/lit/ - Literature

i've written 23 haiku in 4 days... damn it feels good

>>19033890
i wrote this chronologically and i'll give an overall impression at the end.

awkward preposition choices
>The trick to looking over the shoulder of the gunman’s off-hand would be when the shooter turns his head and shoulders to see who’s approaching, the gun hand would naturally shift closer to Chuck.

few instances where full stops should've been a comma, but it may not be an issue.
also, i'm gonna assume the following is a stylistic choice because it works (i don't have a name for it)
>Headlights from cars and the MTBA buses streaming by would feel like cameras flashing over their faces and the slick handgun outstretched and pointed at Chuck.

the fourth paragraph is the strongest in terms of setting the narrator's voice.

>only to remain strangers thereafter.
kinda cliche. seems a bit too melodramatic for the tone you already set.

>There was a sterile laugh track that played, and Chuck would smile along with the punchlines out of formality.
it's good that you developed a bit more of his character at this point. if not, it would've been pointless description.

>The foam exploded like it was sea water breaking against a cliff.
why not continue with the jungle imagery? you also never followed up with this ocean imagery. not as good as the boxing-robbery scene. that one was done well.

>Chuck saw a man wearing a retro Patriots jersey dawning the number 16 in a knitted black mask with poorly cut holes for the mouth and eyes.
kinda awkward. though it was the number 16 that was inside the mask.

the vietnam shower scene was pretty funny. the twist into the true robbery was done well (it got me surprised but was clear about it), but was it a good decision on your part? i get the feeling others won't like it, but i think it's fine, only i expect an explanation/justification for it later down the line.

apart from the nitpicks, i like it overall. and acknowledging that you intend to make this a 20-page piece, i am looking forward to reading the rest. it read well. and it set up a lot of expectation for the next pages, especially regarding his character growth/development/change/whatever. right now he's just a pathetic man. by page 20 i except he should be something else.

the prose style was enjoyable. it reads like a dirty modern piece, something you see in online literary journals nowadays. the last scene reminds me of joker. actually, the entire story is too. not much of a plot guy (and i'm a guy who's okay with pretty pieces that don't really go anywhere) so not much to say there, except that i'm curious as to what happens next.

why am i so scared to write bros...

this isnt in the pastebin or OP
has anyone checked it out?

>>19048331
I'm pretty sure you responded to everything else I wrote in the FFA, and it was unbelievable helpful and motivating.

I started this story off some slide thread where the OP said wrote two sentences and he'd rate them. I'm a total explorer-writer. There's a lot of stuff I totally agree with and things I hadn't thought about. Notably...

I'm glad you brought up the strangers thing, I felt embarrassed writing it, but I thought it fit. It clearly didn't.

The paragraph about the technique to disarm... Is it a matter of wording or content? I'm sure a lack of context doesn't help, but I want it to read like someone that read a step by step guide who thinks they can now disarm a robber.

>>19048335
Because you know it's crap. But you need to write the crap out of your system. I'm doing so right now by writing a 1st person narrative about a steppe-dwelling barbarian who loses his family, finds new meaning in life when he meets a runaway priestess and eventually sells her out, becoming the Judas-figure of a new religion.

The mental health crisis team is coming to assess me. writing as art therapy barely works, bros.

How do I write without needing constant encouragement and approval?

>>19048769
How did you write this?

>>19048348
I have the 'Oxford Essential Guide to Writing' but I don't have that one; what's the difference? I noticed they're written by the same guy too

>>19048395
To clarify, does the priestess give him a new lease on life before he betrays her, or does screwing her over give him purpose?

What do you guys think of the book "Artful Sentences" by Virginia Tufte?

>>19048864
It in the hopes of getting (you)s.

>>19048999
Nice trips. Write about how pathetic you are, or how pathetic that you think you are. That's mostly what I do. But I project onto my characters. In the end, we are all pathetic

>One cannot raise walls against what has been forgotten.
how do I write a perfect hook like this?

Anyone have any good writing exercises? I want to write but I'm never really sure what to write about, need to exercise my creativity.

>>19049375
Write a story about a dog who discovers there are aliens.

>>19049410
You're right, I'm overthinking this.

>>19048084
Saga anon I'm still out here fry

>>19049491
What did he mean by this

Reading Like a Writer - Francine Prose

I think this book should be added to the OP. It's like taking a class with an exceptional English teacher and makes you excited about language again. It teaches you to pay attention to what you read, all of the elements of a work, and how it coalesces to effect the reader. It's really excellent, and there's plenty in here for a writer to think about as they write and read.

>>19048395
For me personally, feeling my presence in the shadow of giants can be paralyzing. Sometimes I read my favorite authors, check their bibliographies, and I realize, to my horror, that they were writing good, not great stories, almost immediately and they were prolific in it. To me, matching, or even coming remotely approximate to that sort of quality and output feels impossible. It’s like the ship has already sailed. I’ve never even been really proud of anything I’ve written, any story I’ve come up with. I’ve never thought any of them were particularly good. That’s really depressing and it makes you not want to write because you become terrified of continued failure.

I’m slowly realising writing is one-quarter posturing and one-quarter Image, then half actual writing. No writer would get big unless they had a constructed celebrity persona to fulfil. It’s quite off-putting… It makes me skeptical of everything I saw in it before.

Is there a site that is specifically for posting horror fiction
I want people to read my story, I am basically desperate because I am in love with the characters and the story and I want to share it with people but it is hard to get people to care

>>19051049
/x/ or creepy pasta is specifically for horror stories
You could also try a horror zine or online journal

>>19048084
>want to write
>scared that my style is forever tainted because I used to write porn as a teen

what do

>>19051136
If style is important to you, I suggest stealing from a various other writers whose styles you appreciate. Keyword: steal. Steal from it like Benjamin Franklin stole lightning from the sky. Don't just borrow or copy. Take, seize, steal! Make an amalgamation of styles your own.
>Porn
This might actually help you if you go down a route where you explore decay and degeneracy, which is ever-present in the Zeitgeist.

>>19049261
Write out something that you want to say and refine it until its more succinct, use metaphors if you have to.
>>19048769
How do people get up for work every day, or eat food every day? You need writing to become a part of who you are, and to sit down and write even if you don't want to, ideally you will feel the pangs of your story not being told, and your ideas unexplored. The moment you try to reason yourself out of it, you won't do it, so stop thinking about when to write and just sit down and start asking questions and answering them in writing. There is so much to discover in writing, you will surprise yourself eventually.

>>19051136
Porn is the most based writing pursuit.

>>19050670
Don't worry about this anon. I wasted 7 years of my life doing absolutely nothing until in my mid 20s I learned a valuable skill in the course of 3 years and can support myself, and now I've started learning how to write like a pro after a couple years. You don't get to see the struggles authors had to learn how to write, all the unpublished garbage. A lot of authors aren't trained as writers and have another technical skill as their job and they write anyways because they have a story to tell.
If you have a story to tell, then write it.

>>19051268
>I've started learning how to write like a pro after a couple of years
Can you give us some pro writer tips?

>>19051268
>I wasted 7 years of my life doing absolutely nothing until in my mid 20s
I think this is far preferable to following the normal, conventional path for an author to be honest with you.

>>19051136
Move into writing sexy, sensual, erotic, beautiful stories obviously.

>>19051300
No that's not what I meant, I'm still learning. It's way better than in high school where I would write one draft and then burn it.
>>19051303
Everyone's got a unique voice and experiences, reflecting on those can show you what you've learned. You have to appreciate your own life story.

>>19051335
>It's way better than in high school where I would write one draft and then burn it.
I kept my stories from when I was 15 and they are very bad. Good on you for sticking with writing, though, and godspeed with your projects.

>>19051236
thanks anon.

>>19051335
>You have to appreciate your own life story.
You have to, but I don’t. I loathe it’s mediocrity and anodyne banal life that I’ve created for myself.

>>19051136
pretty sure every author dabbles in erotica at some point in their lives

>>19050351
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Like_a_Writer#Books_to_be_Read
pretty patrician

>>19048875
Before.

The words 'open-air prison' spring to mind as I turn southbound on the one-ninety-one corridor. To my right, sparse forestation gives way to formidable crags of the Grand Teton bearing down on the horizon. The mountains frame an otherwise dull landscape punctuated intermittently with the trappings of life: here and there a farm and rag of sorrel horses. After hours of monotonous driving, my sole motivation to continue is the prospect of witnessing one of Wyoming’s famous panoramic sunsets.

My dashboard-mounted GPS emits a vaguely American female voice warning me to keep straight for fourteen miles. However, in my exhaustion, I mentally register miles as minutes. My confusion is due to the fact that I’d scoped out the area before our trip and read tourist maps that measured distance in minutes. Initially, I thought this was strange, but now I understand: it’s an elegant acknowledgement of the futility of distance when all roads blend together. In this barren place, there are few towns and fewer landmarks. I only know that twelve minutes down the road there’s an inlet that’ll bring us to the town of Moose, and fifteen minutes beyond that’s Teton Village. The ‘me’ that woke up before dawn in Lincoln, Nebraska would be hungry to explore; Wyoming ‘me’ seeks merely to reach our destination before sundown.

>>19052838
As we pass Snake River Outlook, the fading sun aligns with the Teton peaks in such a way that it casts an eerie shadow upon the RV. It’s as if God Himself resents my lackluster appreciation of the land, my reduction of its bounties to hours between bathroom breaks. Despite myself, I also feel as if something's essentially wrong with my presence here, my coexistence with undefiled nature. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Carmilla's decaf swirling in its mug, somehow miraculously never spilling past the brims. She's snoring indiscreetly in the passenger seat, and I wonder if I shook her awake and spilled my guts that she'd listen. A brilliant orange starts to envelop the right half of the sky. My isolation-fueled paranoia at once grows marvelous and evil. I shake Carmilla's left arm.

"Hey, you should look at the sunset with me." I say.

>The Glass Factory
The metal stalk gathers heat. Clear glass droops in the sad wonkiness of artistry. It seems to fall downward, but remains stuck to the metal stick. Th hands of the gaffer hold it tight. Furnaces blaze with all the heat of Helios, or Hades.

>>19052990
simply th best

>>19052115
>>19050351
Okay, your shilling has worked, I'm going to read this

>>19048084
Got carried away writing a resignation letter

"The eye in team is in the corner of every corridor, The employer looking out for the employee through a fish eye lens.

The means of production getting meaner with each sandcastle built upon the false shores of capital.
Fear of uncertainty feeds an obsession with surplus, The illusion of safety reduced to numbers in a bank account, property owned only under the pretense of cooperation, a most wonderous trick of the light.

