/lit/ - Literature

>>10424110
My MC is stuck in the past refusing to move on due to his life not turning out like he hoped.

>>10424110

My MC is an autistic astronomy nerd who's trying to come to terms with the existence of real magic in her bloodline and mesh a world view she knows to be true with one she can't explain any other way

Ironically, her bloodline is that of an oracle, but she has absolutely no foresight in the common sense

>>10424172
>ripping off the plot of My Diary Desu

>>10424235
That's the title of your novel?

>>10424110
Mine is a unintelligent, subservient man, with deep seated issues created by his childhood, loveless marriage, and budding relationship with a prostitute.
He's slowly coming to grips with the fact that everyone around him is more preoccupied with appearing as a accepting kind person then thinking rationally but lacks a backbone to change anything or stand up for himself.

>>10424110
Well, it's a little story I just thought of randomly. Maybe there could be a utopian society where the entire existence of meat is eternally eradicated, and the world is peaceful. Until one hapless day, a human spontaneously births itself as a resurrected carnivore. As he enters civilization, all seems well as he adjusts easily. But soon, one day, a little squirrel wanders in a nearby tree. Caving in to his barbaric desires, he preys on that squirrel, eating it to the brim of mutilation. The entire town witnesses, and lashes out in fury.

That would be the story of the Carnie. Coming soon, to a Tumblr near you.

>>10424235
I'm sorry.

>>10424110
Troubled by need for recognition and approval, building his own system of values (which turns out to be pretty default in a "don't be a self absorbed faggot" sense, but it is important that he found it himself) to defeat his issues. Constantly hitting his head against the wall, approaching the inner peace a bit closer with every bruise.

A 21st century schizoid woman being forced to gain compassion is the gist of her character.

BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

>>10424110
An autistic inept freelance detective with an incredible depository of knowledge and the delirious ability to connect mass concepts and conspiracies, real or not. He is fully aware of his own ineptness both socially and job-wise but perseveres through the stupid and dangerous shit he gets into regardless because he's too autistic to fall into any set conception of self-worth and thus will never admit defeat, and believes in his detective thinking eventually unraveling a vague occultic mystery internally and externally in the world and in existence.

>>10424110
He's me but eight inches taller.

Veteran working in private security. Isolated, angry, dissatisfied. Reluctantly stands against the antagonist, but only because it turns the prostitute he fell in love with against his values.

>>10426156
This made me laugh. 10/10

A vampyric wearwolv lesbian with double H tits, has to make it as an a list director and win an Oscar to remove a curse a whyte wizord has placed on her non binary offspring. Has to overcome pervy hegemony of Hollywood and eventually obviously does so


The epilogue reveals her to have a draginscale dick and rapes a Harvey Weinstein figure (dps with the oscar she beat him to)

>>10424110
A man who works hard and does his best but ultimately failed recently in a way thats turned his life upside-down and, now having been confronted with the death of an old friend, seeks desperately to catch the criminal less for justice, though thats what he tells himself, but more for redemption even though the turmoil in his life is not solely his own fault.

>>10424205
That actually sounds cool. A scientist confronting actual magic is cool. What sort of magic does she have?

>>10426156
So still a manlet?

A martial artist who wants to fuck his stepsister and so does everything she asks, although feeling guilty about ot.

>>10424110
MC is a run of the mill YA protagonist in a novel that is more or less a deconstruction of the YA Urban fantasy genre.

>>10425777
So am I

Girl with a special power that could aid in the fight against a soon to be reborn ancient god runs away from the grasp of two nations in conflict. She is accompanied by her overprotective mother and two war vets that were close to her father.

>>10425805
Just like my anime

>>10429648
If you're trying to say I'm making some shonen protag I'm not. I wanted to look into the various states of misery and a persons way to re-affirming his existence. I want him to be somewhat mentally ill, not heroic.

Four POV characters

One's young sorceress growing into adulthood who struggles dealing with the lack of choice in her life, once presented with a choice she can make her own, she has to decide between morality and freedom.

One is an incredibly clever yet unwise, charming but not to the one he wants to charm, adored by all but those he wants to impress, constantly disappointed prince.

