/lit/ - Literature

Just began a Patreon. How do anons advertise it? Or is it all word of mouth?

Let's have a good one with no schizo posting, pseuds, or spooks. Live and let live bros.

>>16522343
You just alienated 90% of the board

>>16522367
good

Someone tl;dr me on style. I feel so lost whenever folks talk about it

>>16522323
A grind that requires consistent output afaik

>>16522376
Use this https://www.typelit.io/ for different books

>>16522398
>A grind that requires consistent output afaik
How much we talking? I suppose I could write between 1000-2000 words per day.

>>16522376
The dumbest way is to compare it to movies.
So movies have genre right?
Books have genre too.
Different directors have different styles.
When you see a Kubrick film, you know it's Kubrick. When you see tarkovsky you know it's tarkovsky. When you see a kurosawa film it is quintessentially tarkovsky. tarantino movies all look and feel like tarantino.
What is it that these directors do that makes their movies so recognizable as movies by those directors? Well, it's that each has their own style. Each of them uses a certain color pallet, lenses, a certain way they write dialogue, their plots are done in a certain way, their cinematography and composition are unique. All these little things add up together to be style. If you were to take each little thing on its own you could see tons of directors doing things. Everyone blows things up, but michael bay blows things up in the most michael bay way. It is whole that is larger than the sum of its parts.

Well, writers do this too. Even if it is only text, there are ways in which people use words that give color to what they write. A certain way they describe things, whether they rely heavily on dialogue, their plots, their everything. Style is an amalgamation of all these things together performed in a unique way that is quintessentially you. Your style will develop and change over time, but it will still be 'a' style.

The way I type my posts for example, there are probably some on here that recognize the way I explain things, the way I engage, the way I format things, the way I edit, the way I do everything. My posts have a style that is me. Not to say that it's a good style, but it is a style. My style could just be a direct rip off of someone else. My style could be an amalgamation of all the things I've consumed that have come before me. My style could be preaxiomatically ideological cope to the point of utter futility. But it is still a style.

>>16522301
Into Elysian

It always happened during the day and it always happened to the same two people. Charles and Larissa. They were not related nor had they ever seen each other but when it started happening, they were drawn together as though they were long lost lovers; Which they might as well have been considering the magnetic, startling, affection they had for each other. It started as glimpses from the corner of their eyes; something disappearing the moment it registered to them. Then it grew to full scale apparitions, watching them among crowds of people. And eventually they started to appear in Charles and Larissa's most private moments. They looked like people from a distance but when they came close, you could see that their pupils were slit like a reptile's and their nails came to fine points like talons.

"You could see me," Was the first and only words they spoke so far to Charles and Larissa.

They both remember it quite well because it had been three voices that had spoke at once. A male's voice. A woman's voice. And it's own distorted voice, as though it could not form words. A full year after Charles and Larissa had found each other, they started to see the apparitions in their dreams, manipulating them to see visions of another world and species. Though they saw the figures they were blurred as though they were moving at a pace too great to register. They speculated and pondered and surmised the incredible and outlandish on this newfound happening and were rewarded with a new shock as the apparitions had stopped appearing to them. They were in Charles and Larissa's reflections now. And to an even greater shock, they discovered the faintest hint of whispers alongside their voices as they talked.

Whatever was happening, was finally starting to consume their entire lives. It terrified them to a point that they were starting to lose their identities and memories to a force beyond understanding. But as the dreams continued to shape visions and images of this alien world, they began to understand that the feeling of terror was not necessary; They began to understand that they were becoming more then human. Soon after this revelation, they ceased going outside and answering any calls, entirely cutting off their last ties with humanity as the apparitions merged with Charles and Larissa. Within a week, they sat together in silence as they stared at their reflections on the dead tv screen.

"Charles," three voices spoke at once.

"I know. Don't be scared,"

She looked at his slit pupils.

"I'm not scared of anything, anymore. I think tonight will be it,"

"Yes," He said, as he took ahold of her hand.

They only looked at each other, waiting for the dreams to come; Waiting to venture into their new world together and experience Elysian.

Would very much appreciate critique!

>>16522441
>using movies
>not bringing up Wes Anderson
you had one job, Anon

>>16522301
Why are we merging /wg/ with /crit/? That'll only derail the thread on occasion.

>>16522398
>https://www.typelit.io/
ooookay. I was planning on doing something similar on my own from a "see what it feels like to type/write something like that" but this might have just made it so much easier. Thanks, mmmguy

>>16522471
Holy shit how did I forget. brb killing myself.

I used to hate Wes Anderson movies.
The I watched them ironically.
Now I unironically love Wes Anderson movies.
I changed. His style didn't.
>>16522477
It happens sometimes. /crit/ threads die pretty fast and it looks like the one crit that already posted here DIDNT READ THE OP >>16522444
IM TALKING ABOUT YOU MR TRIPS

>>16522477
Well, considering that 80% of posters throughout the course of /wg/ consists of dumped poems or brief one-shots, I'd say it's more formalized now. It will probably invite more party-pooping spooks though.

>>16522504
But why am I suppose to tell you what to critique? That wouldn't be a critique, that would be a reinforced notion that does nothing outside of feeding into delusion.

>>16522477
People already post their stuff here to be critiqued anyways. I don't mind helping out a few anons a day

>>16522444
Reads pretty well apart from your overreliance on semicolons. I definitely didn't feel like they needed to be used for most of them. My only other nitpick would be using
>Which they might as well
instead of
>Which they may as well
I just think that sounds a little better

>>16522435
I mean a grind because you may not see the results you want for a while (or ever).

I just fell for the Scrivener meme. Fuck me, what a massively overrated app.

>>16522598
If you need anything more than a simple word processor, you're a not a writer, you just think being a writer is a quirky hobby

>>16522573
Oh well. I think art is supposed to be about passion and not monetary gain anyways.

>>16522598
Did you think you were going to get a life-changing writing software for $40? It's good for organizing stuff. What more do you really need as a writer?

>>16522615
Word document is kind of neccessary for most writers because nearly every journal asks for Times New Roman 12 pt font with double spaces and indented paragraphs.

>>16522615
I hate to admit it, but yeah. This is true. I wrote the best and longest draft of mine in Word. The tool really doesn't matter.

GRRM writes GoT in a DOS word processing program.

>>16522598
>>16522615
A friend of mine who told me to get it who is also an aspiring writer, also told me that they don't need to read many books in order to be a writer. They have read one book since I met them three years ago, and that one book took them like a year to read.

>>16522660
>don't need to read many books in order to be a writer
uh oh...

Lads, give me more redpills like >>16522615 and put me through a dark night of the soul. I have to know if this thing is right for me, or if i'm just branching out into things I don't know. I want you to break my will to red and write. If I can pick up the pieces, then all is good.

I didn't get a definitive answer last thread so here are some of my questions about writing fiction or just in general. I've been struggling with believable and impactful dialog, and using that dialog to develop and differentiate characters. I'm working on something new and want to know how I can make my characters a bit more compelling and distinguishable through dialog. Oftentimes when I'm writing a conversation it feels to me unnatural and robotic, so any tips you guys have would be very helpful.

Hey /mu/
extreme amateur that writes for fun. Any advice so I don't sound like a pretentious retard?

>>16522695
Don't try to reproduce how real people talk, especially if you're an autist who doesn't go out very much. That will make it look even weirder. Write dialogue in a way that fits and blends with your narration and it will sound much more natural.

I'm going to do it bros, I'm starting my first actual novel, or at least novella

>>16522660
I feel like this post is making a direct attack on me

>>16522714
Well that's just it, I'm not a turboautist or anything I just can't translate a fluid conversation to paper right. I'm not talking about people's weird ticks or le anime stuttering, just how to compose dialogs that reveal more information than the narration so it doesn't feel repetitive or supplementary.

>>16522721
Perhaps it is. Where do you live?

>>16522708
i meant /lit/ sorry im high

>>16522681
That isn't a redpill, it's your typical anon edge.
Scrivener is a useful tool to have in the box.
Like having a thesaurus or dictionary at hand, use it appropriately and it will make writing easier for you.
If you find word easier to use, then use word.
If you find writing by hand first is easier, do that.
I find scrivener easier to use because I often go between tabs in the same document, even between various projects, quite frequently.

>>16522301
Does reading make you a better writer?

>>16522301
Another day, another ideation designated to comparmentality breaks loose to forecast the devastating manifold of woes


Thats all ive written so far

>>16522695
Write it down however it comes easiest to you. When you go back and edit, spend one edit solely on dialogue. Thing about the words that the specific person may use, or even the way they say certain words. Think of a general backstory and then use words appropriate for that person. Try and sometimes sprinkle in body language in place of words.

Going to kill myself so I decided I have to at least write a book first

>>16522798
Yes.

>>16522816
Only one?
Everyone is worth at least three. Mind, body, soul.

>>16522804
>comparmentality
Already got a typo anon.

>>16522829
Please don't lure anyone into joycean systematics, let that meme die.

I think I'm kinda beyond this point, but I just had the idea and curious to know what y'all mutha fuckas think. Would taking a movie you really love and novelizing it be a good exercise for beginning writers?

