Martello posted:

Nyarai's a lady. Way to just assume everyone's a dude on the internet, check your privilege much?

Martello posted:

Not everyone needs full line-edits. For them I'll pick out specific lines that stood out to me one way or the other, and then give an overall critique.

quote:

Some more emotional attachment and reason for the hatred would have made this story better.

magnificent7 posted:

Thanks Chillmatic for the crits. I appreciate your input.

Sitting Here posted:

This is terrible and I am terrible. I shouldn't pick deathprompts when I'm in a deeply terrible mood. Do not read

Based on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Lopatka I'm intentionally not reading the wiki link. I'd like to go in surprised. And also, for what it's worth, I've read over this once already and if you really think this is terrible writing, I'd be curious to see what you consider your best stuff. You've got decent chops; don't self-deprecate.



Mr. Slowhands
866 words

It's my last morning alive, and the first thing I see is Bobby, jerking off on the bed next to me. welp this definitely sets a pitch-perfectly disgusting tone. well-done. He holds his big hairy belly so that it doesn't droop onto his you-know-what, didn't like 'you-know-what.' felt childish and ill-suited to the mood already established. i feel like she'd use a more adult word and his whole body shakes with the effort of keeping the thing hard.

I can't blame him. I'm stuck to the bed with nylon cords, have been for more than two days. If I were gonna live through this, I'd worry about the horrible itching and burning under my bottom and thighs. i wanted more detail here as to why she was itching. it's already starting to gross me out but i wanted you to go even harder for the kill As it is, I want to tell him that I don't think the rubber mattress cover will be enough to save the bed, but I can't do that cause of the gag.

I'm in pain. i love sentences like these. less is nearly always more and it really shows here. I'm a horrible, bad, awful girl getting off in this trash-filled trailer somewhere in North Carolina. again those adjectives just beg to be more adult, given the scenario you're describing. I squirm against the ropes, and give a little whimper in hopes of getting Bobby's spirits up. heh, 'up'. love the subtlety there.

"I'm gonna give you what you deserve today, you big disgusting bitch." The words are all right, but he sounds like someone reading lines. great description. i heard his voice in my head. His emails had been so confident, so sure. But in real life now his voice is reedy and he stumbles over some of the dirtier stuff.

He cleans off my privates with a baby wipe and then starts rutting at me with his half-hearted little thing. I struggle and cry, trying to get him to do like he talked about online. god i am really uncomfortable right now. but i'm not bored, so you're still winning He scratches at me a little, leaves red welts but no broken skin. And he won't put his hands around my throat. she sounds almost disappointed. very subtle and effective. Not yet, he keeps saying. I'm gonna die of the drat sepsis before this man chokes me to death.

This thought triggers panic, and I thrash around for real for a while which gets Bobby a little more riled. But his heart's not in it, I can tell. So I do the only thing I can. I pee on him.

It takes him a second or two to notice. He sits back on his heels, sees the puddle growing between us, then looks at me. I smile allinnocently around the gag. i cut the 'all' here because it's a conversational tic that rarely works in prose.

Next thing I know I'm under a storm of fists and fingernails and teeth, i love, LOVED this part so much that i think it ought to be its own sentence and his little doodle is big-as-you-please. I guess even the most stoic guy doesn't much like getting peed on.

He's in me, above me, all around me. doing a lot with very little here. good. And stupidly, all I can think of is that Sesame Street song my neice would always sing, Over, Under, Around, and Through. Something about knowing the distance between near and far or--

Smack

Loose teeth, blood behind the gag. I come back to reality, realize that I accidentally took myself away from the violence. And jJust when things were getting good...

Bobby pulls out and waddles naked out into the trailer's trash-filled front room. tell me what kind of trash(it will reveal a lot about his character, won't it?). don't say car when you could say jeep. don't say dog when you could say pug, don't say trash when you could say empty beer bottles and crusty porno mags etc. I moan in protest, thinking I've killed the mood. But nowhe's rustling around, looking for something. I hope it's the rope, then I hate myself for hoping it's the rope,this next part of the sentence is really important, so make it its own sentence! tThen I feel the deep-hot-sticky-dirty-dark feeling, the feeling people mean when they say gently caress with the ugly 'f' sound and the hard K at the end and I want the rope.

I take in the tiny bedroom, the bare walls and the one bookshelf stacked with hundreds of floppy disks with labels like Real Amateur Neighbors - Pics and Dirtyslut.txt. The room is a more intimate partner than Bobby in some ways, since it's the last place I'll ever see. And even when I'm gone, it'll always be that room. Ok, this is what i mean; great description! but why is it here, in this part of the story? why not earlier?

The empty walls makes me think of movie credits scrolling on an empty black background. There's no song playing to tell me this is the end of my life, just the quiet and the grey and the smell of me n' Bobby in the air.

Here he is now, Bobby with the rope in his hands and dark things in his eyes. describe the dark things. give me something to work with. The little nubbin peaking out from under his big bear belly is dark too, the darkest purple I ever saw it. He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me. I moan and shake my head and strain against the nylon cords. He's going to kill me.

I don't want to die. But I want Bobby to kill me.

He gets back into position, gut resting on my abdomen, skin stuck together by sweat. He holds the rope taught in from of him as he ruts at me, letting me see it before it goes around my neck

oh god.

The room is clear, crystal clear. I can see everything, smell everything, feel everything.

Oh god I'm

Yes

No

My life in front of me, just moments of it left now

The rope

Bobby

The rope

Tighter and tighter

Not yet

not yet

I'm not there yet, but he's emptying himself out, and his balls are as empty as his eyes but I'm not there yet

and now black spots are swirling in from the corners of my eyes and my face feels like it's swelling up, but I'm not there yet, I'm not gonna get off

Not yet Bobby

not yet

I didn't get

Nubile Hillock posted:

Feathers 453 words

The Erinyes rode in on trumpet blasts and Gods applause. I found the imagery here a little confusing, maybe because it isn't grammatically clear what "Gods applause" means. did you mean multiple gods' applause? or singular God's applause? The Olympiad had begun. Claps turned into dusty thunder-strikes: hooves on stone. I shifted the pebbles on the floor – this should be an em dash, not a hyphen. and no spaces around it either! first a line, then an angle, now round as the seal on my fate. The couriers would be here soon, bearing laurel. My mind’s eye saw the oracled words lit like torches. what words?

I took my skin and drank the lees, sweet wine dripping over the pebbles. I didn't know what this meant; I thought he was drinking wine from the ground or something (pebbles)

“Sealed with the blood of another,” the infernal messenger once spoke to me, and again now – her voice woven across time’s tapestry.

Outside there was only silence. The King was speaking. A knock at my door; quiet, urgent. I cast the stones across the room, restored them to their natural order: chaotic, lawless, bloodstained. The men crossed the threshold. I stood. hmm. i like the way these sentences sound, but the imagery felt a bit mixed to me. there's silence, but someone talking. a knock at the door, but quiet again. vague men coming at our narrator who just threw some rocks. what's happening here?

“Draco, God-favoured sage! It is time!” Agathon said. even one line telling us who Agathon is would go a long way towards helping clear up the mess here.

I embraced them as brothers; knelt when they crowned me with laurel. Outside, the cart was already waiting. The oil-blessed tablets shone in the midday sun; my words burned into their faces.what words? And they were mine, not passed down through quiet coughing of dying men or handed down from vengeful Gods.

I got onto the cart, as did Agathon. The other man walked beside us, arms heavy with wreaths. The trumpets blared, applause erupted once more. The wagon pulled us ahead – em dash a sum of working parts. An axle, a wheel, leather and nails. Each proscribed and measured and crafted from an ideal – em dash! though honestly I'd go with a semicolon here rather than that. should not such be the actions of men? I like where I think you're going with this metaphor, but on its own it's a little unclear. elaboration would be welcome.

The crowd was all around us now, the aether filling with sounds. don't say 'sounds' when you could say 'the roar of a mighty people' or whatever you choose. strong description would really bring this alive. right now i don't know if they're booing or cheering or screaming in agony. Over this I could hear the Erinyes speak, their infernal tongue there and gone all at once. Anger; but I’d broken no pact. i don't know who the Erinyes are and i feel like you should cut the reader a bit of slack and let them in on some back story here!

“Men!” I bellowed, raising my arms, “I give you Law!” who the hell is our narrator? what is he doing here? why is he giving them law?

The crowd cheered, euphoric. All went dark. Sounds like flapping of enormous wings, my body weighed down by shades. The Erinyes had come to claim their dues. But it was too late, the deed was done. No longer would a God barter with the soul of man. I collapsed under their weight, yet more still came. I could barely hear the crowd. hear the crowd doing what?

I saw myself in Hades, but I’d known it all before. My eternity was to be a single moment. That night what night? they’d come from Athens, to steal my father’s swine. Scared, I ran from the attackers. I heard my brother’s cries. I’d paid the Gods then, in my brother’s blood, asked for mercy and for vengeance. vengeance i get, but why mercy? The Gods had named their price, but I vowed to never let another follow in my path.

I could feel the heat of Hades across the cold darkness of the Styx, it wouldn’t be long now.

Chillmatic posted:

I completely forgot to mention: what you wrote was a massive improvement over your previous writing. The best thing any of us can hope for is to continuously improve our craft; your latest output shows you're doing that. Keep at it, and don't let anyone crush your love of your own ideas. What's most important is to learn how to tell, before anyone else is subject to them, which ones are good and which ones are poo poo. Hard to do but always worth the effort.

quote:

1794: John Kendrick, an American sea captain and explorer, was killed in the Hawaiian Islands when a British ship mistakenly used a loaded cannon to fire a salute to Kendrick's vessel.

Chillmatic posted:

if you really think this is terrible writing, I'd be curious to see what you consider your best stuff. You've got decent chops; don't self-deprecate.

Martello posted:

Kyle vs Predator (aka KVP)

The syncopated beat of the helo blades thundered in my ears, louder than my pulse pounding while Ryhanna pounded me in the rear end. The doc always told me to wear earplugs, but gently caress it, hardcore SOF Marines take tinnitus like a badge of honor and love every whistling, ocean-sound second of it. YOLO, after all.

Ryhanna's deep voice filled my mind, telling me how much she loves me, how sexy I am, how much she likes my flat hairy chest, oh baby, oh baby yeah, just like that, you tight little bitch...

"Hey V-Tine, five mikes!" Billy's voice snapped me out of my reverie.

"Oorah, brother. Stay frosty, cocked locked n ready to rock."

Billy stared at me like I was crazy.

"You know what I'm saying? Frosty like the motherfucking snowman."

"Sure," Billy said. I don't know what that dude's problem is sometimes.

The pilot set the Little Bird down in a clearing about four klicks from the target. Had to be that way, with Charlie swarming the woodline like cockroaches in a cheap motel bathroom, the kind of motel where you tryst with a girl named Joey you met on OK Cupid, with a great set of storebought tits and something extra in her g-string...

...or wait, I meant haji. Or is it MAMs now? Either way, the woodline was swarming with them, never knew if one of those bitch-rear end motherfuckers was packing an SA-7 or a Starstreak or one of those other cool MANPADS you can read about on worldguns.ru. So we'd have to hump four easy k's through some of the most difficult terrain known to man - we're operators, SOF Marines, no loving sweat brother.

An hour later, we were less than six hundred meters from the oh-bee-jay. Hawkins held on to our rucks at a mini-ORP while Billy and I started clover-leafing. The two of us took up position on a pile of rocks overwatching the crash site. We could see the downed Blackhawk, thing was gangfucked six ways to Sunday. No movement, though.

"Hey Billy," I whispered.

