/lit/ - Literature

Songs of Howling

On the lowest side o’ the cliffs,
That fisherman cast his line,
Hungrier than e’er for bounteous
Plunder from fields o’ sea-brine.

And lo, the poem was scrawled into the paper’s top-right corner, in that blackest black of a Moleskine, a crib of the day’s boredom fashioned, quite delicately, quite artistly, onto the unlined white-hued paper. How the poet’s geist wondered and wandered in the solemn seminar room’s terrible turgidity.
⸺Dilletante, I daresay. Charlatanry! Sophistry, exclaimed jovial-for-the-sake-of-rebellion Jon Scotus. Wherefore hath thou wrought po-ems?
⸺Why do you speak in such a manner? I enquired with some vocal fry. It makes little sense when we are in the twenty-first century.
⸺As is my custom, wanker, retorted Scotus. Get over yourself, Zebulun Lovett Sterling.
1/2

>>18660132
A prolonged sigh left my lips. How unfortunate it was to be left with the meek of soul and weak of willpower. Scotus was a dear friend of mine, albeit a diehard punk even after its death almost forty years ago. The pop-music-and-moral-pandemonium-explosion that constituted punk had only started in, wozzat, 1975 or 1977, depending on whom one asked. Then it survived for a small while: The Ramones put out the same old stuff until they collapsed into pop muzak; Sex Pistols lasted only a few years; the rest is history. Punk is not only dead… it remains nothing but dad music.
⸺And you, Jon Scotus, are a bloody punk, far too long after its eclipse.
⸺Bvppphhhhh. Vhat’s vright, he raspberried the words
His pierced tongue stuck out of his scrunched pink lips, a little spherical metal bit upon a sea of pink. It was like an unsightly seasnail’s head, emerged from its awful shell (his mohawked head). With this bizarre expression, the professor, one Dr Sagg, came up to our table with lips downturned.
⸺What’s this gentleman? Prof scowled.
⸺Nothing, I suggested. He was just fixing his tongue piercing.
⸺Thwas white, Scotus continued with his tongue outstretched.
⸺Boys, you better leave, groaned the aging educator. It’s already time for the next class to come in.
We waltzed out of the room together, this claustrophobic room which was tucked away near the library’s stairwell. Both our shoulders touched as we left, our contrasting images stepping under the doorway. Him: Black Flag shirt and denim jacket with sleeves surgically removed, which had a myriad of band patches sewn into it. Me: business casual.
Upwards these two university students went. Scotus’ Doc Martens, militaristically laced, stamped on steps in staccatos. My boat shoes made little ruckus, comparatively. Then, the two of us arrived in the university library’s main hall, where dozens of students crammed at desks. They read worn-out hardbacks, they tapped away at laptops, they checked their phones. We stood in this centre of this hive of bees. Were we the bears, like the titular character of Beowulf, that Anglo-Saxon masterwork?
2/2

How do i write detailed descriptions? Whenever I try it seems forced and overwritten

>>18660112
How do you discipline to write bros? I can't write more than a few pages at a time, and then it's followed by long periods of avoidance and distraction.

Painting comes more easily to me, but I want to do both.

>>18660139
Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I have deadlines to help, but even those I sometimes go past on.

>>18660136
Focus on one aspect of the object, scene, or entity, then attempt to hone in on one specific thing that stands out to you for whatever reason. This will create a genuine point of focus for you.

>>18660139
If you're a better painter, focus on that. Or do what William Blake did and do mainly paintings and poetry (which is inherently short in form and requires a deeper understanding of how words connect, rather than an exposition of a plot). If you need to discipline yourself, go for syntax and word choice, rather than worrying about how to make a plot. Really buckle down and understand how language works.

>>18660139
I sometimes only write 10 words a day. I still count it because it's something. A few pages is actually quite a lot, why not just one page or even a half page?

>>18660139
It comes down to purpose. I work at it for hours at a time because I start to feel sick if I don't. I'd sign my life away to make it into the WC. Yet the "writers" that I work with in my local groups and all that can't be fucked to do more than churn out a poem or two a month.

>>18660139
Here's what works for me:

Start by envisioning your first page, and your last page.
Begin to imagine all of the steps and trials and tribulations the character goes through, the sub-plots, the supporting cast... just give your brain time to let those ideas ferment. Listen to your thoughts in the shower, while you're meditating, the ideas will flow.
Start by writing a single sentence for each chapter telling you what is happening in the story.
Then, to really stay focused, either:
>write as SOON as you wake up. No touching your phone, no news, no media. Just wake up, make a coffee, and sit at your writing space.
>write while overtired. Those times when you can't sleep at night? Yes, those are perfect .That stillness after 2-3 AM really helps get the creative juices flowing.
This process worked wonders for me and I've got huge distraction and focus problems. Good luck anon!

>>18660139
By not being an indecisive faggot.

>>18660112
>Deep works
>Atomic Habits
>No longer in the OP
Jesus Fucking Christ, I knew you fuckers didn’t give two shits about this General, but can you not desecrate a dying General? Or is this just another form a denial for you fucks?

>>18660261
nooo not the self-help generic platitude bookerinos

>>18660283
Denialism it is.

>>18660289
too bad so sad

>>18660261
loser

>>18660112
if you're removing shit from the OP
>The Poetry Home Repair Manual
needs to be cut. dumbest self help shit I've ever had the misfortune of reading

>>18660304
will do the next time I make a thread

>>18660317
Also remove On Writing, Borges

>>18660346
what's wrong with it?

What kind of pseudonym should I choose when writing romances? A generic female name, or should I choose a punny sexy name like Carrie Lingus or Anita Longwood, but obviously not that porny

>>18660363
Because Selected Non-Fictions is simply a better book and not to mentioned more comprehensive and cost effective. The fact that it isn't on the OP but Borges is just reeks of pseudointellectualism. I know this General doesn't help when it comes to writing but holy fuck, do some research if you're going to play pretend.

>>18660376
>Borges
On Writing, Borges

>>18660376
all right, next time I'll switch out On Writing for Selected Non-Fictions. desu I don't know anything about Borges aside from the occasional thread where anons seethe about his Yoko Ono wife blocking publication of the original English translations of his works

>>18660395
>Doesn't know anything
>is helping others
its like the blind leading the blind.

>>18660399
? it's the other anon who gave the suggestion, it sounds reasonable, so I'll make the change the next time I make a thread

>>18660399
Just drop it, anon. There’s no hope for this dying General.

>>18660132
>Hungrier than e’er for bounteous
is it just me or is the meter for "for bounteous" not quite fit the pattern of the rest of the poem

>>18660399
>>18660413
Fuck off

>>18660136
This is a stylistic choice, but I don't allow myself to express character thoughts in description. For example I can't write "Anon hated broccoli."

Instead I have to write something "Anon grimaced as the plate of broccoli was put in front of him."

It forces me to show instead of tell which is my default mentality.

>>18660525
no

The Blackula guy should read Sundiata if he wants African literary influences

Are there any comprehensive lists of traps first time writers fall into?

sometimes I wonder if writing contests are money laundering schemes

> Grand prize winner of 100 word contest (Alicia Luna)

Today, I embrace the soil. “I’m working outside,” I tell my wife. I kneel in submission, remembering Abuela’s botanical cathedral. Lemon, cacti, and tomatoes bear fruit to all I took for granted, desperate to fit in. Wasteful youth. Oakland Teen Serves Time. I miss her kitchen, her breath. “Muy bien, hijo,” the corn says. I smile, and the peppers smile back. I crane my neck to the sun. “See, hijo. The veins of the leaves make the sign of the cross.” The spade grips my hand in hers, willing me to love God. I see, Abuela. I see.

https://www.writermag.com/contests/explore/100-word-contest-winner-perennial/

> 1st place winner of 100 word short story contest
Well past her due date and feeling unrelenting pressure, Mary visited the restroom for the fifth time, while Jack recalculated the tip. As he slid from the booth, the waitress leaned in, a cigarette resting in the V of two fingers.
“Light?”
She was a slim, red-haired woman with lacquered fingernails.
She held the cigarette an inch from her glossy mouth.
Jack didn’t smoke, but he patted his pockets anyway.
“Sorry,” he grimaced.
“Don’t be!”
She pressed a book of matches into Jack’s palm.
“My number’s inside,” she whispered.
One year later, Jack used those matches to light birthday candles.

