/lit/ - Literature

me the autist that is too much into worldbuilding

>>16370685
Quintilian deserves to be in the sticky.

5th consecutive day writing 9k of early chapter rewrites so far. We're all going to make it bros. Hang in there.

>>16370685

Been reading it for my Fiction Workshop class and highly recommend 'Writing Fiction' by Janet Burroway. Easy to read and has a lot of great information.

>>16370685
>what you're working on
Kind of reposting. I made the final edits for my shit and wound up cutting about 100 words. Let's see if /lit/ would bother reading past the first chapter.

https://likho.neocities.org/pages/mnemosynes-heretic/ch1.html
https://likho.neocities.org/share/mnemosynes-heretic.pdf

Reminder Royal Road is exclusively for isekaitards or people on that level. /wg/ is exclusively a tradpublishing thread.

>>16370695
What's the middle grade booze of the smallest bar in the southern region of the largest city? Who is the owner? Why did they even start a bar in the first place?
>>16370698
Elaborate pls
>>16370739
Keep it up bud!
>>16370750
What are some of the best pro tips in it?

>>16370826
show me your work
wait, you can't, because you're afraid somebody is going to steal it or something and it will never see the light of day anyway, because it's unfinished

if somebody posts something online, at least there's something to talk about

>>16370826
>/wg/ is exclusively a tradpublishing thread.
Says literally who?

>>16370826
>Royal Road
Is this the newest website that all the 16 year olds are posting their fanfictions to? Looking at the top story with 2k pages and a couple million views I assume it's all about redirecting people to patrion and then begrudgingly writing the story to the tastes of the people who pay the most? I never understood how to write a chapter based weekly, I'd assume nothing but inconsistencies pop up all the time. A character in the first chapter put an apple in their pocket and on chapter 80 took out an orange for just the right moment or something along those lines. Interesting stuff. I suppose it's also a place to share your work and get feedback quickly on stories you aren't completely involved in.

I unno, anyone with experience in this whole field of online stories care to share? I just remember having a friend in highschool that would LARP and post his furry stories on internet forums.

So I wrote this short bit during my lunch:
He looks back to the sun baked horizon emboldened in flaming clouds where on the flat ground like a sand stone shadows stretched miles. He cupped his hands over and he looked and saw the black shadows of the riders.

Those two men were riding hard and without pause and the horses they rode jerked and drooled foaming with wild eyes as their legs snapped into the clay dirt.

Goddammit bastards, he whispers under his tongue. He judged the men to be half a days time from him. He looked over to the snaking trail that fell down from the canyon lips. He considered for a moment staying at the bluff and shooting at the men as they went up. He spits and shakes his head.

His rust worn revolver hangs drippingly off his hip. He has only four shots and no powder and the sights of the gun are bumped and crooked. He winces, under his left arm the sleeve is clotted in a ring of dark blood.

I never wasa goodin shot anyhow. He says and spurs the horse with the backnape of his boots.

He rides east into flat plains of saw grass and swaying milkweeds where a last few bison still live. There the coyotes wail and scream in trailing grooves trailing down prairie dogs back to their shoveled nests in the dirt where they paw and scratch past the knotting roots and clinch on the brown flesh of the barking rats.

Is it any good at all?

>>16370872
Yeah most of the stuff on the website is just fanfiction tier, but that's what the audience largely wants. Every now and then you'll come across something that is decent, but that's a rare exception. I just post a novel I'm using for writing practice on there because hey, a few people seem to be enjoying it and it's better than just leaving it on my HD

>>16370872
>>16370943
Someone should make a more "literary" version of the site. I'd post my stuff there but I don't want to be associated alongside furry and my little pony sex fantasies.

>>16370915
I edited some of it for you anon. I like it, but some of the language is clunky and the present tense makes me gag. Tried to keep it mostly the same.

He looked back to the horizon, emboldened in flaming clouds, where a sand stone shadow stretched on for miles. He cupped his hands to see shadowy riders. Two men rode hard and without pause while the horses jerked and drooled, foaming with wild eyes as their legs snapped into the clay dirt.

“Goddammit bastards,” he whispered. The men seemed to be half a day’s time away. He looked to the snaking trail coming down from the canyon’s lips. He considered for a moment staying at the bluff and shooting em’ as they went on up. He spit and shok his head.

His rust worn revolver drooped off his hip. He had four shots and no powder. Not to mention the sight was bumped and crooked. He winced. Under his left arm, a ring of dark blood. “I never wasn’t any good shot anyhow,” he said after spurring the horse with the backnape of his boots.

He rode east into the flat plains of saw grass and swaying milkweeds where a last few bison still lived. There, the coyotes wailed and screamed in trailing grooves tracking down prairie dogs to their shoveled nests in the dirt where they paw and scratch past the knotting roots and clinch on the brown flesh of the barking rats.

>>16370872
Compared to the likes of Quotev, Wattpad, and I think Webnovel, the current iteration of RRL is rather new to the landscape. Like 2016 or so when it started branching out to original fictions for authors. Before that it was a translation site for some korean novel but moved away from that later on. I don't know when scribbehub was created though.

It def is amateur though as you described, but there's some professional writers who branch out to Amazon or the likes. Some people write for fun, others do it for the money. It's more or less a haven for isekai and the likes, but there's a fair share of other stuff outside those genres.

>>16370972
While that would be cool, I don't imagine that there'd be a lot of money in that. RR makes money because it panders to gamers on the internet. I don't think I've really seen any furry or weird fetish stuff on the site. It's mostly just isekai and litrpg in a light novel format, with xianxia and wuxia stuff thrown in by people who somehow don't understand the genre they're writing

The moans of the hardwood which cover the floor of the house will at times give me the illusion that I am not alone. I feel a heavy breeze outside on the porch, the aging wood swelling in the rapidly dropping air pressure, finally given room to breathe, as if the vacuum created by the outward winds invites the dead to dance. They all left with the storms, can’t recall a dry season in the past 4 summers. Hard to grow anything at all left in the newly formed marsh, save for cattails and pussy willows, along with a distaste for wet shoes. None of which will do one any real good.

Will, and Jepet, and John, and all the others packed up and left. No good here, can’t grow tomatoes underwater, and if you could, the lack of consistency would kill the drowned berry fields long before the gators got to ‘em. Two days of monsoon, three days of sun, three days of monsoon, one day of sun, turning riverbeds to cracked muddy fields, to spotted ponds, back into a miniature Mississippi. Almost fast enough for me to sit on the porch and look out on the carnage, watching the high speed loop of growth and decay. Roadside farm stands to an enclosed shack, to a small store, to a multi-truck operation, a final peak of capitalistic ecstasy before the proprietors saw the dark clouds rolling in and got spooked, skipped down, leaving whatever they built to die. I miss John. Breeze is picking up again, rains from the west coming in. I grab my empty dinner plate from the floor of the deck and head inside, kicking what’s leftover onto the dirt for the dogs to pick at. Even they are getting thin.

I come inside and place my plate on the kitchen table, the first raindrops of the storm begin hitting the window above the sink. Slow enough to count at first, then picking up and accelerating into infinity. I remember what John said to me the last night before he left without a word, when we were sitting on my back porch, drinking and watching the birds play. “Rains’ll fill up the Lord’s cup, farmers round here just need to take a sip”. I didn’t know what he meant. I feel stupid for not asking. The next morning, he was gone. For sale signage crudely plastered on his front lawn. Pig prints still fresh in the mud. Thunder rattles the glass of the windows. I hear the songs of the dead, my father and mother’s waterlogged graves by the shed. I am surrounded by empty swamp. There isn’t a human alive in miles.

>>16371040
I really enjoyed this. Who was John? Whats the MC going to do? Where will he go?

>>16371005
It's a tale as old as time that you have to appeal to the lowest common denominator to generate revenue. Hence the profitability of smut and pulp, that's nothing new. More power to them, you can't begrudge someone's hustle. But some enthusiasts aren't in it for the money.
I would view it more as a kind of indirect social networking site. There's really no social network specifically designed for authors.

Working on postmodern poetry, with only the culminative point showing any kind of rhyme.

I've written it but it's in romanian, doubt there would be interest.

Does anyone have any good postmodernism authors i could study?

Is this /crit/ now?

>>16371073
You mean author-and-reader social media? Scribbehub and Quotev have a feature to talk with their readers on author's statues. RR has something planned for it but it's two people and they have a lot of on their plate to work on.

>>16370829
>Elaborate pls
The usual result of over-attention to the niceties of style is the deterioration of our eloquence.The main reason for this is that those words are best which are least far-fetched and give the impression of simplicity and reality. For those words which are obviously the result of careful search and even seem to parade their self-conscious art, fail to attain the grace at which they aim and lose all appearance of sincerity because they darken the sense and choke the good seed by their own luxuriant overgrowth. For in our passion for words we paraphrase what might be said in plain language, repeat what we have already said at sufficient length, pillar up a number of words where one would suffice, and regard allusion as better than directness of speech. So, too, all directness of speech is at a discount, and we think no phrase eloquent that another could conceivably have used. We borrow figures and metaphors from the most decadent poets, and regard it as a real sign of genius that it should require a genius to understand our meaning.

>>16371101
No, no. Fuck readers. I'm thinking author to author. These are the people I want to associate with.

