/lit/ - Literature

Reposting this:

https://pastebin.com/haUuUZzr

First try at writing a short story. Wanted to try writing one before leaping into my first novel.

Got any critiques? Did everything make sense?

First for procrastinating

>>19181689
I laughed and didn't expect the ending to actually have a meaningful conclusion.

What’s the point of this thread? Nobody here writes!

Didn't know where else to ask this
Is there some website where i can check the Public domain status of a certain character or IP?
I know Wikipedia usually does that for those that are PD. But the rules vary between countries, and sometimes between different publications of within that franchise.
I'm not sure how feasible it actually is, but it would be interesting if there is a website dedicated to this

>>19181363
>no one in /wg/ writes
They do but you cocksuckers don't give critiques worth jack shit to know what needs improvement or not. So we just stopped posting excerpts altogether

>>19181851
What do you mean? I write in my journal!
Nevermind, I just read it again. My last entry was in March of last year. Ay caramba.

So I finished 1 novel, it was okay but not great. I planned to go back to it and redo it and make it really good.

Then I finished a 2nd novel. It's pretty good, but something is missing, and it's also pretty short.

Then I had an idea so crazy it just might work. Rather than go back and re-write my first novel, why not incorporate it into my 2nd novel? Originally the two were entirely different settings, but I figured out a way to combine them that actually works really fucking well and the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced it will be fucking amazing.

The biggest issue is now that my 2nd novel, which is already 130k words, will double in size, if not more. That's apparently a massive no-no with publishers, but fuck them. If they don't want it, I'll self publish and let the quality of my writing stand on its own feet.

Hmm, today I will write 1000 words around an argument I had with myself in the mirror last night

>>19181363
I have a five-part novel set up, with parts 1, 2, 3, and 5 more or less worked out. Part 4 is necessary but has major gaps in plot and character development.
>P1: widespread internet outage kicks alcoholic hermit/NEET out of his stupor
>P2: girl from smallish town hitches towards Vancouver to track down her brother. Simultaneously, young tech executive in Vancouver meets with [withheld] to discuss [withheld] and begins to experience something of a crisis of conscience himself
>P3: MC from part 1 has breakdown, leaves everything behind, and tries to conceive of way to strike back at society. [withholding what he decides on]
>P4: MC and girl cross paths on the highway and quickly learn they both want to "strike back" at society and have very little to live for. They collaborate on the types of "strike backs" and eventually arrive in Vancouver
>P5: MC and girl part ways. MC decides on a final "project" and in the course of trying to execute it, must tango with a silly traffic cop who takes himself too seriously (this character is used for satirical purposes, but exposits some of the themes of the novel from his modest place in a massive bureaucracy

>>19182095
What is the subject matter/themes of the project?

>>19182073
My biggest problem with your post is that people don't really inform us what's going on with their excerpt. A good post would look like:
>I'm writing a historic fiction about the pastry industry and I was wondering if this passage conveys enough weight of the anxiety my protagonist feels about inventing the creampie.
But most are usually like:
>Here's an excerpt of my book. What do you think?
One, I'm not drawn to read it. Two, if I do, I'll either insult you because it's so bad or remain quiet to show its sufferance. With the author not having any goals for the reader, there's no yardstick to measure it by.

I mostly come here to share my writing woes anyway rather than get feedback. You shouldn't really take advice from strangers.

>>19182163
>My biggest problem with your post is that people don't really inform us what's going on with their excerpt. A good post would look like:
>>I'm writing a historic fiction about the pastry industry and I was wondering if this passage conveys enough weight of the anxiety my protagonist feels about inventing the creampie.
Not him, but that's a very fair point.

>>19182073
I still post mine if there are prompts for them but I've never actively pursued feedback, just more preferred to sharing them.

>>19179323
Wuxia means roughly martial heroes, and Xianxia means immortal heroes.

Wuxia is based around chinese knight-errant heroes wandering around the wilderness beating bad guys up, and training in kang foo mysticism to reach the height of what is humanly possible. Note that the height of what is humanly possible in this case means being able to walk up walls vertically and glide off mountains and shieet but at least it's prefaced with the "Well this would be physically possible if you lower your body weight like way way way down somehow so it's technically not outside the realms of reason" kind of bullshit.