"What?"

"Hey man, it's hot as gently caress, sweating like a tranny's ballsack over here."

Billy gave me a look of disgust. "What's with you and trannys, bro?"

I felt my rear end in a top hat tighten, was Billy on to me? "Nothing, bro, they're just funny. Lol trannys, you know? Not that I haven't almost hosed one and made out with a couple, but yolo."

Billy's eyes were wide. "Did you just say 'lol' out loud? And what was that last thing, 'yolo?'"

"Uh, yeah. It's funny, like ironic and poo poo, oorah?"

"Shut the gently caress up, dude, we have a job to do."

Billy was such a loving killjoy.

Two hours later, we'd scoped out the crash site and still nothing moving. We clovered back to the ORP to link back up with Hawkins. But he wasn't there, only our rucks.

"What the gently caress dude?" Billy said.

"I dunno man, you think he's taking a poo poo or something?"

Billy pointed to the rifle resting on Hawkins' ruck. "Not without his weapon, bro."

"Good point," I said. "Hey, I've been meaning to ask Hawkins, maybe you know. Why's he carry an M27 instead of a Mk 17 like you and me?"

Billy's mouth literally fell open for a second. "That's an M4 you loving retard. First time seeing one?"

"Nah bro, sorry, my Oakleys are blurry. All the sweat." I turned away so he couldn't see how red my face is, and that's when I saw it. A human body, hanging from a branch about a hundred feet up. Skinned like a loving rabbit. I screamed like a little girl...I mean I let out an awed "gently caress my rear end."

"Holy loving poo poo, is that Hawkins?" Billy asked. His mouth was open again. I couldn't help but think about how my peeny would look there, thrusting and pumping, while Ryhanna's longer and thicker pole was in my own rear end, making me grunt and moan...but I digress.

"Gotta be," I grunted. "We're dealing with something way beyond your typical g-man, bro."

Billy didn't answer, he was busy throwing up the Jambalaya MRE he'd eaten earlier that day. I traded it to him for a Spicy Penne Pasta. Can't eat Jambalaya again after that one time after my first kill. Spoiled MRE did it, not the kill obviously haha.

I went to help Billy, maybe hold his hair back, but then I saw the three red dots on his chest.

"Billy, duck!" I yelled, but it was too late. Something came out of the trees and hit his chest, blowing him into little shreds of blood meat. It was then that I knew. We had a loving predator on our hands. I'd seen that movie a bunch of times.

I also knew the galaxy's greatest hunter wouldn't just gun me down. Hawkins and Billy maybe, but not me. He instinctively knew how hardcore and stonecold I was, and he'd face me in single combat, honorably.

I spun around and faced the trees. Was that a heat shimmer or the alien monster's active camouflage? I shouldered my Mk 17 and fired a burst of 7.62 HP - we got those because we're outside the Geneva convention - at the shimmer. I was rewarded by an inhuman scream and a huge shape crashing through the branches and to the ground about ten meters in front of me. I fired three more bursts in the two seconds it took me to cover that distance - I'd only been lifting that deployment, no room to run so I was a little out of shape - and watched the alien's camo blink out.

Goddamn but he was huge and powerful. Thick ropy muscles stood out on his massive frame, meaty haunches perfect for thrusting, and there's no way that metal codpiece didn't hide a serious loving meatpole. I tackled the predator as he tried to stand up, using Marine Lines training plus the BJJ I do every other night at the dojo near Picadilly Circus. He snarled and grunted, almost as if he was enjoying it. I had him in the reverse mount so I could get that codpiece off. I used my K-Bar to pry the thing apart and popped it off.

"You are one hung motherfucker," I growled.

I had my DCU pants off before even I knew what I was doing, and lowered myself onto his throbbing alien love stick. As I felt that sweet pain, I turned and whispered the sweetest thing I could think of over my shoulder.

"gently caress me, space human being."

Sitting Here posted:

picking my nose is fun

Martello posted:

Sitting Here posted:

I mean, I was clearly comfortable enough to post it here

Do they not let you have a good nose-picking session when you're playing army mans?

Martello posted:

I was picking my nose in my office

Chillmatic posted:

Uno mas.

MrFlibble posted:

what I know about this story going in: a croc got loose on a plane and everybody panicked, crashing the plane.

Alright I'm posting this. I worked on it during a (long) break at a training course so I need to have it somewhere. 1,013 words.THIS IS THE WORST TITLE I’VE EVER SEEN

There are three ways to get to Bandundu. There is the road, there is the river and there is the air. I am Tendaji and I have chosen to fly to the dying port capital of the Bandundu (conveniently named Bandundu) farts because I have no car and I mislike what the gently caress the river, with teeming wildlife hidden beneath its murky film. so the density of the wildlife is your concern wrt rivers? I am going to watch a football match with my brother, who lives in there. yawn I care little for the game but more for my brother. care more than little? So, is that a lot or just a tiny bit more? I have no idea how much you care for your brother.

The plane is small and full. these two things seem awkward to pair together. A plane is small always, a physical characteristic. It IS small. A full plane is a transient state, it just happens to have people. Putting them together makes me feel weird. All told there are about eighteen people including myself. this shows me that the plane is small since I know it’s full, you didn’t need to tell me it was small. Most like there is a pilot and co-pilot as well um, duh?. I am sat I now suspect you are talking weird on purpose, but it’s not working for me. next to a large man who is snoring ever so slightly and behind a loud American couple who are arguing loudly in their way. what is their way? I can understand parts of their conversation but I make like I do not. what would be the difference if you acted like you did? Outside the clouds drift by and I am content to let the nattering follow.

The flight is short and, forgetting the check in and inevitable check out at the capital, shorter still. you forgot? And that made it shorter? This seems counter intuitive. I close my eyes and listen to the soft snorts of the man next to me and I smile softly.
And then the peace is broken. A cry goes out. The American in front of me has stood up and is helping his wife out of her seat. In front of them I see other passengers heading towards the pilot’s cabin. The crowding at the front of the plane reminds me oddly of a flock of birds, two gulls standing foil. 2 is a pretty small flock.
I make apologies to my neighbour and cross the small gap to stand in the aisle. why hasn’t he done anything? I look first towards the birds and then privy-wards.

My heart almost stops. does it really? I take a gasp of air, and finding little comfort I take another. My hands are shaking. Gripping the chair makes little difference, ; I almost fall over.
There is a crocodile in the aisle of this small plane, grinning happily at the fear of all men and women as is its right. this anthropomorphism doesn’t really fit imo. I imagined he’d be scared as hell in reality There is shredded material under it, as if it had constructed a nest of some sort for itself. There is no one in the seats around the creature and no body near it.
My brain tries to compensate for this. for why the people are missing? They ran to the front, you already said… As my body urges me to move my rear end your body tells your rear end? Isn’t your rear end part of your body? So your rear end is telling your rear end things? as far away as it can get from the leathery beast, possibly further how does that work? What is farther than the farthest possible. That’s what farthest possible means. , my mind works on the small detail If you meant “small detail” sarcastically it didn’t come through very well. of why there is a leathery beast there in the first place.

They are quite valuable dead, I have heard of the many goods you can make with crocodile skin. But this seems to require them to be dead. dur This crocodile is very much alive, although it is very still. I think it is sizing up its opponents.

Perhaps someone intends to gift the crocodile as pet, ; stranger things have happened.
I turn to my compatriot and give his shoulder a hard nudge. He looks bewildered and then angry. He starts to make the sound men make when they are disturbed and I Sspeak.

“There is a crocodile on the plane,” He punctuation looks at me and I see on him the face of a man who feels very much like I felt a short moment ago. who said this? I make a small shrug and point to the crocodile. He looks to where I am pointing and then confirms that it is a crocodile, almost offended that I had waked him for good reason. huh? Don’t really know who is feeling what right now.

I back towards the front of the plane and the safety of the herd, keeping my eyes on the crocodile that seemed happy to laze there in the centre EUROPEAN ALERT of attention. I had a great and terrible thought, giving me pause that allowed my former seatmate to push his way past me.

This plane that carried me was small, and it was full. There was no one around the crocodile, indeed there was no one at the back end of the plane at all. All of us were, to a man, so awkward at the front of the plane.

I am a simple man, but it occurs to me that if we are all at the front of the plane then we will start heading towards the ground sooner than the pilot might intend. in other words: crash

“We are all at one end. If we do not move the plane will fall,” somebody panicking and saying “the plane will fall!” doesn’t seem realistic. I say in my Swahili. I see a flock of blank stares. I repeat it, best that I can manage, in my American.

“You want us to get closer to that thing? You first, buddy,” The man says to me. what man? I do not understand the specifics of this, but the general thrust of his point is clear enough.

“Does anyone have a knife, or something I can keep it at bay with?” I ask twice the whole sentence? I would think that the second time would just be “A KNIFE DAMMIT!” although I do not expect an answer wither way. I sigh at my foolishness. butts. You seem way too calm about this, especially since you know what is going to happen. It is probably much easier to smuggle a crocodile onto a plane than a machete, although I can’t quite see how it is so. well thanks for sharing it with me then?

I keep my eyes on the crocodile and I climb towards it, keeping my hands on the chairs of both sides. I move to the left side of the plane and climb over the seats. The crocodile inclines its head towards me slightly but does not make its attack. It looks playful. I now move, slightly quicker, towards the very end of the plane.
this has been going on way too long. A plane doesn’t slowly adapt to the new load adjustment. It is sudden and catastrophic, which is very hard to recover and from and why it usually leads to a crash. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN3waJIc574

“I need some more people over here!” By the time I call I have felt the plane dip. It seems that more time has been taken moving to the rear of the plane than is reasonable. I call again and then again and I use every language I have four words in, but I might as well be talking to the crocodile.
I cannot see the beasts face anymore. The plane is falling to the ground now I know that it has not snapped at anyone on this plane. It has not bitten anyone. But sure as the sky it has killed us all.

overall this story has a really weird voice, and your main character seems way too calm. But you haven’t given me any reason for his calmness. He’s so afraid of animals that he won’t even take a boat, but face to face with a croc in a tiny plane and he’s like “let me sit here and think calmly and talk wax poetic about our fate.” You did not make him seem brave and calm in the face of danger before this trip, why has he grown a pair all of a sudden. Throw in some interjections! Some excitement!

Having your character KNOW the plane is going to go down several minutes before it does kind of ruins the surprise. He basically tells us how it’s going to end paragraphs before it happens. That takes some of the suddenness and fear out of it. I thought that was the worst part of your story: how he predicts exactly what is going to happen.

This probably won’t be the loser, but the lack of polish that you insisted on not adding really shows.

Nubile Hillock posted:

Feathers 453 words

The Erinyes rode in on trumpet blasts and Gods God’s? applause. The Olympiad had begun. Claps turned into dusty thunder-strikes: hooves on stone. hm? I’m not quite clear what is happening here. The people’s claps turn into thunder-strikes, but then they are also hooves on stone? I shifted the pebbles on the floor – first a line, then an angle, now round as the seal on my fate. The couriers would be here soon, bearing laurel. My mind’s eye saw the oracled words lit like torches.

I took my skin and drank the lees, sweet wine dripping over the pebbles.

“Sealed with the blood of another,” ♫tempted by the fruit of another♫ the infernal messenger once spoke to me, and again now – her voice woven across time’s tapestry.

Outside there was only silence. The King was speaking. A knock at my door; quiet, urgent. I cast the stones across the room, restored them to their natural order: chaotic, lawless, bloodstained. you restored their bloodstainedness? Are your hands bleeding? The men crossed the threshold. I stood.