>>16371107
You can alway try discord :^)

>>16371073
Yeah I don't have anything against the people who are mostly writing 1:1 copies of their favorite anime to generate revenue. They found a way to profit off of their hobby. It just makes me a little sad when the decent stuff I come across gets very little attention.

I do wish there were more resources and websites for authors out there. The entire industry seems very antiquated and behind the times. An average website like Royal Road seems groundbreaking only because there are so few websites out there for authors to gain a following

>>16371083
Good threads keep dying to ones about pedos, peterson, frogs, Evola, /pol/, what am i in for, and books for this feel.

Maybe if we combine our powers we can keep a general alive for more than a week.

>>16371069
Thanks anon. It’s not really part of anything larger, just something I wrote after a week of reading Hemingway.

>>16370984
Why don't you like present tense?

>>16371118
Cool

>>16371135
It reads like nails on a chalkboard to me. I'm not particularly sure why. Maybe it's because it's a tool used by many YA writers, or maybe on some subconscious level I believe all writing is in the past because it's thought but into written symbol. I'm not really sure, anon. I just can't stand it.

>>16371110
Discord is cringy. I see no value in it, unless you use it for its intended purpose for video gaming. But I detect a hint of sarcasm in your post.

>>16371115
Let's be real, the Literature with a capital L has never been a money maker. Joyce sponged off various patrons and borrowed money for much of his career. There may have been a time when people read for their primary source of entertainment that you could write something challenging and make good money off it. And it depends on the culture. Russian and French for example have a inbred cultural appreciation for writers. Everything that sells today is written at a fifth grade reading level.
>The entire industry seems very antiquated and behind the times
Very true. And it's no coincidence. All the technological capital goes into killing the basic requirements of literary culture, video based media like youtube and tiktok, etc. The people who aren't sinking their lives into that would otherwise be forced to read. Anybody who can program applies their brainpower and the most advanced computing to getting advertisements to you eyeballs in the most efficient way possible.

>>16371115
>>16371164
When I went down the smut writing rabbit hole (made a whole 7 bucks) it seemed like, to that community, there really was only amazon as a money maker. And even then it wasn’t actual sales, it was the kindle streaming book borrowing thing that goes per page read. I vaguely remember guides on how to publish on other platforms and websites but none of them were nearly as popular. I wondered what would happen, stats wise, if you did the novella (10k-40k) words type thing to the long running stories like we see on the current website being discussed. I’m sure the market is smaller and less willing than all the moms at home with their kindles wanting to get off, but I’m sure there’s Reddit tier kindle users who eat up mass produced horror or fantasy or scifi. Maybe make some money off all these short stories we write.

There was someone who was doing this with cute horror novellas last thread, I wonder how he’s doing?

>>16371244
>mass produced
I dunno man. I feel like I have 1 good, long story in me. I want to write that and ride off into the sunset.

>>16371244
The Amazon vampire devours everything in its path. Its network effects have created such a vast monopoly it's absurd, but the boomer government officials are either too ignorant to understand that concept or too corrupt and bought off to do anything about it.
One could imagine a bookseller that takes, say, a fraction of a commission that Amazon does . (Amazon takes like 30% so I've heard.) But they could never compete with Amazon's world class logistics and optimizations.
It sucks. It feels like the culture I have the misfortune of residing in is hell-bent on strangling what I love most. And everybody else is sleepwalking.

>>16371279
Me too, but I also think that we don’t live in a world of published content like that anymore. :/

>>16371292
I don't know if I even care about publishing it, it just needs to exist, you know? If no one but me and my family ever reads it, I'll still be happy.

This would be the first page of a short story I'm writing. I'm trying to learn how to make writing that is enjoyable to read on it's own, rather than just descriptive of an enjoyable story, without being pretentious. The problem is I'm severely autistic, so understanding what makes language "beautiful" to me is very difficult.
___________

"He is, again. What's that? Who are them two, stranded on the beach?" one villager, to another "Here they come now. You, you, not from around here are you? What with that clothing."
One man, long and dark haired, strode at the front. The other was tall, short blonde haired, and well built. He wore nothing but a strap, a barbarian, Olympian. He lagged behind.
The darker one took the role of ambassador
"Indeed, we look to speak with your authorities on certain subjects, who ever is privileged to make deals with foreign entities, or with the gods."
"Well, the mayor does work in the long house, up near the base of the mountain there. The chief priest will reside in the cathedral, which is there, on the isle. What is all this?"
"Its a sort of merger of things."
___________

I know it's a short passage, I just want to see if my writing is immediately offensive to anyone.

>>16371309
I lost my job because of Covid and now money is on my mind constantly, trying to scrape together anything I can without killing my grandmother. I wish I could just create, but it’s become rather difficult. I’m also the other anon from the previous thread that is having real troubling anxiety from the only project I want to work on. Since my last writing sprint I’ve realized how the book should be, and these goals and aspirations make me just do something else (like studying for the bar lol) and ignore the project completely. It’s not jaunty and fun anymore.

>>16371344
>studying for the bar
Good luck with that one. I'm a trained and certified paralegal and I cannot find any work right now to save my life

>not satisfied with anything I'm writing today
>even though I got a lot of decent writing done yesterday
I guess I'll just go read for the rest of the day

>>16371474
You do know most of writing is supposed to happen when you're doing something else? Sitting down and writing is just putting words on the page. Actual writing is scribbling down your ideas and sentences that pop into your head.

>>16371474
Have you ever had a day where you WERE satisfied with what you wrote? What elements led to your satisfaction on those days?

Here’s a short poem I wrote while I was sleep deprived:

Show the world to me, and tell
Of beauty, death and pain;
Of brazen city streets
Screaming, screaming shrill
Beneath the springtime rain.

Show to me the poor, the rich,
The dead and not-yet-dead,
And let us love them all
Divinely, as they are,
Forever overhead.


Any type of feedback would be appreciated.

>>16370839
>because it's unfinished
Wrong, it's finished and I'm querying it.
>show me your work
I can't because I'm querying it and agents wouldn't want something traced back to 4chan.
>if somebody posts something online, at least there's something to talk about
Peepee Poopoo I fell down my toilet and now I own a baroque mansion in Sewer World with a harem.

>>16371719
How's the querying process and finding an agent been, anon? I'd googled a few times, but because I haven't finished anything I haven't bothered looking more into it.

>>16371737
Not him but in second round of querying, and finding agents was easy as fuck. Writing the query itself though. Yikes. It wouldn't hurt to start even if you don't have a complete work. Hell, it might help you with a clearer focus on what you need to do.

On this early day in May I find myself on a walk along the Manayunk canal, officially dubbed the towpath (for reasons that are elusive to me), in the northwestern reaches of Philadelphia. Somewhere in the distance I hear the friendly gunshots of the renovation of the St. John the Baptist Catholic church. The echoed shots occur in succession, equidistant from each other, creating a perfect 1-2-3-4 countoff for the hushed city ambience that returned immediately after. This neighborhood provides a sense of isolation from the crumbling infrastructure and daily crime just a few miles down Route 76. If one had heard those roofers in any other part of the city, they would think twice, gazing around nervously, unassumingly for the culprit, before giving themselves over to the realities of living in the modern American city. But here, in the city’s farthest reaches northwest, where the row homes up the hill begin to give way to standalones, retirement plans, Audis, it’s easy to forget how close you are to decay. A few months ago a man was gunned down by an AK-47 in Roxborough, where all the college kids from Manayunk go once they find a high paying job, family, two kids, probably 30 years down, if ever. The isolated instance of senseless violence still hangs in my head. I can’t tell you the last Kengzington shooting, the most run down of north Philadelphia neighborhoods, but if you asked a resident there I don’t think they would be able to either. It is the same sort of willful ignorance that proves helpful when living in the corrupted chaos of urbanation, whether in the thick of the madness or just a bystander. I don’t think anyone who lives in a city is happy, until they live in the parts of it when they can pretend they’re not part of the city anymore. The best views of this place are reserved for two men - the extremely rich, and the extremely poor. For the rest of us, we’re stuck with walks through the places that remind us of better ones, if anywhere such places still exist.

>>16371363
>certifying paralegals
Wtf where are you from where paralegals aren't just glorified coffee runners and mail posters?

>>16371784
>where paralegals aren't just glorified coffee runners and mail posters
It completely depends on the attorney as to what the paralegal's job is. I've known some senile attorneys who's paralegal is basically doing absolutely everything other than court appearances (writing the briefs/motions, filing them, dealing with clients, scheduling, researching, organizing files, etc.) And, you are right, there are some anal retentive newbies with OCD who want to do absolutely everything themselves. And every paralegal is something in between. In the U.S. there are schools and programs that certify paralegals to do the work that's between the front desk receptionist/legal assistant and what a law clerk does.

Basically capitalists have created a variety of job titles for distributing work they should be doing themselves (because they are legally responsible for the work no matter what) to less trained (though sometimes MORE trained) peons to capital.

>>16371810
>It completely depends on the attorney as to what the paralegal's job is. I've known some senile attorneys who's paralegal is basically doing absolutely everything other than court appearances (writing the briefs/motions, filing them, dealing with clients, scheduling, researching, organizing files, etc.)

can confirm, did this as an "intern" during undergrad.

