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Sithsaber
Apr 8, 2014

by Ion Helmet

quote:


But good on you for getting work out there. That's , and it's more than most manage.

Anybody can post on a forum; I deserve no props.

@GP

What I wrote comes from a period where I was messing with the themes of confusion and dreams. (I had also just discovered the jarring endings of Adventure Time) I'm still not good at expressing the little distortions and what the fucks that are experienced while asleep, although to be honest I've always liked things that leave core concepts to the audience's imagination.

I wrapped this direction up with Tales From Ominy (which I posted here
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3649617&pagenumber=1&perpage=40#post432013292 )

and may have went a little too far with show taking precedence over a protagonist who I only saw as a weird west bountyhunter/man with no name.



Right now I'm taking a step back with traditional poo poo while I read up on writing 101 and think up some characters that can drive my outlines and infodump exposition.

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Echo Cian
Jun 16, 2011

Sithsaber posted:

You reiterated the problem with train of thought and for some reason pasting killed the line break. But more to the point, does every story require spelling things out? I've always enjoyed good usage of omission.

First off: Shut the gently caress up about blaming every problem on pasting and your phone. Only a bad tradesman blames his tools for shoddy craftsmanship. A good one makes do, or gets better tools before he tries selling a lopsided chair.

Things I have done on a phone:

Written a Thunderdome interprompt and counted the wordcount manually. Three times. To make sure it was accurate.
Written numerous decent-length roleplay posts, free of formatting errors.
Posted on this forum, including having to manually type a URL because it wouldn't paste where I wanted it to, while my keypad was glitching on me. Also no errors.
Understood that some things just aren't meant to be done on a phone and waited until I was at a computer to do them, like reading this thread.
Proofread and edited the poo poo that I expect other people to read and critique me on.


Second: Your use of omission is you trying to be clever and mysterious. All it results in is no one knowing what you're trying to write because we can't read your mind. Grizzled Patriarch broke it down further, he's cool. My advice is to reread where you liked that, and pay closer attention to how it was done, what was shown (notice that word) rather than what was omitted, how those things played off each other. Right now you're omitting the details that make things comprehensible, rather than the details that raise the questions that create intrigue. And yet still being far too wordy.


quote:

Ps. And wouldn't a little give or take be better than basically telling me to shut the gently caress up? Some of us like to learn through active communication.

There's a reason for people muting their mics in Skype calls when their stories are being critiqued. You defend yourself constantly. You, the author, will not always be there to explain to the reader what the hell is going on or what you meant. You aren't engaging in "how do I make this better"; you're monologuing "this is what I meant, you plebes just don't get it," and even if you don't mean it that way, which I am frankly inclined to doubt, it's obnoxious.


Sithsaber posted:

think up some characters that can that can drive my outlines

Please do.

The reason no one gives a poo poo about your samples is because none of them have characters with noticeable traits, so there's no reason to empathize, and no reason to care. Just try following the advice I posted here, and Beef's further rants on the topic that I linked in that post. It will be much easier to try to crit your writing from a complete self-contained short story than some snippet with no context.

quote:

and infodump exposition.

please don't

infodumping is a plague unto man for the love of the book gods no

Sithsaber
Apr 8, 2014

by Ion Helmet

Echo Cian posted:

First off: Shut the gently caress up about blaming every problem on pasting and your phone. Only a bad tradesman blames his tools for shoddy craftsmanship. A good one makes do, or gets better tools before he tries selling a lopsided chair.

Things I have done on a phone:

Written a Thunderdome interprompt and counted the wordcount manually. Three times. To make sure it was accurate.
Written numerous decent-length roleplay posts, free of formatting errors.
Posted on this forum, including having to manually type a URL because it wouldn't paste where I wanted it to, while my keypad was glitching on me. Also no errors.
Understood that some things just aren't meant to be done on a phone and waited until I was at a computer to do them, like reading this thread.
Proofread and edited the poo poo that I expect other people to read and critique me on.


Second: Your use of omission is you trying to be clever and mysterious. All it results in is no one knowing what you're trying to write because we can't read your mind. Grizzled Patriarch broke it down further, he's cool. My advice is to reread where you liked that, and pay closer attention to how it was done, what was shown (notice that word) rather than what was omitted, how those things played off each other. Right now you're omitting the details that make things comprehensible, rather than the details that raise the questions that create intrigue. And yet still being far too wordy.


There's a reason for people muting their mics in Skype calls when their stories are being critiqued. You defend yourself constantly. You, the author, will not always be there to explain to the reader what the hell is going on or what you meant. You aren't engaging in "how do I make this better"; you're monologuing "this is what I meant, you plebes just don't get it," and even if you don't mean it that way, which I am frankly inclined to doubt, it's obnoxious.


Please do.

The reason no one gives a poo poo about your samples is because none of them have characters with noticeable traits, so there's no reason to empathize, and no reason to care. Just try following the advice I posted here, and Beef's further rants on the topic that I linked in that post. It will be much easier to try to crit your writing from a complete self-contained short story than some snippet with no context.


please don't

infodumping is a plague unto man for the love of the book gods no

So do you get a hard on when you're freaking out like this? The other guy handled the issue with tact and without foaming at the mouth, which is obviously something you can do. You actually typed a paragraph complaining about me complaining about my shity phone, which is insane.

Ps. The mods tend to be at my throat whenever I jump into shut like this, but advising you to chill the gently caress out over a dead conversation I thanked the critiquer for (after he clarified so as not be crazy harsh like you) is a human move. WTF happened to you today?

Sithsaber
Apr 8, 2014

by Ion Helmet

quote:


Brother Pride hated many things, most of all his brother. His brother was stupid, his brother was crass, and his brother revelled in all things petty. For years Brother Pride had tolerated him, for YEARS Brother Pride had turned a blind eye as Brother Vanity grew more and more cruel. He had tried compassion and understanding. He had tried sternness and strength; nothing seemed make a difference. The boy remained the same.

No, the boy grew worse. He grew worse and the people loved him for it. They loved the little prince far more than they had ever loved his elder. They loved that Vanity defiled the temples as Pride stood in prayer before gods who rewarded those who paid no more than lip service to their binding creeds. The people delighted in how Vanity cursed the seas as it gave them her bounty while Pride sweated and toiled to feed them every night. They even smiled while their young were deflowered and their old dishonored by the boy's scheming tricks. They knew that Pride's little brother used them, and still they adored him as he fed on their attention and became more and more of a parasite. They loved him because he was one of them.

And Pride was not. Pride hated them and all like them. He hated them yet did all he could to treat them as he would like to be treated, but his actions meant nothing to all the people who knew that. They saw the disgust in Pride’s eyes as he showered them with every courtesy, and they returned it in kind. Everyone knew that they hated him and that he hated them. Only decorum, necessity and fear kept them from ever coming to blows with their provider. Unfortunately, Pride's brother had none of these qualities.

Pride wasn't jealous of his brother; he just hated that someone like him was allowed to exist. The boy lacked restraint - a trait that was both a blessing and a curse depending on the circumstances. Vanity took what he wanted without even a thought of how his actions would affect those around him. Pride's brother didn't know how to stop, and would continue a conflict until his adversary had to either let himself lose to maintain sanity or face mutual annihilation.


Vanity was smart. He strutted when there was an audience and withdrew when the two siblings were alone. At times they had even successfully coexisted, tending and defending what they had made theirs. But the brother did not have self-control, and little by little Pride sensed being supplanted. The little Prince wanted to be a King, and Pride wouldn't stand submitting to a adolescent. Pride tolerated many things, but there was one thing he could not allow: disrespect.

When Pride asked his brother for help in the field, it took the usual period of supplication and bribery before Vanity acquiesced. Pride inwardly fumed at having to beg for help in harvesting what they would both eat, but he felt that he could tolerate the brat's haughtiness for a little while. As they strolled the older brother's emotions began to cool. He remembered what it was like when they were young and when innocence blinded them from the darker things of the world. He remembered those times and smiled.

Then his brother spoke. Pride didn't remember what his brother said, nor when he started smashing a stone into his brother’s forehead until his brains were bashed and the ground was soaked with blood. Pride struck and struck until the rock chipped and his knuckles broke, and only then did he realize his mistake.

His brother was dead. His brother was dead and the hate remained, hate now turned within as it had previously been turned without. He instantly regretted what he had done, but not because of any sense of grief. Pride could never return home; the others would hunt him for as long as they could to avenge the loss of their beloved.

But perhaps there was still hope. Pride grew frantic; he shook the corpse, entreating it with rage and tears to get up and put this trivial conflict behind them. He grew more desperate: he kicked the body until its ribs broke, than the balls until they popped. Eventually he had to stop beating the corpse when its chest caved in. He prayed to the gods and begged for a response; he begged for any way out of what he had just condemned himself to. He begged until he could beg no longer, and than he sat in the dust and waited for a response.

For hours he waited, until his eyes became vacant and his mind unaware. Pride's name would fall into disgrace when the boy was found dead. After a while the body stirred: Pride's despondency turned to impossible hope, and his hope to incomprehensible terror as his “brother” rose up and stood over his would be killer. Pride was enraged and petrified at the same time. Although most of his features had become unrecognizable, Vanity retained the feature Pride hated the most: his intolerable smile. One word faded out from Vanity’s mangled mouth before madness took them both; a subtle echo that would ring for the rest of the brothers’ hellish eternity. He whispered “finally”.

The flood gates broke: Pride’s screech of terror became a scream of hate and Vanity returned it in kind. They collided like a tidal wave upon a mountain, they tore like beings possessed and before long both were reduced to strips of flesh stitched together by the essence of all that could be despised. First gave way sight, than sound and sensation, until all that was left was living destruction set free.

War had been unleashed: there would be no turning back.

I graduated to Microsoft word mobile. This is old and probably isn't showy. I post it to test my editing skills.

Sithsaber fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Jul 14, 2014

Echo Cian
Jun 16, 2011

Sithsaber posted:

So do you get a hard on when you're freaking out like this? The other guy handled the issue with tact and without foaming at the mouth, which is obviously something you can do. You actually typed a paragraph complaining about me complaining about my shity phone, which is insane.

Ps. The mods tend to be at my throat whenever I jump into shut like this, but advising you to chill the gently caress out over a dead conversation I thanked the critiquer for (after he clarified so as not be crazy harsh like you) is a human move. WTF happened to you today?

Aww did I hurt your fee-fees?

It is far from insane to call you out or constantly using an annoying excuse for you to be lazy and not fix the poo poo you're trying to get feedback on. You want us to fawn all over you but you can't be assed to take the time to even fix your writing. Would you submit to an editor like this and expect them to nod and accept your excuses? You don't see how insulting this is?

I actually gave you advice but you want to refuse to acknowledge that and whine about me calling you out for being lazy. Though you also either disregarded or didn't understand half of what I suggested in fic advice, so I'm not sure what I expected.

Sithsaber
Apr 8, 2014

by Ion Helmet

Echo Cian posted:

Aww did I hurt your fee-fees?

