It’s been a long month. Sharpen your pencils. Clean out the gunk from between your keyboard keys.

The Character and Theme requirements of Lit’s writing competition will be released on this thread on Saturday 10am GMT.

COUNTDOWN:
https://www.tickcounter.com/countdown/7452785/my-countdown

You will have until Monday 23:59 GMT to write and submit.

Submit via rentry.co – you can change the url of your submission to your story name to be identified easily.

Your writing must reflect the Character and Theme requirements – the character requirement doesn’t have to be your main character and the theme can be creatively interpreted, but those who just ignore it will not be voted for.

3k word count maximum. This gives everyone an equal spread of time to try and read the work submitted. We all got lives too.

To submit, reply in the thread with your rentry.co url using a tripcode (Namefield: Name + “#” + Password).

If you submit you should leave meaningful feedback for at least two other stories. Try to put in what you want back. There aren’t many places on this planet to get raw, no filter feedback, and it’s the best way to keep sharp and improve.

If you submit you MUST vote. If you don’t vote you will be taken off the ballot.

You CANNOT vote for yourself.

Submitters: When you vote on the strawpoll, use your trip when it asks for your ‘name’.
Anons: you can still vote, just make sure to reply ITT first, then use your comment no.# as your ‘name’ in the strawpoll.

When you vote, remember, it’s ranked polling for 1st 2nd and 3rd. It’s a little confusing because next to the story it will show you giving 1st place 3 points 2nd place 2 points and 3rd place 1 point. Just remember the top of the strawpoll obviously 1st place descending.

The strawpoll will be released on Monday Midday when submissions close. You will have until Friday Midday GMT to read, vote and most importantly CRITIQUE

Good luck writers, readers and red-headed retards all!

>>24447613 (OP)
>Anons: you can still vote, just make sure to reply ITT first, then use your comment no.# as your ‘name’ in the strawpoll.
retarded rule

btw first

>>24447644
We can already see you’re first retard

>>24447613 (OP)
Thanks for coming back

>>24447613 (OP)
Not gonna lie yodo, I almost made a thread in the past two days just to drum up hype but I felt like if I was the one to do it people would think this was a lord of the flies situation. Happy to see the thread pop up though.

How was everybody’s month (well, two/three weeks) since last time?

I need to not be a lazy loser and write something. No excuses

Completely new to this, where do you submit?

I WILL win this!!
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoPKajvq3gE

>>24447848
Post it on Rentry, and then post the rentry link in this thread

CHARACTER REQUIREMENT:

Someone must have lost their voice.

THEME REQUIREMENT:

The madness of crowds


Good luck everyone!

>>24448432
hmm... hm... yeah I could work with that

>>24447613 (OP)
>You will have until Monday 23:59 GMT to write and submit.

3 days! feel like it it was longer the quality would be better.

>>24448432
Based

And we’re off!

>>24448829
>3000 words
you really only need an hour

>>24449007
for AO3 harry potter fistingrotica, yeah sure, whatever, but this is LWC, no sloppa can win, the critics are too cruel.

>>24449007
A word takes a 200ms to write.
A word takes 5 seconds to perfect. At least for me.

>>24447705
haha good to see you back. I did almost forget this month too since this first sat is the 7th!

These weeks between have been lots of reading not much writing. i hope this prompt will stir something up in me. You reading anything cool rn?

>>24449467
Read inherent vice and Murakami’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki a few weeks back, now I’m on The Cabinet by un-su kim. Going into beach read season so I have a few brain candy reads on top of the stack like the third Horowitz Bond novel and Jennifer egan’s “a visit from the goon squad”.

What have you been reading?

>>24449550
visit from the goon squad is a fun read, you can do it in a weekend too, its not long, and of course i must mention the powerpoint chapter which really i think was great. i read crying of lot 49 alongside the just-finished anna karenina. pynchon is interesting. it demands a lot of you, but when i want that sort of thing, hes great. hows inherent vice, i heard hes not as difficult to follow there.

>>24450015
Inherent vice was some of the most fun I’ve had reading in a few years. Genuinely entertaining. And not all that complex or hard to follow, certainly quite accessible in that regard,

>>24448432
Hmm been thinking about this one here and there today, going to be tough to come up with something I feel confident in. I have two or three ideas but not yet sure which I want to pursue.

>>24448432
>Someone must have lost their voice.
meaning someone must be mute or someone during the story must lose their voice? the tense here confuses me sorry...

>>24450795
It’s not a strict requirement, interpret it as you want.

fuck my chungus life i finished drafting my epic poem for this and its 5k.... tsmpoicl

>>24450981
>epic poem
Please no just write a normal story

>>24450981
>>>/24428893/

This isn’t a thread for poetry.

>>24448432
I'm so glad we're back. I'm on it.

>>24450981
And this is why we needed to codify the prose rule.

>>24451877
dont start with this shit again bro please

>>24451927
Nah he’s right.

I like these prompts far more than last time's. seems more open to interpretation. I will try.

looking forward to everybody's submissions. gonna do my best.

>>24452176
Ty qualx

https://rentry.org/xudbk3xa
Vae Motorist: I fucking hate commuting.

>>24450981
This tells me you either prewrote something you planned to lightly adjust before thread and topic or are incapable of reading rules.

Also fuck poetry there’s already a thread for that

>>24452849
I could see someone writing 5K words, I wrote that much when I was at work.
The real question is do the words rhyme or not? If it doesn't into the trash it goes.

Haven't been around for some months now brothers. A thank you to yodo and good luck to all.

https://rentry.org/ttsf9t2y

>>24450034
well ive got it on my shelf, that might have to be my next novel

are we getting an extension yet?

‘You stir the pot.
Thickening broth.
Slurp it up.
See the bottom.’

It's not perfect, but I didn't have much time. Saw the thread only yesterday, and I'm currently looking for a new job as my current job is ending soon. So I had a bit of a stressful day searching. Think I've got some good ones on prospect now though. Wrote this in the afternoon. Hope it fits the theme somewhat, I interrupted it quite loosely, but I myself am convinced the theme and requirement are in there.

https://rentry.co/6f9ssxk8

>>24454103
Wanting to watch the flick before it left MAX was my impetus for delving into after having it in my TBR stack for few months. I didn’t want to watch it until I read the novel, of course.

I will say the movie wasn’t all that great, even if it was mildly entertaining. Coming directly off the high of the book though it was never going to live up to it.

Being a former heavy pot smoker the book has a few little moments and details that particularly made me snicker and I’m not the type who ever liked “stoner culture” bullshit like cheech and chong or Pineapple Express. Almost every line of dialogue between Doc and Bjornsen is fucking gold. The movie uses some word for word and it’s when it’s at its best but there are so many threads in the book that come together to weave a much more fulfilling and satisfying tapestry.

>>24454138
I don’t think we should, and I say this knowing I may or may not finish my entry once I get back to my desk this afternoon. The time limit has been a staple of the comp and a maximum of 3000 words is easily doable over three days.

>>24454256
alright yeah ill avoid the film then before it. Kinda glad i have the palette of the film though for my mind paintings when reading the book lol

I gooned and gamed instead of writing... a lot of French writers gooned for inspiration I've heard, so maybe it wasn't a total waste.

>>24454302
put your ginger butt plug in and get typing the french way mon ami

>>24454264
I've noticed in these kinds of contests a lot of endings feel shakey and rushed, letting down a good premise.

test

So how long we got

>>24454620
read the OP bitch

>>24454276
I will say, having been familiar with the film and seeing ads for it years back I did see Phoenix in my mind when reading the book.

>>24454338
I don’t see how extra time would benefit these people. The contest is every month, if they can’t finish a story this time for some reason they can leave a reminder in their phone for next month.

If someone feels their story isn’t the best it can be they can submit to this contest, which has no reward beyond the feedback they get, and improve it later on for their own purposes.

>>24454810
Yeah i like that sometimes. when i read (and write) i dont really care about faces, faces, when described with words, always end up looking like Picasso faces in my mind

1 hour to go and only 3 submissions
bummer man

>>24454972
im working on one now, hope to have it done. unfortunately i get busy with work in the first 10 days of the month

>>24454972
Maybe everyone gooned too hard this weekend after being demolished by anti-natalists

>>24455002
Maybe we could turn this into yet another thread about Benatar if the content doesn’t do well

test again

>>24454972
I thought the deadline was midnight?

>>24455049
>>24454991
midnight UK time so about 20min now

>>24455067
>https://www.tickcounter.com/countdown/7452785/my-countdown
>You will have until Monday 23:59 GMT to write and submit.
I don't respect British time, as an American that's my right, I'm turning this in at midnight my fucking time, in America

https://rentry.co/theysaysavsaba

This was difficult. It got weird.

>>24455084
Best prepare oneself for disappointment, old bean.

https://rentry.co/Noli_Me_Tangere_by_ineptia

As always, best wishes to all!

>>24455111
aaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy good to see you back.

JFC that was done to the bone.

https://rentry.co/ofbxk9p6

>>24455113
Likewise, yodo!

>>24455119
damn son right on the line!

made it.

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXDSxgDUv-c

its a shame to be missing some regulars this month but with the smaller cohort the feedback will be that much deeper. Thanks to everyone who showed up! Can't wait to get stuck in.

https://strawpoll.com/ajnE1kjvMnW

THE COMPETITORS

ineptia !!/7cMIiSCHvi - https://rentry.co/Noli_Me_Tangere_by_ineptia

yodo !cLLpbu6HI - https://rentry.co/theysaysavsaba

JimmyTard !!AQ3Dw8q8fWI - https://rentry.org/xudbk3xa

Hogan !.3c0oZ3PRQ - https://rentry.org/ttsf9t2y

PIGS + !s6i9bBCpdw - https://rentry.co/6f9ssxk8

Nomenklatura+77 - https://rentry.co/ofbxk9p6

Remember, if you submitted you must vote. And anons you can vote as well but read the rules in the OP for how to do it.
This months prompts were particularly hard for me especially pretty much only having yesterday and today after work to write. I wonder what everyone else thought of the prompts? I see some people thought they were better than last month. How come?

>>24455067
Lol I’m an idiot and thought this >>24455049
as well. as in EST, because those of us on the east coast of the US are pretty convinced we’re the center of the world. I may miss the deadline, ironic after I defended it earlier but the a the breaks. I may post it later to get some crit regardless.

>>24455190
sorry bro but it's science.

>>24455190
that does suck though fr

>>24455067
Nooooo! I googled GMT and got UTC, and didn't see the difference. Suck.

>>24455220
Meh not the end of the world I still have a decent story to work on regardless, that’s mostly what I look for with these a prompt always gives me a kick in the ass creatively. Might eventually collect them in an ebook or something

>>24455230
yeah fr that's the way i look at it.

>>24447613 (OP)
https://greenwichmeantime.com/ say it's 11:42.
London time is 12:42.

https://rentry.co/kqem7xoi

>>24455242
you...how did....you're right!

I did not know that when we put the clocks forward we're no longer on GMT. That is amazing. What a turn of events.

I'll add you to the strawpoll now. Hopefully Sopa sees this.

https://strawpoll.com/ajnE1kjvMnW

THE COMPETITORS

ineptia !!/7cMIiSCHvi - https://rentry.co/Noli_Me_Tangere_by_ineptia

yodo !cLLpbu6HI - https://rentry.co/theysaysavsaba

JimmyTard !!AQ3Dw8q8fWI - https://rentry.org/xudbk3xa

Hogan !.3c0oZ3PRQ - https://rentry.org/ttsf9t2y

PIGS + !s6i9bBCpdw - https://rentry.co/6f9ssxk8

Nomenklatura+77 - https://rentry.co/ofbxk9p6

GreenShirt !4Kwm6202LE - https://rentry.co/kqem7xoi

OK, I'm done gooning from now on, this is starting to affect my artistic pursuits; I will at least read all of the stories and cast a vote.

