/lit/ - Literature

>>16846386
hehe, gay

Traditional publishing:
>ensure your manuscript is fully completed and edited
>format it properly https://blog.reedsy.com/manuscript-format/ (if you're smart, you'll use scrivener which can export to whatever format you want in a few clicks)
>write a query https://www.janefriedman.com/query-letters/
>(optional) write a 1k word synopsis. not many agents ask for them, but you will feel as though you are dying when you try to write one, so might as well prepare one while you aren't also under the pressure of a deadline
>go to https://querytracker.net/ or similar site and find agents who fit your genre
>tweak your query letter to personalize it to them, usually only one or two lines at the end
>follow the instructions they provide for sending the query letter
>repeat around ten times
>wait a month or two
>if they all reject/ignore you, send ten more
>if anyone doesn't reject you, they'll request the first few chapters of your manuscript or the full thing
>follow their instructions and be polite

How do I write good romance?

>>16846496
Third wheels

>>16846425
Does this kind of advice need to be here when it's so easy to google? And there's already so much in the OP. You'd have to be retarded to not be able to work all this out.

>>16846524
>Does this kind of post need to be here when it's so easy to post something better? And there's already so much in the thread. You'd have to be retarded to make posts like these.

>>16846425
Now do one for self publishing

>>16846132
Not that anon, but this question is notoriously hard to answer. There's an art to writing that is invisible to the majority who consume it, just as camera angles and lighting are invisible to the majority of TV viewers. That's why reality TV shows are so popular; most people don't take the time to think about the medium and only the contents. They don't wonder about the camerawork which would make obvious plenty of fictionalized scenarios.

I'm digressing, but the same thing can be said of writing. If you want to take a nihilistic view, yes of course nothing is "better" than anything else because "everything is just words telling a story" and then that's that. But if you look at writing as a medium in which ideas are conveyed, and you think that there are those who employ subtle techniques and refine their vocabulary usage, sentence structure and general pacing to create works that are, to the TRAINED eye of those highly familiar with the artform/medium, extremely skilled at conveying thoughts through the medium, then you will understand why people seem almost offended by "low brow" or better put "too simple/unskilled" works.

To try and explain the techniques would likely be unfruitful, as superficial and deep understanding are quite distant. Someone unskilled at the guitar can hear fast or complicated sounding notes and say the guitarist is good, but those who are experts with the guitar usually gravitate towards skilled playing, not "seemingly skilled playing." To the untrained eye, the skilled players do not seem skilled at all.

For prose, the techniques are not so cut and dry as it's difficult to separate them. Vocabulary, sentence length, plot pacing, dialogue usage, general tone, overarching implied repetitions, intended long-term foreshadowing; these are the things which separate works between those interested in prose and those interested in story. Both effectively use the medium, and I'm not one to say that one is "better" than the other, but as I get older, I am unable personally to read through bad prose. If you send the opening paragraphs of a random book, whether it be LitRPG or something from the western canon, I'll immediately be able to tell whether it's good WRITING or not, and I think most people who have been writing several years could say the same. Whether that same STORY is good or not is a whole other matter that I believe is subjective, but I do resolutely believe from experience that writing has objective quality.

>>16846572
>>16846132
Also, Brandon Sanderson admits that he doesn't care about writing quality. Watch his lectures: he talks about how the majority of readers cannot tell good writing from bad writing, so he doesn't think it's necessary to have things be perfect, just passable. It's not uncommon he writes 10k+ words in a day.

Again, I'm probably belaboring my point, but it's not that his stories are bad, or the systems and world he's creating are bad. I'm only talking about the writing. The words he uses and the manner he uses them. While they are more than sufficient for most people, being skilled at theorycrafting and storytelling are a whole other pursuit.

>>16846563
>Now do one for self publishing
Why do you people need guides in the thread? Why don't you look it up like a normal person?

>>16846572
>>16846617
Not that anon, but care to give concrete examples of bad writing and good writing? In your opinion, of course.

>>16846572
>>16846617
In my opinion, the meat of a novel is still the story. Of course there're times when simple tales are executed so well the style is the substance itself. But more often do good stories make up for bad writings. And yes I'm aware good writing is more than just beautiful sentences.

>>16846723
The meat of a fiction novel read for entertainment is the story, I would agree. Reading challenging materials or reading to study and appreciate the art of prose itself are for a different audience, one that is much smaller but still clinging to life.

>>16846679
I will grab examples shortly.

>>16846653
On 4chan help doesn't depend on me clicking seventeen different hyperlinks within the same blog to get vague yet very affirming bullet points about how you need to write EVERY DAY if you want to be a writer and directing me to read Stephen King's On Writing.
I appreciate the bum-like honesty and general lack of attempts to sell me crap.

>>16846866
>Stephen King's On Writing
Is this some kind of meme? I see everyone recommending it but I've never read that

I'm increasingly of the opinion that these threads are filled with people who are okay critics and terrible writers. I don't know if they do more harm than good.

>>16846921
We all are terrible writers.
I cry to my pillow when I read my stories and realise how retarded and bad my writing is. Maybe one day I will be better.

>>16846939
And I think improvement is good, but I have never seen a single piece in any of these threads that is near publishing. The people giving out advice tend to recycle platitudes, the obvious, or things readily available by a Google search, e.g.

>>16846617
>>16846572
>>16846425

While providing no proof of authority, through an accepted submission screenshot, or even an excerpt of their own writing.

The reason this is dangerous is because it causes a strange feedback loop. Those posting work for critique get a few obvious tips that they should have known in the first place, yet feel a thrill when incorporating the suggestions into their piece (when it's still far from publishable). Those giving advice get a feeling of superior taste in doing so, and- I fear- WRONGLY associate such critical ability with superior writing ability.

This purports to be a writing general, yet there is a noticeable lack of anyone with any degree of success in writing. Let's have people who have had short stories or a novel published (and actually published, not self-publishing vanity nonsense). If there is a dearth of such individuals then simply rename these at crit threads. Yet even then, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Crit threads would be no substitute for sustained criticism from actual editor services, or in-depth feedback from professional beta readers.

>>16847014
I agree about the feedback loop, but no one with any intelligence would give proof of their success here, on this website. I found an agent and have three (hopefully soon four) books published. I can give no proof and I'm not going to argue my success. I've seen others saying they're published as well, whether traditionally or otherwise, so I don't think it's good to assume there aren't successful authors here. They may not meet your criteria though.

>>16847014
That's a lot of words to state the obvious. No one with any success in their writing career would ever touch 4chan with a ten feet pole. The only thing we have is each other - the retards and social inept, which is still better than the good for nothing hugboxes like reddit or tumblr

>>16847124
You could very, very easily supply proof while maintaining your anonymity

>>16847146
How? Without revealing my agent, agency or books.

>>16847155
Not that guy, but an excerpt, for example.

>>16846866
But you'll put your faith in some random anon who doesn't necessarily have your best interests in mind or want you to succeed.

>>16847155
You could apply an acceptance email with pertinent details blacked out, relevant correspondence, etc

>>16846921
I do like 90% of the critiques here. Most other commenters are just like, "pretty good dude, keep at it". But I'm tired of doing it, because these people never come back and I don't even know if my advice actually helped anybody or didn't. This wasn't supposed to be /crit/ anyway

>>16846496
Grown man + little girl

>>16847162
https://files.catbox.moe/8cluku.png
Here ya go.

>>16847194
These could just as easily be forged and lied about as anything else, so I don't think that would matter to the doubters.

>>16847014
If you need some namefag authority figure to follow, why don't you go to facebook/twitter/reddit/blogspot/whatever and pester the e-celebrities there for attention? Anonymity is the whole point of 4chan, if you can't accept advice from your peers and decide for yourself if it's what you need or not, but must have official credentials and proofs, then you really should fuck off.

Do you peole know which font was used here in this text?

https://pastebin.com/Vy1z9DDV
Can I get some critique. It was a themed prompt and you had certain words you had to jam in there. Very short read. I'm concerned about the prose.

>>16846921
The people that post their work are no good so they get good feedback. The people that give good feedback generally don't post their work. Why would it do harm to be given alright feedback by someone who can't right? Helpful feedback is helpful feedback regardless of who gave it.

>>16846496
tragedy

>>16847259
>But I'm tired of doing it, because these people never come back and I don't even know if my advice actually helped anybody or didn't.
This. I put more effort into my last few critiques and it felt good to be helpful until I realised that I'd never know the end result. Kind of blue balled.
Also, I hate /crit/ and always have.

>>16847691
It's fluid and lively, I liked it. Only sentence I stumbled upon was "Envy is not a good look"; somehow felt contrived, like those moments where you almost see the writer thinking "What would be a fitting thing for my character to say", instead of the conversation flowing so naturally you forget it's fiction.

All good other than that, the prose was more than fine.

>>16847303
To be honest, I'm not sure what he thought the excerpt would prove. But I wish I could read more, I'd probably buy that.

>>16847799
You can. Go to Barnes and Noble, anon. I wish I could shill it here without destroying my public image.

>>16847340
Cope

>>16847691
>Warning - Potentially offensive content ahead!
every time

>>16847929
have you been seriously reviewed and stuff? good job

>>16847929
I, unfortunately, do not have the patience to search for it among hundreds of books with absolutely no clues. I wish you could too, anon.

>>16847982
Thanks, anon. Even a shitposting /lit/ NEET faggot with a high school education and no friends can get published. Even if he shits his bowels out before and after his release signing, and his hands shake the entire time, and he stutters half of his words, and he can barely make eye contact with anyone in the line! I've only needed to attend two other such events and I got loose permission to drink beforehand so I'm not such an embarrassing mess.

What music do you listen to while writing?

>>16846415
Mr. John Gay, who was a close friend of Alexander Pope's. He predeceased Pope.

>>16847929
>I wish I could shill it here
Do you think your publisher stalks /lit/ to make sure they don't publish any 4channer?