It is far from insane to call you out or constantly using an annoying excuse for you to be lazy and not fix the poo poo you're trying to get feedback on. You want us to fawn all over you but you can't be assed to take the time to even fix your writing. Would you submit to an editor like this and expect them to nod and accept your excuses? You don't see how insulting this is?

I actually gave you advice but you want to refuse to acknowledge that and whine about me calling you out for being lazy. Though you also either disregarded or didn't understand half of what I suggested in fic advice, so I'm not sure what I expected.

My point was that this was solved two days ago. You need to stop before you attention whore and actually read the rest of the thread. I accepted that I was doing something wrong and got a new app to help me out.

Echo Cian
Jun 16, 2011

:laffo: at you calling me an attention whore, and pretty sure you didn't admit to any error in the last two days before insulting me, but okay, fair enough.

On your last offering: Nice outline, but where's the story?

That isn't sarcasm. At least not entirely. But that entire thing is telling. You don't show a thing; the entire "story" consists of you telling me that Pride did this and was like that and Vanity did this other thing and boy did Pride hate that. The sudden violence is exactly that : It comes out of nowhere because, though you went on for paragraphs about hate, he was thinking of positive things. Sure, he snapped, but it was because The Author decided he should, not because it followed from what we had seen before. It almost works but it's again missing a reason for the reader to care. So what if two dudes hate each other? What makes these guys any different or more interesting from the million other times this story has been written, other than having meaninglessly meaningful names?

Please take the advice that Grizzled Patriarch has given you, take the advice you ignored in my other post, and write a simple, new story that isn't obtuse, high-concept or faux-symbolic. Learn to walk before you try to dance a foxtrot.

Sithsaber
Apr 8, 2014

by Ion Helmet

Echo Cian posted:

:laffo: at you calling me an attention whore, and pretty sure you didn't admit to any error in the last two days before insulting me, but okay, fair enough.

On your last offering: Nice outline, but where's the story?

That isn't sarcasm. At least not entirely. But that entire thing is telling. You don't show a thing; the entire "story" consists of you telling me that Pride did this and was like that and Vanity did this other thing and boy did Pride hate that. The sudden violence is exactly that : It comes out of nowhere because, though you went on for paragraphs about hate, he was thinking of positive things. Sure, he snapped, but it was because The Author decided he should, not because it followed from what we had seen before. It almost works but it's again missing a reason for the reader to care. So what if two dudes hate each other? What makes these guys any different or more interesting from the million other times this story has been written, other than having meaninglessly meaningful names?

Please take the advice that Grizzled Patriarch has given you, take the advice you ignored in my other post, and write a simple, new story that isn't obtuse, high-concept or faux-symbolic. Learn to walk before you try to dance a foxtrot.

Like I said, I just posted that to see if I've improved my basic editing. That story is even older than "Tales From Ominy". Did you notice any glaring grammatical, structural or punctuation errors aside from the fundamental problem of too much tell? "The Hindsight" will be all tell if I can keep up with it.

Sithsaber fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Jul 13, 2014

Djeser
Mar 22, 2013


it's crow time again

Sithsaber posted:

Brother Pride hated many things, most of all his brother. His brother was stupid, his brother was crass, and his brother revelled in all things petty. For years Brother Pride had tolerated him, for YEARS Brother Pride had turned a blind eye as Brother Vanity grew more and more cruel. He had tried compassion and understanding. He had tried sternness and strength; nothing seemed make a difference. The boy remained the same. This has a lot of ideas, but no substance. You cannot tell a reader about undescribed cruelties/revelries/stupidities/toleration/hatred/whatever. Well, you can, but they won't be interested, and they won't believe you. What did he do that was stupid? What was crass? What revelry? Why was it petty? How did he tolerate him? I don't know the answer to any of this. If these things are something you care about enough to tell us, then show us why they're worth telling us about. Don't just say 'it was really bad and he was a dumb guy'.

No, the boy grew worse. He grew worse and the people loved him for it. They loved the little prince far more than they had ever loved his elder. They loved that Vanity defiled the temples as Pride stood in prayer before gods who rewarded those who paid no more than lip service to their binding creeds. This is a meandering sentence. Cut out some of those clauses at the end into their own sentences. They loved that (Vanity defiled as (Pride stood before (gods who (paid no more than (lip service.))))) Note that this will fix the sentence grammatically but it's still kind of bland like the rest of this. You're not showing me anything about these temples or this prayer or these gods or these people or that lip service. see note 1 The people delighted in how Vanity cursed the seas as it gave them her bounty while Pride sweated and toiled to feed them every night.More awkwardly long sentence, more unexplained telling. They even smiled while their young were deflowered WOAH this totes bears more explanation and their old dishonored by the boy's scheming tricks. They knew that Pride's little brother used them, and still they adored him as he fed on their attention and became more and more of a parasite. They loved him because he was one of them.This doesn't land for me at all. I don't even know who 'they' are beyond 'the people', and I'm not sure whose people they are, either. All you've told me are vaguely paradoxical things about why they like him. I don't buy this as public opinion. I'm going to keep reading, but see my second note.

And Pride was not. Pride hated them and all like them. He hated them yet did all he could to treat them as he would like to be treated; incorrect semicolon: do not use with conjunctions but they knew that. They saw the disgust in Pride’s eyes as he showered them with every courtesy, and they returned it in kind. Everyone knew that they hated him and that he hated them. Only decorum, necessity and fear kept them from ever coming to blows with their provider. Unfortunately, Pride's brother had none of these qualities. I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING. What courtesy? What decorum? What fear? What is he providing them with? What disgust? Showing this briefly would do far more than whatever this paragraph was. I'm starting to feel like you don't even know where this story is happening. Don't go 'oh so you want a whole paragraph of worldbuilding', I mean I literally haven't seen a hint of your story's setting. This is something I teach fourth graders. Where a story takes place is called a setting. I have zero clue where your story takes place.

Pride wasn't jealous of his brother; he just hated that someone like him was allowed to exist. The boy lacked restraint - a trait that was both a blessing and a curse depending on the circumstances. This means nothing, but it's on par with the rest of this meaning nothing. Vanity took what he wanted without even a thought of how his actions would affect those around him. God forbid you ever give an actual example. Pride's brother didn't know how to stop, and would continue a conflict until his adversary had to either let himself lose to maintain sanity or face mutual annihilation. This is another awkwardly long sentence. Chop it in half at the conjunction and reword the second sentence to be less SAT Prep.


Vanity was smart. He strutted when there was an audience and withdrew when the two siblings were alone. At times they had even successfully coexisted, tending and defending what they had made theirs. What did they make theirs? But the brother did not have self-control, and little by little Pride sensed being supplanted. How did he sense it? The little Prince wanted to be a King, and the Pride The pride? ??? ???????? wouldn't stand that. Pride tolerated many things, but there was one thing he could not allow: disrespect. Pride tolerated disrespecting the temples and stuff so why is this different?

When Pride asked his brother for help in the field, If they're princes why are they working in the field? it took the usual period of supplication and bribery before Vanity acquiesced. Pride inwardly fumed at having to beg for help in harvesting what they would both eat, They are farmers and also princes? but he felt that he could tolerate the brat's haughtiness for a little while. As they strolled the older brother's emotions began to cool. He remembered what it was like when they were young; When is a conjunction here, so incorrect semicolon when innocence blinded them from the darker things of the world. He remembered those times and smiled. I don't remember those times, because they didn't exist, even in the world of the story, because the story is about two anthropomorphic words spewing words at each other and at a giant crowd of anthropomorphic words standing outside their giant farm-palace which is just the word FARM-PALACE wrapped into the shape of a farm that's also a palace.

Then his brother spoke. Pride didn't remember what his brother said, nor when he started smashing a stone into his brother’s forehead until his brains were bashed This is the first action in the entire story and you cut away for it, so thanks for saving me from Things Happening and the ground was soaked with blood. Pride struck and struck until the rock chipped and his knuckles broke, and only then did he realize his mistake. Don't know why he did this, because there's no lead up. Is it like, gently caress you for being so poo poo when you were a cool dude as a kid? It comes out of nowhere because despite your mounds of words, I haven't learned anything really meaningful about this guy beyond that he's upset with his brother, the people like his brother, and they were happy when they were kids.

His brother was dead. His brother was dead and the hate remained, hate now turned within as it had previously been turned without. He instantly regretted what he had done, but not because of any sense of grief. Pride could never return home; You used a semicolon right this time! :unsmith: the others would hunt him for as long as they could to avenge the loss of their beloved.

But perhaps there was still hope. The Man Don't do this please grew frantic; he shook the corpse, entreating it with rage and tears to get up and put this trivial What part of it was trivial, the 'you're a huge douche' part or the 'bashed your head in' part? conflict behind them. He grew more desperate: he kicked the body until its ribs broke, than wrong then/than. Than is comparateive, then says what happens next. the balls until they popped. just eww man Eventually he had to why? stop beating the corpse in desperation. He prayed to the forgotten gods weren't the gods the ones who were cool with people making GBS threads up the temples? or are these different, special gods? and begged for a response; Nope, these are two separate sentences he begged for any way out of what he had just condemned himself to. He begged until he could beg no longer, and then he sat in the dust and waited for a response.

For hours he waited, until his eyes became vacant and his mind unaware. Pride had been dishonored and a boy lay dead. After a while the body stirred: I think you meant to put a semicolon here because this is neither a list or an example following the colon. A semicolon would still be wrong, though, because the following phrase doesn't modify or explain the phrase before it. Pride's despondency turned to impossible hope, and his hope to incomprehensible terror as his “brother” how about tell me how he knows it's not his brother instead of just using scare quotes rose up and stood over his would forgot your hyphen be killer. Pride was enraged wait he was just terrified, now he's back to angry? and petrified at the same time. Although most of his features had become unrecognizable, Vanity retained the feature Pride hated the most: his intolerable smile. I'd be grossed out if you went for imagery here, but I'm still upset that you keep on telling instead of showing. One word faded out one of the few times you use figurative language and it doesn't work for me. drat from Vanity’s mangled mouth before madness took them both; this semicolon is okay but I still don't like it personally. a subtle echo that would ring for the rest of the brothers’ hellish eternity. bluhhhh noooo He whispered “finally”. I see the /quote tag at the bottom of my screen, so I'm whispering finally myself. Except when I do it, I say it like this: Djeser whispered, "Finally." Because that's how you do dialogue.

The flood gates broke: ehhh this is kind of an example so I'll let it slide, this time Pride’s screech of terror became a scream of hate and Vanity returned it in kind. They collided like a tidal wave upon a mountain, they tore like beings possessed and before long both were reduced to strips of flesh stitched together by the essence of all that could be despised. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0uQor_juqE First gave way sight, than sound and sensation, until all that was left was living destruction set free.

War had been unleashed: period instead of colon there would be no turning back.