>>24455494
Thank you for your service anon

Are any of these fantasy based

>>24449467
>You reading anything cool rn?
I’m late in answering the “What-have-you-been-reading-in-the-meantime?” question, but here goes:
• “The Tale of Sinuhe” by Anonymous — Bronze Age Egyptian poem; the endnotes were several times longer than the poem itself.
• “The Three-Body Problem” by Liu Cixin — Halfway through this audiobook; I listen to it in my car, to and from work.
• “Lease Lands” by (our very own) Heng — Beyond-impressive voice, scope, and literary dynamism; inspired by last month’s /lwc/ prompt: https://rentry.co/lease_lands_heng
• “Crowds and Power” / “Masse und Macht” by Elias Canetti — I read a few dozen pages, then just skipped around a bunch (it’s, like, 500 pages long)—it is indeed a really cool book, though.
And all this talk of “Inherent Vice,” but I’ve never read any Pynchon.
I have the unwatched movie on a hard drive somewhere, and I’m sure I own the physical book, so maybe one day~

>>24455165
>I wonder what everyone else thought of the prompts?
I didn’t write a word until the day of.
This was half-because this was the hardest prompt yet for me, half-because of this Lincoln quote (which has taken hold of me lately):
>Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
I essentially spent my free time on Saturday & Sunday doing research/background/theory/daydreams over the prompts—notice “Crowds & Power” in the reading list above.
Call it “cerebral sharpening,” or “getting into the mood,” or whatever other silly thing, but it wasn’t procrastination at all—something I’m very familiar with—and I think the process paid off.
I will also say that watching numerous hours of the LA protests/riots last night did more than help me get into the disillusioned-to-humanity mindset, turning my thought-rudder 180º.
I finally sat down to write my piece over the coursre of six hours straight today, similar to my first submission in February, which took three hours.
While I wish I knew about that extra GMT hour so I could at least proofread it (lol), like I said, I’m very happy with what it became.
Stretching all the way back up to the “this-was-the-hardest-prompt-yet-for-me” part, maybe I’m just too sensitive—or darkly inclined—but so many of these /lwc/ prompts are emotionally hurty for me to tackle.
Prisoners, losing your favorite place, and now the madness of crowds w/ a voiceless character… I wouldn’t mind a wacky romance with some animals for a change!

>>>/ic/7601278
Found this on street-view this week:
https://www.google.com/maps/@22.3287081,114.1465571,3a,15y,275.42h,121.33t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1scA13n-Leizm4DjH_Xl8v8Q!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-31.331553375990893%26panoid%3DcA13n-Leizm4DjH_Xl8v8Q%26yaw%3D275.4214698517832!7i16384!8i8192!5m1!1e4?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDYwNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

>>24447613 (OP)
ludicrously too many arbitrary rules/conditions. As for keyboards, the Logitech wireless ones I've used since 2016 are amazingly good and cheap and disposable.
.>>24452164
Like the song says, "I can do anything I want, any ol' time."

>>24455165
>I wonder what everyone else thought of the prompts? I see some people thought they were better than last month. How come?
I like the prompt, I thought it was interesting and vague enough to really let me think.

fuck this shit, I'm writing for /nlwc/

>>24456250
Is that the women’s soccer league?

>>24456563
*north lithuanian wanker consortium

>>24456250
that thread is already full of LLM slop and poetry sharts

>>24456627
Actually, the LLMfags lost their steam after only 16 entries. I think they realized it only takes one halfway decent human writer to blow them out of the water.

I’m new to the thread. Are the competitions posted reliably on the first Friday of each month? I don’t want to keep checking the catalogue come July.

>>24456648
it's been going since january and every month on the first friday the post appears and then the prompts are released on the saturday

read them, will be providing feedback throughout the day.

GreenShirt and Yodo both made primitive barbarian society tales, what are the odds.

>no sopa
>no heng
>no meteor
>yodo isnt undercover
>inepta writes a normal stroy
first and second season were better desu

>>24456250
hahaha i just saw that thread. Looks like a more general writing comp but also allowing llms? Not for me really. And it seems to be just another dump of writing with no feedback, which is what this is trying to avoid.
>>24456871
That is very weird. For me the loss of voice is what made me think of pre-historic stuff.

>>24455946
The Tale of Sinuhe sounds awesome! How does it read? Whenever I've read ancient stuff im always so surprised about how modern it feels.

>>24457160
hahaha all i can say is the fact there is a sense of loss means that we are actually doing something pretty cool here. I'm sure people are just busy, some weekends are just too full to get something on the page.

>>24455946
alsoalso i just read your question on the ic thread. I dont really lurk anywhere on here I only come for the comp!

Mine would have been kinda divisive anyway since it was about hispanic Americans which became remarkably timely despite me not generally paying attention to the news.

plus irl shit got in the way by the end

Gonna read and crit when I’m back home though

>>24457185
Meant to reply to >>24457160

>>24456871
I wanted a way for the characters to be directly interacting with the madness of crowds in a personally causal manner, and a smaller population society seemed to fit.

Well damn, now I feel doubly bad for not writing anything this month seeing there weren't many submissions. I'll be back and less lazy next month. Credit to those who did write. I'll read through them and try to give some thoughts.

>>24457365
interesting way into the story. I initially thought of doing like a mass crowd stampede or something but all my 'lost voice' links to it seemed a bit too easy. I went for the loss of voice being like a loss of thought, the mind-voice, like falling into unconsciousness or something, or at least, into pre-linguistic consciousness. looking forward to reading yours.

RANKING
1. >>24454243 PIGS + !s6i9bBCpdw - https://rentry.co/6f9ssxk8. Absolutely fantastic and beautiful, and concise. A+. I have nothing but love to say, even how the bar scene was written so well.
Favorite line: At once the floodgates opened up again. The mere sight of his corpse broke the barrier. The tub once emptied was filled to the brim and overflowing
Least favorite line: none, all were great.

2. >>24455111 (nice trips by the way) ineptia !!/7cMIiSCHvi - https://rentry.co/Noli_Me_Tangere_by_ineptia. I was going to drop this halfway, but then when we got to "My whole" part, and the MC runs with his cilice out in the rain, that was great. Plus the prose was excellent, keep it up! A- with revision, B otherwise.
Favorite line: I didn’t see children holding their parent’s hands; I saw parent’s holding their children’s hands, clinging to perpetuate this idiotic parade via sunk-cost to make themselves feel better about themselves.
Least favorite line: picrel. Just make a substack.

3.>>24455095 yodo !cLLpbu6HI - https://rentry.co/theysaysavsaba. Maybe I'm too retarded but besides the great prose/imagery, I don't get what's the big deal. A kid is born that shouldn't have been, and the village is up in arms about it. Plus it got that literary tone where I don't understand what I'm reading, in terms of cultures/rituals and connections (how does Adamu's birth connect to Lod? What is this your sword stuff?). Maybe if I give it another read I'll get it. But then again, I did not have to do that for 6f9ssxk8, I read it once and not only enjoyed it, I understood the plot, the stakes, the escalation. I'll give it a B+ on prose but C- on plot.
At this point this is where I feel the stories started getting a bit too, I don't know the phrase, pedestrian? Routine? Anecdotal? As in I'm reading events, not stories. I'm reading Florida man does something, with emotional throughline (my own story suffers from that a bit). Plus, I found the prose/imagery to suffer a bit here. I can't say theysaysavsaba was boring me, I can't say Tangere's tangents weren't pretty to read. But I can here.

>>24457981
4.>>24455119 Nomenklatura+77 - https://rentry.co/ofbxk9p6. Cut the first chunk, it doesn't come up again. The relevant part is when old man comes in MC's door. And even then, what happens? He sits on him, old man dies, he agonizes about moving the body before carrying him to the bench. The prose was all right, but it just reads as an event. It was written all rightly though, C-
Favorite line: His face is sunken like some years back, life took a great big bite of his insides, and he just hung around anyways without the dignity of laying down somewhere out of sight. “Hold on,” I say, into my cell phone, gesturing to the single seat in front of my desk, to which he shuffles forward, one foot in front of the other. “I’ve got to call you back….No, no, no I’ve got to take this….. he’s here now, and he matters!” I slam my cellphone down on my desk, whip the sweat from my brow.
Least favorite line: My blood must not be reaching my lungs or something because I usually tip Harry a 20$ every Friday but I don’t have it in me to even say thanks, I can’t speak.
This and the beginning of second section was tied, but this is worst in my opinion because well, it's self-wanking. "OMG MY MC IS SO RICH AND COOL HE TIPS 20$". It's reads like propaganda, I expect Caesar to write this about himself, especially since this story has an undertone of justifying the MC's action.

5. >>24455165 Hogan !.3c0oZ3PRQ - https://rentry.org/ttsf9t2y. This reads like a blog post, but it has some nice images in here. I like the protest beating, it reminded me of Confederacy of Dunces. But I wanted MORE. Cut this fluff about the coffee shop, cut this "Helena's Curiosities was blessed because blah blah blah'. Cut this library shite. I want to see the MC getting screw over because he can't speak. I want to see him be beaten by Zionist; to get targeted by the CIA and arrested for crimes against humanity, I want him to accidentally start a prison movement by silently protesting. I wanted MORE, not less! This one has potential, and I can see a path there that was not explored. As it stands, there's just a lot of fluff, no real stakes. Just getting beaten and failing to flirt with the girl (right? Or am I misinterpreting the ending?) I give this a D+: if you go back and make it cooler, or just build a better climax, I would give it a C+.
>Favorite Line
I opened my mouth to apologize and as I realized this was beyond me, there was a much rougher push forcing me backward.
>Least Favorite Line
Helena’s Curiosities, you may know, is on a small connecting alley between two of the city’s largest roads (which run parallel, obviously).

Lol what the shit, I thought I had the > before favorite/least favorite lines. Man I suck at editing
>>24457985
6. >>24455242 GreenShirt !4Kwm6202LE - https://rentry.co/kqem7xoi. I feel like a jerk but I'm ranking these based on which ones I like more. My fundamental issue with this one isn't that it's bad, (perchance). It has a beginning, middle, end, it's got some nice prose. But the whole story is around this kid we see stuff happen to. And this whole thing could have been resolved if they asked him yes or no questions. I know short stories are about an idea, but this isn't a strong one. This reads like an event I would read in my history book dramatized. Hell it's more boring: at least those books talked about the economic/geographical/cultural aspects. Like how Indians had to deal with so much famine, that they had to be tough as nails to survive. Or the way they use canoe to get around rivers, that was cool, I want to see that. I give this a C: competent, but not compelling.
>Favorite line
Two-Pebble walked along the creek bank to avoid leaves and scrambled silently up the boulder to see how much trouble he was in. At the top, he peeked his head over, looked down, and saw Long-Sapling slowly staggering along the creek, clothes torn, and coughing up blood.
>Least Favorite Line
The whole party. His father. His brother. The Forager. Something terrible had happened. They were foraging, for something important
Not the line itself, but that I forgot this line was even said. Main character's family died, and all I remember was this? I remember the little man, I remember Ryan, but I don't think Long-Sapling even reacted to this.

XX. JimmyTard !!AQ3Dw8q8fWI https://rentry.org/xudbk3xa. I have a personal ranking where this goes, but I don't want to rank it, because that'll be too faggy. I'm going to talk about my weaknesses mostly.
I need to work on prose/structure more. It has nice imagery, but my main issue is a lot of the entries kind of wander, which this does as well. Admittingly, that was the point, and once we stop wandering here it doesn't start up again: but I feel I could have heightened the tension sooner. Bring in the ambulance earlier, get someone pulled over for ticketing, have the MC getting called for being late for work, that sort of thing. This has a photo gallery problem of seeing a bunch of images that don't really connect. Poetically, I was stuck in a traffic jam on the way home, which stopped me from going back and editing this on time. I give this a JT: stop being a reTard Jimmy.
>Favorite Line
Still, the trees can understand the underlying need of routine. Despite us covering more distance, we lay down the same roots.
>Least Favorite Line
Some drivers with cars more expensive than they, wanted to avoid rusting their tires by changing lanes, which extends the traffic jam by a couple of miles.
Anyways this was fun, looking forward to next month.

Just giving general feedback first, no ranking order as I want to sit with them for a day or so.


>Hogan !.3c0oZ3PRQ - https://rentry.org/ttsf9t2y
Will everyone hate this narrator? Was my main question when going back over this story. Maybe a lot of people don’t dislike bon vivants out for little chocolate strolls with their twee thoughts and this isn’t bait for them. But he feels, not enough, not annoying enough, not pretentious enough, I also think the protesters were not vengeful enough. I liked the story, I just wanted it to be more intense on every level. I want it to be MORE everything. I wanted to be disgusted, I wanted his knuckles to be broken and blood in his eye and he still makes the date back at the library with a swollen and misshapen jaw that he can barely close because it’s broken.
I want him to dismiss the protesters because of some pretentious reason having to do with the Ottoman empire and how Palestine isn’t “real” the way the protesters think it is, because they don’t know some bit of obscure history having to do with a 17th century pasha and his little Albanian slaves.