> 2nd place winner of 100 word short story contest (Margarita Meklina)
The pianist fell ill. Her disease was as rare as her musical talent. Pain in the spine radiated into the pedal. The white cloud went over her right eye and swept over her long black hair, which illustriously covered piano keys. To raise money for surgery, she recorded the album with the rhythms of her heart. Was her partner told about the tumor? He took all proceeds and purchased the Bösendorfer grand, her childhood dream. She opened the lid and lay on vibrating strings as in a surgical theatre, tender thumps of hammers making her feel in good hands.

this one is funny and the only one I think is good
> 3rd place winner of 100 word short story contest (Matt Leibel)
At the Museum of Numbers, we baked pie in the pi room, drove laps in an Infinity around the infinity room, ate donuts and hula-hooped in the zero room, drank 7&7s in the 49 room, and were baffled as to what room 4 was even for. We liked the museum two-fifths as much as we’d liked the Museum of Fractions, exponentially less than the Museum of Exponents, and 999 billion times more than the Museum of Unfair Comparisons.

>>18660842
>money laundering schemes
They're not. But that would certainly make it more tolerable, wouldn't it? They're mostly just scams.

Can you tell a story about yourself when you suddenly wanted to become a writer? Who inspired you?

>>18661189
The screams of your mom inspired me as I rammed my writer pen(is) into her ass

>>18661189
I was a little lad of 5 or so
There was one of these magazines that had nothing toy ads in them, I was reading a section about Playmobil and came across a set called "The Magic Forest" or something (I couldn't read or write yet, except my own name)
I thought it was really cool and wanted to learn more about what those characters were doing and who they were, but they were just pictures of toys and my mom told me I had to come up with all that myself.
So I coerced her to write stories about them. But there was a problem! My mom wanted to turn it into a story about knights rescuing a princess or some shit and I didn't want that, I wanted a story all about weird magical forest creatures, like a full movie about the dwarves from Snow White without any Snow White in it.
I got so exasperated with my mother that I dictated the final line of the story:
>And then a dwarf set the forest on fire.
She refused to write more for me after that. Once I was in school and learned to write properly, I would do so from there on out for my own enjoyment.

>>18660842
>>18660887
They're all great. Fucking do better

>>18661228
hi Alicia

>>18661236
That's not a 100 words

>>18661189
No you fucking creep.

>>18661189
Jason picked up laptop jason write words words words. Jason now like writing words.

>>18661414
You're not a real writer Jason, but a mentally ill man who needs help.

I find the process of coming up with ideas, sitting down to write, and actually writing to be extremely difficult. Is that normal? Even this right now, my asking this question here, on this board, is mostly a way to procrastinate because it’s hard.

>>18661189
I had something on my mind, I saw a picture online which was loosely related to that idea, I read the Wikipedia entry on the event that picture was from, and I wrote the scene, dramatized it, said “what if…”, wrote a beginning and ending I could use for that scene.

>>18661534
You're not going to make it. It's time you accept that fact.

honest question, how do you write a good self-aware metafiction that isn't just for the sake of being meta?

>>18661583
Thanks for your opinion.

>>18662095
Read Calvino as an example of good metafiction; read Atwood as an example of bad. Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five is a good example of historiographical metafiction, but not sure if that’s what you want to write.

Quick question that I need help with. Main character is captured by a paramilitary group which is hiding from another paramilitary group. The paramilitary group which captures him is preparing to leave the area within the next several hours, and therefore decides to execute the main character as quickly as possible. As it is currently written, the main character has a bit of time to think through his situation and devise an escape, because the paramilitary group must reconstruct their gallows before they can hang him. Shooting is out of the question, because it makes too much noise. I am confident that I have written the scene in such a fashion that this all makes logical sense, but I'm trying to figure out a good reason why the group wouldn't just slit his throat immediately. Any suggestions?

>>18660372
Pick a very masculine name that sounds vaguely foreign. Women are drawn to romance novels written by men with sexy names.

>>18660136
I only give detailed descriptions when it comes to landscapes, or occasionally scenes or sequences. I was actually pretty proud of this little drabble I wrote yesterday in the park; it's very atypical writing for me, though. I could use a critique.
>Above, the palm leaves stretched out from the tree: brown and layered baklava at the root, then gray Y-shaped skeletons of fronds no longer with us, and stringy hair reminiscent of coconut, and finally the broad thick stems and the wide green leaves of the palm fronds themselves, spread like hands shading the ground. The sun trickled slightly through the clouds and leaves, leaving patches of shade and sun, and white clouds textured the sky, toying with the sun but never suggesting rain, and always wispy and long, full and round, drifting with the cool breeze that rocked the hammock to and fro.

>>18660832
>I see
I like this as an expression of boredom or disinterest. I hear it a lot from the execs in my office.

>>18660832
I don't know about specific phrases, but I've noticed that a lot of people on writing forums tend to ask "how do I force myself to write the boring filler parts of my novel?" referring to traveling, eating, characters doing their mundane day jobs, that sort of thing. I think it was Steinbeck who said that he usually skips those parts and moves on to the next interesting scene, and when he comes back later, he realizes they were never necessary at all. Then again, it might not have been Steinbeck, because his novels are loaded with those kinds of scenes.

>>18661189
I was watching the movie Misery with my family when I was around ten years old, and in the climax, there's a scene where Annie Wilkes (or Kathy Bates? I can never remember which one is the actress and which one is the character) forces the main character to sit down at a computer and begin writing a new novel. I had never before connected the concept of a book, a finished product in a library or a store, with the actual process of writing, that dull tedious task we were forced to do in school. Once it occurred to me that making a book was a simple matter of sitting down and writing, I decided that I wanted to do it myself.

Sidenote: I remember being hella confused that he started his novel on a computer, because at school we always wrote everything by hand first and then went through the tedious effort of typing it out.

>>18662564
I find eating is really solid way to get discussion in. But run-of-the-mill, breakfast lunch dinner? I don't think I've ever bothered showing anything like that.

>>18662226
You'd better give them some reason to keep him alive, like he knows something, or they think he might know something, or else it really wrecks plausibility.

>>18661189
I guess royal road inspired me to write. Otherwise the reason I write is to make things into reality that haven't been made yet. Fill a niche, to say.

>>18661189
Had an idea for a story I wanted to read. There was no story out there like it. Decided to take it upon myself to tell it. And it was the friends we made along the way.

>>18661534
>coming up with ideas
easy
>sitting down to write
why are you even including this mundane detail as its own step?
>actually writing
yeah that's the hard part right there. starting from point zero is always the hardest part. people say the mushy middle is tough, but that's a load of shit.

>>18661189
Anthony Horowitz inspired me to start writing. I somehow enjoyed Groosham Grange as a kid. Also like his Alex Rider and Power of Five stuff too.

Goodness, this thread.
Anyway fellow /wg/ anons just a single thread ago I tossed in an idea about having a protagonist that suffers from chronic-pain, here's what I got.
>born premature.
>has shit lungs so he can't go outside for long.
>was pretty much raised in small shoebox apartments because he lived with his single teen mom in Toronto.
>also has a tulpa that's an idealized version of himself that loves and comforts him.

I feel that this is a good foundation for a tragedy... just needs refinement.
Some /mu/ cause why the hell not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB76jxBq_gQ

>>18663019
>yeah that's the hard part right there. starting from point zero is always the hardest part
Bullshit

>>18663027
> main character rarely goes outside
Sounds like he'd fit in with the rest of 4chan

>>18662887
That's a good suggestion. My thought process was "this character has no information which would make him valuable to his captors" but it didn't occur to me that he could just pretend to know something. The only reason he was captured instead of killed is because the paramilitary group wanted to take him back to headquarters for questioning, and in the current version he thinks its a misunderstanding and they will let him go if he says he's not related to the other group. Thanks for the help anon, be sure to tell your employer/parents that you aren't actually as stupid as everyone thinks you are.