This story is nothing but telling me about things that vaguely happened in an indefinite setting. Let's talk about the three things a basic story needs: character, setting and plot. A character is someone who the reader can identify with. This doesn't mean they have to be the same demographic as the reader, but it means their experience should relate to the reader's life in some way. The reader thinks, "oh, I've got a greedy friend, he's kind of like this character," or "I can empathize with the empty motions of a robot whose masters are long dead", or anything in between.

A setting is where a story takes place. All stories have a setting, even if it's not explicit. Sometimes, a story focused on characters can make no direct reference to its setting, but it will be evident from the writing and the interactions approximately where and when it happens. Even if it isn't explicitly told, the writer should have the setting in mind, because a well-realized setting adds to the real-ness of a story.

Finally, plot is the series of events that occur as a character tries to reach a goal or solve a problem. A good story introduces and establishes the conflict the character faces, shows that character working toward that conflict, and in the end, the character solves their conflict (or not) and has changed as a person (or not) from their experience. In this story, most of the plot came in the last few paragraphs. Most of the piece is establishing the conflict, and there's little that gets shown of the character trying to solve his problem.

Purely grammar-wise, there's nothing wrong with your writing that isn't just beginning writers' overzealousness. You can put together a sentence fine, when you're not overwriting. The really damning part of your writing for me is how hollow everything is and how little you seem to have invested into the story beyond some damp symbolism.



Note 1: Do you need to describe every last thing? No, that's silly. But you do need to describe enough that the reader can fill in the gaps themselves. Good writing (especially in short stories) is like a great sketch. You see just a few quick lines, but suddenly there's an image there. You don't have to draw in every detail, but you're not playing Pictionary. Just like in writing, you don't need to describe every detail, but you have to give the reader enough that the world feels real to them. Here, it barely feels like you're even trying to make this world real.

Note 2: When you're writing something for other people to read, there's a certain amount of trust the reader puts in you. To put it shortly, they trust you to have a meaningful story. If you start doing this hollow stuff where it doesn't even feel like you put any time and effort into the story, if you make these narrative shortcuts that undermine the weight of the story, then they won't trust you. People will start disbelieving the story you're telling them if they get the idea that you're bullshitting them.

Djeser fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Jul 13, 2014

Hammer Bro.
Jul 7, 2007

THUNDERDOME LOSER

Although this one's been done pretty thoroughly already (and kudos, Djeser, for the general advice), I did have a few impressions.

Sithsaber posted:

[...] an adolescent [...] Strictly editorial comment that I don't think had been mentioned by others.
[...] Pride’s screech of terror became a scream of hate and Vanity returned it in kind. They collided like a tidal wave upon a mountain, they tore like beings possessed [...] Minor quibble, but I think you're implying that they both throw down on each other, but the image conjured by a tidal wave hitting a mountain is asymmetrical; an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.

As I read the first part of the piece, I found myself imagining that Pride was the author and was attempting to malign his brother. That got me wondering, does the actual author have a brother? Is this an exercise in catharsis? I can't help but thinking that the whole thing would generate more interest if it were presented mostly as monologue by Pride. Say, for instance, that he's defending himself while on trial by Justice. Then all the tells wouldn't be historical authorial statements, they'd be rationalizations and aspersions by a frustrated character.

Of course, that would require a rework of the ending. Regardless, I didn't develop much empathy for either of the named characters. Nor, I suppose, for any of the unnamed populace who were presumably affected by the unleashed war.

Sithsaber
Apr 8, 2014

by Ion Helmet

Hammer Bro. posted:

Although this one's been done pretty thoroughly already (and kudos, Djeser, for the general advice), I did have a few impressions.


As I read the first part of the piece, I found myself imagining that Pride was the author and was attempting to malign his brother. That got me wondering, does the actual author have a brother? Is this an exercise in catharsis? I can't help but thinking that the whole thing would generate more interest if it were presented mostly as monologue by Pride. Say, for instance, that he's defending himself while on trial by Justice. Then all the tells wouldn't be historical authorial statements, they'd be rationalizations and aspersions by a frustrated character.

Of course, that would require a rework of the ending. Regardless, I didn't develop much empathy for either of the named characters. Nor, I suppose, for any of the unnamed populace who were presumably affected by the unleashed war.

You hit the nail on the head, you psychoanalyzing motherfucker.(a term ofrespect of course)The idea was to take some sibling rivalry and turn it into a dreamlike tale of mutual destruction. I was thinking about just adding some world building to the first few paragraphs but your input makes more sense, even if it takes away from the mythic aspects of the story. I could also write "a tall mountain being smashed into by a slightly smallerr tidal wave" and then go on about the water soaking into the rubble, but it seems like no one enjoys the fusion analogy of family abuse and hatred begetting hatred ad infinitum.

Sithsaber fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Jul 18, 2014

Hammer Bro.
Jul 7, 2007

THUNDERDOME LOSER

I recently decided to take a stab at writing; I had no idea how hard it would fight back! There are a couple of specific things I'd like feedback on, but I don't want to spoil the virgin reading experience with leading questions, so I'll start with the story (~630 words).

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Excerpts from the Seaford Satellite

Freak Farm Fire
Friday, October 30, 1987
By Charlene Holmes


A fire broke out late last night on the Givens ranch.

Mr. Givens says he was awakened around 12:30 by a commotion among his broilers. When he went out to investigate, he saw multiple patches of scrub brush ablaze, and immediately called 911.

Fortunately, the Local 87 dispatched the flames before any significant damage was done to person or property. The cause of the fire is still unknown.

Maggie on the Move?
Saturday, October 31, 1987
By Chuck C. Allen


Many years ago, back when my grandfather was but a babe, a child was born to a girl named Margaret. This child entered the world silently, though the room that heralded it was suffused with lament.

It is said that this child was born with one foot gnarled like a hoof, tortuous ridges marring its brow, and a nubby, incessantly writhing protrusion above its hindquarters. One of its eyes was veiled in a lactic membrane of crimson. The other, lacking iris and pupil, glistened a slimy pitch. Neither strayed from the agonized visage of the woman who bore it.

Margaret, a penitent Christian girl, was distraught. Clearly this was the work of the Devil; punishment for her sole act of mortal weakness. There was only one thing to do.

Concealing the child, which was simultaneously blessed and cursed with silence, Margaret stole away to the bridge south of the cemetery and cast the abomination into the creek. Even its splash made not a sound.

Nobody knows what next happened to Margaret, but she was never seen again as a creature of the flesh.

[Continued on page 3.]

For years now there have been stories of strange happenings at Maggie's Bridge -- ghostly lights, vehicular failures, and an oppressive sense of dread. Some claim they can see the silhouette of a weeping young woman, others hear the wail of a vengeful banshee. Certainly the number of automobile accidents in the immediate vicinity is unusually high. So it may come as a surprise that last night around midnight an anonymous resident of Blades reported an apparition.

"I stepped outside to clear my head," claims the citizen, "when I saw an angry young woman stalking off toward the forest. She was carrying a barn lantern and looked like she was searching for something. I didn't think much of it until I saw her pass through a tree, literally right through it, then vanish. I hurried inside, but when I looked out the window all I could see was a smokey orange glow coming from across the highway."

The informant asked to remain anonymous in order to avoid a reputation as a fabulist. Still, he concluded our conversation with, "It was real. I swear it."

Could it be that Maggie is extending her sphere of influence? No longer content merely to haunt those who torment her, has she embarked upon some grievous quest to propagate her misery?

Keep your eyes peeled for geists in the night and stick with the Satellite during the day for updates on this recent development.

Fowl Fire Foul?
Sunday, November 1, 1987
By Charlene Holmes


Police are investigating the recent farm fire after an anonymous tipster indicated evidence of arson. Small amounts of kerosene were found connecting the areas which caught fire, suggesting that a more significant conflagration was intended. This reporter is reminded of the Bridgeville fire which devastated farmer Melson's lot two years ago. As of yet, no suspects have been named.

In other news, we at the Satellite will soon be conducting interviews for an entry level correspondent. If you're interested, possess journalistic and moral integrity, and have no criminal record, please contact us via one of the following:

---------------

If you'd like to critique the text, please read no further, at least until after you've written up your initial thoughts. The rest of this post contains major spoilers about what I was trying to accomplish.

I'm trying to tell a story in the subtext. The tale is actually a crime mystery. If you'd like a challenge, although I honestly have no idea how fairly I've presented the puzzle, feel free to read it again with that in mind. Now I'm going to entirely spoil it by including my own intentions in line-edits.

Excerpts from the Seaford Satellite [Most of the people/places/phantoms come from Seaford, DE.]

Freak Farm Fire
Friday, October 30, 1987 [All farms and fictionalized characters of interest existed at this time.]
By Charlene Holmes [Performs a role similar to Sherlock Holmes. "Shirley" felt too obvious.]

A fire broke out late last night on the Givens ranch. [Givens Farms, DE.]

Mr. Givens says he was awakened around 12:30 by a commotion among his broilers. [Chicken farm.] When he went out to investigate, he saw multiple patches of scrub brush ablaze, and immediately called 911. [Multiple patches, implying separate points of ignition.] Fortunately, the Local 87 dispatched the flames before any significant damage was done to person or property. The cause of the fire is still unknown. [But the cause of the fire will become known.]

Maggie on the Move?
Saturday, October 31, 1987 [Halloween, the perfect time for a ghost story.]
By Chuck C. Allen [Charles C. Allens have owned the Allen Farms poultry ranches, historically.]

Many years ago, back when my grandfather was but a babe, a child was born to a girl named Margaret. [Mentioning grandfather Allen specifically, although that may not help in finding the familial relationship, just confirming it.] This child entered the world silently, though the room that heralded it was suffused with lament.

It is said that this child was born with one foot gnarled like a hoof, tortuous ridges marring its brow, and a nubby, incessantly writhing protrusion above its hindquarters. One of its eyes was veiled in a lactic membrane of crimson. The other, lacking iris and pupil, glistened a slimy pitch. Neither strayed from the agonized visage of the woman who bore it. [Jazzing up some accounts of Seaford's traditional ghost.]

Margaret, a penitent Christian girl, was distraught. Clearly this was the work of the Devil; punishment for her sole act of mortal weakness. There was only one thing to do.

Concealing the child, which was simultaneously blessed and cursed with silence, Margaret stole away to the bridge south of the cemetery and cast the abomination into the creek. Even its splash made not a sound. [Roughly consistent with what I could gather of the local legends.]

Nobody knows what next happened to Margaret, but she was never seen again as a creature of the flesh.

[Continued on page 3.] [Give the reader a significant pause. Also implies the story was front page news.]

For years now there have been stories of strange happenings at Maggie's Bridge -- ghostly lights, vehicular failures, and an oppressive sense of dread. Some claim they can see the silhouette of a weeping young woman, others hear the wail of a vengeful banshee. Certainly the number of automobile accidents in the immediate vicinity is unusually high. So it may come as a surprise that last night around midnight an anonymous resident of Blades reported an apparition. [Blades being a nearby town which is in the direction from Maggie's Bridge to Givens Farms.]