The profiteer accelerates as contradictions feed the frenzy. Luxury and suffering, Dictionarial opposites become ying and yang within 4 star walls. For every bed made, a night unslept, for every warm cookie a cold walk to the bus stop.
Fortunately, the thick margin between that which is produced and that which is renumerated can get you a pretty sweet motorbike.

Ever seen a picture of the earth from outer space?

Get well soon.

Anon"

>>19053814
>simply th best
Sorry I was phone posting. Can you give a critique? Was the flow okay? I tried to use active verbs and remain simple.

>>19053874
This is beautiful

>>19048378
>The paragraph about the technique to disarm
just wording. the intent is clear.

>>19053819
post about it when you finish it

>>19053819
>>19050351
gonna pick it up too. it's on z-lib as well.

>>19051939
This is true. I don't want to talk about my experience though, because my phase when I was 16 and holy fuck was that cringey. I think I still have them.
No, I don't actually. I must've deleted them at some point. Good on me.

>>19053874
Reads like tumblr poetry

The van sped down the dirt track as the sun sank into the horizon. Dust jumped into the air as Blair pulled the van into the empty lot. The van was an ‘85 Chevy and a deep rust red and weathered as though it had been carved from the surface of Mars. Tonight was sold out, if all went well there would be plenty of girls, and easy pickings. Blair had been with the band two months and he’d already been with more women than he had in his entire 19 years prior. He’d also seen more meanness, violence, and wickedness than he reckoned he’d see in any other time before. Blair and his fellow roadie Jefferson had already unloaded most of the equipment by the time the band’s tour bus arrived.

Blair wiped his brow with a cloth. First off the bus was Julius, the band’s drummer, a giant of a man, he had to bow his head as he left the coach, it shifted on its axle as he stepped from the vehicle to the ground. Next, came Cameron, the lead singer and guitarist, he was laughing at some joke just told to him by Quinn, who followed close behind. Quinn was the bassist, a thin man with long dark hair, he nodded towards the roadies before following his compatriots off towards the stage. Blair looked at Jefferson and shrugged, they followed the rest inside.

The venue was an abandoned warehouse. It was far out of town, and had long ago housed supplies for an old steel mill, in whose shadow the warehouse sat, and in whose company it was alone on a flat stretch of otherwise featureless landscape.

Most of the window frames were empty or covered in cork boards. Graffiti had long since been scrubbed off or faded, the roof tiles rippled by the wind. Any glass left in the windows was cracked, and the red paint that once covered the walls was faded and flaked like the skin of an ancient mechanism. A hulking machine that had been used for reasons long forgotten now lay idle inside. It sat next to the stage like some broken guardian.

There would be no time for a sound check, the gig was to start at 8 and the time was already 7. Fans had begun to arrive and mill about in the carpark. Jefferson and Blair made the final checks to the equipment, they expected a full house, and they expected right.

1/2

>>19053874
sorry but this is pretentious

Jefferson finished complaining to Blair that each day was starting to feel the same, he’d been touring with various bands he said, for near 20 years, and that he reckoned he didn’t have much more left in him to continue this line of work.

Julius, who had been examining the huge rotting machine stepped out of the shadows. “The universe is a mirror,” he said. “We discern within it only things that we wish to see. The specifics of the image are divisible not in and of themselves, but in the mind of the person who looks at the reflection. A day is only a day in one's mind. To the universe it is one long stream, beads on a string being no individual thing to anything but the possessor of the string”. “This and that”, he said, gesturing towards various objects, “it’s all one thing, except in here”, tapping the side of his head. Jefferson spat. “I can’t say I understand everything you just said, but I reckons it’s maybe somewhere close to true, seems to me that my mind is losing that general ability to judge though”. Julius nodded and smiled, Jefferson and Blair finished positioning a speaker towards the front of the stage.

Blair jumped off the stage into the front row and looked about. It wasn’t the best setup he’d seen, but it would do for tonight. Pleased with the work he set off after Jefferson into the room backstage where he’d sit and drink before they started letting fans in.

2/2

All feedback is appreciated anons.

>>19054108
Judging by the first paragraph, too much passive voice. The sentences are bit too samey and run-on, as they have a bit too many *and* and they also explain the events from what seems like a passive narrator PoV.

>>19054108
>as the sun sank into the horizon
Change the description. Sinking into the horizon is a tired image. Mention the twilight another way.

>Dust jumped into the air
Jumped isn't great. Can the dust not just fill the air?

>weathered as though it had been carved from the surface of Mars
Is Mars important to the story? Get rid of this. The van was weathered.

>than he reckoned he’d see in any other time before
Before what?

>First off the bus was Julius
Van or bus? These are two different things.

>a giant of a man
Cut.

I don't like the dialogue in the second part. Julius has a very high tone that contrasts heavily with the accented speech and mannerisms of Jefferson. Julius is speaking in a way that almost has no audience, it sounds disconnected and untrue.

Pretty good though.

>>19054173
>Van or bus? These are two different things.
Van arrives first carrying equipment. Tour bus second with the band.

Thank you for the feedback anon. I'll update it.

>>19048769
go back in time and tell your younger self not to ruin his brain with video games

>>19054110
What parts? How could I make it less

>>19054041
You’re beautiful.

>>19054546
all of it

I’ll probably kill myself if I can’t make some money from writing and quit my job soon. Just wanted to let you know.

Does writing tragedy affect anyone? Trying to concoct worse scenarios for sympathetic characters feels so gutwrenching. I can get through it but it makes the rest of the day feel pretty dark.

>>19054690
Can I get some constructive feedback here chef

>>19054741
i'll write one up in a few hours

>>19054726
Am I the only sadist in here who absolutely loves making sympathetic characters suffer

>>19054726
I write tragic stories, but I often get hit by excessive self-awareness, like why the fuck am I wasting my time writing this? NOBODY out there wants to read something so depressing. I think it's technically interesting to write, but am I really even "enjoying" it myself? fuck

>>19054780
Im approaching from the Greek tragedy angle of catharsis, its a kind of sublimation of our fears and we sometimes foam it out. I structure them in 5 parts: Anticipation, Dream, Frustration, Nightmare, Destruction.
It does seem weird why people read it, but we all have common struggles. Someone out there will want to relate to it , and for lit hopefully find enlightenment through its lesson.

>>19054726
The point of tragedy is the achievement of catharsis. I assume a person who exclusively makes tragedies would have the purest soul of all.

>>19052838
>>19052911
can I receive critique on these stylistically pls. I know that nothing much happens in this excerpt and I try to cram a lot of theme into one space

>>19049375
Vladimir Korolenko wrote in his memoirs that when asked how he wrote his stories, Chekhov laughed, snatched up the nearest object - an ashtray - and said that if Korolenko wanted a story called The Ashtray, he could have it the next morning.

>>19054847
That's an interesting perspective. Would be nice if at least some readers could get catharsis out of it. But I get a lot of complaints too. Many just can't cope when confronted by unpleasant situations.

>>19055257
I think some people hate it because they dont see how it relates to their life or are guarded against criticizing their own tragic flaws. For those that have been prepared to come to terms with their flaws, even subconsciously, a well written tragedy is just what they want.

>>19055222
Literally Family Guy version of Stephen King
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMZONL8x8NE

I give up bros. I have the concept, outline, ending everything. But I can't fucking start. I don't know where to begin. Fuck this.

>>19050972
I'd read all of Terry Pratchetts books without ever seeing him on TV or hearing him on the radio. He was the biggest writer in the UK before JK Rowling.
JK Rowling is quite private, and seems like a normal woman. I've seen her on UK TV a few times over the years for brief interviews and she came across as bored and miserable for having to do TV, and had absolutely no inclination to wow or be some kind of celebrity persona. There was a straightforward documentary made of her but only because she became the worlds biggest writer.

The majority of writers have zero celebrity cred.
What sort of celebrity persona does Stephen King have?
George RR Martin?
Terry Brooks?
Agatha Christie?

best phone app for writing?

>>19055452
come on man - you serious? Probably google keep or something.

>>19055380
Start anywhere, write anything.

You could have a good idea for a dramatic conversation in chapter 7, if that's the first thing you write it doesn't matter.
Have your character doing something mundane you literally just did yesterday, like going to buy milk. Have them thinking through important information as they do it, and then for no reason have their train of thought being broken by a homeless man who stinks powerfully of shit and alcohol pissing in the corner of the store, just because.

>>19055380
I start with a scene from an outline I'm most sure of that I want. Get the big beats down and then get the other scenes that build towards them. You will learn more about your story as you right and how to weave subplots and themes. Recently switched scene 1 and 2 in a chapter because it helped readers relate to the Pov char more. I did the first chapter first because the setting is different from the rest, but it helped me explore the main vibes of the story and wrap up the inciting incident. Some people do climax or ending first, just depends on your organization method.

>>19055380
I started with the event that started the character rivalry.

>>19055380
Nigga just write something
Any scene, any line
Just one line at a time, in any order
Worry filling the gaps later
DO IT

>>19055459
yes.

I used to try and write as many words per day as possible, but would always burn out and abandon every project.
Now I write only around 300-500 words per day out of habit, and have been doing this for a while without tiring, staying on the same project for months and really getting somewhere now.
Any anons tried this or agree? I see people saying they write thousands of words per day and I just don’t know how they have the time or stamina to do it consistently

>>19054964
Honestly the language seems to be a bit flowery for something completely uneventful with weird mixes between the prim and proper and etc contractions. There's also just far too much happening for a few paragraphs you definitely need to space out these concepts. Your narrator seems like an AI suddenly reflecting on every life experience a human can have in about 3 minutes, my dude. Take your time with what you're trying to write

>>19055380
No anon you end it

>>19055744
Good concentration is the word pull out 250 in 15mins then go up by fifteen in an hour you got a thousand. I'm with you being consistent showing up again and again to that computer screen will progress you

>>19055752
Yeah, I have problems switching between registers and spacing concepts out. This reads more like a framework for a chapter, 300 words of substance needs to be expanded to 3,000 words or more. My biggest obstacles are that I don't know how to constrain my diction and fill in the blanks. Writing inner monologue for a bored character also seems pretty boring. I should probably scrap it and start in medias res where my characters will be clearer

>>19055744
I would try at least 2000 words a day in editing, but I dont count the words at first. I tend to write 1st draft voice with a sense of urgency so I have impetus to get the ideas down, and then add more thought in 2nd draft as a sequel allows for more words. 1st draft is just a wild writing binge for me.

>>19055777
Maybe you should add more subtle sentences that just show us actions, feelings, settings etc that are part of theme. Dont even explain what you think about them until later, or just one comment at a time. I think simply reminding people of the things that matter to your story, as long as its not too often, spurs imagination.

>>19055744
>I just don’t know how they have the time or stamina to do it consistently
You get used to it, like anything else.