>>18663161
I guess we'll agree to disagree. Staring at a blank page is always the hardest for me. A lot of backspacing. Once I'm in the middle of a story I get much less picky and get words out.

>>18663453
Build a skeleton for your story and plotfag it.

>>18663349
No problem at all, anon, happy to help, hope you bump into a bodybuilder who breaks all your bones.

>>18663349
Would be awesome if he dropped fake Q-type info and ends up leading the paramilitary group that kidnaps him!

>>18661189
I read a lot as a kid. have always been an in my head sorta person. when I became an adult and had to find a hobby or melt into mold on my couch, I picked up writing

>MC is the one space marine on a civilian escape ship drifting away from a lost colony world
>The ship doesn't have FTL and there is no safe planet to land on, they need to be picked up or they will die
>MC is working with the captain, who is waiting to identify a friendly ship while enemy ships are scanning for them
>Captain refuses to ever turn on the distress signal, fearful that every ship signal is an enemy
>Eventually the crew asks MC to mutiny and kill the captain so the second in command can take control
>They believe that they are just going to slowly starve to death under the first captain
>MC agrees reluctantly and shoots the captain
>Due to his space marine armor, he can't take control of the ship himself, so the second in command takes over
>Again, no distress signal is sent as the new captain becomes convinced there are only enemies out there
>The passengers riot
>MC has to execute the mutinying ring leader
>Still no distress signal is sent
>MC gets ordered by the captain to kill another of the dissidents before another riot breaks out
>MC executes the captain instead
>The dissident takes control
>The pandora's box of mutiny has been completely opened and can't be shut
>Nobody believes the 3rd captain when he says there are no ships
>The 3rd captain is killed and a 4th takes control
>There were records of ships being sighted but the 3rd didn't signal them
>The 4th then claims that there truly are no ships
>By this point most of the people who were on the ship from the beginning have died from starvation, violence, or thirst
>No salvation is coming
>MC puts a gun to the captains head and orders him to put the distress signal on no matter what
>An enemy ship captures them
>Fate unknown afterwards

I think that's enough content for an entire novel, isn't it?

>>18664092
It's like 70% of the writers here go for scifi

>>18664092
Sounds breddy good

>>18664128
Well in my defense, the reason that story is sci-fi is to have an explanation for why the military can't just usurp the corrupt government and see the truth themselves

It's for metaphorical reasons

>>18664146
It's not shame you I expected fantasy to dominate the majority of what people write about. You have to work with gor your story get to writing.

>>18664162
Plenty

>>18664162
I am extremely busy with other writing projects, I'm just mentally outlining the future

I just finished a manuscript and need to let it marinate in my subconcious so I can go back and prose edit it

I've got a short story that is aallllmost done, will get some more work after dinner

And I'm in the honeyfeedxMAL webnovel competition putting out daily chapters of actual prose. It's YA fantasy prose, but it's actual literature style rather than LN/WN shit The Fallen Diadem, you should check me out so I can rise above the ecchi bait

>>18664250
How do they choose the winners? Whoever gets the most votes?

Why is throbbing such a lewd word

>>18664438
Most votes is one of the judging criteria but there's enough other criteria to give the judges leeway to filter out like, smut or someone who raided the vote count or something. I don't particularly care about the prize money, I'm trying to stand out to Kodansha, even though I'm 99% certain they simply lent their name to the contest with no plan to hire a western author

>be me
>write 400 page treatise consisting of the pure condensed distillate of the essence of autism
>There's a genuine risk I never finish it
ISHYGDDT

>>18660665
I will add that to my to-read list. Yesterday I watched Dolemite, and I was thoroughly puzzled by the movie

>>18664978
This weekend I'm going to watch some black people on YouTube review Kentucky Fried Chicken and Popeyes Chicken, so I can collect some authentic black phrases and find out what about those foods that black people like

How do your develop a chapter?

>>18665134
Maybe I am a schizo, but my characters talk to me.

i think i'm going to write a comic novel, like Don Quixote or something. anyone done it? seems like it should be fun

>>18665161
On the Waldun threads, there's a guy writing a reimagined DQ with Waldun as Don Quixote and Jay as Sancho

>>18665137
You're mentally ill, yes.

> How One Reddit Community Is Finding the Next Generation of Screenwriters and Novelists
> From Zola's viral Twitter thread to Reddit, Hollywood is increasingly turning to self-published corners of the internet for IP.

Freelance animator Marcus Kliewer was already having a rough year when the pandemic hit. Supported by a Canadian unemployment program, the Vancouver resident decided to pour his energy into writing short horror stories and posting them on Reddit’s r/nosleep community.

The 28-year-old posted his first story of the pandemic in September. Three months later, his work was discovered by Ground Control Entertainment’s Scott Glassgold. In June, Netflix announced a screen-rights deal for his story “We Used to Live Here,” with Blake Lively attached to star and produce alongside Ground Control and Matt Reeves’ 6th & Idaho.

“If it wasn’t for CERB (the unemployment program), I would be landscaping right now,” Kliewer told IndieWire. “Instead, I was writing six days a week full time.”

Kliewer said he also made a two book, high-six-figure deal with a major publishing company; he’s not saying which one, since it’s yet to be announced. The subreddit r/nosleep didn’t just give Kliewer his break; it laid the foundation for the career of his dreams.

Kliewer is part of a growing group of writers who find their big breaks through online mediums that largely circumvent traditional industry gatekeepers. Their success is fueled by executives’ appetite for unicorn IP: material that is proven — in this case, through Reddit upvotes and Kliewer’s strong following on the subreddit — but still feels fresh. It’s the same phenomenon that led a viral Twitter thread to be adapted into “Zola.”

“There’s a finite number of publishers out there, there’s a finite number of film studios and TV studios out there. They can only buy a certain amount. It also requires — whether it’s representation and connections or otherwise — steps to even get to those doorsteps,” Glassgold said. “What these platforms allow for is entry without asking for permission.”

Kliewer is the second r/nosleep discovery this year that Glassgold (“Prospect”) helped turn into a Netflix project. He first read attorney Matt Query’s r/nosleep series “My Wife & I Bought a Ranch” in July, at the suggestion of Query’s screenwriter brother and Glassgold collaborator Harrison Query. Less than a week later, the package was the subject of a bidding war; Netflix bought it in a seven-figure deal. Matt Query also landed a publishing deal to turn the story into a novel. Verve repped the Querys, Kliewer, and Ground Control in the negotiations.

“My Wife & I Bought a Ranch” was the first series Matt Query ever posted to r/nosleep, though he’s been a forum reader for a decade. The adaptation also marks his first creative collaboration with his brother, who is penning the script.

>>18665440
Yes, anon we get it, /wg/ is a shithole that literally any other website is better than it. I think everyone but a few delusional people here know that already.

>>18665461
maybe there are Hollywood agents right in this thread, looking for their next big franchise

>>18665472
Stop being delusional.

>>18665134
Basically like a stream of consicounes. I let it flow, so to speak, nudging it in the right direction when needed. Can be hard at times, I struggled quite a bit for my last chapter.

>>18660427
The writer of the poem isn't supposed to be adept; he's more of a poseur.

How is mystery written? I assume it has something to do with building backwards but still, I can't grasp what the process is like in practice.

>>18665503
Read Lacan's essays on Edgar Allan Poe's mystery stories. There's usually some psychological reason for how it works.

>>18665440
I think I'll join reddit now.

>>18663027
Hunchback of notre dame?

What are you all working on today? If nothing, what's the great novel idea that you aren't working on and never will?

>>18666686
Today I finished the 31st chapter of my book. Looking at the material I already have worked out for the rest of the book, it appears I've still got another 12-13 left rather than the 11 I had initially planned.
Finish it all first, make cuts after. That's the way.

I usually write prose, and I have a question if any poets can help:
I want to use the word "slag" in a poem in the geological sense, but the other derogatory meaning is completely incongruous to the rest of my poem and I'm worried that using it would be clumsy. Is it okay to just disregard the other meaning, or should I look for another construction?

Is it foolish to commit to a long-term series as a first-time project? It seems wrong to aim for pacing out an overarching story over multiple novels before even beginning the first.

>>18666846
I'm sure the context will make it clear what you mean by it

>>18666848
There really isn't a perfect first project. If that's the one you want to do then that's the one you should do.