"I stepped outside to clear my head," claims the citizen, "when I saw an angry young woman stalking off toward the forest. She was carrying a barn lantern and looked like she was searching for something. [Kerosene being what was used to start the fires.] I didn't think much of it until I saw her pass through a tree, literally right through it, then vanish. I hurried inside, but when I looked out the window all I could see was a smokey orange glow coming from across the highway." [Chuck inventing a witness to imply that a ghost started the previous night's fire.]

The informant asked to remain anonymous in order to avoid a reputation as a fabulist. Still, he concluded our conversation with, "It was real. I swear it." [Evidence that Chuck is sloppy.]

Could it be that Maggie is extending her sphere of influence? No longer content merely to haunt those who torment her, has she embarked upon some grievous quest to propagate her misery? [Again, Chuck trying to make the newspaper readers believe that a ghost might be starting fires.] Keep your eyes peeled for geists in the night and stick with the Satellite during the day for updates on this recent development.

Fowl Fire Foul?
Sunday, November 1, 1987
By Charlene Holmes


Police are investigating the recent farm fire after an anonymous tipster indicated evidence of arson. [Charlene being that tipster.] Small amounts of kerosene were found connecting the areas which caught fire, suggesting that a more significant conflagration was intended. This reporter is reminded of the Bridgeville fire which devastated farmer Melson's lot two years ago. [Another poultry farm, the next town to the north.] As of yet, no suspects have been named. [But she could name one suspect.]

In other news, we at the Satellite will soon be conducting interviews for an entry level correspondent. [She knows Chuck won't be working there much longer, either because he notices the subtext of her article or because she directly reports him.] If you're interested, possess journalistic and moral integrity, and have no criminal record, please contact us via one of the following: [She's taking a dig at Chuck as well as giving him a warning that she realizes he fabricated his eyewitness and started the fire.]

So to summarize: Two years before the start of the story, a young Charles C. Allen sets fire to nearby Melson Farms, which competes with his family in the poultry business. Then he attempts to set fire to the nearer Givens Farms, but is unsuccessful. He brings up a local ghost story and fabricates a witness to imply that the recent fire may've been paranormal activity. Charlene spots this deception, investigates the Givens fire, and concludes that it was started by Chuck. She then warns him, through similarly misleading print tactics, that she knows what happened and that he needs to resign.


Have at it.

Entenzahn
Nov 15, 2012

erm... quack-ward
My advice to you as a new writer is to drop the gimmicks and try writing a straight story until you can pull it off, because this is just a bunch of newspaper snippets about a fire and nobody is seriously going to sit down and analyze your subtext in their free time.

Your English is okay and you seem to proofread your stuff so I guess you could try a week of Thunderdome and see how it goes.

Guiness13
Feb 17, 2007

The best angel of all.
I have to agree. I could tell there was supposed to be something going on between the three articles, but there was way too much information missing to piece things together. For instance, I, being completely unaware of the various aspects of raising chickens, was wondering what the hell the first farmer's broilers were. Also, there's nothing beyond that to say anything about these farms being chicken farms. Even the third headline mentions Fowl instead of poultry.

Basically, the framing device is confusing as hell and I had no idea there was an actual story there until it was explained in spoilers. If someone is just reading that story, they're not going to have the explanation handy and I have no idea how they would figure it out from what's there.

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






I was like "why did he submit several different stories?" and then i realized what you had done, and that they were newspaper snippets, and was like "these are the most boring newspaper snippets" and stopped reading.

So that's probably about the mileage you can expect to get with that from your audience when you don't post it specifically in a writing critique thread.

Rasselas
Oct 26, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT FUCKIN' TRANNIES HARASSING GLORIOUS UNIMPEACHABLE WEBCOMIC ARTIST TOM SIDDELL WITH THEIR FALSE CLAIMS TO VICTIMHOOD, THE CODDLED FUCKS! STIFF UPPER LIP! I'M A TREMENDOUS JACKASS WHO CAN'T FATHOM ANYTHING OUTSIDE MY BUBBLE! TUMBLRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
You have a good story somewhere in there, but your storytelling technique completely buries and obscures it. You're not making it fun for the reader to try and find the clues, there's not enough motivation created for us to care.

You should rewrite it, using various different techniques. One that comes to mind is a dialogue, two characters discussing the story with a dynamic similar to Sherlock and Watson. One would point out the clues, to make the reader wonder and want to know, and the solution would only be revealed later.

I feel that the newspaper article technique doesn't work, the way it's written here. You want it to be read as a riddle or a puzzle, but you don't give enough motivation for such an investment in your story.

Rewriting in other styles might help you find new angles of approach. So, even if you decided to keep the article technique, you could rewrite it a more captivating way. Maybe you could add other sorts of info, excerpts from a diary, notes, letters...?

Djeser
Mar 22, 2013


it's crow time again

I found that as I was starting out, I tried to wrap my stories in narrative gimmicks because I thought that would be more interesting, but I found out pretty quickly that it's tough to write a good story simultaneously while sticking with your gimmick.

I wrote a story as a textbook chapter when I was just starting to write for serious, and it came out...as good as you'd expect that to.

Narrative gimmicks can work. I remember one book I liked as a kid that told the story of a...water fountain, I think? It was all told through correspondence and clippings, everything was presented as a document. But the trick with narrative gimmicks is that you have to be able to write a good, solid story before you can write with gimmicks. Gimmicks on a good story can be interesting and creative, but on a bad story, they just become annoying. The best thing to do is just focus on telling simple, solid stories, then work your way up to the level of skill where you can pull off a story like that.

Hammer Bro.
Jul 7, 2007

THUNDERDOME LOSER


Thanks for the feedback. It sounds like I ought to flesh this one out a bit as a personal exercise. I like the idea of two journalists having a private conflict over a public forum (their articles), but I'll try writing straight for the interstitials. As it stands the text is not interesting enough for anyone to bother noticing or caring that there might be a subtext.

I think part of the problem is that I read far too much Gene Wolfe, who will write an entire novel as letters to various characters then drop a hint toward the end that they may not have been arranged in chronological order, meanwhile implying strongly that the primary narrator is a filthy liar. Really messes with one's head if they look too close, but it's also good fun. The difference being, he's still an enjoyable read even if you don't take the magnifying glass to him.

Ausmund
Jan 24, 2007

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Would love critique on my little story POWER OF SEX. It's a little longer so I'll link the thread.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3652051

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






Ausmund posted:

Would love critique on my little story POWER OF SEX. It's a little longer so I'll link the thread.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3652051

This is an active-round TD story, so you should hold off on getting critiques until AFTER the judgement. Also you'll usually get 2-3 critiques from the judges, as well as more if you ask people nicely (and crit stuff in return).

Echo Cian
Jun 16, 2011

Ausmund posted:

Would love critique on my little story POWER OF SEX. It's a little longer so I'll link the thread.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3652051

So this is what insanity looks like. :stare:

While you wait for the judges like the rest of us, might I suggest reading an actual book?

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Hammer Bro. posted:

Thanks for the feedback. It sounds like I ought to flesh this one out a bit as a personal exercise. I like the idea of two journalists having a private conflict over a public forum (their articles), but I'll try writing straight for the interstitials. As it stands the text is not interesting enough for anyone to bother noticing or caring that there might be a subtext.

I think part of the problem is that I read far too much Gene Wolfe, who will write an entire novel as letters to various characters then drop a hint toward the end that they may not have been arranged in chronological order, meanwhile implying strongly that the primary narrator is a filthy liar. Really messes with one's head if they look too close, but it's also good fun. The difference being, he's still an enjoyable read even if you don't take the magnifying glass to him.

Yes but he is Gene Wolfe.

I'm a big fan of writing puzzle stories that you need to read multiple times to make sense of, and don't worry - you'll come back to them. But make sure you can write a clean clear story about people that I give a gently caress about, first.

Anonymous Robot
Jun 1, 2007

Lost his leg in Robo War I
Is this description clear? I'm particularly concerned about the last sentence- what I'm trying to describe is that the character has a bandana tied around their head (not just their face, but like a sack fastened around their neck so that the entire head is obscured). I'd been going back and forth on the phrase "hangman's hood", because I don't want to drum up the image of an executioner's hood (this one is notably eyeless) but instead the kind of bag often put over the head of someone who is being executed.



quote:

A tall, broad-shouldered man stood transfixed in the light. The striker wore a miner’s coat, and in his gloved right hand he clutched a pick. It was what Roger might’ve expected, save one detail; he wore a red bandana over his head, concealing the entire thing in the fashion of a lynching hood.

Hammer Bro.
Jul 7, 2007

THUNDERDOME LOSER

Anonymous Robot posted:

Is this description clear?

You've poisoned the well a little bit by saying what effect you were trying to achieve before pasting the passage. Even then, I don't quite visualize what you're after. I see:

"he wore a red bandana over his head," (Guy wearing biker bandana over his scalp. Red with white patterns, because I never see monochromatic bandanas in real life.)
"concealing the entire thing in the fashion of a lynching hood." (My mind slides the bandana downward to cover his face, like an upside-down bandito bandana. But the size of the bandana I originally pictured doesn't change, so now he just looks silly.)

You might do a little better mentioning that the entire head was covered before mentioning something which I don't think is able to cover an entire head. Or use a word other than bandana, if it's not specifically important. ("his entire head was covered by a sightless red sack." The active "he wore" to me slightly implies that he deliberately put the thing on himself -- I'm not sure if that's what you're going for.)

Helsing
Aug 23, 2003

DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU :love::love::love: JOE BIDEN
So I was hoping I could get some more feedback on my latest thunderdome entry. I should preface this by noting that every single time I've entered thunderdome I've struggled to varying degrees with the word length. For whatever reason I'm just not that good at coming up with stories that fit into 1,000 - 1,500 words. Time and again I end up producing stories that are clearly supposed to be longer, which leads to arbitrary cuts. This story is definitely no exception. I'd like to think it has some potential but it very clearly would need to be expanded.

----------------

Bioethics

1,190 words


Writing the e-mail was the easy part. Two sentences, sent from a freshly registered gmail account.

I know who sent you the e-mail, and I’m not sure if they were serious or not. His name is Greg Brentano.

Hitting send was harder.


###


Whenever he got angry, which happened a lot, Greg would leap off of his bed and pace around the room like a caged animal. His skin would flush and he’d breathe heavily, as though being angry required physical exertion.

A month before the e-mail I’d been hanging out with Greg in his dorm room, watching him work through his latest set of frustrations.

“It’s so loving stupid,” he said. “We’ve been digging this hole for fifty loving years and her solution? Dig faster.”

“It’s a four page assignment,” I said as I set down my Xbox controller.

“It’s a mandatory class! I’m trying to get into med school and they’re making me jump through hoops for some craggy old oval office from the philosophy department.”

“Yeah, well, it is a bioethics class.”

Greg gave me the kind of look you’d normally reserve for a kid who shits themselves after they’re supposed to be toilet trained.

“That’s the point I’m trying to make. What the hell does some burned out old hippy slut know about ethics?” His breathing was a bit more even now, the flush was leaving his cheeks. Greg loved being angry, but not as much as he loved to hear himself talk. “Do you know what ethics is?”

