/lit/ - Literature

>>11199815
Finish the outline.

>>11199815
No

Here to shill What Editors Do: The Art, Craft & Business of Book Editing again. It's been genuinely interesting so far and might give some of you fags trying to get published an idea of the other side of the desk.

>>11199815
Trying to figure out an ebay shop.

I need some money until I can get editing skills.

>>11201781
Post an excerpt

>>11199815
Writing a piece of shit novella online, trying to burn through some of my less developed ideas first.

>>11202804
Any section or concept in particular? Acquisition, a specific stage of the editorial process, stages of publication, categories of genre/etc., working in publishing?

Where is he now?

>>11203621
126K+ Last I saw the post.

I can't write till the end of June because of university stuff that puts too much anxiety on my back. However, my work ethic is decent, so I'm going to spend all of July & August writing.

I want to write a novel. How long will it take if I have no experience writing?

>>11203805
If you've read a lot of good literature, it shouldnt be too rough.
But you'll still want to practice a lot first. Don't immediately dive into an novel idea you're deeply invested in. Your first stuff will always turn out to be garbage no matter what.

>>11203805
My first took about ten months for 100k words, so about 10k per month. These days I'm around 35k words a month. Got eight books under my belt now, but the first two I'd prefer not to acknowledge.

You writing speed for your first novel will depend on which category you fall into. Overly-analytical and critical, where people to over-analyze their works and their constant despair over their own perceived lack of skill makes them either write at a snail's pace, or not at all. Most of /lit/ is probably in this category. Then you have the other side of that, which are the people who are oblivious to their own skill compared to others, and can just write without compunction. They end up being extremely productive, but never seem to improve. These are usually your autists without self-awareness. Redditors, DA fanfiction writers, normalfags, etc.

Ideally you'll want to be somewhere in between, where you can write without beating yourself down constantly, but are critical enough to realize what you're doing wrong and improve. I'm squarely in the first category, and if you want to use me as yardstick, it took me about two years and 300k+ words worth of writing before I started to consider myself anything close to "good"

>>11203621
just crossed 130k last night, senpai.
last chapter!

i got some good news last night. a well published erotica and romance writer from my writers group said she was interested in the story of Annabelle and the others and offered to copy edit the book for me (something she normally charges like $1000 to do for the Carnegie center) with a gentleman's promise that i try and push it to get trad published for at least a year. i was thrilled she offered and I'm taking her up on it. she also said that if i fixed things after after she gave it the "red pen treatment" that she'd even pass it on to her husband who's a NYT bestseller author as well. We've known each other for over a decade and I've been to her bookstore signings and all so now i'm reaping the rewards of networking. could be something, might be nothing.

>>11203884
Nice

>>11203884
congratulations anon, on your success

>>11203884
Nice. Have you looked at any publishers yet?

>>11203907
there's no guarantees but its a start in the right direction.

>>11204025
no, i've been concentrating on just finishing it first.

>>11204031
This is the full (historically accurate) soundtrack of the book.
1:A Forest- The Cure

2:Mary- Oingo Boingo

3:Pretend We’re Dead- L7

4:Voodoo People-The Prodigy

5:Big man with a gun- Nine Inch Nails

6: Bloodletting- Concrete Blonde

7. Stigmata Martyr- Bauhaus

8. Naïve- KMFDM

9: the passenger-iggy pop

10 Do you fear for your child? TKK

11 Love will tear us apart- joy division

12. Black sunshine- White Zombie

13. Running up that hill- Kate Bush

14 The Killing Moon-Echo and the Bunnymen

15 Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now- The Smiths

16 Just One Fix- Ministry

17 She’s in Parties- Bauhaus

18 World in my eyes- Depeche Mode

19 Ignore the machine- Alien Sex fiend

20 Burn-Nine Inch nails

>>11204025
Aren't you supposed to look for agents first?

>>11204051
>Forest- The Cure
Great track

>>11204091
You can do both. No one's saying you have to be firing off manuscripts left and right to anyone who'll take them. It can be interesting to get an idea of who's who in the publishing space related to your field of choice and makes discussion fodder if/when you meet with your agent.

There's a fortress that guards one major pass into a country. Winter has snowed the fort in so that it cannot receive messages or supplies. An army arrives in the dead of winter, and demands to enter to resolve a dispute between the country's Duke and a foreign power.

