/lit/ - Literature

I don't want to write a novel or fiction. So probably feeling like writing one.

Idea origination. I don’t know if that’s what I should call it but that process that occurs between having a bunch of random interconnected ideas and distilling it into a general narrative.

pacing, assuming an appropriate vocabulary level that is consistent throughout, action scenes.

>>18727360
The realization it will be read by a pathetically low number of people and I'd make no money out of it.

>>18727360
Writing sequentially. Even putting segments together later can get derailed

>>18727403
Where do you get this idea from?

>>18727360
Describing places and settings without sounding too bland.

>>18727360
Actually writing it

>>18727413
This

>>18727360
dialogue, and a simple coherent plot

>>18727360
Dealing with all the dark academia hoes that want my dick for being such a good writer

>>18727360
Unironically the beginning, after a few pages of writing

>>18727360
How do you even start a novel? That first sentence is very nerve-wracking. It goes beyond "just put words on a page, bro". There's too much riding on those first couple of words.

>>18728131
Think of it this way: your novel is going to end up being edited by you plenty of times before the final draft is ready.

What if the opening line is the last element of the story that you write? You already know the ending and the entire story's progression at that point.

Reaching the ending. I've fell and collapsed right next to the finish line of this book and I simply cannot bring myself to finish it. I keep putting it off to play Tarkov CBT simulator instead.

>>18728131
what
>>18728187
said. You can tie yourself in knots worrying about having everything down in final draft format two minutes after you fire up the word processor. It's a given that you're going to go back and fix it. Getting stuff down on the page is what matters. Tens of thousands of words in you'll probably realize the whole first chapter is terrible and rewrite it. That's a good thing. Until you have material to work with you have nothing.

>>18728131
Imagine your first page, and your last page... plotfag an outline over 20-30 chapters and go go go!

>>18727404
If I feel like it's going to slow me down and get me bored I just go

(bit where he fixes the computer)

and keep moving. It's not going anywhere and I know what I need to do. It's a good placeholder to work on when I'm dicking around instead of doing productive work.

>>18727413
This. I fantasize often about writing it, have lots of idea, but when I sit and have to begin writing, my mind just gets blank, and I don't know what to write, and when I do actually write something, it doesn't feel like what I have in mind.

i like writing but i have no fucking idea what to actually write about

>>18728542
Closing the gap between the awesome thing in your head and the words on the page *is* being a writer and it's a skill you develop. The only way to develop it is to write things that are crap until they stop being so crappy. It takes time unless you're a spooky-tier genius but us mere mortals must make do.

>>18728631
What's the culture like in your city?

Here in Vancouver, Canada, and all the suburbs, the entire place is infested with crackheads and bleeding hearts. That's what lead to my 2nd book!

What is interesting or unusual, perhaps disgusting or scary about the neighbourhood you're in? Any local legends? Any super weird kids you grew up knowing? There are a number of really weird murders committed by rich kids in the last 10-15 years locally. There was a crazy story of a body that was dumped in a car where a group of rich friends kidnapped their richest friend and held them hostage for random, and at one point several people were driving the guy around in the trunk of a car, and it got too heaty so they parked it for awhile on a quiet street. Well, apparently, nobody checked up on him for days and the guy died in the trunk, then everyone ratted on each other but they were all from rich families so the court case is like completely gone from the internet and any searches. I remember looking at their profiles on Facebook years ago and you could pinpoint the time on a bunch of their profiles where they all started acting funny, it was fucked!

I seriously wanna write a story about it because if I remember correctly one of the guy's girlfriends killed herself out of shame that she didn't report it or something.

>>18727403
if you're going into it with the express goal of making money then you're a faggot and your writing is probably shit

>>18727360

The recognition that there is zero real value in constructing fictional narratives, and that fictional narratives are not meaningful to the human condition, despite the delusion of the majority of its denizens toward storytelling.

Fictional narratives carry absolutely no use, and ideally would not exist. They do not help. They are unhelpful as thought experiments, and as entertainment (deriving pleasure from a false narrative is itself a false enjoyment, a deluded enjoyment).

>>18728131
I was thinking the same way but just forced myself onward. I am now done and the result is i completely deleted the first scene and started at the second. My ”short introductory flavor text” ended up as an intro to the last chapter. Basically just write and figure things out later. It’s like building a puzzle but you’re making the pieces yourself. Sometimes you surprise yourself and thus you can’t plan for everything. Just write cool stuff that you like.

>>18728396
Thanks anon this is genuinely helpful.

Plot and exposition. I am best when doing internal monologue or free indirect discourse, but actually moving the characters from place to place and getting them to 'do' things is very tedious for me. It is the least fun part, but also essential.

>>18727403
based and honest reply

>>18728838
maybe /pol/ would be more your speed if you're this retarded

Characters, characters, characters.

>>18729167
No, he's right. Maybe in the past there was money in writing but not anymore. Unless you are extremely lucky or willing to sacrifice significantly in artistic expression (see mills and boon etc, though even this is going to be replaced by neural networks pretty soon), you will not make any significant amount of money from writing compared to the effort you put in.

>>18729256
This is my biggest problem at the moment. I have plenty of ideas for setting, plot, thematics etc but developing interesting and compelling characters seems impossible to me

>>18729290
If you have no characters your book will fail before it starts. Even Tolkien, beloved by plotfags, has Frodo and Sam and Merry and Pippin as engaging characters, not to mention the hints we get of the "higher" characters like Gandalf and Aragorn.

>>18729296
Yes, of course. I do have "characters" in that I have vague figures I wish to play out the movements of the story, but they don't yet have any personality or identity. They are just formless blobs without voice.