“Yeah. Doing the right thing.”

“Conduct. Ethics is about conduct. It’s supposed to be about how you behave yourself, you know? It’s about values.”

“Sure.”

“And the essence of all that is self control. Restraint. Being able to mold yourself into the kind of person society needs you to be.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. He was calming down, at least.

“So do you see how that’s a contradiction? To be advocating abortion on demand in a loving ethics class?”

“It’s a little bit off.”

“It’s hosed is what it is,” he said, flopping back onto his bed. “It’s bad enough living in this worthless country, they want us praise what a good job they’re doing while they rape the corpse of Western civilization.”

“You’re being a bit dramatic here don’t you think?”

“Why do you think China builds all our poo poo now, holds all our debt? You think they hand out condoms in Chinese schools and tell their women to open their legs for every jock rear end in a top hat they can find? The Asians get it man. They reward hard work and discipline. They don’t let their kids gently caress around. And you know what really kills me? That used to be us. Fifty years ago? We’d probably be married already, and to real woman, not skanky whores. Women who could appreciate us and support us while we try to rebuild this shithole country.”

That was the thing about Greg. It might start with the unfairness of life or the downfall of civilization, but it always ended up at sex. Especially the sex everyone around us seemed to be having.

“Like, take that oval office Sarah,” Greg continued. “You’re smart, you’re driven. Five years from now you’ll be pulling six figures. But you don’t look like Brad Pitt, so she strings you along for one date and doesn’t call you back. What do you think happens to a civilization where the best and brightest get continually poo poo on like that?”

I gave him a nod that I hoped was agreeable, and picked my controller back up.


###


The first time I met Greg my vision was too blurry to properly make out his face. That had been eight years ago, and Matt Lisac, the terror of seventh grade gym class, had just finished making an example of me. Afterwards Greg was the only guy brave or stupid enough to come and help me look for the busted frame of my glasses.

“Looks like he got you pretty good,” Greg said after helped me to my feet.

“He hit me,” I mumbled, still shocked. I’d never exactly been popular, but at my old school you never got punched for saying somebody had bad acne.

“You shouldn’t have provoked him. Especially not when Jessica is around.”

“Who?”

“That blonde who was laughing. They’re all bad but she’s the worst. Matt shows off for her.”

He looked me over. “This is the poo poo you’ll need to know if you don’t wanna get your lights knocked out. I’m Greg, by the way.”

“Alex.”

“You like Nintendo, Alex?”

###


Greg recognized me first. It had been five years since the end of eighth grade and the time had not been kind to him. It was the same voice, though, and the same nervous, twitchy hands.

I’d already been in and out of my dorm room by then. I’d already seen the name Greg Brenanto on the door across from mine. Somehow that connection had escaped me. I hadn’t seen Greg since Eight Grade.

I had promised myself that my arrival at college would be the start of a new era. The moment I saw Greg bounding across the quad to greet me a part of that ambition died.

“Thank God for small mercies,” he said, a few weeks later. We were hunched in front of the plasma screen in his room, discussing the immensity of the coincidence that had thrown us back together, doing our best to ignore the pounding music and drunken shouts emanating from the common room down the hall. “I’d go crazy if you weren’t here.”

“Is this what you thought it’d be like?” I asked him. “College, I mean.”

“You mean the noise, the skanks, the in-your-face feminazi bullshit?” He didn’t wait for my response. “Pretty much, yeah. My high school was the same way. Whole fuckin country is like this now.”


###


“You can always appeal the grade.”

“Appeal? I should sue the bitch.” Greg was fuming. A week ago he’d been telling me how his bioethics paper was going to make waves. He hadn’t considered what that meant for his GPA.

“That’s a bad idea.”

“I know man, I know. It just gets to me. I spend my whole live slaving away to be a productive member of society. I don’t drink, I don’t chase shanks, I don’t do loving drugs. What’s my reward? A loving woman telling me I’m not good enough because I challenged her world-view.”

“You could take a summer course to pull up your average.” I said.

“No. I’m done being Mr. Nice Guy.”

“Meaning?”

“I'm going to communicate through the only language someone like her understands. Here, look.” He gestured toward his computer.

I stopped reading halfway through.

“Is this a joke?”

“Liberals don’t know much, but they know how to be afraid. Nothing frightens a hedonist more than death.”

“They’ll expel you.”

“She won’t know who sent it. In fact, she won’t even report it. She’ll give everyone passing grades just like I told her to. She won’t risk finding out if I’m serious.”

“No,” I told him. “If you send this, they’ll find you, and they’ll expel you.”


----------------

Obliterati gave me some helpful criticism in the Thunderdome thread but suggested I post this here as well.

In the original version of this story I wanted to introduce several plot points that don't make it into the final draft. We would have had several more flashbacks to Alex and Greg's time together in middle school. I would have spent more time describing them being terrorized by bullies. I was also toying with the idea that they pulled some kind of stupid prank such as pulling the fire alarm, and that Greg ultimately took the full blame for what happened, which would perhaps set up why Alex feels conflicted about betraying him. I was also thinking of introducing a female romantic interest for Alex - someone who would have helped steer him away from Greg's influence, ultimately setting up his decision to report his friend.

In particular though I'd be interested for feedback on Greg's character. I had to write this story pretty quickly and now that I'm rereading it I have to admit its got about as much subtly as a sledge hammer to the face. Did the characterizations here work? Did the characters, and Greg specifically, feel plausible? This character is largely based on real internet rants that I've seen on certain MRA and Incel forums, but rereading the story sometimes his speeches seem a little heavy handed.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
I don't feel like reading this whole thing, thinking a bunch about it, and formulating a crit so I'm just going to type reactions as I read.

Helsing posted:

So I was hoping I could get some more feedback on my latest thunderdome entry. I should preface this by noting that every single time I've entered thunderdome I've struggled to varying degrees with the word length. For whatever reason I'm just not that good at coming up with stories that fit into 1,000 - 1,500 words. Time and again I end up producing stories that are clearly supposed to be longer, which leads to arbitrary cuts. This story is definitely no exception. I'd like to think it has some potential but it very clearly would need to be expanded.

----------------

Bioethics

1,190 words


Writing the e-mail was the easy part. Two sentences, sent from a freshly registered gmail account.

I know who sent you the e-mail, and I’m not sure if they were serious or not. His name is Greg Brentano.

Hitting send was harder.

You get points for at least trying to do a hook, but having the first part on its own like this in three sentence-long paragraphs reads too much as, "Gonna make the reader be all like "WHAAAA?" Confusing tense shifts here too.


###


Whenever he got angry, which happened a lot, Greg would leap off of his bed and pace around the room like a caged animal. His skin would flush and he’d breathe heavily, as though being angry required physical exertion.

A month before the e-mail I’d been hanging out with Greg in his dorm room, watching him work through his latest set of frustrations.

“It’s so loving stupid,” he said. “We’ve been digging this hole for fifty loving years and her solution? Dig faster.”

“It’s a four page assignment,” I said as I set down my Xbox controller.

“It’s a mandatory class! I’m trying to get into med school and they’re making me jump through hoops for some craggy old oval office from the philosophy department.”

“Yeah, well, it is a bioethics class.”

Greg gave me the kind of look you’d normally reserve for a kid who shits themselves after they’re supposed to be toilet trained.

“That’s the point I’m trying to make. What the hell does some burned out old hippy slut know about ethics?” laying it on a little hard here His breathing was a bit more even now, the flush was leaving his cheeks. Greg loved being angry, but not as much as he loved to hear himself talk. “Do you know what ethics is?”

“Yeah. Doing the right thing.”

“Conduct. Ethics is about conduct. It’s supposed to be about how you behave yourself, you know? It’s about values.”

I've lost track of who is saying what because they both just sound like the writer talking through both characters (and also no dialogue tags).

“Sure.”

“And the essence of all that is self control. Restraint. Being able to mold yourself into the kind of person society needs you to be.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. He was calming down, at least.

“So do you see how that’s a contradiction? To be advocating abortion on demand in a loving ethics class?”

“It’s a little bit off.”

“It’s hosed is what it is,” he said, flopping back onto his bed. “It’s bad enough living in this worthless country, they want us praise what a good job they’re doing while they rape the corpse of Western civilization.”

“You’re being a bit dramatic here don’t you think?”

why am i supposed to care about this conversation?

“Why do you think China builds all our poo poo now, holds all our debt? You think they hand out condoms in Chinese schools and tell their women to open their legs for every jock rear end in a top hat they can find?Actually many Chinese use abortion almost like birth control and there is like no stigma against it at all in the PRC The Asians get it man. They reward hard work and discipline. They don’t let their kids gently caress around. And you know what really kills me? That used to be us. Fifty years ago? We’d probably be married already, and to real woman, not skanky whores. Women who could appreciate us and support us while we try to rebuild this shithole goonspeak country.”

That was the thing about Greg. It might start with the unfairness of life or the downfall of civilization, but it always ended up at sex. Especially the sex everyone around us seemed to be having.

You're trying to do a PUA/fedora/Roger Elliot character, but it's still reading like such a caricature. Your protag is just a floating voice and narrator at this point that gives Greg a chance to say his stuff. It's super hard to write this kind of character in an interesting way because it's usually just such a cliche. You aren't showing us Greg do anything and letting us infer he has these views, which still might not even be interesting, instead you're just having him say all the nice guy talking points. Unfortunately there is nothing interesting about reading this.

“Like, take that oval office Sarah,” Greg continued. “You’re smart, you’re driven. Five years from now you’ll be pulling six figures. But you don’t look like Brad Pitt, so she strings you along for one date and doesn’t call you back. What do you think happens to a civilization where the best and brightest get continually poo poo on like that?”

I gave him a nod that I hoped was agreeable, and picked my controller back up.


###


The first time I met Greg my vision was too blurry to properly make out his face. That had been eight years ago, and Matt Lisac, the terror of seventh grade gym class, had just finished making an example of me. Afterwards Greg was the only guy brave or stupid enough to come and help me look for the busted frame of my glasses.

“Looks like he got you pretty good,” Greg said after helped me to my feet.

“He hit me,” I mumbled, still shocked. I’d never exactly been popular, but at my old school you never got punched for saying somebody had bad acne.

“You shouldn’t have provoked him. Especially not when Jessica is around.”

“Who?”

“That blonde who was laughing. They’re all bad but she’s the worst. Matt shows off for her.”

He looked me over. “This is the poo poo you’ll need to know if you don’t wanna get your lights knocked out. I’m Greg, by the way.”

“Alex.”

“You like Nintendo, Alex?”

The origin story of how Greg got his MRA powers. This is kind of okay and at least shows Greg as having sympathetic qualities.

###


Greg recognized me first. It had been five years since the end of eighth grade and the time had not been kind to him. It was the same voice, though, and the same nervous, twitchy hands.

I’d already been in and out of my dorm room by then. I’d already seen the name Greg Brenanto on the door across from mine. Somehow that connection had escaped me. I hadn’t seen Greg since Eight Grade.