>>18666848
yes

>>18666898
>>18666913

>>18666915
It's better to actually do something than wait around for the perfect first project. It's likely that the first thing you do won't be publishable anyway, so have fun with it and get practicing.

>>18666848
All who write are fools

>>18666915
Planning multiple novels is a massive undertaking that is liable to exhaust you before you've actually even written anything. Finishing the whole thing as a first-timer is extremely unlikely. Even if you somehow do, you will have changed so much as a writer before the end that you will probably hate the original plan you had and want to redo everything.

Start by writing one standalone story from start to finish, a story with a clear ending. At least complete that one work, so that you can see if you could do the same in a bigger scale.

>>18666940
Any recommendations for length? It's easy to say "just write a full story", but even that comes in many forms.

>>18666945
Well, since the point is to not make your first project too gargantuan, I'd recommend aiming between 60-80,000 words. That is more than enough for a novel.

>>18666686
Will try and work on my next chapter since I haven't started on it yet. May work on it in piecemeals while at work, may simply just pass out once I get home from work.

>>18666848
I've been working on mine for a year now. I dunno about foolish, but burnout can be very real.

>>18666945
Write until the story you want to tell has been told.

He lived and died; his life was as beautiful as it was short. He was young, a wonderful sculptor, swept up in a not-so-great war. He became as broken, shattered, like one of his statues cast to the sea-rocks at a beachside cliff.
The sculptor had been through the Alps, with nothing on his back, barefoot too, to have searched for the wonderful town between Rome and Paris, where artists resided. He found it after a week, bleary-eyed, tired, with blood on his feet.
The residing poet nursed them better with wraps and water, which might have been holy, as he treated the young would-be sculptor back then with the gravitas afforded to a saint. And, maybe, the sculptor would be martyred in the war and made a patron saint of sculpting, in that terrible crucible of war.
In the trenches, he sculpted all the same. A small statuette of a soldier’s face, a German’s to be exact, from the butt of a rifle. How well he whittled eyes and other facial features from the wooden stock. He showed it to the German who would have him killed, with a smile on that face of his.
“See,” the sculptor said in French. “Paix.”
But, at these words of well wishes and harmony, the Boche raised his handgun, an Offizier, a Luger. “Paix,” the sculptor might have repeated but was cut short with a terrible crack of lightning, a sonorous bugle had called out for him from the depths below, from the barrel of the handgun.
Death, without a blink of an eye. That was what war did to artists. The rattling of sabres, the showers of cannons, the hails of bullets, the storm of death⸺that was the price of war-making industry in the XIX century.

How many well-off or successful writers even read or know the writing guides and manuals in the OP?

>>18667535
I doubt any read them because why would you read a book on how to achieve what you have already achieved?

>>18667554
But they weren’t always big authors. I’m saying that JK Rowling or Stephen King ever read “How to Write” books in the first place because if you have to ask, then you’re likely not suited to writing at all ever.

>>18667565
>JK Rowling or Stephen King

>>18667574
Lol, you think you’re literary or the next Joyce, whilst coming to a fucking cesspool of an anime site for writerly advice/community? Everyone here is only capable of second rate genre.

>>18667608
I come here to be an outsider among outsiders. I am capable of writing something great. Speak for yourself.

>books about how to write
>asking for tips how to write
kek
if you want to learn, just read novels, especially in your genre

How do you motivate yourself to write and not procrastinate though

Does anybody use voice dictation when they write? I am finding it much easier to keep the flow going when speaking my writing as opposed to typing.

>>18667662
You force yourself to start. Make it easy for yourself. Put the phone in another room, put on a playlist of songs you know you like if you write while listening. Establish the habit and eventually you will do it more or less habitually. It seems difficult at the start because it actually is difficult to establish a habit. It gets easier.

>>18667646
>writing something great.
I highly doubt it. Half of writing is actually writing. The other half is reading everyday all day, as well as being well connected to start certain literary movements. That’s nearly impossible unless you’re rich and well-educated. Half the people here are poorfags or not even Westerners. I’ve been published several times in journals and know I’m not great: it takes self-awareness and humility to know that.

What music do you listen to while writing?

>>18667679
>I highly doubt it
I'm 100% comfortable with your doubt.

>>18667689
Classical, synthwave, vaporwave, dream pop, nightcore, future funk, shoegaze, I pick something randomly depending on the scene

>>18667690
Well I’ll ask you for a critique if you think you’re so great.
>>18667293
Have at it, maestro.

>>18667708
I'm driving home from work. I'll take a hack at it in a bit.

>>18667689
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhXRoQO8C-I

One sentence at a time.
Love and Respect the word.

>>18666686
Today I'm working on my next paycheck. Tonight I'm reading Mike Hammer to help with my sci-fi crime noir story.

>>18667662
The trick is to enjoy writing for its own sake. It also helps to have a buddy you can ring up and say
>Wake up you bastard I just wrote a good bit!
At 4 AM on a week day

>>18667821
I have an online friend like this but he doesn't read books.
He'll read anything I send him and review every single word anyway to help me edit. I wish I could do more for my bro. We don't even know our real names.

>>18667293
First off, I'm not a huge fan of the prose. I don't like that you tell me his life was beautiful – even though I understand that it's the "thesis statement" of the piece, it feels heavy-handed and unearned, like a dictation rather than what should be sketched out in silhouette. The impression is compounded a sentence later when you tell me that he was a "wonderful sculptor," and to a lesser degree the quality of the war. The imagery of the statues broken on the beach is good in theory, but my problem is that, like the rest of the opening paragraph, it's strictly abstract. There's no actual imagery, just the invocation of imagery, if that makes sense. I saw this earlier as I scanned the thread and passed over it because of what I saw as a weak opener. Even after a closer reading, I stand by that initial decision. In the wild, I would have stopped reading here, and I did.

The second paragraph is better, but has similar problems with dictation vs illustration. It feels rushed, barebones, and constricted. Part of this is due to the constraints of flash fiction obviously, but the constraints aren't handled gracefully. This reader's advice would be to slow down and let it all breathe a bit more.

Residing -> resident

Paragraph 3: is he a would-be or a had-been? Use of tense is confusing here, compounded by some obtuse usage of passive voice.

At this point I know nothing about this sculptor, what he has sculpted, what he's like as a character, anything. I know nothing about him and care less. My impression at this point is that there's nothing for me here. I don't really like the prose, I know nothing about the character, the setting is strictly abstract with very little description of anything except feet and eyes.

Echoes of "war" in final sentence of P3, feels amateurish and unwieldy. "Crucible of war" is a very trope'y turn of phase and I would recommend rewording or cutting entirely.

This is as far as I can get, sorry.

>>18667990
>Paragraph 3: is he a would-be or a had-been? Use of tense is confusing here, compounded by some obtuse usage of passive voice.
That’s because I shifted the perspective in and out of his death, the war, and his early life becoming a sculptor.
>At this point I know nothing about this sculptor, what he has sculpted, what he's like as a character, anything. I know nothing about him and care less. My impression at this point is that there's nothing for me here. I don't really like the prose, I know nothing about the character, the setting is strictly abstract with very little description of anything except feet and eyes.
It’s Gaudier. I’m talking about his visit to Ezra Pound and his fighting in WWI.
>Didn’t finish
It’s not even 400 words, dude, that’s like a page in a book.

>>18668046
>It’s not even 400 words, dude, that’s like a page in a book.
And as you can see, my critique was getting close to that word count by the third paragraph. If it's not useful for you, feel free to let it just slide off. Won't hurt my feelings.

>>18668063
Well I’m glad I got someone to write me that much when I spent literally 15 minutes on a piece to shit up here, but at least you’ve shown me where to improve with prose. I’m not usually a prose writer, so I should practice it and find the pressure points.

>>18668046
>It’s Gaudier. I’m talking about his visit to Ezra Pound and his fighting in WWI.
For what it's worth, I think you're getting too caught up in whatever manufactured gravitas you think the historicity gives the piece and not giving enough attention to the writing itself. I'll freely admit that I would have never known that it was Gaudier visiting Pound. If that makes me a philistine, I can live with that. You lean way too hard on this "wow it's Famous Man visiting Famous Man" moment that never actually materializes. You have to actually give it a reason to happen through the quality of your writing, it's not enough as it is.