>>19052911
>As we pass Snake River Outlook, the fading sun aligns with the Teton peaks in such a way that it casts an eerie shadow upon the RV. It’s as if God Himself resents my lackluster appreciation of the land, my reduction of its bounties to hours between bathroom breaks.
This for me is a specific example of what the other anon mentioned, the overly flowery language.
You've summoned God into your narration just to say that a shadow was cast on the vehicle. You could mention that shadow, and breifly mention some omen like quality to it, but that is too much.
It feels like you are trying to create a surreal and dreary atmosphere because your character is tired and you get into a state of daydreaming and reflection on super long distance journeys. The environment is very open and expansive. I get what you're trying to do, and I think a reader could get it.

But here's the thing, you said Wyoming, sparse forestation (so like woods or bushes?), and said a lot of very overly poetic abstract stuff, but didn't really mention the real quality of the landscape in passing.
Is it dry?
Sand?
Grass? Green grass or dead looking drab grass?
Hot or cold? Season?
As an English person, I assumed what you were describing was like the desert parts of Nevada, arid stretches that look like the surface of Mars, with little bits of dead dried out plants here and there. I could see that being kind of alienating and anti human. But I google Wyoming and it's grassy and looks quite nice and picturesque.

It seems like you're making it move towards a point of trying to create actual dread or terror, but I can see no reason why that would be so far.

>>19052911
>Despite myself, I also feel as if something's essentially wrong with my presence here, my coexistence with undefiled nature.
So here's another thing, undefiled nature makes it sound pristine. When I google Wyoming, I can see that place as undefiled nature. But then there is this theme of the creepyness or the wierdness that you are trying to develop, and it contradicts that.

You mentioned he was exhuasted and making mistakes, and then at the end they watch the sun set.
So how long was he driving for? If the sun is only going down there, it isn't that late.
If he had been driving a solid 24 hours then I can get it.
>I'd taken the wheel from Camilla at sunset yesterday, and now that the sun was setting again I realised I'd driven all through the night and day without a real break for 24 hours. I'd stopped to fill up the tank a couple times and grab a coffee but that was it. I was getting mixed up from the tiredness, the satnav was saying 'straight for 14 miles' and I thought it wanted me to drive straight for 14 minutes.
>Out of the corner of my eye, I see Carmilla's decaf swirling in its mug, somehow miraculously never spilling past the brims. In the dip between the seats there were some fragments of potato chips mixed in with loose change and tobacco strands. I'd been coasting on the power of caffiene and nicotine. I need some real food, and to crash out from this trance I've sunk into. I feel like I'm in a dirty version of the real world.

And then with the landscape descriptions you could have something like
>the last diner we passed looked like it hadn't been refurbished since the 70s
>We passed a run down farm with a faded wooden sign on the gate. A single ragged horse looked over the fence at us as it chewed on some drab looking grass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR_n8win2Vs

Thought you guys would want to see this since this book came from here

>>19056131
This is great information, thanks.
At this point, the narrator would have been driving for thirteen hours not including breaks. I should make that more clear. My intention for this story is to make an allusion to the Garden of Eden, where man's nature is evil and God has forsaken man. The beauty of the landscape is meant to contrast with the selfishness of the hearts of men, and the way to redemption is to yield to his animalistic desires and return to nature. But this is impossible without destroying civilization. It's an exploration of the consequences of anarcho-primitivism. But that theme can't be accomplished without adding material details. I like your suggestions and I'm reminded of the /lit/ carry thread from last week

>>19056175
>/lit/ carry thread
What's that?

>>19056389
>>/lit/thread/18985902

>>19056175
>My intention for this story is to make an allusion to the Garden of Eden, where man's nature is evil and God has forsaken man. The beauty of the landscape is meant to contrast with the selfishness of the hearts of men
OK I missed that.
I thought you were trying to develop unsettling Stephen King vibes, and it feels like something bad is bound to happen to these people in this RV.
>and the way to redemption is to yield to his animalistic desires and return to nature. But this is impossible without destroying civilization. It's an exploration of the consequences of anarcho-primitivism.
So there's some real underlying substance that you're going into weave into this story, which now I can see more when I look back a second time. But the drama of how you are describing things is perhaps too vivid for these themes.
These sound like ultimate overarching directions for the book. The sentence by sentence style colouring could be a lot more pastel instead of primary colour, if you get what I mean. You're putting piercing treble notes into a song where the bass should be loosely supporting.
>My isolation-fueled paranoia at once grows marvelous and evil
This line and the one about God really steered me round a hard bend in terms of the tone you set. I'm expecting something dangerous and wierd to happen like in a Stephen King novel.
You do have some favourable descriptions of the beauty in nature, now that I look back I can see that theme is there, but it is also mixed with very dramatic scene setting that makes the nature sound imposing and negative in some ways too, so the positive just seemed similarly dramatic instead of a positive framing.

Yeah I hope this all helps, I think you should keep at it. I would also liked to have seen a further example of your characters talking, because it cuts out there and there was enough in general to make me want to know some more about what is going to happen.

>>19056496
In terms of narrative it's about two women who are terrible in their own way that get lured into a trap. The dissolution of their relationship into pettiness and jealousy characterizes the inability of man to accept his separation from God. The two women are fated to confront each other over different paths for man's future, initiating a destructive cycle that I'm hoping will continue into a sequel. You were right in connecting the style to King. I'm aiming for a more existential Event Horizon

>>19056613
>Event horizon
Not just me and you but I read another anon who wanted to explore Biblical ideas synthesizing with existentialism and nightmarish imagery. Said anon and I are both analyzing the spiral nature of history relating to human nature. I wonder how much we have in common, where these ideas come from and if we're hitting on something big. Or, could it just be a coincidence?

Isn't it interesting how themes can build through seemingly random chance? I feel like when I started writing, I had no theme, I just wrote what I felt was interesting. But then I connected the dots on a few things, and felt like they worked really well together. It'll take more work to make it a solid thing, but there's a frame for it, rather than trying to make one up out of nowhere.

>>19057235
It's kind of fun, innit.

>Reading "Mother Of Learning"
>Having to sit through Zorian moralfagging about Sudomir's experiments despite him also doing horrendous unethical shit

The more I read about Zorian the less I like him, he has this thing where he's unwilling to commit to being either a moralfag or selfish and it leaves him feeling very "pliant" or fake, I'm unsure if that's a good description but that's what it feels like. There's also these moments where he repeatedly wastes his limited time with Taiven and Kiri despite having issues that are way more important to deal with, and keeping a list over people he wants to help outside of the timeloop. I think my main issue is that I don't buy his character, neither at the start of the story nor now. No 15 year old, no matter how mature would act like he does, especially considering his upbringing and his apparent goal. What exemplifies this is his relationship with his mother, now this is a person that has: forced mental torture on him, ignored him only to pressure him once his brother turned out to be a retard and hurt his little sister immensely and yet she is part of the equation for why he didn't want to teleport out of his house. He doesn't treat her like any person would, especially an emotional teenager. He even says that his goal is to be independent of his parents, and yet he treats them like they're only slightly annoying. It feels so disjointed, like the author didn't know who they wanted to write.

Purple Days remains the only timeloop story I've found that has an interesting and good protagonist.

>>19057643
Or another example, on the fourth or fifth time Zorian went hunting the aranea the author decides to mention that he suddenly spares any that beg, because "he doesn't want to feel like a villain". It's like the author wants us to think of Zorian like a pure hero, but then he suddenly realizes "oh shit man I had him do some fucked up stuff" and then he retcons Zorian's actions and it leaves the whole thing feeling like a bunch of bullshit. Instead of a morally gray character we're left with this weird conglomerate of ideas because I guess the Author feels bad about writing a character that isn't strictly a hero.

>>19057686
How common is it for books to completely mess up character motivation and have plot holes everywhere and still get published? I'd rather break a contract than publish something that made no sense or fell flat on its point.

>>19056161
>from here
Nice

>>19057836
A lot of shit gets published dude. If you want to avoid the problems in mother of learning then:
>Publish your entire work at once so that you can get a complete overview and make any changes you want
>Be consequent and ready to roll with the punches if you publish chapter by chapter, don't be afraid if you characters don't become exactly like you imagined them

Chapter 48 released.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/40361/erased
>Publish your entire work at once so that you can get a complete overview and make any changes you want
I'd highly recommend doing this. Publishing chapter by chapter adds pressure that can be both good and bad for the writing process. When I first put this thing out I drafted like 200k, assuming I'd be done in like 25k. Well, I'm at 250k drafted, assuming I'm going to be done at like 275k. That seems like a much more firm goal right now. During the editing/releasing process I've added 3 chapters to the middle of the book by splitting 2 chapters into 4 and simply adding one that was merely a single paragraph before.

Pure drafting without the timecrunch of I Have To Get This Out Each and Every Week is great.

and ofc I forget the stupid picture again

>haven't written in a month due to a major move and starting a new job
>haven't thought about my books much
>open the document, read through it, feel the usual "this is bad writing" pains
>have an intrusive thought: "i don't care about working on any of this"
Oh shit.

>>19058068
That's okay, you can always work on it tomorrow.

>>19058080
I laughed, but I don't want to be 60 years old saying "I'll work on this tomorrow". Demotivation is the great filter.

Just feel like shit today and so disillusioned with everything I'm working on. Last week I was so excited.

>>19058137
you can't count on feelings. writing is war with the page and the shithead inside you that wants to give up. feelings get you killed, just fight.

>>19048084
Here's a scene I wrote about a chimp named: RAPE APE!
https://youtu.be/TUdknApEtWE

>start writing with no music, can't get any words out
>turn on Electric President, 2000 words out of nowhere
Isn't there some saying about how alcohol only deadens writers to their true skillset? Is the same true for using music as a crutch?

There was something wrong with John’s rectum. It felt more torn than usual; there was even a slight burning sensation. He dictacted this immediate pain to his wife in the form of lewd hand gestures, which he preferred over a vocal obscenity.
“There’s something wrong with your stools, John?” she enquired.
“No,” John blurted, then pointed at his behind more distinctly.
“Dear me,” she uttered, after the realisation of his ordeal. “I’ll call a doctor straight away.”
The wife, good as she was, called the doctor me then laid down an ice pack for John on one of the chairs by the kitchen table. She put out a breakfast spread for John, who politely declined the meal; he did not want to pass it out with his arsehole in such a state.
“The doctor will see you in an hour,” she told him.
He let out a sigh of relief. Anything to get over this pain, he thought to himself. Hell, he wanted heroin if it would cease the burning.
“I hope it’s not piles, John,” she shook her head disapprovingly.
“It ain’t no piles,” he declared in a stern manner.
He spoke with a somewhat iron conviction, as though he knew exactly what had befallen him. Albeit John E.V. Roman was known to be strong-willed and strong-headed, this time his wife was taken aback by his demeanour.
“I was only saying,” she tried. “My father had piles. It was a war and a half to get him through it.”
“I know what it was that got me,” he interjected, bitterly. “It ain’t nothing your papa had. No, these... these things were something else. I saw them when they came. I saw them when they left too.”
“What in the name of God are you talking about, John?” the wife, Betty, asked her husband who she assumed had gone mad.