“Draco, God-favoured sage! It is time!” Agathon said.

I embraced them as brothers; knelt when they crowned me with laurel. this is kind of like a hatOutside, the cart was already waiting. The oil-blessed tablets shone in the midday sun; my words burned into their faces. And they were mine, not passed down through quiet coughing of dying men or handed down from vengeful Gods.

I got onto the cart, as did Agathon. The other man walked beside us, arms heavy with wreaths. The trumpets blared, applause erupted once more. The wagon pulled us ahead – a sum of working parts. but not greater than? An axle, a wheel, leather and nails. Each proscribed and measured and crafted from an ideal – should not such be the actions of men?

The crowd was all around us now, the aether filling with sounds. Over this I could hear the Erinyes speak, their infernal tongue there and gone all at once. Anger; but I’d broken no pact.

“Men!” I bellowed, raising my arms, “I give you Law!”

The crowd cheered, euphoric. All went dark. Sounds like flapping of enormous wings, my body weighed down by shades. aw. your solution to not mentioning clothes was just to call them shades? Honestly, I’m disappointed.The Erinyes had come to claim their dues. But it was too late, the deed was done. No longer would a God barter with the soul of man. I collapsed under their weight, yet more still came. I could barely hear the crowd.

I saw myself in Hades, but I’d known it all before. My eternity was to be a single moment. That night they’d come from Athens, to steal my father’s swine. Scared, I ran from the attackers. I heard my brother’s cries. I’d paid the Gods then, in my brother’s blood, asked for mercy and for vengeance. The Gods had named their price, but I vowed to never let another follow in my path.

I could feel the heat of Hades across the cold darkness of the Styx, it wouldn’t be long now.

I’m not 100% sure what is going on but let me summarize and you can tell me how stupid I am:
Draco is chilling in his room during the olympics. He gets a vision from an oracle that some people are coming for him. They come and get him and take him to the king. Then he’s like “here are some laws I made up myself but you think they’re from god.” Then they throw “shades” on him because they like the laws and also his brother died a while ago during a pig raid.

I know that short, abrupt sentences and a matter of fact tone are supposed to create tension. They do here, to a degree, but I feel like with such a foreign setting I need a little bit more setting and narrative to tie the pieces together. It seems to jump around a little too much. It is very short, and I don’t think it’d hurt it to make it a tiny bit longer and add a few transitions.

If I understand the story correctly, I like the plot, but it feels incomplete.

Ceighk posted:

What I know going in: this dude was concerned with erroneous word usage so much that he starved to death.

The Liar's Paradox
1223 Words

Hunger has become a constant. Having spread outwards from my stomach like a jot of wine blooms in water, it permeates my body. My toes as much as much as This is as good as it gets? my tongue pine you have more than one tongue?for the flatbread that lies beside me in a wicker basket. I hate wicker. It was brought for me to eat, but I shall not eat it. So already I’m sensing a problem here. I figured that the dude studied so hard that he forgot to eat (I’ve known several people with this affliction in grad school). Instead, he’s not only aware of the hunger, but it is a focal point of the story. This isn’t necessarily going to ruin it, but it makes it a little more unbelievable. I assume now that he’s going to play the role of a martyr.

Balanced on the brink of the dirt cliff by the river, leant out just slightly over the water, stands an old plane tree. When I need to think, I lie under its limbs with my back to its bark. I am nestled in its shade. Its leaves whisper to the wind. Below, the glistening waterway murmurs deeply. adverb usage is buttly

To my right stretches my garden; at the foot of it stands my house. I’m getting really bored of this guy describing his life to me. Where the gently caress is the action or dialogue or SOMETHING? Why the massive info dump? This is flash fiction. I don’t care where he lives or what his favorite tree does when it is windy. This dude is STARVING. Why? Beyond its white geometry, swollen hills dotted with sheep and criss-crossed with drystone walls rise lazily into the pinch of blue mountains, their sides spattered with snow, their every crinkle accentuated by the low orange light of the sun. jesus Christ, the adjectives. Also you forgot yellow. Why do you hate yellow? The river is shallow and clear. didn’t you already tell me about the river?Small brown fish hover above its rocky bottom. still no yellow.Above the surface, C-shaped swallows swoop at the hanging clouds of flies.

Think about this: OK! if a man says 'I am lying', is he telling the truth? Is that an impossible question? It seems that way. It's a paradox. yes, a very famous one.

There are swallows over the garden, too. One dives past me so close that if I was quick enough I could have grabbed it. and do what with it? Why would you grab it even if you were quick enough? Obviously not to eat. Maybe so you could describe in detail all the colors?

Hermesianax is over by the house again. he wants to know if you have any pickles?H e picks his way through the grass with his distinctive care. dude, you need to mow the lawn in your house.

“Hello, Philitas,” he says. “You haven't eaten the bread I brought you.”

“I haven't. Again, I'm afraid, I've been much too busy.”

“Busy with what?”

“Well, thinking. Naturally.”

He sighs and sinks into the shade. BATMAN!

“What have you been thinking about today?” a few attributions would be nice here. After my snarky batman comment I forgot who was talking.

“Philitas, if a man says to you, 'I am lying', can he be telling telling grammarthe truth?” oh. This again. Why bother telling us about it in the first place?

Hermesianax steeples his fingers and gazes out over the water. His fingers are dark, solid, and strong; they are quite unlike mine.

“It's just a paradox,” he says. “He can't be telling the truth or he'd be lying, and he can't be lying or he'd be telling he truth.” PROOFREAD YOUR loving STORY. THIS IS WHY WE TOLD YOU NOT TO SUBMIT IT EARLY.

“Well, yes. That's what I thought too – at first.”

“What do you mean 'at first'? There's nothing more to it. It's a paradox. You can't be telling me you've skipped food for so long to think about something so trivial!”

“My boy, my boy, my boy!” I say. “Open your mind! There's more to it than that!”

“Is there?”

“Of course.”

“What is it?”
I wanted a story about why the gently caress this man starved to death. All he’s doing is having a boring conversation about a well-known paradox, and it is really boring. I feel like to enjoy this story I must be a college freshman and be high as gently caress.

He's got me there. If there is anything more to it, I don't know what it is. He's probably right but I can't let him know that.

“Look, it's complicated. Leave me in peace and I'll explain later.”

“No,” he says. “I'm not leaving you in peace until you eat some of that bread.”

This other H guy seems like a poorly conceived foil for P-man. All he does is not understand things and whine about bread.

I was hoping he wouldn't say that. why? WHY ARE YOU STARVING YOURSELF. JUST EAT THE loving BREAD.

“Then you'll be waiting a long time,” I tell him. “I told you, I'm much too busy.” you were just lying under a tree describing every color of every object to me. You can munch on some bread while you do that.

“That makes no sense!” I’m with this anonymous speaker.

“It makes perfect sense. It's a fact of life that comes to you with age. One day, my boy, you'll understand.”

“I pray to Zeus that I don't,” he says. “Look, Philitas, when did you last eat? In this past week have you eaten anything? Anything at all?”

I watch the swallows on the river to avoid his gaze.

The answer is no. It's been longer than a week. The morning after the last full moon he came to me here with a flatbread in a basket and some water. I didn't see him approach, so intensely was I re-evaluating the subtleties of a long-passed argument. I told him I was too busy thinking to eat, and he told me that was impossible.

“It's perfectly possible,” I said, “and if you give me some quiet I'll show you how it's done.”

Hermesianax chuckled and set the basket down at the base of the tree. When he came back that evening, it hadn't moved.

“How can you have been too busy thinking to eat for an entire day?”

“Fairly easily, actually,” I said. “You know, it happens all the time.”

He shook his head. “There are times when I don't believe you.”

Since that day I have eaten nothing. Now, where the colour has run from the eastern sky a silver disk looms over the mountains. The full moon is back. It has been twenty-nine days since I last touched food. In that time, the flesh has melted from my shoulders and chest. Starvation has whittled my legs and arms into broom handles.

It hurts.

“Philitas!”

“What?”

“I said, when did you last eat?”

“That's nothing to do with you?”

“Yes it is!”

“How is it?”

“Because you're my friend.”

“Hermesianax,” I say, “a good friend respects his friends' wishes.”

Hermesianax stands and looks down at me, his dark eyes shimmering wetly. “A great friend stops you when you're being retarded.” yea, I don’t imagine erudite people saying this poo poo. but then again, I do hang around some pretty immature phds.He takes a couple of steps away then turns back. “But maybe I'm just not that great a friend.” boo-hoo

“If you're leaving,” I tell him, “take that loving bread with you.” your characters have seemed to change their whole style rather drastically and suddenly.

He ignores me. I throw it at him. It's heavy in my palm. It bounces weakly off his back and lands in the grass.
Maybe I could eat the bread when no one would see and say I chucked it in the river. Maybe I could sneak into the house and get something from the cellar without the servants noticing. so he wants to eat but is afraid of what people will think? This is stupid. Why? Why does he do this stupid thing? The whole time he’s been saying he can’t eat but he’s really wanted to but didn’t want people to think he had eaten? This makes no sense. I am mad at you.

When I'm sure he's gone, I attempt to stand. I can't. My heels press into the dirt, but the muscles in my legs no longer have the strength to get me upright. The bread landed too far away for me to reach. I don't have the energy to crawl for it. I collapse backwards into the tree's embrace and let the night engulf my body and then my mind.

When I awake, Hermesianax is again standing over me. The morning sunlight slips through his blonde hair. He is holding a skin of water and another flat bread.

“Look who came back,” I say. My voice is weak and unfamiliar, barely audible.

“Are you going to eat now?”

“Still thinking.”

“You were asleep!”

“Concentrating.”

“Do you want me to tear the bread for you? I can help you eat it.”

He sits down beside me and tears off a chunk. He holds it out to me. I look at it, and then at him.

“When I'm done I can eat it myself. Let me be. This is important.”

His face looks like I punched it.

“I get it, you know,” he says, standing up again, dropping the bread. “I do. It's completely stupid, but I get it. I get what you're doing.”

“Don't know what you're on about. Leave me alone.”

He paws at his cheek with the back of his hand. He grits his teeth. He takes a step away and a step back. He punches the tree so hard its trunk shifts against my spine and blood falls from his fingers to the grass.

He looks me in the eyes. His face is quivering and red. “You stubborn old gently caress,” he says. Now he leaves me, cradling his right hand in his left.

This story is really really boring and pointless. I don’t believe the characters, I don’t understand their motivations, and I don’t care about them at all. I’m happy that idiot died. I’m happy that guy lost his friend. Plus I thought it was supposed to be about erroneous word usage. You just basically retold the story of a robot who is told a paradox and then explodes, a common sci-fi trope. But you made it with people, inherently less logical, and those scenes are usually only a few sentences long. It’s a deus ex machina in those stories as a way to defeat a powerful foe. Here it’s just a guy with an eating disorder and a friend who doesn’t care that much. Why not go get people to drag him the gently caress away if he’s that weak? Why leave him under a tree? So many things don’t make sense.
I hate this story. It is in contention for loser of the week. But the night is young and this is only the second entry.

quote:

The wind was cold, 70 stories up. I breathed it in, looked out over the city, wrapped up in its midnight neon dreams. I pressed the button on my watch and the numbers started flickering down. Two minutes. Plenty of time if it all went right.

NIKAER DREKIN posted:

NIKAER DREKIN PRESENTS
A FABULOUS FICTIONALIZED FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT
OF THE FINAL PERFORMANCE AND DEATH OF
MR. HARRY HOUDINI, ESCAPE ARTIST EXTRAORDINAIRE
I get what you’re doing here, and I like it, except for the part where you tell me it’s fictionalized. I KNOW it’s fiction, but I wanted to believe it was true. Is this part of your word count? Probably not, but it does set the tone well.