Xianxia doesn't event pretend to have that. It's just straight up magic, people becoming gods through all sorts of chinese folklore mystic crap. It's supposedly based on daoism but Laotzu ain't got SHIT on xianxia. Western xianxia actually tends to emphasize the actual philosophy of daoism but most chinese shit is just straight up murderhobos destroying entire clans down to their pet rabbit because they looked at him wrong and because he's such a fucking badass.

Anyone else been here since the first thread? I can't even remember what the OP image was, but I have vague memories of yellows and blues. Didn't we used to number the threads?

I think there were nine replies in the original thread when I first clicked on it. Wish I would have known I was making history back then. Man, I sure miss those crazy first days, when we were just getting things figured out. What was it that we used to put in the OP? Something about "discussions regarding the craft." lol we really had clue what to talk about back then. Should we try to develop some kind of unique theory? Just bullshit about our stories? I remember /crit/ still ruled the catalog when it came to discussions regarding writing technique. Never thought we'd usurp them one day, back when we were just a bunch of crazy kids with a few links in the OP. Now look at us, got our own memes and cliques and copypastas.

But the old spirit's still alive. In a way, we're still figuring things out, even though we've all learned so much. OGs of the WG, what's your favorite memory? One time some cuck posted some pretentious feminist nonsense in response to a prompt (a statue of a man wrestling with snakes) and I roasted him so hard. Everyone was agreeing with me, it was awesome. Best day of my life.

I posted this a few threads ago but never checked back. I've written an entire manifesto/short essay book but have no idea what to do with it. Any idea where to send edgier content for editing/publication? I've been published many times already, but this stuff can't be associated with my name -- at least for now.

>>19182181
I've been here since the beginning. There were far more than just 9 replies. I mused that after a while a general might not be a good idea from my experiences with /vg/. I've always been the 'I told you so' kind of guy in communities but I don't know if it applies here. Hate it or hate it I still find it for granted that we have a general on all of 4chan that has a community for writing.

https://archived.moe/lit/thread/15974415/#15974415

I could've sworn that Lit Quarterly was spawned from a /wg/ thread, but it was in 2019 so predates that. Maybe it was a "post your short story ideas. it's not like they're going anywhere" thread.

>>19182241
Wouldn't be too farfetched. There was definitely quite a bit of prototype alpha build 0.5 writing generals and variations thereof—earliest example on archived.moe are two 2015 /wg/ threads, with the next writing threads being in 2018 and then we arrive at the 'modern' 2020 June threads.

How do I decide which story to write bros? I have so many stories I want to write, but as soon as I decide to commit to one, all I can think about is all the other stories I'd rather write first. If I don't commit to a single story, I just end up picturing the same 3 or 4 scenes from each idea without ever making any progress. Seriously, what do I do?

>>19182251
write the scenes that come to mind as soon as they come to mind. That would be a start. As time goes on, you'll realize that those scenes need development and hopefully you can find the focus to develop them, even piecemeal.

>>19182212
I meant there were only 9 replies when I opened the thread. And actually searching the archives, my first post wasn't until the third general. Crazy shit man. It's been a wild ride.

>>19182241
OP here, I remember posting in one of the "post your short story" threads as far back as 2014

>>19182273
those go way back, yes. But they blurred with /wg/ because I'm so used to /wg/ now. The post your short story threads had ebbs and flows of really good feeback and just people shilling their half-baked shit.

How did you guys find the strength to write during the Trump years?

The OP of the original /wg/ makes reference to a /write/ thread which he hadn't seen in a while. Any oldfags that can chime in and tell us what the culture was like back then? Valuable lessons you've learned along the way

>>19182331
there were more tripfags and they were actually educated and not attention whores

>>19182163
Good point and i'll take that into consideration

Is it true the only way to get published is by making your story about gay faggots homoing on each other? I just wanted to write about a goblin uprising.

>>19182466
Then write about a goblin uprising if that is the kind of story you want to read and write. You can still selfpub or even upload it on webnovel platforms too. I mean, it doesn't hurt taking shots at getting traditionally published. You just have more options than just traditional is what I'm saying. Rather or not you'll get a readership out of it (in any form of publication you do) is another subject entirely because it just boils down to luck in general.