“They came in on a silver disk. There were two of them. Little men about five feet tall. Big ol’ eyes like an owl’s. I couldn’t make out their skin colour because the bright lights from their disk blinded me. All I saw were their outlines, little black silhouettes. They were armed, Betty. With six-shooters by their sides, but these could shoot red light out of them, instead of bullets. They took me at gunpoint and shipped me off into the stars for... Betty, you have no idea.”
As John explained his waking dream to his wife, he grew thirsty and anxious. He gulped down a glass of water to make sure he could still drink. He could.
Betty got up from the table, poured him another glass of water, and muttered something about how they should have attended church more.
“Betty, you ain’t listening.”
1/2

>>19058460
“I heard you loud and clear,” Betty responded. “Little men abducted you, is that right?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“Well, why don’t I tell the sheriff then?”
“No!” John yelped. “You don’t understand, they got eyes and ears everywhere, sensing everything. If they...”
Betty already had the phone up to her ear and dialled the sheriff’s office.
“Sheriff? John said he was abduc-“ Betty managed until John jumped from his seat, despite the pain, then slammed the phone out of her hands and onto the ground.
“What the hell, John? Look at what you’re doing. Your eyes look crazy.”
“Do you understand what you just did? You can’t know, can you? Jesus, Betty, they’ll be back and when they find out...”
It was then that the sirens screamed outside and the sheriff with several deputies rolled out of their police-issued Cadillacs. They thumped on the door.
“Mr. Roman, open up now. C’mon John.”
“I’m coming. It’s what must happen,” the man capitulated.
By the time they got to the police station, John seemed ever more delirious. Sweat covered his face and hands; his shirt was soaked. He muttered randomly about the silver disk, which was their ship, and what diabolical instruments they had to test him with.
“Probes... many of them, probing. With orbed ones, straight ones, ones with energy pulsing...”
“John, are you okay?” Betty sounded worried.
“Don’t worry, madam,” sheriff Thomas Anselmo suggested. “We’ve had a few cases like this. Vicious examples of that high sin that got the two cities upon the plains of the Old Testament burned down. But every time, we get to help these poor souls, these unassuming gentleman like your husband. Every bit of information they give us helps the string of cases ever more.”
“You mean there’s been heaps of these, uh, abductions?”
“That’s right. Every one of them ended up in sodomy, which is a federal felony might I add. Whoever, or whatever, is committing these heinous acts shall be brought in to face the music.”
John vomited in a bin in the sheriff’s office and cursed as he did. His wife Betty got him a paper bag when he filled up the bin.
“What’s going on?” Betty asked the sheriff.
“Now this vomiting is normal. Each man we’ve seen or know about vomited the day after abduction. My theory of it is that it’s travel sickness brought to the extreme, though slightly delayed.”
“Delayed?”
“Sure, I bet these little S-O-Bs have a way to slow down the process of interspace travel on the body. I’m thinking it’s a serum that runs out after a while, but I can’t be sure until I have definitive evidence.”
2/2

Barnfag from two threads ago here. Trying a new style of writing. This was sort of fun, even though it's nowhere near as good as the old ones I did. I'm posting this without the normal rounds of editing so that I don't gut the 'soul' of the piece (I want to learn how to write with feeling), and also because I'm not sure how to edit this type of writing yet. I don't want to bog it down with my clinical rules. Try to see if you can guess what the prompt was from my writing!


>Prompt: Describe a barn, in the same weather and at the same time of day, as seen by a happy lover. Do not mention love or the loved one.

In the glow of sunset, footprints tracked to a farm. The fields were packed from end to end with maize. An evening’s breeze rustled the ripened crops and they rang like muted bells.

Far off in the distance stood a barn.

Its crimson walls stood out in the flaxen sea. Its doors swayed in the wind and beckoned passerbys. Come in and share, they sang. Share what we have. Share the fragrance of jute and old wood, the matted soil, and the warmth of a quaint country summer. Share in our peace and companionship.

Braids of jute hung off of its support beams. Specks of dust bounced up and down its stacks of hay. Its windows permitted a veil of light among which these dust specks danced. The light bathed the nests of each chicken and rooster, and the stables of cows and bulls. Empty as it was, the barn swelled with intimacy and geniality.

The wooden windows framed the outside world. What was once a farm seemed like the portrait of a sunny day. What was once a forest became a group of trees, waving like the maize, joining in a celebration of life and all that was living.

I'm not sure if the actual prompt will be clear though, I think the wedding metaphor took over the piece.

>>19058611
Image option. I hope the two critics from last time are still here. The writing may be worse now but they set me on the right path.

>>19058162
You posted this on /vt/

>>19058162
do you make money from this? what's the point

>>19051136
If you aren't confident in yourself, then you'll never make it anon.
I write porn in my 20s, and I'm going to make it.

>>19057868
>>19058046
How about you, like, write and edit your story BEFORE you start publishing it? Crazy, right?

critto?
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A7xDXOgqMkbx1dOQOrFNDWVB5PRaOa0XauO3hLuXRmI/edit

>>19048084
I called it apical because it would bring the defining apex of my victim's life to a halt with a dying whisper of a struggling breath. At least that's how i've seen it happen with the last four kills. I wasn't a serial killer; At least not of innocents like families or loving couples or children.

Unless the evidence I gathered deemed otherwise.

Like the couple that lured in swingers and brought out their darkest desires in this fetish that usually ended up in pieces of the swingers here and there and everywhere along the state. Once I picked up a head they discarded at a playground for some dumb kid or parent to find. I picked it up moments after they left before that could happen.

And I left it on their front doorstep with a message written in the victim's blood. It was word unique to them that only they would recognize since they partake in it and my, my, my, it was most satisfying seeing the shocked look on the man's face. Even from a distance I could see his pupils constrict in a cold, merciless, fear.

Suffice it to say and to spare you the bits and pieces you could do without, I brought justice, or should I say wraith, into their home abode. I don't particularly dwell on torture, unless it was a predator, but in this instance things had gone on for too long and for too far.

The papers talked about it for months on end and I admit, I felt like a minor celebrity with how much they praised "The Paladin of Des Voeux"

The world is filled with a kind of darkness that could wear down even stone, but sometimes there's a special moment in time where a man finds a temerity to meet that darkness head on, on it's terms, and drive it back to the Hell it came from.

And if it means sacrificing everything to oneself to have a brief moment of light, so be it.

I feel like someone out there has written my thoughts a lot better than I ever could. Particularly, I can't seem to write "some people thrive in chaos a little too much" in a way that pleases me.

>>19060331
i hope you don't let that idea and that struggle be a deterrent to writing what you want to write, and that you keep trying

>>19060331
Better writing is subjective for most people. If you could ask Hemingway and Lovecraft to write the same story from a strict outline, it would still feel very different to read. Writing is imitation of speech, and your emotions and experiences show your unique voice that a "better" writer can hardly imitate.

Anyone writing SFF should check out this stuff and stick to their submissions guidelines:
>Hypnos Magazine
>Stupefying Stories
>Daily Science Fiction
>The Dark
>Beneath Ceaseless Skies
>Clarkesworld Magazine
https://poweredbybooks.com/blog/top-6-literary-magazines-for-fantasy-and-science-fiction-lovers/
Here's also a breakdown of which mags pay, what their word limits are, and their response time, as well as possibility of simultaneous submissions
https://richiebilling.com/welcome/writing-tools/list-of-fantasy-magazines

>>19060815
ty that's really helpful

>>19060857
That's okay, anon. I just found out lots of top SFF journals pay 10c per word... Imagine if you sold a 5000 word story here and there or a few novellas in a year... You could certainly support yourself if you found a way to get a name for yourself. It's also a great way to get recognition before jumping into a book deal with a novel or series.

>>19060866
I'd have to write a 5000 word story every week and I still wouldnt make what my day job gets me. I do appreciate the info though, money is money. I'll do my history novels first and considering going into SFF after, the number of story pitches and outlines I have to try go up all the time.

>>19054744
>>19053874
this reads like someone's first attempt at creative writing. if you do submit this letter they would laugh at you.
the most obvious issue is that this piece tries too hard to sound pretty:
>a most wonderous trick of the light.
try reading that out loud
>Dictionarial opposites become ying and yang within 4 star walls.
what does this even mean?
you're trying to fit in as many similes/metaphors/other fancy linguistic devices as possible, and they end up being a jumbled mess with no consistency. it started with an ocean imagery, then illusions, then jumped to dualities. likewise, the impression you end up conveying is "shallow". okay, capitalism bad and you had to work late. so what? pretty words and imagery alone don't make it deep.
this is a trap new writers fall in, myself included. so, how do you avoid being pretentious? be sincere. put down your thoughts and feelings. don't just dump fancy linguistics without any purpose to back them up.
that said, i like this part:
>can get you a pretty sweet motorbike.
just that. not even the entire sentence, but just that part. why? it shows your anger and sarcasm. it's emotion. it's sincere.

>>19058611
not bad. maybe take it easy on the "Its". too much of those make your description sound like a list.
>Its windows permitted a veil of light among which these dust specks danced.
kinda weak and again, clinical. switch it around
>Specks of dust danced suspended in a veil of light [from] the window.
sounds a bit more lively don't you think?
the second paragraph is alright, but i like how you started the final paragraph.
>Empty as it was
the description of all the animals before this sentence gave me the opposite idea of "empty"
i don't see any hint of a wedding there apart from "companionship". but i'm going to treat the prompt an exercise in language to convey the feelings of a newlywed, which i suppose you succeeded in. it reads much more fluently compared to the war prompt. i'll say it's an improvement. my only worry is that it might be too cheesy especially in the second and four paragraphs.

>>19053874
Is this actually a resignation letter, or is that part of the poem or whatever.

>>19059346
that takes time. and as much time as drafting can take, editing definitely takes more. so you spend a lot of time on the initial draft, and while you may like what you've done and you want to share it with people, you're not even halfway there.

>>19059555
cit???

>>19058454
I can't write with any music on because then I can't hear what the characters say

>>19058454
>alcohol only deadens writers to their true skillset
Tell that to the modernists lmao

I got my first rejection today. It was the expected bot answer, "thank you for letting us read, we have no room for" etc. but it also included a link to some paid critique website. Is including that type of thing normal?