One is a dying boy who has to choose between death or a life transhuman

One is a foreigner who straches to the companions she meets on her travel because with her home gone they're all she has left

>>10429648
Is that how he comes across? I was thinking of more of a mentally unhinged weirdo than some heroic superguy. I like looking into the various states a neurotic puts himself in and the places those states go.

>>10429698
That's not necessarily an insult anon. In fact you can add that to your advantage, by making him not able to differentiate from fiction from reality.

I need help on whether I should write my MC the way I want to or not

>>10429736
Well what is he

>>10429711
I see. I was also thinking of adding persona confusion.
Also if you know any anime like that I'd be interested in seeing it.

>>10429753
I was sort trying to make a deconstruction of the kick-ass female protagonist type.

Should I continue

>>10429800
Sure why not friend.

Every character is me in a different costume

>>10424110
A curse who ate and digested enough humans to become similar.

>>10424110
I've got a band of protagonists, but I'm having trouble with one being 'too edgy and/or grim'. Effectively, they're supposed to be a child soldier that comes from a tribe of pyromancer assassins enslaved by the regional magetocracy. The thing is though is that they're a half-dragon that can't use fire, which makes them near invulnerable to physical damage, but leaves them culturally shunned due to the importance they place in weilding the fire. They're deployed into another war without completing their training like the rest of their group, and serves two years before escaping. The society is supposed to be modeled after Sparta and how they trained their soldiers, so physical, emotional, and mental abuse would typically be commonplace in order to form a great soldier. They're supposed to play the role of the fighter and defender in the group until another protagonist gets the required training to act without support.

Book editor here. Working with a client on a YA fantasy novel. In the last month, after 2 years fleshing out the plot, changed the protag from a 60-year-old man (who finds a fountain of youth) to a 15-year-old boy (who is youthful from the start). Publisher's request. Excellent decision that's opened the floodgates to all kinds of story possibilities.

>>10429805
MC is the standard run of the mill YA Urban Fantasy Protagonist who like every other protagonist before her and after her is special in some way that the world bends over backwards for her. She is without the doubt the quintessential Standard Ya Protagonist.


The story however will tell a different tale about her through her actions and unreliable narrator. With how she views herself and how society views her, her code of conduct and overall attitude towards other people.

>>10428139
It'll get better anon

My MC is more or less the result of a Les Effant Terribles style project to create monarchs and thusly is dialectically conflicted between his emotional human (but not necessarily good) side which was suppressed by his father's detached rationality.

>>10424110
An investigator working for a shadowy organisation similar to the CIA and FBI that handles large inter-planetary crimes and occasionally interferes with stellar politics. She's (yeah, red flag, I know) all business, friendly but merciless, fixed in her sense of justice and unquestioning in her loyalty. She collects a team of loyal associates as she carries out her work in a galaxy filled with criminals of all kinds.

Occasionally she's joined by her childhood friend, a borderline psychotic and gleefully misanthropic space pirate/vigilante who inflicts his own brand of frontier justice on those he considers to be wrongdoers.

>>10426342
Not OP but as an oracle she would have knowledge of the future, most likely through visions. Hence the irony at her “lack of foresight”

Also, really cool concept OP

>>10430172
>Les Effant Terribles
nigger

>>10424110
Well I guess I can just blurt it out even though I think its pretty neat idea. I am just a brainlet though. I could just be going over old ground subconsciously so if anyone spots it I'd like to know.

I like the idea of a boy scout in rural america comically getting trapped in a nuclear bunker for years with 3 cats. I enjoy the thought of having him experiencing life,death, other bits and pieces in such a bubble. I think it sounds dumb but I don't know something about a really old dude with the mind of a child in a extremely unfitting ragged boy scouts uniform. Having him write out diary pages or something listening to a broken radio perhaps about a war? Eh that part is a little mucky. Sounds like it be a thing in place though. Anyway. A funny little idea about isolation.

I just think there is plenty of space for tragedy and comedy in the scenario but I definitely don't have the skills to pull off the concept yet. Thank for the 4 am middle of the woods thread to kill time in 12°F weather. Send help.