>>16371746
Is a query just a blurb about yourself and the book? Like a resume cover letter for a novel and its author?

>>16372147
Yeah, pretty much. Also ideally a sentence or two about why you pick the agent. One sentence about the basics like wordcount/genre.

Then like 2-3 short paragraphs about the first third of the story that's mostly the the summary in the back of books, and like 2-3 sentences about you.

Sounds simple enough but damn. I found it harder than 100k words for the novel. Writing to sell isn't quite the same as writing to tell a story.

>>16371819
>>16371810
I am a solicitor myself, and while in law school I was a paralegal. Obviously good paralegals can get basically lawyer work if their boss allows it, but certification is a form for recognition by the government which seems unnecessary when the job doesn't usually entail anything more than coffee and mail for the average paralegal. It's the same as secretaries, often they do a lot more than answer the phone but they don't exactly need a diploma.

>>16372245
In the U.S. Paralegal certifications aren't given by the government. They are more of an extra line of schooling by private institutions to show employers that you spent money on training that they don't have to because the modern capitalist system hates "wasting" resources on stuff like "training" and "competence of employees". I've found that many lawyers are absolute idiots and a paralegal put under enough pressure with a bit of wit can knock out the majority of just about anything that doesn't involve 8 hours of westlaw research. But again, I also know people who just get coffee and call clients. Hell, when I worked for a social security mill law firm I all I did was take 100 calls a day to tell people their case was still pending.

I wrote a book of poetry CRAWLINGGG IN MY SKINNNNN haha jk :) read it fags lemme know what u think

amazon.com/dp/B08J2R4LD8

>>16372281
Can you stop whining about capitalism? It really ruins any chance of discussing things reasonably. If not for capitalism those paralegals would be waiting in bread lines.

>got to Cornell University Press Philosophy Publishing section to see what the requirements are
>404 not found
:( It's going to be a monumental struggle to get this thing to see the light of day.

>>16372309
Have you downloaded kindle create to work on the formatting of your headers and the spacing issues? I clicked the "look inside" and it's just not that visually appealing. Also as far as the cover, even though it's digital I'd still suggest giving it bleed line room on the top and the bottom, evenly spaced to the left and top for the header and the bottom and right for the author name.
>>16372350
Sure I'll stop. But that was really more of a gag line anyway. Basically they make them read a few books, do a few exercises, remember local rules, draft a few sample memos/motions and badabing. You got a line on your resume that says paralegal when you apply to a paralegal job. And it really depends on your market as to it's reaction to covid and how saturated it was before the pandemic and whatever the local states regs have been in response. Some firms have been smart and have had infrastructure in place for digital libraries, files, forms, and meetings, but others have been pretty rough I've heard. I feel really bad for those older attorneys. They are always so adorably grumpy.

>>16372361
Ganbare, anon! Have you tried the way back machine?

>>16371784
I live in Cali. Paralegals here are expected to do legal research, draft complaints and motions, prepare exhibits, and schedule court appearances and file papers. Basically everything that big corporations have deemed doable by people who didn't go through law school, since they don't want to be billed an attorney's rate for that stuff

>>16372638
I think that anon is confused. I'm in DC and paralegals are also certified. Like you said they do all the grunt work that doesn't require a law degree (aka attorney rates).

22 yo autist, NEET and future writer here. AMA.

>>16372404
No I haven't done any of that I'ma just let it ride. I'm working on 2 more books after this one. The content is what matters so I'm just trying to get it out there and not mess with anything but the writing and maybe a little bitta self marketing

>>16372668
What are you writing about, anon?
>>16372711
It’s really easy to do all those things and it’ll increase the chance of someone coming across your work and appreciating it. Just promise you’ll do it for your next release, okay? I want to see you be successful, along with all the other anons in this thread.

For the last couple hours I’ve been reading my diary. Schopenhauer was right, the first half of our lives is the text; the second, the commentary. I wrote this 9 years ago.

Cuando en mi oceánica soledad pienso
Cada idea contigo compartida
Y reflexiono y cavilo y discurro.
¿Cómo no pensar en ti?

Recordando bellos roces sentir,
Escuchando el susurro de tu piel
Con la mía conversando de amor.
¿Cómo no sentirte a ti?

Radiantes perlas mostrabas alegre,
Envidio cada momento en que tu
Cara y digna sonrisa me perdí.
¿Cómo no sentirte a ti?

Si melancólica y necesitada,
Reflejando tus ojos cual espejo
La inefable tristeza que aquí ocultas.
¿Cómo no llorar por ti?

Pero al darme cuenta que todo aquello
Nada más que etéreas quimeras son,
Mi lacerado corazón pregúntase:
¿Cómo me olvido de ti?

>>16372794
I will do it on my next book if not this one thank you for taking the time to look at it and offer advice

>>16372794
I haven't started any major projects yet, haven't actually written much since high school. I figured I should take the autistic stories in my fandom infested brain and put the good ones to paper. Mom's going to get me a writing journal.

>>16372655
>>16372638
They do all that stuff here too but there's no certification. If it was actually difficult it'd need a degree.

>>16373186
Technically you don't need the certification. It's just one of those things that helps with the hiring process. It is becoming a bit of a necessity now with every firm wanting 2+ years of experience for entry-level positions, though. Those things always work out that way

>>16373245
Fuck human resources.

>>16371746
Dog, give me something. I did pitmad on a lark and got two hits. I went ahead and queried, though I’m not ready. No problem on the query letter—plenty of help from my 8,000 twitter followers. But I need an agent that can get me in the big 5 for epic fantasy. I can repay a good lead.

>>16373327
ManuscriptWishlist and AgentQuery were linked a few times in these threads. If you're willing to pony up for a sub, there is publishersmarketplace. Also querytracker. Some of this have more or less helpful search options. Others will require you to go through the agencies/agents and finding out their preferences. It can be tedious but also sort of like online dating, so sometimes it's just interesting to go through their likes and see how they look.

>my 8,000 twitter followers
Damn, not bad at all. How did you get them?
>an agent that can get me in the big 5 for epic fantasy
Always going to be hard, even with an agent unless one of the editors at big 5 sees your stuff as something that could sell really well. Though e-fame is definitely a pro. Repay me by getting published, mate. People achieving big goals is always a pleasant sight.

What is the story about?

>>16373436
I wouldn’t know how to grow Twitter organically. I only did it by farming #writingcommunity. So I don’t really have a voice—I just intended to get the number up as a platform as I was writing. Man, I wish we could connect there. The pitch is basically this: Intruder breaks into a secret underground cell to free a dangerous prisoner. The most famous magician in the world is killed trying to stop them. Hero goes after killer across a Lovecraftian landscape. Meets a girl with a power the enemy will do anything to keep secret. 162,000 werdz.

"Are you alright, Slattery? You seem a bit off."

"I am most certainly not alright, Bunny. I had a most terrible encounter."

"Oh really? Do tell."

"Very well. I got lost on my way to a party and arrived outside what I thought to be the address. I climbed a set of old, wooden stairs to a worn, brown door. I opened it. It seemed like your room. The unmade bed, the bookcase, the scattered clothes on the floor. Curious, I walked to the window. The blind was half down. I pulled it up and looked out. Starlight twinkled above a snowy plane bestrewn with moonlit trees. I spotted a figure rummaging in the dark. He wore a red dolman under a sapphire shako. He stood up and looked at me. I could espy the movement of his lips in the chilly silence. Quite done with his gawking, he turned about and walked towards the horizon. The man faded into darkness and left behind two enchanting figures where he had formerly stood. Heavy snow began to fall. A hare limped trembling through the swirling snow, and in its wake came to me a simmering desire to approach them. I opened the window and jumped out. Trudging through the snowfall, my frosted breath took flight for heaven. The forlorn trees shivered in the icy breeze under the silver light of the star-speckled sky. Exhausted and frostbitten, I collapsed to my knees, only to see...them. Oh Bunny! if only you had seen what I had seen! True horror will be yours if you ever do! Such cold, black eyes. Such Yiddish snouts. Such long sinuous legs, and fur of purest pearl. I shook with terror at their crooked claws! But the fellow to his right--I had never seen such an unnatural thing as it before; and I had been misled by a tranny's tricks, mind you. It had form, yet none. It had familiarity, yet unfamiliarity. It seemed to flow right out of the snow and into reality; as if Dorian Gray and his portrait were put before me. While I knelled trembling before them, the fleshy fellow began to speak.

"Ask me a question." he said.

"Excuse me?" I responded, quite shocked at its English.

"Fucking newfag. Ask me a question. "

My mind flailed about, yet all I could come up with was the following:

"Why is it that French is randomly inserted into English?"

"I suppose its due to the Norman invasion of the United Arab Emirates of Britain, formerly Bongland, formerly the United Kingdom, formerly England. It's the natural occurrence of the conquest and cunning linguistics of the Normans upon the Saxons and Jutes."

"No." I responded. "I mean the blatant usage of French, styled in italic type, in place of perfectly acceptable words in English."

The canis unfamiliaris contracted his face in flabbergastment.

"I don't rightly know, homo." he said. "I don't think Saxon barbar to be so impoverished that its writers are compelled to use French. Now that you bring it to my attention, it's quite odd. Good question."