>>19061719
Don’t pay for crits. Was the journal/press somewhere you liked? I wouldn’t recommend sending out anything until you know the lay of the land and definitely want something included somewhere you love. I sent my stuff out to too many random places that I now regret.
Also paying for critiques is normal if you donate to a place first but that’s not normal if they’re showing you a service.

>>19061741
>somewhere you liked?
It was a major publishing house in my country, and the thing they linked is not even affiliated with them.
I couldn't afford that shit anyway.

>>19061756
>It was a major publishing house in my country
Doesn’t mean you like them. Submit to somewhere you’d be proud of being published by.
>the thing they linked is not even affiliated with them.
Maybe they outsource it or have a contract with them.
>I couldn't afford that shit anyway.
Struggling writer is a good image… don’t forget

>>19061763
>Doesn’t mean you like them. Submit to somewhere you’d be proud of being published by.
This is complete nonsense and I have no idea what you're even trying to say.
>Maybe they outsource it or have a contract with them.
You're just making things up, I don't see the point in doing that. ALL publishers I've checked out make it clear they will provide no feedback or criticism for anything they reject, but I don't know if linking to that foundation's website is something they do as routine or not.

What does it mean when you feel like the character you're writing to be an awful person is the one you most identify with?

>>19060331
Hint: delete "some people" and "a little too much." "some people" is too vague. I want to know what kind of people. And "a little too much" is flat and underwhelming. How so? Just a little too much? What's the big deal then? Is there supposed to be a right amount of thriving in chaos?

>>19061782
It's a gentle way of saying get feedback and git gud before you submit your turd

>>19054726
It pays off if suffering has meaning. Like two of the three little pigs who die because they were lazy not to build their house promptly. If a good character suffers for naught it’s just sadistic torture porn without meaning, thus no value storywise. If there’s a moral lesson in the tradegy it kinda redeems it. Any good fable or folklore story does this. Characters got to earn their pain and in the end emerge out of it as a better person if they get the lesson and die if they don’t. Either way, a character must have a special moment of choosing the redemtion or failing or it will be unsatisfying for both writer and the reader. If a character is too sympathetic, make him have a character flaw and fall into bad scenario because of that. Have him meet a opportunity for redemption and have him reject it = satisfying tragedy. Writer kinda needs to be the angry indifferent god above all if he insist on tragedy. Or maybe the character really can redeem himself in the end after all and that’s how it must go in that case.

>First time trying to write a story
>Sentences come off as jumbled garbage with missing words
>Start running paragraphs through a text to speech program so I can catch errors and try to fix my awful delivery.

I am sure this is doubling the amount of time it takes and I am embarrassed but I think its helping.

>>19062921
You do what you have to do to make progress. Keep it up.

>>19062874
Good advice, thanks. My protagonist is rejecting a life-altering technology that allows him to self-actualize among other things. The idea is that it's everything anyone could ever want, and there's no apparent cost to rejecting it like the usual threat of violence or resource.
Instead the protag, after wrestling with the offer, passes up its expiration, thinking their must be a catch due to the origins of the machine that offered it, and fear that there would no longer be a self to actualize. There's also additional moral concerns.
I give the antagonist, his wife, a POV often to help sympathize with her opposite choice of the protag. She also suffers a tragedy. I want to bring a moral gray area into the issue while building a case for both, and show how both of them suffer in a different way since they lose different things.
In short, two characters make opposite decisions based off different character flaws, both characters suffer different tragedies. Does a tragedy like that have potential to be satisfying if done correctly? I'd like the tragedy aspect to be perfectly clear, but give room for the reader to think that perhaps one of the two made the more admirable choice.

I am creating a God character and I need ideas for titles to give him. He's unimaginably horrible and powerful. Some titles I've thought of are
>I am the Basilisk, woe to you, anyone who meets my gaze.
>I am the Theophage, devourer of your gods.
>My name is the syllable of death, woe to you, anyone who speaks it.
Can anyone help out?

>>19063348
>I am the Nightshade, let not my name reach your lips.
If I come up with other ideas I think I'll keep them. I'm using Demiurge for god name tentatively as one name of a triune being, I'm thinking of changing it because I don't want people to go on a tangent thinking I'm just retelling gnosticism. I used it more as general term for something responsible for creation. It had a name before, but I wanted to change it to something godlike after its apotheosis.

I absolutely am going to use Egregore as one of the three names. I'm open to changing Demiurge and the Scribe, I just don't know if they hit right.

>>19063348
Depends on the type of god, but have you ever considered not giving him a title? I read a book recently, or well, a series, in which the "god like" immortal figure who was billions of years old had no title at all. Only his name.
And I thought it was very interesting. It really made him feel more like a more of a god, something unnatural, something that couldn't be understood. It really hounded out how old and powerful he was, that he did not need any titles. And he was very horrible, wanting to end all the universes, and technically successfully doing so many times
Anyways, there is something to be said about being so powerful that you do not need any titles, and to give that since of uneasiness and intrigue

>>19063583
What was the series? That sounds neat.

The nature of the god character I'm developing is that he is ageless, and simply chose to exist out of nothingness. He didn't exist, and then he did exist. Hes kind of an antichrist figure, he is arrogant, selfish, and power-hungry. He builds an empire, and the humans that remain serve him and offer blood sacrifices for no reason except that the god is entertained by the suffering.

The way I see it, titles aren't unfitting for him because of his motivation to be revered and feared. He wants trophies.

>>19063874
>The nature of the god character I'm developing is that he is ageless, and simply chose to exist out of nothingness.
Other than being immortal what other powers does he have? You may just want to go with using a Greek or Latin word/phrase or derivation thereof, even if they're overused. Something like Logos or Athanantos.

>tfw you realize you don't have the energy left to rewrite your doorstopper
>which NEEDs to be rewritten because the plot changed half-way through
>tfw even if you did, it would likely be 3 years before you could get to the sequel
>tfw it's extremely unlikely people will actually read your book if if you get it published
>tfw if they don't it will leave you crushed and probably

this was such a mistake. I never should have started doing this

>>19064096
Dan Wells wrote fan fiction and unpublished novels for 8 years working in a hotel. He stuck with it and made it because he found his voice in Horror. If you really want to you can stick with it and make something great.

>>19064059
Basically, whatever people attribute to him, he has. That's a lot of why he wants more influence, the more people worship him the more horrible things people imagine him being capable of.

>>19064140
anon, I don't know what to do. I'm having a borderline panic attack just thinking about the situation.

>if I fail as a writer it will likely be crushing and drive me to suicide
>if I succeed I will be under so much pressure unless I can get my passion back and keep it long-term
>if I quit I'll have wasted 4 years of work and will be giving up on my dreams

I know I have to quit but I don;t know what else I can do

>>19061225
Thanks anon! I hate to do this, but is this better or worse than a 4 to you?

Also I'm thinking of not editing this one. I think most of the mechanical issues in my writing have been cleared up. The next thing I post will be a short story.

>>19058611
>>19058620
Also bump for more input, never know what you'll find.

>>19061782
Maybe you’re a sperg. Stop trying to get published for the sake of it. Don’t send to random houses you don’t care about.

>>19064192
I don't have a statistic for you but I can tell you from experience a lot of people face setbacks in life that go back years. Mine have been way over 4 years. You may come to appreciate what you've learned even if you don't continue writing. One of my teachers who had a PhD in one topic went into business after some time, and he had told me something similar, you find a way to utilize your unique background, it's not forsaking dreams of any sort. You can take time to refine the things you love at any pace you want and many writers don't even strictly follow timelines of their contracts.
Your life isn't Dead Poet Society, and Apollo vs Dionysus is a false dichotomy. I originally wanted to only write, but for the time being I do research science in the day and write at night. I think you can make room for what you're after, stay diligent.

>>19064164
Well, my recommendation for a name. Omega.

https://pastebin.com/6map78A7

I tried to write for an exercise. It’s set in a fantastical alternate Philippines, called the Angellines, during colonisation by not-Spanish(tm). Here’s just a bit of introductory stuff for characters and mood.

>>19064253
Why would anyone care about publishing houses? Their job is to publish books. I can understand if the publisher only puts out a specific genre but if it's just a regular publishing house, why would you care? I mean really?

>>19065281
If you don’t have favourite publishers, I don’t think you know anything about writing. Sorry to be blunt, but most famous authors cared about where they put stuff. If you’re just going for the highest bidder, then you don’t care about writing as a craft. Publishers will change how they represent, advertise, or even distribute your work. That means they will make your cover, make you sign certain contracts with obligations, and write your blurb. If you have absolutely no care for these things, then reconsider why you write at all. If it’s merely for money, go be an Uber driver instead.

Is it a failure if your outline isn’t your final draft?

>>19065306
I publish everything mostly on the 1.5 first draft. So no, don't worry about it.

>>19065301
>caring about your book cover
Let me guess, you don't write at all. That's okay, neither do I.

>>19065346
If you are prepared to have someone else fuck up your vision, I don’t see you as an artist.

>>19065367
So your whole vision is just the cover of your book?

>>19065382
Would you like your entire book to be sullied by this kind of cover? Of course the writing is the stuff of the project but it also needs finesse when being released into the wild.

>>19065412
i want my book cover to be like a led zeppelin album or something. have some cool art on it and dont put any identifying information on the outside so that you have to open the book up to find out what it's about and then by that point it's too late. i have you. you're reading my book now.

>>19065412
Let's be real anon. Suppose you wrote a book (you won't) and this super special publisher you admire doesn't want it? Then what do you do?

>>19065475
>Then what do you do?
Resentfully hide it in the drawer, like Lovecraft did with At the Mountains of Madness.
>you won’t
I’ve already started publishing poems and stories as of last year and I’m working my way up to a book. I just got bogged down by university.

>>19065475
>Suppose you wrote a book (you won't
Why you gotta be such a faggot?

>>19065492
A person who obsesses over what the cover of a book he hasn't written yet will look like clearly isn't interested in the content.

>>19065495
You don’t care about the prestige of your publishing house or the way they handle your book? You’re obviously the one who doesn’t care about writing.

>>19065504
>prestige
One of the three biggest publishing houses in the country isn't prestigious enough for you? At least I wrote a book instead of fantasizing about the cover.

>>19065525
Literary prestige =/= big corporate publishing. Maybe you should go back to r/writing.

>>19065525
Movies can be produced based on mock up poster art alone.

>>19065547
The Corman method?

>>19065556
Black Dynamite was made from concept photos first. I think it ended up as the movie poster too.

/wg/, does this handle the "well intentioned extremist" issue well?