>>10430394
No u

>>10430429
That sounds pretty sad desu.

>>10431830
Is it?

>>10432750
I mean it depends. Would you say Robin Williams portrayal of the kid in jumanji endearing? Because thinking about it now the premise is kinda similar.

>>10429846
Well that's just a premise for a character, not a description of who they are. It'll all depend on how you characterize them. What makes this character his own character?

>>10430429
I think this could work. I like the idea of it being a tragicomedy. Take a route similar to "waiting for Godot" and I think it could work. Something where the tragedy is on a layer bellow the comedic situation. It's easy to see the sad aspects, but in a way that doesn't leave the reader with a melancholy taste in their mouth after they finish reading.

There's more than one MC but the primary protagonist is the undefeated local champion of a madeup sport with anger issues and a sex addiction. He gets wrapped up in a faction war when an immortal army of anarcho-syndicalists controlled by a sorcerer who lives in a cursed landfill invades his anarcho capitalist tourist town in backwoods Minnesota to resurrect an ancient cosmic evil.

My MC is a random man in a medieval setting who is addicted to heavy drugs. He is being taken to a different land across the ocean where he might find treatment but his ship wrecks so he has to try and make the rest of his journey by himself. Starts seeing supernatural things, but he can't tell if they are real or hallucinations conjured by his years of drug abuse.

>>10433164
Well by characterization, the personality wouldn't be too groundbreaking. They've got the harshest upbringing compared to the rest of the MCs, so obviously they're going to be difficult from the get go. They're worldview is generally being wary and cautious of everyone and concerned for any ulterior motives of the people surrounding them.
They're distant and keep to themselves, preferring not to ask for the others and can sometimes be downright antagonistic towards others, especially with the lazy, inept, or indecisive.

Having said that, they're also times when they appreciate a person's competency in their work and the amount of effort that's put into it. They respect those who've earned the respect of their peers. They're less distant to the downtrodden, but wouldn't give out charity, as they would view that by assessing what change they have control over, analyzing what steps can be taken with that control, and taking action is better. Not to mention they doubt their worth as a part of their people due to inability to conjure flames, which in turn leads towards a doubt of their faith and the guilt they carry from abandoning their home.

MC is everyone

>>10433971
>54
Sounds meta

My MC is a mid twenties corporate guy who one day simply snaps and starts walking south.

>>10424110
My main character is a suburban psychopath who played sports in highschool and never reached the heights of social dominance so he skulks around his hometown going to community college and fucking hs seniors. he and his friends progressively become more psychotic and nihilistic with time.

steal my idea faggots

>>10434039
You can keep it...

>>10425184
Hell i'd read that

>>10425184
I'd read this

>>10425181
>Mine is a unintelligent
Stopped reading there

>>10424110
I don't have a novel because I'm not an insufferable pretentious cunt.

Basically Not-Quijote

I'm thinking of an main character who, on the surface, appears to be everyone's second best friend. He blends in easily with the crowd and does his best to conform to everyone's expectations.

However, he's deeply plagued by the sins of his childhood (involves female main character) and deep down, he is shrouded in cowardice and self-loathing. He is afraid to take the plunge to fully open up to his classmates due to the turmoil in his heart and essentially, he is afraid of changes in his personal life. This resulted in him being emotionally detached from the world and he masquerades as his childhood self (Attitude, personality before his soul-crushing sins) to go about his days.

Even when he makes a wish,he does not wish for an omnipotent entity to change his life for him, nor does he wish for the determination to change. Instead, he wishes for dreams of changes as he believes that he is too afraid and not worthy of help from an omnipotent entity to change his life. In truth, he desperately wants to change but the shackles of his past keep him rooted in place, unable to take the first step.

Despite his childhood bearing so heavily down on him, he looks back on it fondly as it was the only time he was ever himself.