I did my best to incorporate the suggestions y'all gave me a few days ago. Can anyone give a critique of this new opening?

It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination for some days. An expedition, I should say, which I will undertake alone, in the comfort of Mr Farraday's Ford; an expedition which, as I foresee it, will take me through much of the finest countryside of England to the West Country, and may keep me away from Darlington Hall for as much as five or six days. The idea of such a journey came about, I should point out, from a most kind suggestion put to me by Mr Farraday himself one afternoon almost a fortnight ago, when I had been dusting the portraits in the library. In fact, as I recall, I was up on the step-ladder dusting the portrait of Viscount Wetherby when my employer had entered carrying a few volumes which he presumably wished returned to the shelves. On setting my person, he took the opportunity to inform me that he had just that moment finalised plans to return to the United States for a period of five weeks between August and September. Having made this announcement, my employer put his volumes down on a table, seated himself on the chaise-longue, and stretched out his legs. It was then, gazing up at me, that he said:
"You realize, Stevens, I don't expect you to be locked up here in this house all the time I'm away. Why don't you take the car and drive off somewhere for a few days? You look like you could do with a break."

>>16848240
those shitty 4 hours compilations of lo-fi or whateverwave. Great background music.

>>16848326
same, random lo-fi, vaporwave etc
comfy and engaging

- text
or
"text"

how do i find muh writing style???

>>16847363
Is it just Times New Roman?

>>16847929
I didn't dislike it, but just because you said that I'm going to find your book and shill it on 4channel

>>16848364
based

Opening of story about gay cruise I'm writing.

>>16848516
You don't need writing, you need Jesus in your life you filthy degenerate.

>>16848279
Publishing an author who associates with the hacker known as 4chan is a PR nightmare. I wouldn't doubt an agent would drop an author to prevent muddying their image.

>>16848522
oh hey its you again

>>16848516
Didn't you post this already?

>>16848548
yeah I'm hoping to get literally any feedback that's not from a /pol/ poster

>>16848286
Still keen to know what people think-- happy to return a critique.

>>16848558
I'm sorry it's a bit too gay for me to read.
Maybe make it less gay?

>>16848566
Reads well, maybe reword the first sentence a bit to make it more welcoming. instead of starting off hitting the ground running without anything solid. The second sentence begins delivering information crucial to the story, whereas the first sentence, for its length and inherent importance, feels a bit empty. Just my opinion, no other complaints.

How the fuck is it called when you exhale deeply but instead of expelling all your air out smoothly you do it in like small increments because you're nervous?

>>16848765
ragged breath?

>>16848286
>>16848566
I think the opening was fine when you published this book 40 years ago, Mr. Ishiguro. The Nobel people clearly thought the same

>>16848765
Hyperventilating

>>16848805
kek I thought only I realised
one anon criticised him

>>16848773
ragged breath, thank you

>>16848765
staggered breathing?

>>16848286
>>16848805

Somehow seems more accessible /achievable reading it in the context of a crit post in a 4chan thread instead of in the actual book

https://pastebin.com/2UimjA52
A crit would be appreciated. This is the start of the book I'm working on.

Do you guys think that a book similar to No Longer Human has a chance of success? I'm writing a novel which is heavily inspired by my shitty life, a friend to whom I showed it said that it's sad and relatable. I'd show you and excerpt but I'd have to translate it first.

>>16849032
Those styles of books have a big audience, do it.

>>16849032
No Longer Human was such a huge success because, besides it being well written and delivered, it was a deeply personal story that people could connect with. I believe that if you're a competent storyteller, your book could find either a small following or perhaps even a considerable amount of success. Then again. Dazai was already a renowned author, so if this is your first attempt at a novel you might stumble a little.
Either way, I like your chances.

I haven't done anything this Sunday. I wanted to read, write and work. I barely got my work done, have done no writing and I've decided to take this last hour of the night I have available to get some reading done before going to bed.
I just hope tomorrow is a more productive day for writing.

>>16848240
A 2 hour and 40 minute long compilation of Silent Hill ambiance music.
The book I'm working on is very much inspired by that series, so it puts me in the right mood.

>>16848558
Die of AIDS.

>>16849084
It's okay, anon. Not everyday needs to be productive. Let today motivate you more.

>>16848990
Very nice indeed. At first I didn't like the narrator referencing the fact that he is also the author, but the last line convinced me that it's gonna work in this case. Would buy. Jelly of how you can describe the surroundings.

>>16849107
It's my fourth day without writing. I don't want to fall again in that trap of putting off my work until I lose interest in it. It's always the same. I need to finish this, and I'd better get some fucking work done tomorrow. I'm so disappointed in myself.
Anyway, thanks for the encouragement. I should focus on doing better next time rather than dwelling on my past mistakes.

>>16848990
The dialogue feels a bit awkward, it just doesn't flow like a normal dialogue between two humans would, although if you're going for a somewhat dreamlike approach then it's fine.

>>16848240
lately I've been listening to Re:Zero season 2's soundtrack which has some pretty solid sad/battle sequence songs. Say what you want about the show but the soundtrack is great

After writing a decent narration for 12 pages which related my protagonist exploring her surroundings and her own emotional state in solitude, I'm about to write the first dialogue exchange of my novel. I'm more nervous than I thought I would.

>>16849165
Nothing wrong with that. I thought the anime was meh, but Goblin Slayer's OST is pretty great.

>>16849157
I had to translate it a lot by myself, that might be why.

>>16849121
Thanks, I might post some more chapters if there's interest.

>>16849165
>>16849184
Yeah, I don't watch anime but some OSTs are kino.

>>16849098
>The book I'm working on is very much inspired by that series
That can be said of most of my stories, honestly. Though only a few are outright scary/horror, I'm always trying to emulate the atmosphere from those games. I also listen to SH music but I have other artists in there. Christophe Frutuoso did several albums which are basically just songs made in the SH Yamaoka style that I highly recommend. Otherwise, Bruno Sanfilippo and rafael anton irisarri are both artists that I have in the playlist.

>>16848343
write
identify your patterns
Develop what you like, modify or eliminate what you don't. I make use of a lot of semicolons and dashes; (ha) I even contemplated whether or not the faggy "~" had a place in literature - you know, slapping it on the end of word to indicate that the last syllable hung on~?
Yeah, you know. You're gay.

>>16849396
>Develop what you like, modify or eliminate what you don't. I make use of a lot of semicolons and dashes; (ha) I even contemplated whether or not the faggy "~" had a place in literature - you know, slapping it on the end of word to indicate that the last syllable hung on~?
Wtf, are you me?

>>16849102
I can write much better than you

>>16849084
If you really want to stop procrastinating go to a room, put away any devices that will cause you distraction, and just sit and do nothing for 30 minutes. By the end of that 30 minutes you'll feel inspired to write, trust me.

>>16849437
maybe. tell me what you think of this
“War in the east,” he said and repeated. “At least it’s impossible for anybody to try and poison me with a sealed bottle from eleven eighty. I wasn’t even born then.” He took a bolder swig. “Anybody who marks their bottles according to the [Contextual] Calendar always knows what they are doing.” He drank more. “Never. Thought. I. Would. Be. Here. Four. Days. Ago~” he sang. What was this again? His aloof mind reached back into his memories of the prior twenty minutes, amongst which was when the confection table was set for him. [Place]… Yes, this wine came from there. Mother and Uncle’s people. There are [People from Place] in the Eleventh Corps too. “Wonderful.” He noticed some chocolate had melted onto his hand and stained his glass – nothing a trip to the restroom could not fix. On his way back, he passed Leroy, who asked of him:
“Do you have a moment?”
“For?”
“Several things, actually. General Cor’us Cius has almost returned to us.”

>>16849576
4chan doesn't support italicized text. use your skill to identify where it you go
answer: your prostate

My friend just told me that my story is easy, fast and pleasant to read.
Is it good?

>>16849670
>My friend just told me that my story is verbose, clunky and a chore to read.
>is It bad?

How do I write a compelling mystery? This is hard.

>>16849703
Start with the hook, then figure a twist (if any) then conjure up a red herring or two, and lastly think of your main characters and how they'll solve the mystery.

>>16848990
Okay anon, I'm here for a while so I can give you some critique and if you have any questions at the end you can ask me for something specific and I'll respond.

The first thing I want to impress on you is that you have two stories here. You have the story of one old man who appears to be alone and is trying to write a memoir to immortalize a moment or series of events which are important to him. Then you have the second story. A love story between a younger man and woman which begins in the field by a forest.
The problem is that you aren't using a frame. Think of the Thousand and One Nights. The story of the Shahryar and Scheherazade is the frame through which the 'thousand and one' stories are told. In your narrative you have the feeling of a frame, the man begins to relate his past, tells his past as it happens, then 'resurfaces' to bemoan his condition. Without the use of a frame to contain consistent narrative these moments are relegated to flashbacks which carry much less consequence and promote less engagement in the reader. This feeds into my second point.

You are 'telling' everything instead of 'showing' it. In this case however, it is a double telling. You are, sentence by sentence (through their construction) telling the reader of events, while narratively telling the reader the events through the eyes of the older man. Yet even here there is the problem of indecisive language and narrative drudgery that obfuscates the actual events of the story.
For example, "Let's see, now, what was Naoko talking about that day?" in place of the more concise, "Noako was telling me about the 'field well'." You can, in this way, trim a great deal of superfluous content by spending your time revising to show instead of tell the reader this series of events. Another example of this is the first paragraph which doesn't make much sense without having read the rest of the story first because the narrator is playing the 'pronoun game'. We don't know his name, we don't know Naoko's name, we don't know their location, we don't know their motivation. We are told that, in a moment we have yet to experience, that a character we have not yet met is not going to be thinking about a scene we aren't familiar with but instead about a girl we have also not yet met. This is the inflation of a single thought, 'I, the narrator, have a terrible memory'. Here you should be aware of stories with similar structures, which from my example of a rewrite you may already guessed. The striking beginning of "Notes from the Underground" by Dostoevsky, "I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man." Immediate characterization with concrete language expressing self-knowledge which sets up the following narrative.