>>18727360
Getting my left foot out of your mum and my right foot out of your dad.

>>18727360
Editing. Checking the flow and pacing, that the lines sound natural. Making sure if some random sentence in the first 50 pages doesn't contradict something else in the last 50 pages. Writing is fucking easy, analyzing what you've written and making it waterproof is torture.

Is there a structure to writing? Or rules? Or can start and end however I want,?

>>18729353
Why would there be rules. There are suggestions, and things that work well for some people and not others.
Do what works for you.

>>18729389
>There are suggestions
Such as?

>>18727360
Writing a well thought out scene and wondering if the next scene will live up to that standard of quality

>>18727360
knowing that nobody will ever give a fuck and the manuscript will go straight in a landfill when I'm dead just like every other thing I've made

>>18729480
>every other thing I've made
Post them?

>>18729508
I've done that for years. All I'd get right now is pity praise or dogpiling. I don't like the "please tell me I'm pretty" act although this seems to be what everything is about these days.
Whether it's my fault or the world's fault I just resigned that I've failed and the only life prospect I have left is working in an Amazon warehouse or in a factory and using the money to drink myself to sleep every day until I die.

>>18729542
Did you publish them though?

>>18729564
Yes, online.
>they were probably shit
It doesn't matter, I could keep trying forever.
This is the hardest part for me, it's hard to do anything when you already know it's pointless.

>>18729571
You mean like posting them on royalroad or actually publishing them as a ebook?

>>18729575
I know where you're getting, you're going to say
>you were probably doing this one thing wrong, try this
it doesn't matter, the truth is that all these choices are irrelevant, what is relevant is how topical what you're doing is, being able to sell yourself and having a good nose for people.

>>18729406
Sorry anon im not sure I can be of much help there without knowing your specific strengths and weakness.
Some tips that I've found work for me personally are always keeping a notebook with me (or just using my phone) and writing my thoughts down whenever they come to me. Then I tend to take those notes to my laptop later and sort them out a bit, expand or rewrite things.
I also found exercises in the actual process of writing to be very helpful. Usually for me this involves sitting down and writing on whatever comes to my mind on a given topic or idea I want to figure out, without having any intention of ever showing it to anyone but myself. This helps me get into "the zone" of actually writing for extended periods of time, and also helps me put my ideas into actual words instead of just letting them float around in my brain.
There's other stuff I do too but I feel like these have been the most helpful for actually getting writing done. I can't promise they will work for you, that's just what has worked for me.

>>18727360
Realizing that I'm a fraud and what I'm writing is either word for word taken from another work or I've rehashed the generalities of another narrative. Realizing that I'm writing for vain reason, and not to produce something I'd myself like to read.

>>18727360
Ending it.

>>18727360
the length. I feel like for what I'm trying to do (counter psy op) short stories are the best way to convey a certain message

>>18727360
naming the characters

>>18727360
Somewhere around the middle point of the novel. That's where I usually give up and that's where I'm stuck right now.
If you write without a detailed plan like I do, there's gonna be a breaking point where the plot starts to ask for logical conclusions I hadn't thought of and don't seem to find a way to reach.

>>18727360
Overcoming delusions of grandeur and thinking what you wrote is any good.

>>18727360
The opening chapter

>>18727360
Depends. Generally it's the point when you've put all the raw ideas on paper and now you have to start editing, revising and sorting it all out. It's the part of writing a novel where you'll drop a third of what you've written, add a quarter and change so much on per-page basis you want to blow your brains out. Then your editor has bright ideas and you want to blow HER brains out.

>>18727403
just write a potboiler senpai

>>18728770
>>18728631
This. Can't go wrong with noticing your surroundings, even if you live in Nebraska

>>18730673
Time to write guys!

Mapping out all the character arcs and conflicts and making sure everyone scene involves them. If it doesn’t advance the plot and an arc and have conflict it’s a bad scene.

>>18730798
Do you have a good example/map? That last thing you write about advancing the plot/conflict is one thing I'm genuinely bad at. I feel like I'm writing something meandering to just fill up some paragraphs

>>18730813
I’m bad at it, too. It’s a very tough thing to figure out ahead of time, as it would require some VERY deep outlining ahead of time. It’s better to fix it up in the revision process.

I just found new vigor in my stories when i started to notice any omniscient view lurking in my stories and getting rid of it. At first my writing was the old fashioned all-knowing narrator showing his ego. Having his puppets do as he pleases. Advanced method of the same narrator is the ego masquerading as characters: All characters are but puppets with strings attached. Something tries to view itself through the other but storywise, characters like this are like robots, they are all still string-attached to the all-seeing ego above all. Somehow, any characters in a story like this have a death wish or a hidden agenda oozing through their pores. If a story inhabited by them would ever be good, it would still stench of a seremon or a shining portfolio of plot mastery at best.
Then there is this ego-fantasy type of narrator, a first person one most often. Stories somehow get better if they use first person. Even if the work is a seremon it’s better because there is a feel of a person behind it. Somehow first person just makes better narrator better, having more of . . . More.
Even if you love third person write it first in first person, then just edit it into third person. Trying to write first person after writing 3rd person all the time is like trying to ride a bike again. But doing it this way somehow helps keeping rid of the ghost of an omniscient writer and your 3rd person narration will be automatically better because it’s written from within.
Plus it’s a whole new way of structuring a novel, attempting to do it inside of it itself. Old boring outside view in suddenly becomes inside out. It seems that suddenly there opens a possibility for your characters to wield their own strings, if you want to.