I had promised myself that my arrival at college would be the start of a new era. The moment I saw Greg bounding across the quad to greet me a part of that ambition died.

I like this.

“Thank God for small mercies,” he said, a few weeks later. We were hunched in front of the plasma screen in his room, discussing the immensity of the coincidence that had thrown us back together, doing our best to ignore the pounding music and drunken shouts emanating from the common room down the hall. “I’d go crazy if you weren’t here.”

“Is this what you thought it’d be like?” I asked him. “College, I mean.”

“You mean the noise, the skanks, the in-your-face feminazi bullshit?” He didn’t wait for my response. “Pretty much, yeah. My high school was the same way. Whole fuckin country is like this now.”


###


“You can always appeal the grade.”

“Appeal? I should sue the bitch.” Greg was fuming. A week ago he’d been telling me how his bioethics paper was going to make waves. He hadn’t considered what that meant for his GPA.

“That’s a bad idea.”

“I know man, I know. It just gets to me. I spend my whole livelife slaving away to be a productive member of society. I don’t drink, I don’t chase shanks, I don’t do loving drugs. What’s my reward? A loving woman telling me I’m not good enough because I challenged her world-view.”

Too much on the nose poo poo again. Like WE KNOW what Greg would say or how he'd act in any situation. At this point you need to show us him doing something and the only really interesting angle is how the protag cringes/reacts to Greg being ridiculous. Just hearing the dialogue in the white room, with the protag basically just saying filler or setting Greg's next line up isn't interesting to read.

“You could take a summer course to pull up your average.” I said.

“No. I’m done being Mr. Nice Guy.”

“Meaning?”

“I'm going to communicate through the only language someone like her understands. Here, look.” He gestured toward his computer.

I stopped reading halfway through.

“Is this a joke?”

“Liberals don’t know much, but they know how to be afraid. Nothing frightens a hedonist more than death.”

“They’ll expel you.”

“She won’t know who sent it. In fact, she won’t even report it. She’ll give everyone passing grades just like I told her to. She won’t risk finding out if I’m serious.”

“No,” I told him. “If you send this, they’ll find you, and they’ll expel you.”

This doesn't read like an ending at all. It doesn't actually resolve anything. Your protag doesn't do anything all story. The only time I felt any connection to anything was the protag's feeling when he wanted a fresh start and was stuck with Greg as his roommate who he hadn't seen in years. Make stuff happen when you write stories; don't just have two people talking in a white (dorm)room about what happened previously and what will happen later.


----------------

Obliterati gave me some helpful criticism in the Thunderdome thread but suggested I post this here as well.

In the original version of this story I wanted to introduce several plot points that don't make it into the final draft. We would have had several more flashbacks to Alex and Greg's time together in middle school. I would have spent more time describing them being terrorized by bullies. I was also toying with the idea that they pulled some kind of stupid prank such as pulling the fire alarm, and that Greg ultimately took the full blame for what happened, which would perhaps set up why Alex feels conflicted about betraying him. I was also thinking of introducing a female romantic interest for Alex - someone who would have helped steer him away from Greg's influence, ultimately setting up his decision to report his friend.

In particular though I'd be interested for feedback on Greg's character. I had to write this story pretty quickly and now that I'm rereading it I have to admit its got about as much subtly as a sledge hammer to the face. Did the characterizations here work? Did the characters, and Greg specifically, feel plausible? This character is largely based on real internet rants that I've seen on certain MRA and Incel forums, but rereading the story sometimes his speeches seem a little heavy handed.

InMyHighCastle
Mar 10, 2014
I'm new here - and to writing fiction, actually. Please be gentle.

I've been wanting to get into writing for a while; I've jotted down plenty of story/character ideas but, probably due to my fear of being shockingly bad, I've never really taken one of these ideas and put pen to paper, so to speak. Anyway, today I decided to start changing that, and I wrote just a few paragraphs to see if I had any existing skill (however minor) which I was unaware of. I'm looking more for critique of voice/form than story (this sliver of prose is far too small for that kinda thing).

Here goes!


quote:

“When the cart comes, son, it doesn’t go away empty,” they told me. I didn’t want to leave them behind, my family, my friends, my neighbors, but adults often don’t care much for the wishes of children, especially during wars. We have to do as we are told. So, as I clambered off the packed train, and began to make my way down to the station’s exit, I knew that, whether I liked it or not, I’d have to get into the man’s cart and be ferried off to whichever family was generous enough to host me until things calmed down back home.

As I exited the station, leaving the more sheepish children behind, I saw it: the cart. A long wooden thing, accompanied by two intimidatingly large black horses who, I thought, looked like they could pull, or drag -- if their size was any indication -- the cart for miles without much effort, even if it was full of children. But they wouldn’t be doing much pulling today. It struck me as being tilted at a really odd angle. And if the pained expression on the face of the tall man standing at the rear of the cart was anything to go by, this angle wasn’t part of some eccentric design.

“It’s the axel,” said the dark shifting dark figure stooped down near one of the back wheels. “Strange though. Fine when we got here”

“Yeah, axel’s gone and broke,” said another, much reedier, voice, presumably coming from whoever the skinny legs poking out from beneath the end of the cart belonged to. “Not much chance of us getting this thing moving again today, boss”

I saw the man wearing the pained expression wince from underneath his wide-brimmed, gloomy dark hat. “What you mean to say, gents, is not ‘this axel’s gone and broke’ but ‘some low-life vagrant scum has broken your bloody axel, boss’ .” He reached into his pocket and fished out a pair of spectacles, tinted to keep the sun out of his eyes, which, I noticed, matched the emerald tint of the spectacles. Slowly, the man sauntered round to the side of the cart and began to lightly knock the man hunkered down near the wheel on the shoulder with his walking stick. “And you are going to get this cart moving today or I will personally tether my horses to you and use you as a replacement, understood?”

“ ‘course, Boss, but--’

“But what, Jones?’ said the man, placing his spectacles carefully on the bridge of his long nose.

“Nothin’, Boss’


Is there any hope for me? I know I have a lot of improvement to go before I start entering the Thunderdome or something.

Alpacalips Now
Oct 4, 2013

InMyHighCastle posted:

I'm new here - and to writing fiction, actually. Please be gentle.

I've been wanting to get into writing for a while; I've jotted down plenty of story/character ideas but, probably due to my fear of being shockingly bad, I've never really taken one of these ideas and put pen to paper, so to speak. Anyway, today I decided to start changing that, and I wrote just a few paragraphs to see if I had any existing skill (however minor) which I was unaware of. I'm looking more for critique of voice/form than story (this sliver of prose is far too small for that kinda thing).

Here goes!



Is there any hope for me? I know I have a lot of improvement to go before I start entering the Thunderdome or something.

I'm glad you're putting the pen to paper, and ready to improve your writing! Here's my advice:

1) The prose is verbose and redundant. Look at this:

As I exited the station, leaving the more sheepish children behind, I saw it: the cart. A long wooden thing, accompanied by two intimidatingly large black horses who, I thought, looked like they could pull, or drag -- if their size was any indication -- the cart for miles without much effort, even if it was full of children

That's 59 words. What's happens in those 59 words? He leaves the station and sees a wooden cart large enough to carry many children, pulled by two imposing horses. Use less words. Remove all the redundant "I thoughts" and "if their size was any indications" because narrators can state things without telling us that they're stating them. Avoid using adverbs when possible. There are several adjectives that mean "intimidatingly large".

2) I don't get a sense of the story's conflict yet. Of course, the kid's getting shipped off to a foster family, but the kid just goes along with it. There's the broken axle, but the narrator has nothing to do with it. He or she just watches men discuss it. Start with conflict.

3) The narrator stops sounding like a child after the first paragraph. Children speak with simple, direct voices, and most of the time, they are quite self-centered.

4) You spend a lot of words describing physical things. This is a problem I have, too. The man's hat is "wide-brimmed, gloomy and dark" Gloomy and dark even mean the same thing. If I had to describe his hat, I would use "wide-brimmed" because it gives a clear image. I can't even picture a gloomy hat, to be honest. Cut down on the adjectives, and don't describe everything, just things that matter.

5) Proofread. There's a "dark shifting dark figure" in paragraph three.


PS: You use the word "dark" a lot. This made me think it was nighttime, but then when the guy put on tinted glasses, it made me think it was daytime. Don't overuse adjectives, because they can clash unexpectedly.

Best of luck!

InMyHighCastle
Mar 10, 2014
The advice is much appreciated. I'll try my best to improve - I read a lot, but I don't write and that seems to be a shame. Personally, I feel that my biggest weakness is that I'm a bit too academic and dry. It's going to be hard to change that, but I suppose practice will help.

Hammer Bro.
Jul 7, 2007

THUNDERDOME LOSER

InMyHighCastle posted:

I know I have a lot of improvement to go before I start entering the Thunderdome or something.

The logic's backward there -- you get that lot of improvement by participating in the Thunderdome. As with everything in life, this can be solved with discipline and practice. Thunderdome provides both of those, with a wonderful set of motivations:

* Once you're In, you'll want to maintain the value of your word by not failing to submit a story.
* The act of writing with restrictions will force you to hone your craft in a deliberate, directed way.
* You'll be able to compare your response to the prompt with others', providing an excellent opportunity to analyze what you liked about theirs as opposed to yours.
* You'll receive a shiny new avatar and a fiery passion in your belly to show them what for. You'll show them all.

(Feel free to replace "you" with "I" in the above.) But seriously, dive in. It's like getting in a cold pool -- don't just dip your big toe and shiver; cannonball! You'll warm up after a bit and start that precious process of burning calories.

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






I came to fiction advice just to browse and saw somebody mention TD. The first couple of times i did it I got pointed out to me all the horrible things I was doing and why they were horrible. I fixed most of those and now sometimes i write something interesting?

you should try it. the worst thing that happens is you get an avatar change.

Chairchucker
Nov 14, 2006

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022




crabrock posted:


you should try it. the best thing that happens is you get an avatar change.

flerp
Feb 25, 2014

DoctorWhat posted:

I'm taking a serious stab at writing a short story for pretty much the first time and I'm trying to establish a specific tone for it, and also find out if what I've written is any good so far. It's only about two pages long so far, so it shouldn't take more than five minutes to read through.

Here's the Google Docs link.

I left some comments on the doc, so you can read them. I found a few awkward lines and a good amount of telling in the beginning. However, you get over that pretty quickly.

Now for your questions

DoctorWhat posted:

Is the narrator relatable?

Kind of. He just seems like an average joe with a personality that feels kind of generic. I don't really know how to describe him except wants to be hidden, likes Star Trek (maybe), and overreacts when he accidentally bumps into a woman. Also, gets really smug when people call soda pop for some reason.


DoctorWhat posted:

Do all the different "speakers" have distinct enough voices?

Yeah, the only other speaker is really the girl, and she does feel different from the boy, but I don't really feel like she's a strong character since I don't really get to know her.