>>18668072
>I spent literally 15 minutes on a piece to shit up here, but at least you’ve shown me where to improve with prose. I’m not usually a prose writer
Will you stop shitting up the entire board with your defeatist garbage now? It's really harshing the vibe.

CONTROVERSIAL OPINION

I know it has endless logical problems, unrealized potential and the writing itself isn't stellar but, I've been looking back and I must admit, there's a lot of merit to the Harry Potter series.
There's so much quirk to the world and I really appreciate how she managed to tell a hero's journey fantasy story of epic proportions within a relatively confined, more intimate world that retains its sense of wonder without relying extensively on going around traversing the world across a multitude of vast tolkienesque lands. The "mystery of the year" format strikes such a good balance between the telling of self-contained stories engaging by themselves and simultaneously adding onto and moving forward a grander narrative.

Sorry in advance if this post ends up triggering someone.

>>18668094
Sorry you’re too caught up in your delusions of grandeur to see writing isn’t a job or a craft anymore.

>>18668082
As I said, I’m not a prose writer. I don’t know how to make momentum as a writer of prose, so I stuck with images and attempted poetic fragmentation.

>>18668153
>Sorry you’re too caught up in your delusions of grandeur to see writing isn’t a job or a craft anymore.
Compelling argument but I'm gonna have to ask you to fuck off.

>>18668161
You been published? Oh no. Are you one of those “writers” that just has a blog and self-published drivel?

>>18668183
You're just embarrassing yourself at this point.

>>18668186
You suck, poseur. No one will even wipe their arse with your schlock.

>>18668125
Yes, it has a world full of atmosphere. And is easy to read and follow. Harry Potter is unironically kino if you're a child.
But I'd still say kids should read the Hobbit first, it's better written.

>>18668213
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB963270836801555352

>>18668209
I suck? Seems from this post >>18668072 that you felt it was good enough advice to improve your prose. Simultaneously, you felt threatened enough by it to make excuses about how little time you spent on it and how you don't write prose. Which one is it, then?

Your ego is too tied up in this shit.

>>18668183
it's pretty obvious at this point that you are literally just projecting every time you doom'n'gloom everywhere. the quality of your writing is neophytic at best. even more concerning, despite the fact that you profess to be (ostensibly) a poet, there was precisely zero evidence of a mind for flow or rhythm. i've noticed your shitposts across multiple different threads lately too. it's actually super vindicating to actually read something you've written. the funny part about anonymity is that you never actually know if someone's full of shit or not when they play the hemming and hawing game of the pretense of superiority. now that i have read something you've actually written, i can see with literal crystal clarity that you actually are just projecting. for you, what you say about how nobody here is talented or will ever create anything good, that's completely true. you, as in you yourself, the poster, you will never make anything anyone will ever care to read. thank you for posting that and thank you for making excuses about how little time you spent on it and how you "don't actually write prose". it's helped me finally understand what a sad, hopeless little lemming you are.

>>18667293
>he he he he he the the the an an aa a n an a a a the he he he
lmao english is disgusting

>>18668226
>>18668233
Paragraphs for days.

>>18668254
the irony is that for me, a paragraph is effortless. it's not some herculean effort i need to qualify and walk back on and make excuses for. i have literally millions more where that came from, and it's literally right at my fingertips. you're not gonna make it, anon. sorry...

is it improper English to refer to the love felt by a brother for his sister as "sororal"?

for example: He wanted to stay mad at Abigale, but his sororal love for her forced him to forgive her.

>>18668274
uhhh
just write "love", you do not need to use words like this kek

>>18668268
>millions of paragraphs at his fingertips
No one wants to read your self-published novel about Blackula dude.

>>18668254
I'm saving this for posterity, just so when you decide to shit up another thread with your crab bucket mentality, anons can see for themselves that you're really just projecting the objectively low quality of your own work onto everyone else.

>>18668282
saved

>>18668282
Good, maybe you’ll know who Ezra Pound or Gaudier is next time, you unwashed pleb.

>>18668300
the actual and unironic cope lmao

>>18668306
Am I angry you’re sharing a story of mine for free? Keep sharing it. I enjoy it. I want to rile you up, little failed writer.

>>18668316
>Am I angry you’re sharing a story of mine for free? Keep sharing it. I enjoy it. I want to rile you up, little failed writer.

>>18668335
Oh no! A Wojak! Holy… he’s so … b-based! Better quickly call the … *farts*

>send your work to /wg/
>be mad someone criticised it, shit up the whole thread with your complaining
never gonna make it

>>18668355
The dude couldn’t even read it all. That’s literary prowess for ya! He also drives which means he’s a wagey loser. Never gonna make it unless he’s got connections with publishers and academics.

>trying this hard to claw back that imaginary sense of superiority you feel crumbling around you

120k words. By God it's gargantuan, and the weirdest part is I can barely focus on any one of the remaining parts because I'm too excited to write about all the others.
Hope everyone else is having a productive Saturday.

>>18668379
godspeed, anon. i got my 500 words in today. we're (mostly) all gonna make it.

>>18668373
>Mommmmm!!!! He posted a Pepe! It’s a gif too! I’m so owned. Noooooo!

>>18660112
I had the idea of a scifi fantasy story set in a ww1 style war.

Problem is, I don't know where to start. How do you start writing a story?

>>18668379
>>18668385
400 words today here, but it's just 6:30 PM, I'm going to write the whole night
Maybe I'll get to 1000? It's a lot more than I normally write.

>>18668379
How long did that take? Well done, anon. Always write for yourself and harness that excitement because readers will sense it in your writing.

>>18668400
Outline or a vignette to start the ball rolling. Does your war have a similar kettle boiler beginning to the war?

>>18668400
Two ways to go about it, really.
>carefully plot the thing out on a nice outline
or
>just start writing the scenes that formed in your head while you're on a walk or something

>>18668400
read a good book and do what the author does

>>18668415
Yeah. Tensions between nations reaching a boiling point when an assassination happens

>>18668438
There you go then, write about the Happening.

>>18668438
A good way to start off would be a newspaper declaring the assassination or the actual assassination described in detail. Don’t let me cramp your style though, go for it in your own way.

>>18668454
Newspaper is good. I'd open with someone using an old newspaper reporting the assassination for kindling.

>>18668467
Nice! There you go. I think you’ve already got that natural storyteller in you, just need to put pen to paper.

>>18668476
Oh I'm not the anon writing it, I was just butting in to give advice.

>>18668476
as we all, bro
we just have to find our souls

>>18668454
In my first draft, the story opens up with the main team getting pinned by artillery fire just after a monster attack. With the team stuck in a hopeless situation. This is a sneak peek into the future though. Sort of like the prologue to ghosts of onyx.

The next chapter opens with the team bantering in their dorms and going to child soldier indoctrination class.

They play football with transfer students from the other kingdom. Then a commotion starts around the newspaper stands. The team hear shoutings about war being declared between the kingdoms. The team exchange glances with the transfer students from the other kingdom

>>18668454
I like the newspaper intro. Maybe something like pic rel?

>>18668402
i personally try to actively restrict myself to a 500 per day unless i'm really, really going that night. it helps me keep from burning out, and keeps the quality of the draft high to minimize time spent in the editing phase. if i start going for distance i tend to lose the plot, freak out about having lost the plot, then end up spending time trying to find it again anyway. 500 keeps me slow and steady, head in the game, involved with what comes next for the next day's writing. works for me, might not work for anyone else.

>>18668545
Pic rel is great. And your other stuff sounds cool enough to pick up.

>everyone uses such big words in their writings
>my double digit IQ can't comprehend any of it
I'll never make it.

>>18668618
Don’t worry, anon. Most people who use big words are pseuds. Just read and write what you like, since love and passion will permeate your writing which readers want.

>>18668553
Same. I mostly write 300 - 500 daily but sometimes have good days such as today when I write even 1000. It's a lot, takes time, focus and editing, but it happens from time to time, once or twice a month maybe. I like it.

