/lit/ - Literature

Any more books from these threads other than this?

>>18900524
Soon brother

>>18900524
I could post mine.

>>18900524
You mean in general from other anons or Gardener? I'm writing a space opera that's about 3books worth. It's in webnovel format though but free at least.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/31062/saga-of-the-cosmic-heroes

>>18900715
I created a series of writing prompts for folks who wanted something a bit different than what Burn After Writing and whatnot offer. Has been a lot of fun writing them while working on other projects. This page is from the Hollywood-themed one I just released a couple months back.

>>18900720
Keep at it, anon. Takes a lot of effort to churn out that much content.

>>18900720
Neat. I just meant in general. But I’ll read more by him too.>>18900715 please do

Could anyone give me some opinions on a story I've been working on?

"I have always been at odds with my mother. From the moment of my birth, she has regarded me with a contempt inversely proportionate to the love I had tried so pleadingly to give her in my youth, and upon this suspicion, and on that resentment, and above all else a sinister and garroted enviousness which only on my 13th year emerged fully from the recesses of her own fading youth; indeed, if we are to start with the event of my birth (and, oh yes, here there is much to discuss: for what mother sets as her only child’s entrance unto life a scant and stinking grange whose sagging head and shattered walls did little to keep out the cold, with holes wide enough that whole moonbeams ran through to reveal damp heaps of hay and filth and the somnolent shapes of steaming beasts?) it should be said that the entire affair was merely a pretext for infanticide.

I was introduced into this world a gasping purple parasite, throttled feet-first by a bloodied length of skin hung between her legs, a noose of flesh which my noble deliverer, who had witnessed similar occurrences in foals and sheep-kin, had the good sense to cut loose with a pocketknife. It is to him alone, the farmhand who had, at great expense to himself, so graciously allowed my mother this dark and quiet place to live out her private shame, that I owe my life."

Any comments are appreciated. Negative ones especially so.

https://pastebin.com/gSMSUDzT

Tell me anything that strikes out as bad or good. This chapter foreshadows the deeper meaning of the story so I need it to stick the landing

>>18900949
I get that it's a style thing, but the second sentence is so long that it becomes difficult to follow. My first impression was also that it felt thesaurus-heavy, if that makes sense, but reading it again I think the word choice does do a lot for the character's voice.

>>18900973
The diction seems to fluctuate unnaturally between sentences, with some bits sounding more conversational and others overly elaborate. The narrator seems to have no distinct voice. Also the protagonist seems to be concerned with irrelevant minutae that serve only to slow down the pace of the story to snail's pace.

I skimmed it, though. I'll read it properly in the morning and get back to you. Keep at it!

>>18900990
Got it, and thanks for the feedback! Do you think it'd benefit from having the parenthetical removed? I agree with you the length of the second sentence, though, it's really unwieldy now that I reread it.

>>18900424
Has anyone read story genius? Is it actually worth reading?

>>18901035
Yes, I think that would help... Alternatively, I think you could maybe keep it if you made a new sentence from "indeed" onwards.

>>18901013
I'll definitely work on the narrator giving more of her input. Thank you for the feedback so far, I would love to hear your future feedback on it

I overuse em-dashes, but I refuse to stop.

>>18900524
No one on /wg/ writes anymore. Don’t know why you bother asking.

>proofread last night's writing
>have no idea wtf I was trying to say

>>18901246
Can you at least read the fucking thread before you start your tired doomposting?

>>18901246
Hey, I'm writing. Or at the very least, I daydream of writing. That's as far as anyone here is going to get around here.

>>18901376
speak for yourself, I guess

>>18901385
Pretty sure, I speak for everyone here. You don't have to be so defensive, anon.

What's with the obsession with first person in these threads? I try to read what people post and it's always first person. Fuck yourself.

>>18901439
>What's with the obsession with first person in these threads?
First person allows anons to write just enough to give the other anons the illusion that they’re writing.

>t.wrote excerpts in first person and never continued past them after getting advice.

>>18900524
I'm putting mine up on rr too.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/40361/erased

At like 140k published, drafting the last part of the story at 245k drafted right now. Chronologically in my story I have 12 days to go until Halloween night, so maybe another 12 or so chapters to draft setting up the ending. Probably going to send my MC to jail for 3 of those days and that'll condense 3 days/chapters into 1. Then the finale at Halloween, so like 2-3 chapters there. And then a final chapter. So like another 50k words left to draft. And then the sequel I was thinking with a different MC but that's purely spitballing.

>>18900720
JK your stupid POObah comment keeps getting funnier every time I click over and see it in my timeline. Did you make all those dinosaurs yourself?

>>18901479
the red dragon emotes? nah, the RR site owner commissioned them

>>18901512
wait really? dang I've got to poke around more on the site then. them being red dragons is less funny than dinosaurs imo. I'll just keep thinking of them as dinos.

>>18900949
It sounds good anon. It does sound like the other anon said, a bit pretentious but if you can keep this pace the whole work, I'm sure it can be done well. Reminds me of Clive Barker's writing. Erudite, precise. The Forbidden is one of my favorite stories.

>>18901376
>>18901408
Sounds about right. Didn’t expect much to begin with.

Pic related is page one of something I'm working on, any feedback welcome

>>18900949
As other anon said I'm having trouble parsing most of the first paragraph just because it's so long and convoluted. That's part of the style of course and you shouldn't completely chop it up but there are several places where I lose track of what the independent clause is and whether or not I'm in a dependent section. I think reading it out loud or having a text-to-speech program read it to you will probably help. Some of your adjectives are very nice (scant and stinking grange) but others have a somewhat mysterious relationship to their noun (garroted enviousness). Finally I think it risks getting into overly purple territory when you describe what sounds like a pretty typical childbirth in such dramatic terms, "I was introduced a gasping parasite, tied by an umbilical cord," etc, this is more or less how everyone comes into the world so making too much of it can be a bit of a groaner. The detail about the delivery farmhand relating the birth to field animals and using a pocketknife is nice, and more unique, but it threw me off at first because you had called him noble, which I thought may have signified his actual station. I think it would be less confusing to let us infer his noble character from the sentence that follows.

>>18900973
There's a lot of rough grammar which comes off less as a stylistic choice and more as unrefined. Definitely recommend reading it out loud quite a bit and making sure the punctuation in the sentence matches how you want it to flow. Cut down at least 25% of the word count, get rid of constructions like "which I would imagine" and "of course" that don't get a point across. Also try to stick to direct experience rather than abstract. It's good to see the teacher playing with his ring, but then you take a few sentences after that talking about how he always plays with his ring, he does it all the time, why do I care that he does it, and so on, which is all TELLING instead of SHOWING. Get that information across more quickly if you must, and better yet, convey it in a way that we can see its effects instead of being told about it in the abstract.

>>18900720
Impressive effort over time anon.

>>18901593
Speech marks please. If you don't do it, your editor will. Other than that, I liked what I read. It feels like a slow-paced story, not that that's a bad thing.

>>18901646
B-but McCarthy

>>18901680
>McCarthy
Literally who?

>>18901680
But the Bible, anon.

>>18901685
You know, the senator who hunted commies

Son of the Sun - Chapter 18
https://pastebin.com/ysQxeREz

Anybody here worry too much about small details in their stories?

How much about your characters and setting do you think you usually need to know about before writing?

>>18901707
>Anybody here worry too much about small details in their stories?
no
>How much about your characters and setting do you think you usually need to know about before writing?
How about you write instead of making excuses?

>>18901711
I love you, also just curious. Doesn't hurt to ask.

>>18901707
I have to know the setting pretty well before writing or else I get sidetracked too much looking things up. But it might be different if you're writing fantasy of some kind because then you could kind of discover things as you need them. As for characters I've never had any luck planning them out very extensively, I need to find out about them in the same way the audience does, by progressively uncovering things. I usually just have a basic idea of their backstory and the role or arc I want them to have.

>>18901716
Fuck off fag, just write instead of worrying about little bullshit, better yet, just admit to yourself that you don't want to write.

>>18901734
This is why I love you. You are a wonderful motivator. I'm not sure how many people thank you, but thank you for the aggressive encouragement.

>>18901758
Seek help

>>18901758
based and peacepilled psychopath enabler

Visual novels are basically just theatre scripts, right?

>>18901936
No. Not even close.

First time trying poetry. Based or cringe? Any other advice?

like spring lambs our children dance naked in the green field
The sunlight plays upon their ruddy ivory flesh
the descendants of ancient heroes who did the same
There we drink wine and rejoice
we are happy and our hearts are full of joy
We thank God for his blessings
on galleys and ships we trade with other nations
selling woven cloth so bright and beautiful
stones and gems of colours unknown
if we are but dust, we were taken from holy land

>>18900524
Mine is up and ongoing on RR and SH but because its a mystery LN not many people are interested at all

>>18901936
Yes.
>t. wrote several visual novels

predict the genre of my book /lit/

>>18902473
Well, since you’re attention whoring. I can only assume mystery.