>>19182309
I haven't been worried about that lately, but I do worry in general that there could be consequences to such a personal project in the future. It'd hurt a lot but there's just no stopping writing.
If anything I'd like to write something that 100 years from now people would find it visionary, that matters more to me than my lifetime.

>>19182466
Make it a goblin (social) uprising. They're revolting against the glass ceiling keeping them from being higher level mooks! They WILL be validated as a race along elves and orcs! No longer will goblins be denied housing just because they really enjoy blowing up houses!

>>19182309
I wasn't a massive bitch.

>>19182616
Actually I did take a lot of inspiration from CURRENT YEAR. most of the plot got kicked off by joe Biden saying “if you don’t vote for me you ain’t black.”

>>19182309
I wasn't actively writing any story prior to 2020. Sometime in 2016, I wrote the first prototype draft of my story that was only about a dozen paragraphs long, then I never touched it ever again. From 2017 to early 2019 I mainly wrote Wikipedia-style battle statistics and your typical lore stuff.

Around August/September 2019 I started on a new draft that was about two chapters long, and after some critique by some friends, I decided to try again on a new draft after hitting a roadblock, so I turned the clock on the story by a few hundred years for a better telling of the story. This one was more elaborate, but I didn't receive much feedback on it, other than the first chapter made one of my friends bored reading through it but others who read after it found it interesting. This second(or I guess third?) draft got a little further with some 20 chapters between October 2019 to April 2021, then I started serialing it and got some encouraging feedback from readers.

When I shared this publication with another group of friends, I was heavily criticized for how dry and barebones it was owing to the fact that there was no real characters to speak off, but the person going on a tangent admitted he didn't read too much of it. So I reforged the narrative into something else that I was finally happy with.

On one hand, I had encouraging advice to keep writing, and on the other some harsh criticism that helped me see how unengaging the story was. I'm not one for being thick-skinned, but I guess I just persevered.

One thing I want to add that's relevant to the image is that I did have to change a character's from Floyd to Oliver because of the whole BLM and George Floyd thing. I think that's the only case thus so far in my story that I've been concerned I might get lambasted for. Also, later in the story, there is a pivotal scene where disenfranchised colonists storm a capitol building which I've envisioned months before the US Capitol was stormed in January. Needless to say, I won't be changing that aspect, but I feel it will be necessary to leave an author's note that this is an utter and absolutely genuine coincidence and that I'm apolitical at heart; I just want to grill first and foremost kinda guy if you will.

>>19182771
Thank you to the thoughtful response to my bait post. Now I feel like a prick.
I’ll share another scheduled item form the con I went to this weekend.

I feel completely robotic and unnatural when I create, is there anything I could that that would let me loosen up?

To give you an analogy, when drawing I always somehow first put down a stiff amateur tier drawing despite knowing fundamentals well, it's only on my second try looking at the first terrible drawing that I can start implementing things that make it feel more natural, and I have to go through them in my head manually, whereas every other artist I see just starts putting down final lines with those fundamentals in mind immediately.

Now I have the same problem but with writing, except it's worse because compared to drawing I can't write and correct my stuff consciously, my characters and ideas feel like cardboard cutouts, I don't think they would resonate with anyone and would likely feel like they were written by an alien. Even with my drawings, I often get comments about them being strange and unnatural, stuff I never see on other people's drawing, despite drawing being my forte, I can only imagine what my writing would come across as.

Where is the warmth

>>19182771
is this a weird copypasta

>>19182811
No prob, don't sweat it

>>19182823
No? It's my authentic experience, I wrote it up just now.

>>19181851
I do, I am at 6k right now on a new chapper, and, once I wake up from sleeping, will get it up to 8k.

>>19182820
Sounds like you need a passion project.
Don't create for the sake of creating, for the sake of proving yourself as an artist. Create because of the passion you feel for the subject.

Are there ways of marketing self-published books? I'd consider a dozen reviews on Amazon a miracle.