"One Night Only"
(1,010 Words)

I lay on the stage as assistants strapped my ankles in to the stockades and fastened the locks. admittedly I’m not the best with knowing which form of lay/lie/laid to use. Is this the correct one? I thought it was present tense, but the rest of the sentence is past tense. I may be a big ol’ idiot though, in which case disregard. The stagehand tugged on the pulley rope once, twice, again and again awkward until I hung in the air by my feet, hands dangling toward the floorboards. As I swung from the rigging, searing pain rippled through my abdomen and I found myself faced with something of an epiphany:

There may be a reason most people don't encourage any passing dunderhead to slug them in the gut. this can just follow the semi-colon.

I signaled to Bess, jaw clenched to conceal my discomfort, and she nodded, passed the signal on to the pulley-man. I sucked in my breath as he dropped me into the tank, water sloshing over the sides as the top slammed into place. A curtain lowered, surrounding the cell, the stage lights bleeding through the red fabric and casting a crimson glow through the water. your verb tenses are changing again. Also, can you cast a glow?

For a moment I was convinced you aren’t convinced of something for a moment. Something flashes through your mind for a moment. You think something for a moment. Convincing is after a lot of thought.the pain had cut a gash in my skin, had let out my blood and the rest of the poisonous fluid. poisonous fluid? Black bile? I was relieved; all I wanted was to give my wailing flesh freedom from the agony. I struggled to stay conscious, :fought the urge to let my bones hang free. ew However, even though I knew oblivion was fast approaching, I wanted to be comfortable. that’s kind of mundaneWrenching my muscles, I brought my body up to loosen the leg restraints.

Even on the fringe of death awkward, that part of the trick was little challenge. Locking the stockade in place secretly loosens the individual leg restraints—keep that between us, all right? too late bub Still a tight squeeze, but with a little exertion my ankles slipped free. I let them drift down, my body finally reverting to a natural position. It felt so good to give myself up to gravity, to not have to worry about fighting or escaping anymore. so he is giving up? lame.

I was nearly unconscious from the pain you’re really over-selling the fact that he’s in pain, almost dead, passing out. I get that. I understand what is going on, you don’t have to patronize me when a thought began to flit around in my head. how convenientWhen I die, here in this tank, what will people say? Nothing, if you use the first or second definition of “fading into oblivion”That I cheated fate one time too many, that there was one final cage I couldn't escape from? I'm Harry Houdini! There's nothing I can't break out of! That notion snowballed until it was so big I couldn't ignore it. For being so close to death, he sure is prattling on. I had struggled against death when I still clung ferociously to life, when death was an enemy. this sentence is really awkward.Could I betray my life's work just because drowning in my cell was now appealing? appealing?Nobody else knew what I knew. They would all think I'd been outsmarted by my own trick.

I opened my eyes and felt my lungs straining for breath. Ignoring the pain, I kicked off from the bottom and gripped the ankle-holes in the lid of the cage. Muscles screaming in protest, I pulled my head up to the slim pocket of air left by the water that had spilled out and pressed my lips past the surface, spitting out water and sucking in a deep breath. Why didn’t he just do this in the first place?

My senses were rebounding, but that meant I could feel my stomach again. It burned inside, like acid gnawing away at the vital tissues, but I tried to keep my attention on the task at hand. Slipping out my hairpin, I went to work on the four locks securing the cover. I wormed the strand of metal through each lock, feeling around the steel crevices and exerting just the right amount of pressure on the tumblers. Two of them clicked free and I re-positioned myself to work on the other side.

My arms felt like elastics stretched too thin, threatening to succumb to weakness and snap altogether. I shifted again and tried to prop my legs up on the tank wall. Despite the slick surface, the pads of my feet managed to grip the glass as I picked the other two locks. Finally all the clasps swung free and I pushed the parting doors of the cover open. I held on to the rim and hoisted a leg up, let it drape over the other side. Man, that was really boring. I would have just accepted that he escaped if you told me, because he’s Harry loving Houdini.

My entire body ached, a ferocious storm ravaging through my nerves and sinews, its crux relentlessly drilling into my stomach. I pushed, pushed harder than I thought anyone could push, until I was up and over, hanging from the edge by the lid's parting doors. With one swift, practiced motion, I clapped them shut and dropped down to the planks, landing wrong and nearly slipping from the spilled water but otherwise whole and upright. Oh. You’re still not done telling me how much it hurt and that how he escaped.

As if it had been precisely orchestrated, well, isn’t it generally? the curtain parted right then. I lifted my hands in the air and felt the cheers of the audience wash over me, heard their tremendous enthusiasm. Bess walked over to my side I just imagined your assistant as a dairy cow, wearing an expression of obvious relief why obvious? Hadn’t he done this trick before? Isn’t this just routine? The curtain was concealing any of the actual struggle that took place. I think bess would be affecting shock.. I took her hand and we bowed in unison before walking offstage, leaving the stagehands to mop up the excess water and prepare for the final act of the show. minimum wage suckas.

On the way back to the changing room, a new attack of pain seized me. I sunk to the floor and cried out, Bess rushing over and trying to prop me up. STOP CHANGING VERB TENSES. SHE RUSHED OVER AND TRIED TO PROP YOU UP. I tried not to imagine some infection spreading from my appendix and turning the more vital organs against me oh, so like a rebellion? I don’t think that’s how the body works, but I’m a neuroscientist so gently caress the lower 90%, but the spasms of agony painted a clear picture. which is….? I whispered to Bess that I needed the doctor now, that I couldn't get back up on my own. She nodded and held me tight while help came.

For the record I don't blame the kid that slugged me. This could have happened anyway; whether he rattled my insides in just the wrong way or only left a bruise that convinced me to tough out this whole separate ordeal is impossible to say for sure. My prognosis is vague. I may need several surgeries, but the doctor says if they are successful then I have a shot at beating this. Maybe it's my time, though. This life's been good, and everyone has to break out of their old bones someday.

Whatever happens, it'll be a hell of an escape.

Your story suffers from the same thing Mag7’s did when I first read it (and what I’m sure a few others will by the time this is all done): You don’t actually tell me if he died in this story. From the ending, I could just assume that he did get better and went on doing fine. This is a story about an unusual death, don’t make your reader guess what happened. The story should be able to stand on its own. Right now I don’t feel like it does.

The biggest problem this had was YOUR VERB TENSES. You’re verbing and verbed all over the place. Sometimes this can be ok, but most of the time it’s really jarring and weird and sounds like you’re narrating the story as it happens, and then sometimes telling me after it happened. If you’re using past tense, and talking to the reader, when the heck did he tell this story to me? I have no idea when exactly this actual story takes place. After his death told from the afterlife? After his injury but before his death to some random passer-by?

Also the middle part about the trick is really boring. Everybody knows that Houdini did that type of stuff, it doesn’t really add anything to describe it motion by motion. Also the repeated references to how much in pain he was. You could have better shown that by his inability to do certain things that he could normally do, not by telling me over and over and over that he was in pain and thinking he was going to die. By the 2nd or 3rd time it lost all of its tension and usefulness.
Not the worst story, but far from the best.

Cancer Cakes posted:

What I know going in: small pox was eradicated, and then some jerk coworker killed this lady by releasing some small pox. I assume by accident?

ABID 1034 words 300 DOLLARS!

I liked to listen to the lady upstairs while I worked with Abid. She talked on the phone all day, but I couldn’t hear the words: only a soft murmuring coming through the ceiling, and the tapping of her foot on the floor. replace that with bass and I’ve had neighbors like that. It was comforting to think that she was nearby if anything went wrong. building suspense. I wasn’t afraid of what I did; I was regularly vaccinated, everyone on the floor was. I had heard about the ‘66 outbreak here, back then they didn’t even have fan assisted safety cupboards. we usually just call it a “hood” They did all the wet work out on a bench for Christ’s sake, it was hardly surprising that there was a release! It was the minor strain anyway, no one died. this takes away from your strong opening lines.

Every now and then she would stop, and I would miss her voice, filtering down. It's not just the safety aspect: it gets really lonely, working by yourself all day. I like being with people, I’m not one of those introverts people think of when you say you're a scientist. then you’re probably a lovely scientist Unfortunately I didn’t have anyone else to work with because the boss scared people off pretty quick. He was having kittens I don’t know what this means (looked it up. What a silly phrase). making sure I got all the right results before the lab was shut down why is it being shut down? and I was working all hours all of them? Like, 24?. At least during the days I had someone keeping me company while I laboured. oh yea, she’s a dirty brit: nice catch.

First I would take the virus out the freezer, and apply it to the petri culture dish. nobody says this I incubated that overnight, then vacuumed the water layer away. That left smallpox, Variola major, the good stuff. This baby killed around half a billion people in the last 100 years. Then I would load it into a little bag and centrifuge it to separate the living from the dead. This whole paragraph is really technical, and doesn’t fit well with the theme of loneliness you have going for you.

The problem was that the centrifuge I used was outside the safety of the smallpox room, in the open lab. There wasn’t enough room for two people in the pox lab, let alone a big centrifuge. So I made sure the bags were closed and securely tied, and changed my gown and gloves, and stepped out into the open lab with a little bag full of death. I like that phrase, but it feels like a contrived reason to have to step out of the safety zone.

I didn’t like doing it like this, but the boss said that he didn’t have time to remodel the smallpox lab for my insecurities, and to just get on with it. he’s such a jerk. Also I like it better when she’s just lonely, not a doormat.

On July 25th I was hungry, rushing to go to my first lunch with friends for a month. lunch for a month?! Sign me up! And I wanted to get away before the boss could come in and shout at me for not working that past Sunday. I put Abid in the centrifuge, shut the lid, and pressed go. Immediately I heard a tearing noise. The normal hiss from the ‘fuge purge tube was more like a baby gurgling. I had caught the string tie of the bag in the lid. When centrifuge started spinning it had ripped the cord and the little sack had burst open. really long winded way of telling me the bag broke open in there.

The tube from the centrifuge went straight into a ventilation shaft going up through the building, so I wasn’t in any danger. I had been vaccinated only 9 months before, I wasn’t about to catch the pox. I wasn’t worried, but but lol my chest tightened and I remember gritting my teeth in anger. I hate making mistakes, and this might set my work back a term. this is a theme you could have explored a little more writing about a scientist. They hate failure, but spend most of their day failing.

Then the lady upstairs stopped talking, and started coughing. lol gently caress.

And I realised what the consequences might be. show, don’t tell. The virus that I nurtured, monitoring it’s temperature and feeding it regularly, could kill. In my head I saw people, everyone I knew, covered in sores and pimples, and it was my fault. I would be there to watch the world die. take their stuff

But then she started talking again. well yea, small pox doesn’t kill immediately.

Through the next two weeks I didn’t sleep. Every night I relived that moment over and over. If only I had not rushed. If only I had checked the centrifuge. If only she had not been there - what was she doing talking on the phone all day everyday? Wait, I just realized: why is a science lab under some lady’s house? Or is it just another scientist? I felt sick all the time, I couldn’t eat: my stomach was like a clenched fist inside me. hey good thing you got that vaccination, or it could be smallpox! I lay in the dark and wept, but I couldn’t tell my husband why I was crying. tbh he probably doesn’t care. He probably thought I was stressed from work, that my boss was putting too much strain on me. Or that I was remembering our still-born son. bad attempt at making me feel sorry for you

I went in and worked, not for my boss, not for my thesis, but so that I could hear her voice. To make sure she was okay. She didn’t know it, but she was dead already. um. Why the gently caress wouldn’t you report this? Tell her? Get her that vaccination. But perhaps it went straight up the shaft to the filters on the roof, didn’t leak into her room - the coughing was a coincidence. knowing a bit how science labs work, this would be a BFD and they wouldn’t leave all these things to chance. Did she fail to report it? I don’t remember that. But perhaps she had been vaccinated recently - she would be fine. But perhaps I hadn’t ripped the bag at all - no one could prove it. I wouldn’t tell anyone. her decision to tell or not tell should be right after the bag rips. I’ve hosed up in the lab a lot, and the first thing that goes through my mind is “should I tell somebody?”

