/lit/ - Literature

I love writing! Wrote 400 more words for a short story last night

>>16212577
I love writing but I keep getting distracted by better call Saul. Promised myself I’d write 1000 words a day yet I’ve been averaging 3.5k a week all month long
>sure I can write with the tv on in the background, no problem
WHY DO I LIE TO MYSELF EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.

>>16212734
Binge the show in a day and you won't have anything left to distract you

I want to include a sex scene in my story, though it's not erotica. But I'm still not quite sure how to present it.

The safest route would be to keep it tasteful and not go much into the act itself. Focus on the emotions and meaning of the scene on this decorative, literary level, then to gracefully fade out before the end. That way, everyone can fill in the blanks in their imagination just the way they want, and feel nice and comfy about it.

At the same time, I'm kind of tempted to go into downright clinical detail and make it as long and awkward as I can, destroy any sense of childish romanticism and purity of ideal, to show this isn't some nerds' fap fuel but a critical character moment, and probably piss off a lot of waifufags in the process. I don't know.

How do y'all name, and keep your files fomatted?

I don't have a title for my story yet, so I've just been using the Date as a file name, but it gets confusing when I have multiple writing sessions.

Bump
>>16212734
Throw your TV away

>>16213164
dw about it. You're not going to piss anyone off because no ones going to read it.

Scrivener is a really nice tool.

/toy/ here
I'm thinking of going full autist with my hobby and write an epic involving my toys to then animate it, but I'm considering to make some independent episodes set before the main story begins to test the waters and such.

How does that sound?
Is there anything I should know before writing something like this?

>>16213604
Come up with a working title, it'll be a life saver. It doesn't have to be deep or clever. All of my working titles are jokes based on the premise of the story and when I finish, I re-save as the actual title.

>>16213604
like this, and I've people do even more elaborate stuff being done. You can utilize as much as you want or just treat it like a fancy overpriced notepad. It's such a versatile program that I recommend giving it a demo and pirating/buying it if you like it.

>>16215466
Did they ever update the Windows version?
Or are we still 2 full versions behind?

>>16215616
There's been a beta branch, but your project won't be backwards compatible.

I dunno who needs to hear this but the Library of Congress website is outstanding if you're researching a historical American setting.

>>16215034
Aw, I'm sorry, was that a little too hard? Let me ask something more on the level of these threads

HOW DOES I WRITE WORDS?
WHICH SOFTWARE WILL WRITE MY BOOKS FOR ME?
WHAT DO I DO WHEN I CAN'T DO ANYTHING?
WHAT MEANS ESL?

>>16213604
BOOKNAME roman number, revision version number.pages
Notes are just BOOKNAME roman number

>>16215309
Absolute fucking madman. I intend to do something similar later or convert the toy characters into humans and include them into muh universe. The world isn't ready for a gay nazi dog who talks an obese polar bear who got bullied and raped by his sheep teacher into hunting for jews.

>>16215878
>The world isn't ready for a gay nazi dog who talks an obese polar bear who got bullied and raped by his sheep teacher into hunting for jews.
I remember a time when the world was open for that.
Fuck the 2010s.

>>16216559
I mean, as a Jew I could probably still get away with it but I don't see it working even as an adult cartoon due the bizarreness of the premise likely overshadowing the humour.

Are you writing in a horror (or horror adjacent) genre? Do want to join a discord server with others who are doing this?

We also like:
talking about books
talking about horror films
philosophical pessimism
buddhism

FADE TO BLACK
https://discord.gg/R5WVzH9

>>16217038
is bizarro fiction allowed

>>16217153
Sure buddy.

>>16212734
I don't remember writing this post, but I'm in the exact same situation so I must have. I'm also binging Better Call Saul and really enjoying it as someone studying law. i'll try to get a thousand words or so done later tonight

>>16217287
Write in the mornings

>>16217294
Unfortunately the meds I take make me feel like I've been sleeping in the trunk of a moving car for a couple hours after I wake up

>>16217287
The binging advice is your best call.

I did same when I "discovered" Lucifer a week ago, finished the entire thing in 2-3 days and could move on ... just then the fucking season 5 dropped. One day later, I'm done again ... and posting here instead of working.

>>16217287
Yeah you did write that post, I know cause I’m you writing this post also. Hi, it’s me again, your schizo self poking through

Anybody do any skillshare courses for writing? Gonna do the 3 month trial so I want to know any good ones.
Also any great courses or masterclasses to learn from?

>>16217375
Well, since we're all here in one place, I hope you don't forget to at least put in a couple of job applications later. Unemployment pay is only going to get us so far now that the corona bucks have dried up

>>16217579
Not a Burger but I read that it's like 200-400 bucks a week for you, is that really an issue unless you're in a huge city?

Here in Germany it's 400ish a month + rent, which still leaves me with 50 bucks a month after drinking and weed and 150 without.

>>16212563
Question for /wg/. Would you rather be desperately poor and just scrape by as a an author, living month to month, or would you give up and get a real job.

I personally would rather be poor and a writer than successful as most other things.

>>16217594
I get about $200 a week right now and I live in a big city, so it's definitely not a lot. It was $800 a week with corona relief pay, so the difference is staggering. That said, I'm a student without a lot of bills, so I'm not going to starve anytime soon

>>16217619
Being able to scrape by on your writing is already making it compared to most people who have being an author as their dream. That said, plenty of famous authors had another job until they were really raking in dollars with writing, so I would preferably want something in the middle. There's no shame in having a "real" job and writing in your free time

>>16217619
If the job guarantees me just as much fun I could consider it, but I can't imagine any job that isn't pure cancer. Also does it mean giving up writing for good or just until I earned enough to quit the job?

>>16217625
Yeah, I suppose 800 bucks without anything for rent in a big city is not that comfy money-wise. Wasn't the relief just delayed or totally canceled?

>>16217619
I'm already holding down a job and refuse to make money off my work since that would mean having to make it less off a passion and more of a second job, I'd rather just die homeless then ever think about commercializing it

how should I screw up my protagonist's first kiss?

>he chickens out
>she gets her first period

>>16216736
idunno. There's Xavier: Renegade Angel, which is the ultimate pleb filter.

>>16217953
>he chickens out
Too pathetic unless you aim for the loser crowd.
>she gets her first period
As in shortly before the kiss and then looks for excuses to get distance, leaving him all confused? If it's revealed later, you could milk some cheap tension out of it I guess.

Something more specific to the characters sounds better though; say one of them being germaphobic and then totally spergs out when it almost happens or even more specific to some of their flaws.

>>16217973
Reading up on it, the stuff seems more of DUDE, WEIRD which seems easier to swallow than a more basic story which takes itself seriously but has characters that make you question it. Sort of like being on the extremes uncanny valley is better than in the middle.

>>16217642
They provided relief until a set date, so it expired. IIRC they're considering extending the relief period. It's desperately needed since everything is still pretty much shut down where I live

>>16217579
I actually applied for several. But I threw in some major typos just to see if they’d notice

>tfw top 20 in sci-fi genre on royalroad
We're all going to make it bros.

>>16218050
Nice. What is it about?

>>16218023
the "chickening out" one is actually pretty character-specific. I'm not going to get into full detail, but the boy found out the girl he loved was a special ed student right after he found out his whole life was a joke. He's drowning in self-hatred and has convinced himself he's taking advantage of her. In contrast, she's humiliated that her friends found out her secret and is worried that that the people she cares about see her as a retard. chickening out would be the worst case scenario

>>16218072
Oh, that's A LOT better. Had a spergy anime protagonist in mind when I read it.

>>16215771
>HOW DOES I WRITE WORDS?
You seem to have the hang of it.
>WHICH SOFTWARE WILL WRITE MY BOOKS FOR ME?
With sufficient outlining, Scrivener will make writing the actual prose relatively painless by allowing you to break your project down into manageable chunks.
>WHAT DO I DO WHEN I CAN'T DO ANYTHING?
Either put down nonsense and sort it out later, or engage with life until a new idea comes.
>WHAT MEANS ESL?
English (as a) second language.

>>16217287
>>16212734
You'll find your writing much easier to do if you have a place you go (coffee shop, preferably, but a park or a bar can work, too) to write whatever quota of words you've set for yourself. Having the distracting device in close proximity will make it nearly impossible to resist if you aren't ultra disciplined.

>>16217619
If the pay was steady, I would rather be a writer so I'd stop feeling like the comfortable failure I currently am. That being said, what you're describing sounds like it fall apart with a single dry month or stroke of bad luck with the publishers/freelancers/litmags. Still would be worth.

