re: Anybody still up that likes to write

Cheer up. Kafka isn't leaving you.

We're getting off topic, I still need this essay.

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We're getting off topic

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"We" can afford to go off topic.

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I still need this essay.

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It isn't going to write itself.

How to Write Good

The Ending

All too often, the budding author finds that his tale has run its course and yet he sees no way to satisfactorily end it, or, in literary parlance, "wrap it up." Observe how easily I resolve this problem:

Suddenly, everyone was run over by a truck. -the end-

If the story happens to be set in England, use the same ending, slightly modified:

Suddenly, everyone was run over by a lorry. -the end-

If set in France:

Soudainement, tout le monde etait écrasé par un camion. -finis-

You'll be surprised at how many different settings and situations this ending applies to. For instance, if you were writing a story about ants, it would end "Suddenly, everyone was run over by a centipede." In fact, this is the only ending you ever need use.*

*Warning - if you are writing a story about trucks, do not have the trucks run over by a truck. Have the trucks run over by a mammoth truck.

Choosing A Title

A friend of mine recently had a bunch of articles rejected by the Reader's Digest and, unable to understand why, he turned to me for advice. I spotted the problem at a glance. His titles were all wrong. By calling his pieces such things as "Unwed Mothers - A Head Start on Life," "Cancer - The Incurable Disease," "A Leading Psychologist Explains Why There Should Be More Violence on Television," "Dognappers I Have Known and Loved," "My Baby Was Born Dead and I Couldn't Care Less" and "Pleasantville - Last of the Wide-Open Towns," he had seriously misjudged his market. To steer him straight, I drew up this list of all-purpose surefire titles:

________ at the Crossroads
The Case for ________
The Role of ________
Coping with Changing ________
A Realistic Look at ________
The ________ Experience
Bridging the ________ Gap
A ________ for All Seasons
Simply fill in the blanks with the topic of your choice and, if that doesn't work you can always resort to the one title that never fails:

"South America, the Sleeping Giant on our Doorstep"

Exposition

Perhaps the most difficult technique for the fledgling writer to master is proper treatment of exposition. Yet watch the sly, subtle way I "set the scene" of my smash play, The Last to Know, with a minimum of words and effort.

(The curtain opens on a tastefully appointed dining room, the table ringed by men in tuxedos and women in costly gowns. There is a knock at the door.)

LORD OVERBROOKE: Oh, come in, Lydia. Allow me to introduce my dinner guests to you. This is Cheryl Heatherton, the madcap soybean heiress whose zany antics actually mask a heart broken by her inability to meaningfully communicate with her father, E. J. Heatherton, seated to her left, who is too caught up in the heady world of high finance to sit down and have a quiet chat with his own daughter, unwanted to begin with, disposing of his paternal obligations by giving her everything, everything but love, that is.

Next to them sits Geoffrey Drake, a seemingly successful merchant banker trapped in an unfortunate marriage with a woman half his age, who wistfully looks back upon his days as the raffish Group Captain of an R.A.F. bomber squadron that flew eighty-one missions over Berlin, his tortured psyche refusing to admit, despite frequent nightmares in which, dripping with sweat, he wakes screaming, "Pull it up! Pull it up, I say! I can't hold her any longer! We're losing altitude! We're going down! Jerry at three o'clock Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggh!", that his cowardice and his cowardice alone was responsible for the loss of his crew and "Digger," the little Manchester terrier who was their mascot.

The empty chair to his right was vacated just five minutes ago by Geoffrey's stunning wife, twenty-three- year-old, golden-tressed Edwina Drake, who, claiming a severe migraine, begged to be excused that she might return home and rest, whereas, in reality, she is, at this moment, speeding to the arms of another man, convinced that if she can steal a little happiness now, it doesn't matter who she hurts later on. The elderly servant preparing the Caviar en Socle is Andrew who's been with my family for over forty years although he hasn't received a salary for the last two, even going on so far as to loan me his life's savings to cover my spiraling gambling debts but it's only a matter of time before I am exposed as a penniless fraud and high society turns its back on me.

The dark woman opposite me is Yvonne de Zenobia, the fading Mexican film star, who speaks of her last movie as though it was shot only yesterday, unwilling to face the fact that she hasn't been before the cameras in nearly fifteen years; unwilling to confess that her life has been little more than a tarnished dream.