I couldn’t tell anyone. I had worked so hard to get this position, I didn’t want to lose it. I needed to get my results - if I admitted what had happened the lab would be shut down immediately and I would never finish my thesis. is this true or just anxiety? And the boss would have screamed the place down on me. My science career would have been over before it even started. not necessarily.

After two weeks I thought I had been lucky. The normal incubation period was twelve days, and I could still hear her talking away upstairs on the phone. I managed to get some decent work done, got some nice results for my thesis. I even started sleeping again. And then on day seventeen she wasn’t up there, talking on the phone. The next day she was in the hospital. The day after, the hospital was quarantined. She died, exactly a month after she stopped keeping me company in my lab.
a real failure here to drive home the lonliness/failure themes.

-----

Abstract from the Shooter Report into the Birmingham smallpox outbreak:

Mrs Parker was infected with a strain of Variola major known as Abid, that was isolated from a deceased patient in Pakistan in 1970. Abid was a 3 year old male.

Smallpox was eradicated in the wild in 1975. Janet Parker died in September 1978.
what is this bit at the end? It is so jarring and weird and out of place. It’s pure “telling.” And not even that interesting.

Your story started strong, but got bogged down in scientific details in the middle, and ended weakly. You missed some really good opportunities to examine some really interesting themes of somebody working in a lab, lonely as hell to help save a humanity she wasn’t even interacting with. Ignored by her husband, lacking coworkers and having a dick boss, she struggled through failure after failure only to be mired in failure again, increasing her lonliness.

Part of the problem with this story was my own assumption and misunderstanding. I assumed the wrong situation going in, and I failed to realize that the person above her was a scientist. I thought it was just some dingy lab in an apartment complex or office building or something. You could have made it more clear exactly what was happening with a little more setting. Then I thought that her sickness after the accident were symptoms, and totally discounted the anxiety she was feeling about what she had done.

But in the end, you make the narrator an unsympathetic character by having her kill this lady through shear negligence and fear of getting fired. That makes me not like her, and therefore not care if she’s lonely or afraid of her job, because she’s a bad person.

With a little reworking I think this could make a really interesting take on the subject.

Erik Shawn-Bohner posted:

Sebmojo v. Martello

Peel posted:

Chemistry 930

Right, so, the first thing you got to keep in mind is these two ropes here. You set up the conversational first person tone straight away, nice Now, I know what you’re thinking - you pull them and it turns those pulleys and lifts me up so you or whoever can help me out of bed.the grammar in this sentence are a little wierd. pull THEM, THEY turn THOSE pulleys and it(the bed) lifts And that’s how the first one worked. But drat my soul I’m American born and raised, andand or comma here, not both I don’t need help to do things in the morning. So I made some improvements.

I have an image of an energetic, intelligent eccentric, selling his invention.

Look past those pulleys. Those earlier you said "these ropes, I prefer that as he is meant to be holding them ropes go up through the ceiling to the cistern. This one on the left is the trigger, but I don’t pull it yet. This one on the right, that cycles through modes on the ratchet. See, there’s rise, massage, breakfast, heat, dress, reset, and back again.

This paragraph could do with a little reworking, but it starts to get the main idea of the amazing machine across

Now say my back’s playing up again and I need a massage. Switch to that, pull this rope and there you have it. needs more crazy machine here, to get a across how mental the system is, and put some more foreshadowing in - "pull this right rope one, two, three, blast, reset, one, two times, then pull this left one once. etc Hear that? That’s the water flowing downnormally does, there’s a bit of complicated switching in the control mechanism, like one of those machines they use for codes, you know, but I never trusted electricity to think. Your brain’s full of water, not wires.nice And - there it goes, under the bed, one of General Motor’s finest, purring like a tiger, smooth as silk. You hear that? No knocking, no pinging. That's thanks to T-E-L. Tetra-ethyl-lead. I invented that. It was at Dayton labs, we had the problem, we needed a solution ho ho ho, so I got four ethyls and one lead and put them together and bam. if only it were that simple. not many chemists would say it was Problem solved. Better than ethanol. Would you believe they used to put that stuff in gasoline? Not any more, thanks to me. The car you got here in, that has my TEL in its tank right now. could have something here about how people think it is poisonous, and have him react to that.

That’s how you do it. You put the pieces together so they work. That’s science engineering.

And you see the bed here is moving now, up and down surely it would be vibrating? unless he has it on a cog system, and if he does describe it, and the heat too, that’s from the engine as well. Now it’s November and pretty chilly so I want the heat, but my back’s all fine right now so I want to get the one and not the other and that’s why I pull this one on the left again and there goes the water again, down and round, fills up that tank over there this time and see, that pushes the piston down compresses should be in here somewhere and the air goes through that tube and - watch out forthose tubes, one’s snaking your foot they'll grab you in a hearbeat etc- and pushes up these pistons here and lifts the bed off the engine and it’s steady again. Of course the motor’s still running so we’re still getting these fumes so it’s a bit close in here now too much "so" you might be using it as a tic but there is a limit, but if you look up there you see the updraft from the exhaust is spinning that windmill and - there it goes, the balls are loose and into that hopper and that pulls the sash up and we get some fresh air in. Scent of the city. Better than the country.why? what can you smell that he likes in the city, and what smells doesn't he like in the country? give me more

I reckon in thirty years time Americans won’t even need to get out of bed. I’d like to see what the Russians say to that. some nice crazy talk, excellent, but you could do more, and wouldn't this be slightly early for reds under beds? Not sure i'm not a yank

No, not even for breakfast. That’s the crown jewel. I tug on this one again, then this one, label those left and rights, help me visualise this better and the cistern goes again and lets the water through the switches and onto those paddles there,is it a paddle wheel? I hope it is, because that is the most insane and stupid thing, so describe the paddle wheel somehow so that spring unwinds and drives that gearbox, and this shutter here you can describe where things are in the room, in relation to what is in it. This can seem a bit like just a pile of bits, in the corner, I want you to produce an image of a room full of ropes and tubes everywhere, and where they are in relation to each other opens and sets the toast running and the eggs frying and there’s a fridge here, you want coffee? Good. i get that you are trying to show a break in the flow due to him being reminded somehow of the coffee but it doesn't quite work, fridge does not equal coffee, split it up or make it more obvious by the kettle whistling or soemthing Because that’s going too and like I said the fridge, that’s mine too, Freon inside, a C-F-C, chloro-fluoro-carbon, revolutionised the kitchen. You’re young, you might not even remember how bad a refrigerator could be before this stuff. So me and the General Motors boys set our heads to it, and juggled alkyl fluorides and so on until we got it to - it's THE DREADED ITS. Happens to us all, don't worry about it - I would prefer that you say coffee here anyway done, you want a cup? No? the silent one said clearly said yes before. make it clearer why they have changed their mind Well alright - got it to be volatile and inert at once, heck of a trick, but we did it and the rest is history. History and economics.

I'm a fluorine chemist, chemistry is what I do. However, this is the most cuttable part of the story because it needs more to fit in. I realise it is his pride making him shoehorn it in, but how about mentioning ammonia, or how he made it possible for middle class mothers to have fridges all across america.

Chemistry, see? Magic. God gave us the pieces a machine has parts, a jigsaw has pieces, he would be more interested in machinesand the rule of the green Earth and we put them together to make things work. Make a better world. nice. better living through chemistry, and people actually believed it then. now people are afraid of chemistry, which is loving bullshit. nice bit of irony considering what we now know about CFCs and TEL

Now that’s all run finenasty phrasing here, cuttable and I got I know we are going for conversational but a few 'ves might be nice my breakfast so it’s time to get this stuff cleaning, so I tug this again and it switches that gear and it all turns up there and - Oh! Oh, Lord. You okay there? Sorry. I forgot about the pendulum. You’re okay? Okay. Nothing too serious. Though it’s put things a bit out of kilter, let me reset it. Ok, this one, then this one, and that turns those back and resets the switcher, turns off the engine and releases the air pressure, except wait, no, it hasn’t turned off. Let me have a look. Okay. Could you grab that windmill there - no, the other one - and now I pull this one again and it should - looks like something’s snarled in the pulleys. I’ll get up there and take a look. I hook my arm over this rope, see, and then pull this one, and you can hear it working again, I built this thing, you know, I know how it works, stop looking so flustered - no, you didn’t break it, no need to apologise, and now that’s all stopped turning and I pull this one and - no, where was that snap if something has broken make it clearer, quick, grab that rope and

gk

neck

air

pulltherope

no

otherone

god

drat

air i hope you meant this as a comment on his work that polluted the worlds atmosphere, if you didn't pretend you did



agkh

crabrock posted:

...

Chillmatic posted:

Sure.


...

Ceighk posted:

Thankyou both for the criticisms. Next time I'll do better.

Max22 posted:

Ok, so this is one of my favorite real-life stories of all time. I think it’s hilarious because I do stupid stuff like this all the time in the name of education, and could see myself doing this exact thing. I hope you did it justice.
The Atrium (1140 words)

“Ahoy, Hoy,” said Tim Bunderson that’s a silly nameas he poked his head into the office. This is not first person. Rule following fail. Garry Hoy always cringed at the way Ted did that, sticking just his cranium through the gap in the door with a cutesy greeting. show me he hates it by having him say so. It had been going on for three years. BIG TUNA And Garry wasn't a fan of the greeting, either. wait, didn’t you just tell me that?
“You can come in, Tim, thanks.” snore.
Tim leaned a little further into the room, one shoulder jutting through now. “Do you have two secs, Hoy? There's a tour group out here. Thought you could show them around the new building, you know, vis-à-vis.”
“I'm a little busy right now,” said Garry, not bothering to correct the French. “I'm just about finished the release for the General Motors thing, and it's my last chance to get in good with Mr. Shaw– I don’t care about your mundane work problems.
“It'll only take a minute,” said Tim, shrugging that shoulder. oh no, not THAT shoulder!
“Why can't you do it?” snore.
“I'm heading out for a late lunch at Finnegan's. Today's Gyro Day!” WHO CARES And with that, Tim Bunderson slipped back out through the crack butts and was gone. Garry sighed yea he did and turned back to the Szalinski report. He was able to work on it for almost three uninterrupted minutes before a sunburned man rapped on the office door with a hard, loud knock. why is he sunburned? You expect me to assume he’s a tourist I guess? Why point out the sunburn unless there’s some interesting reason for him not to have a sunburn? Might as well just said “socks with sandles” if you’re going to go for a boring cliché of a tourist.

