Hiko's So-Called Literature

Here, I shall post some of my writings. : D
Please, please, PLEASE read them. And criticize me (constructively D:). Or compliment me. Whatever. Frankly, I really want my stuff looked at.

Here's something we did in school, based off of the short story "The Lady or the Tiger?". The basic plot is a kingdom with a king's court - one door holds a beautiful lady, the other holds a tiger. A man is found with the Princess (affair) and he's held to court; and the princess knows which door is correct (saving him). She signals to the right...but also, he's been flirting with another lady, the one that's being offered. Here's my take...

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The door swung open with a great screech and much shaking, due to infrequent use and lack of cleaning. The man's heart beat relentlessly, as the door continued to make its painfully slow progress towards him. He'd trusted his love with his life, without even the slightest of a second thought; but had she seen him looking at the proffered lady? Had she seen the anxious looks, or the small conversations? This was now what his survival depended on, but he realized sadly, in neither situation could he stay with his true love.

As the door finally reached the end of its outward arc, which had seemed to take hours, something caught his attention. A low growl, perhaps; guttural and threatening. Peering deeper into the dark chamber, the poor young man shivered. Slowly stepping away from the door, he whimpered quietly. More growls were emanating from the chamber. Taking another horrified look, the man's eyes widened, before he turned on his heel and ran.

But it was too late; the beast from his nightmares was already upon him. Lunging from the room, it covered the distance in one good leap. Uttering a deep roar, it tackled the man with claws outstretched. A huge, slavering beast was now pinning the desperate man down. Crying out, he attempted to shimmy out of its grip furiously, but the tiger just dug its talons in tighter. As his blood started to trickle, the man looked back upon his conqueror, before the horrendously powerful creature feasted upon his neck.

The crowd stood up, looking at the man in his death throes; some screamed in horror, while others just shook their heads or wept. But the princess wasn't one of them: she had seen her love cavorting with the lady — she knew. The king stood up, looking supremely satisfied, and walked back inside the castle. As the tiger filled himself, the crowds emptied, leaving the betrayed man to his fate.


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My idea, that I was too chicken to put into my school essay (lol!), is to have the tiger eating the lady when he opens it. XD HE BROKE THROUGH THE WALL, HE IS / WAS HUNGREE. D:<

EDIT: I put in the revised version. Thanks again to Heat!

I read it over. I guess I'll give criticism in the order stuff comes up:

-The door sliding open implies suspense as much as you need to all ready from the lack of noise. Unless there's a reason it needs to not be heard, well-oiled is an example of an unnecessary and distracting detail. Try to learn to cut these in writing.

-"Which had seemed to take eons" seems out of place: in one case, it's a cliche, and in another even if you wanted to express a long period of time "eons" is a somewhat incredible word that you may want to consider replacing. Think of it this way: "Every minute that passed as he sat in the waiting room felt like an hour," or "Every year he spent without her felt like a lifetime," sound more realistic than comparing minutes to years or years to infinities.

-"Things weren't looking up" is a cliche, and too light for this situation. It breaks the feel of tension: I'd suggest cutting it entirely. Save things like that for people to say to their friends as they read the story together, because when the author says them it seems like he's trying to lean the reader's interpretation a certain way, which is especially disarming if the interpretation (as it is here) is fairly clear cut.

-"Near-talons?" I think I just don't understand what that was intended to mean. If you mean "claws that are nearly talons," animals claws are understood to be talons and thus "near" is unnecessary.

-Redundancy of satisfied being used in two occasions one sentence after the other in the final paragraph.

-No comma needed before "or wept."

-I think a colon's more appropriate after "But the princess wasn't one of them;" because the following point elaborates on this point. Two separate thoughts or ideas are what warrant semicolons.

-I don't know if you use "letting" in that sense: I know I don't, and that's actually a term I use in TeethSpeak swapping. If you honestly don't think you'd talk that way, use "leaving" instead. If you would use it that way, maybe I'm just not used to your dialect or something, so never mind.

-"walked back inside of the castle" - preposition trouble. This implies the king, inside of the castle, walking backward. You want "walked back inside the castle," I think. There are some instances where either will work.

-In general, maybe this is just a prejudice against "The Tiger and the Lady" which I didn't really enjoy, but your story doesn't really represent a surprise conclusion: it kind of seems like you'd write this if you liked (or were better at writing about) violence, or the other if you leaned toward romance. That may not be a fault of your own: personally, I hate writing assignments like this, and especially for a story like this where the story is designed as a definite two-way cliff hanger and the assignment calls you to come up with a "middle ground" that the author was most likely trying to proof against as a realistic possibility in the first place.