DoctorWhat posted:

Is there anything particularly stupid that I've done?

Besides make a story based off of Doctor Who? That you added in news articles about something that doesn't add anything to the story.

The big problem is that this story feels incomplete. Not that there's anything missing in one you presented, but just that it doesn't feel finished. Your articles hint at something more, and the events that happen don't really have a full narrative arc. There lies the problem with giving us a rough draft of a story not completed yet. I can't really critique it since I don't know what you're planning on it. From what I see, I enjoyed it, but I pray that you don't make it fanfic about Doctor Who, because that's an awful idea.

DoctorWhat posted:

I'm trying to get a vide going that's sort of like "The Truth" by Avi, mixed with some traits from John Hodgman's occasional forays into "normal" fiction. I have an idea of where the story is going, but obviously all the details are very much up in the air.

I'm an uncultured swine and have never heard of those, so I can't tell you if you succeeded or not.

DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?

Broenheim posted:

I left some comments on the doc, so you can read them. I found a few awkward lines and a good amount of telling in the beginning. However, you get over that pretty quickly.

Now for your questions


Kind of. He just seems like an average joe with a personality that feels kind of generic. I don't really know how to describe him except wants to be hidden, likes Star Trek (maybe), and overreacts when he accidentally bumps into a woman. Also, gets really smug when people call soda pop for some reason.


Yeah, the only other speaker is really the girl, and she does feel different from the boy, but I don't really feel like she's a strong character since I don't really get to know her.


Besides make a story based off of Doctor Who? That you added in news articles about something that doesn't add anything to the story.

The big problem is that this story feels incomplete. Not that there's anything missing in one you presented, but just that it doesn't feel finished. Your articles hint at something more, and the events that happen don't really have a full narrative arc. There lies the problem with giving us a rough draft of a story not completed yet. I can't really critique it since I don't know what you're planning on it. From what I see, I enjoyed it, but I pray that you don't make it fanfic about Doctor Who, because that's an awful idea.


I'm an uncultured swine and have never heard of those, so I can't tell you if you succeeded or not.

It's very much unfinished.

The story isn't about Doctor Who - and it's certainly not fan fiction. it's about a prominent fan and critic of the series who seems to have some kind of psychotic break. The news articles are meant to capture the reader's interest in terms of "what the hell happened in Brooklyn" but your critique has made me realize I need to make that question more compelling.

When I have my next chunk, I'll post it here - I didn't at first, because it's already well over 1000 words and will get longer, but if this is the appropriate thread nonetheless I'll set up camp here.

DoctorWhat fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Jul 31, 2014

Franco Potente
Jul 9, 2010
I'm entirely new to CC, but I figured I'd try my hand a crit and a submission. Here goes!:

InMyHighCastle posted:

“When the cart comes, son, it doesn’t go away empty,” they told me. I didn’t want to leave them behind, my family, my friends, my neighbors, This feels oddly general. Perhaps I'm just being nitpicky, but it's something anyone would say, and it lacks any specificity that would give the reader a clue as to what the narrator values. but adults often don’t care much for the wishes of children, especially during wars. We have to do as we are told. So, as I clambered off the packed train, and began to make my way down to the station’s exit, I knew that, whether I liked it or not, I’d have to get into the man’s cart and be ferried off to whichever family was generous enough to host me until things calmed down back home. This sentence goes on for quite a long time and, as a consequence, loses some of its impact of an anxious youngster. He sounds a little too calm and removed, in other words

As I exited the station, leaving the more sheepish children behind, I saw it: the cart. A long wooden thing, accompanied by two intimidatingly large black horses who, I thought, looked like they could pull, or drag -- if their size was any indication -- the cart for miles without much effort, even if it was full of children. Again, far too long a sentence, using a lot of words without giving the reader any vital information. You could lose a lot of the latter part of the sentence. But they wouldn’t be doing much pulling today. It struck me as being tilted at a really odd angle. And if the pained expression on the face of the tall man standing at the rear of the cart was anything to go by, this angle wasn’t part of some eccentric design. Once more, this is way too much extraneous information. Telling us that a tall man stood grimacing is gives us all the information we need, without the mention of an "eccentric design" which, as Apocalips Now stated, doesn't really sound like a child's voice

“It’s the axel,” said the dark shifting dark figure stooped down near one of the back wheels Is this the tall man? He has moved from being standing to stooped. If not, I would change the "the" earlier int the sentence to "a" in order to differentiate. “Strange though. Fine when we got here”

“Yeah, axel’s gone and broke,” said another, much reedier, voice, presumably coming from whoever the skinny legs poking out from beneath the end of the cart belonged to Overly descriptive. Again, you could get away with "another, much reedier voice from behind the cart". “Not much chance of us getting this thing moving again today, boss” Small note, but you alternate between writing "boss" with a capital and a lower-case "b."

I saw the man wearing the pained expression wince from underneath his wide-brimmed, gloomy dark hat Too many needless adjectives here.. “What you mean to say, gents, is not ‘this axel’s gone and broke’ but ‘some low-life vagrant scum has broken your bloody axel, boss’ .” He reached into his pocket and fished out a pair of spectacles, tinted to keep the sun out of his eyes, which, I noticed, matched the emerald tint of the spectacles I am confused by this sentence. If I'm reading it right--I may not--it says "he took out a pair of spectacles, which were emerald, like the spectacles." Or do you mean the sun is emerald? Is that normal in this world, or curious? . Slowly, the man sauntered round to the side of the cart and began to lightly knock the man hunkered down near the wheel on the shoulder with his walking stick. “And you are going to get this cart moving today or I will personally tether my horses to you and use you as a replacement, understood?”

“ ‘course, Boss, but--’

“But what, Jones?’ said the man, placing his spectacles carefully on the bridge of his long nose.

“Nothin’, Boss’

As you said you're looking for a critique of voice, what mainly jumps out at me is that I have no idea what to make of the narrator. We know that he's a child, and that's about it. I realize that this is a very short excerpt, but even then, I don't get a feel at all for what this character's responses are. In the first paragraph you say he doesn't want to leave his life behind, but then in the following one he leaves behind the "sheepish" children. It's hard to make out if your character is supposed to be stoic, remorseful, wise, or whatever, since lots of little bits of these states crop up, but not really coherently.

I'm sorry if that sounded harsh, because it's not a bad piece by any means, I just think you need to hammer down more clearly defined traits and emotional states of the narrator.

Anyway, here's my own contribution:

Dress Up (718 words)

I slide the shirt on and before I’ve even gotten to buttoning it up I look over to you still in your underwear (the fancy, lacy, look-but-don’t-really-look-too-long-‘cause-then-it’s-creepy kind) and you’re staring at me without making a word, not even forming the beginnings of one on your lips, and then I know we’re gonna be late.

I mean, yeah, sure, fair point, there’s a red wine stain, right near the heart (it’s actually on the underside of my tit but I said that once and you said it sounded crass so now I just agree and say the heart as well) and you think that it’s a bad sign. Okay. But it’s my favourite shirt. I’ve had it since I was in high school, when I was looking at you from afar and wondering if you even knew I existed (you didn’t, obviously, since I was too busy hiding from you and peering around corners. Somehow I had never really clued in). And sometimes I like to even imagine that I was wearing this shirt the day you first said hi to me even though I know that’s a bit of creative license and I was actually probably wearing one of my gauche sweater vests that I used to think were the height of fashion.

There are alternatives, you say factually. This is true. I don’t dispute it. But really? The white silk one? Is that how you see this relationship? Sometimes, I fear it is. And come on! Aside from that tiny, insignificant little stain that you can barely even see anyway ‘cause it’s a dark loving shirt, it’s the best one I own. The collar hasn’t wilted like some dying flower, and the sleeves stop at my wrist instead of hiding my fingers inside them like snakes in a can of fake nuts. I speak in similes which you think is simultaneously sweet and condescending, and so you just roll your eyes from the inertia.

When it gets like this I want to sulk and cross my arms and say it doesn’t even really matter anyway, no one’s gonna care because it’s me and not them. At the very worst they’ll think I’m a bit clumsy when I’m holding a drink which is the truth anyway so better that they think that right off the bat. But I know it’s defeating to even try that. I just can’t understand why you hate that shirt so much. And you look sad and you say that it’s because it looks like I’m bleeding right through the cloth which is kind of ridiculous because whose blood is even that colour or consistency? I suppose that’s not the point, though.

So now I’m sitting down and the shirt is still unbuttoned, and my tummy is peeking out unflatteringly from the cloth that’s really shoddily festooning it, and it’s like Schroedinger’s Dress Shirt now, where I’m both wearing it and not at the same time. But with the way I’m sitting now the cloth is wrinkled and it’s actually covering up the stain and I jump up and say see! See! It’s a perfectly fine shirt. When you look up at me it’s just so staggeringly lonely that I can barely stand it and you say that you’ll always know it’s there and that’s what ruins it for you.

You’re still in your frilly underwear and nothing else and it’s getting dark now but it’s still bright in the room because the streetlights have come on outside like we needed the extra boost to help navigate our way. I am still slumped sitting on the bed and you come over, standing tall above me and I say how many times are we going to have this same goddamned argument and you don’t reply so I start to break down and cry, sobbing in the most embarrassing way, with deep breaths that just facilitate bigger and louder gasps because I know the answer and so I lie down and shut my eyes. After a while I feel the bed sink a bit as you sit down next to me on it, and then I feel your fingers followed by your head resting on my chest, listening without words to the origin of my sobs as they’re filtered through a thin sheen of fabric.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Nice vignette. It feels like it would be too long if it had even a few more words, which is a sign you chose your incident well. It imbues the items of clothing with the qualities of the characters that wear them in a way that implies an array of past and future events without needing to describe them. Also: lots of good words.

Now: write a story.

Mercedes
Mar 7, 2006

"So you Jesus?"

"And you black?"

"Nigga prove it!"

And so Black Jesus turned water into a bucket of chicken. And He saw that it was good.




So I was incredibly unhappy with how I had to post my story all naked without edits in order to avoid a failure, so I asked sebmojo to hold off on critting until I can post a finish product here.

To the Heavens
Words: 1989

Flash Rule: Character gives up something they care about


“They’re holding our funeral today,” Babar muttered as he took a seat next to Eureka. “You going?”

Eureka spat on the ground. Babar waited for her to launch into one of her legendary rants, but she kept quiet. “What do you think we’ll find up there?”

Eureka tilted her head back and closed her eyes. “The sky,” she said dreamily.

“I know, I just…” Babar searched for the best way put what he thought into words. “There’s still plenty of food. We won’t run out in our lifetimes. Let someone else go see if people can live on the surface.”

“I can’t stay cooped up in here. If everyone waits for the next person to do something, nothing would be done.”

“No one’s ever made it back,” Babar said, determined to be the negative Nancy. “Your grandpa never made it to the Grand Elevator. What makes you think we will?”

“We’re not slobbering pussies.”

***

Eureka stood at the front of the train car. She wore a leather coat and she breathed into her gas mask, ignoring the fog on the scratched lenses.“What do we want?” She shouted at her men.