“This is the Atrium,” Garry said. There were eight or twelve in the group, just give a number. His unwillingness to take the time to count isn’t exactly part of the story or really character defining all of them decked out with 'TORONTO' shopping bags and most of their faces peeling from an August day spent looking up at skyscrapers. you just told me again that they’re tourists. Garry kept trying to move them along, but their pace was stuck on 'dawdle.' “Our accounts and financial teams share the space in these cubicles, and their computers are connected to each other, so they can share information, uh, without leaving their desks– oh man what a great tour.
“Neat!” said a spotty teenager at the edge of the pack. bitch, get a tampon. She pulled out a Polaroid camera and flashed it into a cubicle as they passed by. check out my sweet vacation photos! John Simpson stood up from his desk and blinked at them as the girl pulled the photo out of the camera and shook it.
“Sorry,” said Garry. He looked to the girl. “Don't do that.”
“Oh,” said the girl. “Right.” She blew on the Polaroid instead. dumb joke, boring scene.
“We call this area the Atrium,” said Garry, hurrying along now, giving the tourists the double-time I’m confused. Didn’t he already say this? version. “But with the floor-to-ceiling windows on all four sides of the tower, sometimes it feels like more of a greenhouse, ha ha. Over there's a photo-copier. That's made by Xerox. And now, we'll circle back to the elevators and you can be on your way.” Garry is bar-none the WORST loving TOUR GUIDE EVER. I HATE HIM.
“How many windows are on this building?” It was the man who'd knocked on Garry's door until it swung all the way open. Garry guessed that he was their de facto leader.
“Uh... I'm not sure, friend.” He wasn't sure. He'd never thought about it. He didn't think he'd ever have to think about it. “Fifty floors... twenty-five... hundred?”
“Wow!” said the sunburned man. He tromped along with the rest of the group, Garry squirming for them to pick up the pace.
“Has anybody ever broken a window?” yelled a little kid with his arm in a cast. Your story should have started here.
“Uh, no, they're unbreakable.” Garry was already at the elevator and tapping at the 'DOWN' button. why single quotes?
“Hey, look, honey, they spell their elevator buttons with letters here,” said the leader. The teenager flashed her Polaroid at the buttons. wtf?
“Nothing's unbreakable! Superman could break it!” said the kid.
“I'm sure he could,” said Garry, “but he's busy on Krypton right now.” this is really banal chatter. It feels like dialogue for dialogue’s sake, not because it’s important. I feel like you’re trying to show just an “average day in the life of a tour guide” but the reason those things suck is the same reason I don’t want to read about them in a story.
“Krypton blew up!” said the kid. Garry hammered at the button again. Where was the elevator? Tim Bunderson should be dealing with these people, not him.
“Do you know any good places for dinner around here?” said the leader. seriously?
Garry forced a smile. “I hear Finnegan's is all right.” There was a ding as the doors opened. “Today's Gyro Day. Well, have a good one!”
“Today isn't Gyro Day!” said the kid, as they filed into the elevator. The doors were just about to close as Garry stuck his hand out to stop them.
“What was that, kid?”
“We went there for lunch. I saw it on the sign. It's Beef Dip Day!”
Beef Dip Day. Wait a minute. Garry turned and flew from the elevator. The tourists, sensing that something good was about to happen, followed. They chattered with excitement as Garry fled to Mr. Shaw's office. “What's he doing, Jimmy?” “These windows aren't unbreakable!” “I don't know, Gladys, but I think I saw something like this in Wall Street.” “Neat!” The Polaroid flash went off again as they passed Garry's office, his door still wide open, the computer keyboard askew. He turned down a hallway, pushed through a set of double doors and ran up to the desk of Mr. Shaw's receptionist. NO FAIR, I’M TELLING THE BOSS ON YOU!
“Is Mr. Shaw in?” asked Garry. The entourage huffed and puffed behind him. Shaw's receptionist looked up at the scene and chewed at her pen. who cares
“Mr. Shaw's in an important meeting with Tim Bunderson,” she said. “But I can pencil you in for 3:30?”
Tim Bunderson. Tim Bunderson had saddled Garry with running a field trip and then snatched the General Motors thing right out from under him. “Yes, thank you, Samantha, 3:30 would be fine.” He felt a hot headache forming at his temples as he turned and walked back into the Atrium. The tourists followed.
This was how it had gone for three years. The sun was shining directly through the windows now. Mr. Shaw was always passing Garry up for promotions, raises, recognition. It felt like a greenhouse in here. And somehow, this time was the worst. Because Tim Bunderson had stolen from him, and– I think it’s a rule that every story must, at one point or another, mention the sun.
“You ever see that movie Wall Street, Garry?” said the sunburned man.
Garry turned to the tour group with a scowl on his face, his head throbbing. Things had gotten so bad that, for a second, he'd forgotten they were there. Now he remembered and things were worse. The girl flashed her Polaroid at him, fuzzing his vision. She pulled out the photo and blew on it. if you mention the polaroid one more time I’m going to hit you.
“I still don't think these windows are unbreakable!” said the kid. your main driving force behind your plot is a whiney kid. This should tell you what a bad idea this is.
Yes they were, dammit, he'd said they were. Why take a tour from somebody if you–
“...aren't going to believe anything he says?!”
“What?” said the kid.
“Here,” said Garry. “I'll show you. I'll prove it to you!” He smacked the window, hard, with the palm of his hand. It bonged across the Atrium. “See? Unbreakable!” He smacked it again. John Simpson stood up from the sea of cubicles and glared in their direction. “I told you the first time,” Garry said. He thumped his shoulder against the window. “Unbreakable.” He thumped it again. “Unbreakable.” He threw his whole weight against it. “Unbreak–
He rode the flat, square window almost all the way to the ground. that wouldn’t happen because of wind resistance.

Ok, so what you have here is the story of an upset man tricked into doing a tour, antagonized by a little kid into jumping out of a skyscraper. Maybe you thought of this and said to yourself “what a great idea!”

You totally take any opportunity at telling a meaningful story and throw it out the window. PUN INTENDED. You could have gone with arrogance, ignorance, stupidity, or anything interesting at all, and instead you went with “annoying kid obsessed with superman.” Then you didn’t even really work any analogies to superman and flying or thinking you’re invincible only to learn too late that you’re not (like the destruction of krypton).

In between missing things, you include a lot of really vapid dialogue between equally vapid characters. Somebody on these forums said if dialogue doesn’t advance plot or character it shouldn’t exist. Talking about sandwiches, asking if the boss is in, and talking about polaroids are not these things.

Furthermore, you let me down personally by taking one of my favorite things, and making it pedestrian. You’re now in the running for the losertar.

Fumblemouse posted:

wordcount: 1069

The Burgomaster's Beard Full disclosure: I have a beard, I love it, and if you insult beards I will give you the losertar.

At the far right of the front row an elderly peasant sniffs the air. You worked some third person stuff in this first person narrative. Why?

These actors, with their Kings and Heroes, all torn finery and painted iron crowns period?They say a lot of things about the measure of a man; colon would have been better heredeeds define him, honesty advances him, love fulfils him. But they do not have the half of it. There is but one scale that truly counts when it comes to such a reckoning, and that is the number of people who know his name. It’s the heroes we remember - those with stories worth telling. These actors? Gone and forgotten by tomorrow. so we’re at a repertory theater?

She looks around suspiciously, but cannot place the smell. it’s her. Old people smell.

Take this motley assemblage of peasant folk, gathered here in the village theatre. They know me. They are my villagers, and I am their Burgomaster. I don’t know what a burgomaster is. I built this house to give them a taste of culture. They bring their petty squabbles to me, and I give them the vast benefit of an educated opinion. They all know me and, while they may not love me, I have their respect. Without my wisdom, they would fight to the death over scraps of food they tripped over in the forest. why is your forest filled with random hard-to-see food?

A slight haze rises from the cracks between the floorboards.

Now - what of these players on the stage? They also know my name. They need to obtain the permission of my office to perform, and they now carry a certificate bearing my signature that allows them to do so. please tell me more about bureaucracy. They Dance and Sing and Act to entertain the villagers, but they wouldn’t know a one of them to speak to in the street. they like, don’t have friends and poo poo? They know me, though. They feel the price my office charged for their licence spelling as if I had ripped it from their flesh to hear them complain about it, but without my judicious system of public performance rights, the gullible villagers would be overcome with charlatans and mountebanks of every stripe. And how would they pay their taxes when when repeated word they had sold their grandmother’s heirlooms for a gourd of magical dog piss? ew

The haze begins to billow, the old lady coughs. Others turn away from the stage to look.

But while this troupe of travelling mummers know me, oh. I guess that’s why they don’t have friends. Still, go to a bar and get to know somebody. Pick up some ladies. You’re actors for crying out loud! it’s hardly likely that they remember every Burgomaster their paths cross. Yet they will remember me all their lives really? Some guy they had to pay to get a license to preform, they’ll remember you always? Probably not dude. Check yourself. - and what’s more, they’ll tell of me at every place they come to. Because there is always something else that makes a man known - a hyphen is not the same as an em dash more than wisdom, more than power. There has to be something above and beyond. It could be rhetoric - to speak and move others to action - yet I have achieved it without words. It could be beauty - to launch a thousand ships like Helen - and yet my face is nondescript. In fact - it was to give my face some distinction that I first began my ‘Great Project.’ For thirty years I have continued with it until today it is the bounteous blessing that is my beard and my fame. you have like 6 dashes in here. They’re not commas dude.

The smoke is obvious now. Several people are staring at it with concern, but more are still watching the stage. too bad it’s a theater and you’re not allowed to yell “fire” or else somebody might raise the alarm! Seriously though, people are just sitting and watching smoke, but because the majority is watching the play nothing happens? It only takes one person to yell “fire.”

It is the longest beard in Christendom and beyond, or so I am informed. Travelling infidels from the south selling spices to uncultivated palates have declared that they have never seen its like. Itinerant Northmen with hair like fire hair like fire would smell disgusting. have boasted of the hirsute brutes that populate their lands, but none will swear that he has seen longer. They travel through our simple town, they buy our goods and feed our children, and then they depart, telling all they meet that they have seen Hans Steininger, the Magnificent Beard of Brunau. I get it: you have a big beard.

A tongue of flame bursts from the floor. A stage curtain blazes in an instant and fire leaps toward the roof. Man, I sure hope that 51% of the people stop watching to notice.

I hear the shouts and screams, awakening me from my reveries. People are pushing past me to get to the far door and the staircase beyond. The flames are growing where moments ago there were only brightly coloured thespians singing bawdy songs. I reach for my decorative pouch so that I can roll up my beard and join the throng in its exodus, but the seat I placed it on has been pushed away and it is nowhere to be found. I shout in annoyance, and some of the villagers even turn and look, so used to obeying my dictates are they. But aside from “My damned pouch!” I can only think to advise “Please proceed in an orderly fashion!” The villagers continue pushing past each other towards the door. I gather what belongings I can find and look upon the panicking masses with distaste.

The flames across the ceiling beams cause the end of one to drop in a shower of ash and sparks. juse like Batman Begins!

I am separated from them, the other villagers, physically now. I look for a path around the wayward beam, but every time I turn a wave of fire breaks upon me. I try and beat the sparks out from my beard, but I can smell its foul smoke, see strands shrivelling spelling and twisting. I gather it up in one hand to run toward a momentary gap what kind of gap? Why is it momentary? You don’t really explain this at all, and seems like something you just made up and threw in there without really giving a reason why., but another burst of flame makes me turn away at the last second. My villagers, bless them, have seen my plight, and they are shouting on the other side of the fire, calling my name. But the fire is everywhere, becoming a wall of searing incandescence that blocks me from view. Its infernal tendrils have finally reached my beard. My Great Project is devoured, a conflagration about my chest. I attempt to beat the flames out, but it is futile - my cheeks and chin are scorched and I am bereft.

The fire encompasses the walls, the floor, the roof - it becomes an inferno.

