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I don't know, I liked how the words zigzagged back and forth down the screen like that, because the guys' names were different lengths. I'll have to use something like that sometime.

Glad to see this event is getting some buzz! Thanks to everyone generous enough to donate a prize or your time as a judge.

I've never really tried to make a horror story. I've been putting some ideas together, and it's been an interesting process. Can't wait to see what people come up with!

My friends, I understand your concerns and gently point your attention to EKublai's post about the Newgrounds Writing Anthology and my own post in the Writing Forum Lounge. If there was ever a chance to prove our credibility, this is it!

Is this a Newgrounds Anthology post?

Yes

Am I posting it here because I don't have front page privileges?

Possibly

Mainly, I wanted directed more at the writing community than Newgrounds at large. I think that the Writing Anthology represents a greater opportunity than giving a group of writers a chance to get their stuff published (which, granted, is a pretty great opportunity in and of itself).

This is a chance to lend credibility to the Newgrounds writing community.

This is the first major project on this site I can remember that is by writers, for writers, and writers alone. This isn't screenplay credit on a flash, or story credit on a game. It's words, on paper, that don't need any purty pictures to help them. Supporting this project is the best way to show that writing can grow to be a core part of the Newgrounds identity.

Tom Fulp will undoubtedly be canonized as a patron saint of amateur internet artists. I'm sure that, over the years, he has taken risks on new or unproven talent time and time again. However, while Newgrounds can be, at its best, a nurturing place, it isn't a charity. At the end of the day, Tom has to make decisions that will keep this place running.

What keeps this place running?

Money

Flash, games, audio, and art bring viewers; that much is granted. Viewers watch ads and buy stuff. That's why it's good business to support those four media. We can now show that it's good business to support writing. How?

By blowing the goddam lid off that Kickstarter.

We are literally voting for the future of the Newgrounds writing community with our wallets. Every dollar in that fund over $1000 is a vote for official support of the writing community. Every dollar shows Tom that a writing portal isn't a risk, but an investment. Instead of buying more angry birds or whatever, you spent your money on words put in order by people who care.

So get out there and invest some money in this place.

May I suggest posting a section of your story here, like the first chapter or so? It'd be something to get people interested before they commit to all 78 pages.

Don't forget Mr. Orwell's rules from "Politics and the English Language":

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

These rules were written with non-fiction/essays in mind, but they apply to any kind of writing.

While it's not the very first line, "The rain was black and heavy" is very close to the infamous opener "It was a dark and stormy night." Reading about the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest shamed me out of similar introductions.

It's unfair, but Bulwer-Lytton really ruined any chances of the "It's raining, dun dun dunnn" opening line from being taken very seriously. Besides, your characters should be (and, in this case, for the most part are) more interesting than nearby meteorological events.

Aaaaaand done!

A supervillain struggles with his desire for destruction and his obsessions/compulsions.

Had a great time with this. Looking forward to more!

Great idea! I was going to suggest something similar, glad to see a more well-known forum personality beat me to it. I get the feeling a lot of writers here are sitting on piles of work they're afraid to post due to hopes of publication. A weekly prompt could get people posting without the fears of losing their baby.

Almost done with mine, should be posting it soon.

I read through some of it, and I have to say, I liked it. This may not be what you expect, but I think your narrator is the most interesting character. You describe things and tell the story in such an unusual way that it's hard to let the narrator just drift into the background. He seems like a weird guy, and I want to know more about him. Combined with the wall-o-text chapters, he seems like some shady, coked-out rambler with the jitters who keeps looking over his shoulder as he tells this long, bizarre story.

I have a suggestion: use the story you're telling now about the unlucky-in-love guy as a form of character development for the narrator, who becomes the center for the story, e.g. we pull back our focus and see he's been telling this story at a bar to a group of friends. Something like the scene from Reservoir Dogs where Mr. Orange is telling the story he's memorized. I mean, I feel like I know more about your narrator than your main character: he's got a weird sense of humor, he likes Star Wars, follows the Detroit Lions, and has...interesting opinions on bisexuality. Hell, I named all that stuff off the top of my head, so he must have left an impression.

Anyway, that's my advice. I have a feeling it's not what you had in mind, but it could work.

This is true for pretty much everything. You're not really an artist until you've filled a thousand canvases, you're not a golfer until you've hit ten thousand balls, etc and so on. Hell, according to Malcolm Gladwell, the amount of time you put into something can be the most important determination of success, more so than any innate talent. In "Outliers", he writes that success in any kind of field or skill is largely dependent on the "10,000-Hour Rule," i.e., practicing a task for more than 10,000 hours.

It's dispiriting to think that such a colossal investment is necessary, but if you think about it, it's actually kind of encouraging that success may just be a result of a brute force, too-dumb-to-quit mentality.

So hunker down and get typing. Hey, by writing this, I'm 139 words closer to greatness!

At 3/7/11 01:54 PM, EKublai wrote: I will tell you right now, a discussion forum, while better than nothing, is not an appropriate place to learn how to write or read literature.

This is the kind of attitude that will kill off the writing forum and keep the Literature Portal from taking off. I've been lurking around here for a bit now, and the last problem I can see is an oversupply of active members. If you really want any sort of writing-based community to grow here, scaring off prospective members is the last thing you should be doing. Any kind of creative community should provide a place for the exchange of criticism and encouragement so its members can improve and, yes, learn.
Which brings me to my next point: the critical culture here is, for a good part, very negative. Certain critics are very good at pointing out flaws but can't be bothered to offer a complement. The goal of criticism isn't to bludgeon the creator into submission; it's to improve their work. Bottom line, if your criticism convinces the writer he should no longer write, you have failed as a critic and failed the forum. I don't care how bad a piece of writing is: there is something the writer did right, and deserves to be complemented on. Yes, there are stories here without a single period or capital letter, but I find them no less annoying than the inevitable pompous reviews that refuse to notice anything else. See this thread, where the three reviews mention the formatting and nothing else. Have you seen any really old newgrounds stuff? It's not very good. Or at least, not very pretty. However, somebody was able to see past the rough edges and see something worth getting enthusiastic over without getting hung up on every trashy tween and lousy voice acting job.
No one here is a perfect writer. If you want a place to dump on well-meaning beginners, you would do well to turn that critical eye towards your own writing. If you want a place to get pats on the back without having to worry about getting better, there's probably some room on your parents' refrigerator.

Nicely done! You had me laughing throughout the piece. The only real improvement I can think of is in the following sentence:

"He says that this could happen at any time, that in the middle of my daily jog I could fold in half like a manila envelope,and I would have to lie there, an unwilling contortionist, until some Samaritan calls my saddened but ultimately prophetic spinal adjuster."

Personally, I would cut out the part that isn't underlined. "Fold in half like a manila envelope" is some fantastic imagery (I actually winced when I read it), especially given the narrator's office job. It's definitely strong enough on its own and cutting the rest would give the paragraph a really crisp end.

Good work, keep it coming!

Camera cuts between different people texting on their phones, oblivious to everything around them. Each person is in an increasingly strange/dangerous situation: dinner with girlfriend's parents, priest at a funeral, man falling off skyscraper/getting attacked by bear, etc whatever. Cut to astronaut in outer space, texting while in the background the spaceship he's tethered to smashes into a communications satellite, killing everyone's cell phone. Everyone freaks out.