>>18902358
I like it. I think the trireme image helped, but something about it being historical poetry made it better than your regular word arranging competition poetry usually is.

>>18901439
The Anon that made this post looked on with uncertainty, what was this Glaring Frog Anon on about? This Anon never did something as ugly and disgusting as... God as His witness, First-Person.

>>18902473
LGBTQA+ fiction?

>>18901936
Yes

>>18901439
2nd person is the only worthless one, you knew this instinctively. What value could there possibly be in writing like that? You chuckle a little.
But your mirth is short lived. The hemorrhoids are acting up again, you can feel the familiar sting in your anus. Defecating will hurt you tonight.

>>18902473
is it porn?

is there anywhere apart from royal road to write serially? I don't think my realist stories fit what amounts to a fanfiction forum

I saw an interview with a well-known author recently that suggested writing is a lot like copying when you first start out.

When you were first starting out, did you find it helpful to have 1-3 admired authors that you tried to emulate? If so, how did you select them?

>>18903084
No second person at least has some value in choose your own adventure type scenarios. First person is wholley useless.

>>18902496
>>18902999
>>18903157
it's about ranch hands in wyoming questioning the existence of god after fighting over the burial of a dead bird

>>18903444
So it isn’t a waste to copy the structure of count of Monte cristo for my historical adventure novel?

>>18903616
What kind of bird was it?

>>18903617
No.
https://youtu.be/k7NEI7ELFv4

>>18903625
It's a blue jay, which is relatively rare

>>18903642
The bluebird of happiness?

>>18903648
No. It has to be a jay

Anyone ever managed to let influence from other mediums (i.e. film, theater, comics, whatever) come through their writing? Is that even possible or are they too fundamentally different?

>>18903658
I see. Carry on.

>>18903496
Depends. Third person is easier. The writer can just expand straight on his plot overview/scene list but the narrator is always there, tinkering above the story, hinting towards himself depending on the narrative distance. Third person narrator can report characters’ deepest thoughts but it’s always in the narrator’s voice, not in the characters voice. The scent of an author permeates. Sometimes the authors’s voice gets egoic and voice grows coy and ornamental. This gives nothing to the story itself. It lifts the third person narrator on to a pedestal and all the energy that could have been given into the story and its characters are funneled in to characterization of the narrator who never really was in the story to begin with.

First person narrator is automatically in the story. He can describe things happening next to him in third person voice and the energy of the words go to the narrator, i.e. the character. Even coy and ornamental voice does not go to waste (if the narrator-character is meant by the writer to be seen as coy and ornamental) because it goes back in to the story. First person narrator can even use third person voice past tense to describe something that happened just now, then even switch to present tense, addressing now a narratee in second person and the reader has a happy place of a silent eavesdropper. It gets more personal and more involvement is magically rendered. I’d prefer it all this way but the plotting in the third person way does not work that easily anymore. I was unhappy about my third person stories and decided to do first person. What was MC walking from A to B is now a battle to figure out why he is choosing to tell his walk from A to B to begin with. Trying to write in first person forces me to think characterization in a ways that third person writing does not. Characters don’t have now any strings attached to them. Author has no command over them in the old good follow-the-plot way. I think true first person (1) gives more tricks, more possibilities and control over voices and is overall better but it’s a whole new hard world. Characterization grows 1000% more demanding or maybe i’m overthinking this IDK. But i’m learning as i go.

(1) One can write his story in third person and transpose it to mimick first person but i consider that a fake first person story, not a true first person story truly written from first point of view.

>>18903843
>Third person narrator can report characters’ deepest thoughts but it’s always in the narrator’s voice, not in the characters voice. The scent of an author permeates. Sometimes the authors’s voice gets egoic and voice grows coy and ornamental. This gives nothing to the story itself. It lifts the third person narrator on to a pedestal and all the energy that could have been given into the story and its characters are funneled in to characterization of the narrator who never really was in the story to begin with.
unless you're writing an omniscient narrator literally none of this is true. third person can be just as personal and just as intimate with the character's as first person.

I need help typesetting, are there apps for this?

>“It’s going under! Grab hold!” the captain shouted, and I saw the dragon’s shoulders crest up from the chop. A dozen weapons stood from its back like bleeding thorns on a porcupine. Then it slammed downward. Its tail slashed out of the water like a bullwhip before snaking down into the abyss. The roped barrels jerked down, vanishing into the water like caught bobbers for a fishing rod.

Is this too simile heavy? I tend to get people disliking the use of metaphore to describe something

Context is they're whaling, except instead of a whale it's a dragon

>>18904417
I would be more specific with describing the the weapons (are they spears, sword? is there a wide variety of them? are there distinctive items embedded there?) and probably swap the at least one of the similes for a straight metaphor i.e. "The roped barrels jerked down, vanishing into the water, bobbers yanked towards the depths by an unfathomable catch."

>>18904485
That paragraph is mid chapter, it was alreadhy explained that they're shitty harpoons with wooden shafts and pig iron barbs. Horrible weapons held by madmen to fight a dragon for the spoils of its fat and leather.

I'll probably take that final sentence though, as the bobber line was sticking out to me.

What do you think of the first chapter of my short story/ novella? I'm going for a realist style on death and tradition in Ireland. https://rentry.co/kk7pk/

>>18904895
>‘Thick and warm.
Stopped reading

>>18904901
It's okay anon, it's not your fault you have a double digit IQ and struggle to read.

>>18900524
>>18900424
Should /wg/ be renamed to RR general? I feel like that's mostly who this caters to, look at old threads, that's what most of the discussion is about.
Whenever I post writing it's either ignored or gets some unhelpful, dismissive criticism. Is there a better place I can give and receive feedback on writing?

>>18905045
It used to be decent about 2/3 months ago or so. It's always been full of fags just shitposting and being cunts but there is hardly anything even posted for critique anymore either.

How do i word process

>>18905045
Use " instead of ' for quotation marks, there are points later where you use astrophhes for thinking and it might be jarring. Peter nodded his head -> can simply just be 'Peter gave a nod, or "peter nodded."

Could do with spaces between paragraphs next time so it doesn't make me feel claustrophobic reading it. Maybe it's the way you wrote it, but the past-tense usage makes me a bit uncomfortable.

>>18905045
If you're posting writing by itself and don't ask for critique I'm going to pretty much gloss over it. This isn't /crit/, you can't just dump a poem or some random excerpt and come back to people criticizing it unless you specifically ask for some, and even then I'll probably gloss over it anyway. Anyway, just post saying you want some feedback. There's nowhere else unless you go offline or discords. Reddit if you're generous. Writing forums if you can find them.

is this poem stupid? never tried writing one since like middle school or whenever the last time i was forced to. pls rip it to shreds

2015 is my current word count, still going strong, lads.

>>18900424
>Story Genius
It amazes me that even after removing the animefag you retards still recommend this complete piece of shit, and for prose no less.

>>18905442
Elaborate please

Son of the Sun - Chapter 19
https://pastebin.com/JnLCbFq3

>>18900524
I should have a scifi book published a year from now or sooner, will be my first so its gonna suck but perhaps may put an ad here as some anons expressed interest. Themes on history, transhumanism, justification, pessimism and hope.

>>18901707
Not really, I trust I can nail the details on ideas and scenes and literary devices.
Crafting line by line prose is more worrisome, I feel like I might have missed something and annoy someone.

>>18905110
>It used to be decent about 2/3 months ago or so
The time when we had anime OP in the pic. How this General fell from grace is truly saddening

as soon as i write down my idea i feel zapped of creativity and unable to build on it like i could in my head. anyone else suffer from this? novice writer problem or..?

>>18906580
>novice writer problem
basically. ideas are a dime a dozen.

>>18906580
You need to learn how to synthesize ideas more and then you will inundate yourself with them. Just ask simple questions about what you want to say or what you want to happen and list ways you could say it. Sometimes I think of it as what is the way I must depict it as for the most dramatic effect that I like. Feel free to write stuff that is stupid, you can figure out if it has substance later.
Sometimes it takes layers of ideas to make something compelling, so think of the main plot, and then the characters you need, and then character relationships and subplots and how they tied into the main plot, then charts for themes, literary devices, foreshadowing, etc. You will have so much to write about you will be worried if you can fit it all in a book.

I've had enough of the fucking rabbithole calling at me. I'm trying to study law and fuck Wonderland tries to seduce and kidnap me. I want to write a whole novel about invading, destroying, raping, conquering and annihilating Wonderland with modern superweapons. Fuck fiction. Get out of my head Alice.

It's been two days since I self-published my 7000 worded ebook on Amazon. Only edited it twice and a half and slapped on a shitty cover made in paint.
So far Its got 30 pages read today from KU, which is more than I expected. Going to wait until September 1st to check the reports and any reviews.