>>19182901
post it here and become a meme

>>19182901
Don't let your memes become dreams

>>19182073
Nah, no one writes in /wg/

>>19182820
thats what edits are for, they turn your trash into treasure

>>19182998
Tell that to F Gardner

>>/tv/157306322
Why is this allowed?

>>>/tv/157306322
Why is this allowed?

>>19183311
Why is linking your own thread across boards not an instant 3 day ban

>>19183311
He has a discord server of some faggy cult that spreads the word of his shitty novels.

>>19183361
Can I read it for free? I ain't paying money just to be in on a meme.

>>19183361
Call of the Crocodile is fucking amazing

>>19183361
Based cult

Tfw rejected for publication again.

>>19182309
Not American so the Trump presidency really had no effect on the amount of work I managed to put out in those years. I had a writing job at the time that left me with enough freedom to pursue my own projects on company time, if I was discreet enough. I also set up a Fiverr account and started writing smut on commission. Funnily enough, my output has dropped significantly since I started my current job, which I got shortly before the Biden election.

Lawyer anon here. I got a new job and it is absolutely ravaging me. Before I was too anxious about the future to write and now I’m too busy writing pleadings to actually write! I’m exhausted. At this rate, burgerpunk will never be done!

What app or program is good for making fictional family trees?

>>19183689
Paint.

>>19183235
An animefag who was driven out by the pseuds. What's your point?

>>19183710
Are you saying I stop posting for three threads and now all the writers left /wg/?

>>19183710
Wtf are you talking about? His in the /lit/ and /wg/ discord

How do you write fully fleshed characters that the reader “will care about”?

>>19183822
Here I was wondering why the last three threads were so good.

>>19183830
write about a character that you care about

>>19183697
lol, I should totally do that.

>>19183830
Well you phrased the question in a circular way. Normally a fleshed out character is how you make a reader care, and a reader cares when a character is fleshed out. Personally I start caring about characters when I learn to understand their thought process and reasons for how they go on about their life. Everyone’s life experiences are different and to see the puzzle unfold of who that character is, to then realize that’s why they do what they do, is what makes me keep wanting to follow a character around. If a sudden major event took away a characters family, after living for years in a comfortable middle class life style, I’d feel like I’d know more of where that character is going to go and how they think and seeing if I predict that choice right or wrong is interesting. There’s a consistency thing to it that sometimes gives a great twist or character defining moment. When the character leaves the house to go explore the woods after always being inside or what have you. This pulls of the real catharsis of growth and leaves the imprint on the reader. The character that decides to finally share the horrifying thing they saw with others after staying quiet for so long when you thought they wouldn’t. That type of thing makes me feel more connected to a character or other person than talking to them in real life. To experience the act with them is the real beauty of literature. Not just to observe, but to be a part of when the dog discovers aliens is the real magic.

>>19183710
More like the psudes driven out by an animefag desu

>>19183830
make a cute anime girl and I will like her, unless she's a cuckqueen then I will fucking burn your book and give you a 0 star rating

>>19183830
>>19183968

>>19183968
>cute anime girl
>I care about her
Infallible logic

>Still, no one is writing
I should expect it at this point, but still, I'm perplex at this being called a writing general.

>>19184107
I am writing though.

>>19184107
>I'm perplex
Hello, Perplex. Are you ESL?

>>19184107
What the hell? I'm currently working on a Pantheon genealogy for my newest fantasy novel that I've already written 27,000 words for. This is my 5th, my first had over 80,000 words, my second had 120,000, my third 145,000 and my 4th had 85,000 words

So, yeah I'm writing, sorry if I'm not giving continuous updates. Yeesh

>>19184174
Are you new? Someone always shits up /wg/ with stories about anime and pseuds and no one writing.

>Hmmm, a thread I care about isn't getting the activity I approve of. How do I fix the issue?
>I know! Constant infighting bait and doomposting!

>>19184199
>no one writing.
Sadly, this is true.

>>19183557
What is that?

>>19184447
its from a japanese guy

>>19184447
All my rejection slips on submittable.

>2nd draft will take 1 month at this pace
>3rd draft and any other passes for altering words may take up the end of the year
Anyone else see the light at the end of the tunnel?

>>19183557
what's yer story about, friend

>>19185060
The ones rejected were poems about all sorts of things.

