/lit/ - Literature

>>18124106
>protagonist lives to see retirement
stopped reading there

>>18124106
septic clown. try rideing a postbox to work

Seems good.

ALLAH AKBAR BROTHER

>>18124106
i mean it's got great potential. obviously, the hard part is going to be putting it all to words and doing justice to your broad thematic aspirations (i'm anticipating commentary on the sort of urban/rural or modern/traditional dichotomy, the socioeconomic state of the west as it relates to the human condition, and a general intergenerational debate.)
the advice i'd give you, although it's inherently vague with how vague the idea is so far:
>figure out the narratorial voice--is the narrator a character? an omniscient viewer? a writer of sorts, maybe like dostoevsky is in bro's k?
>take advantage of the clear hints of polyphony you have set up--study books that do it well
>avoid letting your characters become themes; they should represent something, but they should be natural and 'real' people
>establish clear relationships between these characters in advanced
this is definitely an ambitious idea, esp if it's the first large piece of fiction you've done. but if you study enough and devote the effort to it, it could work.

Ideas don't mean shit
You can write a story about a regular day where nothing of note happens and it can be great
You can write about a guy waiting for something to happen until he kicks he bucket and it can be great
Your idea doesn't matter, the way you express it does

>>18124396
Protag is a boomer.
>>18124439
Thanks for the feedback.
>is the narrator a character? omniscient? writer, etc.?
Still undecided. Early draft of first chapter was from son's perspective, but I struggled to avoid be ham-handed about his youthful, radical politics. Am leaning towards omniscient but with a mildly light or satirical tone in order not to give the aging protagonist too "lofty" or virtuous a position in the narrative.
>characters should be natural and real people
That's been a genuine struggle, which is why I'm tending towards trying a satirical tone so as to rightfully point out that there are broad, vague, and infinite ideas always floating around a given society and time, but that there are a finite number of human beings who must express, enact, or explore them. Very challenging stage of the process for me.
>>18124448
>ideas don't mean shit
I agree. But don't you agree that to effectively express an idea, you need the nuts and bolts worked out?

Bruh, come back when you actually have work done

sounds like a really nice story. i don’t have any feedback i just think it sounds interesting

>>18124106
You have no idea how many ideas I've stolen from threads like these.

>>18124605
The reason I'm posting this is my laptop just failed and my last backup was from four months ago so I lost about ten thousand words from this particular piece. I've decided to take it as a fresh slate and re-evaluate the thing as a whole.
I posted an excerpt in a thread a while ago but I've since lost it. Will try track down the old excerpt from the archive.
>>18124658
If you cohere it into a functional novel before I do, you deserve it.

>>18124572
read dostoevsky, you'll get to know a lot about well-done characters

Found the excerpts, written with protag's son narrating:
>>17720123
>>17720133

>>18124676
I reread Crime and Punishment, and read Demons for the first time, last fall and it's what sparked this work.
>>18124691
Sorry, I don’t recall his name. A taller fellow, well-dressed. Not much older than I was. Close enough to be my contemporary—brought up in the same milieu of shadow culture and network governance. He and I, before we ever met, got to see what the 2020s would later be characterized by: the evaporation of nuance and the death of sympathy.
David, that was his name.
I met this man in London during the terror protests some years ago and we had a great conversation. I’d never had a great conversation with someone I just met. But that first afternoon with David, in a touristy pub within eyeshot of Piccadilly Circus, an honest and meaningful conversation sprang up out of nowhere.
Oh, how I wish I could remember his last name! It would probably help you. Because it stood out. I should have noted it. David Something. David… whatever.
He seemed distant from the get go, but he spoke forthrightly and even had a sense of humour. There was something warm but frightening about him, I remember. Something about the way he smiled and sipped his Macallan—he was just a bit too charming.
We talked for three hours in that crowded, noisy pub. And somehow, he changed my mind about something important. After our conversation was over, he walked out into the Circus and disappeared. And I’m sure I’ll never see him again.
I say we were contemporaries, born of the same strangled generation that came of age early in the twenty-first century, less well-equipped to recognize our stations before it was too late to change them. (That’s really all it was: we Millennials could function and thrive, but not before we knew the rules of the game. And our biggest handicap just happened to be poor recognition of the rules of the game). I still don’t understand how David was one of us because he wasn’t like anyone I knew—we were all too neutered to have been like him.
He and I spoke about some of the ugly aspects of our time, of the loathsome characters who rose to the top of the cesspool—of the popular and wealthy people you see dancing in front of cameras while the world peacefully burns down in the background.
1/2

