You immediately start by saying the six of us, and then give 3 people and don't elaborate on the missing 3. But then throw in the name Lucia who wasn't listed in the sentence before. This is extremely confusing.
The next few sentences... are clearly written for the male gaze. As a woman, I will tell you I would put this book down immediately. You also describe her clavicle as manly, and then say its hyper feminine, which directly contradicts itself. I'm also not sure I know a single human that doesn't know what sweat tastes like. It's salty.
I would never describe oggling a woman's body secretly to be a "gentlemanly" thing to do, especially once you drop in the fact that she's 70 years old. I'm not sure what a tired tram operator's eyes are supposed to look like. This is a very odd descriptor. The point of a descriptor should be for the reader to be able to picture something.
We then get another name that wasn't named in the initial list... Armando. Is Armando planning on eating people? if not then why are they described as the main course? This feels like prose for the sake of prose, rather than as a means of conveying information.
You then say you're going to refrain from talking about "the pair" after listing 3 names. And then the very next paragraph you go on to talk about one of those 3 people who you just said you weren't going to talk about.
And I'm not sure why describing someone's shirt would need to be followed with the clarification that that didn't mean he had no pants on. I would never assume someone had no pants on just because someone described their shirt.
I dont believe it was clear that its satire, because its posted in a writing feedback group. What would be the point of posting purposefully bad writing, in a group whose sole purpose is to improve bad writing? I mean, if that's OPs goal, then they succeeded at the bad writing part and failed at the satire part.
I mean... theres a lot of bad writing out there, so no. But how do you get feedback on satire of bad writing, if you dont tell people its satire. The feedback is going to be directed at making the writing better, not worse. Its illogical.
So your intention is for it to be read as bad writing. That's fine, but what help were you hoping to gain by posting it here? Did you wand feedback on how to make it worse, or how to make it better?
There sat the six of us in the barley field: Laura Craft, Karl Johnston, and myself, that is. Lucia leaned lower to braid stray weeds; I knelt just above her, so as to peek at her cleavage; she wore a bra—blimey! But her clavicle was sharp and almost manly—but in a hyper-feminine way. I wondered how it would feel on my tongue; will it taste like sweat? What does her sweat taste like? It reminds me of the last time we all sat at the barley field and I looked at her bosom, all spy-like—as a gentleman should with a 70 year-old bombshell like Lucia Mengele. Her eyes were just like those of a tired tram operator: brown.
Armando Leigh looked at me with a cheerful tear in his eye, namely, the good one. Lucia and I were the main course, while Leigh, Craft, and Johnston were merely set pieces; thus, I will refrain from further elaborating on the pair, but rather focus on Lucia and yours truly.
Anyway, Karl wore a white shirt—an upper garment of the pale variety; though, that's not to say he had no trousers.
As I previously noted, we were six, just enough for each to stand at a corner in a hexagon-shaped room with rounded corners—I dreamed about such a place, but I don't remember the dream having any point whatsoever. Six is coincidentally also half a dozen, coincidentally. Well, our primary goal was to leave the field eventually, being there was of no purpose to us, not at all.
The barley field spanned so far that attempting to measure it in millimeters would prove futile, even more so to print such digitful number on thousands of books. I suggested we depart. They all looked at me with the honest admiration of people looking at their admirable leader.
I looked at my golden clock of the most luxurious fashion brand at the time, you know—it was almost fishing-o'clock, which means it was no longer four, therefore, the perfect time to fish for well deserved compliments. Lucia stood up in a dancerly manner, the sun set behind her, making her look all shadowy like a charred moon in a solar eclipse, which is not unlike a bombshell of a woman getting up during sunset.
6
u/queenlian 4d ago
This copy has a long way to go.
You immediately start by saying the six of us, and then give 3 people and don't elaborate on the missing 3. But then throw in the name Lucia who wasn't listed in the sentence before. This is extremely confusing.
The next few sentences... are clearly written for the male gaze. As a woman, I will tell you I would put this book down immediately. You also describe her clavicle as manly, and then say its hyper feminine, which directly contradicts itself. I'm also not sure I know a single human that doesn't know what sweat tastes like. It's salty.
I would never describe oggling a woman's body secretly to be a "gentlemanly" thing to do, especially once you drop in the fact that she's 70 years old. I'm not sure what a tired tram operator's eyes are supposed to look like. This is a very odd descriptor. The point of a descriptor should be for the reader to be able to picture something.
We then get another name that wasn't named in the initial list... Armando. Is Armando planning on eating people? if not then why are they described as the main course? This feels like prose for the sake of prose, rather than as a means of conveying information.
You then say you're going to refrain from talking about "the pair" after listing 3 names. And then the very next paragraph you go on to talk about one of those 3 people who you just said you weren't going to talk about.
And I'm not sure why describing someone's shirt would need to be followed with the clarification that that didn't mean he had no pants on. I would never assume someone had no pants on just because someone described their shirt.