>>19185096
well, hang in there. you'll see that green tab sure enough.

>>19184107
>>19182157
>>19184332

>>19183830
Write a character that makes you feel this

>>19185136
Yeh I have six, it’s just an old meme from 2015 or so that you’d say “tfw rejected for publication again”

>>19185303
kek

>>19183830
Make them LGBT.

>work with a lot effort, sleepless nights gets barely any likes ,and exposition
>5k word story I shit out in two afternoons packet with memes and autism gets 4 times more likes and exposition.

Explain this phenomenon, please because this is not the first time it happened to me.

>>19185716
Memes by definition signal to a group so they affirm to a reader that you are one of them. If it's a more personal story you need a stronger hook to convince someone to keep reading. Hook them in the first 13 lines and establish the overall mood and expectations in that intro.

Just finished the first draft of my novel last night!!! Clocked in at 72K words. Took me 3 years. Still a lot of steps before publication but I'm really excited about it!

Next step is to edit and assemble it into a formal manuscript

>>19185928
Good luck!

>>19185947
Thanks, man

One question I wanted to ask you guys: how essential is it to hire a professional editor? I was just gonna pay some of my friends to look over my manuscript for spelling and grammar. Is that normal, or is it a cardinal sin?

>>19185994
Your publisher will give you an editor to go through your work with you and a fine-toothed comb if you ever get far enough to have a publisher.

>>19185994
>spelling and grammar
an editor should do much more than fix your spelling and grammar

I posted chapter 12 of my story. I need to get better at thinking about things before I write them.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/41979/a-hero-among-monsters/chapter/763129/chapter-twelve-you-never-mentioned-his-name

Is inner monologue considered passé these days? In my writing group, any time I or anyone else has a piece that involves a character's thoughts we get hit by "show don't tell" feedback. Recently, someone submitted something that read more like a screenplay than prose, and it got a lot of praise. To me, motivations seemed haphazard and chaotic, if they existed at all, but apparently "leaving it up to the reader's interpretation" is a thing?

>>19183830
These are two different questions. I'll answer the easiest one first: I argue that the reader tends to care about a character until you give them a reason not to. The fastest way to make someone lose interest in a character is to make them boring. Long monologues about backstory, laundry lists of daily routines and opinions, anything which doesn't invite some degree of conflict is going to be boring. Filling pages with details about your character which add information, no matter how realistic and relatable that information is (He preferred Oreos to Chips Ahoy, due to their ability to soak up more milk. If anything, Chips Ahoy seemed to repel milk), is going to rapidly dispel any interest in your character. For instance, in Lord of the Flies, the main character Ralph doesn't stop to think about his life back in England unless it serves as a direct counterpoint to what's happening on the island.

Another way to make them boring is to have them be predictable. They overcome every challenge in the exact same way, or when they meet a challenge which requires some innovation on their behalf, they give the reader a head's up about what they're about to do and nothing happens to disrupt that plan. Again, Lord of the Flies, Ralph wants to talk everything through and reach consensus decisions about how best to survive and escape. For the first half of the novel, this method provokes curiosity because the island is a new environment and we aren't sure how successful his plans will be. It's the conflict between his method and Jack's which provide tension (curiosity) in the second half.

Character depth is a different issue entirely, and is typically described in terms of dimension. 1-D characters are the type you find in preschool cartoons: strong guy, smart guy, fast guy. 2-D adds another layer to this: strong but slow, smart but rude, fast but weak. IMO most authors don't get beyond three-dimensions. A really simplistic 3-Dimensional character would be someone like Vegeta: proud and strong, yes, but also honorable, demonstrating compassion and tenderness at times.

Beyond that you have characters which are realistic. That would be someone like Robert Baratheon from Game of Thrones. To this day you have people discussing whether or not he was a good king, which tends to devolve into discussions on what actually makes a good king. I can't give you a primer on how to write one, but I would say that most stories are inhabited by 3D characters.

Do any of you have any writing day job or do freelance writing? Journalism? Copywriting? Technical writing? Commissions? Anything?

If so, can you tell me how you got started with your first projects? Thanks.

>>19186898
I do it for free!

