Real life; a conspiracy to make us better writers.

[Rollinbones]

What are your theories on your day to day experience of the world and it's effect on the depth and character of your prose?

Personally, I'm dying to use the description;

"His cock throbbed like a stubbed toe, torn open on a metal footpeg."

It was one of the things that was going through my head as I sat on the stairs dripping blood in a smiley face pattern on the concrete while waiting for my son to fetch enough bandaids to pull the flap of skin back onto the front of my toe. I should probably have gone to the hospital and got stitches but I live 30km from town and I'd had four beers.

It's not literary genius but i think it adds a curious depth to an erection.

 

[TxRad]

Real Life: The thing that gets in the way of most writers.

Now experiences in real life, those can make or break a story. In any case, experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted original.

 

[Bramblethorn]

"His cock throbbed like a stubbed toe, torn open on a metal footpeg."

I would reposition the comma in that sentence to just after "throbbed". Otherwise it sounds like, well, not the toe that's been torn open.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

In America real life is terra incognito for a nation of McDonald Munching Mediocrities.

 

[J_R_Ashunwhy]

I would reposition the comma in that sentence to just after "throbbed". Otherwise it sounds like, well, not the toe that's been torn open.

I had the same horrific image

 

[legerdemer]

I had the same horrific image

I would reposition the comma in that sentence to just after "throbbed". Otherwise it sounds like, well, not the toe that's been torn open.

Perhaps the ambiguity was attended - though it does bring Prince Albert-type body modification to mind. (Ewww!)

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Perhaps the ambiguity was attended - though it does bring Prince Albert-type body modification to mind. (Ewww!)

At least Albert's device solved the Pinocchio problem...

I don't think we would have had a problem with parsing the sentence if there had been but one issue with the toe. The poor digit was, apparently, both stubbed and torn. I think if the OP had settled on one, it would have been more understandable:

"His cock throbbed like a toe torn open on a metal footpeg."

But who the hell rides barefoot with metal footpegs?

 

[sr71plt]

I can see how the mind could misinterpret that phrase, but it technically was correct. The immediate preceding noun that the clause modified was "toe," not "cock."

 

[Rollinbones]

The comma was indeed misplaced. No cocks were harmed in the barefoot kickstarting of the motorcycle.

Pride, dignity, toes; those things did suffer somewhat.