I'll do some rewrites in another post anon, but thank you for the contribution and good luck with your writing.
1/2

probably dumb question but

>"Question?" said X.
Or
>"Question?" Said X.

What is correct?

>>16849703
It really helps if you have no idea what the fuck is going to happen and you just start leaving shit hanging and writing tense scenes. Then when it's done and you go in for the rewrite, just tweak everything so that it actually makes sense in terms of the ending you decided to go with, and remove the tension from the scenes that don't make sense, remove all the loose ends. and tidy up.

>>16849895
The first one.

>>16849792
I see what you mean. In an earlier draft I had a scene of the narrator feeling sick in the present and hearing a song which made him remember Naoko as the start. Would that be the kind of framing you mean? What do you think of the dialogue? Thank you for the critique.

>>16849895
"Question?" X asks.

Bump

tall grey trees
leafy blowin thru the air
green light shades on a chestnut forest floor
pearl dew drops dripping onto stone rocks
waterfalls and raindrops

hidden beneath the forest glade
lies restlessly where none shall bade
hidden underneath a hidden rock
sharp stones and sticking rocks
digs deeper beneath the everglade, the stone, the dwellings, of that hidden place
ferns coverings the vast overgrown floor
and a stone perched upon a vast door
hidden behind rocks of stone
a hidden doorway, vast and overgrown
there lies a man

is it really true i have to write every day in order to be a good writer? does it count if i write in my journal?

Do you have any suggestions on how to make a plot based on integrating a bunch of really cool environmental set pieces I envisioned?

>>16848990
>>16849792
2/2
"My memory is in sharp decline. This is the reason for my memoir. I must dedicate my memory to paper before I forget everything completely. Most importantly I must write to fulfill a promise I made to a young woman 18 [seems a bit short I would have said 40] years ago. Her name was Naoko. On a winter day, in a meadow, with the dogs barking and the chilly wind blowing in from a line of distant, high hills I promised I would never forget her. She had straight black hair and wore a tweed jacket."
Here I cut a lot from the start and add a bit of information reserved for the middle and end of the 'frame' to supplement the narrator's telling of the situation. From there I try to move you quickly into the 'framed' part of the story because the reader wants to get into the action of the story as soon as possible. They want to know who, what, when, where, and fast. So be direct. I was Toru the old man, writing a story so I wouldn't forget about a girl that I loved.

A brief digression on dialogue. It doesn't sound natural and it could use stronger motivation and more direct conflict. Using dialogue in story is using conflict. Two characters with separate goals try to resolve this by speaking convincingly to each other, "Give me the McGuffin! You'll never have my McGuffin! If you don't give me the McGuffin I will hurt people dear to you. Here have the McGuffin, I will secure those people and return to challenge you for the McGuffin." Is a very cliche but recognizable example of a simplified verbal conflict. However, not every person is so direct and not every need or want is so surface level. In this case Naoko wants Toru to confess his feelings, recognize her gratitude towards him, and never forget her (which he takes literally). Toru appears to be content to do nothing. He admits a desire to understand Naoko, but doesn't pursue that goal very strongly. It is a serous narrative question which is left unanswered. What does young Toru actually want? Old Toru wants to keep his promise to Naoko, but young Toru doesn't seem to care about much.
The best path to clearing your dialogue, and generally writing good dialogue is to write out what the characters want, literally, as I have done above with the McGuffin example, and then flesh out those thoughts and ideas in revision. "I want you to love me and I want to be remembered fondly." Then pull the speech from that motivating thought.

There is still a lot to say about what is here and what can be done as well as what the conventions of this story archetype are. So feel free to ask for more.

>>16850158
Just write as much as you can, most normal people don't have time to write every day

What's your outline process like?

>>16850303
>guy X goes to Y
>something happens there and people realise he is actually Z
>MC walks away from X
>he goes there
>he meets A
>A helps him
>X kills A (lol)
Very vague things, the rest I'll discover along the way.

how is it called when it's cold and your teeth clash each other

>>16850343
Chattering

>>16850324
how deeply are you thinking about weaving theme/metaphors/subtext when coming up with the series of concrete actions that make up the plot?

>>16849951
How do I write tense scenes? Honest question, as I'm more experienced in writing low-stakes, self-reflective stuff that stretches out and takes its time.

>>16850170
Investigators of [____] need to travel to various locales to uncover [____]. Could be government research, could be detectives, could be fantasy mcguffin collectors, could be cleanup crews.

>>16850350
thanks

>>16850303
Something like this usually.

>>16846386
OP, do you have a throwaway email that you use? You gave me some great advice in one of the last threads and I wanted to talk through email

>>16850303
- *Character* wants *goal* but *obstacle* is in its way.
- *Character* attempt to bypass "obstacle" by doing *action X*. At first they seem to succeed but end up failing.
- *Character* finds themself in a situation where they reassess the situation creating a paradigm shift that may involve changing the *goal* and/or *obstacle* or see them under a different light, causing *Character* to replace doing *actions X* with doing *action Y*

did anyone do the rhino prompt? i'd like to read it

>>16850543
What was the advice anon?

>>16850624
I'm still working on my version of the rhino prompt. I'll probably finish it this week since I have the time off of school for Thanksgiving. Are you working on a version of it too anon?

Is it okay if I don't write all the time but I take a lot of time to come up with a certain idea? Like I might spend 1-3 weeks just tossing around ideas (I write them as short bullets) before actually committing to a story or even a paragraph. I'm still able to consider changing the plot but I just prefer being more certain on my ideas

>>16850734
Everything is okay, as long as you succeed.

>>16850682
>Are you working on a version of it too anon?
yea just started. i've never written anything before. hope to complete it this week and submit it here for critique.

Anyone has any experience writing from non-human POVs? I mean creatures that are fundamentally different from humans, not the typical fantasy races or sci-fi aliens that essentially behave like humans with slightly different powers, values and culture. Any tips?

>>16850734
That is completely fine anon. Writing is a stage in the process. You might keep an idea for yourself for years before you commit it to paper and sometimes the things you put in a document will go untouched for years while you write or revise other stories. Not all stories develop at the same pace. This is especially true if you are writing as a hobby. There is no rush. Take as much time as you want and make sure you enjoy the process.

>>16851124
I look forward to reading and critiquing it for you anon.

>>16851131
It depends on the thing you are trying to take the view of. I once read a poem (I think) that was supposed to be from the view of a river. Dogs are probably the most common non-human/fantasy/sci-fi POV in fiction, usually noting points about color blindness, affability, and strong smells. Hemingway took the POV of a lion for a short bit in "The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber" though the success of that POV shift is debatable. Think of how the thing you are writing about interprets sensation and environmental data and through what organs. Is it feasible that it has conscious thought? Does it really need to be the POV for your story? Those are the kinds of questions I would ask myself if I were thinking about writing a non-human POV. If you want to have a group brainstorm post your creature and I'll give you some advice. I'm sure other anons will chime in too. Could be fun.

>>16846723
>>16846617
Stories are typically far more memorable than prose. Prose makes for a much smoother read though, and can elevate a work to true greatness, but story is the real make or break. If your prose is amazing but story is bad people won't recall. If prose is bad but story is, people will recall but they'll just think "oh yeah it was kind of poorly written, but the part where X did Y was great..."

Damn, the threads are still going strong. Haven't visited in months. Also it seems to be the same stuff all over again.

>>16848523
Why do people keep repeating this shit? Obviously it's an issue if you're a tripfag on /pol/ or something but just browsing would have zero issues. Tons of journalists and writers went here to research about incels and other subhumans. Anonmouse doesn't even have that bad of a rep.
>>16850355
Not him but this crap ruined my progress pretty bad since it made me overthink every little detail in the stage when none of the shit matters.

If you actually have an organic theme, the metaphors and subtext will materialize by themselves. And in the end, you'll still need to tweak it all again.

>>16851131
Best I can offer is a quasi immortal whose personality is barely held together by pieces from different periods when she larped as different sorts of people (since our brains can only handle so many memories).

Outside of "don't fucking do it" … maybe try self-isolating for a while to brainstorm. Getting rid of all "human" notions, motivations, logic and thoughts, and even the way we connect things; but then you run into the problem that the character won't make any sense for a human reader. And if you don't do it well enough, it'll feel like a try hard autist take.

I guess it's also worth looking into language through different human cultures to get a feel for just how monumental the task is. Say, there are languages without past or future tenses, without pronouns or with far more pronouns. Or how the same color can have 1 name in one culture and 30 different ones in the other.

>>16850107
>"Beneath the clothes, lies a man.
>"Beneath a man, lies.......his.....nucleus."

>>16849444
Nice trips but you probably can't.

>>16846921
only ever do whatever you want when it comes to your work, don't listen to anyone ever.

WHAT DOES /LIT/ THINK of that old bold cliche that lesser artists borrow, great artists steal?

>>16850158
Not true

>tfw still can't decide on my protagonist

>>16852224
Just steal from multiple sources and you're dandy.

>>16848990
Are you serious? This is literally the beginning of Norweigan Wood by Murakami?

>>16852224
It's a judgment after the fact. Assuming the same starting point of using someone else's idea for your own purposes: It presumes great artists can somehow steal an idea and that they now have "ownership" of the idea by virtue of their superior work, while lesser artists merely "borrowed" the idea by virtue of their inferior work.

Compare Yevgeny Zamyatin's We vs. Orwell's 1984. I think it's safe to say 1984 used many of We's ideas to produce a superior book, and thus it could be considered to have stolen those ideas. We is basically forgotten, 1984 is embedded in the canon.