The idea for my novel revolves around said 'dreams of change' as his wish does come true. However, even in his dreams, he is forced to take the first step himself. He readily does so, thinking that whatever he does in his dreams will have no bearing on reality and essentially, he treats his dreams as some form of wish fulfilment. Through these dreams, the main character will be forced to confront his sins of the past and explore his relationship, both past and present, with the female main character.

i dont care about characters

>>10433674
ok, that approach is bordering on 'too grim/edgy' and it will depend heavily upon how good of a writer you are in order to make it work.

alternatively you could have the character approach their issues in a different way. Perhaps in general they are just very untrusting and disconnected and that comes through in shyness rather than aggressive moping

>>10434413
Sounds like a young adult self-insert

>>10434424
I considered that, but then how would you reconcile their shyness with being competent as a soldier? They are socially stunted to a large degree towards the general populace, but I think shyness would be heavily discouraged in their sort of culture.

>>10435194
I was thinking something closer along the lines of autistic social anxiety? so not like the cute endearing shyness you see in cartoons, but someone who is both hesitant to enter into a social situation and has difficulty properly communicating when forced into one.

Moses, from the book of Exodus, had these issues. Repeatedly had to confront the pharoah of egypt while dealing with a sever stutter. or like George VI and his struggles with stammering in "The King's Speech". He had no desire to publicly speak, but had to in order to give his people hope at the start of world war II.

Alternatively, look into Elric of Melnibone. Tragic character with disabilities that would get him shunned from his culture but he manages to work with them.

>>10435226
I know that, it just seems like a detriment like that would be stamped out over the course of the conditioning they received. Again, I have thought about this as an option before, but I found it difficult to reconcile some parts. Like, what sort of reasoning would you give if they didn't have trouble communicating to people inside they're kin group, but did with everyone else? Or that if they're supposed to be socially hesitant and stunted, is it also feasible that they're also willing to engage their opponents and take lives if need be?

>>10434223
this so much

>>10434576
Because it is

>>10424110
Literally a god, the main character are the pages themselves

basically i just stole the two main characters from a book i like with a similar setting, toned down their idiosyncracies, and gave each of them different amounts of a bit of my personality and a bit of my son's personality.

>>10434039
so is he named holden bateman or patrick caulfield?

a conman gets embroiled with a cult, and while rendering bullshit services they deem as significant, yadda, yadda, he grows breasts, nurtures a hellspawn and finds out he digs the mommy life.

anyways. do you think an ass-licking scene would be too much?

just worried the ass-licking would conflict with my literary style

>>10425184
>the entire existence of meat is eternally eradicated
but anon you are made of meat

>>10425805
You're a writer for Monk?

>>10436585
Fuck I loved that show. It was like the last show that got away with the 80s formula and did it well. Burn Notice was a disaster. Justified is physically disorienting.

>>10429846
>they're supposed to be a child soldier that comes from a tribe of pyromancer assassins enslaved by the regional magetocracy

stopped reading right there

>>10438092
Why?

>>10438751
because it sounds fuckin gay

>>10429846
>pyromancer assassins enslaved by the regional magetocracy
eh heh heh he

>>10439313
Any reason for the ominous laughter?

>>10439379
its the sinister chuckle of a man who tells you you're NGMI

>>10429846
*leans in real close* none of that shit makes a good story

>>10439414
>>10439426
I'll take some critique on what issues you see in it. That's not going to be the main plot of the story though.

>>10439455
>all that shit
>not going to be main plot of the story
son, you don't know what a story is. you're building turd mountain.

>>10429846
now, i'm going to sit down and write a good, strong character that my audience can identify with so, let's see... how about a fart monster. and he's disadvantaged because people hate farts. and he's also a subsistence farmer because i feel the need to rationalize my sociology degree. and he can't be a regular fart monster, because i want to avoid cliches, so he actually can't fart - that way he's also hated by his own species as well. because i'm unhappy with my status in life so i'm going to make this little shit really scramble and scrape under the yolk of my contrived violence. also i don't know how to write.

>>10439481
It's the backstory and part of the motivation for the actual main plot alongside two or three other main characters.

>>10440038
don't have to eat the whole egg to know it's rotten

A rich, bitter asshole who thinks the world is his and that he is better than anyone else. Coming from dysfunctional family, he is still unhappy with his life, but he doesn't realize that the life is taking care of him... Basically rich guy gets away with everything, and then it clicks and he understands the life a bit better, and he becomes somewhat less of an asshole but he knows that he will never have the power to change completely.