>>16523062
Yeah that sounds like a good exercise. Breaking novels down into plot structure is also a good one, but it's pretty boring

>>16522708
replace "sputter" with "spiral"
interjecting is used incorrectly. use interrupting
get rid of "with a flourish"
replace "was cackling" with "cackled"
replace "she was ugly" with "she was an ugly sort,"
replace "Being that" with "At least"
comma after comfy
Don't know what the fuck you're trying to say next sentence: "The poor interaction...pool table in the back."
replace "bars' " with "bar was"
remove "They're"
add "the" before "occasional oil baron's widow"

I'm faced with the classic writer's problem of how to quit my day job and write full time sustainably. It's remarkably difficult and for reasons that do not speak to my quality as a writer. The dominant culture is pitiless and brutal to writers. It wants us dead. It wants us extinct or enslaved to mind-numbingly narrowed in-demand marketable categories of writing. I don't see how someone like me, without institutional clout or a university backing my name, can get my stuff out there and eyeballs on it.
I don't write easy, feel-good stuff. I write challenging and heady stuff. And it should not be such a brutal struggle to find a readership when we live with the technological means to deliver content to whoever wants it anywhere in the world in an instant. The challenge comes from breaking into it.

Read my short story. Thank you my friends.

https://awfiction.wordpress.com/2020/10/06/642/

>>16522681
I'm this guy >>16522615
And>>16522792 is right, it's not a red pill, I still think Scrivener is for fags though.

But if you already doubt your decision to be a writer, consider this: why writing and not drawing, filmmaking, photographing? Any particular reason other than you think writing is the easier option than the others? Or that you think you don't have any talents for instruments or handiwork? Then rethink your choice. Writing is as hard, if not harder than other craft, because with others, good hand work may be enough to go some distance, but when it's come to writing, you need to engage with your mind, your skills to convey abstract thought and before that you have to form solid opinions about the world. Even then you will have to learn the way to engage with the readers with mere words, this requires a higher language skill than just putting words on paper.

Do you like reading? If not, tough luck, reading is essential to writing unlike some fags on here like to protest. And not just read but read a lot. Way more than even the average readers to attempt good writing. And being a good author requires a tremendous amount of time, effort and dedication. I'm talking about years, or decades. I'd take long before you even see the first actually worthwhile result if you have "the taste". If writing and reading is not a big part of your life, then rethink your choice, don't fall for the quirky hobby meme.

>>16523177
>I write challenging and heady stuff
there's your problem. churn out braindead romance or thrillers and write your masterpiece on the side. or get a job as a professor and get tenure

>>16523179
Too much dialogue, daddy I want prose. Write a screenplay at this point.

>>16523211
Yeah. My stubbornness is in my refusal to see the commercial gods for what they are. But I'm resolved to keep writing my obscure bullshit until the dirt claims me.

Do you find the time of day you write has an appreciable effect on the text? Normally I write in the mornings and edit/rewrite in the afternoon. But I've experimented doing the latter at night and it has a different vibe. I feel more willing to cut things and take risks, and also catch mistakes I've previously missed.

>>16520551
> Homo for the Holidays
Kek, this is unironically heartwarming and brilliant. I would pay money to read this and its movie adaptation

Fuck the bar exam.

>>16523473
I'm sure you did all right. When do you get your results?

>>16523184
>And being a good author requires a tremendous amount of time, effort and dedication. I'm talking about years, or decades. I'd take long before you even see the first actually worthwhile result if you have "the taste".
a lot of niggas say this and then they post their reheated paradise lost fanfic

>>16522477
Agreed, /crit/ sucks.

>>16522477
They can stay as long as they don't post any cringe poetry. Just because it means something to you doesn't mean it means something to everyone else. If you really want people to listen to your poetry, consider learning how to make music.

>>16523510
No one forbids you from publishing bad works.

/wg/, I've got a character whose powers include creating seals, wards and magically binding contracts, and I'm trying to come up with a "theme" for her, but unfortunately she's intruding on the domains of other characters

>could make her a witch, but I already have a girl whose thing is being spooky
>could make her a valkyrie but runes are traditionally engraved and I want to make her power come from ink
>could make her a lawyer but then I don't know how I'd fluff the wards/seals

>>16522816
Take Ayahuasca.
If you're thinking of suicide in the 21st century you're probably drifting towards chemical defeatism anyway, "sadness and happiness are only chemical reactions in my brain so whats the point".
Ayahuasca will give you a shit ton of chemicals including DMT and the experience will cause all those bad chemicals to fuck off for AT LEAST 2 years. Shit is life changing, don't take it from me. Thousands of ex-suicidals swear on psychedelics.

How do you let go and just right? I'm stuck on trying to perfect every sentence in my draft, and it keeps on fucking up the flow of everything write.

>>16523477
December. Thanks, anon.

>>16523700
*write.

>>16523700
You don't.
If you're the type of person born with this curse, it's going to be with you your entire life. You only salvation is to get so good you can write perfect sentences off the cuff.

>>16523733
How do you write a great story if you make every first draft line perfect? I just fuck myself by redoing the lines so much that the story takes a backseat

>>16523872
Make a big ass outline and run on blind faith that you'll spend so much time redoing sentences that you'll have enough time to think up all the small details to the same level of quality as the 3rd redraft. If your outline is shit you'll just get demoralized halfway through when you realize you spent enough time to finish a normal first draft only getting one third they way through and discover that it's shit.

>>16523644
How about an ethusiastic archeologist? Something like Indiana Jones

>>16522301
okay just finished another draft of my story and i'm at 38k words. i just know there's more material in it to make it a full-length novel
any of these books in particular that might give ideas to help fill in things a bit? thanks

>>16523700
Something I have tried recently is to try and strip everything and write basic sentences. These should leave you satisfied on a structural level and give you something to improve on in revision. I sometimes do this to get warmed up.
One question you might ask yourself is why you have trouble moving sentence to sentence. In some cases it might be that you are attempting to slow yourself. A type of sentence level procrastination that allows you to avoid the rough work of narrative choice. If this is the case I can only suggest planning your narrative out, brainstorming, and sequencing the story. This should make the sentence to sentence construction much easier.

>>16522695
The answer to the dialogue question is the same as always (though I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing it). Dialogue is a non-physical conflict between characters who want something from each other. You might look at your dialogue as having no impact because the characters motivations for interacting are lacking. Entire sequences of dialogue can usually be cut because an author wants to hear his characters even when they have nothing to say.
One method for remedy is to have a scrap paper/document and just make them talk. It can be wonderful for finding characters voices. Give them something stupid and worthless to say and let them bounce off of each other. This is not something that will be in the story, just an exercise. The voice of the characters will develop as you write, like an actor rehearsing for the actual scene.
Feel free to drop something you think is emblematic of your issue and I'll have a go at work-shopping it. It's always helpful to have general advice paired with actual assistance.

>>16522708
Don't have much text left here, so I'll move quick. This is mostly setting description with a quick slash of action, so there is less to say narratively. The reader has no context for character, which in the cliff face of prose is the only real handhold. The narration feels overly chatty (mileage may vary). As usual I suggest cuts and refinements, just to see what you think of them.
"The conversation was out of control. The oil field workers glanced at us between drags on their cigarettes. The large man, (name), wasn't interested in my friendly observations. The ugly barmaid cackled as he threw me to the ground."
Why these cuts? You have several indefinite phrases that prevent the reader from interfacing with the situation. The character knows what is happening. He knows the conversation 'wasn't starting to sputter out of control' but that it was, in fact, already out of control. The reader knows that by their inclusion in first person narration, the character has noticed the oil workers. If he hadn't they wouldn't be on the page. The large fella can be given a name, since the character is engaged with him in media res as the scene begins. How does a ghoul cackle? Try a definite simile instead, maybe something local. Out of text, thanks for contributing anons.

>>16523985
no, my setting has a specific rule where magic doesn't let you do anything, it just makes you supernaturally good at things you're already an expert on. An archaeologist's magic would be archaeological

The kind of person who writes magically binding contracts and creates wards and seals would be someone who already does that stuff in a non-magical way.

>>16523700
> just right
you just did it

Do you ever feel that writing is pointless and nobody will read your shit because we're in the age of tl,dr and micro attention spams?

>>16524348
I don't, no. I write for myself. Maybe one day I will enjoy something I write and that will be enough.
However, people are actually more likely to read your work since the internet grants access to so many. Also, if it's not cash or fame but eyes on the page you want, take solace in the fact that most things that get published can be pirated, so people can enjoy your writing even without paying for it.
It all depends on your outlook anon. Are you writing so you can hear what people think of your work? Are you writing so you can get payed? Are you writing because you want to be the most well-reviewed author of a given month, year, or era? How would you feel if you died worthless and unread, but years down the line people read and enjoyed your work?
You can try networking online to get attention. You could also try to get published in a literary journal, which would guarantee you some form of readership. Even mediocre genre gets published in the largest sci-fi magazines. I'm sure you could get something published and read somewhere if that's your main goal.
You could also post something here, in this very thread, and I would read it and get back to you with a critique. That way you would know that at least one person read your work.

>>16523700
Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good. Focus on cleaning up the garbage first, not on the already clean area trying to make it sparkle.

How would I go about writing a script to comic/manga? I feel like what I write doesn't do justice to what Imagine drawing.

>>16524069
A loan officer then? They lure you into borrowing the bank money, then come confisicate your house when you couldn't pay the debt

>>16524069
Insurance agent. Magically binding contracts, "protects" things from harm.

>>16524501
There's a book about that written by arguably the best in the business.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA1H0Oop7wg

>>16522740
Dude, just write, stop overanalyzing shit. You'll start to see it with practice.