But with something like, I dunno, Lord of the Rings vs. Sword of Shannara (a truly shitty book), it could be said Shannara merely borrowed ideas, because it doesn't hold the weight in the canon to have stolen them outright.

>>16847691
I know it's a bit greedy but can I get some more crits.
>>16847798
Thank you so much. I'll change that line to something else. Thank you :)

Something for you to read. I just wrote it in german and translated it for you. Am I the only one who can only come up with ideas on the fly? I am completely unable to plan ahead. My mind goes immediately blank.

The evening was in full swing and it was hard to tell which was more beautiful: the festively decorated ballroom or the ladies. The band played one merry waltz after the other and on the dance floor the lovers, intoxicated by wine and music, circled around under the cheerful looks of the sympathetically winking audience. But not everyone was so exuberant and so happy to be alive. Among the spectators, a pale, disgruntled face stood out, the mouth half open in an ugly convulsion. Mortimer tried hard to suppress his yawn. He detested social gatherings and would have much rather stayed at home in the silence of his study, but this time he hadn't been able to talk his way out. After all, his father, Baron von Hertzfeld, was celebrating his 49th birthday and was the cause of this perfumed festivity.

The Baron was one of those handsome gentlemen of public life whose noble name was known to most people only from the tabloids. Almost every week his latest love affair made the headlines, but never in such a way that the public resented his amorous escapades. His 49 years of age were in no way visible to the eyes - at least not if one is to believe the admiration of the ladies who crowded around the baron to receive his kisses, as if it were not his birthday but theirs. Moreover, the Baron was in possession of an extremely large fortune, which he had acquired more through luck than through his own activity, thanks to an inheritance bequeathed to him by his parents who died young, and the purchase of some bonds that happened to be extremely lucrative. This lucky gentleman, blessed with success in both ladies and business, now broke away from the firm embrace of his young, mischievously smiling dance partner and moved towards his ill-humoured son, pointing to the colourful hustle and bustle with a cosmopolitan gesture he had practised in front of the mirror many years ago, which might have meant something like "Splendid, isn't it? - and everything because of me".

>just realized I've written 3000+ words about a fictional comic book creator talking about his career
This isn't even a story, this is just pure autism on my part
Please give me something else to write about

>>16852445
Sounds good, senpai

>>16852454
Anon no

>>16852473
It sounds comfy, though. And what's the point in denying one's autism?

>>16852483
You tell me.
>The decision to start self-publishing came from my uncle who was always doing dumb things like that. He’d buy a bunch of useless shit and try to sell it at a profit or start some service and go bankrupt and then always bounce back on his feet. Nothing bad ever stuck to him, and he believed in the spirit of entrepreneurship. So he told me that instead of wasting my time going to an expensive art-school I should just do my thing and sell it to people myself. So I did.
I’m not going to bore you with the details of putting the book together and the distribution and stuff like that. I made an ad and it was run in Odds & Ends for free because they liked me and wanted to see how things would go. I had about 40 copies of my first issue spread out into the stores of my city and 60 in nearby towns, the initial printing was 100 copies and it was the most expensive thing I’d ever done and there was absolutely no way I could ever recover from it, my uncle lent me a bunch of money for it and I got some money from grandparents and a few friends but all of my savings were gone just like that. And what did I stake my future on?

>>16852485
>The first issue of Chronicles was called “A Bloody Age”. I had two goals: to introduce my hero, The Butcher, as a force to be reckoned with, the height of masculinity, a barbarian brute with a poet’s soul, an amalgam of Conan and Elric, and to be as violent as I could while doing it. In those days the Comics Code wasn’t anything to worry about if you sold in the direct market like I did, so I could dismember people. And I did! I had little grasp of motion or perspective, I’d only ever drawn still images, never any sequential work, my panels were big and boring, done at mid-range, with bland featureless backgrounds, but I knew enough about human anatomy to know how to deconstruct it, I knew how to spurt blood and break bones and make people’s arms and legs and fingers and necks point the wrong way convincingly, and I flinched looking at my completed artwork. I showed gouged out eyes and disembowelled entrails, carrion birds and flies enjoying the results of carnage… well it was an impressive piece if I do say so myself. There was a large crowd shot of clashing armies in the beginning, taking pages 3 and 4, and that took me the longest to draw. Every fighter was unique, each with their own face, hair, body type, armour and weapons. And that was just two pages! The fighting continued for two more after that, and on those pages I killed off all the characters from the D&D days, except for Butcher and Arianne. It took a long time to draw, but it was still the easy part, in a way. A massive panorama like that isn’t comic work, any artist can do that. The panels were the biggest pain, making things flow. I put arrows to show readers where to go next because I sure as hell couldn’t have followed my own panels properly. Setting them up in a way that didn’t leave empty, useless space on the page was hard too, and when I failed I’d add doodles and self-made runes in there, just for a lark, like a Sergio Aragones type of thing.

>>16852490
>Thinking back on it now, I think that first issue was a lot like the first issue of Cerebus by Dave Sim. The hero shows up in town, gets in a violent altercation that convinces men of ill-intent his capacity for violence may be of use to them, and so they make him an offer and in the end everyone but the hero is dead due to their own inequities, and Butcher throws Arianne over his shoulder and takes her up the stairs to a room for some coitus. A storm of clichés to be sure, and just like Sim I also tried to draw in a manner reminiscent of Savage Sword of Conan’s art style, and unlike Sim I wasn’t being satirical of the way they spoke in that book, I wrote like that in complete earnestness. At the end of my first issue, nothing much was accomplished. The Butcher wasn’t any better off than he had been at the start, no motivations for his actions had been established, no past was hinted at and all in all the world itself was a blank slate save for the fact that things were dark and bloody. It was a power fantasy to be sure, though I wasn’t confident enough to draw any love-scenes, and women appeared only in a few panels. Creating a 24-page black and white comic with clunky, mostly exclamatory dialogue, purple prose exposition in scroll-shaped boxes and not a single character or place with a name was not exactly a feat of writing. The illustrated stories I’d written for Odds & Ends had been a lot better. A lot of people in my inner circle were kind of worried about the route I’d taken with it, since to them my comic was far removed from my stories, and my gaming group was especially appalled by how I’d turned my tormented warrior poet into a monosyllabic thug and the noble Elven archer into a harlot. There was one important difference between what I could do for my short stories and for my comic though, and that was the D&D setting.

>>16852493
>I’d long since abandoned the modules and settings of official Dungeons and Dragons in favour of my own homebrew campaign, and many adventures had been undertaken by my friends within this setting. And yet, I had felt for the longest time bound to the RPG mechanics and the actions of the players in writing down how the stories went down. I wanted the freedom of complete control, but if I tried to railroad my friends, that would be bad DMing and would lead to infighting, and I didn’t want that. I was stressed and moody because the things in my head weren’t corresponding with the gaming sessions, or vice versa. With the comic, I did something entirely different. I dropped all references to any gaming mechanics, I dropped all the other characters that weren’t mine to control, and there, alone in a playground of my imagination I let loose and attacked the rules of the CCA as well. The comic was me raising my flag or rebellion and breaking chains. It felt good. Really good, like I’d outwitted everyone and flown away from those who sought to enslave me. Of course I had no illusions about making the comic into my bread and butter, in fact the drawing of it had been so maddeningly hard I was convinced I wouldn’t try to make another issue even if I somehow made my money back.

>>16852496
>Of course I did. The book sold out. There was controversy; a local newspaper even interviewed me to find out if I was insane and trying to corrupt the youth or something. I had my fifteen minutes of fame with this journalist who had probably just graduated and was feeling overzealous in his quest for a story, and that became the best ad campaign I could’ve hoped for. The book sold out, like I said, and a 300-copy reprint later I had paid back everything I owned. My uncle, in between schemes, agreed to handle the work of reprints and sales and told me to get to work on the second issue. My mother told me that what I had done was a disgusting thing and she wouldn’t have it done in her house. My father said it was time for me to start paying rent or move out. I decided to pay rent for the garden shed that wasn’t in use. We moved all the shit in there to the garage and I moved out of my room and into the shed. The rent was cheap enough. It was spring, it was warm, I had a stove where I could burn wood to keep warm if I was still there during the winter, and I had an idea. The idea of issue #2.

>>16852501
>I already told you about breaking chains with my comic. I decided to make that the focus of my new story. The cover of issue #1 was an obvious homage to classic Conan illustrations, with Butcher swinging his sword, but now I was going to do something more complicated. An entirely new piece of character design, something that had never been part of him before, suggested itself. That cover, with his bare back and the eagle tattoo on it, with the broken chains hanging from his wrists? It was an exquisite piece by my standards. I’d have loved for it to have been in colour, but uncle convinced me not to do that. Anyway, issue #2 was a game changer in terms of quality and storytelling. Butcher and Arianne are in bed after a wild night, both feeling moody. Both remember something from their pasts, and so the issue is split into two flashbacks, both about times when they were in someone else’s thrall. This was my first time doing a thing like it, and it just felt so natural to me to have that split, 8 pages per flashback. This would in later years become my preferred format of storytelling, and I have no idea where it came from but this is where that got started. Issue #2 had its action piece with Butcher’s flashback and plenty of violence, but the smaller, sadder and almost soul-crushing story of Arianne’s life as a whore was the standout here, I think. Or maybe the ending, where Butcher leaves and we see him walking away down the street through the window with Arianne looking out of it. That final page got me in some trouble since I completely modelled Arianne’s body after the girl who created her character, down to a birthmark on her back, and she was… not pleased. But readers? Issue #2 sold well. We sold it out of county, word of mouth was spreading. A single issue from an indie creator is one thing, but a second one is a whole other beast. It took two months between the two issues, but people got what they came for and more. Issue #2 had the quality of writing that I’d accomplished with my best prose works and the panel layouts were more interesting. I’d learned a lot, and for the first time it felt like comics might be my thing. I knew I wanted to do more. And I’d even brought back the introspective nature of my hero for all the Odds & Ends people to nod approvingly at!

