Thread: An introduction to a short story.

Empty blackness. Long as eternity, deep as infinity, there is nothing but inky ambience and your own staccato thoughts to keep you remotely sane. Barely.

Welcome to the Dark underworld, where the ghosts of your former self are your only companion.
There is nothing but the void, darkness so thick you can suffocate. Sometimes you wish you would.
There is nothing to look forward to, only things to look back to. Even then, the more you access these memories for your own sanity, the more they become diluted and bleached with the liquid of time. The murkier these images become, the more you slowly slip into yourself.

Floating in silence, in darkness, like an unborn child in the womb of a dead mother, memories fading and sanity breaking, this is your fate. You first felt rage, hot and passionate at the injustice that has been dealt to you. Anger of a caliber you’ve never known before, burning like a wildfire from the deepest depth of hell in your heart, keeps you alert. But there is nothing to perceive.

Soon, the blaze of your anger dies down, and only embers remain. It occurs to you, nothing is infinite. Nothing at all. Plants wither, people die, even the Earth rearranges itself with time. Even stars burn out.
Nothing is infinite. Nothing but the bleak limbo you are prisoner in. The embers of your passions continue to burn for some time, what was once grand flames, mighty and full of passion dissipate into nothing but a pathetic mockery of its former self. Just like you.

The embers, now nothing more than a crippling, consuming despair, last for longer than time itself. Even the despair will die. The memories you have are what keep the encroaching cold at bay in place of the heat of your emotions. In a twisted way. There is no hot or cold. There is only the darkness.
Eventually it hits you. Your memories have all been stripped away, and are perverted by constant overuse. Insanity creeps in, and you wish for death to overtake you. No, not death. Death implies resting. You wish for a nihilistic end to all.

Such is reality.

Doesn't really seems like an introduction at all.

God could this be more of a cliche.

Honestly, nobody is interested in reading this kind of excessively bleak teenage drivel in real life. There's far too much of it on the internet and it doesn't ever go anywhere. We get it, you're a bit depressed. Try writing something that's an actual story. With a plot. Maybe some characters etc.

Also, this should be in AG.

It's not so much one big cliche as a collection of them. Almost every word pairing or metaphor in that is a complete cliche. If you can't keep your audience after the first two sentences you have a serious problem.

also why isn't this in avant garden aka poet purgatory

Awful.

My honest suggestion to you as a writer is that you re-write this from scratch, remove anything that masquerades as a metaphor (heh) and express it in the simplest, plainest English you can muster with an absolute minimum of adjectives.

THEN embellish it *a little* to give it a little colour and/or personality.

1 or maybe 2 sentences should MORE than suffice. I've seen good writers say everthing you tried to say there with ten times the clarity using only a single 1-word sentence.

This should really help you to keep that impulse to waffle under control (good practice if you intend on writing a lot) and allow you to write something that readers might actually be able and willing to read without wanting to tear their own eyes out of their sockets.

Didn't you once say your teacher praised you for being the best writer in class? What kind of class are we talking about here?

Originally Posted by ozzy

Didn't you once say your teacher praised you for being the best writer in class? What kind of class are we talking about here?

Remedial English.

Either that or someone has a special note attached to their file that says "previous suicidal tendencies, treat with care."

"This first thing you remember?

You hate everything with a burning, nihilistic passion."

Less is more

as an example, when you talk to people who swear a lot, everytime they cuss, you pretty much completely ignore it, because it's basically part of the rhythm in their speech. The swearing loses all meaning, just because there is so much of it, you become numb to it.

Compare this to a quiet person who you've heard swear less times in your life than you have fingers on one hand. Every time they cussed, you remembered it, you remember why and it gains importance.

Create rarity, then employ it.

Unless you're British and very funny. The opening to Hitchhiker's Guide is incredibly verbose, but the end of each sentence is a pay-off.

That's a completely different genre. And constructing a joke is a very different process to writing serious prose. H2G2 might be very wordy but each word contributes something and is there for a reason.

Well, right. Hopefully with what you write each word has a purpose, reason, and pay-off, not just in comedy. If a drama is nothing but frivolous words and thesaurus abuse, then it's going to be shit. I mean, you can play football in the rain, sun, or snow, it's still the same game fundamentally.

True, but there's usually more room to swap words round or change them without losing effect, purpose or meaning in dramatic writing than there is comedic writing.

Exactly the reaction I was going for.



It's a satire.

Originally Posted by Sion

Exactly the reaction I was going for.



It's a satire.

Good cover.

Even if that were the case, I don't understand the purpose of the satire. Most satire exists to poke fun of something, but in order for that to work, you have to identify what you are mocking, then compare it and laugh at the juxtaposition.

Here, all you did was faithfully reproduce the spirit of those you were mocking, but without doing anything worthy of attention - there was no comparison made, no hints of something that could be improved, but wasn't. There was nothing except that which you were trying to insult, the end result being that it became what you were trying to satire

I'm pretty sure everyone has said this but you're not a troll, and you're still bad at it

Yeah for me it wasn't that it was satire or funny, it was entirely expected and it didn't read like I should want to read more. It simply ended.

According to the author it's satire.

well i mean satire is meant to be funny because you're mocking something

but he's not doing anything to indicate he's making fun of it

No matter what you call this its still dog shit.

Originally Posted by ozzy

No matter what you call this its still dog shit.

Originally Posted by coqauvin

Even if that were the case, I don't understand the purpose of the satire. Most satire exists to poke fun of something, but in order for that to work, you have to identify what you are mocking, then compare it and laugh at the juxtaposition.

Here, all you did was faithfully reproduce the spirit of those you were mocking, but without doing anything worthy of attention - there was no comparison made, no hints of something that could be improved, but wasn't. There was nothing except that which you were trying to insult, the end result being that it became what you were trying to satire

I'm pretty sure everyone has said this but you're not a troll, and you're still bad at it

it's not done, not even close. I'll be editing in the rest pretty soon.
its not so much a story as it is a rant of how everything in life is taken from an Emo's perspective.

I never was any good at writing serious things.

Originally Posted by Sion

I never was any good at writing serious things.

sion you have to set up some kind of comparison

there are many, many ways to do this and have it be at least readable

Originally Posted by coqauvin

sion you have to set up some kind of comparison

there are many, many ways to do this and have it be at least readable

when i'm done with the entire thing i'll edit it into the emo blurb i have going right now
it's nothing special but it makes fun of emos so its kay.

Hey guyse it's 2004 and making fun of emos is still rly rly cewl.

Who are you, Mr. Die?

Originally Posted by Satire

When you're born, you learn to roll. Then you learn to crawl. Then you learn to

CRAAAAWWWWWLLLLINNNNGG IN MY SKIIINNNNNNNN

I have to admit, I am pretty satisfied with my life. I can taste the sweet orange juice, nothing like ashes, rolling on my tongue and sliding down my throat with the cool brush of a lover's sweet caress. I feel like my love of the morning rages like a fire burning inside, torching and torturous in is rhapsodical and ecstatic embrace. It burns and consumes me, leaving me cleansed and pure when the flames die away to mere embers. Even the embers glow with a bright orange warmth, warm and inviting, promising nourishment and succour to those who wish it. It reaches into my face and twists my mouth into a smile familiar and comforting, secure in the knowledge that this day will be like every other day on this planet - incredible.

dude thats an awesome song