I must run through the flames, beardless and nobody, if I wish to survive. There will be no more visitors learning my name as a wonder, no more tales told by travellers earning coin for my stupid, beloved peasants. Am I to be just another burgomaster in another hamlet, my name lost to the immortals and the books of memory?

From behind the flames, the remaining villagers hear a voice calling out. “Ahhh, I have tripped on my beard and now I cannot...” The roar of the fire overwhelms the rest.

You have a few editing errors that you should have caught. Missing punctuation, double words, and misspellings. You use dashes a lot, too much for my taste.

Your story has the elements needed for a story, but for some reason it didn’t work for me. I thought that this guy’s claim to being important just because he rents out his place for traveling thespians to put on plays was kind of hollow. Maybe that was the point? I usually get pretty bored hearing people go on and on about their philosophy or views or just talking about how awesome they are. I don’t like to hear that in real life either.

The main action in this is that a man is sitting around, congratulating himself and patting himself on the back when the place catches on fire, he runs around and eventually burns to death because of his beard. That’s not really enough for an exciting story, unfortunately. I’d say you’re about the middle of the pack with this one. Not a lot that I can insult you on and rip apart, just sort of dull. :\

Oxxidation posted:

Hearts On Fire (1,140)

William Kogut, 1930, death row inmate committed suicide with a pipe bomb created from several packs of playing cards and the hollow leg from his cot.


When a man’s about to kill himself with playing cards he spares a few considerations to what people will say. The jokes tell themselves. Got dealt a bad hand. Wasn’t playing with a full deck. Guess he decided to fold. I suppose I could put a request in the note, ask folks to show a little respect, but that’d just encourage them in the end. haha. Yea, people are jerks at funerals.

Death Row in San Quentin is the color of old puke, and even though this is springtime in California there’s a chill here that gets right into your bones. I’m from northern cali. It is wonderful, this chill. Stupid boston spring/summers. The little kerosene heater in this room does what it can, but the cold still gets bad enough some nights to take one’s mind off what lies at the end of that hall. Never saw the gas chamber myself, but one of the guards, forget his name, the one with that tadpole-shaped scar over his eye, described it well enough. Strap you to the bed, turn the nozzle. You take a few breaths and then you don’t take any more.

I disagree with the sentence but I can’t deny the crime. I slit that woman’s throat, sure enough, and the Devil himself couldn’t have found me an alibi. When I came to and the fire in my chest died down, she was at my feet with a bright red smile under her chin and I was bloodsoaked all down my front. “You killed her,” someone shouted. I answered, “What?” you have me interested.

After a misadventure like that you’re better off just staying quiet and letting the law take you to whatever hole you’re destined for that’s what the 5th is for, but I’m still bothered some by that trial. How the prosecutor argued that the dearly deceased Miz Guthrie’s boardinghouse was a hive of drinking, whoring, and gambling, and that it just rankled my puritanical soul something terrible. If it weren’t so dark in here then I would happily flip this scrap of paper over and write that, contrary to what some lawyer may say, I have never been against a drink, a whore, or a bet—if anything, I was a little too fond of all three. bucklehats made me do it.

So now they’re fixing to fill my lungs with poison. Well, let me save you boys the trouble. This is a trick I learned from a one-toothed abuelito down in Santa Fe. Here’s a broom I got off one of the guards—a man should keep his cell tidy, after all. Here’s a dime. Here’s a pack of cards. Here’s me screwing this cotleg off with that coin and putting it ever so gentle to the side. Here’s the whispery little sound of every one of these redbacks getting ripped up into confetti—the red parts, especially, that’s what I was told, it’s the red ink that holds the secret. That shriveled-up wetback said that he learned this during his time in the Rurales, who knows if it’s true. I sure hope it works. I’ll look awful foolish otherwise.

I am against the death penalty, though not so much in principle as—excuse me—execution. puns is funs I’ve known some rough gentlemen and God knows their wives at least would be much happier if they were gone, but to assign a date and time to a man’s death lessens him in ways that he does not deserve. There’s no notes scratched into these walls revealing the thoughts of men who’ve slept here before, I’ve checked time and again, but over the last several days I still imagine how many before me shivered in that cot at night, silently hollering for a God that won’t answer. Which brings to mind questions of what awaits him after that last breath, and how it will feel to expire with a crowd of people on the other side of the glass, watching him like a creature in a cage. Personally I can’t help but feel a touch of moral outrage, even despite my crimes, at bearing witness in such a manner. Not six months ago I saw two children cooking a rat for dinner. Haven’t you people got anything better to do?

If I sneeze right now then these bits of playing card will blow every which-a-way and I’ll never gather them up in this dark. I have too much imagination.

If I had the time and the paper I would explain to them. It’s this burning in my chest that has always been my problem. Sometimes it gets so hot and I need to let it out. When I was just a boy I kicked a dog to death for barking too much and stomped its neck as it lay there in the dust; I still hear the crunch in my dreams. It’s why I can’t stay with a woman for more than a week, why I couldn’t stay in that boardinghouse without doing something terribly drastic. All that noise. It just gets so loud. I feel as though I’ll burst into flame inside. Which piece was left out, I wonder, during the construction of my soul. Which card is missing from this deck.

These cards won’t get any more shredded. Next step, plug up the cotleg with the broom handle. Then, gather up the pile—drat it all, where’d it go—and empty the shreds into the leg. In this light they look like bits of cut glass, catching the moonlight. Add one handful of toilet water and a little heat, and this witch’s brew will come thundering out of the leg like two barrels of buckshot. What cause that old man had to dream up such a weapon will forever be one of the great mysteries of our time.

I’ve left the note on the cot. There are no excuses and no answers. It reads, “Do not blame my death on any one because I fixed everything myself. I never give up as long as I am living and have a chance, but this is the end.” Translation: take your gas and choke on it, you hapless, blameless, cold-hearted people. I’m placing myself somewhere none of you can reach. Maybe after this hole gets put in me, the terrible heat around my ribs will be loosed and warm this deathroom for good.

The cotleg’s firm and snug against the kerosene heater and I’ve huddled in close. A condemned man, no friends, no children I know of—this is how they’ll remember me. The hell with it. Get into the spirit of things. You called my bluff, folks. Time to cash out. Guess you can call this the dead man’s hand. Boy, hear that steam whistle. If you ask me, the game was fixed all along, but I never did learn the rules. Cotleg’s turning cherry-red, queen-of-hearts red. Straight flush. Full house. Two pair. Ace high. Ah, God, I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.

This is great. I didn’t really have much to say or add. I like it a lot, and I like your character. Obviously mentally ill, but not unreliable. It’s a difficult balance to pull off. I feel like for the first time for this prompt that I truly understood what was going through somebody’s mind when they did what they did. I believed his motivations and nothing felt made up or forced.

The only thing that I felt was missing is WHY did he kill the girl? He seemed to not notice, but his tendency to kill things says he did it for fun. I felt that just a line or two of motivation other than "jee, don't know why?" would add that last touch.

Great job, overall. Definitely near the top of the pile.

sebmojo posted:

I'd be interested in your thoughts on mine if you're not critted out.

sebmojo posted:

Rules of Combustion
1079 words


The concrete apron is crawling with technicians. I plant my feet, glance at Rostropov. He snaps to attention. Not entirely sure why but this opening line just didn't grab me. It did a good job of setting the scene but felt a little generic to me. I think I’m also inherently a little biased against first-person present-tense, but that’s just a stylistic quirk of mine.

“Air Marshall! Shall I obtain seating for you! I will do so!” Off he goes. I dismiss him from my attention and devote it instead to the delightful protrusion that is my rocket. delightful protrusion? is there supposed to be a sexual connotation here? The R-16 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. Skin of metal, payload of righteous retribution. awesome description Bedevilled by delays, enshrouded by failure, but rising above it all. And soon to rise above even that, on a pillar of glory.

I HAVE THERAPISED MYSELF INTO NARCOSIS

The words fly into my head and I dismiss them with the ease of habit. I have received these regular communiqués since I had my accident when I was seven years old at my grandmother's dacha. They take the form of stentorian pronouncements, as though from a rich-bearded Patriarch, and are generally nonsensical. interesting. You’re doing a bit of handwaving here but it was well-written enough that I can’t dismiss it outright.

Rostropov arrives with a chair in his hands. At his side is Yangel. My lip curls, unbidden. We have worked closely before but I am coming to doubt his commitment.

"Comrade Air Marshal I entreat you to - argh, em dash! Not a hyphen; ditch the spaces around it also. " the engineer begins. I hold up my hand.

"No," I say. I sit down on my chair. Foolish and brave, he continues. “But Comrade the Devil’s Venom is profoundly – ditch the spaces around the dash“

I favour him with my most heavy-lidded use a better description than ‘heavy lidded. I have no idea what that means of glances. “Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine. Hypergolic. Vivaciously reactive. I am familiar with its properties, but perhaps you have new information for me?” He stares, a rabbit hypnotized by its predator. clever disguise of exposition there; nicely done.

COWARDS DIE A THOUSAND DEATHS

I allow myself a smile at this one, sometimes my interior interlocutor ugh, interlocutor just made it sound like you were reaching for the thesaurus on this one. Choose simple, clean language over complicated whenever possible. can display wit. I wave my hand at him. “Comrade Kruschev has been given my personal assurances. The launch will proceed, Technician. On time.”

He scuttles off, insectlike like an insect—or even better, tell us what kind of insect. Or, EVEN BETTER, skip the insect part for now and just hint at what you'll later talk about with 'scuttled'. You later set up a really interesting motif with that, and I think you should ease into it more; don’t force it here and I dismiss him from my mind. new paragraph here.Although the passage of years has erased much, I can remember the garden shed at the dacha with total clarity. I remember the crawling mass of termites I found by moving an old pot of weedkiller, the rich chemical smell. tell me what chemical smell. Be specific! Also, you’re starting a very interesting motif/connection here, but it begins abruptly. Try to link it a little more smoothly.

Rostropov leans down, mutters in my ear. “There may be some risk, sir. Comrade Yangel has been recommending delay, perhaps you should withdraw to the observation post?”

I say nothing. The rocket is surrounded by tenders of webbed steel that are being winched back to give it space to fly. It is a lumberingly balletic process. I kind of like this paragraph. Not sure I like turning lumbering into an adverb, though. I feel an ache in my heart that is unsuitable to be turned into words.

CORRECTION REQUIRES ERROR

I shake my head. “My presence will encourage the men. Look how they scurry Rostropov. Anyway, the launch is not scheduled for two hours yet.”

The insects tell me what kind of insects. There are literally countless species so I want a more specific visual! I uncovered beneath the rotten wood in the garden shed had scurried, busy doing the bidding of the hive. I had gazed, fascinated, groped for a bottle of DDT. To find out what would happen. The cap was stiff and took both hands to open. I had taken my steadying hand off the tower of old pots and bottles to do it.

The tenders have retracted fully. I imagine the nitric acid that saturates the valves of my rocket, love that he calls it HIS rocket imagine its roiling ire. It seeks the spark that will transform it into fire. I want the rocket to launch now. Impatient, semicolon or em dash would be better than a comma here I have always been impatient.

“Mitrofan,” Kruschev had grumbled down the crackling line. “This needs to work. The Americans are getting cocky. Cockier. Cocks of the yard.” He was probably drunk, it was late. I had assured him that the rocket would launch. There was a fervency to my tone as I did so which surprised me. you’ve sort of shifted into the past-perfect (or whatever that’s called) tense by saying he HAD this and I HAD that. It’s throwing me off. Of course things had gone wrong, the engine had been flooded early, but things always went wrong. Caution is just the slower route to failure. that’s a really great line--reveals a lot of character Courage is the rocket’s path. To light a fire and rise upon it to the sky, that is the way. Another great bit. Very strong imagery.