>>10440127
yawn

>>10424110
Some guy with his friends fighting against a sociopathic classmate who is behind in every scheme he makes, the sociopath usually kills people either for petty offenses or because for the lulz. The chapters are points of view of the hero, his friends and from the antagonist.

>>10440779
it's loose enough to serve you but you'd get more mileage out of it by adding a hook of some sort.

>>10424110
I have a bunch of lines of narrative that are all linked to an overarching story in a fantasy world.

>Crippled fighter is brought along in adventures due to his silver tongue. Willing to accept sacrifice and use subterfuge to combat muh ancient evil.

>Frustrated artist decides to use newfound and cultivated powers to vandalize all art of significance within the continent. Constantly on the run from ever-increasing resistance from guards and soldiers.

>Child exposed to a moment of higher dimension consciousness and experiences oneness with the center of the universe. Party finds him trying to cope with human flesh: addicted to heroine and prostitutes. They must keep him alive to sacrifice him in pagan ritual.

>The premiere warrior of one of the two main warring factions finds himself volunteered to be part of a team that fights the ancient evil. He witnesses peace talks and the revealing of war secrets for the sake of creating the best cross-faction team possible to combat the big bad.

I started the world saying that I didn't want to write bald space marine or Sasuke for any of my main characters. After a few years, I create Chad as the 4th protagonist.

>>10440779
Death note and twentieth century boys (which was shit by the way)

>>10440981
very tidy work. if i could fault it for anything it's perhaps too consciously workshopped for my taste, but readers dig that.

>>10424110
A slightly cynical grad student in English, a really asshole grad student in history, and Alexander the First of Russia.

>>10441194
i could warm to this. how saccharine are you willing to get with it?

a pretentious bougie faggot on a summer europe trip that can't decide if he's julius caesar reborn or deeply mentally disturbed

Mine is the physical manifestation of my anima, the feminine aspect of my psyche. She begins a meek, physically frail woman who feels shocked and helpless against the moral failures of the society she exists in, but over the course of the story becomes a Joan of Arc esque fanatic bent on burging the psychological demons from my psychic, the civilization at large being the physical manifestation of my unconscious mind.

>>10441206
It only gets saccharine is the passages about Alexander the first. I can't really get into more detail than that.

>>10441325
nice. will you leave in the parts you jerk it to at night or are those for the author only?

>>10441351
I mean, I'm incorporating all of my sexuality into this story in a very real and honest way, meaning I'll portray most of those kinds of fetishes in an explicitly negative context. It's very much about a conflict between healthy and destructive concepts of sexual and emotional relationships.

>>10441372
yeah i'd read that. somehow i'm imagining you threading it with a sort of macro-style pieter brueghel overview of the realms. very hype idea. lots of potential.

>>10424172
Hits close to home to be honest

>>10424110

My main character is brought back to his original home, a hamlet on the inlet of a saltwater bay. He was sent to another country at a young age in order to preserve his father's nobility in a deal struck with higher nobles. His entire personality was molded by the State, and due to subtle magical abilities was fast-tracked through the military and eventually the navy.

When his father dies, he goes AWOL in a foreign colony while his ship is posted to its harbor and when he comes back to the ship he is fabulously rich and hands each sailor a gem to buy their silence as they quietly drop him off back to his home country. His father's letter, begging him to come home and take over the position of Baron, finally fills him with a sense of creation instead of a sense of destruction. Half of his brain which he had never had to utilize- how to preserve instead of expunge, forces him into a series of dilemma's when the hamlet has become a bustling village of self-autonomy. It has its own culture, rules, and positions separate from anything he has witnessed before, and no one seems to pay any mind to a ruthless killer that everyone still sees as an 8 year old boy tragically whisked away into the night 20 years ago.

>>10442610
dango that is well constructed

>>10424110
I have two. Both, during their schooling, were outcast and subject to bullying. They had one thing in common, and that was their friendship with a beautiful classmate. After she is kidnapped and they are mortally wounded, they go on a quest to save her while destroying the demon king. Only have the barebones outline currently.