>>18668379
No writing yet, dying in the wage cage for another 5 hours.

>>18668678
I know this feel bro, I had 10h work last weekend and the whole day I was thinking about reading a book or writing.

Here's the intro segment to my bike trip novel that I've been shilling here off and on. Any thoughts?

Also, is being a lawyer /lit/? When this thing's done, probably going to apply to law school.

>>18668748
>Is law /lit/?
Read A Frolic of One’s Own and find out.

>protagonist embarks on a journey to a faraway land, learns plot relevant information, experiences growth
>goes back home for some time to rest, consider things, find another motivation etc
>embarks on a different journey to a faraway land in a different direction to finish his plot and growth

Is splitting the journey into two parts with one central home location awkward, should I just string them together into one giant journey for that feel of covering a massive distance?

I've been trying to work the two journeys idea for a long time now and I keep thinking it'll come across as contrived, I mainly want it so I could revisit the home location with a new perspective since he isn't coming back from the second one, and I also feel like it wouldn't fit geographically because the biomes would logically be in opposite directions and not one behind another.

>>18669587
>is two journeys awkward?
It can be. If you want an case study of a story doing it, I'm reminded of the stageplay Into the Woods. That play had a two journeys feeling to it. Their purpose in doing the two journeys thing was to subvert the "they all lived happily ever after" trope by having the play have a "happily ever after" ending at the intermission. Then, the second act of the play features a bunch of loose ends that were introduced in the first act coming undone and causing big problems. Immediately after the first journey ends, they do a timeskip and start showcasing a bunch of new problems that have developed, so it feels like there needs to be a second journey.

>geography doesn't work
Maybe he gets on a boat?

>>18668379
/Lit/ shit all over me multiple times and so far I've added 3k in fixes to my 2nd novel, put in another 1k today. Book is almost 100k words now.

Have a great weekend, anon!

I know it's shit. Just trying to figure out if I can "hook" properly:

Over the crushing Atlantic on my way to Rome I begin to think about my father. More precisely my first memory of him, in fact it is the earliest childhood memory I have. My mother says I repress memories; but this one was soldered into my hippocampus. I was four or five years old, at home with my parents in the midst of of their union disintegrating. The kitchen in our 14th floor apartment was fine enough with tanned latex floors, a wobbly plastic table and a couple of chairs. The stove elements were caked in brownish stains, a steel sink sat dead in the center of the L-shaped kitchen. It acts as a sort of snaking shortcut that took you from the entrance of the apartment to the main dining area.
In this memory I am a shadowy presence that shouldn’t be there, like an endless specter lodged in an out of focus purgatory, a formative nucleus of a child trapped in this frame of melancholy.
I am asking my mother for something. She is holding a yellow bag of Lays potato chips. My father is fighting for the bag, but my mother is hesitant. She finally concedes and calmly hands the bag to my father. She keeps pleading. He then whips the bag at her in an intense rage. She cries. My father storms off.
This is all that I remember.
My father shares the same name as me — Daniel.
He is an addict.
Other memories both pleasant and negative swirl within me. Nothing before the yellow bag of Lays potato chips. Perhaps it was the moment I knew my life with my father would be more turbulent than most.
My parents went on to divorce when I was ten years old.
I begin listening to the voicemail my sister sent me three days ago. She’s crying in the message, begging me to come once again step foot in the Mediterranean to find our dad. Like a movie almost: young man goes on a quest back in time through both sun stained ancient Rome, to battle (save?) the ancient alcoholic assholes of his past.
“Daniel, please. I have been searching but no one has found him. I fear for his safety.”
What about my fucking safety?
The seatbelt lights flicker on. The sun is rising over the mass graveyard that is Europe. Time to go.

>>18668748
Bikebro, nice to see you again. I really like your book. I like your prose and your theme. The intermittent thoughts and observations that are interrupted by actual interactions with people is great. I also really liked the fish/thought metaphor.

Law? Honestly you seem to be too much of an artist to bear dealing with law. Most people i know that are lawyers or have studied law are boring and materialistic. You don't seem materialistic. But there's never nothing wrong with trying. At leas you'll know then.

>>18666848
it'll take you a lifetime and you'll die before you finish it
if you sharpen your teeth on multiple small projects which you don't feel particularly attached to you'll develop your skills and get comfortable enough with writing that you'll be able to write a novel a year
I wouldn't advise jumping into something huge as a newfag

i suck at descriptions but i'm great with dialogues
any books with great descriptions to git gud?

>>18669939
reads fine anon but you should consider therapy.

>>18670504
Not him but you reminded me when my friend genuinely asked
>are you ok anon? do you want to talk?
after I sent him a chapter from my novel

>>18670218

Thanks, man. Ah, we'll see. It's less that I want material things (I don't) and more that the law is difficult. And I want something truly difficult to apply my life to. I feel underutilized. And I've also been dirtbagging it up as a cyclist and backpacker for most of my twenties. It'd be nice to settle down and find a steady career in non-profit or charity law and write on the side. But we'll see. If I can publish this thing maybe I'll reconsider. But in the meantime, law excites me.

>>18668282
whatartistsdotowar.jpg

Just finished up the first draft of a sword-and-sorcery novella heavily inspired by Conan, Elric and the Hyperborean saga. Couple questions since this is where most of my projects die.

>What's the best place to look for alpha/beta readers and get legitimately good feedback?
>If I wanted to self-publish my work online serially (with plans to later anthologize and sell traditionally), what's the best site for that?
>FWIW sword-and-sorcery is a pretty dead genre save for DMR books and Goodman Games, anywhere else to look for that sort of material to build my palette? I already have Kane on my list, what else should I check out?

When, how often, and for how long do you write?

Do you think that’s good? Bad? Why?

>>18670908
when i have free time
depends on a week, i'm trying to do some every day
it's bad because i'm a bad writer with no experience

>>18670908
>When
At night, after dinner usually when everything is calmed down. It's a perfect time for me to write. I've usually exhausted my interest in video games, my phone, going out, etc.
>How often
Not as often as I should. Past week I've been writing nearly every night. Usually, it's only once a week, if that.
>How long
On a good night, I can start around 9:30pm and be wanting to do more by midnight, which is bedtime. Sometimes I'll start around 7 and go until 1am, and by then I'm about done. I think as long as the writing is quality, the length doesn't matter so much.

Follow-up, has anyone else written something they think is pretty good only to find out it directly fits a trope you never heard about?

>>18670908
I've been writing every day this week, its quite rare. Frankly I wouldn't know what else to do, I'm in the cycle of being uninterested in games recently, so lots of free time.

halp
no idea where to go from here

>>18670990
I also like to write at night, preferably late at night. Lately, I cannot get good sleep so I end up too tired to even stay awake, let alone write.

>>18671089
How about, they search for the Maurader bomber

>>18670908
I try go for 15 mins in the morning everyday before work. It makes progress pretty slow. The most I've spent in one sitting on a short story was 4 hours. Still I'm close to getting further in word count than my first travesty of a novel.

>>18667689
Melodramatic-ish anime music I guess?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQPblzR8u00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5Gg2DfJVIY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxjSwu4ywUs&
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7NE6BoTCIA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KUIIS3fZ_o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W3BWoI4uMs&
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJS0NWIGK1w&
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd4xZ5VC5Kg&

OC

Got tired of looking up bad writing advice on Youtube.

OC

Got tired of bad writing advice on Youtube.

>>18671698
nice. I'm glad when people actually understand the meme
the virgin has always supposed to be (you) and the chad the inexplicable normie who is 100% natural

>>18671698
"the flower was blue" can easily be an amazing "show don't tell" phrase if used in the right context. Yes I am a simp for muh simplicity

>>18662241
>no longer with us
I'd change this, feels a bit cliche. The "and" before "stringy hair" and possibly the one before "white clouds" could go. I'm not sure about how I'd adjust the second sentence; I'd either break it into two:
>The sun trickled slightly through the clouds and leaves, leaving patches of shade and sun. White clouds textured the sky
But that new second sentence feels too short compared to the ones on either side of it, so perhaps replacing the "and" with something else, like so:
The sun trickled slightly through the clouds and leaves, leaving patches of shade and sun, while white clouds textured the sky
My general feeling is that in the midst of a lengthy, descriptive sentence, you shouldn't use "and" following a comma more than once or it begins to disrupt the flow

Sorry if that was too in-depth. It's good stuff regardless and this was just the minor stuff that stood out to me when looking for something to critique.