Sworn to defend the pass against all comers, the garrison must refuse, and fight a bloody siege without supply against a massively superior force. The fort's garrison are numerically inferior, and their supplies are scarce because of the uncharacteristically early winter. They begin to form factions against each other, some wanting to surrender the fort and some determined to hold it to the last man.

The story's protagonist is a young knight whose father was a wastrel who drank himself to death. He is desperate to clear his family name by being the most fanatical, chivalrous and virtuous man in the fortress, but everyone around him is degenerate and weak, so he alienates them simply by trying to resist vice and temptation. He is the leader of the "hold out to the last" faction, and only holds it together at all because he is the best fighter in the garrison. Treachery, intrigue and daily battle against the besieging forces ensue.

>see isekai (either written or in anime form)
>it's (99/100 times) shit
>get an urge to make my own
This happens with a lot of things, but it's especially strong here. The genre has a lot of potential, but basically all of it nowadays is manga or anime written terribly by some escapist otaku who shoves slavegirl harems and infodumps into everything. I honestly don't know of any western entries in the genre lately (not even sure it's a genre in the west).

Do I? I like to think I'm an ok writer, but I've never really written anything similar to this, I've done P&P GMing for years so as far as visualizing and describing things I'm decently proficient but it's obviously not quite the same. Where did others start anyway? Bring up whatever word processing program and start typing with little to no preparation coming up with stuff as it goes? Create the world, characters, and plot beforehand?

>>11204796
If you're going to copy a story, copy one that you think is good.

>>11204816
I do think the genre itself is good, there is a lot of potential for exploration of alien morality, contrasting lifestyles, and the impact of many fantasy elements on human society. However, the absolute vast majority of entries in this genre covers none of this, instead focusing on some shameless escapist fantasy where the high schooler protagonist gains superpowers and proceeds to defeat the demon king, picking up a harem of monstergirl slavegirls along the way.

How do I find more ideas?

>>11205114
Expose yourself to a wide variety of new information. Become more aware of your ideas in general. Most people say they have no ideas, they actually mean they aren't realizing the ideas they have as "ideas" in the literary sense.

>>11204796
The Neverending Story
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The Chronicles of Narnia

Thanks

>>11207009
no problem

>>11199815
Yes. Did I do a good?

Any good tips for writing an awesome horror story?

>>11208257
read Stephen King

>tfw I can only write consistently when I have degenerate thoughts swimming in my head
I just wrote a scene where the my female protagonist was impregnated by an orc. Somebody stop me.

>>11204796
Same, senpai. I've been tempted to write an isekai about someone who's summoned as a skeleton in another world because his soul got caught in some interdimensional magical bullshit and got mixed up in the necromancy or some shit. I'd almost certainly do it better any anyone else, but problem is, all the people that read that shit are too low IQ to even appreciate things like quality, and might even be put off if it's too well written, so it's really a waste of time.

>>11210276
>I'd almost certainly do it better any anyone else, but problem is, all the people that read that shit are too low IQ to even appreciate things like quality, and might even be put off if it's too well written, so it's really a waste of time.
I'd call this bait but since we're talking isekai you might actually be right.

>>11208257
Think concretely. Don't use abstract ideas, horror is about pulling from experience.

>>11210377
thanks

>>11211946
no problem

>>11201781
Am I wrong in assuming that all they do is read your already painstakingly edited work and tell you how to make it fit into some generic demographic so it sells?

>>11199815

Third proofing of second draft, so pretty close to being done. It's a fantasy comedy a la Discworld, a genre that seems to have pretty much died out but I still prefer to grimdark GoT shit.

>>11214798

Very much wrong. It's about striking a balance between sellability and authorial voice. Being an editor is probably as difficult of a task as being an author, even more if the book you have in your hands is shit but still in need of salvage.

>>11214861
Not going to make it

>>11214864
How so

>>11214798
Depending on their particular role it can include:
>Contract negotiation
>Writing flap and back copy
>Trying to convince the sales department a given book is worth selling
>Acquiring or commissioning works to publish
>Contacting famous authors to get them to blurb your work
>Manuscript development
>Keeping up correspondence with all authors, coworkers, etc.
>Applying for ISBNs, getting permissions for quotes, images, etc.
And yes, copyediting and line editing.

Of course not
I gave up long ago