I love this detail “But it’s artisanal, the kind of shit shipped straight from Belgium and peppered generously with chocolate knobs, bumps, those little cloud things that probably do have a proper name. And when you drink it’s like you’ve got to chew it. If you drink it straight like it’s water I feel you’re wasting the luxury because you’ve got to hold it in your mouth, push it around and extract the flavour.” because why the fuck is that shit so expensive and what to they call those little knobs? This kind of detail brings to light something most people have experienced but never even thought about and that is good writing.

This was a funny line, I laughed. “I briefly entertained going to the officers – I would be able to identify them – but tears welled in my eyes as I imagined delivering a handwritten page

I love characters in love with their own worldview so I enjoyed it.

>>24458145

>Name: JimmyTard https://rentry.org/xudbk3xa
An interesting set of descriptions in the opening paragraph sets up the world but it quickly loses coherence as a story. I tried reading them out of order, at random and felt about the same, which is fine as a piece of experimentation, but I’m not sure what the author wants me to feel or is really trying to express. The ending with the narrator getting fired brings a sense of ironic closure and makes it come full circle, that was when I felt the most investment, I wanted to know what he would do next, but I felt little emotional fulfillment as it was not much. I like that it’s unconventional, but despite driving, this doesn’t go anywhere I can connect with.

This is great descriptive writing, and I was looking for more throughout the piece. “The sun's creeps along the horizon, blinding the crippled with his yellow rays. His partner, the heavenly clouds, rained on the soaky road last night, creating puddles and floods. Some drivers with cars more expensive than they,
wanted to avoid rusting their tires by changing lanes, which extends the traffic jam by a couple of miles.”

This is a good philosophical observation on life, I wanted more of these as well. “”A baby in the mini-van is crying; she isn't used to seeing the same tree for an hour, nor hearing the same horns for two. The tree smiles back, for he’s seen this image hundreds of times.”

Could use a rewrite to better bring out ideas and actions.

Hogan - That Ends Well

>>24453844
I enjoyed reading this. It was well written. The descriptions and prose were well crafted and did their work effectively and without ostentation. The theme and requirement were clearly met. Overall, I liked the cozy feel and low-key positive turn to the ending.

I've never had artisanal hot chocolate, but now I want to try one.

The main weaknesses I see are still part of the ending I liked. The narrator's emotional recovery from physical assault is remarkable, and the philosophical shrug near the end is unsatisfying to me. Going from facing the adversities of the day alone to sharing the world with someone seems more satisfying, and rescued the ending for me.

*Spoilers*

>>24455119
Nomenklatura - The Glare off My Glass

I found this story entertaining. It was well written with catchy opening, interesting idea, foreshadowing, interesting descriptions, a good pace, and a style that fit the story.

The "It's like a splinter..." line seemed jumbled, but I got the idea. A couple of descriptions weren't clear to me- the smothering and carrying positions. The cricket flashback was interesting, but seemed out of place.

I'm not sure about the madness of crowds, but a character definitely lost his voice.

>>24457996
No need to feel like a jerk. My story could have been better, and everyone has their own taste. Thanks for reading and calling it like you see it.

There's a 1,000 word writing competition offering a few hundred bucks on Pitch if anyone is interested. Should be fish in a barrel for anyone who writes regularly.

>>24455946
>Found this on street-view
My cold dead heart swells! Good eye, a true artist. I vote next month's prompt be along the same lines; a glimmer of beauty, a dot of life against greyness, etc. Thanks for reading my story and hyping it up here too.

Look forward to reading everyone's stories and giving feedback, hopefully before the vote

>>24458531
got a link?

>>24458147

>GreenShirt !4Kwm6202LE - https://rentry.co/kqem7xoi

The character feels like a MacGuffin, that is, I don’t sense any of their personality in how the world is, only the author's voice in setting things up. Should the author and the narrator change POV? Not necessarily, but overall the story felt too short to really feel any of the characters as having actions independent to themselves, except for good details like this one “Long-Sapling's father, the Woodworker, had forbidden Long-Sapling from making spears, saying the arts shared some technique, but the ends were separate, as were the permissions to undertake them.” more of that kind of thought which leads to what will or won’t happen, what is or isn’t possible makes the world become vivid. This is better than the more literal statements like:

>Terror struck Long-Sapling's heart
>images of savage violence

This didn’t feel like a short story, it felt like the prologue to when the story starts. The ominous introduction of the other. I kept waiting for the story to kick in before it ended, however, I would be interested in this if it set up a more action packed second chapter where a war band is assembled to search out these attackers. The worldbuilding felt strong enough that I wanted to keep going.

There is a good introductory description here, more than just description, it lets us know what might be important to the narrator, what they notice. “There was no wind, no squirrels, just the occasional flick of a bug on leaves. Then, Two-Pebble heard something drag slow steps through the leaves, like a bear that didn't care who heard, but halting, not as steady. “

Good detail here, makes the world come alive, more of this please. “Long-Sapling's eye opened in panic, not at his injury, but at a flash of memory at those knuckles and the scar across the bottom two. They held the club. A message party had sought them from the village. Then, from folds of cloth and behind legs, the clubs appeared. One, clenched in a fist with large knuckles, and the bottom two were scarred.”

>>24459133
>yodo !cLLpbu6HI - https://rentry.co/theysaysavsaba

Something this story excels at is making us the reader actually feel inside of it. Lines in the opening paragraph “ Salt itches but she knows it’s good, for her nails broken and pink and soft, and it’s good, for the blood between Ima’s legs, the blood that bursts from her.” Let us know that these people live very close to the Earth. Their world is visceral, to be felt, and is never over intellectualized by an author who is breaking character by going out of their world and back into ours with lofty ideas or descriptions. This worldbuilding makes the story feel true, and so I was easily able to relax and feel the story more deeply.

The problem is it goes on too long without a clear througline, or spine, it feels more like a series of vignettes. This means when we come to the climax, the fight, I am not sure the stakes, or who I am supposed to “root for” unless it was meant to be just held up as a literal tragedy. Each paragraph is fine if taken alone, but I wish they worked together more as I felt the ending petered out when it should be sprinting towards the finish line. Overall, though, I felt it was authentic to itself and so liked it a lot.

This is a very good line “There was a ghost of crops in the dry field. The boundaries of the village were made of excrement. So much so that it formed a thin line going round when looking from the centre of the village, where the women would rest in the sun, naked.” it gives us a literally boundary of their world, the limits of their understanding and how the society is structured, very smart.

Another good line that gives us their world “The men would fight for first go, and fight and fight again until the last man was there, beaten by everyone, so weak that he’d be beaten by the women too, never allowed to touch lives. And that would be it for his shah.”

As a non sequitur I just want to say the title reminds me of the Gerudo people from Tears of the Kingdom, and I am not even a gamer. They frequently say something similar in:

>Sav’saab - good evening.

So if you decide to do anything with this story, maybe change the name.

>>24459137

>“Look at that,” I say to her, big knuckle on my right-hand knock knock knocks the glass on my window overlooking the people jostling up and down 6th Ave, eating, chatting, fighting, making deals with each other and not even knowing they might be father and son.

I love that first line, great energy in the writing i love the way the rhythm carries me along.

>She leans over my side, peers out for a moment at the crowd before I close the blinds on her and she backs off, returning to the basic chair I placed right in front of my desk, pushing back a strand of grey and straightening the hem on her blue dress.

Not getting a firm grasp of the space here. I think there's far too many common verbs: 'leans' 'peers' 'close' 'backs' 'returning'. 'placed' 'pushing' 'straightening'.
I see nothing artful here.

>“I understand,” she tells me, clearly not understanding but seems nice enough, 40’s, hair pulled back neat in a bun and somehow very shiny.

Again, i love the flow, the pace of these sentences of yours.

I do feel though your verbs are very weak, however, the more i read, the more i want a little more - verbs are powerful i think, with unique verbs you can do so much. it's where you can really learn about the character in their voice.
example:
>She gives a face that might as well be staring at a menu full of pasta bowls, so I better wrap up.

this metaphor gives us a window into the characters voice and point of view. it's unique to the voice, only this character has said this.

>She closes the door and leaves me in great silence to fill out the chair.

great line. powerful verb there 'fill out the chair', again, i wouldn't associate the verb phrase 'fill out' with 'chair' so this simple use of the verb gives a window into the way this 'big man' experiences the world, unique to him.

> The door swings open on well-oiled hinges, and an old man enters with a cane, greying and bald.

would the hinges be the thing that he notices? he would see the door swinging, yes, but it seems like a detail that doesn't do much.

> whip the sweat from my brow.

again, a great change of verb from 'wipe' to 'whip', the alliteration, the sense of emotion within the verb, frustration.

> I tap my foot and think about flinging more sweat off the brow. I charge by the 15-minutes, so I don't need to say anything. After a minute he reaches a hand into his pocket, nice suit jacket, black, the kind of thing he could even be buried in, and takes out a single photo, holding it in his hand.
“You find others, do you?” He says with a wheeze, coughing into a curled fist like it gives him some private little space to expel muci.
“You’ve come to the right place.” I stand up. “I’m going to find him.”

this entire entrance was weak. melodramatic. just a bit cliche as well really.

>“Yes” I say, beginning to pace as this speech really works the blood.

great line

>>24459137
“-You smirked at finding an empty room. Never knew she had it in her, but she had it in her alright, your child. Movin on, it was a good decision at the time, there was that southern redhead and the Canadian bitch, even tried a Floridian once and suddenly 30 or 40 years passed. Things didn’t work out in a lot of ways, and now you are alone. I know the type of college girlfriend. I’m going to track down this old flame and make those childless lips of yours turn to a smile.”

this is becoming slightly Humphrey Bogartian and i'm not sure if i hate it but i think i might do.

I didn't want to get too into the details of the prose at the end because i think you could come up with a much better ending. i won't spoil it for others, but this played out very cliche at the end, very cheesy, it didn't really do anything new just felt like a tired trope. however, you have a great voice and style that when used right really sings. there's a serenity in the prose that i enjoy but as i have mentioned, I think you need to get more specific with your verbs, its like a problem on the macro and the micro, both the plot and the verbs were not unique - well, some of the verbs were not, as i pointed out above, some of them are great and those are what you want more of. really get into the voice of the character, especially since it's first person.
The biggest problem with this piece was it's lack of unique phrasing, and a tired plot. The biggest achievements here are at the sentence level, the way you structure the movement of the scene, the way some sentences pan across the guy and you get a sense of his interiority not through inner monologue but through action and interesting word choice.

thanks for sharing i really enjoyed reading it.

and thanks for getting feedback to me! I acknowledge that maybe it's far too opaque. I tried to have a sort of omniscient point of pov, because the 'loss of voice' was at the tribe level but i can see how the way i have structured may not flow so coherently.
With regards to the little language things, his 'sword' is his penis. so he has a boner.

Also re: sav-saab - I dont know that video game, but they must have taken it from hebrew like me. sav saba is grandmother and grandfather in hebrew.

and thanks for the kind words.

>>24457981
yes i think i agree with you that it's probably slightly too opaque to grasp and demands slightly too much of the reader.

I am curious though, what do you think the plot is? I'll explain after the vote closes but what is your take on it?
Thanks for the kind words, too.

>the iron horse's bellows is the mode to speak on the road.

not sure if i like this

>An exit sign for a fast-food joint was meant to give respite for intercontinental travel, instead was a harsh reminder of what was. For if Odysseus had Penelope, Bob had McDonalds, and if Odysseus was trapped on the Ionian sea by gods, cyclops, and sirens, Bob had GMs, Hondas, and Fords. But unlike Odysseus, Bob could do nothing; he was unable to campaign against his fellow man to sustain an insubstantial lifestyle.

i actually really enjoy the juxtaposition of ideas here.

>8:35 AM, I-00

by this point, I'm wondering about the narrator situation. it's all very external and it feels very disembodied, like it's just words and not actually a character in a place somewhere.