>>18671792
Hmmmm, true.

>>18671745
All forms of the meme are cool, but this form is the coolest.

>>18671821
Thanks, I appreciate the critique. That kind of writing is fun but very slow for me in terms of writing speed, and I can only seem to get this kind of description out for landscapes. Anytime I try it for people or actions, the text just gets overloaded and really boring. But at the same time, it feels wasteful to only use "lyrical prose" on landscapes or buildings.

>>18671850
any iteration of the meme where "virgin bad, chad good" is awful
but it is versatile. make more OC, I liked the one you made

>>18666848
Practice is practice, and you'll rise to the level of challenge you set for yourself. Even if you fail to create a multi-novel series, you'll definitely advance more as a writer via the effort than you would if you'd given yourself safe, easily accomplished goals.

>>18671875
Thanks, anon

Memes and 4chan shitposts are fun to write so I inevitably will make more. Right now I wanna finish my short projects, one is for someone else so I tried to brush up my writing and got aggravated by all the shitty advice I read.
Shitposting is a good outlet for that sorta thing lol

>>18670991

>>18671978
>making a new thread when /wg/ exists
stupid

>>18671988
It's /tv/ bait anyways.

I'm not gonna make it.
Honestly fuck everyone, either they'll get the last laugh when I'm dead or they'll be stunned into silence. It doesn't matter to me.

>write a simple story about a man and his robowaifu
>Now I want to write how every human is flawed and treats the robot like shit in their own way
>MC uses her as a sex bot
>Engineer uses her as a toy
>company boss sees her as money
>Female character uses her as a slave
>another male character thinks of her as just another machine to be used up and tossed
>the human characters are all shit, and their shittiness is not only reflected upon the robot but each other.
>The only pure soul in this mess is the robot
>But need to delete 30k words

Fuck do I scrap and rewrite everything from a simple love story to a criticism of human nature?

>>18672435
Is that what you want to read? Write what you want to read, I guess.

>>18671978
kino thread and better than this shit

>>18672437
I want to read a comic book.

>>18670537
if it excites you you should go for it! Looking forward to your complete book. It's actually the only thing i've found on here so far that i would consider buying.

>>18668748
Did you eat oatmeal for the majority of your breakfasts?

I did a 250 mile bike trip down the Oregon coast and in the group I was in, I was the only person who ate oatmeal for breakfast. Some of the others were more into luxury, and his girlfriend was following the group in her jeep, and would bring the other riders McD's for breakfast.

Holy shit they were gassed out by like 9-10 AM and our days were SO long while waiting for the last 2-3 stragglers at camp.

what of writing unshared?

>>18672919
What?

>>18672437
What if I want to read generationally brilliant works of postmodern fiction?

>>18672967
>generationally brilliant
wat?

>>18672974
As in a talent that comes along once in a generation

>writing a story
>be afraid readers will think the MC is an overpowered mary sue
>put the MC through some setbacks
>reread what I've written
>the whole story is basically nothing but setbacks and bad news with no hope in sight
>it's too depressing to read

>Wrote a story where teleport tech is developed and the first group of settlers suddenly declared themselves the natives of the land because their bodies were created there and not country of origin.
>Country of origin hides everything about that incident through mind feedback tech, while the settlers ruled with dynaties created from the first settlers and exiled their unwanted back into country of origin through teleports.
Long story short, the role model mentor of an upbeat sci fi story turned out to have a side job of having to fight those unwanted in order to keep the secret and be called Executioner by them. And protag eventually got into crossfire between him and a group of exiles who decided to defeat him and teleport back to create a new dynasty.

It's amusing how far characterizaton goes if you think ahead on what makes sense for motivation.

Does anyone have any good resources for improving essay and various types of formal non-fiction writing?

>>18672967
>>18672997
Postmodern fiction died in the 90s mannnnn.

>>18670846
>>What's the best place to look for alpha/beta readers and get legitimately good feedback?
Goodreads has a lot of them. Some of them are paid for it. (https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/50920-beta-reader-group).). Don't go on fiverr, it was my mistake.
>>If I wanted to self-publish my work online serially (with plans to later anthologize and sell traditionally), what's the best site for that?
Amazon. They just came out with Vella.
>>FWIW sword-and-sorcery is a pretty dead genre save for DMR books and Goodman Games, anywhere else to look for that sort of material to build my palette? I already have Kane on my list, what else should I check out?
There's plenty of rpgs that have their own flair on SnS. Try Paleomythic for its lore and worldbuilding, just read the rulebook that has a bunch of stuff. Also check out Kull of Atlantis, which is the true origin of Conan and SnS. Also good luck with it. I love SnS and tried my hand at it once or twice. May Howard's ghost live on his work.

>>18671698
>>18671792
Show vs tell doesn't refer to physical descriptions of things. It refers to character thoughts and emotions

>>18673149
>Don't go on fiverr, it was my mistake.
What was wrong with it?

Why do you write anons?

>>18673687
Why do you need to ask such stupid fucking questions?

>>18673694
Because I'm fucking stupid, why do you need to ask such stupid fucking questions?

>>18673687
What a stupid fucking questions

The narrator of my story is a phrenologist and it's some of the most fun I've ever had while writing. Naturally, he heavily references evolutionary psychology in support of his phrenological observations. It's really refreshing working with complete quack fields since I have precisely no obligation to be actually-correct in literally any way. Whatever my narrator can superficially justify is what my reader is gonna get and it feels fucking delicious.

>>18673717
We don't care

>>18673718
I'm gonna go ahead and give you permission to keep on not caring.

>>18673540
Absolute dog shit feedback like “woah that’s cool” and nothing about what the impression was of the plot or content. It was like I paid them to compliment me lazily.

>As Heffenmütt et al. deduced in their seminal work, Riverine Semiotics and Deleuzean Phrenology...
I hate myself, and anyone who has the misfortune of reading this is going to hate me just as much, if not more.

>>18673791
Sounds interesting honestly

>>18673782
I hope you refunded

>>18673782
woah that’s cool

>>18673135
That sucks.

>>18673830
Don't tell me that. I'm already going way overboard on this shit.

>>18673687
Because I like it

>>18673834
It was five dollars and she was a Desi, so that's probably a lot of money to her. I just decided to tell her I was displeased and that I wont ask for her services again.

>>18673910
Read pic related if you want to get into psychoanalytic poetry.

>>18674049
I'm not, really, but thanks for the recommendation. Gluck is more or less completely unrelated to what I'm working on, but I'd never read her before you recommended her and it's really great stuff.

guys, any tips from someone who keeps journal on how to actually keep/use that journal? I tried couple of times, but usually I'll just kind of sum the day I had and then never go back to read that. I like the experience of writing, but I don't get anything from the journal itself. Do you have some questions you ask yourself on the daily basis? any tips highly appreciated

>>18673036
Drafts are drafts for a reason bro. Michelangelo didn't one-tap David.

>>18673706
*question

The only possible conclusion from this interdisciplinary marriage with respect to the current context is that there is a direct, positive relationship connecting the width between the eyes, as measured from pupil to pupil, with any given organism’s predatory classification, as it were. Although all humans have eyes positioned at the front of the head, if we take the above argument to be natural law, the width of a man’s eyes must also evidence a number of psychological and temperamental characteristics according to this natural law. As Heffenmütt et al. deduced in their seminal work Riverine Semiotics and Deleuzian Phrenology (1955), and backed up by some promising preliminary research on sympathetically asynchronous parallel reverberations endemic to the parabolic trajectories of rockets and erections, it follows that personality traits such as aggressiveness and intensity increase logarithmically as the distance between the eyes decreases.

This is not a useful deduction.

>>18674249
Thefuck are you saying mothefucker! Just cause my eyes are close set i’m supposed to be a certain way? Man i wish i knew who all these fucking little bitches typing on here were… you talk so much when you’re hidden behind the internet but i swear to god you wouldn’t dare say that shit to my face irl. Motherfucker.