>>16524348
Statistics can be misleading. It's true that the majority of people have what amounts to acquired ADHD thanks to digital tech. What you don't hear about is the large numbers of people who are willing to sit there and read. They are a minority, but the law of large numbers dictates that even a minority in a population of millions is a considerable audience.

>>16523267
Keep it up, bro. Don't compromise on your values. I've been doing the same thing. You may not see success in your lifetime, but very few great writers do. But time will forget the masses who churn out cheap gratification, while those with a real message it will make immortal.

>>16521999
reminder that complainers will ngmi
>>16521958
style literally doesn't exist. If you have a clear prose, good characters, and a compelling plot it doesn't matter what you write.
No one could pick Sanderson's writing out of a lineup, but the he still sells like crazy

My brain's a fried noodle.

>>16522265
Yes. Extremely bad. There's very little point to mixing up your reader bases unless your name is well-known enough that you can publish literally anything and it will get read. No one who reads Paolini's fantasy wants to read his erotica. The reverse is also true.
Of course, people fight this. I remember Neil Gaiman (someone who could publish 'Neil G's Big Book of Recipes' and still find readers) saying something along the lines of 'Write what you want' as career advice. But he only writes one type of story, so I don't know how good advice that is.

>>16524989
No one wants to read Paolini period

>>16524348
I don't feel that way. I fall into a rut a lot about how good or bad my writing is, but being able to share it in the waifu threads I frequent and getting feedback about how much people enjoyed them means a lot. It's that kind of simple stuff that keeps me writing combined with being able to express a lot of my feelings on paper.

Would anyone read my shota erotica about a shinigami falling in love with a human androgynous teen boy?

>>16524690
Oh I have no doubt that I am a genius and far ahead of my time. That's why I have to pay the price for it.

>>16522444
I found it too quick and therefore confusing. Even if you prefer short stories, you could comfortably write 3000 words about this subject.
So, are you asking me if the text as it stands is good? No. It's too sudden with the gratious brevity of good flash fiction. Nothing is given the depth it deserves. It goes Charles and Larissa --> ayylmaos --> ayylmaos grow weider --> Charles and Larissa are now the ayylmaos. Each of these gets about a paragraph and a half of development. I didn't even realize Charles and Larissa were together since the second sentence.
Is the idea good? Sure, it's nice, but ideas are meaningless until they are developed in the best possible medium. And this isn't it.

>>16522528
Why would I reinforce whatever you think about your piece? It's helpful. I'm this guy >>16525040, and if you'd told me that you weren't looking for a critique based on the size of the piece I wouldn't have bothered.

>>16522615
I use Word and napkins, but this is retarded and the male equivalent of Buzzfeed listicles about what makes a writer.
Write on whatever the fuck you want. Plenty of authors use Scrivener. The difference between you and them isn't the word processor, it's the fact that they write sizable amounts of words every single day.

So I tried to keep the fetish thing as subtle as possible. Do I still need to cut this part out of the story? Also crit me if this shit isn't too far below you

How did it take so long for a writing general to develop on this board?
Also, when is the first great Burgerpunk novel coming out of this place? We can't just waste the only thing resembling a literary movement to ever start here.

>>16525206
But what's a Buhgahpankku, onii-chan?

>>16525203
Well, to me, it seems about as romantic as changing car oils and my dick shrank like exposed to air from the south pole while reading, so I don't think anybody normal will think twice about it.

>>16525206
>How did it take so long for a writing general to develop on this board?
This isn't THE writing general, there have been others before it. As for this current iteration, an anon made this post: >>/lit/thread/S13960416 last year and I copy pasted it in late july: >>/lit/thread/S15974415
Thankfully it has gained traction since and I only needed to make two or three OPs, /lit/ took it over from there. These threads have been great.

>>16522798
>Does watching films make you a better filmmaker?

>>16525203
>After the meal, when H had refused the wine, he asked the madman
This sentence seems a bit clunky and I'm not sure who this madman is
>cared not for much else
Is the grammatical tense correct here?
>Before the hot basis
*basin
>As soon as the cool and sweet smelled hands massage on them, the aching on those parts was relieved from the heat of the hot water as if the water near his hand had grown cold
This one is a bit of a mess and again I'm not sure what is going on here
>he applied extra the substance
*he applied more of the substance
>for they had been for a while
Where had they been? How had they been? It feels like it's missing something
>now they knew
*now that they knew
>the old madman was busy inspecting the weird mixture
Is the old madman H? Or is it someone else entirely? You should make that more clear from the first sentence
>as if never ached
*as if they had never ached
>and she retreat
*and she retreated
>Even harder that frequently J protested
Sounds pretty clunky to me, try "Things were made even harder by the frequent protests of J"
>the balls of her feet
Do feet have balls? Since when?
>under her toenails, some dirt was removed
*under her toenails and some dirt was removed
>out of shame or of tickled, or the warm water
*whether out of shame or from the warm water
>as if goose feathers had replaced the hardwood floor
Wouldn't having softer feet mean that the hardwood floor would be even harder by comparison?

All in all feels a bit weird and I'd probably cut it entirely or severely shorten the entire passage.
3/10 proofread after you've wanked off

>>16525285
Also this >>16525255

>>16525013
Paolini is ~30 now and he has a giant beard. He recently wrote a new book called To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. I don't like fantasy so I won't read it, but maybe it's not shit

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B081D7ZSTL/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUkT-auxW8c

Prices for his books make no sense
$15 for ebook
$18 for hardcover
$25 for paperback

>>16525295
God he looks like every single fantasy author alive today. The fuck is up with that? If Sanderson had a beard I wouldn't be able to tell any of these softbois apart.

>>16525295
>Paolini is ~30 now and he has a giant beard. He recently wrote a new book called To Sleep in a Sea of Stars.
Oh, believe me I know that very well
>maybe it's not shit
It's a Venom rip off with an obnoxious main character, it's shit

>>16525307
Even my waifu Terry Pratchett had a beard. Now I can't unsee it

>>16525342
RIP to the Terrys.

>>16525342
>>16525347
HE WAS A GOOD FRIEND.

>>16525307
They think beards make one automatically manly and "adult" and it really says a lot about these people that all scramble to grow one

>>16525203
obviously this was written by a footfag, but so what? Quentin Tarantino and that Jewish pedo from Nickelodeon make foot media, and no one publicly complains about them

>>16525401
Can't speak for the nick jew, but there's usually a bit more substance to what Tarantino puts out outside of footfaggotry though

>>16525390
But it's always the same kind of beard. Mine looks nothing like that.

>>16525285
Yeah I should have rerrad it after the rewrite.
>>16525401
>>16525429
Well that scene isn't really important, I just writed it in because I felt like it
>>16525255
It's not supposed to be romantic. Just a simple scen which my dick wants me to insert the feet thing for the sake of it

>>16525540
>It's not supposed to be romantic
I meant that I wouldn't see it sexually, if you hadn't called it a fetish scene. Please don't tell me any more about your dick.

All right, I've compiled a list of blackified characters names in Dracula

> Moesha (Mina) Murray
> Lupita (Lucy) Westenra
> Dr. Jabari (John) Seward
> Kwasi (Quincey) P. Morris
> Atsu (Arthur) Holmwood
> Van Hassain (Helsing)

>>16525625
Surnames are still way too white, if you wanna be crass you better go all in or nothing

>>16525717
Yeah big fella, try

Townsend
Freeman
Jefferson
Jackson
Stevens

>>16525717
Black people typically have white people last names though. Their naming structure is pan-African/Arabic first name, white surname, like Townsend, Freeman, Jefferson, etc.

>>16525727
But then how will people know who their original counterparts are?

I'm planning a romance novel about cute witches doing gay things - would I be breaking genre conventions too much if my main character first falls for an older lady (and likely has sex with her) but then her 'true' romantic partner is another girl about her age? I feel like in most romance you don't swap partners out like that.

>>16526015
Learning sex from an older partner makes perfect sense and is how it ought to be done in the first place

>>16526015
I'd read it for the delicious age gap romance, be bitterly betrayed, look up where you live and come stab you in the dark of the night.

>>16523644
A notary?

>>16526015
First you have her seduce the girl her own age, then in the second book show the romance that taught her to be so devilish.

>>16525610
It's extremely sexual. Whenever an author strings two sentences together where nothing important takes place and a very specific activity is described, I assume he's dragging me into his personal magic realm.
>>16525540
Kill your darlings, footfag. That means only keeping the fetish scenes that move the plot along

>>16526065
That's what makes sense to me yeah, I might go for it.
>>16526080
If I can inspire any such fervor I'll happily let you shank me bruh.
>>16526099
That's certainly an interesting way of doing it! I may use that for another character or story.

>>16523644
>she's intruding on the domains of other characters
Maybe that's her shtick. Could you afford to go meta on this and have her be larger than the book? Or to not go meta she's just someone that fucks with other people and their shit? You seem open to the fantastical, so I see no reason why you can't have some kind of mischievous witch who's non-spooky, almost like a pre-teen girl or something.

>>16526015
>gay things
Typically that's how it works. Some older creeper pray on a naive kid, and then the kid goes on to be gay. Not even trying to troll or /pol/-post. Talk to gay people and they'll tell you this themselves.

However, I must say, stop being such a horny degenerate.