Why does someone kill? What drives someone to routinely murder, methodically, as long as they get away with it?

I am fascinated by the evil of human nature, the difference from what is a societal normal life to a drive to destroy. I want to write a story about a police detective and a serial killer who become intertwined as one tries to catch the other. I've had an overwhelming sense of justice that drives one side of the story, but it's hard for me to create a compelling character as a killer. Hannibal Lecter killed for the sheer pleasure, as someone who believed they were better than their victims, but as alluring and captivating as that story turned out to be, to me it isn't entirely realistic for someone to do.

I've been looking into the caught killers of the world, and all the unsolved crimes listed that people are trying to solve, trying to think as to why someone would go out of their way to commit murder at random. History has proven that the human mind is capable of processing and reasoning killing. War has been the typical justification, as people have often demonstrated excessive violence on victims laying in the street. From the time of gladius' to the bullet.

What would someone think when they are so broken in the mind they want to set off to kill? It's to be reasoned that reason is not usually the functioning aspect. I don't think writing someone with an unreliable, fractured mind would be difficult, but I feel like until I can understand why someone would want to kill, I can't even begin. A good story to me starts with gripping action, and the motive of insanity is the core of it.

I guess I just need to read more about the reality of it, but someone's own angle is always a good consideration, especially with the construct of telling a story.

What do you think, anon? What drives a man to kill on repeat?

>>16218110
Talking about ELS... Is it "They disagreed ABOUT the means and the ends" or OVER or ON? How is a non native speaker even supposed to tell.

>>16218126
People often kill out of financial motive or obvious passion reasons

Serial killers in the sense of like 100 female victims in 8 states are usually borderline retards with dumb impulses and little control over them

It's not that deep

Watch August Underground to deprogram yourself from fetishizing these morons

>>16218137
I think you have my attachment to this idea wrong, I don't glorify the people who do these things. Thanks for your deep input.

>>16218137
>usually borderline retards with dumb impulses and little control over them
This. I never got the fascination with serial killers. Any pocket thief would serve as a much more interesting protagonist.

>>16218146
Didn't use the word glorify. Used the word fetishize. I read your post, it was enough.

>>16218058
sci-fi space opera and anime waifus

>>16218165
Any yuri action?

>>16218136
>They disagreed X the means and the ends
>About
>Over
>On
These prepositions are all correct and nobody would give you too hard of a time for using them.
I would personally use "regarding" which is a shortened form of "with respect to." This, however, gives the sentence a pretentious or academic slant. That's my style, but it might not be yours. You're safe with the ones you've listed, so try to find the voice of either you or the character quoted.

>>16218172
somewhat

>>16217619
Bit of a false dichotomy. Like millions of other Americans, I’m currently “scraping by” at a real job. Personally I wouldn’t mind continuing to do that for the foreseeable future, so long as my writing found a decent audience. If just one person were to read my work and leave an honest review somewhere that made it clear that they understood what I was trying to say and that my execution was flawless then I’d feel vindicated as a writer. I’d like that better than, say, pulling a year’s salary in royalties on a book but every review was like “great book, five stars recommend”.

>>16218183
>These prepositions are all correct
Jesus. Why. English having so much breathing room at times makes shit harder than it needs to be. But yeah, thanks, anon. It's for muh query from the perspective of a teen, so "regarding" would probably be too much, so guess I'll just pick whatever of the three flows better with the previous and following sentences.

>>16218224
When you say "muh query from the perspective of a teen" are you saying that you're writing a query letter, and the letter itself is written from the perspective of one of the characters?

>>16218245
Nah, nothing THAT gimmicky. Just capturing their voice.

>>16218280
Okay, good. I was about to inform you that a query that goes "Omg, I am in SO much trouble" is going to make agents vomit (as much as I despise agents and wish for them to suffer).
Voice and tone are absolutely necessary, though. Good luck!

How do I force myself to write what's in my head?
I know exactly what I want to write plot wise, down to the specific chapter I'm writing, but I can't get myself to write much more than a paragraph or so before I get stuck on words, especially prose or dialogue because it's not sounding right or I don't know how to word a specific scene well
I know I should just write and get something down regardless of quality so I can go back to it again later and make it good, but I still seem to keep getting stuck

How the fuck do you get to Stephen King's level where you can just write three books casually at a time and finish them all in the span of a year? I know that /lit/ hates him, but it says something about his ability to just write it at the same level of effort and sell so fucking well, every year.

>>16218631
just read more books in the genre yours most closely aligns with

>>16218741
Rehashing your past books without any original ideas helps a lot.

>>16217953
>she gets her first period
Too unlikely and probably too hard to get right for most people on this board.

>>16218741
King will sit down, write a book, ignore it for a few months, and then send it for editing.
He plans absolutely nothing, and just writes whatever, hence why he has strong starts and terrible finishes.
Most of his stuff should've stayed as a manuscript and been only published posthumously.
King sells, but isn't read. Last time someone posted the stats, it was around 1/10th of people who buy King actually read them. He is just a well known writer that gets majority of his sales from 'airport readers'.

Don't be like King, be better.

So I've got this idea. The story would follow two narratives, one in the present day and one in the prehistoric past. They would both be connected by a similar family structure and the same interpersonal drama, and in the end of both narratives the respective protagonists find themselves in a cave. In the story set in the past the person leaves the imprint of his hand on the cave wall, hoping beyond all hope someone would understand him and what he's going through. In the narrative set in the present day, the protagonist would find the imprint and place his hand over it, the gap of millennia being abridged by sympathy and imagination.
The problem is I have no idea how to describe this. I can see it in my head clearly, and if it was a comic book it could easily be presented as a two-page spread with the two men as mirror images of one another, or having the picture of the hand on the page so the reader could touch it themselves.
But how do I do this with words? Help

>>16219646
> it was around 1/10th of people who buy King actually read them
Nani the fuck?

>>16213164
Go for the second one

>>16219743
They are like Patterson novels, people buy them, typically before a long haul flight, because they 'hear the author is good' and they clog up their shelves forever, unread.
Same with Self-help books. Probably even worse with self-help books.

>>16219783
But if you buy it FOR the flight, wouldn't it make sense to read it during said flight?

>>16219789
Anon is just coping, give him time.

>>16219789
I want to get into fishing.
I go out, and buy all the kit.
10 minutes in, and I am bored out my bonce.

Same principle.
People are excited at the idea, but not the execution.

>>16219801
So you're saying most people can't read even something as straightforward as a Stephen King novel?

>>16219810
Yes.
Most people don't read books at all.

>>16219818
Oh

I know exactly what I want to write. I can't bring myself to type. But I know every single word

>>16219898
If you could type that, why not the story?

>>16218126
Don't write what you don't know

I have written three books. Two were novels, both over one thousand pages each. That's edited down from three thousand plus pages each. The other book I wrote was a reference book about worms and other bugs. That book was 98 pages. I could have said 100 pages there, but I didn't. I said 98 because it was 98 pages.

That is the first lesson I have for everyone here. Clear, concise, and accurate information is important. You are communicating with the reader. Imagine the reader being someone less mentally empowered than yourself. Now talk to her in a way that she can understand. Clear, concise, accurate. For many, this is the absolute maximum amount of imputs they can take into their brain things, let alone understand and think about, even learn or become interested in them for later thought or discussion. So keep that in mind when you're writing and then maybe that will help and even if not it's kind of a interesting thing to think about.

>>16219732
Maybe using diferent narrators for each story?
I read a novel that was about a girl, and followed two stories. One before her husband killed himself (narrated in past third person), and one that was her life after her husband's suicide (in present first). It was a short chapther of each one intercalated.

>>16220584
No I mean that final scene with the hands.

>>16220598
Oh, sorry, I read your post quickly and didn't notice.
I don't get exactly what is that are wanting to do. Like a sort of "astral connection" between the two guys? What happen when he does that?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you see it only cinematicly, so maybe just describing it will suffice?

Have you read Night Face Up by Cortázar? Is about a guy who has an accident in a bike (in a modern city), while in parallel there's this story about this Mayan scaping people trying to capture him. In the end, SPOILERS, we discover that they are the same person. Something like that? Give it a try, it's like 8 pages length.

What are Adjectives?

>>16218631
I kinda have the opposite problems, I have no problem writing down what's on my mind but when I try to structure it I realize I don't even have an actual plot in mind. It's almost like I'm writing a diary. The only structured thing I ever managed to write was my undergrad thesis ffs.

>>16219898
>>16218631
A thought is just a thought in your head if it's not written down somewhere. It can only stay perfect in your mind. That's why you refuse to put pen to paper. Perfectionism is egoism.