>A baby in the mini-van is crying; she isn't used to seeing the same tree for an hour, nor hearing the same horns for two. The tree smiles back, for he’s seen this image hundreds of times

I'm not sure if I'm liking the way youre hopping through the scenes here. the omniscient voice feels wrong when it's subtitled like a diary. that's why i felt disemodied, the whole time i thought this was a persons thoughts, but its actually omniscient. i think you're losing something by staying omniscient here, but i havent got to the end yet, so not sure if youre going to use it for a reason, we'll see.

>I often wonder what the birds and the bees, the trees and the stags, our woodland neighbors, see when we drive by.

wait... so we are in the 'I'. I think thats the first time the pronoun was used.

>I look behind me, for any patrol vehicles in sight.

this is the first tickle of something juicy, i want to know more.

at the end of the story, im not sure if i like this dish. it might just be youre using ingredients i personally dont like, but i do think that something more could have happened. i get that there is this sort of malaise, this sort of carver-esque acceptance of the banality, and then the sort of glimpses at the beauty of the cirus of life, but i just think the voice wasnt hitting it for me, i didnt quite jive with the observations made by the narrator, but like i said, thats just me. the ending definitely works for what youre trying to do here.

thanks for sharing and thanks for the feedback too!

>>24455272
I may have screwed up my voting. I thought the delete option would let me change my vote. (Slight change of mind) Oh well.

>>24459822
did like accidentally click on something and make or mistake or did you change your mind after voting?

Tomorrow I’ll read the stories, vote and critique. I’ve had a busy week. I was wondering if I could share a dream I had last night with you anons. Give me your thoughts. It’s been on my mind all day, and I can’t seem to shake it off. I really feel like it was trying to tell me something. I’m not writing poetry here, so here goes.

Last night I dreamed I was drifting through the ocean. It was night and it was storming. The waves were violent. Others were struggling to stay above the surface. The waves were violent, everyone was in a panic. I wasn’t. I saw a rock and thought I could climb it to get out. A voice screamed. ‘Don’t climb the rock! You’ll die!’ The voice, without uttering a word, assured me that if I’d simply let myself be taken along the waves, I’d eventually safely reach the shore. But I refused. I climbed the rock and immediately felt vindicated. ‘What a stupid voice.’, I thought. Others were with me climbing as well. As I climbed, the rock transformed into scaffolding, slowly a building emerged, and as I went in, I found myself in the desolate corridors of an abandoned, functionless building. Nothing could be discerned as to its purpose, but I felt it was evil. The hallways were dark, vaguely lit, and I was all alone. I felt an intense fear come over me. It was mortifying. Almost unbearable. Pure fear. But I was stubborn. I paced through its hallways slowly and deliberately, feeling the sting of fear consciously. I didn’t try to run or rush through. I had a will to overcome it, I was fighting. But it was useless, it proved too much for me. There was a safe haven, a corridor that felt safe which I resided in. Though nothing about this corridor seemed visually different from anything else inside the building. A group of students were there. I felt I was a student too. There was a teacher as well. I kept going back into the buildings haunting spaces, but found I hadn’t the strength to remain there for long, and returned to this safe haven amongst the students constantly. I went in again, and stayed too long, the fear overcome me, I went back to my safe haven, but the fear wouldn’t dissipate. The teacher tried to comfort, the students stood by indifferent as I slowly lost consciousness, and fainted inside my dream, going in a layer deeper. When I awoke, I saw myself from a distance, lying in the grass, the teacher and the students stood around me in a circle. I was observing the scene as an outsider. The grass area was but an opening, an inner courtyard. The heart of the building. The sunlight shined through, the only natural light I saw in this dream. The feeling was one of serenity, and comfort. It’s here that I awoke. When I fall asleep, or faint inside a dream, I ALWAYS have a terrible nightmare. This time, though the feelings of fear in the corridors were extremely intense, it ended on a positive note, despite me fainting. And the negative feelings were somehow neutralised when I awoke.

>>24459971
>I was observing the scene as an outsider.
You mean, like, 3rd-person?
I have dreams like these, and I think it’s because I watch a lot of movies—vantage point is usually a floaty thing on-screen.
I’m so sure it’s filmic because my dreams literally have editing in them (formalist reveals and whatnot), but we’re focusing on you here.
The ocean and the storm are expansive and undulating; the “building” (school?) is constrictive and solid.
You said it went rock --> scaffold --> building, almost like marrow --> bone --> flesh
^Just like your nested dream, there are layers to the school’s architecture, as well to the social hierarchy—there wasn’t any axiom to listen to the sea-voice, but all must “listen to teacher.”
Whether a highschool, a university, or an ancestor-echo of a primitive cave, your hallways—did you get the sense it was still night from the ocean scene?
I’ve had similar dreams of dread when I’m in school, only it’s when the school’s closed or it’s night-time; you said the dream started at night, so maybe this was night-school.
I’m saying that the fear you had could have been from being in a place you only ever inhabit during the day—which is why your nested dream of daylight was so comforting.
>Nothing could be discerned as to its purpose, but I felt it was evil.
I’m going to get poetic here and rush just so I bump the thread before page 10, but in addition to your brain just working as it should—dreams being a safe-space for training your brain on fear—maybe, like the cresting and troughing waves of the ocean, every locus “oscillates” over time.
I don’t believe in positive or negative “energies” or any of that, but maybe your or my unconscious minds do…
Maybe places that are inherently “good” during the day have to be equally and oppositely “evil” during some other time, e.g. night.
Another possibility is that fright and terror magnify themselves amidst silence—you didn’t panic on the ocean, even though eveyone else around you was scared, yet you were intensely stressed in the building, while everyone else seemed “indifferent.”
There’s this well-known fact about folks being unable to last in anechoic chambers for more than a few minutes; we’ve had thousands of years to get used to storms and waves and nature’s roars, yet maybe a few generations to learn how to be okay with the quiet.
Again, this return to the nested dream’s grass is a return to an ideal nature-setting, a locus amoenus.
> paced through its hallways slowly and deliberately, feeling the sting of fear consciously.
Just imagining myself in your shoes: Walking without a destination or purpose would be very anxiety inducing—at least with the ocean you have the promise of the “shore,” but these corridors and hallways are against nature; they could go on forever, or in circles, or in directions you can’t fathom.

>>24459971
>‘Don’t climb the rock! You’ll die!’
> ‘What a stupid voice.’,
From your picrel, I’m gleaning you’re perhaps a fan of prehistoric organisms?
The rock-ladder progression you make from the ocean-ooze to scaffold-dom is interesting from an evolutionary lens, but after reading JimmyTard’s Odysseus references, maybe this voice is, like, a reverse Siren-song?
Or a reverse-psychology Siren-song?
Like, maybe it was annonying and stupid on purpose to make sure you continue doing the thing that will turn out to be wrong?
IDK, I’m going to stop interpreting here—the obvious takeaway is that you seem to be under a lot of pressure, PIGS +.
We’re built to see tempests in teapots—that’s how our species got this far—so I wouldn’t think too much about what all that terror is supposed to “mean.”
I’ll just finish with saying that I had a fear-flung nested-dream like this in college that I still remember to this day, but I won’t share it unless you want to hear it.

>>24457163
>The Tale of Sinuhe sounds awesome! How does it read? Whenever I've read ancient stuff im always so surprised about how modern it feels.
More than well-paced—it’s billed as a poem, but it’s essentially a variety-text proto-novel.
And the MC is my favorite kind of enigma—quantum-physics in their motivations (at least through my interpretation).
Insane how rays of the wordplay’s ingeniuty still shine through, even after almost 3,000 years, translated into English:
Papyrus grows in marshes; Egyptians use papyrus and live in marshes along the Nile; here the erudite Egyptian MC (Sinuhe) is in the Syrian mountains amongst illiterate Bedouin-barbarians, bemoaning how he and they are incompatible geographically, linguistically, and culturally all in one-and-a-half lines.

>>24459971
if it was night and it was ocean this could potentially be an archetypal dream. Violent waves. Others struggling, in panic, but you had resolve.
This could be a great sign of confidence, that you are steadfast in the face of the unconscious, as in, your dark, creative self. You have written a great story for this months comp so i can potentially see where this image came from.
I see this as a very positive dream for you. Your resistance to the 'voice, this disembodied 'superego' telling you what you 'should' do, and instead of listening, you make your own decision and of course it was the right way, because it was your way it was the right way! again, super positive dream.

(i'm interpreting this dream line by line as the symbols in the dream arise in consequential order, too)

>a building emerged, and as I went in, I found myself in the desolate corridors of an abandoned, functionless building.

La Maison Dieu XVI - symbol of transformation. I'm not a believer in dream dictionaries where everything has a prescripted meaning, but this is operating at a highly archetypal level.

and the transformation is clear, as your dream self enters into the tower of the transformation and passes through arrogance, that is cold and lonely, and although you may be 'right', to always be so is to also risk always being alone.

this negative state is dissolved in transformation to a student, and once you see that you always must be a student to your craft, even though you may still try and 'haunt spaces' you know it the only true position to be in, a 'safe haven'.

The transformation ends with a warning, that if you think to be a student is to always 'follow', then you are mistaken, because if that's what you believe, then you will become 'unconscious' as in, having thoughts and opinions not your own but of the collective.

That final image is one of re-birth, as the heart of transformation, at its center, in a ray of light, in a pasture, the new found knowledge born into you for yours to keep.

Thanks for sharing that dream, that was super fun to interpret! I would honestly say thought that it sounds like a super positive dream, deeply profound and encouraging. Keep doing you, pigs!

>>24459971

Instead of trying to make sense of the dream, you should turn it into a story and force it to have the meaning you wish it to have, then submit that story somewhere, win, use that money to buy your favorite piece of fruit. The first part is quite vivid, and falls into a hallucinatory storyline very well as cosmic Horror or mystery fantasy, the traveler on the twisted hero’s journey.

I sense isolation, and loneliness, the search for something more in every part.

Your dream.

>>24461256
>nomenklatura+77
whoops, not used to not being anon.

>>24459542
thank you so much for your feedback and I will very much use verbs in a more distinct pattern as per your advice on my next project. I appreciate all the time you took to think it over even if you felt it cliche.

Just voted. Best of luck to all the competitors.

>>24459828
I changed my mind on reflection. I'm not sure it's counting my vote after the delete, and it says I've already voted. It's ok if it's not changeable.

>>24461671
i would let you change if it was mistake but not a change of heart. sorry.

>>24459137


>ineptia !!/7cMIiSCHvi - https://rentry.co/Noli_Me_Tangere_by_ineptia

The story starts strong, and I like the overall writing, it’s neat and feels like it’s very much in control of what it wants to say and where it wants to go. But where exactly does it want to go? The subject matter is a bit mundane, this is the author’s choice, however even well written, for the most part, when it’s a series of interactions and thoughts I am left craving, something more happening.

This provides and intriguing set of ideas. “Beyond the slipperyness of all that junk, I do know this about myself, as concerns my physical place this world: I am an extremophile—basically a masochist, I guess. I feel most comfortable when I’m in pain…okay, not in the deviant-dungeon sense, but in the sense that “comfort” feels best to me.” However I want to see them enacted into the physical world through action, there’s a lot of inner thoughts which is good to know the character’s mind frame, now let’s see how it plays out in a series of choices. This is what I want as a reader.

It’s only here “I checked my phone: 4th quarter—the” do we return to advance the storyline. The philosophical musings are interesting if taken alone as ideas but retard the momentum and could be better applied after observations or actions.

This is good: I re-clamped my cilice onto a new patch of my muscular thigh, let down my hair, and chose shorts short enough to show off the excruciating metal on my leg: I’m no longer afraid of knowing thyself.” It gives me anticipation for how the people will react, what is going to come next.

As an aside: “My arms and legs were screaming with lactic acid by this point; my throat was bloody from deranged gulps of air; my face and ears could not be felt after so long in the wet cold, but all was right as I ran down the street through this crowd, gliding over all. I am an individual: I am the only individual this world has, it’s sole paladin. I’m running faster than light, but everything within me is so unchanging and still and apart from all that is cursed and appalling.” this is really good writing, the combination I wanted earlier of personal philosophy as seen in the real world.

The ending is quite good here, I enjoyed the story, but the ending gave the protagonist what they wanted, just in an ironic or unexpected way, this is difficult to do but you pulled it off. Good job.