>>18906743
From a Chemistry article in 2002 on Chirality:
>In the book Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll, Alice (of Alice-in-Wonderland fame) walks through a mirror into a mirror-image world. Assuming that she is not changed by this transition, her enzymes are still only capable of processing molecules of the handedness of her native world. In short, she has a problem that will severely curtail the duration of her stay because her body cannot make use of most of the calorie-containing molecules that would exist naturally in the mirror-image world. So the question is, what can Alice eat in the mirror-image world that provides nutritional value to her?

>>18906794
I'm not going to answer that question. I want the septinity of the Dirlewanger, Beria, Hitler, Genghis Khan, Henry Kissinger, Lenin and Stalin (Koba) to answer it. They should take turns raping daughter Alice. She's caused me so much fucking misery. If I kill and rape Alice, it's not like it's meaingfully illegal considering it's just Wonderland and the Looking Glass.

>>18900424
>can't write characters for shit
Help me.

>>18907042
Specify your problem.


But generally

> ostendo primo conditionem hominum extra societatem civilem, quam conditionem appellare liceat statum naturæ, aliam non esse quam bellum omnium contra omnes; atque in eo bello jus esse omnibus in omnia.[8] I demonstrate, in the first place, that the state of men without civil society (which state we may properly call the state of nature) is nothing else but a mere war of all against all; and in that war all men have equal right unto all things.[9]

>The history of all hitherto existing society(2) is the history of class struggles.

>Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master(3) and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

All relevant fictional characters are politically interested for themselves. Anything that anyone does is for a political objective. Even hugging, kissing, sex and romance are done with ulterior motives. There is no escape. That caring virginal mother wants you as an heir, your wife and girlfriend wants your goods and possessions and quite possibly to push her own ideology and the daughter wants to be your heir. People definitely are civilized, but it's all for another objective.

>>18900424
I asked the green critter
what must I for Salvation
sake, to justify life's long heartbreak?
He answered thusly:
Poo Poo, Pee Pee.

A cool raindrop slid down
his soft, moss skin and I grasped
his collar and tore him close.
And he whispered again:
Poo Poo, Pee Pee.

I swelled and twisted and leaked
and I shivered, having lost my way,
and he said, knowingly:
"Pity you should have to come to this log, not known it true,
to not search of
and not speak to,
for the truth of the Frog."

An old man watched from a gate,
his beard long and his coat grey,
jotted down quickly in a book and walked quicker away. Followed him, I, up the road once tread, and found myself arrived at a a cave of a shed.

It was foolish of me to tread onto the bog,
a slick path becomes slicker onwards.
Spent there, I, the night in that shed, on
damp, red quilt and two wooden chairs.
I too jotted a note, to mark those words
of that Frog, to never step foot again
down the path of that bog.

>>18900424
I asked the green critter
what must I for Salvation
sake, to justify life's long heartbreak?
He answered thusly:
Poo Poo, Pee Pee.

A cool raindrop slid down
his soft, moss skin and I grasped
his black collar and tore him close.
And he whispered again:
Poo Poo, Pee Pee.

I swelled and twisted and leaked
and I shivered, having lost my way,
and he said, knowingly:
"Pity you should have,
to come to this log,
not known it true,
to seek not the truth of the Frog."

An old man watched from a gate,
his beard long and his coat grey,
jotted down quickly in a book and walked quicker away. Followed him, I, up the road once tread, and found myself arrived at a a battered, brown shed.

It was foolish of me to tread onto the bog,
a slick path becomes slicker onwards.
Spent there, I, the night in that shed, on a damp, red quilt and two wooden chairs.
I too jotted a note, to mark those words of that Frog, to never step foot again down the path of the bog.

>>18907042
What precisely do you feel like your characters are lacking?
Description: best woven into the narrative and given in relative terms. So, for instance, you might have your character note that he always stands out in a crowd while walking in a crowded place, instead of starting the story by saying he's six feet and five inches tall.
Backstory: Not as necessary as you might think. We're more or less willing to accept that people are different from each other and don't really need to know why.
Goal/Motivation: This is more of a story issue, but basically your character's problems should be something they can't walk away from. Internal motivation is probably the weakest and works best in YA because kids haven't figured out that most things don't matter so losing the basketball tournament or whatever isn't a big deal.
Growth/Development: Stress causes people to become more resilient, but too much will break them. A baby cries and gets fed, a two year old gets ignored, and an eight year old gets punished. But slapping a baby won't make them stop. This is the purpose behind the "stumbling block" part of the hero's journey, generally speaking it's when the hero learns that their traditional methods of dealing with problems won't work anymore and they become driven to grow as a person.

I've noticed heroes tend to be reactive more than proactive and they tend to grow, whereas villains are typically fully developed and highly proactive. Which makes sense because someone who goes around looking for "adventure" is bound to be kind of an ass, and the villain needs to be imposing when they first meet, which wouldn't work if he was just a beginner. When you mess with this formula, you get what an idiot would describe as a "complex villain with a redemption arc" or "a boring hero who doesn't have to earn anything" because they don't understand the differences between "hero and villain" and "protagonist and antagonist"

>>18905110
>there is hardly anything even posted for critique anymore either.
I can post my latest passage, but I'm still working on it; and I hardly think it's worth anyone's time to critique. However, if you're that desperate for bad prose, and worse grammar, here you go:

https://pastebin.com/VSdBtvnW

Be gentle, bitte

How many words is /wg/ willing to read through to provide crit?

>>18908049
All.

>>18907952
You have obvious talent and command of the language. The prose is borderline purple but it's clearly an intentional stylistic decision.

That being said it was a real chore to read the first paragraph. Couldn't bring myself to read past that. I'm not sure what would compel a person to write in this style, except having recently read a lot of Dostoyesky (however that's spelled) and thinking it would be fun to imitate. Final verdict: well done but boring.

>>18908049
It doesn't matter how long it is, I'll stop reading at the exact moment I get bored and explain to you why, as I did in >>18908067
I've never seen an excerpt where I felt compelled to keep reading all the way to the end, but if I judged more polished commercial fiction as harshly as I do with excerpts here I'd probably never finish a book.

>>18908049
Zero

>>18908049
People write here?

>>18907471
10/10
I like the bit with the frog

Don't mind me just brainstorming...

Let's imagine I want to make fiction writing my full time job. Let's say its a one in a million chance. Well, even if it is a one in a million chance, for it to become a reality you need to first at least think about how you would make it a reality. Right?

There is a popular author where I'm from who one day decided he wanted to make writing a full time job. So he treated it like a full time job and committed himself to writing for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. He always had multiple projects going at the same time - some adult literary fiction, some children's book, some non-fiction. If he was facing writers block on one project, he would switch to another so that he was always constantly writing. He did this in the 80s and the publishing landscape has changed, so it is even more difficult to pull this off now, but it can't be literally impossible. I wonder if I could ever have in me to have such a work ethic? You need to be able to not have to work a regular job, for starters. You have to have enough money to write for at least a couple of months without working. It's a big risk. But it is something to think about.

>>18908049
It could be 200ks long and I'll read it if it's something I want to read/catches my interest and if your chapters aren't monstrous over 8k words long consecutively. It might take me a while to get into it, and I might not even provide crit other than really basic stuff though.

>>18908049
Depends if I can make it past the first paragraph.

>>18908151
Didn't read your blogpost, either write or don't, but stop making excuses.

>>18908156
No

On your first draft, is it normal for you to start putting a lot more words into each successive chapter? I have the outline planned out, but I'm surprising myself with each chapter being about 1,000 words longer than the last.

>>18908067
I appreciate the critique, and yeah, the first couple descriptor paragraphs are a bit of slog. I can try and alleviate that, but I'm afraid of losing the awkward stiffness I'm trying to cultivate in the scene--an aristocratic widower trying to censure his daughter.

Excellent style callout, by the way; I do have a boner for Dostoy

>>18908204
Yes, chapter length should increase exponentially.

The tossed trash taps and bounces,
along the rim of the bin

For a moment it teases,
but doesn't fall in

In his tumble to the floor,
his fall of audacity

My vex subsides,
and i see it's me.

>>18908204
Yes, Joyce would keep notebooks full of obscure words and plagiarized phrases that he'd collected for inflating his mechanical tripe with stolen seasoning to give the appearance of a Mediterranean fish dish or a flavoursome English curry

And just think, the more you expand, the more likely in prospecting you'll sift out gold

>>18908223
third grade poem.

>>18901707
>Anybody here worry too much about small details in their stories?
Every time I go to write something, I get too caught up in the world and lore to give a fuck about the characters, and I either abandon it or fruitlessly attempt to trim the fat.
>How much about your characters and setting do you think you usually need to know about before writing?
Pretty much everything. If I know fully about the world, I can evaluate my characters' places within in and how they would operate it. Kinda works against you though, because if you're too interested in characterizing the world, the storytelling itself suffers. I think I'm just retarded though.