>>16220642
> Like a sort of "astral connection" between the two guys?
Nothing at all magical. More of an empathic thing, like just two people who will never meet having the same kind of problems over a shitty day and going "I get you".
I'll check Night Face Up.

>>16218631
I might have about the same problem.

I know what I want to write but don't want to write it down because I don't have the exact words to stick it to some sort of in-paragraph theme, and ideally rhyme.

Take these rap lyrics for example
>All your bars subpar like good golfers
>I put a hole in one of you birdies with this Eagle and launch it
All the double entendres and play on the golf terms wouldn't work without of thinking of the idea to do it first, so the usual "just write" wouldn't do much for advancement; if I picked another/a theme in the revision, basically everything will need rewrites ... while picking the right theme is tricky at times, and sometimes also tricky to execute.

Outside of having moments when I get sick thinking about it and just move on, I haven't found a way around my autism.

>>16220666
Niggardly

>>16220864
at least if you "just write" you can shitpost on an anonymous message board about it. it's not even existent if it's not even written down.

>>16218126
When you kill someone, you have complete power over them, similar to rape. You are the master and decide whether or not their life is worth continuing and usually it's not. If you have them confined or trapped, you can take as much time as you need to make them understand wholly that you own them and any time they still have is only due to your mercy. With a quick, less methodical death, it's a sudden outburst of power and ecstasy. Society, family, etc. has stripped you of feeling alive and so you must reclaim that by taking one's life and absorbing their life force into you. Sex only plays a part to enhance the absolution of your control over them; rarely is it about a certain fetish or actual lust. You strip them of what they perceive to be their most personal and sacred place. Women today believe they can use their sex as power, to control men and get what they want; the look in their eyes when they realize this is no longer the case and the situation has been completely reversed is what gives live to a man, gives him a reason to keep going. It's never about the actual sex, the climax, none of it. The lust is for the power that all men crave. You just have to be willing to seize it.

>>16219818
including /lit/

>>16221710
Especially /lit.

>>16213164
Go for the first one
If it's a critical CHARACTER MOMENT, then presenting the characters themselves rather than their genitals as the centerpiece of the scene is probably better

>>16215309
Desu, sounds kind of based
>Anything I should know
Read Aristotle's poetics or listen to it on an audiobook, it'll dispel all retarded modern writing advice, it also talks about epics a lot

>>16218741
There was this lady that wrote even more and wasn't a total shitter like King.
I completely forgot her name, though. Sorry.

>>16218050
What is Royal Road?

>>16219732
This sounds almost identical to Alan Moore's book Voice of the Fire.

>>16222978
It's a web novel platform like Wattpad, Quotev, or Scriblehub.

>>16223023
Is there some sort of standardized setting? I remember reading a webtoon where all the characters play a game called Royal Road, but it's a standard fantasy game.

>>16223049
Not particularly, but it's a case of you read a few and you read them all. No two fictions are alike but they share basic formulas and stuff.

It's more or less the home of litRPGs, isekai and everything fantasy of that nature, so if you publish anything else that isn't one of those you're facing a 90 degree uphill battle.

>>16218165
Based. Honestly thinking about writing a space opera on that site just for fun and some writing practice. Might try to see how closely I can copy legend of the galactic heroes and get away with it

>>16222099
What always gets me with a lot of the modern writing advice is that none of the actual good authors follow it. Has always seemed like guidelines that publishing companies pushed in order to get a bunch of submissions that fit a certain formula

>>16223123
wait a minute, that sounds similar to what I'm doing... good luck anyhow. Maybe you might even be more successful than I am. You should post it here if you ever do get around to publishing it anyhow.

>>16213164
read some fanfiction and do the opposite of that

Is it even remotely believable if I write a female main characters but she is just the basic brooding middle age man having an existentialism crisis with long silent walks and such?

>>16217619
most good authors weren't 'authors' you gotta have something to write about, experiences etc, even when oyu write ficion. i mean tolkien just wrote about ww2 but 2000 years ago.
so yeah all those coffee houes writers cant write shit because words and vocabulary cant make art. art can only be honed and mastered through experience, and therefore is unteachable, even by those with experience, because how can you recommend someone 'bro just have experiences bro'
samurai tried to force this with their journeys but even still thats not a surefire way to master an art and most samurai just became assholes

>get this far
>lose the spark
>start reading back
>it all reads like garbage
there's really not a worse feeling I've felt before

>>16223233
May the best LOTGH copy win

>story shifts to follow the most recently introduced characters
schizo or based?

>>16223498
Honestly being able to look at your own work and see that it's not good is a good thing. Try to figure out what went wrong and work on it. It's a lot better than being very deluded and submitting what you think is a 600 page masterpiece but is actually 600 pages of complete garbage to a publisher

>>16223533
It's only based if you gaslight the readers into believing that the original characters never existed at all

>>16223498
but dont move on when u realize its shit. go back through, shit what in particular is shit, fix it, and then implement it into your writing.
you yourself are continually dying and being reborn, the man that wrote that is dead, and he died that you may know him and become a greater iteration than he.

>>16223541
>impl6ing any of the characters ever existed

First week of Creative Writing class and I've placed my classmates in a ranking based on their introductory posts (what they said, what books they said they read, what I scumread).

>>16223519
wait no, I don't want competition, I'm bad at those!

>>16223676
Have fun with creative writing class, anon. Mine was a real treat. From guys with quills and inkwells to playing with toys at barnes and nobles. It had everything

>>16212563
Is anyone here published? If so, can you share your work? I'm just curious if anyone here is living the dream it will make me happy to know one of use can make it.

>>16223684
yo but a nice fountain pen and some real notebook paper is unmatched in feel. especially since you can really explore the shape and sense of letters and that entire visual portion of writing that is difficult or impossible while typing.
especially prefer for poetry which is my main

>>16223794
I bought a fountain pen once. I messed up somehow and ended up with ink all over my shirt. It did feel pretty great for the five minutes or so that I got to use it though

>>16223814
bro is it broken? im sure you just gotta wash it out or put a new nib on, shits fun as hell wouldnt slight it off a bad experience, got a bit of a learning curve but its worth

>>16223835
I don't think it's broken. I just messed up when putting an ink cartridge in and never bothered to get a refill. I still have it on my desk, so maybe order some ink and give it another try

>>16223847
what do you write with it mainly?

>>16223850
Just random notes. I was using it to work on my handwriting since it has always been very sloppy

>>16223888
checked.
you dont write creatively at all? you dont feel the need to?

>>16223890
I do write short stories and stuff, but when I do that I'm usually using my laptop since it's just a lot faster. I'll write something on paper if I'm on a long commute or something though, or if I feel like I'll be too distracted on my computer on a certain day

>check out royal road
>go through the synopsis for a few of the most popular publications on the site
>they all read like fanfiction of an anime or light novel I went through years ago
Huh...I'm actually intrigued. Seems like you don't need anything original to garner thousands of regular readers online

>>16222988
N-no it doesn't...

>>16224749
So is royal road all genre stuff?

>>16212563
I’ve always adored early 20th century British children’s literature, what with its clever prose and comfy characters and setting. I wanted to use that in my own children’s novel. The story follows a young (around 7 years old) princess escaping her warring kingdom alongside a gallant old knight who serves as her protection during their trek to their destination, another kingdom to which the princess shall be kept safe. I wanted it to be read very similarly to Winnie the Pooh and Alice in wonderland, particular favorites of mine, being very comfy and wanting the reader to go on some adventure. I already have a chapter fleshed out in my mind; during their journey, the knight wakes up to find that his armor has gone from the place that he had put it the night before. The princess reveals that she hid them all over the forest that they had been sleeping within, saying that they have been walking for too long and she needed a break from the journey. The knight, tilting his head to the side in a loving manner towards the princess, gets up to find his armor, much to the princess’s frustration, who follows him as he searches and asks all sorts of questions about the trees and the forest. He finds a helmet tucked away in a hole, his shield wedged in between a dead tree, and his shining sword balanced on a stone above a wide pond. Eventually he finds all of the pieces, but by then the sun was too low in the sky for them to go on any journey on that day. Seeing as how there isn’t any real rush to reach their destination, the knight decides that the princess’s cunning plan had indeed worked, and he made sure to hide his armor every night afterwards. Should I write it out fully?