He stuck out his paw.

"Salutations, human. The name's Fido. What's yours?"

>>16373880
3/10, not enough racism. Also I dont like 5 word paragraphs.

New story idea: set in Alabama in the 1960's, a black man escapes from prison and hides himself in a family's barn. He befriends the family's youngest child, an autistic boy, as he tries to lay low and avoid being recaptured by the police. Do I have enough oppression points here?

>>16374604
Make it an autistic girl with a limp, and you got yourself a Pulitzer.

>>16374604
>black guy is a criminal
duude, get cancelled

>>16374687
Obviously he was framed by a corrupt white cop.

>>16374604
>>16374691
As long as the cop is rich (he is white, after all) and there is a gay character somewhere it'll pass.

>>16374546
Elaborate, goos anon.

>>16374922
'good

>>16373736
Doubt anyone grows there organically sans someone who was a celeb before joining. Though I had a less writing focused approach in mind when thinking about how to do it, more focus on edge and humour. Which seemed to work in smaller communities around 1k users when I did test-runs. Shit just feels so tedious when it's not just a social experiment anymore.

Basic story sum up sounds aight, how did the hero even get involved in this? The word count is obviously on the larger side and might scare a few agents off.

>>16374604
Is he falsely accused for being gay too while chased by a cop who has a weird incest subtext with his sister?

>>16374686
Autistic Jewish boy with a limp?
>>16374687
What do you expect, he's a nigger
>>16374981
I'm not sure whether you're referring to something or not.

>>16375041
Not intentionally no, but given the place and the timeline, it wouldn't be too shocking if it matches with a real case.

Bump

>>16371474
what you just said here is basically 20% of kafka's diary, reworded hundreds of times. don't feel bad

>that feel when you power through and fix the part that you thought was irredeemably shit and it becomes one of your favorite character moments

Can this not be a /crit/ thread. It kind of clunks up things tbqhwyf.

>>16376268
Go make a /crit/ thread then. Only reason ppl are responding is to make sure one of the few good threads on /lit/ doesn't die. Criticism is kinda part of... writing.

Bump

>>16376092
This happens so often for me, I started to like the shit scenes since I expect to turn them amazing later. Besides, being in a spot when the only way is up is lovely for motivation.

>busy doing chapter rewrites
>get random influx of followers on RR
>suddenly on top 50 trending for the 2nd time
Bros... I think we're all gonna make it?

>>16374604
Make the boy blind as well, so that you can say he "doesn't see color."

>>16377254
Based. You're the guy with sci-fi waifus story?

>>16377254
>RR
Isekaifags FUCK OFF.

>>16377308
yeah

>>16377309
not even isekai schizo anon :^)

>>16377254
what's rr

Thinking of making my first book with help of the auctor app, here's a few ideas I'm trying to brainstorm:

1: Soviet-German rapebaby grows up in West Berlin during the 1950s-60s, hoping to one day see his father on the other side.

2. Son of a rich family returns from a war he was unwillingly forced into only to find out his betrothed has fallen for someone else.

3. The ups and downs of an american family on an 1870s Texas Ranch.

4. A doctor convicted of malpractice gets a second chance working for the mafia.

>>16377254
Good job, anon

>>16377318
royalroad

>>16377376
argiatou

>>16371135
Present tense is a colonial era construct which was invented to take away the vital importance of memory ie the past tense from marginalised groups caught within the grasp of those very same colonial powers.
If you just speak in the present you forget the noble past before the oppression.

>>16377461
Based and redpilled.

a month and a half ago i complained here that my book was at 18k words and thought it unimaginable to get to 25k. now i'm at 29k with a lot more to go; i've got a decent routine and feel motivated every day despite my 9-5
keep it up bros

What is the correct plural of sis (the abbreviation of sister)?

Siss? Sisses? Sis's?

>>16377587
There is no correct word. People would just opt for sisters instead of having to force something as autistic as a pluralised version of a shortened word.

>>16377587
If you're writing a dumb autist character who uses 'sis' instead of sister, just make them say "Thanks sis, thanks sis!" when referring to two characters they see as their sisters. If there's more than two just keep duplicating the phrase ad infinitum until you've addressed everyone you're trying to.

>>16377641
>autistic as a pluralized version of a shortened word.
'Bros' is completely fine.

My copy of Microsoft Word broke and I've lost an entire afternoon of writing trying to fix it. It seems to work now, but I think that my solution is about as stable as using a box full of nitroglycerin as a desk.
I'm sad and stressed out because of this.

>>16377806
Bros is never fine.

>>16377587
You wouldn't use a word like that in the plural. It's like asking what the plural of ma'am is.

>>16377829
Do you run it in Wine or something? Is it an ancient version? Only time I had issues with Word is when I ran MacOS dev betas.

>>16377836
It is maamies.

>>16377836
It's a feminist who is talking about her siss.

>>16377829
should have been using google docs or some cloud based software bruh.

>>16377806
It's generally only used ironically like "sistah's".

>>16377878
Still wouldn't happen. It just ain't right.

>>16371570
pretty cliche desu

>>16377848
In Windows 10. It said that there was an error opening my document. I tried to open Word directly but it closed down immediately. I ended up uninstalling Office, but for some reason Word was still there. I reinstalled Office, but now Office is gone from my computer despite that, while Word seemingly works again. I'm so fucking confused.

>>16378233
>Windows 10
>MS Word
You got what you deserved

>>16378233
Sounds confusing indeed. Never had anything even remotely similar and I had a share of random issues with W10.

>>16378322
I'm sorry I was stupid. What should I use instead?

>>16378338
>didn’t see link in op

>>16378338
Linux or Windows 7 and Google docs (I haven't found anything to replace this).

>>16377587
Sissies, obviously.

>>16378338
the answer is always latex

>>16377748
>He woke up early in the morning, addressed all 10567 of his sisters, and then promptly went back to sleep with an exhausted sigh, having finished the day's work

>>16371316
Offensive?

Why aren’t there any black racism stories in like Europe or Russia or something? It’s always fucking America, why can’t a really good story come about that makes Americans stop caring about American social justice?

>>16370685
That pen is a pilot metropolitan. Good choice for a cheap bastard who wants to look the part without research, or, in other words, the most /lit/ of pens.

>>16378463
What answer are you looking for?
America has been the leading global super power for most of recent history and thus narcissistically focuses on itself?

Some not /pol/ fag could probably help me out with this one because I'm not too well read on global slavery history, but I'd assume that the institution of slavery in the U.S. was very particular and possibly unique in the way that it was implemented via the triangular trade. Subsequently leading to it's cultural entrenchment acted out in things like jim crow and the war on drugs. I'd think that other cultures' minorities write about their own troubles and woes that are deeply entrenched in their countries personal zeitgeist.

>>16378482
I order packs of pilot varsity's. Feels so good to write with a fountain pen, but I dont have the skill or money to get nice ones and fill them, when I tried I made a fucking mess everywhere.

>>16378463
This >>16378530 raises good points, but I'd like to add a few.
America is unique in that contemporary minority populations build their understanding of their place in culture on literal centuries of perceived struggle. Minorities in other cultures are able to draw on rich backgrounds like folktales and things of that nature, while the modern American minority sees themselves entirely through the lens of perceived oppression. This is further exacerbated by an entrenched religious system decrying this oppression which leads to a spiritual foundation on such, and religion of course being one of the main pursuits of most literature.
>tldr; niggers and spics

>They left the inn and began trudging through the streets still thickly covered with snow. The sun had begun to peak out from behind its cloudy grey cover. The city would be dealing with the aftermath of a record snowfall, and its heralding of a long and bitter winter, for weeks to come, yet the sun promised hope of returning warmth.

Thoughts?

Does anyone else have a hard time talking about their writing? I talked to a guy who also writes today and when he asked me what my book is about I gave him a vague response. I write under a penname because I don't want anyone I know to find my stuff and read it.

>>16378778
Yeah. It mostly stems from not being happy with where my writing is currently at. If I were writing decent stuff I wouldn't mind showing it to people I know

>>16378751
>They left the inn and trudged through the streets, still thickly covered with snow. The sun had begun to peek out from behind its grey cover. The city would be dealing with the aftermath of the record snowfall - and its heralding of a long and bitter winter - for weeks to come, yet the sun promised hope of returning warmth.

I fixed only errors of grammar, spelling, structure, and repetition. The hyphens are probably worse than what you had but it's a preference thing and it makes the sentence read more easily to morons.

>>16378821
Thanks anon. The first and second sentences are definitely an improvement. You may be right about the hyphens, but I never use them so it may be a little jarring

Gideon is consulting a seer about a potentially prophetic dream of his.

>Gideon recounted the contents of his dream for her and she bade him sit on the bed while her wrinkled hands fumbled through her many assorted possessions, periodically pausing to consult specific items. This continued for some time which led Gideon to believe that he was being taken advantage of in some cruel joke, but just as he was about to leave the seer returned to her seat beside him.

How to fix this paragraph? One of my proofreaders suggested cutting almost all of it as it is already quite a lengthy short story. Another suggested breaking it into two sentences:

>Gideon recounted the conents of his dream for her. After he was done, she bade him sit...