As for her companion, Desmond Trelawney, he is an unmitigated scoundrel about whom the less said, the better.

And, of course, you know your father, the ruthless war profiteer, and your hopelessly alcoholic mother, who never quite escaped her checkered past, realizing, all too late, that despite her jewels and limousines, she was still just a taxi-dancer who belonged to any man for a drink and a few cigarettes.

Please take a seat. We were just talking about you.

This example demonstrates everything you'll ever need to know about exposition. Study it carefully.

Covering The News

Have you ever wondered how reporters are able to turn out a dozen or so news articles day after day, year after year, and still keep their copy so fresh, so vital, so alive? It's because they know The Ten Magic Phrases of Journalism, key constructions with which one can express every known human emotion! As one might suppose, The Phrases, discovered only after centuries of trial and error, are a closely guarded secret, available to no one but accredited members of the press. However, at the risk of being cashiered from the Newspaper Guild, I am now going to reveal them to you:

The Ten Magic Phrases of Journalism

"violence flared"
"limped into port"
"according to informed sources"
"wholesale destruction"
"no immediate comment"
"student unrest"
"riot-torn"
"flatly denied"
"gutted by fire"
"roving bands of Negro youths"
Let's try putting The Phrases to work in a sample news story:

NEWARK, NJ, Aug. 22 (UPI) - Violence flared yesterday when roving bands of Negro youths broke windows and looted shops in riot-torn Newark. Mayor Kenneth Gibson had no immediate comment but, according to informed sources, he flatly denied saying that student unrest was behind the wholesale destruction that resulted in scores of buildings being gutted by fire, and added, "If this city were a Liberian freighter,* we just may have limped into port."

*Whenever needed, "Norwegian Tanker" can always be substituted for "Liberian freighter." Consider them interchangeable.

Proof positive that The Ten Magic Phrases of Journalism can express every known human emotion and then some!

"raffish"

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Subject is the effects of foreign aid with regards to war and peace

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Foreign aid organizations are giving out Tolstoy books?

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And Guess, no ones writing your damned essay. Suck it up, pop an adderall like the rest of us did, and get it done.

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frick it, I'll do it for $100 a page.

$100/page * 3pages = about a dozen lap dances at the Penthouse

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Not for me, I was asked a few hours ago, and I want to help her out.

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Bruh, post pics you big dummy. I just sharpened my pencil FWIW

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Subject is the effects of foreign aid with regards to war and peace.

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Dear reader...I could bore you stone dead with topics like "the effects of foreign aid on war and peace", but I like you. Hell, I'd let you come over and frick my sister.

So instead, I'll regale you with a torrid excerpt from my latest novella,


The Boobs of Cleavage Manor

And so he reached tenderly out to her, prying soft skin from the prison of her petticoat. Her bosom now free, the darkness of her nipple in stark contrast to her alabaster flesh. He grasped her breast. It was like a bag of wet sand, malleable yet firm.

His face contorted as he soiled his pantaloons. "Was it good for you?, he queried.


Or perhaps a reading from my bestselling paperback

A Chink In the Armor

The sound of crickets began their lilting refrain as Wang Hung Lo returned from the battle. He trudged to his tent, looking down at the mud and gore upon his tunic from a full day of spilling French blood. He thought of the curiousness of these Englishmen and then of his home, far to the East.

He drew back his tent flap to enter and was greeted with a sight that caused a stirring in his loins. Two women, clad only in lace which left little to the imagination, lay there upon his bedding. They arose in silence to greet him and let their lace fall to the floor. He smiled as they removed his armor, kissing his skin as his manhood grew ever stiffer under his breeches.

His eyes danced across their bodies, one with long, chestnut hair and olive skin, with firm, tight tits that sat up high, ready for action. The other was as pale as milk, with luxuriant red hair spilling down her shoulders to her breasts, like rivulets of flame. Hers were heavy and round, as big as ripe grapefruit with nipples the color of a dark bruise, glorious to behold. The sort of tits wars are started over.

Wang then stared curiously at their crotches, amazed that they were not all blurry, like as was with the women in his home country. Also not filled with squid tentacles or other such nonsense.

European women were certainly a treat in that sense...

In conclusion, if you go to war and want a piece, don't get foreign AIDS.