2/2
The main difference between us, if I had to pick something other than his astounding confidence, was the persistence of his optimism. Before then, if I found someone who noticed the things I noticed and lamented the things I lamented, our conversations would inevitably lead to us wallowing with each other and patting each other on the back for recognizing how deranged society had become. And that would be the end of the conversation—we would have succeeded in affirming each other’s misery. With David, though, having made the same types of observations, his reaction was completely unfazed, never even entertaining the idea of personal defeat. There were things which would’ve made someone merely twenty years older than us scowl with disgust and hopelessness—and start whining boorishly about the fantasy of the good old days of 1986. David instead saw the modern world as an exciting challenge… a monster to be harnessed and driven forward.
In our lifetimes, masses of people had been absorbed into the ooze of modern global capitalism. No matter where or to whom you had been born, you were in it, and David thought the greatest sin would be to not find a way to embrace it, to fail to identify clients—consumers who had mostly become quietly desperate, broken people on the verge of some form of junkihood.

>>18124696
>>18124703
I like it. But I hate the term "Millennials". The sentence works fine without it. Same goes for "junkihood" - is that even a word?

>>18124885
Definitely agree on "millennials." Not sure an adequate description for a described generation being referred to...unless that's too bold an assertion in the first place.

>>18124106
>upbringing on a modest farmstead, f

It's 2021 not 1621 lol

>>18125011
I'm going to guess you've never been to a modern farm. It's not as automated and easy-going as you might think. It still requires hardworking people and it fosters a certain attitude towards the world. These days it's just fewer people doing it.

But I do agree with you that the word modest is a bit silly.

>>18125035
>>18125011
Points noted. Keep in mind that the protag is in his late 50s or early 60s, so his upbringing is in the 60s or 70s.

>>18124106
>>18124572
>>18124670
You've clearly put a lot of work into it. It's well thought-out. The directions you plan on going sound interesting. To delve deeper and at the risk of seriously over-analyzing what you've written:

Something that's helped me as a writer (admittedly of nothing novel-length) is the idea that a piece of fiction should ultimately be saying something. What's being said obviously does not have to be explicitly stated, but the points should be there for drawing connections. Plot points that might have clear connections in your (the author's) mind may not be as easily connected by an audience approaching with a point of view radically different from yours. With the very little knowledge that I have, I fear this may be the case with the whole element regarding the son, which may be the most exciting/drawing of the novel.

Regardless of what exactly the telos (for lack of a more precise term) is, I don't think you'll have any problem in expressing it throughout every other thread: the protagonist adapting to retirement and coming to a realization regarding issues of his outlook on life will naturally occur through his interactions with his nephew, his conversations with his mother, reflections on the death of his brother, and the disappearance of his son. If these realizations are the bulk of the telos of the novel and your protagonist is the vehicle through which they appear, this will feel natural and probably make for a great novel.

In this way, I think the circumstances or nature of the son's radicalization are almost besides the point; what is important (if I might speculate wildly) is that the son recognizes the emptiness or unfulfilling reality of the contemporary society (perhaps even in spite of his upbringing) and has developed what his father had never had, or at least had lost sight of: A way to reach fulfillment, or something to fight and die for. It seems the son is a realization or two ahead of the father so-to-speak. But then if we know too much about the nature of his political aspirations, why not make the novel about him, even if it's through the father (in the style of Faulkner or Conrad in Heart of Darkness)? On the surface he seems like a much more interesting character, and bringing in his radical political ambitions (potentially a result of his seeking something greater than himself) may cloud the attention from the father's own more personal struggles (plainly seeking himself).

This is getting too long and I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore, but perhaps you sort of see the point I'm trying to make. You may just be a much better writer than me and able to connect things artfully enough, which would be awesome to read some day. But if you aren't confident it may be something worth thinking about.

>>18124658
So you're the hypothetical person that makes me to scared to talk about my writing online.
Well you're doing good work man, my ideas are trash and any samples I post would probably make everyone dumber for having read them

>>18124106
Are you the same guy that had a highly modified version of this plot in a thread from a few months/weeks ago? Something about a son in Europe trying to effect some political aims, estranged father in America. I think that one had a daughter/sister instead of a nephew though.

In any case, it's a contrived MFA idea because you assume this type of Franzen-esque bourgeois BS constitutes meaningful, tasteful contemporary literature. It's like the Audi of the novel world.

>>18126167
That must have been me. Anyway, your criticism is noted.
What is an example of something to write about that ISN'T "bourgeois BS"?

>>18127308
bukowski and the beats aka trash

>>18124106
Could be good, could be bad I'd need to see the writing.

>>18127492

>>18124696
>>18124703
The writings here you stupid cunt although I don't trust someone as oblivious and moronic as yourself to judge anything.