The third suggested to frame it dfiferently:
>This tinkering continued for some time. Gideon became impatient, suspecting the old crone was merely taking advantage of him in some cruel joke. Just as he could take no more and rose to leave she stayed him, and returned.

>write script of caricatures of two of my friends
>one is a surfer dude
>the other is an autistic engineer
>continue writing script on and off for months
>lose interest
>year later start writing another book
>try to integrate script as side characters
>realize the two plots are totally opposite in every way
>realize I like the script as a book better than the other book
>novelize the script
>add more characters and interactions
>15k words of little scenes of different characters flowing in and out of each other
>stop writing b/c life keeps happening
>a year later and any time I open it I get horrible anxiety about all the edits and grand interweaving narratives I want to include
>hate that the setting and characters are based on my old life I no longer live
>reread what I have and it's actually pretty neat
>close document
>open it a few months later
>get anxiety again
>close document

I fucking hate myself so god damn much.

>>16378075
What if I threw some thesaurus words in it and made everything a symbol and used slant rhymes and then made it look like source code? I can also rewrite it and make it look like the work of a 19th century nobleman.

You are not a true-writer unless you've masturbated to your character(s) before.

>>16370685
I'm writing a sci-fi alternate history and I have no idea what I'm doing. Where do I begin learning how to write science fiction and alternate histories? Btw I'm Azure Ace Starburst.

>>16379651
Unironically why I stopped writing smut.

>>16379666
>Azure Ace Starburst
literally who?

>>16379651
Does it still count if the main character is you as a fox?
I'm not a furry because it's an alien fox. :3

>>16379677
That's fair.
To be honest with you I feel like dropping this stupid name completely.
Once upon a time I was born "Alice".
Then I hated my name and called myself "Ace"
Then furries brainwashed me and I called myself something stupid for a while.
Now...
Do I write a "respectable" human name like Alice Jones on my novel's cover or do I stick with the only name that ever felt like mine?

>>16379692
Probably go with the name that makes people think you're more normal

>>16379696
Ha! Good advice.
Where should I begin, when it comes to writing a science fiction alternate history story?

In a world where history went how I wished it went, the world turned out better. It is now the future and there is sci-fi gadgetry, power armour, etc. The hero, Winter Wulfkaiser, will save the world.

That's all I've got so far.

>>16379729
I'd say that you need a solid basis in history so that your alternate history seems believable. Since your protagonist sounds German, I imagine you'd want to brush up on WW1 and 2.

>>16379692
>cool world concept
>cool character concept
>cool plot concept that incorporates the world and the characters

It's a bunch of autistic checklists you make. Basically like DnD character sheets, but for... y'know, actual character traits and aspects. Do this, but do it on a larger general scale for little things you think are interesting.

It's easier to start with an end goal in mind and write the inbetween. Lets go through an example

>the future where lasers are really cool is a neat idea
>who's the thomas edison of the future?
>Well, why not bhomas bedison, the inverter of... hmmm....
>Bhomastical Bright Blinkers! The way to power the future!
>What would happen once everything is powered by lasers?
>Well someone would make guns out of it
>The rich would make their whole home lasers, invest in it, and make it hard for the poor to access it!
>What does laser inequality do to the poor who still have to use electricity?
>Technology reverts
>More coal mining because most major power sources have been shut down due to how cool lasers are
>Well the poor wouldn't have that, I bet the hick miners on Appalachia would become domestic terrorists against lasers
>The entire infrastructure of the southern united states is in absolute shambles all the way up until central Texas, where the oil tycoons invested heavily into lasers
>Metro cities of Texas are now major hubs of technology, but coal miner terrorists lurk around every corner
>enter Ray Cod, ex oil rig worker, turned botanist, after years of working in the fields and destroying the planet he decided to learn how to nurture nature when the wells dried up
>Ray Cod is an expert in a specific genus of plant that evolved on the mars colonies, the plant has medicinal properties, but only to those born on mars.
>He has been working odd jobs at different botanical gardens and private sector facilities while saving up enough money to take a trip on a laser powered public transport to the colonies.
>What Ray Cod will find when he gets there... IF he gets there... might surprise you.

>>16379753
I know all that stuff, but many countries involved in that are changed/larger/combined with other countries.
So in the end, a German-made America ends up the world's biggest superpower, and it goes to space.

I'm so, so tired of this. I hate the world I live in so much, but it only gets worse and worse and worse and I can't fix it. I can't even try to fix it. I can't even lash out or vent in any way that's cathartic

>>16379863
Well anon, what activities have you tried to do? You are posting in the writing thread, so I assume that you try to achieve catharsis through writing. What type of writing do you do? Do you write novels that hit too close to home? Do you write escapist fantasy and science fiction to immerse yourself in a world that isn't this one? Do you write poetry to brutally supplant your emotions into written form?

Why does doing this activity not help? Why do you think it isn't helping? Is there a particular part of the skill or craft you know you are lacking in that might just be the secret sauce to a more content life?

Have you tried doing pushups whenever you feel sad or distracted?

>>16379885
fuck, I thought I posted this in the write what's on your mind thread

>>16379910
Well, I hope you find something in life that brings a little joy anyway, anon.

>>16379924
Why am I so vapid? The thought of being popular entertained me more than true passion ever could. Recently I imagined myself getting trendy on webnovels sites like rr and such, the thought fueled me and I started writing the plot, the characters and craft every scene with more care and eagerness than I've ever done with the "serious" novel I've been working on for a year. Why am I like this?

>>16379863
>the world only gets worse and worse
Except it doesn't. Everything that is happening today already happened in another civilization ages ago, and the world kept turning. All you need to do is fix your mindset, not the world

>>16379924
>Perhaps, Socrates

>>16379924
Oops didn't intend to reply to your post

>>16378463
because eastern europe overwhelmingly hates immigrants

>>16379651
>>16379667
I can't see my characters sexually, no matter how sexy they are. It'd be like fapping to your daughter or something, jesus

>>16379173
I think it's all worth keeping, but you should fix those run-on sentences somehow. Split them into smaller sentences, like the other proofreader suggested. And this expression strikes me as odd,
>led Gideon to believe that he was being taken advantage of in some cruel joke
How does it become a cruel joke for a professional to go through her supplies? I should think that's more or less to be expected in the context, so I don't understand what Gideon is thinking. Or, if it really takes so absurdly long, you should stress that point.

>>16378821
>>16378853
>and its heralding of a long and bitter winter

I'd cut this completely. What is it supposed to mean? They're dealing with snow, the end.

>>16377354
>10 hours
>Not a single you
Not easy getting noticed on here.

>>16377354
>>16380778
Last one could be interesting, 1 and 2 are kinda cringe though. Indifferent about 3

>>16380778
Ideas mean nothing, bro. It's all about your writing.

>>16380784
Eh, I figured 1 and 2 sounded quite generic. 3's more of a basic slice of life thing with some rancher drama on the side. I'm tempted to do one on 4, but I'll need a good chunk of research onto the concept of malpractice and how the mafia treats doctors.

>>16380795
Well it is WRITING general. I figured it would be easier to post my ideas here then digging around a fitting picture for the designated thread.

>>16379766
I guess you didn’t like bhomas bedison, huh? That’s okay, I didn’t care about him anyhow. ;-;

>>16380759
The seer is a sort of crazy-seeming witch so he doesn't know if he can expect professionalism from her. But thanks for the suggestions, I'll stress both the relationship and the length of the rummaging.

>>16380853
Ignore him, /lit/ is overly prose obsessed. If prose mattered that much, Brandon Sanderson wouldn't have a lengthy awards and honours section on Wikipedia and even more than every other fantasy author without an HBO show.

>>16381037
Anon, even the most thrilling idea will make for a shit book, if your prose is bad. But even a generic idea can become something great, if your execution is golden. It's meaningless to get hung up on ideas and premises, because they say absolutely nothing about what the final result will be like.

And, this being /lit/, it is highly unlikely there will ever be a result of any kind.

>>16381060
>Anon, even the most thrilling idea will make for a shit book, if your prose is bad. But even a generic idea can become something great, if your execution is golden.

Obviously this is true, but as most people's prose falls somewhere in between it's better to have a good idea rather than just throwing a dart at a board.

What do you guys think about light novel? Simple, easy, cheap giggles, your-go-to-read when you are busy.

>>16381075
You should go with an idea that interests you personally, not something an anonymous online poll indicated to be most profitable among the target demographic

>>16381141
I read light novels after a lengthy work like Don Quixote or Anna Karenina

>>16381236
I think he had 4 ideas which interested him personally and he just wanted to sound out which interested others as well.

>>16381141
Translated works, especially from languages as alien as Japanese where there are no direct equivalents of words and there are cultural implications we don't understand, are not good to read.

>>16381294
He says he's writing with a story and character generator, that doesn't speak of a very deep level of interest for the idea.

>>16381299
it doesnt have to be japanese anon, even wattpad stuff counts as light novels too

>>16379692
>hating literally the best name
What the fuck. Why?

If you self-publish, you do whatever strikes you fancy. If it's traditional, you probably agree on a pseudonym with your publisher.

>>16380778
The stuff just sounded too generic and neither idea was really complete enough to even be called an idea for a book.