I don't know how anyone writes poetry unironically anymore. It always feels artificial and cringe now. The only poets I can read without feeling secondhand embarrassment are Yeats and earlier. I don't know why. Maybe it's just me. It literally prevents me from writing it though, because it feels like writing poetry today is disingenuous.

>>18908223
Is this supposed to imply that you're trash for missing your shot, or that you shouldn't blame the trash that missed because you were the one who threw it?

If you're feeling unfulfilled by your current project, do you drop it immediately and work on others until you feel like it's "the one" or do you keep working on it in case you feel better about it later?

>>18908320
Just write

I have no idea how to make my main character easy to root for and empathize with when he is pretty much a lame sperg with fringe beliefs. (albeit good looking)
Like how do I explain why he's a good person without just saying it? How do you make someone most people would dislike in real life into a likable protagonist??

>>18908328
Just write

>>18907091
I don't agree that people only do things for themselves.

>>18908320
I have my "serious projects", and I have some other stuff I do for fun like writing requests for people on 4chan, or a story where I literally write the first plot even that pops into my head.
It's not the same motivation but the same idea applies. Burn-out's a real thing, and while you should take steps to avoid it, don't back out on what you've started. Starting too many other ideas will just make a mess of things. Instead, try a different "style" of writing and see how things progress from there.

>>18908328
You mostly show it through his actions; if he's truly a good person, then his actions will reflect that. You also need to show he has a depth of emotion. I mean raw emotion. People don't connect with a character who lacks humanity. That character will just remain a series of stagnant words on a page, rather than a living, breathing person deserving of the readers love and admiration.

>>18908328
Give him a sick motorbike.

>>18908328
Kill his dog

>>18908328
Show that other people like him.
Make them relatable and/or underdog
Play the empathy card and make people understand why he acts the way he does. (hard to do without coming across whiny)

>How do you make someone most people would dislike in real life into a likable protagonist?

You don't. The average person wants to read something they are invested in and most people are interested in likable characters. Take a few pieces of media and analyze the main characters traits and motivations.

>>18908223
Fart
Fart

Fart
Fart

Fart
Fart

>>18907952
Telling that the girl at the door is boring, THEN proceeding to describe her in detail kinda killed the momentum.

>>18907952
It’s generally well written and the crit from the other anons is valid - don’t say she’s boring, then that she’s got something special behind her eyes. My objection was to the name. I googled it and it turned out to exist but google automatically includwd antonovich in the results. I’d suggest changing it to Antonovich. As a slav, antonich sounds like a mutt making up a name.
Well written, but i had to skip some of the descriptions to get to the point of the scene, which was actually well written and executed. Trim down the descriptions a bit or sprinkle them out in between the text that moves the story along. For instance, the suit part can be mentioned after the conversation has started, the description being triggered by either him taking his coat or unbuttoning his tie or whatever. You get my point. Parcel it out.

>>18905442
Mate, I just copy-paste prior OP's so I can have a /wg/ to browse.

>>18908152
>aren't monstrous over 8k words long consecutively
*Laughs nervously*

Is it a good idea to set deadlines for myself, or I should just write whenever I feel like it?

>>18909458
You need to make it a routine. You won't need deadlines if you make a habit out of writing every day.

Revising chapter 9 to prepare for posting to royal road on Thursday. It’s practically a new draft, though. I feel like I should be angrier about basically writing this book a THIRD time.

>>18905110
You want something to critique?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1boDCN2NwbSLj-2BNqHSb0Vi5Gw9kWKTb462P2PU-o00/edit?usp=sharing

chapter one of my sci-fi horror piece

>>18909458
It definitely can be. A lot of authors would have written barely anything if they didn't have a deadline to meet

>>18908328
You dont have to do all but make the character
>vulnerable in some way
>get hurt
>make you laugh
>be self-aware
>have admirable traits
>communicate with and have characters that like him
>competent at something
>nice, even just rarely
>proactive

>only had one short story published in a journal
>it’s really cut up because the editor mauled it
>still better than all my published poetry
I want to get back into short stories but I don’t really know how to do it. Should I just read more of Ficciones and shorts by big names? I like the idea of literary innovation but that only happens after being really well-versed in a form

>>18908303
Yeah I get how you feel

>>18909465
>>18909786
I tried to approach it as a 9-5 job, but I can't really sit down for 8 hours straight anymore, even 4 is too much, but it seems like I'm more efficient with short bursts.
Idk if that is a bad or good thing. Should I "force" myself to write continuously? Or remain in these 2-hour peak times, do something else, then repeat?

>>18910552
Depends on the quality of what you produce. There's no point in sitting at your computer and doing nothing worthwhile.

>>18910552
>Should I "force" myself to write continuously?
Yes. That is literally what you're supposed to do or you'll never finish anything. Not every second of the writing process is going to be fun and full of inspiration, there are inevitably parts you're going to slog through.

>>18910656
The slog is the weirdest thing. Sometimes it's as little as making one paragraph to connect two pieces and you just don't want to because it's not a fun paragraph.

>>18909782
Not bad at all.
>cola
These always poke at my suspension on belief

>gravity shifted in his stomach as it started accelerating around the ring
Poor hero’ stomach.

>Marcus had to wait in front of a series of security gates, the kind that pulled double duty controlling the people that could pass as well as the air that could pass.
Why don’t they call them airlocks?

>appraise me on the situation
Hook me up on the situation instead, maybe.

>the ship’s AI was affecting a female personality.
Did you mean assuming?

>>18910670
Isn't cola a flavor? Coke-cola is just the biggest name brand of cola flavored soda, no?

Gravity shifting might not be a worthwhile description to simply demonstrate to the reader that I understand how dynamics and coriolis effects work. I'd like it if I can quickly prove to the reader that I know my stuff and get them to turn off that part of their brain.

I suppose it's fair to call it an airlock, would speed that paragraph up a good deal. Maybe I can think of something more interesting for it.

Get me up to speed of the situation? I don't like the slanginess of "hook me up on"

affecting implies that the AI isn't actually female, merely acting that way, no?

>>18910708
unrelated anon here, but "affecting" doesn't quite mean that. "Assuming" in this case would be the better option.

>>18910552
Writing is a creative endeavor and you need time to "fill the well." Don't take too long away, but it's healthy to take breaks and also read, have discussions with others and live. You need those experiences and insight life gives you. There's also no substitute for sitting down and writing, outlining, analyzing and editing your work.

>>18910560
>>18910656
>>18910789
There are two things so far which I want to improve, the first one is this process whereas there is like a good hour or two where I literally have zero ideas, and struggle to write, then another couple of hours where everything just flows and the stuff comes naturally.
The second one is proofreading my whole stuff before posting it. Is there a way to speed up this process or its a bit the bullet type of thing? I noticed this consumes a lot of time where I reread it and change sentences, use other words, prune them down to be more readable etc. It feels like I should have been continuing my story instead of revisiting the parts I already made.

>>18910741
Fair enough, guess I'll swap that

>>18910841
It's been two months of staring down my novel not doing anything. You can always edit later ..

>>18910841
>Is there a way to speed up this process or its a bit the bullet type of thing?
No. There are no shortcuts to doing this work properly.
> It feels like I should have been continuing my story instead of revisiting the parts I already made.
You can always rush through a shitty first draft but then you'll be stuck doing all that editing in one go like I am, and it's hell. Don't do it like this, you'll want to die.

>>18910708
It’s a sci-fi, so tipping a hat towards our ordinary world does not cater for achieving willing suspension of belief. In a sci-fi, it’s an anachronism. They don’t serve cola or on Star Trek, either. even Zargolian cola would be better if you insist on having colas. Now, back to the stomach part:
>gravity shifted in his stomach as it started accelerating around the ring
I cannot read this any other way: it, i.e. the hero’s stomach starts to accelerate around the ring. The sentence did not make me wonder about physics, it made me chuckle.

>>18910959
Damn, that's hard. I'm just newfag to writing, what I picked up in late June.

>>18910962
So it's better to for example do a proofreading every 1k word or something like that?

>>18910977
You'll be fine read and write what you want.

>>18910974
Anon, did you miss the part about the cola being old is literally why it's brought up?
>That at least hadn’t changed in the last thousand years.

It's to contrast against the bizarre, new age burger he can't figure out. It's not something that will come up with every meal.

Do you think they shouldn't drink whiskey either?

>>18910977
>every 1k word
That's a little excessive. Just work on complete chapters.