>the story revolves around an elder god exploiting longstanding ethnic tensions to incite a genocide, and two teenagers and an old wizard are trying to stop it
>the old wizard had survived more than one ethnic cleansing in the past thanks to his skill at binding spirits to his will and wants to see this elder god defeated
>however, the teenagers eventually learn that the spirits he bound weren't intrinsically malicious, and for all intents and purposes he'd made them slaves
>soon, they realize the wizard's goal isn't to kill the elder god, but to bind it and use the threat of its power to control any tribe that he thinks is a threat to his own
>ultimately, the wizard manages to bind the elder god, but the teenagers in turn bind the wizard, preventing him from being able to use the elder god's magic, or his own ever again
>the wizard accepts defeat and they part ways, but not before passes on the burden of protecting their tribe

I didn’t really know what I was doing at the time but I started writing on a forum I frequent. It’s not the most prestigious place, in fact it’s full of degenerates pretending to care, but it gave me space to try things out. I hated looking at the black screen of a word doc or some new note taking software that screams “I’m only useful after you put 500 hours into me.” The little text box was just easier. After posting here for nearly 16 years the bright blue background and html assets seemed more welcoming than anything else, even if the people there weren’t. I kept going, thinking it would eventually turn into something, knowing I could always go back to it later. It was a starting point. Something to jump off of. A diary. A blog. The first chapter of a memoir. It didn’t really matter. I wasn’t even sitting at my desk, I was in nothing but my underpants in bed. Usually I’d be at my desk worrying about my real work and the six figures of student debt. Contemplating the meaninglessness of existence and the subsequent shame those thoughts brought. Trying to figure out what psychological trauma made me hate my work and when the next time I’d feel like feeling something was. I’d open porn tabs of anime girls and listen to hours of podcasts where the entire joke was calling each other gay. This was my life. I felt trapped. What else was I supposed to do? The world led me down this path and I couldn’t see an alternative and I couldn’t see a finish line. All the arbitrary goals of success were done. This was the end game, and it had a severe lack of content. Filling my time consuming. Consuming food. Consuming media. Consuming time. Grasping for those fleeting moments of an emotion I couldn’t even describe anymore. One that I used to get from friends and booze that I now only got when everyone in the movie dies. My bad decisions in life seem so distant now and my good decisions feel like they never happened. The inspiration and gusto I once had for story telling and camaraderie never seems to come across on the page, and every time I drink to get there the bank hits zero and I’m flooded with shame again. I’ll keep trying. Maybe that story about drunk punks will work, but we all hate what we write after a while, I don’t even want to look at it. What about any of the other countless writing attempts? Hey, I made 7 bucks off amazon writing porn once. Does that mean I made it? Now I’m just asking questions and that’s not too fun to read. The reader should come to their own questions, I’m not here to beg. Maybe the story will come tomorrow. Maybe I’ll stop saying that one day.

>>19065797
And the name of the man who waited for his story to come?
Albert Eisenstein

>>19065814
Bert hit submit on his post. He realized he shouldn’t be using so much of his Ion Field on shitposting, but it was the one hobby he found enjoyable in the future. Only a few hours remained before the Ion field collapsed and he’d have to go back. He opened a new tab and re-read his own Wikipedia article. Some bullshit about E=MC squared. That was the old him. Now that he stole this time machine, he wouldn’t need any of his old theories, he could just take everyone else’s.

>>19065627
Why are you asking us? None of write anything.

>>19065850
That’s not true. That one guy wrote a story about a dog that discovers aliens.

I want to write a novel about gangs like Mafia, Yakuza etc. Any tips?

>>19065627
i like it, shifting the threat from the main villain to the guy who defeats him, wraps it up well

>>19066011
Join one. Write what you know.

>1500 words written easily yesterday
>sit down and poop out 300 words but it's comfy
I didn't realise I didn't have to strain to write, I can just pick an easy genre and smooth style instead of worrying about being perfect.

>>19064096
This is why you make an outline first, so you can tell if your doorstopper idea is actually worth the time and effort before you actually waste all that time and effort

>>19064208
i'll give it a 5 or even 5.5 out of 10. good luck on your short story.

>>19065627
>two plucky teens defeat the god defeating wizard
I mean, aside from that bit of unrealism its fine. Your book is a bit tongue in cheek, right? Also
>the wizard accepts defeat and they part ways
I assume hes a bit pissed about the whole thing and wants to do something about it. I also assume the reason they didn't kill him is that the spirits he bound would be unbound and then seek revenge against humans for being held captive.

Maybe instead of having everything wrap up nice and neat they should kill/bind him at the urging of the spirits at which point all the spirits get released and start spreading disaster around the world. Maybe find some way to make sure the elder god is severely weakened. Would set the stage for your second book where they have to clean up the mess. Sure the wizard wasn't necessarily in the right but sometimes attempting to undo perceived "evil" just makes things worse. If a river floods is the river spirit being malicious? No, not necessarily. Is damming a river an evil act? According to a river spirit, maybe.

>breaking my back trying to make it as an indie storyteller through webcomics, indie games, online animations for years
>barely get any traction anywhere despite working on all my skills to bring them to a professional standard
>some furfag teen makes a pretentious furfag game in an afternoon with seemingly no real draw
>gains immediate worldwide fame and success overnight

Yes I'm fucking mad

Whatever you do please always remember that writing “rules” are mostly conventions for shitty genre fiction and that any great novel is awful when you read it through their lenses. So you should know them, ideally don’t go against them without a reason but if there’s something that you truly want to express in writing just go for it. Be as elitist, as complicated, as long, as flowery, as boring, as inscrutable as you want to be

>>19068619
He knew his audience and built a fanbase before release. Also had experience with romhacks. Just keep at it, sometimes both chance and skill are involved and your audience only care about certain literary skills or other superficial details, what interests Middlegrade readers, Hard SF are different. Sanderson readers and Harry Potter fans expect different kind of magic. Eventually your audience will understand what you offer.

How do you guys get into the flow of writing after a long day? It takes me hours sometimes to get into the writing headspace and pump out a few paragraphs. Which isn't ideal when you're working tons of hours.

>>19068931
I just calmly bounce ideas and then I write.

>>19068931
I sit down and just write

>>19068931
I'm not the best at impetus, but I start music in the key of the dominant emotion of the scene or chapter I'm in, and start reading what is going on and think about how it plays out from the outline. Then I write and it just flows. If its another draft I look at the devices Im using or get into the voice of the character and refine their dialogue. I make it simple as I have a list of things to draw from that I have for my style and outline. Can always fit in something new later but for expediency, a limited toychest rather than Toys R Us (rip) will keep me focused.

Fuck bros, I've been out of school for years and just started on a course that includes Eng Lit which used to be my strongest subject. Spent all day just trying to write one damn paragraph analysing a theme from some stupid short story and couldn't even finish it before I have to go to bed ready for work tomorrow. Just went round and round in circles most of the day knowing what I need to put down but having a mental block.

>>19069826
whats the short story?

>>19069869
loose change by andrea levy

>>19069826
Why are you asking us? We don't write, we only pretend to write here.

>>19068218
im going to be honest didn't think this through enough.

I think what I should establish is that the genocide the wizard survived was at the hands of the spirits, and it was the elder god who gave him the power to bind them in the first place before he knew said elder god was malevolent

Even if you're wrong, I would go with my gut on what I thought the author said and then look for reasons why I thought they meant that.
Look for repeating words, related ideas, the tone of voice in the narration. If that doesn't make sense, think of it like this. Whenever you talk to people, doesn't it sometimes feel like they meant to say something else but are only hinting? Now imagine this person wrote it to you, what did they mean by it?

>>19068931
>headspace
Stop using tumblr neologisms. It's mindset.

I write to compensate for my emotional failures as a person. And you know what? I'm damn good at it!

>>19070335
>It's mindset
No. It's brainplace.

>editing prologue.
>any descriptions of action or movement are shit and plain.
>"Immediately I scramble, shooting out my left hand and grabbing the bottle along with its cap, screwing it shut. Standing up, I turn towards my pantry"

Man, this is fucking horrific. How the hell was it this bad? Fuck, how do I even fix this.

>>19070645
When you have shit like that try rewriting everything without using "I" or "my".

>>19070645
>"Immediately I scramble, shooting out my left hand and grabbing the bottle along with its cap, screwing it shut. Standing up, I turn towards my pantry"

That's how I'd write it (not sure if your gimmick is using the present tense, but I'd rather use the past tense):

"At that moment, I scrambled, shooting out the left hand. I grabbed the bottle and screwed it shut. Standing up, I turned towards the pantry."

Avoid using gerunds all the time because it may sound too artificial imho.

>>19068931
I got around this by adjusting my sleep schedule to wake up 3 hours earlier than usual and writing before wageslaving. I’d recommend it if it’s viable for you

First time posting here.

The rotting bunker is a great slumbering thing. It looms silent even in the quiet wasteland, its gravity the gravity of some shipwrecked stellar object. It rises eerie and serene from a slope of talus scree. The bunker’s grey wings spread to reveal the door, unadorned except by a cracked and glowing rod, which still burns small above it. The rod was embedded there during the construction of the thing and its redness will be the last light snuffed before the end. Chipped fragments of the wall pile beneath it where it has failed. Its rebar skeleton where exposed whispers that it is a thing of man. A fallen-angel softness becomes the ancient edifice. All that remains of the walls is weeping, the lesions the gift of the rain.

You can probably tell I read too much Cormac McCarthy; is that an issue? How can I do better?

>>19070923
>The rotting bunker is a great slumbering thing.
Non-starter. Think about conveying this without saying one thing is a thing.
>It looms silent even in the quiet wasteland, its gravity the gravity of some shipwrecked stellar object.
This has a poetic nature to it. Well done.
> Its rebar skeleton where exposed whispers that it is a thing of man.
I’m really not following what is being said here. Is there a typo?
The last line is a great fin de siècle though. I think you command a good voice and your diction is great, but you could do with a rewrite and to change up a bit more.

>>19070774
>Avoid using gerunds all the time because it may sound too artificial imho.
Don't ever give advice ever again.

>>19072104
Thanks for responding!

How about,
>It was wrought by hands whose bones are now dust
instead of
>the rotting bunker is a great slumbering thing
Doesn't have the same "rhythm" but it'll do.

I appreciate the compliment.

>Its rebar skeleton where exposed whispers that it is a thing of man
Everything people make is doomed to entropy. The decay of the bunker, its weathering down to its rebar skeleton, exposes that it is doomed to entropy, and that it is a thing people made. Maybe I can get away with doubletake passages when I have a legion of academics jacking off about my magnanimous works, which is totally going to happen /lit/.

Glad you enjoyed it!

>>19072216
>>It was wrought by hands whose bones are now dust
Yeah that’s way better.
>which is totally going to happen /lit/.
You need connections for that and to maybe travel to a literary city like Syracuse and do an MFA with George Saunders. It’s up to you.