>>16381520
I don't know what wattpad stuff is so my response is
>yeah bro I'll just watch some American anime and read some American manga

>>16381520
>even wattpad stuff counts as light novels too

No, it does not.

Would you be able to write something meant to be a commercial hit, without any regards to actual "literary merit"?

Why do people make fun of OnlyFans content, when it applies to books too?
> lol why pay for naked women/books when there are so many free porn/books on Pornhub/the library
> you do realize that all the paid content on OnlyFans/Barnes and Nobles will eventually end up on Pornhub/Libgen, right?

>>16382842
That's the wrong question for this thread.

The reason I write so little and think so much is because I don't want my writing to be an expression of my true self so I overthink everything and try to hide behind genre conventions, plot twists and end up losing heart because it's all pointless.
I'm scared to say anything about anything because I worry my opinions aren't worth expressing.

>>16382923
We're the OnlyFans of writing

>>16383048
speak for yourself, I do it for free

>>16382803
I'm of the (admittedly naive) opinion that if you write something genuinely good, it will find its audience eventually, and also turns around the trends of what kind of shit people want to read.

>>16383059
I hope you are right anon. Hopefully the good ones shine through corporate shilling.

>>16382803
I write stories I like, if some jerkoff critic decides there is some "literary merit", great. If not, not my problem.

Same goes for adjusting it for the market. It's given that editing needs to be done and as long it doesn't change the story too much, I wouldn't mind. Writing something just for hopes it will sell well? No thanks.

What is the best way to make a habit out of writing? Or rather, did you accomplish this, and how?

>>16383688
bro just make a plan to write every day for 30 minutes after your cup of coffee when u wake up.

>>16383718
>did this, but with whiskey
>can only write while buzzed now

I'm sure I'll probably regret it some point down the road, but right now it helps.

>Be me
>Go to college writing class today
>"OK anons let's break into two groups and review each other's story, setting, and character outlines for our first workshop story"
>we break into groups
>I get put in with "that kid"
>Clearly some form of autism that inhibits self-awareness
>"Soooo the story I have been working on, which I will make a longer novel, is inspired by Feudal Era Japan."
>He's doing the autism thing where they heavily rock side to side in their swivel chair
>"I wanted to focus on normal peasants rather than valorant, honorable samurai or what have you
>See there are no human characters in my story
>Instead I have created several 'races' based on Japanese mythology
>There are the Eboni, who are bunny people. They have an affinity with the moon
>The Kawasuro, who are otter people
>Kitsune, who are Fox people
>The Tanuki... I worked to make them more modest than they are in real mythology
>The main character is Taki... Deki... ummm... Takiketsuruki, who's a bunny person and a blacksmith. They wield [unpronouncable name that he garbled and skipped over] which is a giant wooden mallet used for breaking down doors. He is comfortable with it because it is like a hammer and he is a smith.
>This other character fights with jade magic which is based on the lay of the Ley Lines
>Have you ever read Journey to the West? It's supposed to be like that where the conflict is their journey getting to the emperor. Technically there is a main antagonist but I don't have it fully worked out yet"
Honestly it's hard to do justice to this story, it's a shame the professor doesn't record our zoom sessions because this was fucking gold. The other two were just staring into space the whole time and I was fighting so hard not to giggle and laugh out loud at this guy, a reaction I've honestly never had in a "face to face" interaction before.
While listening I imagined the "races" to be like in those anime where it's humans with animal ears, but looking back I'm pretty sure this is actually furry.
Now that I think about it, we're going to workshop everybody's stories, which means I will have a hard copy of this completed magnum opus.

>>16383770
It helps you go schizo, don't know about writing

>>16383854
What are you trying to say, exactly? Sounds like you got grouped with some kind of fucking creative savant. I'd take notes if I were you, instead of giggling in the corner like a little girl

>>16383854
So what is your story about, man?

>>16382803
If I could write something that made a lot of money, I'd do it without hesitation, yes. Writing a commercially successful book isn't as easy as people make it out to be, though. Otherwise the hordes of genre writers self-publishing their stuff online would be raking in cash

>>16379205
A similar thing happened to me, but it was about 70K and I was chapters away from finishing it.

>>16372799
Me gusta esto, anon.

>>16383854
While it sounds unintentionally hilarious, I actually really want to read that story because it sounds unique. I don't imagine it being very good unless that guy did a ton of historical research just for a writing class, though

>>16383688
I started publishing my stuff online, and now that some people are reading it I feel obligated to put chapters out regularly

>>16383931
>Otherwise the hordes of genre writers self-publishing their stuff online would be raking in cash

I dare say more of them make bank than traditionally published authors.

>>16383942
That feel bro. Sorry to hear that.
>>16383964
Thats a good idea, all those habit gurus talk about being held accountable by a friend for something.

>>16370685

>>16376268
>Can this not be a /crit/ thread
>>16376312
The recent /wg/ theads' revival has astroturfed the /crit/ thread engagement; these need to be parsed in the OPs

>>16383964
Where do you publish them?

Is it better to save your manuscript for a publisher, or would releasing it online, either partially or complete, be a good idea in the long run?

>>16384156
What makes you think it could be a good idea?

>>16371570
It's really nice. It has a pretty good cadence to it, almost like the soothing rocking of a boat in the middle of the ocean. I'm not sure about the "foever overhead" line but the rest of the poem paints an exquisite picture.

>>16383688
Serialized weekly writing helped me to discipline myself with self-set deadlines. Which can help with getting out a LOT of words at the last possible moment, but may and will lead to a dip in the quality that comes with it in favor of quantity along with the bells and whistles of inconsistencies that come with it. If you do a blend of pants and plants writing it's not TOO bad though.

In my case, this process would've been easier if things went different starting out and if I had a nice cushion of chapters for scheduled releases but sadly I flubbed around for a bit and it was a awful whiplash later.

But I still struggle to write everyday though. There's time where I might write 500 words, be content I met my daily goal and then finish the rest of it 6 days ago with last-second editing. But this week I did over 15k over 10 chapters in one week so far and my brain is getting fried since that's like a dozen chapters worth that I'd do over a 9 week period. it's been painful, and it means I had very little time to do anything else like vidya, anime or friends. But I think it's worth it in my case since these rewrites help to make things more impactful later on.

>>16384161
Getting your story out there and perhaps gaining a following could incline the balance in your favor, could it not? I do know that many LNs have found their way to publication that way, but I ignore if the same path could apply to western literature. I just want to be read by as many people as possible.

>>16384294
Yo, the chick from 50 shades got published and made movies etc. after writing a shitty fan fiction of twilight and posting weekly chapters. If some fat lazy controlling broad could do it, we can too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzk9N7dJBec

>>16384294
>I do know that many LNs have found their way to publication that way
This is one of the biggest ideas harming young western writers. Stop thinking you'll be able to replicate the success of all the garbage on Narou, especially if your shit's similar to that (isekai garbage, LitRPG garbage, etc.). It won't work in America.

There are some like The Martian that did this, but your best bet is to go trad eventually.

>>16384396
>If some fat lazy controlling broad could do it, we can too.
Probably not. Fifty Shades has a specific appeal despite being shit. Most of the works people write on here are either unmarketable pseud shit or amateurish attempts at aping anime tropes. There really isn't a large market for either of those in western audiences.

>>16384619
50 Shades is generally a very special case, outside of the smut appeal, it rode on the Twilight fanfiction wave. So to replicate it, one would need to write fanfiction about a super popular work, and these days it doesn't even exist in a similar form. Hunger Games probably was the last big thing and it came out almost a decade ago.

>>16384676
Fair point.
What are people reading now anyway? besides 'how not to be racist' books and other self-help shit.

>>16384864
In YA Sara J Maas, Angie Thomas and Leigh Bardugo seem like a big deal but it's far more subdued now and there is a huge spread. John Green still seems to make big bucks too. For Fantasy, maybe Brandon Sanderson?
In non-fiction, how now to be a racist and how horrible Trump is seem like the hot trends for now. If Biden blows it, it'll likely continue.

>>16384913
>If Biden blows it
Most liberals I've talked to don't even like the guy.It's almost a certainty that Trump will when unless there's some foul play with mail-in ballots.

As far as the YA topic goes, the entire industry seems to be in a very interesting spot right now. Like the other anon said, the last heavy hitter was nearly a decade ago with the Hunger Games. Do you think a lack of massively popular YA novels has more to do with a drop in reading with kids, or a lack of new ideas with mass appeal

>>16384960
Not him, but I believe it's somewhat related to what's happening to memes and the cultural associations that we bestow upon decades. Perhaps it is because it's still too recent, but the 2010s don't have such a steady identity such as the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, or even the 00s. Because of the Internet, everything moves too fast now. People get bored much more easily and social and cultural phenomena don't take off as much or for as long as they used to.

>>16384960
I think its gen z zoomers blooming into their own. There's no target market when none of the age group reads.

>>16385021
In my experience, my cousin is 13 years old and he spends a lot of time reading. However, so far he's stuck in the Harry Potter phase, alongside other such books such as Percy Jackson and How to Train Your Dragon. He told me he had read the entire Harry Potter saga like 8 times.
I find it curious how he's reading the same thing that people a generation before him did when they were children.