>>18910841
Refer to >>18906724
You may not be so good writing on the seat of your pants, but a lot of this comes down to making more digestable questions in your writing process.
>where must this scene take me?
>who must be here?
>what does this character want?
>how does the character feel or react?
>is this action consistent with what to expect, why or why not?
>what happens physically and emotionally?
>is the goal accomplished and what happens as a consequence attempting to achieve it?
> what themes can I investigate here, is it a good time to?
Not exhaustive or necessary questions necessarily, just giving examples that as you answer questions you will be more confident about what you want to see or at least know how you can backtrack and alter it.

Why don't you people do something more valuable with your time like mountain climbing or playing football or having sex writing is kind of lame and nobody reads your shit anyway.

>>18911166
Not allowed outside my house because my country is run by gay nazis

>>18911166
There comes a point where a story burns in your head that you cant help yourself but write. I started mainly because of that not because I wanted to be a writer since I have a nice career already.
Someone once said writers are like rats, if they dont use their fingers to write stories daily, their fangs will grow into their brain and kill them.

>>18911014
What, they have whiskey in Star Trek? No shame in having good ol’ cola then.

>>18908151
Consider spending a few years striving to become self-employed. Create an environment for yourself with more freedom and time.

>>18901593
I like this anon, but perhaps you've read Blood Meridian too recently. Maybe lay it off a bit so you can write this story more in your own style

let me know what you think especially in regards to prose. ghostbin because pastebin's offensive filter is a fucking joke.

it's only 524 words.

https://ghostbin.com/paste/iUbsQ

will post my crits later today.

>>18911186
>gay nazis
https://youtu.be/gVkxd7kowkc

>>18910999
ok, I'll just write.
>>18911016
Thank you. I'll try to do so, but my main works are short stories.
>>18911086
So asking these questions would be a good idea. I don't really work with drafts, but rather I have one big idea, then just let the thing flow. Then I go for like a day or two where I only proofread and backtrack on that work. This is what I wanted o trim down to be less time-consuming.

I also forgot to ask: Is it a good idea to do multiple projects simultaneously, switching between them, or I should just go balls deep with the current one and finish it, then go for the next? I often noticed that I got ideas for my unfinished work(s), whereas I'm writing a completely different one, and that just doesn't click and I can't use those ideas on the current stuff.

>>18911262
Is Kiara a schizo or what?

And Chapter 9 revised. When you feel like you doing is when you at yo worse.

How realistic is it to want to make a living off writing? I've never published anything, I more or less just write as a hobby, with plans on eventually submitting my short stories to magazines or anthologies or something.

>>18911605
Extremely unfeasible unless you want to swallow your pride and want to start a patreon: and write either an isekai litrpg, a wuxia with a funny premise (Beware of Chicken), or something like the Wandering Inn, and are completely confident of pumping out tens of thousands of words on a weekly basis for just about indefinitely until you drop dead or your patreons start petering off.

>>18911605
>How realistic is it to want to make a living off writing?
not very. its definitely possible, but possibility and likelyhood are very different things

what do you think of this map? does it look like the continents were once together?

>>18911663
Indifferent about it. Probably.

>>18911663
I see a guy running from a giant crab while eagles laugh at him

>>18911779
okay shizo.

>>18911779
Cannot unsee

>>18911166
I got six kudos for my work on AO3.
Get dabbed on lmao.

>>18911166
Idk mountain climbing costs a fuckton and risks your life but doesn't really give you anything
>inb4 muh adrenaline

>>18908151
>Let's imagine I want to make fiction writing my full time job. Let's say its a one in a million chance.
I think the chances are not this bad. It really depends what you write and are you a total moron or not. Most writers have terrible ideas, write terrible characters, have terrible themes, just everything terrible. There's more money in commercial writing (horror, crime novels, the popular stuff) so writing poetry will never land you profit.

If you write a monetary genre, your ideas are not ass, and your writing is at least decent then the chances are much better. You are ahead of your competition if you don't write about lesbian cows fighting timeless dragons in the space, or about something equally laughable.


>You have to have enough money to write for at least a couple of months without working. It's a big risk. But it is something to think about.
I don't think most writers have success with their first work. More like they write multiple books and then people slowly discover the work. I wouldn't quit my day job (if I even had one LOL) but find the time to write whenever possible. Maybe do less hours and write more. Spend less time being idle and whatnot.

>>18908151
>committed himself to writing for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week

I've been doing this for 6 years, finished about a dozen novels and several short stories, and I'm just dirt poor and burned out. I love writing but I'm probably dead in another year.

>>18901593
It's mujeres, anon. Mujers, is womans. Mujeres is women. If your gonna use another language make sure it's correct. Also, whenever I'm read to edit and rewrite. I read McCarthys work + someone else, so I can become infected with their styles.

>>18911874
What kind of novels do you write?

>>18901593
Also, as a native Spanish speaker. It always looks retarded whenever someone says something in Spanish and then something else in perfect English. Why not just speak in one language if you don't have trouble speaking in the other. It's like in movies and shit. They have Mexicans say something in Spanish and say the same thing in English. Shits retarded and one speaks that way.

>>18911874
Post your best one, anon. I had a friend who did this for two months. He finished one novel. Said it was hot garbage. But he learned alot about writing.

How do you go about fleshing out a character? Do you write character sheets or summaries of their arcs, or do you just wing it and let them grow as you go along?

>>18911883
Fantasy, mystery, scifi, the usual that you think should get readers

>>18911911
Wing it somewhat, and have them grow the more they linger around whoever is the current PoV.

>>18911898
>Post your best one, anon.

I don't want to join the company of Gardner, Blackula anon, and that schizo Canadian in the /wg/ hall of fame. But I like almost everything I've written and couldn't say which is the best. I wouldn't force anything I thought was garbage on other people in the first place.

Are there any french books about Creative Writing you'd recommend?

>>18911911
make up a backstory. not some vague shit. some definite events that shaped them.

>>18911983
Those can be before the character was even born, mind you. Unless you plot out at least two generations back, your character will seem shallow.

>>18911956
Why not, anon? I don't mind those guys, the Canadian dude is irredeemable and has little time left to get good but wanting to make a living through writing is admirable. I'd be interested in reading your most recent work.

>>18911881
Oh thanks for the catch anon. My only spanish is dimly remembered from school years ago. If this gets closer to finished I will definitely run any untranslated spanish past a mexican first so they can help me fix it up.

Is there a term for a woman who is seeking attention? Aside from the generic term woman, of course. I kid, but not really.
If a man is seeking attention there are gendered terms like peacocking or strutting or swaggering. Or ones for faggots like prance.
I guess strut might be gender neutral, but is there a specific one for women?

>>18911271
>Is it a good idea to do multiple projects simultaneously, switching between them, or I should just go balls deep with the current one and finish it, then go for the next?
Only do this if you're forced to, and if you submit a manuscript for editing or for alpha readers to look at for the next few days or weeks, you have to work on something else. I advise against multiple projects because it is challenging to jump between wildly different spheres of ideas too often, I would prefer to stay acquainted with what I'm doing to stay consistent and organized. When the alpha readers or editors bring a story back to you, you will be forced to switch back anyways. There are times when some writers put a story in their "trunk" and work on something else, but that is worst case scenario. Avoid giving up on your story too early.

>>18913195
Attentionwhore.

>>18901593
McCarthy is the most imitated author on this site by far. It all starts to blend together, particularly when the subject matter is also identical

>>18901200
Based.

Finally hit page 40 and I'm having fun. I'm hoping to finish by the end of the year desu lol.

Son of the Sun - Chapter 20
https://pastebin.com/ksUgx2cv

One more to go

>>18913908
Haven't been following this at all but impressive of you to serial post your work on arguably the worst platform to do so. Are you going to post it anywhere else reasonable like retard road, scribblehub? etc?

>>18913920
It's going on Kindle before the end of September. Cover's already done. I've got one more chapter to write, then editing, then publishing.

>>18913935
oh.... good luck!

>>18913942
Thanks. I don't have too much hope, but if people can make a living selling dinosaur erotica on Kindle, I figure I have at least a small chance of success.

Casual reminder that picrelated sold 2 million copies and got a movie adaptation
Welcome to Hell, enjoy your stay!

In the creekbed with the crawfish shells and waterbug corpses and birch tree twigs wrapped up inside themselves like twine and then left there to dry in their rare shape. Walter Shelsby stood from his boots seventy-one inches high overlooking his cornucopia of tired things all presented neatly shooting out from the gravel bar at the mouth of the creek that had not dribbled in many summers. The crawdaddies guts burst outwards where maggot children had eaten their way through. All that was left was the eyes. Unblinking they saw. The waste of rioting men who, when presented with the opportunity, had lost all reason and memory.
Walter Shelsby was by all accounts an African. Two blueberries, perfectly round and invisible to the naked eye, rested in his nostrils. End to end his nose was parallel with his lips. His skin charcoal black and unmarked. The men strewn before him were African too, although the briquette nature of their skin tone was a post mortem addition. Some jean legs were tied over mouths with their pockets full of stones. The more blessed dead were skull-split by hatchets and cutlass and jagged stone before being tossed in too. All of the men half-submerged in sodden clay were lucky. The river had spat them out. They would be buried and their mothers would cry over a body.