>>16224893
Seems like it, yeah. I'm reading through a chapter right now and while it's physical torture, it's interesting to find out what the average reader online is looking for. Doesn't seem to matter at all that every character is the exact same, and talks with the same syntax; or that every other line is a cliched phrase. I honestly recommend checking it out. Reviewers even give out perfect grammar scores with glaring issues on the first page, but they can't even spell common words properly in their reviews, so it's not too shocking

I'm conceptualizing a post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel with the main characters sharing names from the King Arthur mythos. Arthur is a young mechanic, and Merlin is a schizophrenic soothsayer who gives out prophecies in the form of references to novels that only he has read, since he's the only human who is old enough to have lived in a time before civilization on earth collapsed. His schizophrenia being caused by biological immortality taking a toll on his brain. Arthur goes on a quest for the sword of power, which is the only ship capable of rescuing his people from a dying planet. He thinks it's a sword because, again, Merlin is schizophrenic. Also, Gawain is a gay alcoholic from a seafaring colony that Arthur meets halfway through the first novel. Thank you for reading my blog post

>>16225000
Do Lancelot and Guinevere still cuck him?

>>16212563
I was just reading a book, when I stumbled across a passage that I could not forget in which a mother asks her son "with beautiful candour" what is he going to do in Dublin.
This description of the question of the mother, the adjective used by the narrator, seemed to me a little off –lazy, even. It looked like it could be applied to anyone, not just to his mother. It didn't add anything to the word "mother".
>with beautiful candour
It felt almost mechanical to me.

Does that make any sense?
How would you describe a question of a mother? Which adjectives would you use?

the book was Dublinesca by Vila-Matas. and it's shit.

/wg/, I don't know what to do. my story developed 3 different pedophilia-related subplots all going down at the same time and my book was not supposed to be about pedophilia

I'm fighting with myself about how to fix it while still keeping the parts that matter to me, and it seems like the simplest way is to change one specific character's personality and motives, but I can't think of a new version that I'm satisfied with

>>16225025
Yes, and it hurts even more because Lancelot is Arthur's biological brother. Can't have a King Arthur inspired story without Arthur being cucked

>>16222084
>then presenting the characters themselves rather than their genitals as the centerpiece of the scene is probably better
That's the thing that bothers me. People do have genitals, this is an undeniable fact. Why act like they don't? Why not speak about things as they are? Why do people often treat sex in books as something that cheapens the story, or makes it less serious, or less "artistic"? It makes no sense. You may be correct when considering the audience effect, but that's also why I think the cage should be rattled.

>>16225213
Truthfully I think that sex in fiction novels is rarely ever justified. Most people are fine with the implication that two characters slept together. Pages of erotica describing the act don't really add anything to the story unless something crucial to the plot happens in the middle of it. Nobody is excited about Dany chapters in GoT because she's being slammed by some dude, they want to see if anything new is up with the dragons

To all the aspiring writers in this thread, how do you feel that it'll take 10-15 more years before you make it, if you do? Late 30's, early 40's, this is pretty common, the year that most author/teachers give, is 15 years of writing every day, and that's for the people who do make it.

>>16225213
>It makes no sense
Of course, I wasn't thinking when I wrote this. It does make perfect sense. It's because writers themselves don't take sex seriously. They write sex scenes for every reason but the one why people actually have sex, to pander, to boost their MC as a chad, to indulge in their personal fantasies, and whatever inane bullshit. And that's probably the reason why the subject is such a joke.

>>16225233
I don't care. I'll just be studying and doing a normal job in the meantime. Nothing worthwhile ever happens overnight

I didn't want to make a thread about this.
Why do you guys write? In my case i do it for myself,i write stories that get stuck in my mind until i write them in paper.

>>16225281
Because putting words together and seeing what they turn into is fun.

>>16225233
I'm only 18, and writing is only part of my life. I have plenty of other things to keep me going. It doesn't bother be too much. In 15 years I'll only be 33. I also think I could easily have something published long before that, and my goal isn't really to make a career out of it, it's just to write for the sake of writing and the hope that someone enjoys my stories.
Of course, it would be amazing to become a well selling and well respected author, able to live off my work, but I don't particularly mind if I never get that far.

>>16225281
I'm 24 and realizing that I'm not getting any younger nor will I probably have the free time and stuff to daydream about the stories in my head forever.

Coincidentally someone ate bat soup on christmas week '19 and further gave me a inclination to write before I perish in some way or another.

I think the aspect of getting other people to pay attention to something I created with my own two hands and get engaged into it is enough to make me happy.

>>16225281
To put it bluntly writing is a talent that I find rather easy to cultivate and I see it as the easiest option to uplift me my family and friends out of poverty

>>16212563
How does one gain a following as an author? (I'm not talking self-publishing bs) Does it just take years of writing books for relatively nothing and jumping through agents hoops while hoping for some inkling of recognition?

>>16225429
I plan on book tours with bands to gain an audience and collaborating with musicians

>>16225446
hippy

>>16225077
Answer this, you fags

>>16225429
Attend events at bookstores, libraries, meets, expos, etc. Ask media people, youtubers, whatever hipsters to interview you, and so on. This surprises authors these days but a lot of publishers expect you to take an active role in advertising your own works. They are likely to even force you to, by contract terms.

Not all that different from self-publishing.

>>16215466
what program/thing is this?

>>16225585
dang that sucks, thanks for the advice.
I thought I would be able to bypass the bullshit but I guess authors have such little value nowadays

>>16225585
is it even worth it to go the traditional route if I can grow a community better through self publishing?

>>16225644
Big publishers don't sell books, they sell authors, so they want your mug everywhere. Your new book is already yesterday's news, they want people to get excited for YOUR next work, which will make them more money!

>>16225733
The traditional route still has the advantages of making sure your text is intelligible, that you don't fuck up your cover and formatting, and so on. Printing, media connections, and distribution are their strength, which self-publishers and print-on-demand houses can't really rival yet.

>>16225735
>>16225754
thanks, it sucks coming to terms with the reality of publishing

My story has characters say “fag” and the like occasionally, without being vilified by the text. Are online fiction sites like Royal Road going to deny my posting? Looked through their guidelines, I think it would fall under hate speech regardless of context.

>>16225824
Rewrite it so it's British and he uses "fag" when referring to cigarettes.

>>16225824
Just add the "profanities" content warning on RR, and nobody should have anything to say about bad language. I think Wattpad is stricter. Scribblehub has no rules. Don't know much about others.

How can I say more, with less? I write for fun, but I would still like to have at least some substance to the words I use. Here is a pic of some of my recent stuff. There are a lot of characters, sorry if reading this is confusing.

>>16224749
Readers don't want original ideas, just a little twist on crap they already know.

>>16225169
Based.

>>16226110
why do you write upside down?

>>16225213
People also shit and take a piss and have to eat and drink constantly. Why would I write about it?

Sexposition is the only way to include sex without it being tacky but it gets old fast.

>>16226135
Don't be rude at Australians

>>16225601
scrivener, it's essentially a word proc with folder functions and tons of general tools that make writing long form fiction a real treat

>>16225233
>15 years of writing every day, and that's for the people who do make it
Sounds about right. I started at 15 and feel like I could make it at 28-29. And back I expected it to take about as much. It's not a fucking sprint.
Besides, making it is nice and good but just a bonus.
>>16225281
Writing is fun. Planning out a book is fun. Drawing potential covers and characters is fun. Breaking my brain over a consistent naming scheme for chapters is fun. Imagining that someone else could have even a tiny sparkle as much fun reading it ... is fun too.
>>16226110
Rewrites and more rewrites. Basically you need to understand the scene to know what to compress and what to cut out.

Hope you have some OCR software to turn this into text though. It takes FAR more effort on paper.

>>16226126
Interesting. Would you say someone who hasn't read any of the genre but used to watch similar anime has the chance to cater to the crowds there?

>>16215309
Whenever I’m planning out action scenes or big battles I use my large collecting of bionicle MOCS to plan em out

>>16226186
Seems likely but it'd be still helpful to read a few relevant and modern genre works to know what language resonates most with the audience.

>>16225233
>>16226171
Is it really 15-ish years?
I'm almost 30 now, and only recently started writing more. I would like to perhaps work towards a book in the next year or so, but knowing that I won't be worth dirt until I'm nearing 45 is a little disheartening.
It kind of takes the 'writing for fun' out of writing.

>>16226140
I think it says a lot about your personal views that you compare love-making to shitting and pissing

>>16226553
It takes 10 thousand hours to master a new skill. If you wrote 24/7 for over a year, that would be all you needed.

>>16226564
Well, duh. Just like it says a lot about someone's views if they romanticize basic desires like sex.