I wrote a short audio book. Plan on turning it into a film script.

https://youtu.be/kMT4lm_277A

>>19186898
I do freelance script writing. It's a really easy way to make some money, then move onto the next job if you meet the qualifications. The only issue with freelance is that there's usually a bunch of people flocking to the good positions. The way I started was just building up a portfolio of my own writing and hoping someone would hire me, and after a lot of rejections I was eventually able to build up my resume and experience.

>>19187224
First of all, get a pop filter. Your disgusting European mouth noises are very distracting.
As for the story, it's not good. It feels like you had no ideas going into this other aping Jacobs Ladder.
>creepy old man who speaks truths
>evil doctor
>a mental ward
>alive but really ded
It's all so boring and cliche. I'm fine with unoriginal ideas but you can at least attempt to bring something new to the table. I can think of at least a half dozen games directed at the screaming youtuber fanbase who cover very similar ideas in a more complex and original way.

>>19187837
Thanks for the input. It's my first story. Onwards and upwards!

I was cleaning out my inbox and I found a bunch of my old short stories that I emailed to myself as a back-up in case something happened to my computer. This is the first short story I ever completed (about five years ago), but even as an amateur I realized it was missing some essential element to make it good. I don't think it's bad enough to be cringe, but if you disagree then I invite you to mock me.
https://pastebin.com/RnWD0T08

If anyone here in /WG/ is interested in joining a small but active Telegram writing workshop group, post a burner email addy or TG username or whatever and I'll give you the link. Most of us tend to write contemporary or horror-ish stuff, a lot of flash fiction and sketches and spitballing different techniques. It's a pretty active group but not very many people, only about 5 last I counted.

>>19188360
Paragraphs has too many sentences desu.

That is all.

Do you guys mind giving me some input on this story I wrote, any feedback would help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39BvSlxT-1s

>>19186645
interesting story anon. I added it to my follows list. I probably won't be able to finish it anytime soon since I'm busy a lot and have a lot of other stories to get to.

>>19188730
Thanks.

>>19186898
read the book Basic Magazine Writing

Hi /wg/ I just wrote my first story https://pastebin.com/zuiCq7Ue no bully please

>>19188862
>Tokyo
ywnbj

>>19189513
And you will never be a writer.

>>19189513
Kirito lives in Tokyo, that's canon.

>>19189513
The longest conversation I've had in Japanese was with a woman at a train stop in Nasukarasuyama. We talked about miso soup brands.

>>19189572
Did you fuck?

>>19189577
She was like 50 or 60 still would though

>>19186742
"Show don't tell" is a blanket term used by people too stupid to understand what it actually means. Classics for over 600 years have used plenty of tell. Part of it is even expected in a novel because the reader can't physically see what's happening like you can with a movie or show.

How do I write structured poetry?

>>19186742
To go along with that the other anon said, a lot of people don't really know what "Show don't tell" means. Inner monologue is a great way of writing and my preferred. It lets me throw in a ton of world building that would be considered completely off topic otherwise, but it does suffer from "I felt sad" style characterizations.
You have to be careful not just to explain how someone feels when you need to express emotion. If you were in these threads last week when we were all going over the "describe a farm house from the perspective of someone who just experienced a great loss" writing exercise then you would have seen a good example of it.
This is also not a blanket rule. Telling is 100% acceptable in most cases, it can just become dull if you tell too much and even that is just a subjective spectrum.

>>19189792
like, haiku? quintains? iambic pentameter?

>>19181363
Woo hoo. Am 30k words into my novel about the epicly shitty world of 2050. Writing about 20k words a month... So two more months till the big edit and I try and get it published. Everyone I've read it to so far loves it. Whhhheeeeee and I am having a blast writing it. Ok. What did you guys do when you finished your first draft besides wank off and drink a bottle of schnapps?

>>19182157
What are you trying to say about society anon?

>>19188707
For now I am writing horror. I have a full-time job but no other time commitments so I guess I'm interested. I just started my 2nd draft of a fist novel. I think if it was sold it might be labeled post-singularity scifi or even literature, but there is a lot of dread in it and also outlines for the other things I'd like to do.

>>19186898
copywriter here. writing for marketing (at stupid people) will kill your soul.