>>18913980
What the hell is this from?

>>18911911
most important thing is that the character has a want/desire/goal/motivation

>>18914057
ready player one

does being drunk help with writing?

>>18911222
>>18913802
Yeah, I can see what you're getting at, but I'm not too worried about it. People said the same thing about him regarding Faulkner. Nonetheless thank you for the feedback anons

I just finished outlining a story but I feel like it's missing something. Everything fits together a little too nicely for my taste. Am I a fool for wanting to insert more confusion and ambiguity? Realistically should I just start grinding and when it's all said and done tell the editor to make it confusing?

>>18914103
>just finished outling
>outling
>I feel like something is missing
Yes. Write the goddamn thing. It'll unravel on its own and take shape.

>>18913853
Only 800 more to go I assume.

>>18913908
Cool mang, always nice to read.

>>18914081
no, but cocaine does

>>18914143
Thanks anon

New paragraph, what do you think
>Having this explained sparked a primordial fear that treading down a path laid out by the laws of physics , helpless to break free from it. Millions of years of evolution molding him into the man he was today. Some animated cosmic gunk following every synaptic impulse that guided him. His life playing out like a program on the universes hardware.

>>18914398
my b
>Having this explained sparked a primordial fear that he was treading down a path laid out by the laws of physics , helpless to break free from it. Millions of years of evolution molding him into the man he was today. Some animated cosmic gunk following every synaptic impulse that guided him. His life playing out like a program on the universes hardware.

>>18914398
>Having this explained sparked a primordial fear
Stopped reading.

>>18914415
Thanks

>>18914103
A really good story leaves a bit of room for interpretation, but if the reader can't come up with a satisfying answer to a question provoked by the text then you'll wind up with Tommy Wiseau's The Room.

>>18914398
>>18914404
I dunno need more context.

>>18914103
What's your process for outlining?

Pacing is one of the harder parts. I wrote a story recently and in my mind because it took a long time to write I felt that everything happened at a good pace. Then I read it through later and it the action whiplashes in an instant. Some people advise against "padding" i.e, filling up a story with idle description of the scenery, but truly that can give you space to build up to something. Blood Meridian is a fine example of using "padding" effectively. If you cut out all the landscape descriptions it would fall apart.

>>18914914
Yeah. I think if a section is there primarily to add felt distance between scenes, it should still be doing something interesting on its own that advances themes or conflict in some way. The way you talk about a landscape for example should be suggestive of a vibe and have some kind of relevant emotional loading to it, rather than sounding like a wikipedia excerpt.

>>18913997

it's good

What did you all do when you started writing to force/encourage yourself to keep going forward?

Every time I've started to write (since I was around 8 or so), I stopped within a week at most, but often much earlier, due to rereading my previous writing and cringing to such an extent that I fall into a deep depression for the rest of the day.

I feel I can write non-fiction well enough, but anything fiction has me wanting to run in front of a truck.

So anyway not to do that?

>>18915311
I had my friends read my shit. One of them laughed so hard his face turned red. That helped me keep going.

>>18915311
>Writing non-fiction
Maybe it's because of all the essays I had to do in school. I guess writing slice of life is a good enough start.
Because a lot of people watched way too many movies like LotR, GoT, or Avengers and think that they have to have empires, ancient prophecies, huge casts, betrayals and revenge, etc. Then their work looks like like a manual to their setting and its backstory, with main characters either running from everything or running over everything. And neither path has lasting consequences because the author would make it to work anyway.

/wg/, is this character too anime? he's got a solid backstory and character arc, but the fighting stuff is a little ridiculous

>X is a golem in the shape of a young man made of wet clay
>he's significantly stronger and more accurate than a normal human and heals faster unless the scroll in his chest is destroyed (it burns on contact with air), but his body is soft and malleable, causing often cartoonish injuries
>early in the story he fights with piano wires and is extremely proficient with them, able to use them as improvised garrotes, lassos he can swing from, and slings he could use to throw a wagon without much effort
>later he begins to learn kabbalah and earth magic, allowing him to harden his flesh into bricks and rapidly reshape earth and stone around him into simpler golems

>>18915365
>too anime
No such thing my friend.

>>18915365
Piano wires would slice right through wet clay

>>18914081
No. And being drunk means hangover. It’s hopeless task to even think about writing in hangover and you end up deleting your drunk-written work anyway when you see its uselessnes. Same goes for pot. While stoned, anything you write will be excellent, not so when you come back to it. But pot makes my brain an idea-spewing factory if i want to brainstorm ideas. Better not doing it too often though.

>>18905286
I like it anon.

I don't think there's enough to criticise, really. Kind of like a sketch, there's not enough detail to work with. Perhaps too heavy on the alliteration?

>>18913997
I enjoyed reading this, it sounds like a normal setting but there's enough to make it feel both morose and bizarre. I've heard some authors say what actually happens is third to the way you say it, which is second to how the story ends.

>>18915311
When I first started writing as a teenager, I was an idiot and didn't really know much about the world or the way things were. Granted I still have much to learn, but even over 30 I was in a better position to write because of my well of memories and strong feelings about certain things.
One day I just noticed myself obsessing over an idea in the future, and it wasn't even from a movie or anything. It wouldn't go away, so I just started writing and then learning more literary techniques on how to cultivate the idea further.

Then I tried to look up huge lists of literature and also ask people if the plot sounded too familiar (nothing necessarily wrong with that if done well, people like to reread stories after all). There were no matches really, which encouraged me that I had something original, although I had to continue to avoid cliche.
So to me, after thinking about these things, the story became a very personal statement about my feelings on mankind and I've been constantly challenging myself and learning throughout the writing process.
The personal passion and honesty have kept me writing, I hope people see that when they read it.

>>18911975
exercise in style is good

>Well, shucks, I was just another white boy. Some said I lacked rhythm, just from the way I looked. But I found that funky music... uh, electrifying. When the weekend reared its head, I had that hot rash overcome me, my skin felt unbearably tight. It was, uh-huh, that’s right, that Friday night fever to dance and sing at the local disco-tech.
>Can you dig it? That was all until the bad constabulary tried to crack down on us, beating the vibin’ and jivin’ and the sweet sound out with they billy clubs. They whacked the good vibes out of us, striking the sweaty bodies congregated on the dance floor. These crooked officers were sent by that, uh-huh uh-huh you got it, terrifying and terrible council. All because we were a-makin’ a ruckus, at the complaints of, yeah, correct, the Fat Cats Pty Ltd that sat next door. These were evil cabalistic porkies with cigars lit by dollar-dollar bills set alight.

>>18911289
maybe

>>18901593
i don't have much to say other than that i like this a lot. very well written. reminds me of very much of jack london, maybe even too much. if i have to nitpick, the word "stratify" rather stood out.
do you want to take a look at mine? >>18911262

>>18904895
>404
mind reposting?

>>18907952
well written but i had to force myself to skim through the first couple paragraphs. i like the detail of the passing voyeur. his anger seemed to come out of nowhere, though. rather than a surprise it looked like an asspull. the dialogue could be more realistic.
i do however find it easier to read the lower chunk after knowing what the story is actually about. i can understand the appeal of descriptive writing. i'm a sucker for it. it's fun to write, but not so to read.

>>18911874
let us read a short story

>>18913997
is the first sentence even a complete sentence? help an idiot out. i love everything else.

I'm writing something that is supposed to be disgusting and shocking but I don't really feel either when I read it. Is that because I haven't written it well or because I'm desensitised from writing it myself? I want to make people gag when they read this shit and if it isn't affecting me I feel like I'm doing something wrong.

posted it early

>>18900424
How do I start writing? I got the main characters down, but the worldbuilding is a little shoddy

I'm writing something about 4 teenagers going to a school that indoctrinates children into child soldiers so that they grow up as elite soldiers with superhuman powers. They serve as meat walls against monsters who threaten to drive humanity to extinction

>>18901246
This. I'm only here to snootily shit on everyone's story ideas and prose while secretly stealing them for my magnum opus that I will never finish or show to anyone.

>>18901734
You're like the father I never had, anon.

>>18900424
Anybody have thoughts on multiple POVs? I'm writing a novel with 4 POVs, but recently I've come across a bunch of reviews and opinions from readers who hate multiple POVs. People seem to say it takes a lot of skill to pull it off so now I'm feeling intimidated. Is it worth trying to reduce it to 2 or 3 POVs to make it simpler, even though I'll pretty much have to rewrite the entire book? It's in 3rd person limited if that matters.
Interested in your thoughts.

>>18917732
If each POV feels different then it's fine. 4 isn't anywhere near too many.