>>16226553
I'd say 15-ish is rather on the long side of things and more applicable when one starts early. As an adult, a lot things are way easier to learn, you likely have far more life experiences, a better ability to self-reflect, etc, etc

Though still, there is quite the learning curve and the usual dunner krugering pitfalls. You might get to a decent level by 35 if you take it seriously enough or might realize that all you did so far until then was just a tutorial level. More writing, less worrying, nigga.

>>16226186
lmao people always act like writing successful trash is the easiest thing in the world. Yet, for every one success story there are 5000 pathetic failures. As bad as the top stories seem, their success is a sum of many fortunate factors rather than just "crap everyone knows but with a twist".

>>16226613
How does one take away the other? "Crap everyone knows but with a twist" is just a basis to have a most likely chance to be one of the few lucky ones.

>>16226577
But the whole point is not to idealize it, but to treat it as it is, a natural, integral part of human interaction, without which none of us would be here. We could be having this same conversation about dialogue.
>"Communicating with one another is an essential part of our lives."
>"So is taking a dump. Why write about it?"
>"I don't think they're quite the same thing."
>"Well, I think they are huuurrr duuuurrrr"

>>16226640
Because it's bullshit and doesn't actually increase your chances at all, because everyone is doing the exact same thing.

Those of you "in the know", aside from writing more gooder, what steps did you take to improve your chances of getting published
i.e. who did you choose to meet and why, how to present your work etc.

Is this well known? I just looked up all of my Professor's published works, (5 different ones, 4 fiction 1 non fiction) and they all have circlejerk reviews from other professors, published by an obscure outlet with close to no sales, what the fuck is this?

>>16226650
>We could be having this same conversation about dialogue.
Which why I pointed out sexposition. As long sex is used as a way to convey information relevant to the story, there is nothing wrong with it, just like someone having diarrhea or having to take a piss before a crucial job interview or date is perfectly good too. While just having these things for the sake of it, would be a waste of everyone's time. Same applies for rambling dialogue that gives minimal insights into characters. It's why good written dialogue tends to be way more compact and on-point compared to the real deal.

I feel like I can't write anything, because I don't know anything.
I have very little experience with social interactions, and even less when it comes to real world experiences. So when I think of a neat idea for a story set in high school, I would have nothing to really base on how the characters will talk to each other, the social inclinations of young adults, etc.
Anybody else feel this?
I know I should just leave the specifics unexplored, and allow the reader to imagine that it works the way they think it works, and they won't even notice; but from a worldbuilding perspective, I feel like I cannot make a realistic setting in any capacity because I am a manchild that does not know how the world works in any meaningful capacity.

>>16226703
I've made a distinction at my Uni, of academic writing versus real world writing. It seems like all of my professors published works are all an odd kind of facade

>>16226673
>because everyone is doing the exact same thing.
But either mess up the balance or have a new element that isn't compelling enough. Or just suck even more.

>>16226717
Time to grab a news paper, find a fake mustache, put on a long coat, and stalk real people.

>>16226717
you could make a bizarro high school, and play out conversations with the wall

>>16226717
this could be a benefit if you were to write a surreal horror story

>>16226730
Oh my god, no, are you fucking kidding me?
That engenders a very outside-looking-in writing style.

>>16219732
Maybe just have the climaxes occur sequentially?
Like one chapter that has the caveman making his cave drawing, then that chapter ends, and the next chapter ends with the real climax.
If you wanted to make it heavy handed, maybe use repetitious phrasing, to grab the attention of casual readers and give them a "this reminds me of that previous thing" feeling.

Thoughts on third person omniscient? I'm a fan but it's not popular these days.

>>16226717
have you watched any movies or TV in that setting? Rarely realistic and yet there's cult-like dedication to high school media.

>>16226736
>>16226737
But it wouldn't be unsettling in a Twilight Zone sorta way, it would just be weird.
>>16226762
But I face the same problems in non high school settings as well. Like, it wasn't until I wanted to write a mystery story, but I realized I have no idea what the average life of the average person is like, how the weave of society is sewed, or anything.

also third person limited is the most based, but I grew up reading Harry Potter so I might be biased

it would be cool to make short little writing prompts here, and the good replies can be posted on a tumblr blog for /wg/ writing prompts so we can get more feedback

>>16213164
If you did the second one it would need to reflect or deepen the characters somehow, rather than brutal mechanics. If you want to reflect how the character is awkward and that it doesn't just end in romantic love but his bed life continues to be as awkward as his life on two feet, would be a nice touch. Maybe be less brutal in the descriptions and say he didn't know where to place his hands, or that he was nervous but the girl was okay with it, kind of mildly expectations subverted without being smutty.

>>16226762
>Thoughts on third person omniscient?
Too much distance, no a fan unless done very, very well.

>>16226769
If only you lived in times when lots of people document their lives, interests and hobbies online and even more people comment with other details.

>>16226774
>WP: You are a ghost, checking in on your wife who has now taken a new lover.

>>16226800
That's weird, they seem to be roleplaying as longtime companions, even though I only died weeks ago.

>>16226800
>they have two children
>ages 8 and 13
>I died 3 years ago

guys I am having trouble from moving scene to scene, when there is a passage of time without saying 'a few weeks later/a month later' unless I just give indications like 'the trees were now orange, a chill was in the air' but this also feels like filler.

also when I start a new scene I feel the need to write a paragraph of what happened between then and that point... necessary to put time and place... and I'm having difficulty choosing what could be written out vs just flat out being a cliff notes summary of it.

>>16226815
Just put the time and date as the title of the chapter.

>>16226815
Transitions are bitch to get right and often the easiest thing to look for to judge someone's writing ability. Take your time with them. Also generally less is more. Think in terms of tension and character instead of the passing time. It's not whether a day or a year passed but how it affects the story.

Is there a website where I can just post my shitty short stories, tag them, and then get feedback on it?
Like WattPad but less cringe. Or like DeviantArt, but less cringe, and writing focused.

Hopefully something meant for writers, like you have to read and review X stories, and you get Y reviews in return, to encourage people to actually review other peoples' entries.

>>16226989
Isn't that just the crit threads

>>16226769
you're overthinking it. being a good writer is being a good observer, even if that's primarily of already existing works. I don't agree with the notion that you need "lived experience" as a say, hispanic, to write something compelling and authentic.
>>16227147
no one posts, they just complain about how they have writer's block.

>>16225077
bro link the whole passage not just some schizo impression of it that you had in a fever dream
also it depends on the nature of the question, the nature of the son, the nature of the mother, and the nature of the prose style. if you used a simile and it wasnt poetry, it might seem too romantic and off. in order to answer this question youd need the whole context of the book. but essentially what your saying is that hte author was bad so the context given was ass and the author still failed at converying the shit she was trying to

>>16226989
>Like WattPad but less cringe. Or like DeviantArt, but less cringe

Is this some kind of a guessing game?

>tries to write a young adult fantasy novel
>50k words in
>realizes he's written about torture and ritual sacrifice and now ass rape
>rethinks plans

>>16227640
As long you still have young adult protagonists and their problem somewhat resemble the problems teens have to deal with, some ass rape and ritual sacrifice on the side won't hurt.

>>16227640
>YA novel
why are you guys writing YA? Do you really think you're gonna get some terrible 4 part movie deal somewhere down the line?

>>16226989
Scribophile is exactly what you're looking for. It still has a lot of cringe stuff, but some of the authors are published there.

>>16228416
Not him but someone has to redefine the genre again to make it more about coming of age and Bildungsroman than choosing between a blonde alpha and a brooding dark haired guy.

Also yeah, that movie deal.

>>16223320
Was she a middle age man before being a girl?

>>16225090
>tfw you got like four old man-young woman pairings in one story for some reason and one ends in a marriage
Does every pedo subplot revolve around that character? Why?

>>16228482
this
if Ready Player One can get Spielberg, it's literally just a lottery, a numbers game
If you have a YA book that has alright reviews at the same time a studio is desperate enough, that gets to be you.

Is there any money to be made on royalroad? I have like thirty chapters already prepared that could carry me for a while

>>16212563

i finally have a week of vacation so i can taste that "quarantine lifestyle" that i heard of... can't go nowhere so i will try to write at least 5 or 6 hours every day and publish something on amazon or maybe publish chapters on substack (?) at teh end of the week.

what's promising:
i have been toying with an idea for years that morphed many times but the core remains fairly the same, as if i really need to tell that story in general before moving on so that's settled. i have the idea, lot of interesting material in general(concepts regarding philosophy, politics, environment etc) and just thought of a way i could even add a "twist" where i end up making a meta-commentary on the use of a novel as an object in all of this.

what's worrisome: idk how i will keep on track. maybe i should write a proper "plan" .

it's about alchemy, the environment, rural lifestyle. anyone have tips so i can see this through.