That's enough for now.

>>16852508
The first paragraph sounded comfy enough. I'll read it when I come home from work, with a blanket and a mug of hot coffee. Thanks for sharing.

>>16852541
If I am not stopped, I will write about all 4000+ pages of comics this guy created

I have reworked my creation myth, now it's in the metre of 6-6-4-4-6
I know the word choice seems clunky right now but this is right now just for testing the metre.
Should I stick with this or go to another? I also tried 6-6-6-6 but that seemed rather boring at times. I still want to keep a short length per line
https://pastebin.com/QFYkFgAn

>>16847785
I had someone looks at what I wrote here and I planned to post my results when I am done. I am kind of just scared that it will still be dogshit and I had made no improvements.

recent /lit/ thread inspired me to write this short thing. mb someone enjoys. bye.

Why is
"Yes?" asked John.
"Yes!" replied Marcus.

so popular today instead of

- Yes? - asked John.
- Yes! - replied John.

and which form do you use?

>>16853054
convention. former.

>>16849351
That's right. I'm not aiming for horror, not exactly, I just wish to attain a similarly melancholic, dreamlike experience. If someone who reads my work walks away from it feeling similarly to how I feel about Silent Hill then I would have accomplished my goal. Also, thanks for the musical recommendations; it was about time I expanded my repertory.

>>16853054
I prefer to use "this"

Does this need a rewrite? How do I write fiction prose that makes sense?

That night, Jack fumbled for the keys to his apartment. There knelt an old Asian man in a room at the end of the hallway, crowded by flickering candles.

>>16852869
Reminiscent of the sort of wasted literature by writers such as Irvine Welsh. Quite good, anon, I'd say go on.

>>16853074
>That night Jack fumbled for the keys to his apartment. An old Asian man knelt in a room at the end of the hallway, crowded by flickering candles.
FTFY in return for the Do S cosplay.

>>16853085
Thanks, anon. Sadly there're two issues right now. 1. I'm in a bit of a creative slump.
2. English is not my mother tongue so it's a huge hassle to write in. Gotta practice though. Don't think I'll find an audience within Germany. Too stuck up, too focussed on finding the next hyper-educated genius that will chunder the same regurgitated canon shit they (the money-givers that is) already know. I plan on applying to unis in the US and the UK as soon as my language skills hold up. Pray for my poor Deutsche Seele.
P.S.: Dear diary, ...

>>16851399
>Why do people keep repeating this shit?
>"Why is everyone's opinion different from mine?"
Might as well add it to your resume that you browse 4chan and also add it in your author bio. The public doesn't understand what boards are, just that 4chan is wowsocrazy and racist. The only people who can get away with being connected to this site are those that use it for their advantage, like Tao Lin and kolksi and other people whose market is wowsocrazys.

>>16853074
>How do I write fiction prose that makes sense?
This has worked for me ESL advice: Don't worry about your writing style. Write in a way that is natural to you, with words that you would use in conversation, even if your sentences end up a bit crooked and skewed. Write in a way that makes it effortless. You can fix mistakes in a month, if you really want to. If your sentences sound "hollow", as if they were not part of a story, but loose hanging threads, it is usually because you have put things to vaguely. Sometimes adding an adjective or an desription makes all the difference. This is what I have gathered after one day of writing fiction.

>>16853054
Probably because the latter looks - really - really - ! - retarded.

>>16852344

>>16852828
Well then I hope you're the guy I gave feedback to. Have heart anon, the only way to know is to try.

>>16852389
I liked it, anon. Reminds me of the short story Sarrasine by Balzac, I'd recommend reading it.

>>16847785
You shouldn't really expect anything in return. A critique is giving your opinion. It helps you by thinking critically and analyzing text and it helps them by having their work analyzed. Whether they change anything or even agree with your advice or learn from it is all in their hands.

>>16853397
Good rec, anon. I'll have something to read in the afternoon.

>>16853427
>and it helps them by having their work analyzed.

Does it? That's the question. The point is that the writer learns and becomes a better writer. If he doesn't, then it's just waste of effort. If only my own improvement mattered to me, I could spend my time better reading and analyzing actually competent, professional texts. Which I do, of course.

>>16853485
Ego out of scale, lol.

>>16853485
>Does it?
Yes. You need outside views to improve as we all have natural biases that are invisible to us.

>>16853518
Wanting to help others is egoistic now? You can just say if you don't want feedback.

>>16853526
In theory, yeah. But we have very little evidence of that actually happening here.

>>16853541
I have critiqued several things in these threads and I have gotten a response which mentioned their opinion on a few of the things I had said, implying they read and understood the critique and would likely change the text and learn from it. As I said, everything is in their hands and that's all you can expect from them. That is what will happen in this thread, I don't know what other evidence you were hoping to see.

Why yes, I do write shitty litRPG novels, how could you tell?

>>16853556
>>16852869
plis critique my poopoo-text, senpai. I swear I'll do my best to take your criticisms to heart. also sorry for the dumb ass kawaii-talk. kinda hopped up on caffeine and been writing for 3 hours now so my brain is SHIT. thanks for listening.

>>16853683
Too casual for me to properly give an opinion, kouhai-kun. Not my ballpark, but keep shilling and someone else surely will.

>>16853683
it's utter SHITE

>>16853704
>>16853706
not much to work with there but thank you, friends <33

>>16853556

When these threads started, I imagined something like this:
>Anons write stories
>Anon 1 posts an excerpt and asks for feedback
>Anon 2 gives feedback
>Anon 1 makes changes, writes more
>Anon 2 asks questions related to writing
>Anon 3 answers
>Anons all continue writing
>Time passes
>Anons share their finished stories
>Anons make it and get published
>people everywhere in the world love Anons' great stories

What is actually happening:
>Anon talks about how he can't write anything
>Anon gets angry when asked if he's made progress writing
>Anon tries to pick a fight when asked questions about writing
>Anon makes fun of other people's efforts to write
>Crit Anon is happy to get a few (you)s and feels important
>Anons seriously trying to write all leave

>>16853786
There's a bunch of shit that got posted in this thread that's being ignored right now.
Be the change you want to see, man.

>>16853786
Firstly, those are unrealistic expectations from any thread on this site. Secondly, that's not usually how the writing process goes; you usually write the whole first draft and then ask for a critique, usually from those you trust because it's your entire book. Then they all give you some ideas of what parts need the most changing and you rewrite the book, paying careful attention to the advice you received. Then you repeat that process again and hopefully don't need to change much. Then you send it to an editor. Then you send out query letters. I'm sure someone out there writes one scene at a time and gets feedback on every chapter, but that's not how it was for me or anyone I know. Uploading your entire manuscript for strangers on a questionable site to read and expecting them to read all 80k words of it and give legitimate advice is not how these threads would ever go.
Just lurk and answers questions. Give advice if you feel confident in what you're saying.

>Anons seriously trying to write all leave
There are plenty of anons still writing. They may not measure up to what you think "serious writing" is because their writing is odd or amateurish, but they're still trying and asking for help.

>>16853885
tl;dr

https://pastebin.com/DDRd87js
I dug this up from ages ago. Give it a look crit anons.

When did you realize that, though all your efforts, you writing can't go past genre fiction?

How come the epitome of literature to the general /lit/iizen is overly dramatic purple prose bullshit? Do they just all read novels from hundreds of years ago and think that's what literature is? Srsly confused ngl.

>>16853918
years ago when I realized my brain was hardwired to write only one specific setting and story. But I don't mind, I'm doing what I've wanted to do after all.

>>16853918
I never aspired to anything else and don't see why this should be bad.

>>16853928
>Do they just all read novels from hundreds of years ago and think that's what literature is?
Yes. And you should too.

>>16853918
But I will be the next James Joyce, anon. What are you on about?

>>16853918
I write genre fiction novels, but I write realistic short stories.

>>16853918
I would ask for nothing more

>>16853934
>>16853943
>>16853948
>>16853965
>>16853981

>>16853993
>stop liking what I don't like!
No

bump

>>16853427
That isn't really what I was saying.

>>16853934
>>16853943
>>16853948
>>16853965
>>16853981

All these answers are well grounded and normal-pilled.

I'M IN THE ZONE

>>16852389
You could make it a bit tighter, but it's not bad by any means.

>>16854259
Good hunting, Stalker

>>16849792
>>16850214

>>16852344
Holy Kek.

>>16854360
Kek love seeing people critique critically acclaimed novel like it's some random anon's work.

>>16854427
Murakami is trash though. One of the reasons I don't take /lit/ seriously is that you guys are into Hesse and him.

>>16854490
Fortunately you are better than Hesse and Murakami kek

>>16854490
I can handle Murakami but Hesse is disgusting. How did he win a Nobel?

>>16854427
Not him but isn't this the ultimate "death of the author" thing?
Honestly It's kind of a whitepill knowing that everything gets criticized as harshly as your stuff when no names are attached to the manuscript.
It's a reminder that perfection is unachievable

>>16854538
>>16854538
That’s very true. Kind of a huge reminder that not everyone’s critque would fit your style of writing. If the anon’s rewrites were how it actually was it would be dull as hell, even though he was missing some context. Still fair enough on him for giving a lengthy critique on something obviously good.

>>16854259
You were until you made this post.
Better luck next time, bucko

>>16854427
So far it seems to be the work of a single shitposter. I caught the Ishiguro one, but Murakami's escaped me because I don't open pastebins

>>16849121
You can buy it anon LOL

>>16854427
If I send his novel to a random editor, they would edit it to their taste. Every person has a different filter for what should and should not be done, the trick is learning how to compare your own opinion to that of others in a way which retains enough of your meaning while still being pleasant for others to read.