>>18917747
That's what I thought, was just surprised when I searched and found so many readers who seemed turned off by it.
How do I ensure I give enough unique style/voice to each POV without it turning gimmicky? The other aspect that makes it difficult in my case is that it's a very short time period - 3 days for whole novel - so not too much room to space things out.

>>18914404
not bad necessarily but very trite. the worry about atomism meaning no freedom of will is 2000 years old, you can read about it in the poems of lucretius

>>18917732
I'm generally indifferent as a reader so long as it's limited to a pov a chapter, or at least a scene break. Though multiple povs in a single chapter leaves me jarred as fuck.

As an author, I have something like 11 unique PoVs so far but only 3 of them are main characters, and of those side characters most get ~2-3 total chapters. The MCs are written in first person and the others are a limited third person so that there's less confusion on who's who.

Though as I started writing my second volume I started going steady with only one PoV, in this case the deuteragonist while the protag takes a backseat for like 40 chapters. I thnk the deuteragonist's narrative was only briefly broken three times or so out of a total of 40ish chapters. I always tell people asking questions like this that whatever you do, keep it consistent at least. I mean, there's a chink novel out there somewhere that has like 1000s and even more worth of characters. You do you friend. But remember to just write.

>>18917769
It slipped my mind writing the stream of conscious but multiple PoVs do seem to have a sort of stigma attached to it. I think it stems from the idea that everyone wants to be like GOT and what have you by having dozens of characters with their PoVs which seems to be more prominent with fantasy and sci-fi. But really you should ignore what other people think. Write what you want to read, if people don't like it then fuck them, there are literally hundreds of thousands of other books that they can spend their time with.

>>18917145
Maybe its the sensory details, perhaps they are strong enough. If you say somethin clings to your fingers rather than "it's sticky" that extra detail can be oppressive enough to make someone sick. You should assault your reader this way. Disgusting things arent so bad otherwise.

>>18917762
It's the same way you differentiate any character, each needs their own voice and their own way of looking at things. Surely you already know these differences since you want to use multiple POVs in the first place.

Has anyone come up with a process for idea origination or do you all just keep it free and loose?

>>18918250
Why one or the other? I do both for my story.

How many rejections are normal? I started writing 5 years ago and have over 15 rejections on submittable, and now want to kill myself.

>>18917829
That's helpful, thanks anon

>>18918285
Idk. I’m just asking because the idea part is where I struggle.

SPIT IN MY MOUTH AND CALL ME NANCY!

>>18900949
why are you asking for feedback on two paragraphs? will you be posting the story two paragraphs at a time from now on? any critique you get will be trivial.

lots of writers post any short bit of writing they do as if they need praise to continue, or they must perfect every 500 words they write before moving on. just write it. this is paralysing behaviour for a writer.

Chapter 45 released. End of the 3rd part.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/40361/erased
>>18914103
You outline isn't really going to resemble the finished product 1:1 unless you're very, very strict with how its going. Stories tend to meander a bit and preplanned plot points end up having to be changed or jettisoned entirely. Or brought back later reconfigured. When you see the plot deviating from your plan I'd recommend letting it do so or you'll strangle yourself. You've got a lot of time for revision.

Balkan bro here, just want to get a sense from you guys if you think this paragraph is a little overwrought. Kind of leaning that way myself.

>The first Bulgarian National Revival saw the resurgence of national symbolism in the aftermath of the country’s liberation from Ottoman colonial rule in 1878. A century and a half later, I’d argue that we’re seeing a second national revival in the wake of Bulgaria’s liberation from Moscow, but one that entails a significant amount of physical destruction and historical revision to replace it with a new, carefully selected national myth. This is a dangerous precedent, and a bad idea all around for a couple of reasons. First, like witnesses to a crime, historical evidence must not be tampered with, lest its impartial judgment be made impossible. Second, when identities are forgotten or suppressed, it’s easy to fabricate new, more subversive ones from the void left by their decontexualization. Plus, rekindling radical identities just naturally seems to appeal to the instincts of anti-authoritarians wanting to resist state suppression—just ask the graffitied walls of every second Sofian housing block. The preservation of historical landmarks allows for a more complete national story to be told, and without them we lose a tile in the world’s mosaic of human cultures; without them, a light flickers out in the cosmos of human creation.

>>18916002
Thanks, i'm too cautious

Oh my fucking god somebody help me.

I was able to write 2000 words a day of my shit-isekai bullshit but getting 1000 of my sci-fi piece is pulling teeth.

>>18919687
Can you be more specific on what you think the issue is? Anyways here's some advice using the MICE quotient. If its a novel you have room to tell the story with all 4 ways. If you have a novella, novelette or short story you only have a few you could work with. Scifi short stories are usually not character based, but better for Ideas and Events from those that I've read. You can tell character based short stories but people may not notice or care that it's scifi unless its building into an established scifi world they already care about.

>Milieu
Learn more about the scifi setting and reveal things about the characters subtly by learning more about the world. The process of going to one area and back out or even to another is great and you can either build anticipation with it or even surprise readers. You can have a lot of fun with this as long as you have some science to back it up, no matter hand-wavy it is you can justify it more later if you want through research.
>Ideas
Read visionary science topics, perhaps ones people are already investing in or future trend think tanks have "predicted."
>Character
Get a variety of opposing motivations, attitudes and viewpoints from your characters. Get sub plots going between the characters that tie into the main plot. Scifi has potential for some very bizarre characters and viewpoints since you can normalize things that no one on earth considers normal.
>Event
For me this is pretty big. When I think about the future, I think of some big stupid event that changes everyone's lives forever and can be powerful for a precipitating event or other kinds of the climax.

>>18919937
So for starters, I'm 14k into the novel and I have it outlined, I'm just struggling to put words to the page for some reason.

It's meant to feel more serious than my usual writing, like it has more care in it and thus the reader should think more about whats happening, so I consider the dialogue much more than typical.

The plot is a group of people stranded after the destruction of the local warp gate, hoping that friendly war ships arrive tos ave them before enemy warships kill them. Their sensors are damaged and they don't have a clear view of who is out there in space with them and the captain has to decide whether to hail the ships that pass by them for rescue. Which, if I do it right, will draw them reader in and keep them glued to the book by the end, big if though.

The decision is routinely "not worth the risk this time, we do nothing" as the passengers on the ship grow increasingly distrustful of the captain's judgement skills

Today's chapter specifically is between MC (essentially the one and only security officer on the ship) and a researcher who happens to be genetically engineered for brain power. The two of them are the oldest on the ship, at about a thousand years (relativity and stuff), but the mutant doesn't get along with MC, nor anyone. He's ugly and a son of a bitch who knows full well what kind of war crimes his government, and by extension MC most likely, has been comitting, but his request is merely to be given access (as a civilian) to the sensor data the captain is reviewing and keepign to himself.

That exchange was rather hard to write well. Then it gets followed up by the arrival of new ships and the various important characters gather around to watch the twelve hour long nuke-slinging that goes down, and try to guess whether the winner is on their side.

Does that make sense as to why it's hard to write? Especially after writing about fantasy sailors chasing down a dragon and harpooning it like moby dick.

Anyone know of a good list of questions for checking against inconsistencies and plot holes?

E.g. why does this only happen now, why didn't the character do this, what does each character know etc

>>18920260
I think you pretty much just answered your own question?

bros, any tips to make characters more interesting without making them too over the top?

>>18919997
The reason I think it may be difficult to write: why is the mutant asking the security officer for access to data the security officer doesn't even have? Unless they're hashing it out with the captain at the same time?

>>18920298
Just write you sack of shit.

>>18919997
So is it not an idea problem but just that its complicated since the decision making between characters has to be sharp? Some writing is just like that, and unless you're also a genius the only way you can write smart scenes is to wargame each scenario until your smart characters do and say smart things.

Them being stranded might be difficult to have fun with the locations in the story, unless the ship is really big or you spend time in perspective somewhere else. Your story is a milieu story in pure sense that it's a story about being stuck in a place, and your readers get invested in the characters getting out of that place. So while they are there do what you can to highlight why that place is special, and like I said when you can talk about it you can use it to subtly push theme and character development.
As far as the characters go, I can see how the captain being stubborn can hold the plot hostage. What I would do is chart out each scene you have right now and ask what the goals of the characters are in the scene so you can see what is resolving and which conflicts are being added, regardless of goals being met or not. It sounds like you want to ramp up tension as they remain stranded, but help the reader feel that by adding specific problems and higher stakes each chapter, such as things breaking or a lowering time limit/resource of some kind. If the captain's not changing his decision, do see if you want to make him change in other ways. Your dynamic characters should be changing too, so see on a scene by scene, chapter by chapter how much is really changing. If you go many scenes with no new problems, frustrations, changing perspectives then that can be annoying for the reader. It's really annoying if no goals are ever accomplished, even little victories will be satisfying even if the consequences put them in jeopardy afterward. But make those victories concrete and not "well it might have been worse."