>>16526445
i wish that was how it worked
at least then i would have someone to blame

>>16526495
lol faggot

Does anyone else have a problem where you know that what you're writing is actually moving the plot along and it matters, but that the readers won't give a fuck about what's happening so you think your entire idea is shit?

How do get around/over this?

>>16526583
If you know it's relevant, then what is the problem? Just keep going and the readers will eventually see how it's connected.

>>16526583
Are you telling the reader necessary information for what's coming?
There are a number of ways to do this. A lecture is the most boring one.
A. A very short lecture containing interesting information that the protag has fought for. If it's not a reward, it probably doesn't need to be there.
B. Break it up. Some bits of information here, others there, keeping it snappy.
C. Tell it through action. The mechanic doesn't explain how the sci-fi vehicle works, the protag is attacked by one, or sees himself behind the wheel and has to figure it out as he goes along.

If the reader truly doesn't care about the scene, then why is it there? Just cut it out or find a way to make it interesting.

>>16526623
>>16526643
It's just this self doubt thing I get in the back of my head that none of it matters and no one will care. It's small, but it always fucks me up and stops my flow because I can't focus anymore.

>>16526655
we'll care

>>16526675
>we'll care
Why did that hit me in the feels so hard? The simplicity of it is perfect.

>>16526015
I have a bit similar situation with my story.

>MC meets girl A
>they go through some shit together
>temporarily go their separate ways
>during this time, MC meets girl B
>more stuff happens
>eventually everyone comes together
>both A and B love the MC
>the MC's true love is B, while A is central to the plot

But the readers of the early parts seem to assume A is endgame. I thought I made it clear what the deal is, but judging by the comments, no one noticed. As you said, it's not very common that the first girl isn't the main love interest. So I'm worried that when the plot eventually gets there, everyone will think I pulled this "twist" out of my ass and hate it. How screwed am I?

>>16525206
Now that I’m done with the bar exam I can actually work on writing more burgerpunk, not that it’s going to be great or anything.

>>16526655
Keep writing. It's literally the only thing separating published writers from woulda coulda shouldas: the first just kept up with it.
The expert is just the guy who stuck to the frustrating part of his craft until he got gud.

What happened to /lit/ quarterly? Was it a scam?

>>16526735
In my case I'm planning to make the first relationship really one sided and quite shallow/physical, whilst also having the 'main' love interest already introduced so the reader is aware of them. If you just go girl A to girl B and they are both similarly emotional/deep relationships it could just seem like the MC was trading one for the other, negating the individually special aspects of each.

>>16526831
That's what I'm doing. I just hate having to battle this every time. Maybe once I actually put some stuff out and get positive feedback I'll learn to trust myself a bit more.

Their first fuck as husband and wife was something special. Brian hadn’t expected it to be, since they had slept together for years, long before they had even begun dating, and besides, both of them had been with many other partners and knew all the tricks. It would have been hard to say exactly what was different about this time, not that they were in the mood to be analytical. Sarah made the same soft whimpers she usually did, and by the end of it her pale skin was flushed and littered with the same small, familiar marks of her husband’s affection. Brian, for his part, lasted a bit longer than he usually did, but not so long as to be remarkable. He had kissed her everywhere, his breath hot on her hot flesh. He’d have eaten her if he could, so great was his desire to touch and to taste his wife in her entirety.
Perhaps that was the difference, that, even in these liberated times, there was some part of each lover that had been before off-limits to the appetite of the other, some sweet ache yearning for relief, unnoticed through years of casual sex and unsatisfied by loving fornications. Sarah, if she had stopped to think about it, might have said that Brian was more possessive, more controlling; for his part, her husband might have noticed a radiance in his wife’s eyes, like when one sees the full glory of the stars in the wilderness after living all one’s life beneath bright city lights. But neither of them thought or said a thing. Their pleasure was too great for expression by any means but the physical, and, when they had finished, drawing deep breaths and feeling the cool air dance along the sweat, they only lay a moment before she pulled herself up, brushed a long strand of hair from her eyes, and mounted her husband, her body taut and supple, like some fiercely beautiful jungle cat in the moonlight.

>>16526891
I was in the first one and he paid me. So, I doubt it. It's kinda cool to show friends my copy. There's a website and stuff for it.
https://litquarterly.ca/

>>16526910
You have a point, but I think an entirely one-sided relationship that still includes sex (and an age gap) is likely to come across as abusive, or otherwise demeaning. In my story, there was at least never anything physical between MC and A, not even a confession of feelings.

>>16526977
>received over 250 submissions
That's way too much competition

the antagonist in my screenplay don't have a name, would it be pretentious and gay to just name him Antagonist? his name will never be said to the audience anyway and i would like to have him be a sort of menacing supernatural presence like the judge from blood meridian. will a reader be put off by it though?

>>16526955
>the full glory of the stars in the wilderness after living all one’s life beneath bright city lights
>like some fiercely beautiful jungle cat in the moonlight
The don't mesh well with the much more down to earth nature of the piece, to my mind.
Maybe try:
"her husband might have noticed a radiance in his wife’s eyes, as they divulged to him truths sealed away long ago, only to be shown to him on this one night."

I'd drop the last one totally desu fampai.

>>16526999
Yes they will. Call him Bob at least.

>>16526999
Just call him Ant, or Mal or something.

>>16526955
>fuck
time
>Brian hadn’t expected it to be
But Sarah had?
>her pale skin was flushed and littered with the same small, familiar marks of her husband’s affection
Not sure about the marks. Did he come all over her, give her hickeys, spank her red? Whatever the case, it bears mention, because I was left wondering what the hell you meant.
>for expression by any means
To express

Otherwise, nice writing, anon. I see it working nicely for a short story. What are you thinking of doing with it?

>>16526986
Ah well in that case it seems like they're fairly seperate. Maybe you just need to splice the segments together a little so A seems like more of a flashback?
Also I totally see the whole abusiveness angle and in truth that's kind of what I want, inasmuch as it causes the MC heartbreak - also she may become a true villain at some point. This ties into my worries about it being too much for a conventional romance though.

>>16526999
Juat give him a title and have everyone refer to him using that title. Or a name without much meaning behind but constantly repeated until the simple name catch on the mysteriousness of the character, like Klamm in Kafka's the Castle, never seen but his name, through being spoken of constantly, have a power over others

>>16527022
>it causes the MC heartbreak - also she may become a true villain at some point
Hot.

>>16522301
Have you ever thought about writing your own novelization for a movie or a game that you particularly liked? Not as an official work, mind you, just for fun

>>16527134
As a kid I tried to do this for Spyro 2

>>16526080
This. I'm already angry.
But to answer >>16526015 it might be too much to swap out. You can avoid it if you make it clear early on that the older woman is not a good person / not relationship material etc. Depends on the rest of the novel.
Also, post it when you're done anon, I need more gay witch novels in my life.

>>16527006
I do see what you mean here

>>16527013
An opening for a short story, I think, where the couple ends up losing this initial bliss in an Eden like fall, ending with the potential for more tragedy or the possibility of grace

>>16527148
Awww

>>16527182
I've always been doomed to be a writer.

Alright, the turn scene at the start of my novel goes

>Man shoots himself
>Black bug hits him on the side of his head instead
>Black bugs start crawling ouf of the barrel of the gun
>Start coming from his clothes, flying upwards and gathering
>Start landing on his walls in a circle
>The cicadas are flattened against the wall
>Thing crawls out of the pool of gore

This is the hardest part of the thing to write. I don't want this to come across as the revelation of a new reality a la urban fantasy. I want this to be a emotional scene. But idk. It isn't passing the smell test. It's kind of the crux of the book, as the demon is supposed to offer him a bargain a la Faust.

>>16527164
Yeah I'm thinking something along those lines. I'll let you know if I get it done!

>>16527222
Why not BANG! into bug demon hellscape + deal into waking up with the gun on the floor and the protag miraculously unscathed?

>>16527222
Maybe he actually does shoot himself in the head so he's lying there but he failed to actually die. Then he starts seeing all this shit, the demon coalesces out of bugs or whatever and they talk about why he's killing himself? Then the demon can offer to kill him so he doesn't spend the rest of his life paralyzed in hospital, or give him a new lease on life or whatever you're planning.

>>16527222
sounds cool desu

> "Don't come back till you have him!" the Ticktockman said, very quietly, very sincerely, extremely dangerously.

kino

>>16527599
>very quietly

>>16527649
that does make me question the exclamation mark, is there precedent for this?

How do you guys outline your stories?

>>16527776
I don't usually unless it's a really big project.
Unless you can consider what I typically do outlining. What I'll do is write about the story with an expository style, explaining it to myself and noting what I think should happen. And then I go and try to translate that description into the story.

>>16527865
When I don't outline I run out of steam and abandon the project.

>>16527134
I've considered writing a fanfic novel on the rise and fall of Gwyn from Dark Souls

>>16527776
Ye. Using two beat sheets rn. Master Spreadsheet Story Structure and Six Stage plot structure beat sheet.

>>16527926

why two?

>>16527953
One for plot, one for character development.

>tfw story morhped into something different then what I inteded it to be
>tfw don't like what it is
>tfw it's still good anyway
>tfw don't wanna wast 3 days and 5,000 words just because of my control issues
Should've ignored the beginning and started right at the action. I wouldn't be having this problem then. Fuck me.

>>16524475
Actual great advice, I'm not him but thanks. Well-worded.