I have had an idea for a book for a while, something that has constantly kept coming back to me in between writing sessions, but every time I start writing it I feel like I can't do it the justice with my current skill level.

Do I just write it anyway, and hope that I can improve it in the second draft, or do I sit on it until I 'potentially' improve?

Is it ableist to use blindness as a metaphor for igorance?

>>16228522
only two of them do.

Basically, that character was a womanizer with a broad definition of "woman". another character involved was a younger boy he treated as his protoge. The protoge idolized him growing up, but now that he has a protoge of his own – and a girl at that, one who's very clearly in love with him – he realizes the guy is a scumbag and doesn't want to be anything like him. Unfortunately, he's just run into the guy for the first time in years and found out his old mentor has a new protoge – also a girl who is also in love – and she's been thoroughly groomed and is now influencing his own protoge.

The thing is, if I change him from a womanizer to merely a different kind of bad influence I can probably strip out both their pedo arcs, (I'll still keep the first girl's crush but this will remove any creepy temptation from the boy's motives).The problem is that what this "bad influence" is is limited by the setting. It's a wilderness survival setting. he can't teach the kid to commit crimes because there's no society to commit crimes against. He can't get the kid into drugs because there are no drugs around (plus that would be edgy as fuck)

right now, the only decent idea I have is that he's a storyteller who is compelled to do whatever he thinks makes the best story, even if it means hurting other people

>>16218126
> I want to write a story about a detective and serial killer who become intertwined

In my opinion that's a very bad idea. Not only is it one of the most stale and over-done clichés in Literature but it is also extremely unrealistic. I have good friends who are detectives, it's not one person in charge of everything, there's a Senior Investigating Officer who manages 20+ detectives for something as serious as murder (not to mention serial murder). One of those detectives will be required to retrieve and watch CCTV for a whole shift, another pair to take statements from a witness, etc etc. It's highly unglamorous, bureaucratic, office-based work.

If you must, then write about a serial killer, but have them become "intertwined" with literally anyone other than a detective or your work will be doomed.

>>16229266
>it's not one person in charge of everything
he can set the story back in the 70s or 40s or something when that was the case.
Hell, set it back to the 1890s and turn him into a bounty hunter, there are tons of ways you can adapt these stories

>check this royalroad thing
>go to ongoing fictions
>one of the first novels listed features the RE: meme from shitty "deconstruction" anime

>>16229245
I don't intend to go to bat for those guys but weirdly enough I don't think an adult man picking up a little girl as his couple/lover/wife would be all that questionable in a society-less setting, pic related, so I'm not too sure if you should get rid of it or not.
Is there an event that severs the relationship between those two guys, though? From what you say your setting is, it sounds to me like a break up could be lethal for someone who is not old or strong enough to take care of himself on his own.

>>16229430
when I say wilderness survival, probably should have specified that this is post-apocalyptic and the size of the group they're in more or less amounts to a single large found-family. They still have modern sensibilities and find pedophilia highly objectionable.

as for going off on your own, the guy was a charismatic sociopath who dragged others with him when he went off on his own. his new protege was someone his group found

the reason he was kicked out was that he went out on an exploration mission with a few others and during the expedition he repeatedly undermined the leader before eventually leaving her to her fate when she got captured

>>16218072
You want CONFLICT in your stories. So this is the best option. Always go for worst case scenario and dig yourself out from there.

>>16229126
If it keeps coming back, yeah. Write it down for later. You never know. I regret not writing things down earlier, no matter how inconsequential.

>>16229126
King once said that he thought up 'Under the Dome' before 'Carrie', but when he started it it felt too much for him to take on. He then went away and wrote a bunch of other stuff, but kept coming back to attempting 'Under the Dome', never quite happy with it.
Eventually, decades later, he felt he could sit down and write it to the level it deserved.

I don't know if that helps, but keep trying. Maybe one day you will get it right.

>>16229327
Kek, I checked out that one. These people are just copying their favorite anime. But hey, if it works and they're making money off of it then who am I to insult them. I don't think anyone is going to a web novel site expecting quality fiction to begin with

>>16230176
It's more that I think using that format for the title is super pretentious and, dare I say it, cringe.
Not just in that page but in the original anime that used it.

>>16230059
Three ongoing pedo plots is too much though. Particularly when two out of the three older guys in their respective relationships are protagonists and one of them is the main character and narrator

Here's what I'm thinking: rather than focusing on the sexual aspect of it all, the guy beieves heavily in animal magnetism and it has some influence on how he treats others. I'm going to need to do some research on this though. /x/ is probably the best place to look, because most sources I'm finding online focus on its history as medicine rather that the socially manipulative part of it

Anyone here have some success on royal road? I've told my friends for years that I could write a decent wuxia story since the formula is so easy to follow, and I'm seriously considering starting on that since the whole cultivation genre thing seems pretty popular right now for some reason

>>16230703
lol setting up a patron and discord for it right now. it does seem lucrative if you put in the time

>>16230716
I figure that I may as well do something productive with my time since I'm not employed right now. Even if I don't hit it big on royal road, at least I'll be getting consistent writing practice in

>>16229038
>substack
I have a problem with substack. I published some of my shit there but it didn't get anywhere because as far as I can tell you need a list of emails to invite people to subscribe to it. I mean I suppose I could scrape the internet and spam it, but that's unrealistic for me. I'm not active on social media so it's pointless to just post everywhere subscribe to my substack, despite the fact that it contains answers.

>>16230801
And I might add like any network it promotes those with the highest response rates, the most popular ones, because that benefits the network. Content for new contributors who weren't originally on board with it gets drowned out.
If I can't break the sound barrier then I might as just write in a journal and keep it to myself, because these publishing platforms are driven by commercialist-populist irrationalism.

>>16230773
sounds good man, hit me up at Pax Invictus#2097 if you want to talk about it further

>>16228416
Talking about YA, how fucked am I if there is no single antagonist?

My protagonist betrays the mob and is later hunted by the government too, meet a secretive guy who knows his secret in the middle of the story – but pretty much every problem and conflict is initiated by the protagonist and there isn't THAT one person who opposes him. Tbqh I don't remember anything similar like that in the genre outside of issue books where it's about racism or cancer.

>>16230703
Success is subjective. I've been going at it for about 4 months now and despite the harsh criticism I got at the beginning I think I'm happy of the success I've garnered so far.

Hey guys if I posted a poem here could you guys tell me how it came out ? Like critique and how you lads liked or disliked its elements?

>>16231079
you might want to wait for the next thread when it's busier

>>16230942
in that case, make the antagonist either a) the protagonist himself, b) a part of his psyche

you don't have to go full tyler durden, but definitely sow some seeds of the main character and his motivations being his own worst enemy

>>16212563

You should all listen to me. It is exceeingly rare that I should brag. I have spent my entire life being told I should hate myself. Regardless of circumstances if you are reading this message then it means some truth has survived the stabbiings, beatings, robberies, death threats and much more. I am prepared to face the human condition alone an truthfullu, and only the most dishgusting and killable enmity could think otherwise.

To elaborate and I have no shame in admiting the fact I am drunk because my ancestors have been doing it for thousands of years, our system is governed by animal instincts. Human existence will either die out within the next 100 years or we will rise to the occsion. All existing political systems are cowardly comparisons to the full will of human existence. We deserve to overrun boomers and their disgusting heretical rule. Fuck you and fuck you too. My parents are bette than me despite their trust in the existing order. The existing order is a criminal lie and I demand every government agency listen TO ME

>>16212563
send help. need to rewrite parts of my story after my phone died. I wanted to be special and write on an offline service.

>>16231439
>sow some seeds of the main character and his motivations being his own worst enemy
It goes way beyond sowing seeds but a cocky fuck creating problems for himself and struggling between being the person he wants to be and the person he needs to be ... just doesn't sound as concise and satisfying as dealing with another person who opposes him through the plot with an emotional climax and clash of ideas in the end.

But a more personal antagonist just wouldn't make sense and fit into the plot either. It hurts when either option feels off.

>>16231834
What. Did it die completely and you made no fucking backups? If it's Lagdroid, you could try to restore the files with usual data recovery stuff. If it's an iPhone, Apple support might do the trick.

Do you guys prefer writing in first person or third?

>>16231895
I like to write sitting down.

>>16230942
What are the problems the protagonist creates? Why is there a problem if no one cares? If there are bad consequences to his actions that were unintended, explore those outcomes.