>>16854863
>If I send his novel to a random editor, they would edit it to their taste
This. I doubt there are any editors out there which would resist the temptation to make changes.
If you go to a surgeon, he will want to cut.

>>16854953
>If you go to a surgeon, he will want to cut.
something something American circumcision joke

>>16855023
American kikes mutilate children

>>16852869
shill shill

>>16854360
This isn't even the first time it's happened.
For what it's worth, the actual novel, which begins 2-3 pages earlier, addresses most of the points I'd made. There are certain things that must happen as you start a novel and these are advanced in the first page. "Here I am, thirty-seven years old, seated in a Boeing 747." Is the first line, which immediately gives information on the character's age, location and a little later, his condition, "No, this time it's worse than ever before. I get it real bad. I swear my head is going to burst." This sets up the conflict and character within two paragraphs.
The issue I had with the framing device is addressed by the added context and, more importantly, by proper formatting.
"And as we walked, Naoko told me about a well.

Memory is a strange thing. "
This double break shows a lapse of time, which clearly delineates the story of 37 year-old Toru from 19 year-old Toru.
For the dialogue, I can only suggest the Birnbaum translation, which changes the corny, "You can have up to three wishes, Madame." for a simple, "Three if you like."
In that same fashion, "I'm confused. Really confused. And it's a lot deeper than you think. Deeper ... darker ... colder" is exchanged for the less melodramatic, "I'm far more confused than you think. Dark and cold and confused."
Neither of these, of course, are the original Murakami, but translators Jay Rubin and Alfred Birnbaum.
Most of my edits are geared towards the production of short stories as well. I don't find it advisable to jump straight into novel writing when so many writers in these threads are just starting, so despite the claim that it was
>the start of a book I'm working on
I cut for short story introduction length, which is much more expedient than that of a novel.

>>16855142
American Whites only cage children!

My face when I read the chapter for the 6th time today to see if something needs to be edited

what's a good quality notebook and comfortable pen to ask for as christmas gifts?

>>16855377

>read chapter through a million times over the course of several months
>time to post it online
>right as I'm about to click post
>notice some super dumb, obvious mistake like a word missing
>random s on a line when I've hit crtl+s but s slightly faster than ctrl
>have to comb through the whole shit yet again

>>16855427
You can't really go wrong with most notebooks. Buy the size and style you want to use. I personally stick with spirals (still have and use some that are around 15 years old, no signs of bleeding or deterioration) because they can fold over without needing to press or crease the pages.
I'm a simple pen guy. I use RSVPs and RSVPs only. They've stopped carrying them around here so I need to buy them on amazon, but they suit me perfectly.
What were you looking for in either? A small leather moleskin might be good if you're only journaling or writing poetry.

Thought anons would get a laugh at this:
>I had gone thoroughly through the all-fiction magazines, and made up my mind that if people were paid writing rot such as I read I could write stories just as rotten
So writes Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950), fantasy pioneer

>>16855496
That's why I make a list of mistakes/typos on the Word so that when I'm typing it will automatically autocorrect.

>>16853136
>Might as well add it to your resume that you browse 4chan and also add it in your author bio.
Why? Nobody cares. It'd be as dumb as adding any respected site.
>The public doesn't understand what boards are, just that 4chan is wowsocrazy and racist.
And it is on all the boards either way but "I sometimes browse this place full of shitty people" and "I browse this place full of shitty people because they mirror my views" are different pair of shoes. If a retarded community were so toxic to reputation, people would pretend they don't use social media or YT too. You find the same crazy in comments about the most random video.

>>16855427
Depends on the ink you are using, the type of pen, purpose, and the price range anon. You can get a nice Leuchtturm 1917 for about 20$ on amazon. You could also go for a Rhodia journal for about that price. If you want a fountain pen you will also probably need a pot of ink, and there are a large variety of those to choose from. I have a bit of Diamine Red Dragon, Noodler's Navajo Turquoise, and Organics Studio Fitzgerald 'Golden Twenties' ink (red, blue, and orange respectively). The pens are a wide range too, fountain pens especially. Depends on what you want them for, some are better for calligraphy but if you just want to write in bulk you could get a simple ballpoint Bic and take to a yellow flip notebook.

>>16855535
Autocorrect has fucked me up so many times too, "correcting" a word into something completely different while I don't notice, and making me look like a retard again. Gotta keep it disabled.

Is it a good idea to turn in an uneditted, raw excerpt from your novel to a close person to act as proof reader and get pointers for latter edition, or should I withhold it until I at least one editing session?

>>16855337
So you forget it was actually Norwegian Wood?

>>16853907
Bumping this.

>>16855551
>It'd be as dumb as adding any respected site.
It wasn't meant literally, I meant it as "may as well broadcast it to the world."

>"I sometimes browse this place full of shitty people" and "I browse this place full of shitty people because they mirror my views" are different pair of shoes.
To an intelligent and informed human, yes, but to internet mobs and the general public, everything is either black or white. It would take one angry NPC on twitter saying "Anon browses a racist website! Are we going to support a publisher that supports racism?? #blockhiscock" and there is enough pressure to ruin their life. The anons here can post their unfinished stuff here and not worry about being recognized. But I'm already established and have an image and if I get any bigger, there would be a greater chance one of you faggots would have read one story and could recognize some text if I post it.
I just don't think it's a good idea. I'm more paranoid than most, I'll admit, but I think it's the smarter choice never to associate your public image with this site.

>>16855608
You shouldn't force an unedited excerpt even on your worst enemy. You write the best you can and only then start thinking about how to make it better

>>16853907
>Warning - Potentially offensive content ahead!
every time

>tfw don't know if your book is boring and uninteresting or is it because you edit it the whole day and have enough

>>16853928
I think that they realize the beauty that becomes attainable through purple prose and try to emulate it, which I see no fault in. It's a noble goal. Bad purple prose (which will be everyone's variance when they're starting off) is insufferable, however. Still, we need to try and get better. My prose used to be super purple, then I toned it down, and it still is a little bit purple, but it is also authentic to how I enjoy writing.

>>16855685
You're probably just exhausted. Your judgment is very unreliable in that state; try to put your book out of your mind for a while and then come back to it.

>>16855685
show it to any normie friend you have to recharge your batteries with well meaning but somewhat worthless praise

>>16855667
There’s nothing offensive in it apart from swearing I guess.

>>16855685
This>>16855728

>>16855635
No, I didn't know it was Norwegian Wood. I haven't read Murakami yet. I mean that this isn't the first time someone has posted a published author as their own work and asked for critique (only for it to be revealed after I have obliged). I don't try to vet anyone's writing for plagiarism, I just critique it, thank them for contributing to the thread, wish them luck with their writing, and ask if they have anything specific to ask after the fact. I'd rather optimistically help everyone I can with their work than pessimistically sort through every post, afraid that I might look like dunce (I am a dunce).

>>16853928
I think those are the posts that stand out the most. Joyce was writing one hundred years ago and "Dubliners" isn't purple. I think the distinction is more between pre-modernist writing and modernist + post-modernist writing. I've been reading "The Rhetoric of Fiction" and this dichotomy is in part the advent of active narrator and observational writing. Some people enjoy very 'talkative' narration in their writing and try to emulate that. Some are chasing a specific brand of beauty that they find in description.

>>16853907
This isn't another 'gotcha' attempt is it anon, I'm not going to workshop this only to find it's Henry James am I? Jokes aside, I'm taking a look and I'll get your critique posted in another thirty minutes to an hour (it takes a while, sorry).

>>16855366
mexicans behead children

>>16855814
>>16855366
>>16855142
As an Italian catholic, I'm so glad that there's no stereotypes about us and children.

>>16855798
I'm not the Murakami anon haha, thank you for taking time on it.

>tfw you realize you made the classic shonen mistake of making the love interest completely useless

fuck, what do i do?

>>16856014
rewrite her

>>16856014
fix it

>>16855661
>I meant it as "may as well broadcast it to the world."
I generally have a hard time picturing a scenario when name dropping any site makes sense beyond linking to an article on it or something. And for that 4chains is indeed suboptimal, although mostly due the low quality.
> "Anon browses a racist website! Are we going to support a publisher that supports racism?? #blockhiscock"
Reddit has almost as bad of a rep and often used for Q&As. YT and twitter are commonly used and both are overflowing with aut-right shit and worse. People aren't as dumb as you think. Seeing some nazi or some sexist or racist shit is almost given in 2020. Is there a single case of anyone getting any heat for browsing a shitty site unless it's some pedo shit? If you explain that you do it for research, you'll likely getting away with stormfront.

If you're famous enough to attract twitter mob attention, you have a large enough fanbase to kill any negativity against you. Hell, is there even a case when online outrage did anything but boost media sales? Last twitter storm about books I recall was about that white lady larping as a mexican refugee; people clowned on her, petitions were written, racism and tropes pointed out; and the shit stormed the bestseller charts.

Only realistic way I could see it making an impact is if you're writing for a specific niche audience like Christian kids, so there is a huge pressure on "purity." or if you were constantly linking to 4chains which idiots could interpret as giving nazis a platform or something.

redpill me on dip pens

are they fun?

>>16855427
Notebook Therapy
Archer & Olive
Luchtturm 1917, but their paper is really not what it used to be

>>16856014
I wonder, is "eyecandy" a thing in books?
Like yeah you can have sex or sexy scenes but can you make a character sexy entirely though description?

>>16856072
Oh, and don't get anything besides the highest quality notebooks. Expect the other shit these people sell you to be heavily marked up crap.

>>16856075
I think it's possible when you're good and half your brain turned into coom

Is Ulysses good?
(The app)

>>16856055
>Hell, is there even a case when online outrage did anything but boost media sales?
Tons. Anything that is an accusation of racism or looking the wrong way at a female can destroy someone's career without any evidence. The damage is done before any sort of trial is done when there are headlines saying the person is "accused" of something.

>>16856130
Seems apple only. If you've got an apple device may as well go with Scrivener.