>>16527222
Sounds like you're primarily visualizing the scene, rather than picturing it in a way that lends itself best to writing about it. Try to distance yourself from the visual imagination of the scene and write gaps into the information delivered to the audience.

>>16528310
Huh, well I've never set a scene any other way. Is there another way to do it? I always picture scenes in my stories a la short films playing out in my head. Is this counterintuitive?

Idea for Blackula: in the original novel, Dracula drains Lucy and Mina's blood. Lucy dies and Mina almost becomes a vampire. They slowly become more pale and weak.

What if in Blackula, Lucy and Mina start off normal, but as they become more vampiric, they act more like like sassy black woman meme?

>>16528689
Another idea. I can have them snap their fingers while waving their arms in a Z shape front of their torso
> SNAP SNAP SNAP

>>16528758
or doing that instead of making the sign of the cross

I'm going to write a 12-Chapter novella / short story self-insert romance between me and Butterfly, just to piss her off

What does it mean to be shallow, anons? I've heard this expression, but I'm not exactly sure what it means.

>>16529911
>shallow
Superficial and uninterested in anything deep or complex. Shallow people drink Starbucks coffee with milk and watch reality tv.

>>16530075
So normies. Got it. Thanks, bud-ee

Hare

I dream about Rimbaud smoking opium and chewing qat in a bar in Ethiopia. He's sitting on top of a box of weapons. Outside there's a cargo of 2.040 repeater rifles, 60.000 Remmington cartridges. He tells me he'll become rich when he sells them to the emperor who wins the war. His face is stained by the sun and scurvy. He tells me to write with no compassion in front of the puppies born sick. To eat the sick puppies so they won't suffer. Those born without half their bodies and those that can't breathe. He tells me to stop thinking about press articles that I read before going to bed about how a thousand sharks are bleeding out in a Japanese shore. He tells me it isn't my fault, that I'm not the enemy. He asks me to find Money and Redemption. To light candles for the saints who the drug dealers pray to. To leave beauty to the horses that chew flowers in the steppes of Atacama. You're not a shark bleeding out in the hands of a small child, David. Then he sells me a rifle and asks me to make the world kneel. Write hungrily until you have a plane full of gold. And when you obtain it, come see me in Harar, the City of Hyenas. Write hungrily and with no compassion, David. Eating the sick puppies is the last possible act of love

fuck /wg/, I'm starting to get worried some of my the stuff in my novel is going to get called out as racist or ableist – not just because nobody likes getting called out but because I actually am trying to tell a nuanced story that actively incorporates the character's struggles into the story rather than just tacking it on while at the same time being the kind of writer who types jokes out with a sledgehammer

>>16530250
>He
>His
>He
>Then he
>To
>To
I like your writing anon but could you vary your sentence lengths up a bit more. The starts are really grating too. The rest of it is really interesting though.

>>16530250
I'd say to work on your flow. The sentences don't really go together very well. It reads more like a list to me than a paragraph, if that makes sense

First time poster, shitty writer. I seem to have trouble maintaining a balance between getting overly clinical and glossing over things in my writing, and going into unnecessary, excruciating detail over every little bit of minutiae. I can manage it in short bursts, but I always seem to lose my balance and fall one way or the other if I keep writing for anything longer then a couple of hours. Any advice for maintaining a good balance for long periods of time?

>>16529277
Oooh I like that

I'm at the part where all the men in the novel fall instantly in love with Lucy. In Blackula, I'll make Lucy the "queen" because that's how black people refer to famous women that they like. For example, Beyonce is called Queen Beyonce

>>16531352
I gloss over things in my first draft, then rewrite to add more detail to the scenes where it's necessary. It's difficult to tell in advance what really requires emphasis, until you see how the scenes pan out in practice.

>>16532140
I hope you're making this as racist as possible for maximum fun

>>16532183
I'm not deliberately trying to be racist. Black people like this stuff, I think. They call it representation or diversity or reparations or something. I don't see why they get to make black Annie, black Witches, black Little Mermaid, black Star Wars, and be considered the heralds of racial progression, but when I do it, I'm a raycis whiboi

>>16532200
I'm not accusing you of racism, I'm just saying that if you were to deliberately add some racist stereotypes It would be extremely funny

>>16532200
You're just drowning out any real discussion with your unfunny, uncreative spam, and I think that's your actual purpose too. Try give someone serious critique when there's this faggot going HAHA THOSE DUMB NIGGERS nonstop right next to you. Thanks a lot for ruining these threads.

>>16532234
I am actually a racist desu, but when I'm writing, I'm genuinely trying to write an all-black version of classic literature that black people will like and buy.

I watch black actors on comedy shows and adapt their dialogue into Blackula.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzMzFGgmQOc
> Am I running a charity here? Cuz the last time I checked, I is paying you asses to work. Which means you asses better be working
> Where'd you get them nails done? They on fleek
> We good, [name], we good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8PXvqYpGCM
> Ah hell no. I ain't gonna [pay for things like items at a shop or repay my student loans]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUn3gf-0VlY
> You feedin this kid butter? Ah no no no no. Ya'll need to be ashamed of yourselves

What is the ratio of writing and reading I should do to become a great author and Poet?

>>16532271
I'm trying to write an abridged version of a classic novel, adapted with black characters, and sell it on the emerging black literature and BLM market. Don't know why you're so mad about that

I'm sick of people saying "Write what you know! Do your research!" and people saying that middle-aged white men can't write ethnic blacks, and men can't write good female characters or trans characters because they don't understand them and haven't done research.
It's all bullshit. The average intelligent person understands those distinctions well enough to write almost any PoV character. Poor people can write rich characters, fat people can write skinny characters, western people can write asian characters. It's not about the fucking race or culture, it's about the character themselves and using preconceived ideas to hint at details instead of talking about everything directly. Don't fucking talk about a black person feeling ostracized, just write about an ostracized person. I've finished tons of novels (published only a handful) and never does it talk about race. Some have people in the inner city and using slangs/slurs but I've never specified whether they were white or black because that's doing a disservice to the work, if it doesn't deeply matter. If there was a gang war between whites and blacks, I would have interweaved those details throughout the story, but the story was about street urchins trying to trust one another and race never came up because humans can be shitty regardless of race so there was never a need to create the distinction. I feel that way about tons of works. Especially fucking John Stirley. I like his books, but basically every character is needlessly introduced as their race. A random person that doesn't matter enough to even get a name because they only appear in one or two scenes will be described as "A small Vietnamese man" or "A tall man with dark skin, likely from the Kongo" for no reason. It's such specific and useless knowledge that it's distracting. If your book doesn't deal with race or gender disorders then those details are ultimately pointless. Or your story is probably shit.

>>16532676
Just as I cannot describe what it is to be a bat, a white man in this nation cannot describe how it is to be a black man and vice versa. The two experiences are incommensurable, so deftly shaped by billions of things beyond your control or perception as to be fundamentally alien to a person who is not x. Just as a monochromatic colorblind person cannot tell me what is magenta, you, whitey, cannot write black characters with any honesty or any skill. You can only impress others who are fundamentally closed off from the experience and thus, like you, only have a crude approximation.

>>16532296
Yeah yeah, we get it. You are funny, you are ironic. You are so smart taking advance of the trite sjws shit. What a funny way to dab on the bigger hahaha. Give it a rest already

>>16532718
but i got lots of black people to shake my hand and say they liked that i didn't say the characters were black, but they FELT they were black
jokes sorta on them because as i said before, i just wrote degenerate street urchins

>>16532744
You're sure bitter about something, don't know what. You shouldn't take it out on an anon doing an honest job

I just realized I have no clue how to finish my short story, fuck

>>16532841
Just dissapear for a year, have your fans write endings in your absence and then just canonize of them.

>>16532271
>ruining these threads
Nah, that's you for trying to virtue signal on fucking 4chan.

>>16532291
>> Ah hell no
It's spelt "aww hell" not "ah"

>>16532293
The answer is always more

>>16533368
Here's your (You)

>>16532676
>>16532760
I think something gets lost in translation with the back-and-forth of "can someone write another ethnicity/gender"
Anyone CAN write another gender/race, and can write them quite well. I think it comes down to the nuance:
>It's not about the fucking race or culture, it's about the character themselves and using preconceived ideas to hint at details instead of talking about everything directly. Don't fucking talk about a black person feeling ostracized, just write about an ostracized person.
This is true and a great way to get a not-1-dimensional character (Ripley in Alien). What some people are right about, however, but which tumblinas take and run with and discredit, is that while you can write about an ostracized person, it will be difficult to write about ostracization that occurs primarily because of your skin color/gender. There are unique experiences people of a different skin color/gender go through, and if you half-don't believe its true, you wont write a sincere character (for example, if you really don't think that black people get stopped and frisked on the street constantly because "you've never seen it" and you're white, or you think female groping/rape isn't *really* that much of a thing, you wont be able to write about the experience sincerely, and may do so in a really offensively insincere way).
I've had lefty friends who constantly yell about police brutality fucking have their jaws hit the floor when I got frisked by a cop in front of them because I looked like a dude who I guess broke into a house nearby. It wasn't the first time I've been stopped. They were like "wow we didn't know" and "that's never happened to me" even though they talk about it happening to minorities constantly. It's different accepting that it happens and watching it/having it happen to you.
I think its a valid point. I also don't think you should listen to the crazy-SJWs who say "YOU CAN'T WRITE BLACK PEOPLE IF YOU AINT BLACK" because its untrue. Anyone can write black people well. But there is a disconnect, and I think authors who acknowledge it are humble to do so, where there are certain experience they can only write about "what they heard", while another author who is say black and had it happen, can write about "what they experienced". It's like writing a book on 9/11 from what you heard decades later vs. having someone who was there that day and escaped the tower writing first-hand what happened. This ignores writing ability, etc, but I think its obvious that there will be a disconnect, no matter how small, between the two authors in how they write the experience.