>>24461746


>PIGS + !s6i9bBCpdw - https://rentry.co/6f9ssxk8

Short, sweet, and to the point. It’s hard to know how to critique something sometimes when you cannot find the flaw. Not to say this is perfect, but a lot of things are working here, working together and so I’m left with a positive feeling, and it is more difficult to give feedback on what is right/wrong

From the first paragraph “There is a little man in my house. Though I dare not speak of him. I suspect he’s chosen my residence for this very reason. Even if I’d manage to convince a single, undoubtedly naïve soul of his existence — the illusive little bugger remains skittish as a mouse and virtually untraceable if sought after.” there is a strong sense of command. Of a writer knowing the story and where it’s going to go. The small vocabulary details also feel real to the time period and to the character, this gives it a feeling of authenticity.

The bar scene is the climax and had me the most eager to keep reading, because of the potential consequences and the suffering of abuse by being thrown out was hilarious. The ending was a kind of double edged bitter victory, silent but still speaking.

I think where you could lean in more, is on the hallucinatory nature of the whole experience. Make it more psychedelic and odd what is happening, and the torment more funny and estranged from reality. Nonetheless, while small in scope, the idea was original and writing felt authentic and funny. My top choice.

>>24461786

>Nomenklatura+77 - https://rentry.co/ofbxk9p6

Myself? Grammar, I turned this in one minute before the deadline and some of the formatting is fucked up which is embarrassing. I have a lot of thoughts on *SPOILER* the cricket and the ending. The old man who is also a dried out husk, a burden, and the meaning of if we should seek the approval of the crowd, or shun them as moronic.

>>24455095
yodo - They Say Sav-Saba


I had a bit more difficulty with this one, but it was interesting. The idea of the cursed tribe and their troubles, the unveiling lore, the way their transliterated phrases for things reveal their culture, all make for a rich world. It's ambitious for a short story.

Some descriptive images I liked were, "cannot see the buttocks just flailing legs and feet", "The night follows with the quiet and the blueing stars draw out the dew on the long grass", "but letterings have been wet and bleed into one another."

The line that touched me most were, Since the first rejection he again began his ritual of memorising the Kole, line by line, day by day. And after each rejection, he stumbled more and more – the words didn’t come to him, his mind was becoming like the others." His struggle seems to capture the whole, the effort, the curse, the decay.

The main things I had trouble with were the difficulty sometimes of getting past the unique language to understand what was being said, only catching glimpses of a world that could easily fill a novel, and a bit of disconnection between pieces.

There's been plenty of scholarship about using novel language so I may be re-hashing things. I like the way some things are described and that how the characters describe it reveals something about their culture, but it adds a burden when I'm also trying to figure out a scene or action's description and makes it hard to understand when I'm not sure of the language. My lazy, phone scrolling brain was temped to label a scene and move on - bad birth, stopping water, stolen baby.

The world feels so rich and different that I felt overwhelmed. I felt like I was more anthropologist trying to translate/figure out a text from an ancient culture rather than just a fiction reader, which is ok but a bit exhausting.

The pieces of the story felt a bit disconnected, or like a sample of random happenings in a situation, rather than a single plot line with a definite profluence. They seem to loosely hang together because they're gathered under the same cursed tribe, but it felt jumpy, which might be me stumbling over unique language.

I wanted more cause and effect, more answers. What caused this curse? Is this curse causing bad births, famine, and behavior- it seems so, sorta. Punishment seems to stop the baby's cries; is that lifting the curse? for everyone? for the baby? Permanently, or do we need ongoing human sacrifices, or justice by capital punishment? Also, is the fighting for women normal, or part of the curse or a reaction to it, or a part of the cause?

So, the story had me thinking and asking lots of questions, but maybe I missed something or didn't get it, so not so many answers, which is unsatisfying to me, then again, my taste is for more definite less ambiguous.

All in all, quite an interesting story.

>>24460822
I don’t watch many movies. I’m not a student. It wasn’t a school. The teacher wasn’t commanding. I didn’t get the sense it was night in the building. I recently read the Tibetan Book of the Dead, there is this vague, greyish, twilight in the end stages of the Bardo, the slipping into illusions. Where it’s neither night or day. A sort of purgatorial light. It felt unnaturally illuminated from no discernible source.
>I don’t believe in positive or negative “energies” or any of that
Me neither. I get you. Words are superfluous. Your story and Yodo’s reply helped me a lot. Thank you both.
>>24460896
I don’t care much for prehistory. Just thought it was a neet picture. I thought of picrel however.
>’...tempests in teapots...’
I like that. Also, yes. Let’s hear that dream of yours.
>>24461010
Thank you all for the advice. Reading them actually helped me. This day has been a strange one. I’ve been having crazy dreams each night for three weeks now. Last night was the first night I didn’t. The entire day felt strange, somehow sereen, I was very calm, lucid, and at times noticed I was simply happy. Not manically over-joyous, just simple, plain, subtle, barely noticeable happiness. I read all the stories. I critiqued each one. This edition has been good for me.

Noli Me Tangere - Ineptia: https://rentry.co/cgzpepqt

That Ends Well - Hogan: https://rentry.co/mncz2ngv

The Glare off My Glass - Nomenklatura: https://rentry.co/ihkp8cmb

They Say Sav-Saba - Yodo: https://rentry.co/cysggcqf

Vae Motoris - JimmyTard: https://rentry.co/mgkf5zuq

When The Birds Fell Silent - GreenShirt: https://rentry.co/ixs7uxmw

(I also just voted.)

>>24461700
No problem. Was a few minutes later. I just wanted to make sure the original got counted. It looked like I just erased my original vote. Strange system. Whatever. I'm just in for the practice and advice.

>>24450034
>>24454256
I know it's a bit off topic for the thread but since I recently read Inherent Vice and also watched the movie I would like to add something.
Back in 2015 I was excited to watch the film, since I loved PTA. But I had absolutely no idea what was going on, I thought it looked cool, and by all measure it seemed like a film I should like. But I had to turn it off right after the scene when Doc gets brought in by Big Foot and then released, "kicked" as it were.

I was thinking, okay, I'm going to watch this again in the future, but right now it's just not working for me.

Fast forward 10 years and I finally got interested in Pynchon, I started with COL49, and again same thing, I had no idea what was going on. So I stopped reading and thought I'll try again later. Later came around, read it mostly on a long plane flight and really enjoyed it. I realized what the "click" is with Pynchon, once you click with it, it is pretty great.

So I read Inherent Vice next. This time I had a much easier go at it compared to COL49. IV is such a fun read. Once I finished it I thought, okay now to watch the film. And had a completely different enjoyment level than the first time. The first scene made sense to me, and I ended up watching the first scene over and over again.

Where the film does fall short I think is towards the end, from the Japanese pancake scene onward. I wonder why. But some PTA films have this problem, where about 3/4 of the way through it seems like the budget or schedule fucked up the movie, and they just had to jam in an ending to it in order to stay on track in the film production sense.

anyway thanks for reading the script for my YouTube video essay on how giving things a second chance and work out.

>>24455111
ineptia - Noli Me Tangere

I enjoyed the intense, intellectual, interior nature of the story.

The opening hooked me in a sophisticated way. The statement/compliment that's a bit ambiguous and how the narrator takes it hooked me into the story. The intensity and depth of the introspection was interesting. I liked the spice of elevated diction here and there. The character's development arc held the story together. I think the intellectual level of crowds and the narrator being the force along was nice writing. The end crowd dodging was vivid really contributed to the intense feel of the story.

At a certain point the interior dialogue became a bit overwhelming, then obnoxious, and I started to see the narrator as approaching narcissistic. The relative lack of real-world action and characters compared to interior dialog by narrator about himself seemed out of balance. Dramatizing the ideas would have anchored them in a world and given the writing a more story and less essay feel.

It was thought provoking. I probably spent the most time thinking about this story after I read it.

>>24452505
JimmyTard - Vae Motorist

I fucking hate commuting, too.

This one hit a sympathetic soul. I liked the way you broke it up with times. the voice, while bordering on sanctimonious was relatable. The concrete descriptions were vivid, and the contrast between nature and the man-made was effective.

Aside from the tone sounding a little eco-preachy, which seemed a bit overkill as the message came through the details, I didn't find much to critique.

Rims/wheels rust, tire treads wear out. Did you mean harmless existence when you wrote "benign existence"? Who are John and Bob? "His screams deafen my ear" - whose screams?

So, by your criteria, likeability, good job; I liked it.

I’ve done most of them but will do the last two later today and then cast my vote.

Ineptia
>>24455111

This could have really used an edit. The prose was messy and there are more typos than I am willing to read without mentioning it, alongside the fact that you are a dash, colon and semi-colon abuser. Maybe others won’t care but for me if you’re looking to tell a story with language you have to show a mastery of its basic features and rules, and failing to do so automatically makes me think less of the story.
The story itself was okay. There wasn’t, in my reading, very much of it. I think you spent too long having the narrator just sharing his thoughts from thing to thing and for me there was not much to care about. I am all for giving the narrator personality by having him share thoughts on things that don’t really matter (my story does it too), but I think you’ve got to balance it and thread it in with other things.
I’ve seen what the other guy’s doing and I like the idea of it so I’ll do it too.

Favourite line: I had never achieved more of a being as this non-being—this crowd, the crowds inside this crowd, the crowd this crowd’s inside of: My dearest anathema; such a beautiful opposite.

Least Favourite: Sophomore year of highschool, in the middle of some sort of free-study session, my best friend—sat beside me—with all the sincerity he could muster, broke our academic silence to say this, to his own best friend.

Sorry if I’m being harsh.


Yodo
>>24455095

I respect the creative direction you’ve gone in with this prompt, although I’m afraid to say I didn’t really get it. On a first read, I don’t see the connection between Lod and the controversy around the baby. I also felt there were too many characters to keep track of that was sort of hurting my ability to just read it.
The prose is alright, a little simplistic at times but there is certainly nothing wrong with it. Sometimes here it works in your favour, and maybe it’s fitting due to the primitive setting (on second thought). I also think that your dialogue was quite strong in its reflection of the setting; I think you captured how these people might speak well.

Favourite line: Lod is strung atop a pole three people high, arms and legs wrapped backwards around the big wood. His leg bone is white like nothing else.

Least Favourite: Lod hears scream and feels danger but there is no danger. His muscles feel danger but, no, safe, he says, to himself hearing the words out in the world and not just in his head. Lod is then happy when he is safe and a soft stone now glows from the dusty floor.

Forgot to include my trip in the previous post oops.

JimmyTard
>>24452505

A charming little story with pretty loose ties to the prompt, particularly the loss of voice. But I tend to encourage a bit of looseness, and I won't hold it against you in voting. This story was readable, fairly relatable but with a healthy dose of wish fulfillment, and thus generally enjoyable. I do not like your wanton disregard for tenses; there’s a shift between present and past tense in practically every paragraph. Not much more to say.

Favourite line: You don't need a voice if you have your horn. No need for complex linguistics, no need for proper grammar. No need for English, Spanish or Chinese: the iron horse's bellows is the mode to speak on the road. (I also quite liked the line about the punishment).

Least favourite: Morse code in beeps and honks were transmitted, with the main messages being decoded were imperative requests to intercourse oneself. (I like the idea but quite clunky and, to me on a first glance, nonsensical).


PIGS
>>24454243

Yeah this was pretty banging. Easily the best written thus far, but at the same time, seemingly has nothing to do with the prompt at all. Correct me if I’m wrong but I can’t even see a metaphorical loss of voice. It was a neat concept, well executed and with a terrific ending, but unless someone can convince me otherwise I don’t see how it’s fair to other contestants given one prompt is pretty plainly not met and the other, though I can see the argument, is linked rather weakly.
My bitching about The Rules aside this was really good.

Favourite line: I had finally stormed the gates of heaven and by his last act, he had kicked me out, locking the door behind me — laughing.

Least favourite: If the torment and anguish of this malcontent cretin become too unbearable, I often refrain from returning home altogether. (The first half is doing too much).

“There is a little man in my house.”
by PIGS +
>>24454243
>A higher third washed over me.
I don’t understand this phrase/reference, but I can guess: A major third?
Like, your MC’s misery just inflected into triumph, going from a lower minor third to a higher one?