>>19058046
I read your story and im so lost and confused. Please edit it and stop releasing chapters every week, it ruins the quality of your writing

>>19072660
Comments like this terrify me. They're the main reason I will never put anything on Royal Road. Writing serially for any story you actually respect enough to get right is the biggest trap for new writers.

>"Intelligent" animal means an outright prescient creature that can detect literally every trap used by the attacker, form complex strategies and pull shit straight out of their ass even when they're taken by surprise.
I hate this trope like you wouldn't believe, because normal humans can do all of those things at a moments notice, right?

He hadn’t even cleared the front step before tripping. A mass of black feathers descended in an instant as 500 pounds of failure crashed to the pavement, his pleas for help drowned out by a cacophony of squawking and cawing. He clung desperately to the precious pages. His life’s work on paper. A thousand beaks all at once tore into it. Shreds of white in a sea of black. Then as if it had never happened it was over. The birds were gone without a trace. Not so much as a feather left behind. As he lay dazed and motionless he was faintly aware of a warmness around his crotch, as a pool of urine quickly began to spread from under him. Bits and pieces of the manuscript floated down like snow on a Winter's morning.

>>19072777
Just write the story before you start posting, what is the problem?

>>19070923
Everyone here apes McCarthy and everyone here sucks hard at it. McCarthy's strength is his blunt effectiveness. The prose seems ornate on the surface but every word choice has a clear purpose, every simile describes things exactly as they are, the reader sees the scene vividly without having to stop to scratch his head.

Your excerpt is just complete nonsense. It looks like you picked words based on how they feel to you instead of what they literally mean and the result is mumbo-jumbo that makes you roll eyeballs. I personally hate this kind of purple prose more than anything.

>>19072889
I mean I guess it's an option but it kind of defeats the purpose of writing serially. You can't do a ton to implement feedback when you have the entire story written and edited beforehand and the people who know this aren't going to give any serious feedback. Best you can hope for with that strat is the ability to flood the Latest Updates section of RR for a week and a half and bait in two dozen readers.

>>19072921
You don't have to tell them that it's already written you know.

Who else gets a little bit of puke in mouth when story or excerpt starts with a competence establishing declarative sentence? It’s so overused i can’t stand it.

Hey guys this is my opening sentence. Thoughts?
>Anon didn’t like declarative sentences.

>>19073000
Without it, it gives a disorienting effect. The intro to Ender's Game is just dialogue, and there's pretty much no context. It can work but usually people need a swift kick to show them what's going on.

>>19072921
>You can't do a ton to implement feedback
You can implement it if only you care to. The result will still be better than making up shit as you go.

>the people who know this aren't going to give any serious feedback.
>source: my ass

>>19073000
Give at least 5 examples.

>>19070923
It's ugly prose. It's not ugly because you use more advanced vocabulary but because the whole thing flows poorly. Cormac at his best is yes, describing things accurately per >>19072918, but more than that he's displaying a technical mastery of the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings of the English language. Words flow delicately, vigorously, brutally, lovingly from the end of one into the beginning of another. They ring out with assonance and rhythm. The end effect is hypnotic, and it's the hallmark of the great prosesmiths of the English language. That he tends to use very specific and often esoteric vocabulary speaks to a separate, but interactive mastery. This probably makes no sense. It doesn't even make sense to me. Why? Because I'm trying to express something analytically which can only be intuited experientially. You might think this makes me full of shit. Maybe it does. My suggestion is to keep writing and to keep reading.

>>19072918
Also, you're a fag. Telling a group of aspiring writers that they'll never be Cormac and to stop "aping" him says more about your own attitude than it does about the capacity of anyone else. When I read hilariously specific criticism like that, the only reasonable conclusion is that you secretly desire yourself to be Cormac McCarthy, or at least to write like him. Maybe you can't, and maybe that frustrates you. I have no way of knowing that. But it sure as shit reads like you're projecting your own scathing self-criticism onto others. You're applying it to absolute beginners as well. Does that give you a confidence boost? How long does that last for you?

>>19073253
I’m not the guy you were responding but “you secretly want to write like mccarthy” is such a weird insult. Like yeah, no shit?
I’d blow my father to be able to write like mcarthy, this is not the amazing own you think it is

>>19073234
Can I have good, flowing prose if I start with advice about grammar in general? Varied sentence structure, the right transitional expressions, and organizing a paragraph? I mean like very direct non-fiction arguing a case. In a way, even fiction is like that but we also have to use literary devices carefully and subtly go from one point to the next rather than saying "Therefore."

>>19073273
I don't know. Nobody does. Develop your own personal aesthetic. You're asking me to define your subjective assessment of what qualifies good prose. If I were to tell you what you should think, I don't believe there's any value to that. My own opinions were arrived at by way of my own personal experiences intersecting with some uncountable number of inherent qualities. Personal choice, i.e. free will, probably plays a factor too. I'm bullshitting you because there's no non-bullshit way to answer your question. You could always just read those "On Writing" manuals or whatever, but when it comes down to it they all say the same thing I just told you... only with less self-awareness and a heavy application of the gravitas of consensus.

My advice remains the same: read more, write more.

>>19073272
I'm cumming and farting at the same time as I write this.

>>19073273
One way to do that is write until you notice what works the best for you.

>>19073128
There's an anon in this thread who has been uploading to RR for over 5 months now and hasn't received a single review. Do you really think people would be more willing to provide feedback if he threw in an extra blurb saying "Story is already written. You can leave feedback if you want but don't expect me to implement it unless it's actually good."?

I need to reclaim my arrogance. Praise has satiated that adventurous sense of "this is what I like and fuck you if you disagree." It feels like I'm not challenging myself or my apocryphal reader enough when people like what I've written. I feel like sharing my writing at all has been a mistake. I'm not ready yet to enter that feedback loop of positive reinforcement. I haven't developed enough yet as a writer.

I truly believe there is nothing worse for your writing than having a typical careerist office job.

>>19073377
A bad story is obviously a bad story regardless of the methodology used. All I'm saying is that stories with more thought and effort behind them are typically better received than rushed, unedited pieces of shit. Also, the anon in question has received a lot of feedback in these threads alone, and chose to ignore it all, so he took the worst of both worlds.

>>19073722
I do freelance writing and I think it’s worse for me than when I worked in an office.

>>19073253
>they'll never be Cormac and to stop "aping" him
I get that you can't see the lines clearly through all the tears, but I didn't even say that

>>19073740
I suppose that can be bad for you for the same reason that an office job is bad for and that’s training counterproductively. The thing is, as a writer you’re training counterproductive habits. Those can be corrected. As an office worker, you’re training counterproductive modes of thinking, which aren’t easily deconditioned.

>>19072660
>I read your story and im so lost and confused.
How far in did you get, you didn't start it somewhere in the middle, correct?
Are you confused w/r/t the main plot, i.e the MC gets tricked into a different body and is now trying to reestablish before all their enemies find out and come calling?
Or are you more lost due to the setting, they're way out somewhere in space on what was supposed to be a terraforming project but they were lied to its just a mining operation (an allusion to tranny surgery).
Are there too many characters? Do you dislike my naming conventions?
Saying you're confused by itself isn't helpful, please give me a little more than that. I've spent quite a bit of time editing.

>>19073000
>competence establishing declarative sentence
What does this nmean

>>19074044
>with/respect/to

>>19073722
I think working retail/fast food is more detrimental

I can't settle on which voice to pick for the narrator. It's in the third person, but I don't know how detached, clinical, sentimental, quirky or such to make the narration sound. Any advice? Should I just go with what feels natural?

I'm struggling to describe a character's physique with muscular beauty. Not body builder type, but something sublime and aesthetic like pic rel. What words or metaphors should I use?

>>19074321
If you're struggling then leave it simple. 'the most radiating thing about Bob was his toned muscles. It is nearly impossible to even think about tearing away. I can only suppress this urge to jump up to him and let out a crybl that he is a criminal for hiding such masculinity under these baggy clothes of his: but I refrain.'

>>19074380
>bob
You’re talking about ZYZZ.

>>19074410
I wasn't referencing the image.

>>19074413
Shut the fuck up, newfag.

>>19074380
Thanks anon, gonna steal that.

>>19074419
Do you know how I know that you're underage?

>>19074426
Filtered, summerfag

>>19074435
I'm literally the one who posted that image, dumbass.

>>19048084
What makes RoyalRoad any different than, say, fanfiction.net or WattPad?

How do I study military strategy?

>>19074603
Fanfiction is for fanfiction, while Wattpad removed its forums which decreased the reader-author feedback loop. Also, I think that WP is for romance while RR is for more action sungenres.

>>19074609
Read Clausewitz

>>19074603
RR has better discoverability. Wattpad's nonexistent

>>19074609
Be a map painting autist. Strategy and tactical/war games help in general.

>>19074609
I've heard some authors listen to podcasts and youtube channels. Military history can be useful, but keep in mind that strategic success depends on who is playing. Consider how WW1 would have played out if they knew how their strategic misalignment with their weapon technology would cause such a high death toll, they had decades to learn this from previous conflicts. Most imports for the war effort were still feed for horses, and in the end of the war horses were following the tanks. The newly organized "total war" was so inflexible and so much investment had been done to have public education, mass media and end slavery just to support it.
Your story may not get detailed into strategy, but do consider that strategies can often be wildly wrong, so make sure to lantern on it. Strategies from the past or present may not even be appropriate for what you're doing, so be cognizant of that. New challenges or strategic changes can make for interesting pivots in the story.

>>19073221
>>19074095
Declarative sentence per se does not make opening line cringy. It’s always the pomposity of the author that makes me want to die. I found 15 ”best” openings on a random webpage and gave them my ratings.
>Call me Ishmael
Imperative sentence. Excellent choice.
>I am an invisible man
This is good. It’s the narrator speaking.
>The story so far: in the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move
Pompous and gringy.
>Mother died today. Or maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure
Good
>It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York
Not so sure about this. Into the gringebox it goes.
>Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board
Gringe.
>We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold
Good.
>You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy'
Imperative sentence. Excellent choice.
>It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen
Good.
>It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife
Cringy, pompous.
>The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation
Good.
>The sweat wis lashing oafay Sick Boy; he wis trembling.
What? Cringy.
>124 was spiteful. Full of Baby's venom
Pompous.
>As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect
I know i’m supposed to like this but into the pompous zone it goes.
>I write this sitting in the kitchen sink
Excellent.

>>19074782
>I am an invisible man
You reminded me that whenever I bring up The Invisible Man by HG Wells people think I'm talking about the more recent Invisible Man by Ellison

I'm writing my statement of purpose for my future PhD. Have any tips?