>>10424110
My MC is a zombie whore from the future

>>10443006
this is your brain on anime
>>10443013
this is your brain on comics

any questions?

>>10442632

Appreciated, mate.

Hallucinating Starship captain refusing to adknowledge the dark shit he's done in his past

Protag is a severely deformed human clone with no working memory or education accompanied by a manifestation of cultural consciousness (appearing as a magpie on his shoulder). He is driven primarily by instincts and is regularly reprimanded and reined in by this companion.

>>10443471
>>10443514
sounds like an absolute treat.

My main characters are obvious self-inserts and entirely interchangeable in all stories I write.

>>10443815
heckk yeah. this guy knows how to fire up the slush pile

>>10424110
My main character is a sci-fi, anime, fantasy, tv show, slice of life cliché

also they’re a nuclear t*rr*rist who destroys dubai and tel aviv

>>10443963
Yet Tao Lin found a publisher.

>>10424110
I have no clue. I keep flip flopping and overthinking which results in me not getting anything done.

>>10444039
Great writers always do eventually.

>>10444231
bad writers like Tao Lin and Rupi Kaur do occasionally (often) as well

>>10444231
go to bed, tao

>>10444273
No

>>10424110
a modern day don quixote

critics rave

>>10445080
i have shit myself for the last time over your posts. get off the net. now. forever.

>>10424110
E-cigerette merchant with a gambling addiction

Cyberpunk distopia, the cigerettes can make the users feel certain emotions.

>>10445120
this promises boners at least.

>>10444182
then you're a better writer than these clowns that settle for a bad story and stick with it.

>>10445338
if it sells it sells. No need to be pretentious for your story when it has no clout behind it

>>10443099
I was inspired by isekai, but simply so I could write it better.

>>10445120
is it a manga
I'd watch it's anime adaptation

>>10445508
Why anime?

>>10446524
anime is more entertaining, manga requires too much for what it is

>>10424110
mine is a paragon of masculinity, a man's man, idealised and perfect. he gets ripped away from everything he loves and dropped into hellish nonsense and magic madness...as a dragon...

Only character I ever made that was fully written out in a work was a young aristocratic libertine who is to autismo to even fit in with his other libertine friends, so in a comical reversal he tries to become an moral upstanding square man in rebellion to his bohemian society but fails miserably.

>>10424110
Novel writing is for queers, poems are for real men

>>10424110
>anime niggers
>comics infants
>fantasy dweebs
>slice of life bugs
>psychodrama fags
you’re all WORTHLESS

>>10446764
What's wrong with the last two categories?

>>10424110
My main character will be a teacher who finds his students sexually attractive. I know its not very original, but its only going to be in one or two chapters really. I don't really have any idea beyond that. He's depressed and would commit suicide, but he was born Catholic (doesn't really believe, just goes thru the motions).

>>10447248
sounds like all of my class mates.

>>10447373
really?

>>10448754
No

>>10447373
Where are you from?

>>10449333
Europe

>>10447248
Go on

>>10448754
>>10449333

Canada.

I know several academics who are depressed, have had suicidal episodes, and play devil's advocate for Catholic institutions and doctrines of faith without really practicing any tenets themselves. The character in general, to me, is therefore a boring slice-of-life sort of person I would never actually bother to read about as I need to listen to their pedantic musings on a near daily basis and it's insufferable. I'm sure the MC would be insufferable, as well.

>>10447248
>>10446658
>>10446620
>>10445120
>>10445080
>>10443514
>>10442610
>>10441325
>>10440981
>>10440127
>>10439727

Aren't you worried that your characters and ideas can be stealed by anyone browsing this thread?

>>10450770


i posted >>10442610 and no, frankly, I don't think that idea can really be stolen and utilized by someone else. It's broad enough in its scope that you are able to get the gist of the character, but not specific enough that an idea-thief will be able to mold it into anything remotely interesting or tangible. Chances are, if you are a character thief, you're a talent-less hack who can't write anything in-between the character interactions either and will be doomed never to publish or share your stories.