>Even now, I realised, they serve their little men. Such is their denial, these poor sops, out of sheer complacency.
>I myself am convinced the theme and requirement are in there.
The Liliputian-plighted folks’ acquiescence to it all is a taste of crowd-madness, so I’m on your side.
However, the “madness of crowds” theme IS secondary to your duet-dynamic between the MC and his little man.
I know there’s no explicit rule saying that the theme requirement has to be the central, largest theme present therein, but including a short coda where the MC returns to the tavern and simply regards the “poor-sop” crowd, whose little men are all still alive ;_; might have precluded some of the complaints you’ve been getting about theme-adherence.

Your writing here is made of metal—hit it with a hammer and it rings.
>Beaten bloody and routed, the little man jeering, they rejoice in their sin…
The start of this sentence…the exact construction you use is something I’ve employed before in my own writings—my formula being:
>Thing#1 + perfect passive participle --(comma)--> thing#2 + present active participle --(comma)--> subject + main verb.
Only you go further with the second half of the sentence:
>, as I lay in the gutter, thrown out in the street, they laugh at my dishevelled corpse.
And I think it’s an amazing extension…if you put the period after “street,” that is—end the construction where it began (with another PPP on thing#1), instead of re-re-maining another verb.

>I became revolted, probably recognising some form of my own shortcomings in their indifference
>shortcomings
>mocking my gait, my lisp, my very being.
>lisp
What self-damning disclosures these were to discover.
I don’t know if it’s your MC’s own self-smallness reflected back, or their internalization of others’ attacks/insults, or something exotic in their mind or world—the reader gets to decide, and it’s wonderful.
You show us the “What happens…” but you never elaborate on the “Why?” and I am here for it.
That Egyptain poem I read starts similarly—the MC speaks to the reader in first-person, yet skips any and all elaboration (almost as if doing so is self-verboten).

So many /lwc/ submissions (past & present) drench themselves in flavorful details and expositional backstories—e.g., your May submission—but you’ve done something here that has diverged from all that, and to much apparent success: You made short sexy.
Not just “short” though—JimmyTard said it best:
>concise.

>a knocked over thimble.
a knocked-over thimble
>awkward coworker hallway grins
awkward coworker-hallway grins

Immensely impressed you wrote all this sans time!

They Say Sav-Saba
by yodo
>>24455272
The fact that you can so easily modulate your writing style from “Betsy, Of Course” to this is incredible.
In the most complimentary way I can say this: You are an accomplished surgeon when it comes to performing self-lobotomy.
I can’t imagine that transporting yourself to this place was enjoyable at all, but what you Nat-Geo’d for us through your equisite lens is truely appreciated.
This is probably the most dirt-scratchy setting I’ve ever read—the kind that scares me how it ever could have existed—and you nailed it.
What more, how many large-ensemble /lwc/ submissions have there been?
As far as I’m concerned, this is the gold-standard for them.

My biggest issue: There’s no wow-factor.
Their barbarity is to be expected, so there’s no surprise in what befalls Lod and Adamu—that’s not enough to end your story on.
What would actually be a scary ending: Have a plane or a helicopter fly far overhead; reveal that this story is a contemporary one—that would give me the creepy crawlies to no end.
Because, as far as we know, these kinds of things are still going on in the world via uncontacted tribes, e.g. the North Sentinelese.

And while the theme is “crowd-madness,” and while that’s certainly what’s on display here, there’s also an argument that what they’re doing is somehow “reasonable?”
Their superstitions are at least based on cause and effect; their sense of justice is at least based on eye-for-an-eye equivalence.

But I will rag on you a bit:
>OaoaoaoaOaoaoaOaOAoOaoaoaOaoaoa.
I felt you kinda cheated the spirituality aspect of these folks by just sprinkling the word “Oa” here and there.
Even if these people are monotheistic, and “Oa” is a kind of un-personificational force, you can still allude to the past tribe “members ouched by Oa”—using your own words.
You said earlier that “sav-saab” was Hebrew-inspired—if monotheistic “Oa” is as well, I’m saying you need to make references to Abraham, or to the divenly apportioned land they’re on itself.

Another interesting thought is that maybe the fanatical religion of “Oa” did at one point exist in some corner of the world thousands of years ago, but this is us watching it go extinct, what with all the prospective/young tribe-member killing.

>swords
That caps the earliness of this scene to 3300 BC, when swords were invented.
>so imagines the pages in his mind
Nevermind—3000 BC now, for papyrus.

Maybe the old man’s lived so long because he’s been conserving energy by eating his own ejaculate this whole time.
I feel this character should have done something in the chaos as Ha’ad’s shah got got.
All he does is lie in wait and watch, and I like that about him, but maybe at the end when he’s watching the execution, he retrieved Lod’s stone that Ha’ad threw?
What if there’s an interpretation that he is the real-life maligning force, and not a crying baby?

I voted.
All my feedbacks should be done by Sunday, but probably much sooner.
By the way, everyone’s critiques have been superb—I’ve been reading them all for each story.

>>24463064
>the past tribe “members ouched by Oa”—using your own words.
*the past tribe members “touched by Oa”—using your own words

slightly concerned because a few submitters haven't voted. Is there a misconception voting closes tonight at midnight gmt?

i've left it going because i know hogan critiqued but they haven't voted so i think there must be some miscommunication

>>24463151
just voted, waited to see what kind of aftertaste the stories left after giving it a day.

>>24463064
hey thanks for this, I'm glad you managed to hold onto what the story was re: the lynching of Lod and the baby death. And also, that suggestion to have a plane fly overhead.... yo. idea might just be the best idea ever.
This is my problem with that though, philosophically. the story of this about a tribe receding back into what is known as participation mystique. back into the world of instinct. the old man has failed, his methods are not true. It's a comment on the foundations of our consciousness. bringing it to a lesser civilization, to, for example, have a plane fly overhead i worry that would shift the balance of the story's message to a primitive/modern dichotomy. I know that's only one lens to see it, but i just thought i'd put that out there. In regards to the wow-factor, i will concede. i attempted to create a wow factor in the moment where all the characters converge at the end of the story, with the baby dead swinging in yoels hand as Lod's broken body enters strung up on the pole. i think i obscured that scene with my prose. i ask for advice on how to heighten/sharpen that scenario?

I agree the oa bit is contrived. just saying 'they chanted' didn't feel enough, i dont know. i also tried to play with capistisation, adding a capital to A, to symbolise the transformation of Oa into Ao. I did steal all these words though and i didnt consider how the phrase might have pre-existing baggage.

>swords
That caps the earliness of this scene to 3300 BC, when swords were invented.

so the swords part is actually meant to be a swear word, sword=penis/dick,Lod has a boner in front of everyone and doesn't know to be shameful, which is what angers him and leads to him killing Ha'ad.

Thanks so much for your feedback. it's already giving me lots to work with with my re-write!

And thanks for your submission, too, I will get my feedback to you on that very soon :)

>>24463468
>It's a comment on the foundations of our consciousness. bringing it to a lesser civilization, to, for example, have a plane fly overhead i worry that would shift the balance of the story's message to a primitive/modern dichotomy.
That’s a good point, though I guess it depends on how “civilized” your reader regards modern human civilization—the planes could be in bomber-formation, flying off to reinforce thier own superstitions, just on a grander scale.
>swords
I knew what was meant by this when I first read—I was honing in on the fact the narrator has this object/technology to compare to.
>i also tried to play with capistisation, adding a capital to A, to symbolise the transformation of Oa into Ao.
>Then calls from down wind, the yada of children and men – the whooping and cracking of screams. The Ao of the Oa.
I didn’t notice this at first—it’s kind of cool, but the significance was lost on me midst all the human drama.
> i attempted to create a wow factor in the moment where all the characters converge at the end of the story,
> i think i obscured that scene with my prose. i ask for advice on how to heighten/sharpen that scenario?
The whole story, you focus on individuals, but as Lod gets lynched, getting raised high up above all the people he knew and knew him, I would advocate that the individuality of each tribe member becomes unattainable, almost like their identities are erased as they blur into the throng, motivated by Lod’s perspective, even if he’s a corpse at this point.
As people with names, the pieces are all still there to make this society work, but zooming out, losing their names by referring them to a sort of proto-mob or ”splashing pond of limbs and yada,” it would feel like Game Over in a big way.
Having an unnamed Yoel hold up Adamu’s lifeless body above the crowd would be even more tragic, than just having him gauge through his personal perception whether he did good or not.
I’m saying that your narration should soar in a scene like this—soar away from all that you built and detailed to a point of view utterly bankrupt.
Going further, you said yourself you obscured the scene with your prose; I believe you had a good reason for doing this—almost as if the narration is distancing itself from the depravity.
What I’m advising here is to give into this distancing, literally heightening the vantage point, and sharpening the scenario by making it more wieldly—one uniform group of sad, dumb, darkness-groping brutes.

>>24463630
>losing their names by referring them to a sort of
*losing their names by referring to them as a sort of

Also, when I said “reference Abraham,” I mean their “Abraham,” of course.

Where is this published?

>>24464029
published?

>>24464029
this thread only, although it would be fun to make a collection.

Sorry for delay I’ve been a bit time poor recently sitting exams. I’ve voted now and read all the stories, although I’m missing critiques on the last two and hope to get them in later.

Bumpin for the other writers, I enjoyed all their work and LWC monthly.

>>24454243
PIGS+ - Little Man

For some reason this was the most difficult to write about, so I procrastinated and left it for last. It's suck a cohesive unit, a solid block of story, that a critique feels like commenting on it as a whole, or looking for little loose strings sticking out to snip off.

I liked it. The gutter description and the thimble were great images. It fit so well together it felt like something from a nice collection of fine, dark fables.

The couple of loose threads may be my fault. I didn't understand the "higher third" and the water metaphor. Drained, then suddenly submerged seemed a contradiction.

I enjoyed it.

Bump

Sadly greenshirt didnt vote which means they're not in the vote, although, as shown, doesnt make much difference.

THANK YOU EVERYONE! Not just those who participated but also those who read our stories and gave great feedback. It's a smaller month this time, but would be grea tot keep the thread going, sharing our updated stories, keep sharing feedback, and, as always, ready up for next month!

THE WINNERS:

1st PIGS
2nd JIMMYTARD
3rd NOMENKLATURA

Well done you all, hope to see you around soon!

>>24466183
After the delete thing, it didn't let me undo/redo. If I'd known, I wouldn't done that. Sorry.

Note to others next time: delete is permanent with no re-vote or undo the delete. Never click the delete button.

(I don't think my votes would have changed much.)

Congratulations to the winners. Thanks to the other writers, especially those that gave me a critique. Thanks to yodo for organizing this.

>>24466241
forgot my tripcode

>>24466243
oh yeah of course i forgot that you were the one who had tried to change votes. sorry about that. I should have kept your votes, really, its okay if you want to share what you did vote for and then who and why you changed your mind to? Could be interesting actually to hear your process.

>>24463630
btw i saw this and again, another dead-on point, could be bombers, like you said, or jets, like the sonic boom of a fighter jet or something. super cool way to end it actually.

>if each tribe member becomes unattainable, almost like their identities are erased as they blur into the throng, motivated by Lod’s perspective, even if he’s a corpse at this point.

that's a great point. I did have that idea tangentially, by using the 'they' pronoun more at the end, but like you said, i should weave it into the structure itself, like have an actual declining use of 'individual' pronouns, and divulge into collective pronouns. I think thats great, thanks.

>>24466183
Congratulations to the winners!

I'll make the /ic/ thread in 11 hours.

>>24466183
All thanks to Yodo

Thank you all for reading, critiquing and especially enjoying my story. I’m honoured I was voted first place. This competition has helped me in more than just my writing. Thank you Yodo for giving us this space and putting in the effort. I’d like to take this opportunity to share my thoughts on some of the replies:

>>24457981
My favourite line:
‘Thus this persistent little man remains firmly entrenched in my psyche, like some exhibitionist that wishes to remain unseen.’

My least favourite line:
‘Among the rest of those voiceless, I no longer speak.’

I would’ve rather left it out. I feel it serves no other purpose but to placate towards the character requirements. My tendency to be vague/abstract when it comes to meaning can be a pitfall at times, but this time it luckily seems to have worked out. I tend to write for myself, and if I get it, that’s enough for me. This can be frustrating for a reader. This turned out to be true for my May submission. It’s a fine edge to tread, but this competition’s outcome emboldens me to drop the exposition.