>>18674138
This isn't a problem on "just fix it in editing"-level, gonna need a whole new block of marble, new tools, a new brain, and start over to make it work

>>18673718
Actually we do. This is the thread in which we talk about writing and the things related to it, such as choosing perspective and the difficulties of being factually correct or not. Fuck you.

>>18674333
Grade A caricature, genuinely.

>>18674362
why thank you

>>18669587
Gilgamesh and Beowulf do this kind of. I think it'd be fine as long as you have something actually happen at home that's relevant to the plot, or at least tries to emotionally keep him there.

>>18674249
Pretty good. Is the voice supposed to be a contemporary person or is it written from the 50s to somewhere in the recent past?

>>18669587
Sinbad came home after each voyage, so did Gulliver. It's fine.

>>18674598
Thanks my man. Honestly I like to keep time and place pretty vague for the most part. I like the idea of being able to meld together different aspects of American culture to the point where you could reasonably point to a number of times/places in the last hundred or so years. I debated (and am still debating) even the reference to 1955. I'm tossing around the idea of implying the story takes place in '73 as an homage to GR, but I'm still not sure if I hate it or not.

>>18674658
73 is a good year, you can talk about good albums of the time, as well. Good way to frame the story with song lyrics or something. I’d be excited to see more. Also definitely do a Homage to GR

I'm writing a LITRPG. What are some tips on how to write a good power fantasy?

>>18674350
Do you care enough about the story to tell it thoroughly right regardless of how much redrafting it takes? Or do you want to discard it completely?

>>18675011
The hero needs to fuck bitches and brutally deal with unpleasant people.

>>18675011
Pretend like you think everyone is better than you, then write a story where you're better than everyone else around you and they all worship you

How do you guys keep writing after the 10k mark. Every time I pass I loss motivation than start some other story, that I never finish. Its a cycle of endless unfinished work.

>>18675483
begone demotivator

>>18675497
Thank you anon, you made me realize that I am the one writing my fate. Here is some giantess feet for your troubles.

>>18675483
Make me stop writing bitch.

>>18675483
You're obviously not plotfagging.

>>18675483
I get more excited as big number goes up and up and up.

>need romance in my book
>never fell in love before
>have no idea what it's like
>can't draw on personal experience to write what it's like to be in love

Help...

>>18677132
>published, have reviews
>considered a pretty good romance writer who can show emotions of love through descriptions and actions
>able to write beautiful bond between characters, give them souls
>all because you fell in love with an anime girl
feeling good

>>18660136
Scrutinize every word, make sure each one has a purpose. Delete all unnecessary words.

does anybody else write fanfiction as practice? seems like a great way to get feed back and if a sorry is original enough you can just swap out the characters for OCs

>>18677565
No, you gotta create your own world and characters.

>>18677565
Does Naruto forum rps count? I participated in a few of those in like 2007-2008.

>>18677565
I used to write erotica for money

>>18677565
I used to write fanfiction but I couldn't ever get really into it. My cousin loved that shit for some reason, couldn't get enough of it, but for me it was just too stifling. I wanted to make up my own characters and worlds.

>>18677585
Have you seen how OOC some writers go?
>>18677594
idk, was it paragraph and l story legible in POV?
>>18677622
why'd you stop?
>>18677655
Did you stifle you work by staying to close to canon?

what's the best way to depict the speech patterns of an uncivilized person?

>>18677747
It was just not interesting. The characters were already developed; I could write romance crack ships about them at best and power fantasy at worst. I didn't think like this at the time, but in hindsight, it's like using a prebuilt computer. Sure it runs, but it's not really yours, and half the fun is building your own computer from the ground up and tinkering and toying with it as you go. Selecting parts and making mistakes (forgetting SATA cables, heat sinks, a keyboard) is more interesting than plug and go.

Should I use first or third person POV? No, I will not use second person.

>>18677820
I do both in my story. 1st PoV for MCs and limited 3rd for side characters. I have a limit of 1 pov to make it less jarring.

>>18677820
Third person is the only way I can stand writing stories. First person feels like I'm writing an invasive biography with commentary no one cares about, or commentary that is pseudointellectual and 3smart8u

>>18677814
your reply reads as if the real problem was a lack of creativity. do you also find writing challenges with provided prompts uninteresting? I only ask out of curiosity since that is the common response I see. your analogy wasn't a great choice either since the story would be a prebuilt, and the characters would be the parts... that way the software is the words/plots and the reader is the user.

>>18677820
I usually read 3rd omni POV since 1st &2nd feel too much like a cringe chat convo.

Maybe this is a dumb question, but do you ever save ideas which are otherwise ready to be turned into a story? I’m in between projects right now and I have an idea which I think I can turn into a story, a good one but I’m hesitating because…well…I don’t know actually. I guess I feel like I can do it better or something down the road so I don’t want to pluck it out of the idea tree just yet even though I know it’s ripe.

>>18677940
If I have what I think is a really good idea, I'll save it for a magnum opus. I have no desire to blow my load amateurishly.

>>18677898
Writing challenges with provided prompts are sort of fun I guess, if the prompt is interesting. Usually I wouldn't just write a drabble with a prompt since the ones I like I really, really like and end up thinking about a full novel. I understand prompts are supposed to be open-ended for short stories or novels or series capabilities, but they sort of remind me of writing standardized essays in elementary school so I just avoid them if I can. It feels like work.
You're right, the analogy is shit. I was trying to convey that writing with someone else's characters felt impersonal. I didn't have any connection or interest or care for writing a story with those characters. I may LIKE those characters a lot and cherish their value, but writing a story with them feels wrong and inauthentic.
>>18677940
I always keep a crank list of unused character names/traits, short quotes, storylines, and plot outlines on my computer anytime I want to start something new. King says to save nothing and that good ideas will always come back. I agree, but I keep a list anyways.

>>18677940
No, that’s fucking retarded.

My protagonist is going INSANE ahahaha

>>18678303
Fucking same
>author is the protagonist

>>18677971
>wrong and inauthentic
Ah, yeah okay, I get where you're coming from now. It's very similar to the moral struggles of other creatives in that creating a non pure work taints any praise or learning that comes as the result due to the perception of it clinging to the product of another. Ironic and sometimes self defeating, yet also needed to prevent 'egoism'...

What are the best reasons to justify a character going on a journey across the land?

>>18668403
>How long did that take?
Since January 6th. I don't write every day.

>>18677940
You could also have at it, then pause, then go back to it as you gain experience. Suttree took 20 years to write and it came out pretty good. Wagmi!

>>18675051
Well, I think the original idea was worth telling, but the execution is going to need an injection of something entirely new to balance all the despair. But I'm not sure if my brain is capable of that.

>>18678711
best in what way? isn't the best reason going to be relatable on a personal level or a major plot point in a story? A soldier travels for war, a journalist for their career, youth for the adventure, and the aged for reconnection.

>>18677747
>why'd you stop?
Because it's embarrassing if I want to be a serious artist (which I doubt I can be because I'm a bad mix of doomer and coomer). There's better ways to make money.

>>18677940
>do you ever save ideas which are otherwise ready to be turned into a story?
Yeah, that's how my first short story got published. I wrote a war story that wasn't about the theme of the journal, so I edited it slightly, removed all the literary references to Arabian Nights, and it was accepted. It's honestly a better way to work, because the passion will shine through the work, but publishers will want a little something else for their tastes, so you can work around it. Nothing wrong with rehashing an old good draft for something else.

>>18678303
Same kek he's going full schizo after losing his wife

>>18679555
FWIW, I can show you how to make it authentic:
>Trauma causes psychosis through a release of cortisol, brought on by extreme stress
>Brain damage happens throughout psychosis, like white matter depletion
>Schizos usually hear voices that are harsh and criticising, they'll cry and laugh randomly, and also get super angry at nothing
>Have him stay in a room for a long period of time because he thinks people are out to get him; he'll also have to stop eating because we do that when we're out of it
Watch this babe, she has a lot of good videos on psychiatry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkT2zLxo4D0

>>18679524
Being a mix of a doomer and a coomer is in no way detrimental to being an artist.

>>18679673
Based, and dare I even say it, redpilled.