>>16385069
I don't see it as any different from people who love fantasy reading LOTR for generations. Love it or hate it, Harry Potter did something fresh and it has a lot of staying power. Many YA written in its wake have been trying to replicate the same thing, and while some have found moderate success, they don't have the same level of staying power since they're just copies

>>16385144
My post wasn't a criticism at Harry Potter nor at the people who enjoy it. Although I kind of wish he would broaden his horizons a little, my point was to reinforce the notion that there really aren't any new YA phenomena, as it appears as though Harry Potter has the same effect among young readers and it did when the series first came out.

>>16385012
Most likely this.

But it also seems like there are simply no more obvious hits that could even blow up if things were slower. We're probably stuck in a decade of remakes and nostalgia until 2022-5

>tfw wrote almost 3200 words yesterday

I'm climbing the ladder, lads. I am, actually, ALMOST done with my current project. I'm on the precipice of the finale, it's so close I can taste it.

>>16385599
So far I've written 3500 words today, but it was just copying answers out of a study book. :(

Current project is now officially a novel (>40k words).

Why do people say to not use Courier for novels? I really like the font, it captures the typewriter feel.
I get that it's intended for coding, but what the fuck does that matter

>>16386038
>it captures the typewriter feel.
That's the reason. It's old and kitschy. Nobody wants to see that and strain their eyes adapting to a new font. It's just another barrier to entry for your book. If you feel the work demands it, then do it, and see how far you get in the world of corporate marketing analysis.

>>16386014
A novel is officially 50k, my nigga.

Finally... 19k words over a 7 day period. I did it bros. The rewrites are complete. It's 7:38 PM and now it's time to edit them.

>>16370750
UMW?

>>16386399
See you back here in a few days when you finish editing

how does non-rhyming poetry work? or are there just no rules and it can just work however the fuck you want?
I'm trying to write a series of poems that form a cohesive story but finding rhymes every other line is difficult

>>16370829

It's jam-packed with info, but most recently reading that 'naming an emotion makes it lose its power almost instantaneously' was extremely impactful for me. Using physical reaction in place of naming emotions/piling detail onto scenes concerning the emotion being felt (seemed like, was like, etc) was able to create an entirely new facet of life in my writing.

>>16386511

CUD

>>16371487
No writing is sitting in front of the computer for a few hours and writing. People who think just getting good ideas and writing them down will eventually lead somewhere will never make it.

>>16386399
I have done 20k words in a day several times. 20k in a week is almost the minimum to aim for.

Thoughts on Josip Novakovich's Fiction Writer's Workshop?

Now that the rewrites are done and over with, it doesn't hurt to post it again now that's a proper actual story with no jarring spoiler chapters now.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/31062/saga-of-the-cosmic-heroes

>>16387581
Jesus dude, did you just discover the existence of text styles, or what the hell possessed you to spam italic, bold, even UNDERLINING, everywhere in your prose? I've dropped a lot of RR stories in one chapter, but this was probably the fastest I've ever closed the tab.

>>16387581
>Retard Road

FUCK OFF

/wg/ IS A TRAD PUBLISHING ONLY THREAD

So I'm finally writing about 1k-2k words a day these days which took a while to get to but now that I'm here I'm starting to realise just how tedious my writing is, it really reads like drivel.
Im only really writing scifi now because its a genre I like the most but I still read a fair amount of literature, but whatever I write sort of devolves down to technobabble and just sits on top of the world building I've thought up.
I don't really know how to write actual stores if that makes any sense, I can do small vignettes that act like showcases of all of the reading up on world building I'm doing, but they definitely aren't stories, and while stylistically
I'm not too unhappy with how I write, Im also realising that because what I'm writing is so uninspired and lacking in substance its really easy to sort of cruise around not really challenging myself. I'm not too sure what to do right now,
Im trying to start off by writing about the interesting characters in my setting and set them in motion but its so clear that the story is a pointless addition to the setting itself, rather than the setting existing for any stories in it. Ideally I'd
like to write some rogue trader space opera material but I just feel like nothing I write has any soul.

>>16388003
Start writing short stories that are set in the real world. That removes the sci fi distractions. Sure, drama is a boring genre but that way you get to focus on the core aspects of character writing. Then slowly add sci fi elements and experiment with how to drip feed them in naturally in a way that doesn't reduce the quality of the character writing. Then try a short story like the novel you want to write, maybe even set in the same universe if that works. Writing sci fi and fantasy makes it too easy to focus on the foreign elements rather than the actual characters and plot which is what makes the story good.

>>16387633
No, it's for people who write.

>>16388042
I can't believe I never thought of that, thanks, I tried my hand at drama when I was younger and haven't thought to look back, I'll give that a shot for a while but it feels like exactly what I need

>>16388174
>it's for people who write
Guess I should leave.

>>16388042
One of the things I've noticed is that it's easy to add a lot of fantastical mystery to a drama based in RL than it is to add that same mystery to fantasy and sci-fi settings. How is this so?

Is rewriting a meme? How much free time do these people actually have? I get it if you rewriting for the sake of your editor, but rewriting your whole wattpad seems pointless?

>>16388525
Because to us, the entire setting is out of the ordinary, so what is out of the ordinary to the characters seems reasonable enough to us. Eg, in real life it'd be strange if someone shot lightning from their fingers, but in a magical kingdom of wizards we don't know whether that's normal or not.

>>16388534
A real novel will be rewritten 2-3 times before it reaches perfection.

>>16388539
I mean even more mundane. Like how in Blood Meridian knives are compared to claymores, and distant mountains compared to floating temples. Despite the setting being grounded in reality, those descriptions of mundane things in fantastical ways seems all the more impactful than the inverse. In Blood Meridian, equating one of the bandits on horse back to an oaf-ish knight is evocative, in a lot of fantasy/sci-fi novels, it's almost as if the fantastical setting itself somehow makes the whole thing less fantastical, if that makes sense.

I think it has something to do with mystery, and how world-building ultimately destroys any semblance of it.

>>16388551
Only for niggers who didn't planned out the whole things first

>>16388625
How do you plan a story?
I normally just sit down and come up with it during the rhythm.
Have I been doing it wrong?

>>16388699
It's not necessarily wrong, but it might be inefficient.

I find that my process goes:

Outline>Synopsis>First Draft>So on

When you go by rhythm, what you're usually doing is just mixing the synopsis and First Draft stage. Try writing down an outline and writing with it in mind, see if it makes things easier or harder or adds anything to your writing. I find an outline can keep me from going on tangents, personally.

>>16388718
>I find an outline can keep me from going on tangents, personally
Tangents are fantastic though.
They allow characters to be real people, instead of vehicles to be constantly pushing the main story to a finish.
Downtime in books is comfortable, and more relatable.

>>16385173
It really did a good job at capturing the common fantasy kids that age have. No other series does it quite as well, and probably will never do it quite as well until the next generation of culture sets new trends, which could be decades from now.

Writing prompt: You're dying of thrist and oxygen in Mars wandering aimlessly, with a random luck you happen to saw a somewhat convenience store in the distance, packed with neon billboard too.

>>16388729
Depends on your definition of tangent. Characters can have down time and meander, but it should serve the story in some way. There's plenty of tangents and meandering in Moby Dick, as a for instance, but it all serves the story as a whole in some way.

>>16388783
Tangents are the story of life.

>>16388783
Lonesome Dove is one of my favourite books, and it has tons of tangents that don't serve the story at all.
90% of the side characters could be removed, and the book quartered, but you would be missing out on the world.

>>16378439
offensive as in seeming off, robotic, a mockery of writing

>>16388757
>You're
>implying the story should be 1st person
I will grab hold of this excuse and use it not to engage with the prompt.

>>16388793
And I think you'd find that many lives end up following a theme.
>>16388798
They may not serve the plot, but they most certainly serve the story in the sense of giving aesthetic to adventure.

>>16387633
I don't get the hostility. I'm currently querying and wouldn't want to go the onlyfans/royal road route either but if someone else does, what's the fucking issue? They are still writing and unlike people working towards trad-publishing also releasing stuff. There is no harm in them shilling for their work.

Has anyone here actually dealt with deadlines? I have ten days to come up with a short story from scraps and I don't know where to start

>>16388864
It lowers the value of writing as a product overall. Self-publishing swine tend to either release their work for cheap, or for free after awhile of it being out. The true issue lies in marketing.

The secondary issue, however, is that writing is ultimately a two person task between a writer and an editor. Self-publishers tend to not employ an editor and their work suffers greatly for it.

>>16388871
What are the scraps?

>>16388965
it's supposed to be about supermarkets

>>16388878
Does it though? Lots of free shit writing isn't going to interest anyone but people who want lots of free shit writing. Majority of self-published writers don't compete with trad. published writers and are more of reaction video/vlog making youtubers vs professional produced movies/series. Or hell, pulp magazines vs novels.

As for lack of editing and shit quality, sure, but a lot of trad. published stuff is crap too despite having editors. Given the schedules they have to deal with, they aren't doing too badly.

>>16388871
Not with my current work outside of "shit, I'm going to be busy by the end of September, I have to finish X until then, no matter what". Back when I did screenwriting for TV (local station, nothing fancy) it was the norm obviously.