>>16533571
A white guy actually pretended successfully to be black for a year and wrote a book on it. It's pretty famous. It's called Black Like Me

>>16533828
Quick summary of how it turned out?

>>16533400
I tried nothing but talk about writing in a writing thread. Enjoy your nigger shit retard

Has blacula guy read the chapters in Infinite Jest to see what NOT to do?

>>16533571
I really appreciate this response, anon. It was well put and I agree with you. There is most certainly a disconnect, even between writing the other sex, but it's (in a good book at least) arguably small enough that only people with foreknowledge of the author and people directly searching for it can notice. Someone who was born and raised in a brothel with have more experiences to pull from than someone who has never even stepped foot in one, but I think the majority of (decent) authors can still write about it and tell a good story without needing to do so.
I just get defensive when I see people ripping apart other authors for writing characters that "they can't possibly understand" because I'm in the same field and I'm just waiting for those people to notice my books and destroy my career.

Is it better to include a back story for protagonists or not? I spent ages crafting an elaborate backstory which takes up the first ~25% of the novel and explains my MC's trauma and motivations, but now I'm tempted to delete it all and only include subtle hints to things.

>>16532676
It's absurd to tell someone to stay in their lane and only write about their ethnicity or whatever. Straightjacketing literature and art like that goes against the entire principle of it .

That said, I do think there is a fine line to be treaded. There is a history of white authors writing sterotypical minority characters, Uncle Toms and the like. But to presume that must always be the case enforces this kind of intellectual and cultural segregationism.

It's amusing, leftist PC types are the segregationists of our time without even realizing it.

>>16534369
The obvious answer is "it depends" but I assume you are asking based on whether you'd be "deleting" all that "hardwork" you "put into writing"

And the answer is, that character is going to live with that backstory the whole time, whether you write about it and show the reader or not. Your writing of that characters actions within the story you are telling will all be motivated by the long convoluted history of actions that happened to the character, even if we don't know what they are. A backstory can be interesting, but only after we already care about the character and the backstory reveals something unexpected, changing our interpretation of the character. Why would you include the fact that a characters parents got divorced if the kid acts like his parents got divorced? But if what really happened was that his parents then got back together but abandoned him with his aunt, well, then you have spider man, and that makes it far more interesting.

>>16534426
I think that's the thing. The novel as is opens with a teenage girl, slowly reveals the dysfunction in her family over the course of a year and the perversion of her own mental state. Something happens with her that directly affects her for the rest of he life and is a major theme throughout the rest of the novel. Like you said though, I don't know whether the audience would become as immediately invested in the character with that slower start, as opposed to throwing them right in.

>>16532781
Capitalizing on the most virtue signalling movement in the 21st century and being the very same kind with the people who degrades culture for pol shit is honest work now? Surely it's fine if he's just being ironic right? It's okay if through his writing he's making fun of black people or catering to some loudmouth activists isn't it?

It's stupid to get angry over such thing on a Mongolian basket weaving forum but oh god he's everything I hate about this insincere culture. Even the isekai and litrpg fags are better since they actually enjoy what they're writing or write for themselves.

>want to have a higher Flesch-Kincaid grade level
>short sentences in dialogue lower it to 4-5 each time

>>16534717
>writing is super simple
>people say they love how easy to read it is
>all works are 90+
>only read extremely purple fantasy and old literature that is below 60
>only want to write purple garbage
>can't
>their compliments only remind me of my failure

>>16534567
mocking the current zeitgeist is perfectly legitimate. you don't have to like it, either the culture or the pushback its receiving. there's a reason you're here on /lit/ right now and not reading /pol/. but try not to be so personally offended. people write about ugliness for any number of reasons

>"You're lucky you're cute, asshole. Turned the last guy who called me a bitch into an actual bitch. Little scrappy thing too so he'd end up getting doggy raped by the bigger dogs."
Does anyone else started laughing like a mad lad when your characters end up being more petty and cruel than you'd ever expect?

>>16534988
Almost every character I write is an evil piece of shit in some unique and unexpected way. I don't no how to feel about it; in one sense I like the fact that it happens organically, and it makes it so there's a grey morality to every thing that I write since the characters end up being different degrees of human garbage and thus even the 'good' guys in the story still end up doing stuff like leaving their friends to die, or unwittingly committing a date rape in order to save a girl's life in a roundabout way and not seeing anything wrong with that when it's pointed out to him, etc. On another hand, I probably come off as really edgy, cynical and inherently mean-spirited a lot of the time. I would understand if somebody who read my stuff thought that, and I don't care all that much at the end of the day but 8/10 times that wasn't the intention I usually have in mind when I sit down to write. The proofreading process is always a reality check but still fun to see how fucking insane I sound a lot of the time.

>>16533844
I don't know, I've never read it. It was was mentioned in passing during civics class in high school

>>16535353
I'm well aware of the demons I have inside me, so it's not surprising, but it's surprising the way it comes out and it's always in the most unexpected places and ways. It's a real joy to see the characters come to life that way.

While I've written on and off for most of my life, I've only recently started taking it seriously, and the past year has been incredible. I used to hear people talk about their characters surprising them and doing things they "weren't supposed to" and would think it was exaggeration. I'm glad it wasn't.

>>16534754
>people write about ugliness for any number of reasons
the blackcula guy is taking a piss on all you pseuds and you're too damn retarded to even see it

>>16534988
>>16535455
Be careful with all that edge.

>>16535550
care to elucidate or is this
>pseuds
just pure projection?

How do you motivate yourself to write on weekdays when you work long hours at a job you dislike? I'm often too tired to run basic errands until it's almost too late. I just want to lay on my back and stare at the ceiling and listen to podcasts most of the time.

The meanings and phenomena of identity and ideas about what concepts are involved in identity through time and context.


1. A projection about prehistory through a modern lens.

Going back in “history” before one could surface the notion of knowing who we are, at what point in the past did the idea of self-hood become identified? I wonder what the conception of being a self among nature was in a state of existence. It should be noted that primates that are in cages tend to act more like humans, thus leading me to think that humans are enslaved to their own uniqueness and separation from naturally occurring environments and corresponding behaviors. It becomes absurd to directly pinpoint the conversation about what was the self at the time where the questioning of self-emerged?

In this limited scope of observation what kind of thing can we base this kind of self-definition on with what we see today? What could have been involved with the first revelation of self? If one member among many had to ask him or herself, who they are, what kinds of things were noticed for such a question to emerge? Under what kinds of environmental and individual circumstances did this first case of personal inquiry need to become present?

If one had the question in mind, then I assume many did as well at about the same time. Is this question innate within the confusion of being a thinking self-aware animal such as the direct lineage of hominins has been? Can we call this question we ask ourselves a direct cause of having more brain and nervous system activity than other beings now observably known? Moreover, how can we know that other species and brains can’t have this private communication with “themselves”?

We now notice many behaviors and interactions that at least appear to exist with the same kinds of consciousness in other animals as does within us. Does anything that exists ask this very question and what does that mean for each individual questioner? I am taking for granted that the questioner does not need language but a cognitive system that representatively reflects. What could it mean in terms of being a basically different animal from other animals and can we identify with them or with fungal or plant species?

The nature of this inquiry is to suppose that I can comprehend the limits of knowledge on identity. I’m here to inform you that nobody can know that, and I am laying some groundwork on what I think the scope of the inquiry involves. We need a small library on identity to gain the worlds thoughts, keep that in mind. From the ground floor, I question if this is a real question at all. For if “I” exist, then why am I trying to figure out who that is?

>>16536397
The need to question this suggests that I don’t know not only what I am but what it is to be in existence and must be on some type of constant quest to uncover this. In science and in all forms of inquiries the road keeps going on and players in the logic of understanding self are put up in parallel to one another and are pretending they are all one thing and not another. The problem with ontology of self is that it is always disagreed on by another self-proclamation. I’m going to suggest that we have forgotten or have left so many parts of us out in order to create history and act out into the personal narrative of time. The main reason humankind has forgotten who they are is because we are preoccupied with identifying with our thoughts and actions about the cultural constructions we have sown. Our enterprise and sensation of life identifies with the presumptions of the imagined narrative for which we arrogantly maintain. This seems to suggest that I cannot simply be what it is I am, because I am busy making things up and verifying what counts as being what I am continuously leaving me behind and pretending to be me.
In the process of self-questioning, I lose an awareness of my surroundings and the internal connection between it. The effect of being preoccupied with “others” and with taking concern with the minds of other ideas rewrite the story I tell myself about myself. Our confoundment over ourselves and what happens in the world turns into a mere representational mode of being that only a thinking thing can make believe its image to be important or true. The thinking thing concerns itself with being something that it isn’t and doing things that define it currently but will not define it later. This means that internal communication governs its conception of itself because it continually believes what it says to itself without another communication present. In the first place, it takes another agent to communicate with in order to know what it means when it communicates itself. The questioner understands and decides to base its internal story on itself when it is given another story to interact with. So, the self always forgets that it always also isn’t itself because it can’t tell itself anything without other things telling things to it and vice versa. When a thinking thing asks themselves who they really are, they do not know that they have been only talking with themselves all along and the wrong stories about their character in the whole plot have been interpretive and done through an artistic view of themselves. The self-defines itself but cannot be defined without the process of having other definitions present so the self cannot ever define itself on its own.
As for now, it is true that I cannot say that I am a firefighter because I have not become one. Identity must have with it an agency that has not existed for anyone at some point in the past and is in some way something that exists because it is created.