Overall, your grammar and vocabulary is actually pretty impressive, and you did your part to build up suspense. Not bad.

EDIT: Here's another school paper from a month or two ago.
Feel free to comment, but I personally am happy with it. : D

Black: The element of confusion, fear, and a dim evil on the horizon. Most of the black was diminished, being replaced with happiness and relief. Lone Pine Elementary was cleansed of the darkness almost immediately, turning September 11, 2001 into just another day getting out of school early. Things were normal again, or almost; kids boarded cars, and held hands with parents...very few actually felt the remainders of evil and fear among them. Most children acted like pigeons upon a piece of bread — they didn't know why or how the nice surprise had come to be within their reach, but they still snapped it up ravenously.

Red: The hue of panic, death, urgency, and anger. Pieces of paper fluttered down among traumatized and fleeing citizens of New York. Here, the color stayed; there was a permanent reminder of it. People running in the streets; others crying, some injured or simply rooted to the spot. But there was another monument; America's icon, America's pride, crumbling to the ground in a nebula of grey terror. Horrible squelching sounds could be heard as people on higher floors decided to leap, and face a quick, painless demise as opposed to burning to death in the gas-fueled inferno.

As seven-year-old Jonathan Ben-Menachem got into his mother's white-washed-seeming Toyota, he noticed that other kids had no idea what was going on. He also noticed that he didn't really know, either. Sitting down in the right-hand back seat and buckling his seat belt, Jonathan shuddered; it felt as if hundreds of voices had cried out in horror, all at once, and then were silenced...this ominous feeling carried all the way home, even though Jonathan's mother had informed him that no one that he knew in particular was harmed. Arriving at home, Jonathan's parents turned on the news, seeing the same clip over and over. A plane crashing into a building? He looked at his mother.
"Mommy? Why don't they show something else?"

Newscasts and reporters flocked to the rubble of the twin monuments. As they yelled to be heard above the sounds of panicked people, sirens, and mass confusion, police forces could be seen in the background. People tried to shove through the lines to get to the rubble, trying to find friends or relatives that they still had hope for, and thought were alive in the wreckage. But even more in number of these rowdy citizens were the ambulances, carting off injured victims or carcasses; most times it was just normal cars, not even official vehicles. As fear enveloped the city, a dark gray smog rose above to symbolize the confusion.

Orange. The shade of frustration and confusion. Struggling to hoist himself into the big recliner by the TV, Thomas managed to shimmy on top of it. Settling himself in, he picks up the remote, pressing the power button firmly to make sure it goes on. Seeing it on a news channel, he enters the numbers for his favorite cartoon channel. The reporter's informative voice stopped for half a second, and then started again. Tom pushed the channels up and down, but it was the same thing everywhere! Getting frustrated, he turned the TV off. A million channels in there, and all of them are news!!

SO

true...

Wut?
O_O
Well.
Time for poetry~
I'm working on one currently, but here's a semi-oldie.

Oh, you can rip my heart apart
Or stab it with a pointy dart
Stamp on it, bleeding on the ground
But know that I won't go without a sound

You'll find the pieces dangling there
There may be two pieces, but only one pair
Although my adoration you may have rent
I shan't be the only one of kindness spent

I refuse to disappear into the night
Without a brawl, or even fight
But all along, you won't know what's right
In your lifelong biting blight

Althought my heart may still be slit
To your way, I won't submit
My woes and troubles may not be yours
But in the end...
I
Shall
Soar

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NOTE: This is not emo.
D:<
Look at the hope, look at it!
Revel in it!

Kay, here's a research paper for Civics that I got a 100 on. :'D

"That's it. The government is full of Communists. We can hammer away at them." These are the words of Joseph McCarthy, the origin of a national fear which became known as McCarthyism. The suspicions began when qualms were aroused about Communistic takeover, and America was deadly afraid of a Communist intrusion or conquest. McCarthyism was a term used to summarize these fears, and the rickety grounds on which they stood. McCarthyism was not only a fear that consumed America, but another example of how one opinionated person in a position of power can affect the lives and thoughts of so many.