>>19190410
When I finished my first draft of my first novel I felt like I just coomed for the first time. It was such a relief. I took the next few days off to relax and celebrate writing that last line

>>19190946
Writing cliches burns my hands when I notice, my heart goes out to you.

>900 words written today but I was extremely drunk on Little Fat Lamb

>>19190410
I went for a walk. It felt very good, yet in a way sad.

>>19190828

Got a way to contact you? I'm on Discord and other stuff as well but the group is on Telegram

>>19191400
>>19188707
>Telegram
Isn't that chat service only used for crypto scams and arranging to have sex with animals?
Not sure I want advice from those people.

Alright guys, get this, caviar is whale eggs, yes??? So, what if, someone wrote a story where I guy homegrew his own whale daughterfu by jacking it to a bowl of caviar?

>>19191709
>caviar is whale eggs
It comes from beluga STURGEON, not beluga WHALES. It helps to do some research before you cum in seafood.

>>19191743
>STURGEON,
I dunno, man, have you seen Nicola Sturgeon? She's is pretty much a whale.

>>19191788
Got me there, but I don't think she's got any eggs left for anon to jizz on

Hi /lit/ quick thing to ask

I'm writing about a cult and i have one character who gets psychosis from all the stress the cult brings

As a person with psychosis i wanted to write some of my life into the characters (You know write what you know)

However after he "hears the voice of god" they put him up as one of gods choosen children

Then the "God" tells him to sarfice one of his friends and this uspets the character but he does it anyway because of the cults in doctor nation

then the friend he froced to kill his other friend kills him self

Is this ableist? I understand i'm a person with psychosis but i feel i never protray my disorder corrently

>>19191995
Read Wikipedia's page on ableism for a qrd. I don't think most people on 4chan are concered with social justice. Nice kot.

>>19192049
I don't know feels kinda like a grey area i'm trying to figure out story wise because the character is being maniulated

Of course i am the one with the disabity and disorder so i can write it however i like,

Is gloom and melancholy a prerequisite of being a good writer like tuberculosis is?

I have finished a new chapter, I am happy. I hope you lot are too.

>>19191905
>I don't think she's got any eggs
Why else do you think caviar is so expensive?

Guess who is shipping copies:

shitkick.ca

I meme therefore I am.

>>19192378
Stick to your principles and you will never lose!

What are the skill levels in writing and how do you determine where you sit on them?

I decided to start writing at work this week because I have nothing to do and my boss is out. I took a fresh notebook from the cabinet and started drabbling in it. The problem is, today I decided to play with alliteration and word stream/the sound of words for words sake and now I like the style better than my current very clipped prose. I'm even rhyming in and between sentences because it's fun.

In the long term, I'm not sure it's a viable writing style. I can't tell if it's good or bad. How do I know if I'm heading in the right direction or just distracting myself?

>>19192512
You are writing and creating... you are heading in the right direction.

GO GO GO!

>>19192508
A lvl 99 wordsmith with maxed out fountain pen flicks a finger at you and you break into dust because you're only a lvl 1 n00b

>>19192508
>unclear who does what
>writing blocks of text
>runon sentences
>overuse of adjectives
>action tags everywhere
>filler dialogue and internal monologues

>character voices matching them and situation
>narrative shows character through their actions
>dialogue shows character instead of just exposition
>showing the scene instead of felt, said, etc.
>plot becomes a character life and random conflicts becomes consequence of previous decisions

>>19192358
Do you buy these domains and make them yourself or do you have a web dev that helps you

>>19192597
Buy myself and use templates!

I can help you if you want to do the same!

>>19191505

I mean, it's more productive for something like a writers workshop than discord or whatever

>>19191995
How does hearing "the voice of god" even happen? Someone close to me told me once, in a deadly serious tone that he heard, in an empty room, God's voice and whispering in the background, and he felt the voice too like it was water rushing past him. That was not long after escaping a cult and years after hard drugs, a suicide attempt, not long before being forced into a mental institution after becoming an evangelist. Is the voice truly someone going insane? He sounded so competent sometimes, it really scares me thinking about it.

>>19192653
Sounds like a real fuck up. Hopefully he’s dead.