“Rostropov,” I say, “tell me again of the fuel error.” I have settled my eyes on Yangel, who is having animated conversation with one of the other engineers by one of the remote consoles fifty meters away. His voice is raised, though I cannot hear what he is saying.

WE FALL THROUGH LIGHT INTO SHADOW

“Sir. The pyrotechnic membranes were ruptured. The combustion chamber has been filled with the Devil’s – with the fuel. Pitting and corrosion will render the rocket inoperable by tomorrow. Aborting the launch was considered, and rejected.” I can tell he is at attention behind me. Striving towards perfect erectness, like my rocket. more intentional phallic imagery? Yangel has stomped off, back towards the command bunker. Probably to have a smoke; I have chosen to allow this breach of regulations. Men need their outlets.

My last memory of the shed was the splash of acrid liquid falling upon the termites. I like this better if you don’t specifically call this a memory. Just pick up this thread where you left off without calling attention to the fact that it’s a memory; it’s been very effective doing it that way so far.The insects curling up in death. Then, a flash of light as the heavy pots fell from the table onto my head. I had been discovered some hours later, still unconscious. The poison gave me a cough that lasted for months, the blow gifted me with an internal onlooker, a kibitzer as a Jew might say. put the last half of that sentence in its own paragraph. That’s a big piece of information that explains his inner monologue and right now you’ve buried it at the end of a paragraph.

“Rostropov,” I say. “I will inspect the rocket more closely.” I stand, stride towards it over the fuel-stained concrete. My medals jingle. The sun is hot above. A hiss of vapour is issuing from a port halfway up the rocket. One of the men on the apron is shouting, pointing. Rostropov is behind me, keeping pace.

We are insects, all of us. Scurrying at the bidding of the hive. But we aspire, we rise. We craft our pillars of flame and ride them to the sky. I know this, Comrade Kruschev knows this, even poor cowardly Yangel knows this.

WE BRING THE SUN AMONGST US TO BETTER PRAISE IT I really like this line.

I nod, laugh. The jet vapor has become a cloud and there is a whine coming from the rocket, this pillar, this sculpture of metal and willpower. It is splendid. We are splendid. very very great sentences. Vivid. I turn to Rostropov to note this, and see him catch fire. GAHH. THIS LINE IS SO GREAT. WHY DID YOU BURY IT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PARAGRAPH?? I cannot hear anything. I raise my hand to him; it is on fire. I can hear nothing. We are on fire, a cloud of flame all around. My legs fail me and I fall.

My eyes are flame. The ground is fire. I curl up, weeping tears of fire. The sky is obscured with smoke, and flame. The concrete is black. The world is black.

WE CAN DO NO OTHER

This is a solid ending. You wrapped it up fast and actually creeped me out a little.

quote:

I nod, laugh. The jet vapor has become a cloud and there is a whine coming from the rocket, this pillar, this sculpture of metal and willpower. It is splendid. We are splendid.

I turn to Rostropov to note this, and see him catch fire.

I cannot hear anything. I raise my hand to him; it is on fire. I can hear nothing. We are on fire, a cloud of flame all around. My legs fail me and I fall.

Symptomless Coma posted:

DISQUALIFIED FOR SUBMITTING PAST THE DEADLINE

A Hero's Reward. -1350w

"I am Artaxerxes II of Persia, whose reign is through truth, and I am here to grant you release."
Though I can't see anything beneath this crawling blackness, I know the voice for true. My torturer, my saviour, my king. His rumbling cadence barely carries above the lapping waves and the buzzing insects, but I strain to catch the first human voice I have heard in seventeen nights.
"You smell like poo poo, you know."

The first time I saw him, I would have killed just for this acknowledgement. We were on the practice field, the six hundred of us soldiers, when a silhouette appeared on the ridge beyond.
"Who's that?" I said to the man standing beside me.
"That," said the soldier, "is who we're here to babysit."
"THAT'S Artaxerxes? But he looks so small." use italics, not caps. Also this joke makes your character seem really really stupid, because of course he seems small far away. Is that what you were getting at? Either way, eek.
"You don't become king by being the biggest, idiot. Otherwise we'd have Cyrus."
I blushed. Cyrus the Younger, whose name you did not speak in camp unless you wanted a flogging, was the reason we were there, clashing steel and hurling javelins into targets in the merciless Babylonian sun. SUN RULE Cyrus the Younger's continued existence was Artaxerxes' worst nightmare. What brother has not caused his sibling pain?
Banners and servants clustered about the King, like vultures to carrion, hoping to feed on his aura. I longed to be one of those vultures. No, I wanted to be the object of their affections, the rich flesh.
I hefted my javelin, the only weapon I had shown any prowess with since father's largesse had got me and my brothers into the royal bodyguard, and snapped my body like a whip to hurl the thing out toward the royal party. It slammed into the dust, far ahead of the others of our troop. I could swear I saw the King nod, and I felt my body rise with lightness and power.

My body feels light now, bobbing on this stagnant pond, but this is the effect of the punishment they call The Boats. I'm still sane, but only because I keep reciting the reality of my situation to myself: that my body is sealed inside this floating coffin, two boats bolted together with only my head and limbs poking free. That my stomach is bloated from the parasites and the force-feeding. That a mask of flies cover my face, drinking the milk and honey I was bathed in. That I am the one who killed Cyrus the Younger, and this is my reward.

Their army at Cuxana was twenty thousand; ours, twenty times twenty. And yet we waited. We'd trained and marched and slept for two weeks to get into striking distance of Cyrus' troops, only to camp on a ridge overlooking his hired Greek army, and wait. Artaxerxes would wait for a river to change its course if crossing it were a risk, some said. He walked our camp of six hundred every morning with a face like one of his marble busts: not a hero, but the piercing analytical gaze of a statesman. Every day that passed without attack saw more envoys running between the camps. Every one of Cyrus' messengers, all uncouth and lowborn, was personally met by the King and taken into his tent. While those people decided the fate of the armies, I waited at camp like the good soldier, and felt myself hollowing out.

My stomach is now full of worms. They catch the scent of all your poo poo in the boat, your days of force feeding coming to their natural conclusion, and burrow into you, make their kingdom inside you. For the last days of your life, you become their provider and benevolent god, and then one day, you die. just like the real God. Perhaps among them, some leader worm rises up, a particuarly spelling brave parasite, and rouses its fellows so they all set off, an army looking for a new frontier.

Cyrus led the attack himself. Not surprising from the martial brother, the one who people said had killed a bear. His force swept up the hill as dawn broke, heading straight for a killing blow - for us, the royal guard. Artaxerxes had us in ranks along the ridge.
"We have the superior ground," he said. "Do not act until I order."
Beside me, my brother muttered, "a chance for a little family glory, eh?"
I saw the bare head of Cyrus, high in his golden saddle, charging up the hill. I felt the rigidity of that accursed javelin. That feeling of lightness of power from the practice field overtook me, and I knew what I was born to do. I coiled my body in an arc, put my mind in my arm and whip-cracked the shaft into the air. It made a perfect arc, then buried itself in the face of Cyrus the Younger, pretender-king of Persia. The army saw nothing but a javelin emerge from the ranks and an enemy general fall.
Artaxerxes summoned me to his tent that night, showed me a heap of treasure and a golden scimitar.
"Your reward," he said, "for conveying the horse trappings of my kill to me."
"Sire, I merely - your kill, sire?"
The King laid his hard gaze upon me, the one I had seen from so far away.
"Did I not slay the pretender, soldier?"
"I - you did, sire."
From the dirt, Cyrus' rictus grin gazed at me, mocking.

I can see him now. cliché Artaxerxes brushes the insect mask away from my eyes and Cyrus the Pretender is there, spectral, moonlight pouring through the hole in his cheek. Artaxerxes puts a flagon to my lips. "Drink, liar." He leans over me, his face as hard as it was in the camp. Drops of the liquid touch my tongue and I gag. Wine. Ugh.

I could never hold my drink, or my secrets. In the aftermath of Cuxana my secret deed followed me like a pack-mule with Cyrus' face, mocking my coward's heroism. The golden scimitar at the foot of my bed like an ornament I couldn't show.
I swallowed my own fate in the banqueting hall in a lake of wine and pride; my brothers, boasting of their training prowess to each other, mocked me again for mine.
"The javelin!" The oldest one snorted. "Father should have entered you into the Olympics with the Greek perverts!"
The wine and my shame compelled me to speak and sign my death. For what brother has not caused his sibling pain?
"That javelin," I declared, "slew Cyrus, the bear-killer."
"Ah, you poor fool," he said. "That cannot be. It was Artaxerxes who killed him. What could be more fitting?"
"It was not!" I shouted, and I realised I was standing. I saw with horror that Artaxerxes was in the banqueting hall. Surveying, again. I claimed my destiny.
"You see before you the hero of Cuxana. Let the people never forget the name. Mithridates!"
There was a terrible silence. From across the hall, I stared into the eyes of Artaxerxes, of he whose rule is through truth, and he gave me nothing but his judgement. spelling

And now, at last, he stares back. Still the statesman, but he has attained a softness. Artaxerxes II of Persia is not large, but has grown to encompass pity.
"I come bearing your pardon, solider. I have two gifts for you."
He places a delicate white flower upon my lips.
"Hemlock," he says. "Eat it, and die."
I already know that I cannot. Not because I am afraid, but because I fear the coward's death. Unremembered.
"The second gift is truth. That I know what happened on the field of Cuxana. And a promise: one other man will be instructed as to events who can be trusted not to repeat them. He will be your witness in whatever celestial courts there may be."
Artaxerxes II looks sad, worn. Through the haze of flies I see him as he really is, the statesman, the pragmatist. Not the killer.
"Finally, I give you something a King has no right to give: his thanks. You saved me from fratricide."
He lays a hand on my rotten head, then strikes his oars into the water.
"Claim your death, hero. You have earned it."
I close my eyes, swallow the hemlock, and at last feel peace.

This is OK. Not super great, but decent. I feel like with less about the actual battle, and more about why he suddenly snapped and admitted the truth, and it could be better. You have him get really mad about the people bullying him about his weapon of choice so fast, he chooses death in a couple of lines. You could really have that build up until he snaps. Work some insults through the beginning of the story. Have other soldiers teasing him all the time. Think of him as the tiniest kid in middle school. He gets picked on all the time. But the people don’t know that the tiny kid knows karate or some bullshit, and he beats up one of the bullies. Now nobody fucks with him. But a teacher was watching, so he still gets suspended. But it was worth it.

That and some minor grammatical stuff and this could be a really solid story. Right now it’s missing a little bit. 75th percentile effort here.

crabrock posted:

Ok, so this is one of my favorite real-life stories of all time

Chillmatic posted:

Go crit yourself.

The Saddest Rhino posted:

would someone crit my story

Chillmatic posted:

The best thing any of us can hope for is to continuously improve our craft;

crabrock posted:

Critstorm

twinkle cave posted:

Why the gently caress do people say "craft"? This is loving retarded. What has thunderdome turned into since my last checking in? A bunch of assholes sipping piss laden wine apparently.

And, chillmatic, please for the love of god never refer to writing ability as "chops". Somebody just shoot me.

sebmojo posted:

Sounds like someone's forgotten the taste of their teeth. Luckily I have the cure for amnesia right here (spoiler: it is my fists).

Wordfight, you and me, 1000 words. Judge and prompt from the first one to step to it.

sebmojo posted:

Wordfight, you and me, 1000 words. Judge and prompt from the first one to step to it.