Tbqh, I love them. The last 10% rush and running into store to grab energy drinks in the early morning after doing an all-nighter to continue are one of my fondest memories when comes to writing. I love spending inappropriate time tweaking small stuff too, so wouldn't want to switch to deadlines-only approach but from time to time, it's just do damn fun to challenge yourself. Helps to focus too.

What fonts do you guys like to use?

>>16389038
Palatino >

>>16388757
i'm an engi student and i can never get past the first paragraph of a writing prompt. here's my half-assed attempt:
>The beauty of a planet is deceiving. At certain scales, it's the weaker gravitational forces that govern the macroscopic behavior of the cosmos. At those very scales, it's those very scales themselves that govern beauty. It's only now that I realize this mistake, having been fringed upon on all sides by the reddish-brown hue of a bulimic's sick bucket for some time: every dermal pore gasping for air in an agonized dry-heave. Space looks the maw of a technicolor yawn, from the surface of mars. It was at about this thought, lost in it the way only a person with bad vision can really ever be, that it started drizzling. And, rubbernecking in the way that precipitation can only prompt, I choked on the last of my own spit. On the horizon to my left, through the hot haze, and like a bad photoshop: a smouldering sign silhouetted by the vacuum of space behind it.

>>16389010
Pulp magazines are no longer a thing, and part of the reason they are no longer a thing is because of the kind of shit that self-publishing promotes. Even shit work must be given value. Writers are right to rail against anything who might further threaten their livelihood, or indeed, the value of the art as a whole.

>>16389060
Lmao thanks

>>16388625
>>16388718
Nonsense. Only someone who hasn't written anything in moderate length would think writing is as easy as following an outline throughout. It's always that the first attempt at a story won't be the best. People, creative ones at least, get new ideas as they write, as it's a constant thing. And the more you write the more you see better ways to go with your story or an entirely different idea altogether but come with the same setting, characters or scenes.

>>16389170
Bravo. So you're boycotting webnovels right? And protest loudly every mention of them on Mongolian basketweaving forums surely? What great contribution

>>16389170
Value comes from a specific product, the rest of the market doesn't matter that much if you have something desireable. Writers who worry about their livelihood simply don't have too good of a product.

>>16389194
Different ways work for different people, but the outcomes are usually the same. You speak as if you're passing on some hidden wisdom, or that somehow making an outline means that you need to stick to it throughout, and can't go back and change it as ideas comes. What you described is not secret knowledge, it is just plainly how everyone writes.
>>16389224
It's not about livelihood, it's about the value of a product. The rest of the market can turn the most desireable things into fleeting fancies no one will notice nor care for.
>>16389209
yes

>>16388807
That's a very apt description of it, yes.

>>16388878
>Self-publishing swine tend to either release their work for cheap, or for free after awhile of it being out. The true issue lies in marketing.
What the fuck are you even talking about? People putting out their writing for free lowers the value of writing? Then they should shut down 4chan, before your posts make the market value of the English language plummet lmao

>>16389381
If you think that writing posts on 4chan and writing say, a novel, are in anyway comparable then maybe you should consider a different hobby.

>>16389406
And how are webnovels and normal novels comparable beyond sharing the name and kinda being about telling a story? (Just like blogs or fanfiction)

>>16389170
>Pulp magazines are no longer a thing, and part of the reason they are no longer a thing is because
Because the internet came into existence. This is not a problem exclusive to pulp magazines, but all physical media around the world. You can't exactly make it unhappen, so all you CAN do is deal with it. Creators have to adapt to the changes in their ecosystem and find other ways to survive. You simply can't go back in time and expect things to work like they did 50 years ago, no matter how you wish.

>>16389436
I don't wish anything, you're projecting your assumptions on to me for whatever reason. Market forces and times change, but one should never work for free if they can avoid it, but for the sake of themselves and their communities.

>>16389455
>I don't wish anything
Then don't take it so personally, autismo.

>>16389464
Whatever offense you feel I've taken is in your head.

>>16389488
Well, you're making so little sense and contradicting yourself, that I naturally assumed you were too assblasted to think straight anymore. Am I mistaken then?

>>16389542
The only thing you are is mad, and when you're mad, you're awfully cute. Do you have a Discord?

>>16389274
>What you described is not secret knowledge, it is just plainly how everyone writes.
And I claimed no more. The initial post was about rewriting not outlining, though I admit I thought you are same faggot who said rewriting is for people who didn't plan out thing first. But your other replies on publishing online tells me you are just as much a sissy faggot as the other one.

>>16372799
Me gustan las imágenes, pero, aunque la cadencia está bien lograda, lo hace en detrimento del natural fluir de las palabras.
El producto final sin embargo resulta agradable. Me gustaría poder escribir algo que sonara así de fresco.

>>16389038
Times New Roman has always looked fine to me

How long is it recommendable to let a manuscript rest before you get into editing?

>>16391253
It depends on a lot of factors, anon.
Technical edits? I’d do that pass through a day or two later.
Content based editing? I’d give it a week or more. You want to wait long enough until it doesn’t even seem like your writing and it’s another persons work you are fixing.

>>16391253
3-6 months.
Or until you have completely forgotten about it.
Start something else, and come back to it once you have finished.

>>16391253
I usually let a chapter rest for about 5 minutes while I make some more coffee. I do freelance editing work, so I suppose it's a little easier to be critical of my own work

What ever happened to the book that lit wrote at the beginning of lockdown?

>>16391378
Not sure if serious, but your perspective on it obviously hasn't changed at all in five minutes. It took me years and some very dumb and humbling mistakes to admit that you just can't rush this shit. At least not without a cost. A lot of synapses in your head must rewire before you can identify some mistakes as such. Of course, if you could always tell something was wrong, you wouldn't have written it in the first place.

>>16391306
This would be my pick too.

>>16391429
Everyone is different, anon. I may not come up with better story ideas immediately, but I catch every grammar and typing mistake, as well as awkward sentence structure.

I attribute it to years of analyzing sentence structure while reading books. If something is wrong, it immediately stands out to me while I'm reading through

>>16391704
Since you're so confident, post something, and I'll point out five mistakes for you.

>>16370685
Man this thread is even worse than I would’ve figured, based failure general

>>16391718
I'm good. I'm here to talk about the writing process, not argue with an anon whose ego has been hurt because he can't fathom the idea of someone being different. This also isn't a critique thread, and I don't plan on turning it into one

>>16391747
That's quite alright, I expected nothing but lame insults in the first place.

>>16391747
>check OP
>”everything writing including advice”
I don’t see how criticism wouldn’t belong ITT

>>16391753
Don't worry anon, you keep letting your manuscripts sit for a year just so you can spot a dangling participle.

>>16391758
I feel like that kinda thing would spiral out of control very quickly if we just had a bunch of anons posting walls of text without giving any discussion. I had to stop going to critique threads years ago because the thread quality was just so poor

>>16391718
He was a large man, generously proportioned, he stood as tall on two feet as he did laying on his back. His life revolved around image boards like a misformed celestial body menaces a planet. He went to place another pork rind in his gaping gob. *CRUNCH* a stentorian blast of pork shrapnel assaulted his gums. Smirking, he remarked to himself, “i know what will settle his hash, i think I’ll offer to criticize this man’s writing.”

And so he did.

>>16391718
>>16391804
Where’s my damn critique?

>>16391718
Useless nigger

If you want your writing to be preserved in an ebook we are writing, write some nano/lit/ it this thread over here:

>>16391995
>>16391995
>>16391995

>>16371487
>ed like, to that community, there really was only amazon as a money maker. An

the absolute state of this retard

>>16391253
I usually wait about 3 weeks.

what are some good words to use for "cease?" in the case of someone stopping touching someone else. The word "cease" rhymes with a previous line that I do not want to rhyme, "relent" sounds dumb in the context of the sentence, "end" or "stop" both sound too plain. "Terminate" could work but I'd have to restructure the sentence to fit it, to imply a line being drawn that terminated

>>16392280
cringe

>>16377254
Post ur story

>>16387625
I plead guilty. I utilize them more than I should and I can't stop, it's like coffee abuse, I just can't give it up easily

>>16392336
It's the sci-fi space opera one. Follow the 16387625 reply above to a link to it

>>16392280
>"end" or "stop" both sound too plain
And that's bad because?

>>16389768
Thanks, man. I've been working in a short story.


El sol calentó su rostro; el hambre lo despertó. Un día más se sumaba a la vida del viejo quien, con inveterada certeza aseveró: Hoy. Hoy escribiría sus memorias. Ya el alemán dijo que los primeros 40 años brindan el texto; los otros 30, el comentario. El viejo, acumulando hasta ahora un doble volumen de texto, carecía de comentario. Sabía que su memoria no era la misma que hace 20 años, ni hace 20, la de a sus 20. La inexistencia pronto volvería a ser y no ser en él; o tal vez las aguas del Lete hidratarían sus secos labios. Mientras su entendimiento brillara, aunque tal vez opacamente, y la amnesia del pasado o del futuro en su mente no tuviera cama, la vida del viejo podría ser plasmada. Mas, ¿para qué? El viejo se levantó de su cama y, pensando sobre el recursivo purgatorio del olvido anterógrado, preparó un café.

>>16392417
Hey I can see how it gets to top trending, though I've only read the first chapter. May even gonna follow it. Tell me though, very important mind you, are her feet cute?

>>16370826
Good