After World War II, distrust proliferated within America and other capitalist countries throughout the world towards the Soviet Union and their communistic society. As conflicts started to occur, Americans became severely anxious about the threat of communists infiltrating their government and culture. Joseph McCarthy, a U.S. Senator, decided to take advantage of this in the late 1940s. Within a short while, he had American citizens eating out of his hand. Making wild accusations, and instigating investigations, McCarthy fueled the hatred and panic of the nation.

McCarthy used the term "Western Christian civilization" to describe American culture, and used Atheism as a derogatory factor towards communists in the East. Claiming that the communists and communist sympathizers in American society were those "bright young men born with silver spoons in their mouths that have been the worst", McCarthy also gained the sympathy of many working-class citizens. As his reputation grew, he was pressed for a real accusation — names, places, and dates. He finally appeared before the press, holding up a list of "205 names" of communists inside of the State Department. When the State Department sent him a telegram asking for those that he'd accused, he ignored it, and when the press asked him for some of the names later on, he replied that he'd left the list on the plane. The list didn't exist — as McCarthy later admitted, it was just a laundry list. After that controversy, McCarthy said that he now had the names of "57 card-carrying communists" in the government. Many people all over the country sent him checks and cash, which McCarthy was reported to have deposited into his personal account later on. He had the spotlight — America was waiting for what he'd do next.

On February 20, 1950, McCarthy arrived at the Senate with a briefcase full of papers. He gave a 6-hour speech on communists in the government, and as his fellow senators struggled to figure out what facts were true — it was found that he'd gotten 205 by incorrectly subtracting 79 from 285. 3,000 people had been screened in 1946, of which 285 weren't allowed be hired permanently. The 79 that he'd subtracted had already left their jobs — but 285 minus 79 is actually 206. When McCarthy refused to actually name the accused, and one senator insisted that he should, he was forced to admit that some of them may not actually be communists, and some didn't even work there any more. When his colleagues pressed him for more evidence, he used two methods — avoiding, and attacking. He'd rapidly change topic when he felt he was losing, and begin attacking someone or something else. Later on, in 1950, when a committee finally was appointed to investigate him (The Tydings Committee), he refused to answer to them, even insulting Tydings himself. However, McCarthy was forced to give in after the group refused to back off. After naming several people, and being attacked back in response, McCarthy's amount of supporters began to decrease, and even more after the Senate officially criticized McCarthy. When the public had cried out in disgust enough at his stereotypes, unfounded accusations, and rage, the Senate led a series of discussions before actually censuring McCarthy — that's just how important that a decision of that nature was. He wasn't even censured for his anti-communistic ways — but for his investigation methods! Even though he wasn't made to leave the Senate, he was largely ignored by the press, causing his pride to be damaged, and he gave into drinking. He was admitted into a hospital in 1957, but died of liver inflammation a year later. This led to the decline of McCarthyism.

There were thousands of people that suffered due to the ravings of McCarthy, but cases like the Rosenberg Case were very rare indeed. In 1950, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were accused of passing information about the U.S. nuclear weapons program to the Soviet Union. Even when they'd pleaded innocent, the media declared them "Red Atom Spies". Regardless of what evidence they had against this, however, they were convicted of espionage and sentenced to death. In response, famous people all over the world took action in protest — writing letters, giving speeches, and generally speaking out against the exaggerated sentence. Even the Pope wrote to America, asking for their freedom — but alas, it was not to be. In 1953, the Rosenbergs were executed — maybe one of the harshest punishments, but many, many others suffered. One suspicious action, or one person speaking for their communist sympathy, would cause a person to lose an entire career! Tens of thousands of people all over the country were being 'blacklisted', or being refused a job, in whatever career that they tried to pursue — in most situations, the said people had their passports taken back. Hundreds more were imprisoned falsely for accusations of spying or being associated with the Soviets.

In conclusion, McCarthyism was one of the most out-of-hand experiences that America has had with fear to date. Wild claims and accusations were made against eminent and successful people during the early 1950s, under the excuse that Communism was infiltrating our democratic government, and Soviet spies were stealing American information. People were blacklisted, fired, imprisoned, and some were even accused of major espionage like the Rosenbergs, and sentenced to death. McCarthyism only fueled people's fear, so they believed anything that the media or McCarthy had to say and lapped it right up as fact, until he was censured. This led to the decline of McCarthyism and the decline of the unfounded actions of one man — causing so many lives to be harmed to the point of destruction, and fueling yet another stereotype against a different culture.