Thread 24690683

If I haven't received an email in the next two hours, I didn't place in the short story competition I had such high hopes for. If I don't receive this email, I will post it here for my anon frens to read.

>>24690683 (OP)
Don't post your reject sludge here

We want winners

So did you win?

>>24691972
He either placed or immediately killed himself. A fine piece of ambiguity.

>>24690683 (OP)
What/where in the world are short story competitions? Lit mags that you anons are always working to get into? It's like all of this doesn't exist. You can feel it in your bones that all this stuff is just completely irrelevant

It's been like 12 hours and nothing from OP. Hope he didn't self delete

OP here. I didn't place. Crushed doesn't even begin to describe how I feel. I bought some cheap wine and went for a long walk. In my country this is the beginning of spring. Despite it all I felt like I was drowning in heavy metal. Steel sky, iron pines, why live. I'm too listless to even kill myself. Think I'll just jack off instead. All things pass, right.

>>24693351
damn. can you post your story then ?

>>24693351
If you used a white male name or pseudonym then you didn't stand a chance. Always submit your work using an ethnic minority pseudonym. Include a made up migration story if you have the option.

>>24694251
I used the name Rignjar Stallbjarkon

>>24690683 (OP)
Bud, listen, the elite literary world as you conceive of it is dead. There's nothing for you in the world of publishing houses and exclusive competitions. work on building an online audience instead. If you have a unique voice and vision, people will gravitate. You do not need the affirmation of the literary establishment. That world is empty and crumbling and creatively bankrupt. You are none of those things and deserve better.

>>24694257
This isn't me. I used the name "Pontificate Rhombus"

Actual OP here. I didn't place. It's called Kathleen and I think it warrants a second read-through to appreciate.

1/2

>>24694285
2/2

Let me know what you think of it.

>>24694285
>>24694287
I want to doxx you and brutally murder you.

>>24694285
>>24694287
It's well-written. Yet feels more like a vignette taken from a tombstone novel than a short story. Likely lacking in the requisite drama and mania that judges expect. I suppose I have mixed feelings — on one hand, I appreciate the fact that you didn't stoop to contrivances of plot to generate artificial tension. On the other hand, stakes and payoff may have injected the whole thing with life.

>>24694285
Flaubussin. Find a way to make video content and just self-publish the short stories. Lie about it submitting them as required. Only submit novels to 'proper' publishing houses. Paycheques > gambler elation on comps.

>>24694287
>>24694287
This might be a stupid question, but are you Irish yourself? You live somewhere in the southern hemisphere apparently

>>24694753
>You live somewhere in the southern hemisphere apparently
Huh?

>>24694754
>In my country this is the beginning of spring

>>24694285
Themes of white heritage, family, namedropping Christ and Christian language in a non negative light in >the current year?, you were doomed from the start frend.

>>24694287
This is sloppy. Too sentimental. You present images of Irish heritage without tying it to a universal sense of emotional pull: you expect these images alone to do the hard work.

This laziness extends to your descriptions: what does “neoclassical Victorian architecture” look like? Of course I already have an image in my head: but isn’t it your job to describe YOUR vision of these things? And more importantly, if you’re not interested in elaborating, why should I care?

Talk about the haunted beauty of these old buildings. The sharp edges, the steeples, the spires. Give us SOMETHING. Compare the buildings to the ornate sharpness of a cemetery gate, or some other analogy combining the beauty with the bleak, almost futile tone. But don’t give us “anachronistic” and leave it like that.

>>24690683 (OP)
>uses expressions like "I didn't place"
>wonders why he didn't win a short story competition

>>24694285
>second sentence ends on a preposition
This is where the judges stopped reading. As did I.

>>24694803
The piece is my vision itself.

>>24694810
>in which it was ensconced
Great now I'll win first place next year.

>>24694814
Then your vision is limp and uninspiring. Reads like an academic observing decay from a safe distance, then imagining what it must be like. No lived experience, no authentic emotion. The bleakness is indistinguishable from a “cold autistic dark,” unknowing and unfeeling.