Wish me luck

>>19074919
How did you get reviews like that on the back cover, was it tough? Did the publisher help you do that or did you self publish? Also yeah good luck, reach out to a publicist if you need to since word of mouth is still how most people recommend books, not ads.

>>19075002
I didnt write it. I thought this guy was posting in the last thread, so I bought it to read.

>>19058620
I liked the line about muted church bells. Those before it seem crude and amateur in comparison, as though pretexts given little consideration for the better line. I think maybe something with more 'texture' is warranted like
"Sunset gave a last look illuming footprints trailing up to the farm."
or maybe
"Footprints glowed in the last light of day, fading breadcrumbs leading from the farm"
bla bla bla

>>19074776
Huh VERY good post. I had forgotten that strategies aren't necessarily perfect, I should still study the principles, but having characters make wrong decisions should be part of the story
>>19074674
Thanks
>>19074756
Out of all the videos I saw about so far, a huge element seems to be the positioning in regards to the geography. I don't necessarily know how much those games will help. Seems almost like studying geography is as important as battle tactics in general.

>>19074919
God damn that cover is awful. Who would choose that font or that color or align it that way on top of that picture. This is worse than an F. Gardner cover. Kill me now.

>>19074919
>blue text on green background

>>19075157
Lmao

What are some cool, catchy lit nicknames I can use to publish something?
I cannot do that under my real name due to my project being a bit sensitive.

any ideas guy here?

>>19075747
Why are you asking us? We don't do any writing here.

>>19074782
>categorizes by pompousness
aesthetics driven opinions
pompous

>>19075747
Ideas come easy once you are familiar with synthesizing them from things you think about or existing material. You can come up with ideas way faster than you can finish writing them. Why are you asking, are you stumped?

>>19050351
100 pages into this and its legit. Thanks for the protip.

>>19074782
Pls, rate my opening line
>At a first glance no one would take Inés and Iván for a strange couple.

>>19075747
A dog finds aliens on his backyard and tries to warm his owner of them. Hilarity ensues as the dog makes his way up the tables mountain that grants wishes, or erases them, but the mountain is always changing shape so the dog gets lost on the trail, and he meets a band of orcs and goblins along the way. Also, it's a burger punk. And it takes place in some virtual world in a giant cylinder-shapee space colony. And it's meta since the dog's owner is a frustrated writer who only hit a dead wall 170k words into his novel.

/wg/, i need help replacing a character with someone less annoying who still fills the same role in the plot.

the first version of him was a dweeby, high strung nerd (more in the social outcast sense than the interests) with a barely concealed inflation fetish. the second was a more ourgoing, adventurous, dorky kid who was the kind of person that would say "golly" unironically and had a dream of being a hot air ballloon

whatever this new version of the character is, i know he has to be the dumber, nicer, more adventurous sidekick to more jaded characters, he's somewhere between 10 and 16, and he has a huge thing for balloons. ive considered making him a clown, but i think that's going to make him more annoying, not less

>>19075747
A boy falls in love with a girl. Unable to confess, he is gifted with by a deus ex machina with the girl’s phone number. Never minding the strange area code, he immediately calls her, and is overjoyed to find out that she has a crush on him as well. But, the next day, when he recounts the previous day’s confessions to the girl, she only looks at him with a perplexed expression. After some investigation, he finds out that the girl he called is not the same girl he fell in love with. In fact, she doesn’t exist in this universe at all. She is the girl’s alternate universe counterpart, who has fallen in love with the MC’s own AU self, who too is blissfully unaware of her crush. Hijinks ensue as the two strike up a deal to give each other their darkest, most private secrets in order to equip the other with the weapons they need to conquer the heart of their other selves. While the two chase their respective loved ones, DRAMA ensues as they begin to fall in love with each other instead and question the NATURE of LOVE.

>>19075978
Just write.

>>19075965
It’s good.

Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

-Mary Oliver

>>19075974
Based

>>19075747
think of an object
think of a place
think of a person
think of a problem

e.g. cup, miami, hitler, erectile disjunction

make the 4 things into a sentence

e.g. hitler is in a small room at a fertility clinic in miami desperately trying to fill a cup with piss so the doctor can tell him why his dick stopped working.

now you have a scenario and a prompt

>>19076153
Aliens, suburbia, a dog, inability to communicate.

>>19076158
Aliens land on Earth in a quiet suburb in an attempt to make first contact, but the house is empty and all the neighbours are sleeping, and the only one to greet the aliens is a small dog in the back garden who frustrates all of their attempts to communicate with him.

>>19076040
Thanks

Behold.

I will not post my question until there's a new thread. It is THAT important.

hey anon, whats your RR profile

>>19076425
alien language looks like Arabic

>>19076588
https://www.royalroad.com/profile/145004

>trying to finish an edit of a manuscript to get it ready to query
>wordcount too low, feels a little too fast and empty
>reviewed entire book today, wrote summary quip of every chapter
>identified 4 places I need to add material
>now need to figure out what to add to solve the problems and flesh out setting

fuck.

>>19075790
Could you expand on this? Absolute beginner here, I know exactly what I want to write about but I'm having trouble connecting the ideas to a plot (I'm not the poster you're replying to by the way)

>>19076935
An idea isn't the same as a plot, really.

You may as well be more specific about your problem if you want help. James Joyce could be in here and lay out his complete idea for Ulysses and it wouldn't mean a damn thing if anyone took that idea and made a story of it, because it wouldn't be Ulysses unless Joyce wrote it. So don't be anxious about being specific about your problem.

>>19076935
Think of it like question and answer session. I start from issues I think about often and have analyzed in my head enough to have a lot to say about it. Your story can have layers of themes and questions that drive it but I start like this:
>what if all search engine data was used to build something?
>what if it was used to kill us?
>what if it didn't want to kill us, but wanted something else from us?
>what dilemma does this create?
>what kinds of characters would struggle the most with this dilemma, and what other questions does it raise?
>what themes do I notice and how can I represent them? A snake, a door frame, a lemon pie, etc
>can I mix these themes into setting, character weakness or a goal in the scene to for double-duty storytelling?
>how many times do I have to hit this theme or am I hitting it too much?
I go through multiple lines of inquiry and exhaust them to a degree to see which one fits where I'd like it to go. It's by no means exhaustive, but go listen to writing podcasts of people discussing what things they think about when crafting. If you ask good questions and give good answers with good organization and persistence you can come up with great ideas.

Behind him stood a towering, rain-soaked figure in a green jumpsuit. Wild eyes staring out at nothing through long unkempt hair. In each hand was a jug of milk. Her scream was drowned out by a crash of thunder.

>>19076935
Nobody here knows what they're talking about. You won't get any help here.

>>19076957
When I said "ideas" I didn't mean concepts for stories, I meant my ideas on the subject I want to write about. Writing this just now I realize my first problem - I struggle to synthesize all of my thoughts into a single "theme." I know that sounds like I should just narrow the scope, but when I do that I feel the result is a hackneyed theme that doesn't fully capture what I want to express. If I try to write a story off of that diluted theme I struggle to find a way to fit in all of my thoughts and then become frustrated when the story doesn't reflect why I wanted to write it to begin with.

Not sure if I'm missing something in my approach, or if I'm just not skilled enough to write a story like this yet

>>19075981
anime/10

>>19048084
First time writing in a while, I feel like I'm gonna have to do a lot of tweaking to make this decent but here's what I have so far (1/2)

A hunk of cottage cheese was dangling precariously on the tip of Arlene's spoon. A hunk, as opposed to a blob as it ought to be; as Arlene did not let anything go to waste. It didn't wiggle like a spoon does in the wide arcs of boredom, in her hands it jittered spasmodically as it traced the functions of her contemplation in the air. A plunk, the hunk made it as it fell in the soupier region of the tub of fermenting curd. Blinking away from an elaborate icon she stared at the sound and noticed a crust had crawled over her cup of peaches in syrup. A fly landed and marched dutifully over the film, poking it with its proboscis before Arlene pounded it with the back of her spoon. Her contemplative mien withered into a ploughland of anguish, its aged furrows seeded with disgust. A full-body wince that sucks all the body's blood into the heart nearly detonates it then pumps it all back out to the extremities. A sigh of relief, weary eyes turn to the icon. All that for us, she thought. All that for me, she believed. It wasn't like other icons or crucifixes or tacky relics, it was a living reminder of the Crucifixion. A dull aura of solemn divinity emanated from it, it emanated from the burgundy gash on Christ's chest as rendered by the artist. Preserved in intricate oak was Longinus wrenching the spear from Christ, tearing ribbons of organ and flesh away as the Lord reels in agony. Twisting intestines and the upper rim of the kidneys slid out of the wound and hummed with a claret brilliance only a saint could portray.

A shudder ran down her spine and slithered around the walls of her stomach, a sour groan permeated her belly and echoed in her wrinkled ears. Grasping her spoon she shoveled the fallen hunk into her mouth, slurping up a puddle of acrid whey that pooled at the bottom of the tarnished utensil. Every taste bud quailed in revulsion and she felt gripped by a transient illness, more likely a conditioned autoimmune response to the bacteria oozing out of the fetid cheese. A wailing melody of shrill beeps crescendoed out of the phone on the wall. Arlene had her grandson change the ringtone to "Erbarme dich, mein Gott." Nowadays when he or anyone else from the family rings it made her feel a bit saintly. She was rather moneyed on account of her thrift and rather merciful with it for those who needed it. Her grandson always needed money but she didn't mind because he thanked her up and down shaking and wide-eyed, his thinning frame rattled around with joy. He had grown pale recently and asked for more and more, and the Lord wrapped her in angelic warmth. She felt warmest when he came in and took it off the counter without her noticing, like a little cherub had come and whisked it away.

>>19077558
(2/2)
The phone rang again, jolting her out of her reverie. It was Sunday night and whoever the hell was calling her could leave her well alone at this hour. A bead of saliva rolled off her pouting lip and spattered over her folded hands before she realized she had been staring at her shoes for God knows how long. A dull pain seeped out of the folds of her brain as she hoisted her head head backwards to lay it on the crest of her chair. His crown of thorns always brought tears to her eyes. He had to have known the same pain I do, she believed, I do know what your pain is like. She sunk deep into the creaking wooden seat until her arms nearly dangled next to her face. Deep breath. Breathe. On exhalation Arlene lifted her eyes to the Lord and espied his holy head wreathed in agony. Inside a maw agape with torture, two rows of perfect teeth quake against the might of his proclamation of pain; the alabaster skin of his face rips at the seam between his lips of dusty rose. A seraphic disc of gold framed the portrait of redemption, its eyes clenched with waning endurance.

Just finished Tender is the Night. What did I think about it

>>19074782
>Pompous and gringy
If you dislike Douglas Adams I'm going to have to take back your /lit/ license