>>16231917
>not writing lying down when you grab your phone because you can't sleep and touch type a motherfucking chapter on a 4" screen in a few minutes

>>16231956
>trying to fall asleep but think about the story you're writing for hours instead
>write it in gorgeous prose in your head
>too tired to grab something to write it all down
>not like you'll forget it anyways
>wake up
>turn on your laptop to start writing everything down
>don't remember how you phrased everything
Fug

>>16231834
>writing offline but on your phone
lol what literally just use paper. I lost my phone a couple years ago and a bunch of notes on it, so you might as well just back your files up to a dropbox or something.

I want to put my work somewhere online for people to review and read it. However I am delusional and believe I have a shot of getting published. Is it legal for me to upload my novel to, I don’t know, fanfiction.com or whatever and then still get it published? Or would that now be the property of their website? Sorry I’m so dumb

>>16231955
>What are the problems the protagonist creates?
Too many to even beginn to name them.
>Why is there a problem if no one cares?
Different people care about different actions. For example, the son of a mob boss he fucked over, doesn't care about the protagonists almost sending his own family to a sort of concentration camp by association. His ex-bestfriend-turned-cop, minds the latter but not the former.

Basically his entire journey is pissing off people and organizations left and right while endangering a few innocent people on the way, but he is always moving forward into the next mess. Before we could see any offended party striking back, the protagonist already made enemies with someone else, who is even more dangerous.
>If there are bad consequences to his actions that were unintended, explore those outcomes.
I tried to but the stuff is always delayed and comes from third party sources or assumptions from his side due the whole "rushing forward" nature of the plot. "Oh, doing X likely caused Y, wow, I'm such a dick" or "you know that girl you exchanged for ransom actually didn't return home" just isn't that strong.

I found it a lot easier in the sequel where I have the time and wordcount to explore cause and effect, and let his actions directly lead to deaths of people he cares about dearly. Plus the previously established parties and characters of the first book get more development; but the first is more about getting the protagonist into the position of someone relevant and not just a random annoyance.

>>16232097
Legal, yes. Likely that an agent and later publisher will pick up on a work that's already out there? No. As usual there are exceptions to the rule like The Martian or 50Shades but unless you get to similar popularity levels, it's probably hopeless.

>>16232097
As long as there isn't anything in the user agreement that signs away your ownership, no you still retain ownership of whatever you write and post. These sites, while often curated to some extent, are not publishers. The legal ownership of your writing is retained solely by you. That said, some publishers might not like that something has been posted online before, but if it's actually good and a lot of people like it, you won't run into any issues

t.law school anon

>>16232106
>>16232126
Thanks
I’m dreading it but fuck. Guess my dad’s gonna be my reviewer
I’m just terrified that I’m gonna show him this thing I’ve been working on all quarantine and he’s gonna think it’s garbage

>>16232141
Maybe it is garbage. But you actually put in the work and got something done, anon. I can't imagine any father who wouldn't be proud of his son's hard work, regardless of the end result

>>16232141
You're going to create a lot garbage before you will write anything decent. If you actually get anything useful out of him aka. why he didn't X, Y, Z; it's still a step forward for you.

Ideally have a sort of questionary for him to answer specific things and not general shit like "do you like it or not?".

>>16232157
Thanks anon. I appreciate that

>>16232193
I will try this, thanks

>>16231917
You better answer the question, or else

God, sometimes it sucks to be a writer.

I'm really hoping that the simplest solution I've come up with to my all my problems with this section of the book will be enough, but I just know in my bones it won't be.

Jesus fuck, I should never have taken up this hobby

>>16232441
I've been obsessing over a few paragraphs for the past couple hours. Writing is a curse. I did get 1700 words done today though, which is a pretty good feeling in itself; but now I'll be spending the rest of the night editing

>>16232468
>I've been obsessing over a few paragraphs for the past couple hours
That's cute. I spent weeks on some. The best part is when all the thinking, tinkering and tweaking still leads nowhere but then you're hit with a fresh idea totally superior to the previous attempts, and finish it in minutes.

>>16222099
It's funny but I've actually never read a writing book to completion despite wanting to write as a hobby for a while. They always seem to fall short on some pointers and make me start questioning them so I stop.

Better to break that trend with the best.

>>16232513
>>16232468
tonight's my cheat night, but I'm still agonizing, and I'm debating with myself whether the simplest answer (just don't do it retard) is the correct one

can someone talk this shit through with me?

>>16232513
>never read a writing book to completion
Though he is a bit of a meme, Stephen King's book on writing is actually pretty good. The man knows what goes into writing well and seemingly just doesn't care to write an amazing novel

>>16232527
What do you need to talk about, anon?

>>16232527
Sometimes you just have a story you want to share with others and want others to see how good that story is.
If you can live without that story leaving your head, I guess you could quit.

Spent today making a short story that's very loosely based off a experience I did in a Bannerlord campaign back in April. When I'm close to finishing it (just shy of 3,000 words at the moment across 3 chapters) I'll post a link to it in the future on royalroad. I don't think it'll be any more than 9 chapters at most.

>>16232552
>>16232563

I've been typing and deleting for an hour and I don't know where to begin. my villain sucks. I made him suck. everything around him sucks and my only answer to fixing him turns him into a massive shrug of a character. I don't know what he wants or why he does what he does

>>16232742
Not him, but this question makes it easy to help.
>I don't know what he wants or why he does what he does
What does he believe in? What’s the central ideological conflict? What are your MC’s beliefs? Try to write you antagonist in a way that challenges those beliefs. Presents a contrasting idea, an alternative, or even the mirror opposite.

>>16213164
"He put the weenie into the vageenie."

>>16232742
Ask yourself why he does what he does, and work from there. If you can't come up with a good reason, then something needs to be changed in the story. A good villain should feel organic to the story he's in

>>16225090
Impossible, the literary demon is a pedophile, every book is going to have pedophilic innuendo in it want it or not

>>16232779
I guess the central conflict is admiration. The villain got admiration and believed he deserved it, so he wanted more and more, painting himself as a devious guile hero who won the day through cleverness. The hero on the other hand got admiration and didn't feel he deserved it, so he set out to make a good example for the people who looked up to him, even if it meant admitting to his own faults. The conflict comes from the fact that the person who admired the villain most was the hero. He wanted to be like the villain but now he's grown up and realized the example set for him was wrong.

This means the villain's desire is to be a witty mastermind. He paints his past victories a brilliant acts of seduction and deception when in reality he was a pawn in someone else's game

I understand him better now. This works. thank you anon

How long will a book with a cover made of fabric last?

Like, if I become someone famous will a fabric covered book still be readable in 500 years? Or am I better off using this fake leather one??

I got an entire chapter done today bros. Just finished editing it, and now I'm going to sit back and listen to some comfy music for a couple hours before going to sleep and getting some more work done tomorrow. Feels good

Bump

>>16218050
is it "Stray Cat Strut — A Young Lady's Journey to Becoming a Pop-Up Samurai"?

>>16212563
I’m writing a fantasy novel and need some help fleshing out the political part of the story. It’s not really important, just there to get the ball rolling. Keep in mind I am autistic and have no understanding of politics whatsoever
>Loose union of nineteen states, all with various different systems of government that include democracies, monarchies, theocracies, etc
>brother of one of the state’s kings is his right hand man
>the king dies
>his son frames the brother of a crime and exiles him all because he’s afraid the brother has too much political influence
>brother flees to a Democratic state, spends fifteen years accumulating political power there
>the monarchy state falls to invaders that threaten the whole union
>the nephew who pushed out the old kings brother now falls back with his remaining forces to the same democratic state
>they successfully fend off the invaders from entering the rest of the union, and in the meantime the nephew begins to work his way up the political ladder of the democratic state, and is pretty successful because these people want his army to help defend their land
>the brother is furious and the nephew is being a smug bastard, publicly calling him out on lots of his policies, even accuses him of being a homosexual
>brother loses it and publicly challenges the nephew to a duel, he agrees
>before it happens an assassin tries to kill the nephew
>he blames the brother, people begin to take sides, and a state civil war is eminent
>all the while the invaders are looking for the right moment to surge into the democratic state
Is this okay? It’s loosely based off drama going down at my dad’s AA meetings

>>16234361
I want the invaders to win and end this clusterfuck.

How do you write good first sentences? I feel like they have a huge impact and thus should be written with special care.
What is not too „in your face“ but still intriguing enough to make you want to keep reading?

> My first experience was pure dignity. It will also be my last, but between the two i have been at home in the lightless hollows of humanity.

>>16234655
Trial and error and more trial and error. Ideally it sums up the story or the character without being on the nose, establishes a problem right away, and raises questions.