>>16856014
My love interest is just someone that the MC goes on dates with, outside of the action. She's not useless and killed a robber with a club once. How is this?

>>16856055
>Reddit has almost as bad of a rep
Reddit is nowhere near 4chan in terms of reputation. Every time a mainstream journalist mentions 4chan, he makes sure to write a disclaimer that says "be warned, the site is really aggressive and full of hateful people!", the "bad" subs on Reddit are acknolwedged as subreddits, 4chan is seen as a single entity

>>16853907
The most pressing critique I have is that very little happens but for 1033 words that isn't so bad, it just feels more like a vignette than a story (which may be the point I don't know without context). Because of this I don't have much to say about narrative, plot, or structure.
The character isn't very fleshed out either. The reader ends the story knowing little about the character. He has a sense of moral superiority and loiters in the bookshop watching the Italian restaurant next door. If you gave him a conflict or a stronger motivation (which is currently to read in the book store) he might come to life a bit more.

Generally the writing is smooth and readable. There is a bit in the fourth paragraph, "I sat down and waited for someone to come offer me some" which should be changed to coffee, as the last reference to what 'some' is has been left in the previous paragraph. Also constructions like, "It made me nostalgic, in a way at first. I remembered when it was..." could be cut to, "I was nostalgic for the grey and damp days, when I distracted myself in shops and comedy shows." It pushes the point a little faster and removes the superfluous qualifiers 'in a way' 'at first' 'I remembered'.

If you have any context for it that might help in getting more critique. Is it the opening to a novel, a short story, or is it a complete piece, maybe an excerpt from the middle of a longer work? Without context I can't tell you what you should be shooting for. If this is an opener to something longer I suggest bringing the character out (name, age, motivation, flaw) more quickly and moving to set up a conflict that fits those characteristics.

Thanks for the contribution to the thread anon, and good luck with your writing. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

>>16855798
Even if you're too dunce to judge writing style, alarm bells should start ringing in your head if anon's sample text has proper punctuation and no obvious grammatical errors.

>>16855728
>show it to any normie friend
>normies
>read

lol. They might give it a try if you record yourself reading it on youtube.

>>16856055
Reddit is nearly as mainstream as Facebook, that's not really a good comparison. There are bad things on Facebook too, but the overall sentiment is that things are good. 4chan has zero redeeming qualities and no one understand how it works. Trying to explain it's positives or why you would ever visit a "place like that" is basically akin to defending racists, by shitty normalfag logic.

>>16856287
Anon... You need to find some friends. Please!

>>16856250
This. Plenty of mainstream 'journalism' these days consists of scraping scenarios from reddit and writing about them (and crediting reddit, of course). You and I know that 4chan is split into boards. Most normies don't care to look into it. The reputation of the two is absolutely not comparable.

Why does the pacing seem off? How do I write with correct pacing?

“What the - “Jack shouted. “You disgusting creep!” He clenched his fists and stepped towards the laughing maniac. “Get out of here you animal!” When the man did not move, Jack advanced upon him. Overcome with a hot rage, he clasped the naked Asian by his neck and strangled him, knocking over one of the candles and burning the carpet beneath them. Jack ran inside his apartment and sunk to the floor, crying, and praying and shaking violently. His fingernails dragged slowly over his scalp, a habit he performed when he was concentrating. He was not a religious man, yet he felt that the situation demanded a chance effort to receive immediate divine intervention, as he was not about to let secular pride destroy any hope of salvation. Jack shuddered and closed his eyes; the image of the old man burning in a blaze haunted him.

>>16857039
Isekaifag tier dialogue.

>>16857081
no it is realistic. Movies have more unbelievable dialogue than this.

>>16857113
You're writing a book, not a movie. Your shit just reads cliche.

I'm thinking of practising some form of cursive handwriting to write a lot faster and neater.

>your friend is a writer
>he writes and reads every day
>sends you his chapters and stories
>don't really like them (but don't say that to motivate him) + you don't know much about books but do your best anyway
>he says he knows it's shit but promises he will get better and write a story you will enjoy
>yfw you never told him you don't like them
Do you have some sixth sense or what, the fuck should I tell him?

Is there anything here that is interesting in any way to anyone

>>16857330
Be honest stupid anime faggot

>>16857330
encuorage him to enter a workshop and therefore remove the problem from your hands

>>16857039
>“What the - “Jack shouted. “You disgusting creep!”
A bit too direct and strong. Avoid hyphen cutting sentences unless it's someone being interrupted, and even then try to avoid it. Shout is a very strong verb and so it's better not to use it alone like that. 'You disgusting creep!' is just bad and you can remove it without altering the tone or proceedings. It just feels cliche.
>He clenched his fists and stepped towards the laughing maniac.
Have you ever read a book that used the phrase 'laughing maniac' in a literal manner like this? You're basically describing an edgy villain from a TV show. I'd change it simply to "them"
>When the man did not move, Jack advanced upon him.
Jack had already advanced upon him, so you should use "engage" or a similar word to clarify you don't mean 'continued advancing.'
>Overcome with a hot rage,
Too strong, too direct, try something not so casual and cliche sounding.
>he clasped the naked Asian by his neck and strangled him, knocking over one of the candles and burning the carpet beneath them.
There's too much to say here and so I'll just say everything and it'll apply to the rest of what you wrote. It's like you were watching thirty seconds of a bad action movie and described what you saw. Books are not just explanations of what is happening, they're wordy and they involve lots of description to bring the reader into the situation. What you're probably referring to as pacing is "content" which the writing is wholly lacking. In a real book, what you just wrote would be the climax and it would last half a chapter because such strong feelings need to be capitalized on. Jack's feelings get basically three short sentences, when we should have been in his head from long before he shouted, during as he thinks or plans what he needs to do and possibly debates whether he is capable of it, things of that nature. Everything is too direct. To give an example, read this:

>"I'm so pissed," I screamed at the top of my lungs. "Leave!"
>Jenny's face went white and she walked out of the room.
>"That bitch," I whispered and then laughed crazily.
>I turned on my big TV and was bored so I walked outside and bought a juice box at the store. The cashier was really cute but I ran home and kept watching the TV, sometimes crying because it was sad.

That is bad writing. It's worse than yours, but it suffers the same exact issues, exemplified so hopefully you can see them. Read some books (that aren't by James Patterson) and you will see how writing and pacing are different in text vs reality or movies.

>>16857417
>story begins with the word "I"

>>16857528
not him but what's wrong with that?

Here's the cover of my webnovel. Posted the first scene on royal road today.

>>16857569
Nothing inherently. Plenty of autists hate it though so it's best to avoid it.

>>16857588
>As you follow this first act in his story, before he set foot on Wish Mountain, keep this question in mind: Was Hress Dunter cursed on Wish Mountain, or before?
Feels a bit silly and gimmicky to me.
>sorry truth
I might consider changing this to "truth" or "sad truth" or "reality" or something similar. "Sorry truth" feels out of place with the tone, but it may just be a difference in dialects.
Otherwise good, enjoyable so far.

>send a chapter to one proofreader
>he says you overdescribe things and should write more directly so things can be faster and easier to read

>send a chapter to another proofreader
>he says you need more details and descriptions so readers can understand how characters feel instead of reading it like a movie

What do I do from here?

>>16857632
That was quick. Yeah you might be right about that. Thanks for the suggestion I'll check on it the next round of edits.

Wrote the first two lines of dialogue in my novel after 8k words of narration and I feel like I'm stepping into another planet. I had gotten into a nice flow but now I'm completely stumped. Am I just overthinking this? It all sounds so fucking fake.

>>16857652
Did you plan ahead or is it just stream of consciousness / gardening type writing?

>>16857642
Fuck them both

>>16857658
I planned ahead what I wanted to happen, and then just let myself get there at my own pace. I have a set of goals for a chapter (in chapter 1 X, Y and Z need to happen, J needs to me with G and start their friendship, that kind of stuff) but how I get to them is just me going with the flow and enjoying the process. Now I finally have had my protagonist meet someone else and I don't know how to make them talk in a way that doesn't feel phony or which seems out of character for the people I've established.

>>16857647
>That was quick.
Ain't that just it? Spend two hours writing a chapter, three hours thinking about its place the book, another hour editing it and rewriting parts of it, and then it gets read in six minutes. It's not fair.

>>16857527
Thank you so much. This has seriously helped me. How do I know what needs extensive description and how do I know when it is enough?

>>16857686
It sounds to me you still need to learn what your process is. I suggest striving forward and experimenting. Just find out what doesn't work and change it up next time.

>>16857755
Yeah, keep on being stubborn until something good comes out. I just need to remind myself that I'm not in a hurry, that my story will wait on me and that whatever I can't handle now editing should fix. This is all the product of an emotional response; it doesn't mean jackshit. I'll just keep trying. Thanks.

>>16857711
Write the scene and then look at it as though you're a reader who has no idea what anyone looks like, where they are or what their motivations are. It's easy to write things and feel the emotions behind them because you already know the minor details in your head, but readers only know what you tell them and so you're trying to make them feel what the characters are feeling, not just tell them it's happening. If you were to split the sentences of a random chapter into three parts "dialogue", "action" and "description" I'd argue they're usually evenly proportioned with a heavier lean depending on the genre.
Dialogue is obvious. He said, she said.
Action is explaining something happening directly. "He clenched his fists" "Jack ran" etc
Description is the world being described to the reader or the character thinking about something. You only really have one line of that ("He was not a...") so maybe focus on looking at your work and trying to determine how much is being described, how much is being told directly through actions, and how to incorporate more information being delivered to try and slow things down and make them more impactful.

I want to write something about constant STRUGGLE to learn writing emotions and misery
give me some ideas

>>16857934
Girl runs away from home after her sexologist father puts her through forced gender reasignment.

