She let out an exaggerated shiver and blew out. I watched the cold air catch her breath and spiral it off into the night.

"Come on then you"

I didn't hesitate.

As a teenager your choice of destination for a date is severely limited. Especially in the small town we live in. I'm not saying it's backward but i wouldn't be surprised if a large number of them still worship the sun. The huge, life-giving star not the paper. Although saying that...

Anyway, as we headed towards the bowling alley - or THE BOWLING PALACE as they optimistically call it - i realised something: I hadn't said a word in nearly 5 minutes. I have to talk. I have to. I don't want her thinking i'm a rapist. Or even worse: boring.

Normal voice. Normal voice. Please let me use my normal man voice and not the one that sounds like a gorilla is squeezing my windpipe at sporadic intervals. Ok, don't let me down...

"School's poo poo isn't it?"

She zipped her hoodie up and looked at me. I quickly looked at my shoes like a mental.

"Nah, it's alright. Better than my old one"

"Yeah it's alright isn't it?"

Genius. What a genius i am. I'm surprised she hasn't dropped her knickers and beckoned me in with that show of my conversational skills. I hate myself so much right now. School. Bloody school is a crap topic on a date, especially with someone like Jenny. I may not even masturbate tonight as a punishment.

I totally will. I'm so weak.

Thankfully we approached the neon, noise factory that was THE BOWLING PALACE. Yeah right, "palace". If your palace has a row of stinking bins near the front door and an alleyway that is known locally to be a "fingering hotspot" you mean.

We walked in and i scanned the room hoping to see every single person i have ever known, looked at or even imagined being here to see me with a woman. A real woman with boobs, a face and a deep, suppressed vicious anger ready to be unleashed on a pathetic man at any point.

Unfortunately i counted 6 people. Us included.

"I'll set up our game, will you buy me a drink please?"

She handed me a crumpled £5 and as she walked off her fingers gently brushed mine as i took her money. It was better than sex. I watched her walk over to an alley and begin to type away on the screen. I looked at her bum. It was perfect. I didn't even think sexual thoughts i just wanted to cry as i rested my face on it.

Is that sexual? It's probably Japanese sexual.

Is she a Coke girl? Nah, it's too mainstream for her. She is far too cool for that. Irn Bru? Pepsi? poo poo. I hate making decisions. It takes me about an hour to settle on one porno to watch. All those little thumbnails look so appealing.

I looked up to stare at her bum again and i saw him looming over her. Him.

Danny Ranger.

He is the size of an oak tree, has arms so muscular that i want to be scooped up by him as i tell him my secrets whilst sobbing gently as he gently squeezes my troubles away.

Basically a bastard. A bastard who needs to piss off immediately.

Also his eyes. Did i tell you about the eyes? They are so blue it makes me want to kill myself. I looked into them once and almost had a period. In his spare time he volunteers at the old people's home. Yep, using his own free will he enters a building full of wrinkles and piss.

What. A. Prick.

Oh really?! If it couldn't get any worse Gary Sinnott is there. Wonderful! I may as well poo poo myself. This night couldn't get any worse.

Me and Gary - or Sinno as he likes to be known - have a little history. A few weeks ago in DT he was spinning a coping saw around using a file. It was not only dangerous it was disrespecting the noble profession of the carpenter. I respectfully told him to stop it. First mistake.

"You're a gay human being and so is your Dad"

I was going to comment on the unnecessary tautology of the "gay human being" insult but let it slide.

"You need to learn to have a bit of respect, i could be your Dad i've had your Mum so much"

I was going to comment on the scientific impossibility of him siring a child at 6 months old but i again let it slide.

"Yeah, your Dad doesn't say anything as i plow into your Mum. Just sits there watching"

Wait a minute. Did i just hear that correctly?

"You say my Dad sits and watches?"

"Yeah"

"But you said he was a "gay human being" earlier"

"Yeah he is. A proper mincing one an' all"

His pack laughed as their leader said some words.

"So who is he watching then?"

"What?"

"When he is sitting there watching you have intercourse with my wonderful Mother. . . surely he is watching you? You like having sex with women as silent gay men watch you."

The silence was joyous. I had won! Not using violence. Or through petty insults. I had won by sheer... and that's when the file hit me in the face. My eye socket took around 60% of the force, my cheekbone the other 40%.

As i lay sprawled out on the sawdust covered floor i realised something: a little sliver of poo had escaped my shocked sphincter on impact. I think i also pissed myself a little bit when my pathetic body hit the floor.

Well isn't this fantastic i thought; not only did i get hit in my face with a metal tool but my body had decided to just start secreting bodily fluid from most of my orifices! Nice one for that, brilliant.

Baudolino posted:

Can I get some feedback on a story i never finished?
I have no idea where to take story from here. Any tips would be appreciated.


"It had been a long time since Richard had been to a party. Time kept slipping away, there were was always more work to be done. He was had been very happy to receive a invitation to the High School Reunion. Happily he managed to find time in his calendar for sleeping off the hangover he had every intention off inflicting upon himself.
LINE BREAK
Checking in the mirror , he was glad his XL pants still fit around him with some room to spare is he wearing them like a loincloth. The suit and shirt were italian and handsewn, he hoped his old friends would be impressed. For all they knew he could be a sucessfull lawyer or peddling loans in a bank. Richard had no plans to disabuse them of this notion."

elfdude posted:

My sense of grammar is instinctual not technical or logical which is problematic for understanding how to fix it. I feel like the guide you gave is helpful but to give a comparison I feel like it's akin to handing me an equation without understanding the algebraic operations it demands. One of the major difficulties I have isn't not knowing the technical comma rules, I understand the basics, but the fundamentals that those are based on are not entirely understood which leads to inappropriate usage of the rules in certain situations.

For example, the first thing I run into is trying to figure out what a clause is, this leads me into what a complete sentence is. While I understand what a verb and a noun is, or a subject and an action are, and to a lesser extent adjectives and adverbs, there exists a gap between the basic understanding of sentence structure and the more complicated sentences used in typical prose. I feel like if I could bridge that gap I could have a much more reliable understanding but I find it frustrating that guides are either spelling out those basics that I already understand or delving into clauses and etc without explaining what those are. I've made attempts to examine this but it's very easy to get lost in the weeds if you're not exactly sure what you're looking for, and I was hoping someone might have a bit more experience than I do could and could identify the gap.

Sorry if that doesn't make sense, but it's the best way I can explain it.

As far as the prose itself, you've given me some awesome ideas on how to fix the writing. I'm glad to know that there's some inherent qualities which are solid within the story and I'm happy to rewrite the prose to better explain those.