Member when /lit/ had threads when anons tried to come up with one?

>>16234655
All books should open with "It was a dark and stormy night". If I was emperor of Earth I would mandate this by law.

>>16234678
>Ideally it sums up the story or the character without being on the nose, establishes a problem right away, and raises questions.

Does the example i posted do that? I feel like it‘s too on the nose. How could it be more subtle?

>Member when /lit/ had threads when anons tried to come up with one?
Yes, but it did not really produce anything worthwhile. At least not what i saw.

>>16234687
I immediately would put any book down that starts like that. Too each their own i guess.

>>16234655
>I feel like they have a huge impact and thus should be written with special care.
You'd be right about that.

>My first experience was pure dignity.
Avoid vague openers like this at all costs. What the hell does "pure dignity" even mean? You may risk this, if the following sentence immediately answers the confusion. In this case, it doesn't, but is twice as bizarre. Wouldn't read more.

>>16234712
>I immediately would put any book down that starts like that.

Pleb.

>>16234850
I think you guys worry way too much about prose and dialogue, and not enough on character and structure, and the other more fundamental parts of storytelling.

Just based of what I see in these threads.

That's like someone drawing a picture, and focusing on the details or stylization, rather than the core construction and the perspective.

>>16234879
Don't (you) me, redditor

>>16234712
>Does the example i posted do that?
Hard to tell whether it captures the essence of the character or the work. For me it's too vague and lacks why I would immediately care, etc

Take the classics.

>Call me Ishmael.
Already establishes the tone and gives you information about character in 3 fucking words. Then it goes on, immediately creating a picture of his situation with
>Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.

>Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
The wit, the contrast, the immediacy, shit's pretty much perfect and tells you what the entire book is about in 14 words.Then gives even more details and conflicts following it.
>Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him.

>>16234879
They hated him for telling the truth.

>>16212563
Please /crit/icize me. I just started to write this short story. Here's exempt, it's basically /g/ + /lit/ + /x/ fuckfest. Rate my prose.

It's time. The music got me melting. I started seeing shapes, unshapes and everything in between. This shit was strong, even for experienced junkie like me. I heard laughter from outside my window, looked down, Fun Terminal was once again alive and well, shifting and swelling, spiraling in and out of my mind. It seemed like they got a new type of clientele down there, a wild pack of zoomer thots. With their Tik Tok machines in hands. "What are these suburb puppies doing in China Town" I thought?

The drug now infiltrated my whole body, my central nervous system got overwhelmed, it surrendered and gone with the wind, or rather with the orgasmic storm now. Geometrical shapes and glitches in my vision field soon merged into one with the sensual feelings I received from my lower body. Music was flowing through me, a sweet nectar of gods.

I felt as in pure bliss and in total agony at the same time. My stomach was cramping. Head was about to burst open, yet I still sensed this weird kind of peace. More and more this sense of me being stalked by someone, or something, crept up my spine. This random paranoia is why I'm using an older unpersonalised computer, somebody would even go as far as to call it obsolete, with OpenBSD on it, TOR is all i need. It's my toy machine, used only for kinds of adventures such as this one, but let's not skip.

After the first wave of drug induced terror, there was nothing. Everything turned black and I was falling through this void. Immaterialized, without body. Yet I kept hearing the music, it was from afar, but it connected me with the real world. I think that my CRT screen has devoured me.

Now in the cyberspace, Internet, I was soaking in it... I neared all kinds of servers, creeping up the bandwidth, there were the big ones like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, I was in them, touching them. My mind was like a virus sneaking through the internet with increased unconscious accessibility. I went through temporal digital separation. My body was left behind in the real world, I swam in the green and purple cyberspace of digital information, my being absorbed the information, but I needed more.

I was falling through the linked nets down towards the big center of it all. Shiny cluster of servers, the real backbone. I kept hearing otherworldly melodies. The prolonged squeeking of synthetizers, ripped apart from their timeline in the eighties and installed newly in the nowness. Deep, stormy beats pulsating through your whole body. Almost cosmic vibration and meowing mellowed my soul into nothingness.

After swimming in the blue oceans of the vast web for some time, I found myself in the present of something intelligent. Almost as if it was breathing. I wanted to talk to it, it seemed sentient. Was it alive?

>>16235685
Here's the quick cover i made, to better set the atmosphere for the reader.

>>16235701
>>16235685
Also english is not my mother language so keep that in mind.

>>16231079
There's usually a critique thread, but whoever's making them seems to be missing.

>>16235685
drugs are bad m'kay?

>uses to love writing
>havent engaged since I dropped out of college
>want badly to write but cannot come up with an idea to save my life and have no idea how to start something
What the fuck do I do? Is there somewhere to get decent prompts to do as exercises or something?

>>16236217
>WP: You are a grave digger, forced to work one night during a storm.

You could also check out the subleddit /r/writingprompts but they are mainly just cringey fan-fic shit like; You are C3P0 and you want to fuck BB-8, but R2D2 walks in, and the top submissions are usually just filled with memes and shit.
Or you could always keep a journal. You don't have to write about what happened that day, you could also use it to reflect on something that has happened to you or a subject that you are passionate/ignorant of.

>>16236217
Write about a guy who loved writing but quit and now looks for an idea. Also he's black and has a trans girlfriend.

Hi fellow book lovers!

Recently, I've been speaking to a lot of friends and they all share the same sentiment.
The process of selling or giving away books online is not as simple and straightforward as it should be.
As a result, I created a questionnaire to help us readers and I was wondering if you could spare 2 minutes of your time to fill it.
The purpose of this questionnaire is to evaluate how easy and convenient it is for other book readers to sell/give away books.
The questionnaire is completely anonymous and also covers those not looking to sell books.

Please share and leave feedback if you can.
Thank you in advance.
Trigon, a fellow book lover

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdsXW-JszybJzSEteuoTpt2x-e8WggZ1arWBil1do66DSns-w/viewform?usp=sf_link

>>16236595
For me it wasn't the prices that are a hassle to find but packaging and running to the post office. If I unironically run, it'd be still over 30 min there and back, not counting all the wrapping, putting the address on it and so on. To make the stuff even remotely worth it, the book needs to be way over 50 bucks, and unless it's some rare ass first edition, that's just unlikely and I'll end up making 10 bucks for 5 books if it goes well for over 30 minutes of work.

When it comes to giving it away I got a library nearby but the books I'd be willing to give away are meh-tier and often in foreign languages too.

>>16236300
>>16236300
Seconding writingprompts as something to mess around on. Most of the stuff there is physically painful to read, but you might find a prompt that will make you think

>>16235685
Not really my kinda thing so I feel like I'd be overly harsh in criticizing you. I recommend going through it and cleaning some stuff up, though

>>16236974
Be harsh I need that. Also this is more of a draft really, i'll go through the whole story when it's done and repair it / add more to it.

what's a good electricity or magentism themed superpower for a narcissistic idiot who considers himself a chessmaster?

Wrote this today. I feel like it goes to shit after the first stanza. Any thoughts?

>>16237102
I really liked it. 9/10.
The rhythm seems a little off for me in parts, especially the last 3 lines of verse 1, but I'm not entirely sure why so it may just be me, I don't know poetry.
Definitely post a larger image though next time, had to squint to read this.

How do I settle my choice between a fantasy setting or an urban fantasy sort of setting?
I have about three projects that I feel could advance faster if I turned them full-on fantasy but I'm not sure how effective that would be to get the urban fantasy aesthetic I want and I also want to have access to the references to other works or historical events that them happening in real life would allow them to have but I'm not the best at history, neither did I travel that much.
Coming up with history up to their equivalent of the 1980s to 2000s sounds like a hassle too.

>>16237228
Just do the 'Hidden World' trope.

>>16237244
I think that could work with one of them but another is all about what would happen if all those weird things that happen in science fiction/fantasy slowly started creeping into real life. Monsters, magic, psychic powers, vampires, etc. I believe I should study a lot more history to commit to that one but I have no idea how much.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/35434/an-ode-to-swordsmen/chapter/545822/1-the-fall

Can I get some feedback on my first chapter bros? I'm working on editing it right now and would really appreciate it. I feel like it's lacking, but I don't know exactly how to fix it. Haven't written much in ages, but I'm starting this series to get back into the habit of writing regularly.

Is it possible to write about a setting you are unfamiliar with, without visiting and experiencing said setting?

For instance, would a person from Sweden, be able to write an American Western well from the comfort of their home, without travelling to Texas, and roaming the boarder on horseback?

>>16237699
I don't think any science fiction writer has been to space, so you should be fine to write about whatever setting you want