>>24694821
The piece engineered its own emotion. I don't think decay was high on the list, permanence actually.

>>24694830
>engineers
>list
You betray yourself. You treat writing as a solely analytical endeavor because you are closer to a machine than man. You are frozen in that cold autistic dark. Nothing more to be said: even the judges knew this to be obvious.

>>24694830
>The piece engineered its own emotion
You can't speak about your own work like this man, it's perverse. Exercise a double portion of your famous British self-deprecation. See yourself in the "cogs of the cosmos".

>>24694814
You mistake was using "ensconced" in the first place.
Do you know what a sconce is? Because it's nothing like peat for fuck's sake.

>>24694859
Your criticism is very of the times. My piece achieves the opposite.

>>24694285
>I didn't place
Serves you right for entering a competition, you disgusting piece of shit. You are scum

>>24694885
You have it reversed. It is “of the times” to write on things detached from your own experiences, and pretend like you have an understanding of it.

Your understanding of Irish culture is superficial, a novelty. It’s not rooted in anything real. Like an Asian diaspora writer who thinks he knows about china because of stories from his great grandpa. Even if you’ve been to Ireland, you’ve never deeply considered your time there, you’re just going through the motions and propping up cultural things to pretend as though you do.

The fact you can’t even describe a Victorian building does not help you in this.

>>24694885
at least you're passionate enough to defend your work. it's nice to know that you won't kill yourself. honestly, 4chan is not the best place to ask people to judge your short story when you're already feeling down

>>24694901
I've walked Victorian Dublin late at night when the streets are quiet and the ghosts whisper (again, permanency in an impermanent world). I understand Irish culture. Note how the final paragraph deals with Dublin as it will be, that big body still there in that museum.

>>24694285
>>24694287
I thought the domestic family dynamics pretty cliche and trite. The dad picking up his beloved girl indulgently, the wife nagging them not to disturb her kitchen. What happened to the dad's brother? Why introduce him and then immediately exclude him from the next scene?

Plus the thing about the butter-knife bugged me. Can you really imagine a child being baffled by a butter-knife? It's straightforwardly a tool for the spreading of butter.

Anyway keep plugging away with the writing, sorry for being negative. The marionette show was my favourite line.

>>24694920
You have no imagination.

>>24694928
Grand.

>>24694285
>to an Irish pope
Funny lmao

Very good piece. Don’t listen to the naysayers

>>24694287
>the feint [sic] whistling of the wind in the ears of those in antecedence
Shite and onions man, give it a rest. Life's too short.

>>24694466
>It's well-written.
No it isn't, and you don't need that hyphen.

>>24694285
>>24694287
I don't know if you'd care for my advice, but I'd just drop the first two parts and redo the third part about the museum. I'd focus on the emotions of the child who's seeing a dead body for the first time. You can still put in your intergenerational stuff and also Christian stuff, if you need to. I'd probably add Kyle's parents talking to grandpa. Kyle can see the body and think how it's both scary and cool and maybe think a million other things, while being completely oblivious to how significant it is to his grandpa.

>>24694285
>>24694287
a look of sneering disgust possessed my broad face as my olfactory senses were besieged by this pile of shit

bump

>>24696688
why would you bump this thread? very useless, let it die

>>24696688
You've got serious balls OP, I'll grant you. To parade your unplaced story before the gauntlet of anons and then bump it. Could be easy for some psychotic Howie to backtrace your identity and rape you, before accusing you of rape.

>>24696695
I'm the OP. I didn't bump in it. Guess some anon gets his kicks from watching a man torn apart

>>24696698
And I might add: there are many competitions to enter. You haven't seen the last of me!

>>24696701
I'm writing for a nature writing competition as I type this. Perhaps if I don't place I'll post it here?

>>24696703
You're evidently a insane masochist without a sense of shame. I think you're gonna be alright bro.