>>18903659
Interested in this. Anyone?

Have you ever listened to music while writing. Dedicated "writing music", or something to fit the scene?

>>18918310
Hundreds.

>>18920329
You're picking on something that I simplified for the sake of the post.

MC has influence over the captain and is more accessible (because he spends his liesure with the civilians) and Pontius, the mutant genius, has already figured out that the current captain will need to be removed if the civilians are to survive, and MC is the only person on the ship with the power to do that, so he has put the idea into his head.

>>18920351
The solution I'm trying to use for this problem is I've broken expected rescue down into four waves (because there are 4 nearby planets that could send ships to save them) so they know that the earliest real help can arrive is a month after the attack, six weeks, three months, seven months. (and they don't have enough food for everyone to survive for seven months)

I spent a few chapters introducing the main actors and have progressed time to the one month mark, rescue arrived, they fought with the enemy ships, and at the end of today's chapter, they aren't certain whether the surviving ship is friend or foe.

The captain won't hail them. His logic is that the asteroid mining station (which has a whopping 5 people aboard) is obligated to be the ones to contact them and the captain wants to try and pick up the communication signal and listen to the conversation to find out whether it's friend or foe, which incidentally drives the businessman up the wall, because he's the owner of the asteroid station and the boss of the miners that have to stick their necks out.

The more I discuss this, the more it feels like I just have a spot of burnout and need to rest my brain. I've been writing 2500 words a day for like 4 months now

>>18920260
>Do you know the ending before you started planning the story? Which parts have you written before you knew that ending or before you changed it?
>Does everything have a purpose? Characters, character relationships, settings, scenes, the point-of-views, themes. If you lose track of the purpose, your creativity may sometimes create cool new things but as a consequence make other elements lose purpose and thus a plot hole
>Do you know the antagonist motivation early in the story? Revealing this too late can make the purpose of elements addressing the other problem pointless, and readers might wonder why they the story was about something completely different
>do your main characters have easy to explain backstories? If not you may be phoning it in simply to explain why characters are doing things that otherwise have no purpose. You can make the backstory complex but not complicated, that will wear the story thin with too many conflicts and that takes away from your development of the main conflict in the story that readers want more of

>>18915868
true, which is why I wanted it to be piano wire. I consider him wielding it effectively an acceptable break from reality

>>18903659
>>18920357
I got a lot of influence from anime and manga I guess. I'm sure it's possible and possibly natural as well.

>>18920373
Sometimes, yeah. If I'm writing something that's particularly emotional for example I might elevate it with some sad anime music.

>>18920373
Yes I do, but only after my first draft when writing to set my style and encourage word choice to fit that style. I actually make playlists in music keys based off dominant emotions in scenes, and I go through a variety of emotions in each book so it doesn't feel repetitive emotionally. Some of the most important scenes in the story have reocurring emotions to reinforce my points, so no matter where I take the reader emotionally, I want to draw them back to a primary emotion that I want to leave them with as "yeah I felt that way a lot reading this story." Here's an old music key interpretation for western music.
http://gradfree.com/kevin/some_theory_on_musical_keys.htm

>>18920385
It sounds like you know what you are doing anon. Perhaps you should take a break from writing and instead read and analyze what you have so far, see how much of it comes across a way that you wanted.

is it okay to use the word nigger

>>18920521
Maybe if you self-publish. If you don't shine a lantern on the use of the word be prepared to hear about it. I had thought about doing this later in a career because I'd love to have most of the character chase be idiosyncratic, and completely unacceptable words are par for the course. Plenty of successful authors have gotten away with it, but even if you do it well someone will mouth off regardless just for your use of it.

Do you think about Want VS Need when writing?

>>18911262
>Sage, magic hobo trope
Other than that it's a nice read, has a good flow, and excellent pacing. I imagine the sentence fragments are a stylistic choice--makes it seems more stream of conscious, and it flows like it to. I did take issue with the lines:

>She decided to pretend not to hear.
This felt clunky, and awkward. Couldn't the first line have just been 'She pretended not to hear' or 'She decided not to hear'? Both convey the same point. Maybe it's just me, but the back-to-back gerunds sound God-awful.

>Couldn’t even do simple self control
I actually kind of hate this sentence. 'Do' is probably not the best choice of verb here; the sentence sounds straight outta third grade. Maintain? Perform? Preserve? Sustain (for that sweet, sweet alliteration)? Shit, add an 'a' in there and suddenly you're talking like fucking redditnigger:
>Couldn't even do a simple self control xD
kill me

>>18920521
You just did, didn't you?

>>18920571

When do you write? What’s your routine?

>>18920521
Stephen King did, so as long as you keep it in context, probably yes.

>>18920569
good points, thanks

>>18918310
>5 years
>only 15 rejections
are you even trying

just bashed this out, need a quick shit or not

is it waves shimmering on the endless seas
or bluebells dancing and weaving in the breeze
in your kindly eyes that look up at me bright
and keep my thoughts alive on a lonesome night

is it the sweet succour of your fragrant hair
or the bright ensign of your smile entreating
me to hold you as close as we both can bare
though oft those glad moments are few and fleeting

the wild passions of your lively heart with which
i fail to match and play my own virile part
or the elegant plume of your girlish dress
or the fond warmth of your tightly pressing chest

that grounds you in the canvas of my still mind
and sets you there to flutter and charm your way
to the most unchanging depths where my sights blind
and where sense, over august heights hold no sway

>>18920521
The book I'm reading right now uses "nigger" and "nigga" like 100 times or more and it was written in 2014 by a white guy. It went on to win the PEN/Faulkner award for fiction. So, definitely possible.

>>18920699
Completely misread 'when' as 'what' for some reason. I write whenever and don't have a set routine. I feel like I might read later in the day near the end of the night. Mostly just depends though, but usually after 12PM I might write.

>>18920699
Whenever I fucking feel like it.

Makes good progress because I often feel like it.

>>18902358
This might be a bad critique, I don't know poetry so take it with a grain of salt. The whole poem feels very colorful, but the only color words are "green" and "ruddy". Another color word or two might make the poem pop more.
>>18901593
I enjoyed reading this a lot, it's very fun.
As other anons have said, combining languages in one sentence is an annoying anglo habit, and I've never heard anyone in real life talk like that. The writing is very mccarthy, which is fine, but you don't have much of a voice of your own to distinguish yourself from him. I do like the naked dialogue though, it feels so much cleaner than quotation marks.

https://shrib.com/#Emery33807m9
I started this a few months ago and I've barely worked on it since :,(

How do you flesh out a theme?

>>18920521
I lean toward no. I have a no nigger policy for my writing. No niggers allowed. I don't want to read stories about niggers, I don't want them niggering around in my stories.

>>18921012
What's your theme?

>>18921065
Sustenance, Reproduction, Territory, Society and Life Cycle

>>18921081
And what do those mean in your story?

>>18921098
hmmm... not sure

>>18921103
If you don't see its connection to your story, then why have it? Look for themes you do have, or figure out the connection and rewrite, if you want them so much.

>>18921081
Those are all topics, what's the themes?

>>18921081
To turn a topic into a theme you must make a statement about it, a simple piece of wisdom or point of view, kind of like a proverb.

/wg/, I've got a problem that's killing me. I originally designed my characters around a specific motif, but shit grew really organically and I ended up with more characters than could fit into the motif. I don't want to drop it entirely, but I can't fit everyone in

>>18921188
Just write

>>18920521
Blood Meridian says the word nigger a fuck ton of times, as well as a lot of other books. I think it makes sense if the context is right and not just a character dropping the word nigger for absolutely no reason.

>Rereading my story
>So much cringe moments I missed while editing last time

>>18921833
>Much
I meant many. Well, back to reading.

>>18920699
I write about an hour after getting home from work, for 5 hours. If it's the weekend I write when I'd otherwise be working, and read when I'd otherwise be writing. I read on breaks at work.
>>18921012
Developing theme is like exploring an idea or having more to say about it. So say your theme is about history, but the only idea you get is "history repeats itself" and the idea gets promoted ad naseum even if it's just represented in the events. If I wanted to flesh that out I would show more events in the story that made a point about history, subtle or otherwise.
>why does history repeat itself?
>how might characters make history stop repeating itself?
>what other lessons does history show?
>is history really written by the victors or is it that not the case?
So what you want to be doing to develop a theme is to be though provoking. Turn the idea around and look at it from new angles so even as your story chugs along with character arcs and changing events you will also have a theme that is steadily painting a picture of all you'd like to say about that theme. Tying theme elements into characters, events or the setting can help you do double duty and learn about theme even while you write about something else, and shows the reader that your themes aren't just throw away aphorisms but actually part of your world.

>>18921833
>think all cringe are fixed after the xth revision
>read it again after a few weeks
>new cringe seemed to breed out of thin air
this happens even to published stories