>>16857652
Your problem is you don't know who the characters are yet in your head. Dialogue was really hard at the beginning but once you intuitively start to understand what a character would say/not say, it becomes the most enjoyable part of the story to write, imo. Adding new characters in for dialogue later is easy because you already know how the old ones will react. But the beginning is tough. So tough it out.

>>16848240
What I imagine the soundtrack my story's film adaptation would have.

>>16852508
>>16852555
I really enjoy this concept, and I've considered writing something similar myself before. I think you executed it well too, and I'd gladly read more.

How do I find plot ideas that can last longer then 10,000~20,000 words? What are some common things in stories that never last long?

>>16858440
I've found the amount I care about a story has the strongest correlation to length. My novellas sometimes have more plot than my novels, but my novels are well-developed because I put more time and effort into trying to properly convey things. The novellas could've probably been novels if I'd cared about them more. That's how I look at it at least.

Paul put his ciggarette butt out on the ashtray. He reached into his pants for the carton and pulled out another. As he lit the cig he looked down at his work.
'About 3 more should do it.'
He left the the stick smoking in the tray for a moment as he pulled out a length of tape, biting through it with his teeth.
'Mmm hmm.'
The rain tapped away at the window. The walls were dull and old, an off white paper turned a slight shade more beige than when it was first pasted to the wall many years ago. Another piece of tape.
'Mmm hmm.'
He rotated the cluster a little bit more.
'One left.'
He dropped something on the floor. As he reached down to pick it up, we see a hand grasping a toothbrush. A toothbrush? A toothbrush.
'Last one now.'
And another bit of tape. Paul stood up and adjusted his shirt and braces, then to make sure he wrapped another few metres of tape around his finished item.
'Finally.'
Paul was holding a cluster of 15 toothbrushes, facing outwards arranged in a circle around the end of a wooden baton. It looked a strange kind of medieval weapon that could clean teeth from any angle.
'This'll do some damage, hehehe.'
Downstairs now, we find Mable. Mable was a boring idiot. She had rollers in her hair and a ciggrarette in her mouth, and strolled around in the apartment beneath Pauls like a fat pretentious moron. As she waddled toward her kitchen she accidentally kicked over a bowl of old cereal that she forgot to eat, with her graceless hooves, and then she just left it there and went to get a bowl of cereal to actually eat, a new one, not that one. As she sat down in front of her cracked TV screen to watch some garbage nonsense, she heard a series of loud bangs and muffled yells coming from the apartment above.
'What the hells he doing now?'
Then the unmistakable sound of smashing glass, and a yelp of pain. Then a very loud shout of pain. 'OOOOOOOOOOOW FUCKIN OOOOOOOOOOW'
Sensing calamity, Mable rushed out of her front door to the stairs.
'Paul?'
Approaching Pauls apartment, Mable called him again.
'PAUL are you ok? PAUL?'

'OOOOOOOOWW FUCKIN OOOOOOOOWWW'
She pushed open the door, and saw blots of blood and shards of glass on the hallway carpet.
'PAUL WHAT'S GOING ON?'
'OOOOOOW.'
There on the bathroom wall was a smashed mirror, it's shards strewn across the floor. Paul was crouched amongst them, completely naked covered head to toe in bleeding cuts, and there was shards of glass sticking out of his back.
Also he had a stick poking out of his asshole.
OW OW OOOOW
WHATS WRONG WITH YOU?
I'M CLEANING THE FUCKING SHIT OUT OF MY ASSSSSSS
WHAT THE FUCK
IT'S CLEANER THIS WAY
JESUS CHRIST PAUL
HEY HEY HEY GET OUT OF MY APARTMENT
DON'T YOU NEED AN AMBULANCE?
NO! WELL MAYBE.
oh my gawd
THIS BRUSH IS STUCK IN MY ASS NOW
Oh for gods sakes.
MABLE, CAN YOU PULL THE BRUSH OUT!?
WHAT!?
IT'LL BE SO EMBARRASSING IF THE AMBULANCE PEOPLE TURN UP AND I HAVE THIS IN MY ASS!
IT'S EMBARRASSING NOW PAUL!
I KNOW! OW. CAN YOU PULL IT OOOOOOUUT!?
WHY THE FUCK HAVE YOU GOT A PLUNGER IN YOUR ASS?
IT'S NOT A PLUNGER IT A SERIES OF TOOTHBRUSHES STRAPPED TO A BATON SO I CAN CLEAN THE INSIDE OF MY ASS
WHY WOULD YOU WANNA CLEAN THE INSIDE OF YOUR ASS?
BECAUSE IT'S ALWAYS COVERED IN FUCKIN SHIIIIIIIIIITTTTT
FUUUCK
OOOOOOOOOWWW
OK HOLD STILL
OOOOOOOOOOOOW
SHUT UP
YOU SHUT UUUUP OOOOW
HOYOOOOO
And with Paul bracing against the floor on all fours, and Mabel hard leaning using her overt mass, the stick came flying out of Pauls rectum, followed by a blast of liquid shit that had been building up behind a solid piece of shit that was held blocked in place by the baton. The hydraulic force was so great that as it struck her, Mable was thrown sharply and violently agains the bathroom wall, cracking several tiles, as if impacted by a jet of water from a firehose.
OOOOOOOW
FUCKIN OOOOOOOW MY FUCKIN AAAAASSSSSSSS
OOOW I'M COVERED IN SHIT
FUUUUCK
And then Paul had to go o hospital for all the cuts on his skin, and him and Mable never spoke ot each otehr again.
The End.

>>16858640

i legit laughed

>>16858640
>MABLE, CAN YOU PULL THE BRUSH OUT!?

>>16857330
If there is no detailed feedback over how great it is and what makes it great, the reasonable option is to assume it's shit. No need for the sixth sense.

If you want to help them, just be clear about what you don't like. If they aren't an idiot, they will know how to deal with the feedback and write on. If they are a loser they might get demotivated long term but then they weren't writers to begin with, just faggots who wanted approval from writing.

>>16846386
Bros... Ddlc unironically has good poetry. Wtf who wrote those?

>stem fag taking a creative writing course for degree credits.
I have a I think ~2500 word short story to write due at some point. I doubt they expect too much from me( uni is stem only, tism is strong amongst my cohort), still I like reading and I don't want to write cringe. I'm thinking of writing some sort of late republican Roman equivalent of an "eternal titular Councillor". Is this a dumb idea? If so how to go about finding something of reasonable scope to write 2500 words on?

>>16859802
what is ddlc?

>>16857642
Get them to duke it out

>>16856316
>You need to find some friends. Please!

>>16856057
My nigga
Only if you get one with a big ass plume and only write long fond eloquent letters

>>16857642
Everything is subjective. Welcome to the real world.

>>16846386
Prose is a meme. It shouldn't take a whole page for you to tell me that someone opened a fucking door. Hate that corny shit.

Bros when do we hear from /lit/ quarterly if we were accepted for the winter issue?

>>16859818
Keep it simple, stupid. No "ancient history equivalents of..." No sprawling fantasy lands. No fucking bullshit. Just you, 2500 words, and the paper it's printed on. Twice the length of Hills Like White Elephants is all you got.

>>16859886
https://ddlc.moe/

do people who write novels out by hand first literally just fill a stack of notebooks with the entire novel? at one point do they start editing and write a second draft?

>>16860211
I have over a thousand notes on my PC and still on the first draft despite writing for 9 years.

>>16860235
Whacha writin' there, slick?

>>16860248
I don't even know anymore anon. I need feedback on my novel, I'm considering on doing a web novel so people can comment on it but I am scared I will want to retcon shit.

I have enough. I'm shit and I don't know how to get better.

>>16858640
>BECAUSE IT'S ALWAYS COVERED IN FUCKIN SHIIIIIIIIIITTTTT

How to write more "tell"?

I feel I write too much "showing" sentences and paragraphes naturally, and it's difficult to make the narrative go fast, as if I was holding myself on a single scene, moving scene by scene in the text, and this seems kinda boring to read.

I mean, to "tell" something I feel I have to have a bunch of other information in my head already so I can dump in between. How to do that? Or do people just improvise?

>>16861120
You could start by phrasing your question in a way other people can understand.

>>16861378
I'm ESL, sorry.

What I meant is how to do more "telling" and less "showing"?

>>16861393
it's "show don't tell", not "tell don't show"
But I guess the obvious answer would be do a generic recap of the event.
>Anon slapped his girlfriend, screeched, took a shit in her bathroom, got naked and ran outside. "Mondays..." She said, sighing.
If you want to get the story forward by a lot you can just skip ahead.
Just go
>The next day Anon came back and apologized, still naked.
Without detailing how Anon got home, slept angrily, woke up, decided to apologize and marched naked to his GFs home.
Or you can just imply skipped time by going to the next paragraph

>"Mondays..." She said, sighing.
>
>"I'm sorry for what I did yesterday" Anon said. "I know you don't like it when I take a shit in your bathroom and don't flush..."
>"It's ok, love." etc.etc.

Don't know if that made sense or even was what you're asking.

>>16857527
>Avoid hyphen cutting sentences unless it's someone being interrupted, and even then try to avoid it.
Couldn't disagree more. Everything has a place. No point trying to avoid it if it's the best solution to a piece of dialogue. Cutting this dialogue with a hyphen is the best thing that fits here without getting rid of it.

>>16860211
Back when I first started, I wrote a full novel in a three subject notebook, then typed it out and rewrote it as I went. I moved on to keyboard writing shortly after because I value my wrists.

>>16861549
Everything has a place, yes, but it's best to avoid those types of things and reserve them for instances which need them. Same with italicizing words, exclamation points, ellipses, (frequent) adverbs, repeating words in dialogue "hey hey hey!" etc, they're all crutches that new writers use which are are 100% unnecessary, but still usable to good effect when done sparingly (once every few chapters.) I'm not saying they should be avoided completely - though that's entirely possible - just that it's not something to do every single chapter.