>>24461786
>The small vocabulary details also feel real to the time period and to the character...

I wrote this after reading too much Kafka. This might’ve rubbed off on the vocabulary as well as the style/subject.

>The bar scene is the climax and had me the most eager to keep reading...

I’m really glad everyone enjoyed the bar scene that much. It served to provide some contrast and fit the theme of Crowd Madness. Though, they actually get ‘mad’, and threw him out. I took it quite literally. I’m also glad some found it funny. In everything I do creatively: Drawing, writing, music. I hate over-seriousness or snobbery. I try to always have a bit of humour. I’m not a very serious person by nature.

>>24462359

As apposed to taking Crowd Madness literally, I interpreted the protagonist’s Loss of Voice metaphorically. Everyone tells him to ‘shut up’ constantly, and no one listens to him. I added my ‘least favourite line’ out of fear for this reaction.

>>24462913

>A higher third washed over me.

It’s kinda esoteric. But you don’t need it to understand what’s happening. It’s from Zen Buddhism. The Sudden school of instant enlightenment. It involves transcending opposites, and frees one from earthly shackles, thus annihilating the self and its suffering. After being ‘...beaten bloody and routed...’ He’s broken. Hopeless. Then he shouts into the void:

>‘If you have a key, I will give you one. If you have no key, I will take it away.'

This is a famous Koan. Meant to dissolve the rational brain, its logic, and its conception of opposites. It’s based on Basho’s Staff. Another fun one is.

>‘I have nothing—what should I do?’
>’Throw it away!’
>’But I have nothing—what can I throw away?’
>’Then carry it!’

I find Zen hilarious at times.

>>24465027

>Drained, then suddenly submerged seemed a contradiction.

Exactly.

>>>/ic/7609763
>>>/ic/7609767

The illustration contest was derailed by the site shutdown in April, and there were no submissions at all for May…but that’s no reason to stop it.
Here’s hoping that each author’s deserving story gets some visual-medium love this time around.

>>24466253
I don't want to undermine the vote. I'll just do better next time.

>>24465027
*such a cohesive unit

>>24458147
I wanted to capture the feeling I get when I commute. I really hate commuting. If I were to rewrite the story I would have come up with something better, but it was the weekend so I didn't had a good drive to inspire me.
>>24458490
I'm a retard so take it with a grain of salt.
>>24459718
In terms of where it is, it looks like somewhere inside Irani nomadic lands. There's a tree, there seems to be a decent chunk of people. But I never been to Iran so I can't really say where, all my middle east geography is the south of the Arabian peninsula, so I can't name where this takes place. If I had to guess it's somewhere like picrel. It has to be by an ocean because the Old Man thinks about seeing it: it must be close enough for some non-soldier non-merchant to go to once in a while, which Iran's northern and southern parts are. I'm saying it takes place in Iran because shah is an ancient Irani/Persian/probably-better-name-I-forget for king, hence the famous Shāhanshāh/شاهنشاه , or King of King's title, you see in ancient Persia. Plus you got names like Ha'ad, that tongue/throat pause thingy is very Middle Eastern. Adamu is an Assyrian name too.
>Lod is introduced as a kid guard
>kid is born that shouldn't be because timing was bad "Three this spring not good enough."
>Yoel has to cut down (cut the umbilical cord or kill Adamu?) soon "In seven sleeps, The old man says. I told you this."
>Gran-Ima/Ima is a midwife
>Lod is a protective autistic amongst the kids "Throw it! His friend says. At the girls, watch them run. Before he can ask the stone, before he can say no, Ha’ad snatches the stone out of his grasp and his stone is taken and hurled at Chava.", (who asks the stone if he can be thrown?) and "Gran-Ima sings and Adamu cries and Lod and other youngers and Chava and other girls listen. Lod hears scream and feels danger but there is no danger."
>the village was horrible, they didn't even shit in the river/dig holes to shit in it.
>Lod sees the woman, get erect, gets made fun of by (((Ha'ad)))
>Lod kills faggot Ha'ad. Good riddance, I hate wannabe jannies
>I don't understand the punishment: "The men bark at the children to lead them. This is it. This is how they do wrong. Adamu is not cut, and Oa poisons water and now children are stealing shah. Yoel runs alongside everyone else and catches a glimpse of the child on the ground and the earth beneath holding him ready.". Adamu maybe, but why poison the water?
>funeral (for in the future Lod or Ha'ad now?) takes place
>Gran-Ima can't find Old Man
>Lod is dying slowly
>Adamu isn't crying
>cue credits
I'm just confused on the rituals/connection between Adamu and Lod. Thematic, not just familial/tribe connection. I'm sad for Adamu, he did nothing wrong but got all the worst luck. I'm sad that Lod went out like a chump, he could have been a powerful
tl;dr fuck Ha'ad

>>24468197
>I'm just confused on the rituals/connection between Adamu and Lod. Thematic, not just familial/tribe connection. I'm sad for Adamu, he did nothing wrong but got all the worst luck. I'm sad that Lod went out like a chump, he could have been a powerful
guard* when he grows up
derp.
>>24459718
>by this point, I'm wondering about the narrator situation. it's all very external and it feels very disembodied, like it's just words and not actually a character in a place somewhere.
One of the main points was I wanted to capture the passiveness of watching traffic, until I snap and decide to do something.
>at the end of the story, im not sure if i like this dish. it might just be youre using ingredients i personally dont like, but i do think that something more could have happened. i get that there is this sort of malaise, this sort of carver-esque acceptance of the banality, and then the sort of glimpses at the beauty of the cirus of life, but i just think the voice wasnt hitting it for me, i didnt quite jive with the observations made by the narrator, but like i said, thats just me. the ending definitely works for what youre trying to do here.
It needed refinement for sure. I would have, but I knew that if I were to wait till the deadline/before the deadline to post it, I would have missed it. Because on that day I was unable to get home before the deadline.
>>24462345
>benign existence
Yes. Like boring, miniscule, insignificant, plain. John/Bob is names to represent the average bloke on the road. His screams was probably the car/horns.
>>24466183
>I'm 2nd Place
How the hell did I do this?

>>24468197
haha i appreciate your take on this. You're right about the name being assyrian, with shah, i used the russian word for soul but im not sure on the history of it.

So the whole cutting thing is circumcision. the old man introduces curcimcision into the group. i realise now i probably need to make that much clearer and add in something maybe about the men being 'cut' too. so the end with Yoel is that is snatches the baby from Ima, and performs the circumcision but really roughly:
>has to hold him down with his feet. He pinches the skin and rubs the sharp until the skin is gone.

the end, with lod is a lynching, they are marching his beaten body that they have strapped to a large wooden pole. I should maybe add an allusion to a totem pole or something to help solidfy the image.
i know this attempt was far too opaque, however, having everyone's take on this has really helped my clarify the idea and how to execute. thanks. also yes, fuck ha'ad lol.

bump

That Ends Well
by Hogan
>>24453844
The ending truly lived up to the title.
Out of all the stories, yours was the only one that gave me the tingles.
All the others took incredibly dramatic turns, but the gentle veering you empolyed over the course of this slice-of-live diary-entry—for lack of a better term—was the most emotionally stirring for me.
We all want the vicissitudes of a particularly bad day—the kind that keenly reminds us of our much worse world—to wash away, and I somewhat vicarioulsy achieved this through your eccentric character, so thank you.

Unfortunately, the theme was tackled in the most surface-level way.
You lumped in crowd-madness with much more banal negatives—time-wasting at the library; rain; an “open” but actually locked store—which dulled and faded-to-gray whatever the protesters “meant” into just another crudy link in a chain of rotten luck.
And, hey, maybe crowd-madness is not a complex issue at all—that’s a valid interpretation—but defusing the self-importance of it all by drilling down into why your MC isn’t a “stakeholder” on such issues, especially after their being roughed up, would have gone a long way in waving the flag of the required theme back and forth, instead of basically just shrugging it off as another mundane inequity, no different than the existence of bad weather.

Choclateria is one of my new favorite words.

Using the dated definition of this word, the way in which the protesters molested your MC was well executed—as tragic as it was humorous, which is a tough balance to strike.
Maybe I felt that you were leaving behind some of the more risible discourse on the table—assuming that this is a progressive group, perhaps highlight the irony of their harassing a disabled person?—but another part of me says you went deep enough in their unfortuante physical interaction/altercation; I just wish the MC ruminated more on it afterward to help fill out the theme.

>That day started with me entering the library and my story begins with my leaving it.
>me entering…my leaving
In this sentence, you introduced the first gerund phrase, “entering the library,” with the accusative pronoun “me”—which is the more relaxed, casual way—but then formally introduced “leaving it” with the possessive pronoun “my”—the (more neurotic) correct way.
Normally, this would be awkward/inconsistent, but I kinda dig it?
Especially here, using the correct form only after leaving the library, after learning gooder.
Your character seems the type that gets more polite and frumpy the more energetic they feel, and—intentional or not—I’ve never seen it done this way.

>singing along with Mr. Starr quite loudly.
Another author noticed this too—your otherwise mute character singing—and I think it’s great.

>With my little notepad I explained that I tripped coming out of the library, and then I got to listen to her talk.
This could also be the voice-losing, and I love it!

“When the birds fell silent”
by GreenShirt
>>24455242
First of all, yours had the best opening.
The natural atmosphere you obtained was wonderful, partly wrought with great details of what WASN’T there:
>There was no wind, no squirrels, just the occasional flick of a bug on leaves.
“Serene tension” would be my description, and stumbling upon Long-Sapling was the perfect payoff for it.

Even the start of his coming-to was special—the olfactory dimension—but the story loses any and all momentum from here on out.
There are ways to make what follows more riveting, even with the MC on their back for the whole of the story, but these logistics you chose are not conducive at all for dealing with the theme.
Everything mad-crowd realted either has to take place inside the claustrophobic medical hut, or has to happen through memory, or has to be a mix of both—via overhearing and recalling—but all were too disjointed.

I mentioned to yodo that “They Say Sav-Saba” had no wow-factor for me; your story lacks this too.
>Long-Sapling's eye opened in panic, not at his injury, but at a flash of memory at those knuckles and the scar across the bottom two.
Imagine if this reveal were presented differently—not as a narration in the medical hut, but through a flashback of the treacherous episode.
Last month, PIGS + had a story where the paragraphs alternated between narration and “unrelated” dialogue; I’m saying you should have alternated between the present (Long-Sapling on the cot) and the past (Long-Sapling in the woods with the party).

You so successfully built up delicate pressure in your opening, but any revelations in your story’s middle and end were completely hamfisted, not only because they come out of nowhere, but because there’s no sense of loss or betrayal, not having seen the family members, not seeing Stout-/Strong-Shaft BE friendly.
Treachery means the heel-truning of a good-guy; not evil-fication of just-some-random-guy.

Theme isn’t really there.
If it is, it’s outshined by “the Machiavellian manipulation of crowds”—which is a pretty hollow explanation for their madness, if you ask me.
A real rich development would be that the whole tribe sees through Liar-Shaft’s plot, but DON’T change their minds about attacking the Sap-Drinkers.
Like, what if Two-Pebble was outside the hut, heard the villain monologuing, and then told the whole village?
I’d be on the edge of my seat at this development, and would also have a lot to chew on thematically as the tribe goes, “Eh…” and gives in to prejudice.
Long-Sapling’s silent reaction to this scenario would be as dramatic as reflective—when it’s convenient, wickedness is not snuffed out by the mob, but fanned.

I wish you gave some more details about the objects inside the hut, or weapons, or clothes these folks were wearing.
Such elision worked for yodo’s story, but yours takes place predominatley inside one room—adding these details grow it big.