“To see the sky!”

“When do we want it?”

“We want it now!”

Eureka scrunched her lips upward in an approving frown and nodded her head in response to her team’s fighting spirit. The only thing that felt right was to pump her fist in the air, screaming like an incoherent drunk distraught to reach the bottom of the last bottle of alcohol in the world.

Most of her team reciprocated her call to arms. George, curiously enough, had hyped himself so much that he forgot how to breathe and promptly fainted. Babar was content on sitting and sulking. Caillou pretended his rifle was a rocket launcher and shot a round into the air, punching a hole through the ceiling and prematurely ending the celebration.

Three unpleasant things followed that moment: everyone turned on Caillou with their weapons raised, there was a roar that rattled the windows and Caillou temporarily lost a struggle with his bladder.

He staggered away from the windows, pointing to the one thing he did not want to see in the expedition.

“Wyvern!” Eureka shouted. “Everyone outside!”

If not for their predisposition to eat humans, Eureka could watch the silver wyverns snake their way through the air forever. “Don’t waste your bullets,” she called out to her men, “Wait until they’re in close range and then unload on their faces.”

George snickered. He opened his mouth to deliver the most legendary of lines ever said in a life and death situation, but that dickface Caillou drowned his words out with gunfire.

Caillou had a wide stance with a light machine gun in one hand and a belt of ammo draped over the other. “Come get some, you loving fairies!”

The wyverns followed Caillour’s poignant advice and came to get some. One tucked its wings close and fell towards the train like a silver missile. Bullets ricocheted harmlessly off its thick exterior. It unfurled its wings and beat them against gravity to keep from slamming into the train.

The tempest winds lifted Eureka off her feet and threw her backwards. She crashed into the guardrail with a metallic ping and bounced over it. She flung out her hands in an attempt to grab on to anything, found the base of the metal railing and clamped down. She shouted for help, but the sound of battle as well as the discordant screeches from the wyverns drowned her out.

She looked down and immediately cursed herself. It wasn’t because she couldn’t see the bottom of the cavern (though she did make a mental note to scalp the descendants of those who built the drat thing so high off the ground). Her severe displeasure came from her being unable to command her legs to move. The altercation with the metal rail must have done more damage than she thought.

Eureka struggled to pull her body back up to the platform. Her arms ached, she was out of breath and she could be crippled for the rest of her probable short life, but at least she had defiantly kept both middle fingers up taunting Death.

Unfortunately for her, Death is a fussy rear end in a top hat when people cheat him.

A wyvern landed on the last train car and the cabin crumpled under its massive weight. The wheels sparked as the train car bounced and rattled, making a valiant effort to stay on the rails.

Eureka looked towards the front of the train and saw they were close to entering a tunnel. Thirty seconds was all she needed to reach the threshold where a derail won’t end in an impromptu flying lesson.

Caillou ran past and jumped to the following car, followed by George. The train car lurched to the side and Eureka slid towards the edge, clawing at the ground in an attempt to stop herself from sailing to her death.

Eureka saw her final hope sprinting past. “Babar! I need help!”

She knew he heard her. He looked at her and then back towards safety, unable to make up his mind. Eureka reached toward him and called out his name again. The train car bucked off the rail and slid. A screech, like fingernails on a chalkboard, drew her attention to the rear of the train. The coupling that connected her car to the line of cars dangling off the side of the bridge snapped, releasing the extra weight to fall.

The sudden loss of weight made the car Eureka was on to pop up, hurling her into the air. When she came down, she wrapped her arms over the railing, but the momentum made her slip and she slammed her chin on the metal. Dazed, her grip loosened and she slid off, but at the last moment she took ahold of something, and found herself once again hanging from the edge of the guard rail.

She peered over the edge and something in her chest sunk when she realized Babar had abandoned her. So much for a decade of friendship. She screamed his name like a curse, yet still held on. The train car ran completely off the rails and dragging alongside the bridge. Up ahead was the tunnel and if the train car failed to kill her, the collision with earth would.

Eureka started to make peace with her god until she heard a wyvern’s discordant cry. She looked down and saw a winged serpent passing under her.

If she were to die, it might as well be when she was doing something extraordinarily dangerous and badass.

She let go of the railing and fell towards the wyvern, unfastening a climbing axe from her side. With all the adrenaline-enhanced strength she could muster, she drove the point through the wyvern’s hide.

The wyvern sliced through the air in a frenzy. Eureka had one hand on her axe and the other gripping the wyvern’s wing.When the wyvern stopped fighting her, every alarm in Eureka’s head rang.

The wyvern was flying straight towards the train wreckage at the mouth of the tunnel. Bastard’s trying to scrape me off his back, Eureka thought. . She had one last thought before she flew into the smoke billowing at the mouth of the tunnel: This is gonna fuckin’ hurt.

Eureka rolled to the side and hung against the wyvern’s flank seconds before a shower of rocks exploded above her. She was wrenched away from the wyvern and tumbled through the air, and crashed into the ground. She bounced along the rails until the sharp whack of flesh against an immovable surface knocked her out.

***

The stab of overwhelming pain in the side jarred Eureka awake. She showed her displeasure by shouting, “Stop!” until whoever was moving her did.

“Holy poo poo, she’s not dead.”

She opened her eyes to find George and Caillou watching her. “Not even close, baby,” she said, chuckling. The pain came right back. She groaned and moved her hands to what felt like broken ribs. “How much farther we got until the Grand Elevator?”

“gently caress’s sake, you’re in no condition-”

“Shut it, Caillou! Where’s Babar?” Her words were venom-tipped.

Caillou winced but he kept his composure. “He’s back at the wreckage trying to salvage whatever food he can.”

“You made a wyvern your bitch!” George threw both hands in the air. “That was loving awesome!”

“What was awesome?” Babar’s inflection flattened as he came around the corner pulling a dolly of food. “Good to see you alive, Eureka.”

She reached for her pistol, but it wasn’t there. She wondered if she should be thankful she lacked the tools to punish Babar for his cowardice.

“George, I need you to carry me. I can’t walk,” she said evenly.

Two hours rolled by, every moment spent listening to George and Caillou arguing about who started the argument they were now having.

“Am I the only one who hears something following us?” Babar asked.

Everyone stopped. Caillou shrugged. “You must be imagining-”

The unmistakable sounds of muffled footsteps from a very large creature echoed through the tunnel.

Death was one fussy bastard.

They ran hard. To Eureka, every jostle felt like a knife in her side. But when they reached the Grand Elevator, the pain seemed to be worth it. The elevator was massive. They could fit the entire train on the platform if they were set side by side. She looked up and marvelled at elevator shaft. It was at an angle instead of being straight up and down like others had told her. She saw a pinpoint of light at the very end. Almost there.

“How do you work this drat thing?” Babar shouted, looking frantically around the edges of the platform.

“Eureka!” Caillou cried. “How do we work this?” The wyvern was running now and getting closer.

Eureka pointed to a small panel on the far side. “Switch. Flip,” she said, still out of sorts.

Caillou relayed the information. “A switch! Flip the switch!”

Babar strained against the switch, but he couldn’t move it. “Caillou, it’s rusted!”

Caillou was beside him using his rifle as a lever. “This is why you should lift more than a food to your face, you little girl.” He pulled down and with their combined efforts the switch squealed all the way down to the on position.

Red lights flared up and a siren wailed. The elevator shuddered violently until the gears rotated, taking them up a diagonal ascent.

Curious, George looked over the edge of the platform. He then took several unsteady steps away.

A giant claw appeared over the edge of the platform and with protest from the elevator, the wyvern pulled itself up. Blood seeped from deep cuts on its back and wings and it had a noticeable limp. It was also staring directly at Eureka. It flared its nostrils and charged.

George forgot that Eureka couldn’t walk on her own and dropped her in his attempt to get out of the way.

Eureka dragged herself away from the wyvern, but it was easily gaining on her.

With a shout, Babar slammed the spike of his climbing axe into the wyvern’s eye. The serpent thrashed its head around and in a misstep, it tripped over the railing and fell below.

“And stay the gently caress away!” Babar said. He reared his head back and spat.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, George pipes up. “Did you just spit in your gas mask?”

***

The elevator finally reached the top. The four of them looked above to the gray, cloudy sky through the steel wreckage of the Eiffel Tower.

George carried Eureka to a shopping cart, and set her down in it..

“So, what’s next?” Babar asked.

She looked at Babar, her hand going to her empty pistol holster. “Time to explore. And Babar?”

“Yea?”

“Thanks for growing a pair.”

newtestleper
Oct 30, 2003
Even though I don't read a lot of sci-fi actiony stuff, I enjoyed your story a lot. I particularly liked the way that a lot of details suggested the world the story exists in without begging questions. As an example I was perfectly happy to accept that there was a greater meaning to their mission than just "seeing the sky" even though we knew little of it. I also thought the pacing was excellent, and the action was depicted in such a way that I could easily make sense of what was happening, which I think is very difficult.

I don't have any higher level criticism to give you, but there were some phrases that didn;t seem quite right to me.

"Babar was content on sitting and sulking."
Should be "content to sit and sulk" or "content to continue sitting and sulking"

"Most of her team reciprocated her call to arms."
I don't think the word reciprocates is quite right here. There are simpler words that would be more effective (echo?)

"death as a fussy bastard."
I like the idea of this motif a lot, but fussy doesn't seem like the right word. I think a central phrase like this needs to work perfectly and this doesn't quite get there for me.

Mercedes
Mar 7, 2006

"So you Jesus?"

"And you black?"

"Nigga prove it!"

And so Black Jesus turned water into a bucket of chicken. And He saw that it was good.




newtestleper posted:

Even though I don't read a lot of sci-fi actiony stuff, I enjoyed your story a lot. I particularly liked the way that a lot of details suggested the world the story exists in without begging questions. As an example I was perfectly happy to accept that there was a greater meaning to their mission than just "seeing the sky" even though we knew little of it. I also thought the pacing was excellent, and the action was depicted in such a way that I could easily make sense of what was happening, which I think is very difficult.

I don't have any higher level criticism to give you, but there were some phrases that didn;t seem quite right to me.

"Babar was content on sitting and sulking."
Should be "content to sit and sulk" or "content to continue sitting and sulking"

"Most of her team reciprocated her call to arms."
I don't think the word reciprocates is quite right here. There are simpler words that would be more effective (echo?)

"death as a fussy bastard."
I like the idea of this motif a lot, but fussy doesn't seem like the right word. I think a central phrase like this needs to work perfectly and this doesn't quite get there for me.


Thank you for the crit!

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ScottyWired
Jan 30, 2014

Don't believe in yourself. Believe in the Kamina who believes in you. u suk
My state has it's own standardized test and one part of it was a writing task. We got to keep drafting material after the test so I decided to toss up in a document.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/111996868/2014-2/Stories/A%20brief%20overview%20of%20non-conformants.pdf

There's also a local writing competition coming up soon and NO I'm not entering just because the prize could afford me a new GPU...

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