CHARACTERS: MAN WITH THE FEATHER,
NEXT MAN WITH THE FEATHER, WOMAN
WITH THE FEATHER, JIMI HENDRIX
GHOST, 80 YEAR OLD WOMAN, NEW
MEMBER, STARRY EYED MYSTIC, BOB
DYLAN, GRACE SLICK

There sits a group of 10 people on the lawn of a commune in
south west montana. A large house with 40 people living in
it stands three stories 15,000 square feet up in the
background.

EXT. IN THE GROUP CIRCLE
Man holding a discussion feather
MAN WITH THE FEATHER
I really appreciate the good work
each of us are sharing. I'd propose
we visit the local hot spring to
celebrate the completion of the Boat/
dragon/art/refrigerator we built for
burning man!
Man with the feather passes the feather

NEXT MAN WITH THE FEATHER
we have a problem.. the funds we used
for making the burning man vessel
doesn't allow all of us to get
tickets for the occasion.
Woman raises hand, followed by a brief pause and the feather
arriving.

WOMAN WITH THE FEATHER
i suggest none of us go this year if
one of us cannot.
Woman passes feather

JIMI HENDRIX'S GHOST
(Printed with an unregistered version of Fade In)
Man, I swear I love watching beauty

JIMI HENDRIX'S GHOST (cont'd)
burn, but I give up my ticket for you
all. Im invisible anyways, I cant
physically hold tickets or feathers.
Someone grabs the falling feather

POV SHIFTS
Sits an old Indian woman, already having feathers in her
headdress pulls one out

80 YEAR OLD INDIAN WOMAN
My old bones cant go on for so long.
I don't want to occupy a space when
another will occupy a rich spread of
youthful joy!
Puts feather back into headdress

POV MOVES TO THE LEFT
man with pleated pants and a polo starts across the lawn
sounding annoying and loud

NEW MEMBER
Hi guys! Mind if I join in!?
Looks of sympathy and pity, (Indian woman nods)
the new member starts to talk but is grunted by the circle
to stop.
Feather passes to the new member

NEW MEMBER (cont'd)
Yeah I was told about burning man and
I think I would like to go. I have
enough to buy for a few of us if
that's an issue.
looks of moral conflict, (Indian woman shakes head no)
the new member keeps on talking while in the background
approaches a light purple shimmering light.

MAN WITH THE FEATHER
you have contributed to us enough
resources, we appreciate you!
No one notices the approaching mysterious space object for
the longest time. As people from the house start rushing out
to the yard.

>>16534423
>But to presume that must always be the case enforces this kind of intellectual and cultural segregationism.
Faulkner is a good case example of this. He wrote nuanced, fully realized black characters. Dilsey Gibson from the Sound and the Fury is a good example. Granted she somewhat falls within the doting "mammy" stereotype (and her son literally calls her mammy), she is a voice of reason and sanity amid the crumbling facade of the Compson family. And all the white characters are degenerates, mentally ill , or literal retards.

>>16522301
lmao did you just take the bar too?

>>16536526
lol you take him to the bar?

>>16536442
CLOSE UP ON THE STARRY EYED MYSTIC
STARRY EYED MYSTIC
This isn't the acid or a mugwort
dream. This is a messenger. Whew! I I
knew we'd all make it to burning
man!!
In a strong wind and a bright flash appears a floating
triangle about 300 feet in the air. Paul McCartney, Bob
Dylan and Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane descend from a
conveyer belt. Bob Dylan walks over to the mystic.

BOB DYLAN
I saw as it seems, in a dream next to
a telephone.. you shown, me, you need
three tickets. And I say oh wow like
we have enough trees too please them
all.. then I notice a sprawl bigger
than the mall so I turn off breaking
good, to investigate..
Bob then hands over 7 tickets
All the while the crowd of people cheer and start dancing.

4 MONTHS LATER
INT. TRIANGLE SPACE CRAFT
Grace Slick stands at the helm. Hoards of hippies buckled in
theater style seats

GRACE
W-a-a-rp SSppe-e-e-e-e-ddd!!!!
FADE OUT

-This is a script I've been working on that is lighter than my exegesis
>>16536397
>>16536425
Looking for any constructive feedback, critique of my philosophy or suggestions for similar work

>>16536526
Yup. Failed twice by 1%. I ain't doin' this shit more than three times.


Speaking of, just shat out another 1100 words of burgerpunk.

>>16536888
im sure you passed this time.

>>16536935
Thanks for the kind words, anon. I sure hope so.

Besides my horrible choice of genre, criticise my writing.

>>16537065
Lack of quotation marks or even italics to differentiate speech irks me but other than it looks kinda solid.

how do you start writing?
what's the first sentence you usually begin with?

>>16537065
let me just say, based children barneyfags get the rope
like it

>>16537151
Thanks. It's a bait and switch for a fanfic community where the MC is a queer teenage audience stand in who gradually transitions into a bald man with a cannibalism fetish, except with little horses fandom thrown in at random.

>>16537184
what the fuck

>>16537185
The idea is the intended audience expect the story to revolve around the queer teenage girl who plays with horses. The rest of their site is filled with it.

>>16537128
The same way you start shitposting.

>>16537201

>>16535768
What can I say. There's a bit of everyone teenage self that never fully goes away.

>>16535917
If you don't enjoy writing, then why do it?
But I see two options, either you get up earlier and write before work(which means going to bed a little earlier probably), or you need to find a way to write any chance you get. Even if it's just for five minutes in between tasks at works.

>>16537128
>how do you start writing?
Ideally, you just write.
>Usually begin with
I try and come up with something clever or attention grabbing. I might sit for a minute or two and come up with something, and I'll hit on something and go, "that's it" and I'll be off, but it usually changes at some point in the editing process.

Irrelevant note: Holy fuck, anons, my farts are stinky tonight. I love it.

How do you avoid being too navel-gazing or coming off as too self-absorbed?
I'm writing a short story that only centers around one person and don't know where another character could possibly fit. I don't want to force one in just for the sake of it either, I'm just afraid of it coming across as "woe is me"

>>16537876
make it so the external force, nature, whatever, plays a more active role that the protag needs to react or adapt to. or add flashbacks. anything so its not protagonist sitting in empty white room thinking woe is me.

>>16523179
Wordy. Didn't feel the stakes after chapter 3.

>>16534369
Why delete it when you can keep it for foot notes to maintain continuity as you reveal the backstory through contextual queues and flashbacks?

>>16525203
Are you the foot fetish guy who wrote about the person reincarnated as a sidewalk?

I posted this last thread, I hope if you read it you enjoy it and if you don't then you know what you hate about it.

If I'm writing a fantasy book that includes some technical jargon, should I research words to see what terms are based on historical events and change them accordingly?

Like, for example, electricity is measured in watts. Those are named after the discoverer, James Watt. In a fantasy world, this guy wouldn't exist. Should I change the name in the name or world building or keep it the same in the sense of easier understanding?

>>16538152
What I don't like about it is all of the comma splices and bad sentence structuring. Don't try to make overly complex sentences until you have the grammar rules down very well.

Your imagery is alright. You just need to clean up your technical writing skills. Something I like to do is type out chapters of classic novels. It helps me focus on the sentence structuring/style, since I'm typing it out myself and forced to slow down

>>16538565
>fantasy book
>watts
I'd say don't get so into the nitty gritty in your fantasy book where you're having characters measure such precise amounts of power output. Use analogies instead, or something like horsepower, which allows you to handwave. Unless the purpose of what you're doing is something like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, adding pseudoscience might not be the route to go. And if it is you'll need to brainstorm entire systems.

Anyone else writing a slow burner story and getting anxiety creep that it might be months before you get to the next major plot arc? I wish I could write so much more faster, bros

>>16538732
>the next major plot arc
Stop thinking in terms of shounenshit or isekai garbage and write your shit like a novel.

Man my dreams give me the dankest story ideas. What is going on and why can't I come up with this during the day to day?

>>16538603
But how would I denote a short pause if not for a comma? :U

>>16538953
Semicolons exist

>>16538906
Rational inhibitors. Dreams are essentially a mash up of everything you remember and everything you can imagine, and in that space they can run free to do whatever they want.
When you're awake, you're limited first by being conscious and aware of what's going on, second your sight, and third your the parts of your brain that make you go, "Oh that makes no sense! Why- HOW could that happen? What the fuck is wrong with me?" whenever you go off the reservation.