Vae Motoris
by JimmyTard
>>24452505
You were my top choice, JimmyTard—those of us who gave their story a Latin title need to stick together.
However, your Latin composition gets an F from me!
Within, you wrote:
>Vae Victis: woe to the conquered.
>Vae Motoris: Woe to the road
I will break down the common phrase first, which you copied correctly:
“Victīs” used here is a perfect-passive-participle substantive—the adjective “the conquered”—in the dative case—“to.”
>https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/victus#Participle
“Victīs” is also plural, but English doesn’t really accomodate/differentiate PPP-substantives in this way—“the conquereds?”—so detail is lost when translating to English.
I’m assuming you were going for symmetry between the common phrase and your construction, so I’ll point out that “to the roads” PLURAL would make more sense here.
Now, onto the word you chose for “road,” “mōtōris”…where to begin.
“Mōtōris” is a singular noun—just like the word “road”—but it’s in the genitive case, and is the wrong word entirely for “road.”
>https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/motor#Declension_4
“Mōtōris,” in the genitive case, roughly translates to “of the driver”—this is not even close to “Woe to the road.”
If you were going for “to the driver,” then “mōtōrī;” if “to the drivers,” then “mōtōribus.”
Via metonymy, you basically meant the “drivers” on top of the road when you wrote “road” here, so there’s an argument mōtōrī/mōtōribus is all you need, but let’s get the right word for road anyway:
“Via.”
>https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/via#Declension
Now just find the dative in the declension chart, and you can pick singular, or plural if you want to match with “victĪS”—
>Vae vaie --> Woe to the road.
>Vae vaiīs --> Woe to the roads.
Either one is beautiful, in my opinion, especially because of how similar “via” and “vae” are to one another.
You’ll notice all the Latin words I wrote above have mācrōns where Wiktionary tells me they should go, and if you want to go the extra mile, like, if your MC actually knows-knows Latin, then I’d include them, but for a pseud—like the MC in my story—I might choose to omit them.

I drive for a total of 2 hrs every day I work.
I can’t critique real life, now can I?
More submissions need the white-knuckled whimsy you embued your story with; “Rorschach’s-journal” entries over a traffic-jam really lightened the oppressive mood of this batch of stories.
Probably what I love most about it as a whole are the stakes—they’re low, but also deceptively high…
If the arteries (“vaiens?”) which aquaduct our civilization back-and-forth clog up, what do we have left?
I guess we get the trees we get our clogs from.
Picking just one, this was my fav line:
>The tree smiles back, for he’s seen this image hundreds of times
I’ll be with the gooses one day, I know it.
HONK!

>>24470500
>>Vae vaie
>>Vae vaiīs
Of course I typo the culmination of what I was writing about:
Vae viae.
Vae viīs.

>>24459133
Thanks for the insightful comments. I find them encouraging.

>MacGuffin
Yep. Looking at him, he does seem like a viewpoint character to tie the plot together and engineer the "villain speech," which itself it a bit clumsy way to satisfy the theme requirement with some drama slathered on.

>literal statements
I mismanaged my time terribly. I rushed to complete the skeleton and started filling in detail from the beginning. If something felt like a placeholder, it probably was.

>prologue feel
Yeah, while banging out the "villain's speech" I felt like I was really abruptly cutting off and summarizing a larger story.

In my head, I had an idea of rival families with different philosophies, more relationships between the characters, the villain inciting a war for status and advancement, and a possible war party attack on surprised victims. I was way too short on time and not sure of what to select for the right sized story.

The Glare Off My Glass
by Nomenklatura+77
>>24455119
>“What they won’t teach you at ‘Jenni Staffing’ is men are obsessed with the thought they have secret children they never knew, crisscrossing the globe.”
Yet we never hear Johnny having this thought?
I mean, I get why he wouldn’t—he probably abstained from un-smart sex his whole life, what with how much he despises his father—but it’s just as important for the reader to know (or at least notice) that this axiom DOESN’T apply to him, and not through a rather pathetic hint like this one:
>My own father would’ve, but he abandoned my mother, so I never got a chance to have him make me do things.

Other authors have already taken issue with the cliché of Johnny’s own father finally turning up, but I am here to advise you how to make it work, how to make any cliché work, really:
Start the story with it.
If there is one spot where the reader will forgive a cliché or an over-contrivance, it’s the beginning.
From there on out, the tough pill has already been swallowed; the audience is along for the ride, and whatever comes next will be two-times “new.”
Instead of building up Johnny’s life and career first through is intro spiel, what if you opened on the action of a man killing his own father, committing patricide, and then slowly revealed the surrounding aspects and circumstances of this individual and his setting—the temp at the door; his knuckle-oil stain on the window he had tapped on during his speech to her; the setting sun on all his thank-you momentos reunioned families.
There’s a massive lull in the story after Johnny does the deed anyway, sitting one out—why not fill this section up by scattering in such flashbacks of the hours before?
I gave similar chronology-gimmick advice to GreenSleeves, but amnesia and father-killing are more than warrant this kind of shift/shattering in/of perception/storytelling.

You are a very good writer, Nomenklatura+77, with this month’s submission a great level-up from last month’s—
>nice suit jacket, black, the kind of thing he could even be buried in,
>“Don’t come in!” I say in the rapid-fire speech of a man in a toilet stall.
>The veins in my eyes start popping up like rainy season rivers in the amazon but I’m close.
I could write a paragraph on each of these—how they’re pitch-perfect when it comes to foreshadowing, indirect characterization, and poetical speech—but I’ll just say: Perge!

I commend your submitting so close to when you thought time was up.
When I submitted in February, I think I had 5 mins left?
But, like you this time, I had an extra hour I wasn’t aware of.
Still, maybe like a tracker in the woods, I can see the momentum you were picking up near the end of your piece.
I love that feeling of screaming urgency when I write under time, and, for the most part, I think it benefitted your ending, almost like the world was being stripped away with emotional intensity.
Congrats on 3rd!

>>24470034
Dead on target. Some of it, particularly lack of detail, suffered from time mismanagement, but I can't blame the story structure choices on time.

I knew a character stuck in the medical hut was constraining, but I didn't think of switching viewpoint, especially the nice idea of a parallel-flashback presentation. I really like that idea.

I planned a more detailed betrayal attack, and was trying to figure how to show its motivation in the villain's trade, ambition, and family rivalry. I guess it loses some betrayal drama if there's rivalry. Maybe two complementary families, and the victims never see it coming.

For the theme, I was going less for "manipulation to war" and more for "social madness of a demanded history, even if false." Then, my secondary dramatic idea of Long-Sapling fearing being silenced permanently turning to a sinister "I don't even have to kill you" seemed to fail in suspense or sinister personal reaction to the "they'll never listen to you." It felt too monologuey anyway.

Great thought about Two-Pebble exposing Strong-Shaft. I'm chewing on that a bit.

You know, in my mind I briefly looked around the medical hut, but in writing I kept focusing on its abstract viewpoint constraints so much I really didn't think to describe it.

I'm going to try re-working my story when I can carve out some time. I think your suggestions would add a lot.

>>24470591
Perpetually tripping at the finish line:
>through is intro spiel
*his intro spiel
>thank-you momentos reunioned families.
*from reunioned families
>amnesia and father-killing are more than warrant
Minus “are.”

>>24470596
I’m glad you like my takeaways!
>"social madness of a demanded history, even if false."
I can see this now, but it’s hard because it hasn’t happened yet, you know?
A lot could happen between Strong-Shaft’s gloating and the actual Sap-Drinker offensive, so it feels more like a cliffhanger than a concluding assurance?
>You know, in my mind I briefly looked around the medical hut, but in writing I kept focusing on its abstract viewpoint constraints so much I really didn't think to describe it.
Yeah, Long-Sapling’s pretty messed up, but he was with-it enough to zoom in on the treacherous knuckle-scar, so having similarly-small details mentioned beforehand (pun intended) could set it up better, if you’re still going that route.
>Maybe two complementary families, and the victims never see it coming.
Yes, where the hate one family-tree has for the Sap-Drinkers outshines their love for their companions.
>Then, my secondary dramatic idea of Long-Sapling fearing being silenced permanently turning to a sinister "I don't even have to kill you" seemed to fail in suspense or sinister personal reaction to the "they'll never listen to you." It felt too monologuey anyway.
Yeah, the less the villain says here the better—in fact, most of this exchange could be achieved sans dialogue, the way people look at one another and go “I know you know, you know?”
I mean, this trusted person just killed this kid’s brothers and dad—it would be scarier if he still acted and spoke like a trustworthy person, allowing only his eyes or a soft evil smile into the supine Long-Sapling’s field of view.

>>24457160
>>inepta writes a normal stroy
>>24462220
>Is this auto-biographical?

So my piece was, like, 70% memoir—that was my “gimmick” this month.
That said, uh, my “story” isn’t representative of me now—this was mostly a flashback to my (unfortunate?) late-highschool/early-college headspace.
But, cross my heart, I truly did have a best friend in sophomore year English class who paid me this exact compliment:
>“Liam, you know what I like about you? You don’t complain.”
And I faultered this exact same response back at them:
>“Well, thanks, but there’s an argument that that’s not actually good thing—I mean, if nobody complained, then nothing would ever improve, right?”
Having still remembered it after all this time, yeah, it obviously meant a lot to me.
Furthermore, in college, I did actually check my phone for 4th quarter and then proceed to run all the way down to the area just outside the stadium for the sole purpose of running through the crowd in the rain…though I did not bump into any folie-à-deux counterpart yet (fingers crossed, haha).
So, more things that didn’t really happen:
>I don’t wear a cilice though I’ve always wanted to.
>I never talked about my life with any professor during office hours, nor received any revelatory/anti-vindicating books from them—I only read some of “Crowds and Power” for the first time last week, which I found on my own.
>While I have put myself in a bunch of bad positions/situations, I’ve never gone to sleep in any of the ones I alluded to—except for the library and some random lawn.
>This was actually a time in my life when I had a good group of many great friends, as well as a pretty solid significant other—I was by no means “alone.”
>I never fell during this “gauntlet-run,” never broke any fingers, and (unfortunatley for others?) I still have my tonuge.
So, like, why?
Last month, after the comp was over, Meadowlisp made a post sharing details of their own life—I guess that openness inspired this.
All I replied to Meadowlisp’s post then was a stupid joke-response, and, this whole time, I guess I felt bad that I didn’t engage with them more, or share more of myself recipricolly.
I drew from similar personal experiences for my first submission back in February, but, this time around, when it came time for writing, I feel like I fully embraced this psuedo-person who I might have been, albeit this version was a bit more deranged, lol, but I blame yodo’s inflammatory prompt.
I don’t know…I could have kept my mouth shut here about this cringey, past-self voice behind my piece, but if anyone reading it thought it successful, why not disclose?
Maybe look back and augment or snowball moments or thoughts from the your own past into your own writing—how else can you overlap yourself?

Whatever the opposite of taking a shower feels like, writing this post probably comes the closest, but still worth it.

>>24470591

Ineptia has an almost disturbing ability to analyze a story and bring out hidden insights from the author and structure itself.

I like your idea of moving the patricide to the front and flashing back, I thought about it previously but i felt like the stakes should to be there first. I wanted the reader to have an understanding of the choice Jonny makes after discovering his own father discovered his son, what he felt wasn't joy, but wretched hatred and (hopefully) be emotionally invested. The why was to be found in his previous salespitch.

However, the act came off as cliché, or like a Humphrey bogart noir speech, so my idea of placing the violent action later to heighten the drama somewhat failed, but that's the point of LWC, to figure out what works and does not.

My writing style will likely always come down to the wire. I try and create a character driven story, so for days write little paragraphs or dialogue in the voice of a character, and when I feel that they have some authentic way about them, bang out a story using their way of seeing the world.

I appreciate your in depth analysis and will come back STRONGER.

>>24471437
>lol not used to trip nor b
>Nomenklatura+77

>>24470529
>way too short on time and not sure of what to select for the right sized story.

Absolutely, something I've really had to work on is NOT being too ambitious, what can I prove? what can I fully cover? in such a short amount of time or space like a chapter. Having that kind of estimation is a skill every writer should have in the toolbox

>>24466855
Congrats on already getting illustrations, PIGS +! >>>/ic/7612115 >>>/ic/7612120
>‘If you have a key, I will give you one. If you have no key, I will take it away.'
>This is a famous Koan.
Wow, that’s fascinating—I just thought your character was talking drunk or something.
As relates to harassment-prone little spirits, and your just reading the Tibetian BOTD…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyalpo_spirits#Nature
Maybe?
By the way, I’m gonna renege on telling you that dream I had, sorry.

Hey, this /lwc/ has been excellent!
Thank you again, yodo.
July will be even more august.