>>16539116
>tfw you're having a nice dream
>something happens that makes you say "wait, this isn't realistic at all" and you wake up
>the dream was just having a pleasant day for once

>>16539126
>tfw my three happiest moments in life were in dreams
One I got to fly because I realized I was in a dream for 2 seconds before I woke up, another was getting to put my arm around the girl I had a crush on in 7th grade as we walked out on the last day of school(she's still the only girl who made my heart physically jump/twitch/leap/whatever the first time I saw her), and the last was me running down the street to the country highway at the bottom of the hill because I was going to throw myself into traffic and finally end it(Ended up becoming some weird morphed radroach thing as the semi hit me. And don't worry, anons, I'm doing a lot better now)

>>16539149
>girl I had a crush on in 7th grade
I should add that this was about 10 years after 7th grade

A footfag and a horse fucker? We'll need a flamethrower

>>16539442
Fuck off man with no taste, they will be the quintessence of 21st century classic literature

>>16538732
I've got a five episode arc scripted, but adapting the script to prose takes time. To be fair it takes relatively little time to actually do per word count x hourly basis, but given I need to go to work and be in the mood to write, it can take months to get even half of the first episode done. It is what it is I guess. Just have to not die in the mean time.

Is my style shit? Be honest. For context this is the opening to a story I've just started writing that deals with a Laplace's Demon scenario.

It was an unseasonably cold Spring morning when I got a call from the local weatherman and he told me when I was going to die. It was Stephen. Stephen Something. I went to high school with him. It was about nine o'clock give or take a few
minutes. Saturday. No work. His call woke me up. I had pulled off the blankets and reached for the phone, missing it more than a few times, and after picking it up and being told it was a serious call I sat there sort of listening and sort of wondering if he'd notice if I got up and adjusted the AC. It was cold. I was still listening-wondering and going through the automatic pleasantries when Stephen Something's tone shifted in such a dramatic way that it startled me and I began listening.

>>16539677
What sort of effect do you want to achieve with this flow of consciousness style

How do I go about learning how to write good prose?

>>16540502
Could I get some feedback on the outline for my story? It's only 2.5 pages.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tbDrWH3HiUaebeAYaladnV1O8f7ZFvUk3r20pxT97lY/edit

How does it feel to you structurally?
Notice any flaws?
Areas you feel might need more clarity when I go over the screenplay again?

It's for a comic/manga. This would be the 4th draft more or less. I've redone the script a few times. If you want to read the screenplay, maybe done this Sunday. The comic manuscript... probably Sunday too. About 50% of it is done from previous edits.

>fuck the bar exam
are you one of the retards complaining about the easiest mbe ever provided?

>>16538707
Well the thing is that it takes place during an industrial revolution and I want to capture that spirit of invention and possibility. When the headlines are filled with people like Edison and Morse and Bell, there’s bound to be some jargon involved.

>>16541261
In that case you won't be using watts, you'll be using the name of whatever the inventor is that did something in your world. But that said, a newspaper would never use something like watt in a headline, or even the body. They'd describe whatever the machine did, description of it buzzing and whirring, they'd mention it was a cold morning when blah blah blah. Newspapers never have technical jargon. Journalists are soft headed and have trouble getting basic facts about stories right. When it comes to hard science they don't know their ass from a hole in the ground.

>>16539046
I mean, I guess, but isn't that just the basically same thing except it stands in for a full conjunction? Strict grammatical structures didn't really seem to matter greatly in creative writing, I figured you could just write how you thought. We'll see about my commas.

>>16541131
I complain about many things.

Anon, WRITE HOMO FOR THE HOLIDAYS! I want to read it

>>16522435
Look at the highest-earning webnovel writer, Pirateaba, He has an average output of 150,000 words per month. That's 6*25k word chapters. Used to be 8. Earns at least 20K/month.

>>16541791
I am not gay.

I have relationships with women.

And sex with men.

>>16541797
Jesus fucking christ. That's more than a full time job and it's likely 7 days a week. Just wagecuck me f a m

>>16541797
150,000 words per month. That's 5000 words a day. If put into an 8 hour work day, that's 625 words an hour. Even assuming they are slow, which I highly doubt, at 40 wpm that's just 15 minutes an hour of pure writing.

I don't know what Pirateaba's writing quality is like, but I'd assume they just hire an editor after the work is shat out. And i also assume they do a bunch of planning and structure to a project so that the content itself isn't magically made up, but is, instead, all systematically preconceived.

>>16541822
How do we know that he doesn't outsource his work to a bunch of English literature grad student ghost writers? That's what a lot of "brand" writers do

just made this on my way back from the supermarket

>>16541818
>>16541822
>>16541849
The guy streams his writing on twitch, it gets 100~ viewers. I've sat through those two times. He occasionally pastes snippets from offscreen notes but it's usually 6 hours of continuous writing for two days for each chapter. followed by 1-2 hours of self-editing. That's 13 hours of work per chapter without including the planning.

>>16541849
Oh yeah, erotica peeps do that all the time. That would most def make sense. I just knocked out 625 words since writing that post and it's this strange feeling of not being able to write quickly enough to match the ideas in my head, but also struggling to figure out how to explain something. Oh well.

>>16539711
I want to get a lot of internal commentary and monologuing out of the main character. Stream of consciousness makes it easier for me to portray that and keep a nice flow going, at least in my opinion.

>>16541822
>that's 625 words an hour
If I get out 625 words on a weekday that's pretty solid. Goal is 3k words per week, with saturday and sunday being more productive because I have time off. 625 words an hour, every hour, for 8 hours a day is disgusting.

1500 more words of burgerpunk thrown up and out. Hooray.

>>16541822
>>16541853
Fuck, I could never force myself to do this. I usually write like 4-5k words in about 3 hours then I'm drained and and need a week to recover, where I edit it and brainstorm what happens next. I've tried writing every day and it makes me hate writing.

>>16542212
Just to muse on this a little. It's been really fun writing little scenes and short stories that don't necessarily have to be connected. I feel like this burgerpunk project has really let me explore different methods and styles and has let me find difference styles and voices. Like the one I just did didn't have any dialogue, which is uncomfortable for me. Some of them have been weird like business emails or documents too which I think is probably more funny than it actually is. Maybe one of the stories I tell will actually stick and I'll keep writing it, or maybe the gag is that a plot never actually develops.

>>16542241
You think that now but it won't be the same when 1000's of people read your writing the second it comes out and you get instant criticism/praise from people who love your work. He even said that he started to stream to keep himself motivated with instant feedback.

He also used to write 2*4k chapters a week at the beginning of the serial and had to keep that up for 6 months before he got his first comment. So keep at it and you're gonna make it anon.

>>16542129
I can write pretty close to 2000 words an hour consistently, sometimes even up to 3000. That's just for the first draft though, I have yet to edit much.

>>16522376
It’s sounds gud and flows too

Is it plagiarism to "mirror" everything but the words of a book while you're writing? Say I'm writing a horror book, and have the exorcist next to me, I'm not writing the same words, but I'm reading the book and then writing a variant of it.

>The Weekend Novelist
>Aristotle's Poetics
>Hero With a Thousand Faces
>Save the Cat
>Romance the Beat
Which one should I start with?

>>16542967
Damn, nigga, wtf? I thought 1000 an hour was speedy compared to some people, but 2000? Do you do drugs tho?

>>16543302
What do you think his first draft looks like?

>>16543266
Not plagiarism, but if people make the connection you'll be laughed at at best, and hunted down by a raging mob armed with torches and pitchforks at worst.

>>16543311
Depends on if he does drugs or not. If he does then it'll probably be pretty orderly because he's just sped up like a wind up monkey. If he doesn't then it's going to be a mess or misplaced punctuation and misspelled words.

>>16543302
>>16543311
>>16543321

My typing speed is about 80 wpm. If I am listening to music and put on a timer, I can easily break 3000.

My first drafts are pretty dry, I don't really do much for prose for the first draft or my dialogue. I just aim to finish my first draft. I haven't edited yet, but I aim to go back to work on prose and dialogue after.

I'm also an underwriter and if there's anything I want to write but can't at the time, I'll make a note and truck on.

>>16543366
What do you write?

>>16543376
Epic fantasy for one series that's at 110K.

I am planning several sword and sorcery novels that I'll be starting soon.

>>16543390
Very cool, is there an author that you write similarly to, or if I were to read your work, I'd know it's you/unique?

>>16543440
I don't really have anyone I'm similar to. I don't write anywhere near close to anyone I've read. I would like to write similarly to Terry Prachett, though a little more serious.

I think I'll have my voice by the tenth novel I write.

I haven't actually read much sword and sorcery other than the first Elric of Melnibone story, but I'm going to inhale that and Conan right after.

I'll soon begin working on my debut novel (bound to be a success, but wish me luck nonetheless, bois), and I want to read some books on the craft before starting to put everything down on the page. Sooo reccs?

Opinions on potty humor? My beta reader told me that I should remove a scene where the protagonist takes a shit in a jail cell, but I don't want to.

>>16543994
Why is it in the story?
You could always skip writing the actual scene, but hint the before and after.

>>16543276
Want to get published and have a career? None of them, read fiction and emulate what you like.
Want to write solely for yourself and jerk off on /lit/ about tropes and high art? Start with Joseph Campbell.

Help
It's impossible to stop myself from spending three paragraphs describing the scenery and can't bring myself to ever delete it

>>16543947
Have you written anything before?

>>16543994
Is it crucial to the plot? Is there a specific reason it needs to be in there, or is it an extraneous details just meant for laughs?

>>16544714
Three is a bit much. Break it down into one slightly longer one, and call it a day.

>>16544714
does your character visit the lush rolling green hillocks lining the near horizon or are they just in a valley

>>16544057
Thanks anon, I was hoping I could write something of high quality but with also a fair bit of mainstream appeal, or at least appeal to a wide audience