>>19192358
It's amazing that after all the shilling you've done for your book I still have no clue what it's really about. Yeah, yeah, Vancouver is full of drug addicts and the liberals are enabling them along with all their debauched behavior. But does this novel have a plot? What's the actual hook?

>>19192706
Haha... why not just read it and find out for yourself?

I describe it like Harry Potter but instead of wizards and muggles it is alcoholics VS crackheads...

I mean, maybe if you read it, you can give it a better summary than I can? I'm just the vessel for the message.

>>19192725
Are you gay? You write like a faggot.

fuck you writters I hate all of you
specially the sci-fi faggots cockeaters

>>19192756
My first book was literally about having sex with too many women:

https://www.amazon.ca/City-Singles-Jason-Bryan/dp/0991825705

I could spend half the day today posting photos of myself with hot chicks I dated, but I've gotta move some books and inspire others to create!

>>19192725
I've been watching your progress for a while, and really the most frustrating thing here is that you so boldly and shamelessly exhibit the worst characteristics of the people you claim to be criticizing.

>I've lived in this city! I've seen the decay with my own eyes!
Your personal experience is meaningless because you have no talent. This is no different than the NYT shilling some mediocre book because the author is an actual, real-life addict.

>But I worked really hard binding it myself!
This doesn't matter if the quality of your work doesn't meet some minimum acceptable threshold. It doesn't matter how organic, authentic, unprocessed and traditional some hipster's homebrew is if the taste sucks.

>Okay well all the people at the liquor store liked it so...
You might as well threaten to call in your twitter army to shame me for disagreeing with you.

>>19192893
Shrug, as long as I can use the book to survive so I don't take the jab!

I'm sure there will be a few people out there who will like it. Maybe you should buy a copy and then go over the book and rip it to pieces for how bad it is?

I bet the COTC and Dark Academie easter eggs in the book will make you smile!

>>19191095
Now go back and polish it!

How many words? What's it about?

>>19192930
just because of your attitude i'm not going to read it
hope you get banned for advertising

>>19192653
person you replyed to here

But it can come from stressed, trauma, or gentics, or something else

For me i was a good chirstion kid and i thought i could hear and talk to god,

However later that went away other then a few whipsers here and there,

However i had a big break and the voices started telling me that i was jesus and god, and the antichrist, among other things, like telling me to kill my self.

its not that fun, even when you can function, You lose all movtain when your pyschotic,

Given i'm a more mild case, I'm sorry that your friend went thought that,

>>19193067
I hope you change your mind, I bet if you read the book you'd have a laugh and really enjoy it.

Also, if you've noticed, I ALWAYS encourage others around here and I'm a force for positivity. We as independent artists must support each other in the face of total global hegemony over the arts. It is a brutal world out there, designed to break the will of creative people who step outside of the mainstream.

Have a nice day!

>>19190946
I did some freelance writing, can confirm that it kills the soul. At least it kept me in beer and doobies during the nightmare of living in 2021 Vancouver:

https://www.pedalstreet.com/can-hybrid-bikes-go-off-road/

https://www.pedalstreet.com/how-to-learn-to-ride-a-bicycle-without-an-instructor/

>>19190463
Just trying to depict it accurately from an outsider's view as we collectively begin the process of completely integrating with internet technology.

>>19192060
stay strong friend. your faggotry may yet be cured one day

>>19192512
Bumping my question for more responses.

>>19192725
so the whole story takes place in a halfway house drug rehab facility? I didn't like infinite jest why would I read your drivel?

>>19193568
No no silly, just read it. Nothing like IJ.

>>19193546
Man... just keep writing. Allow your thoughts to bubble up and don't second-guess yourself.

Remember, everyone will tell you that you suck, including yourself, don't listen. JUST WRITE!

GO GO GO!

>>19182823
yeah, it is now

Trying to do shorter fiction rather than longer. What are your thoughts on this? I'm enjoying experimenting with it but finding it limiting to what I can do.

>>19188360
>https://pastebin.com/RnWD0T08
THAT'SKINDA KOOL, ANON I'M GLAD I READ IT THANKS
the mud king should have been explicitly foreshadowed in the opening scene. don't ask me how, i didn't write it, he took me by surprise it was like 2 stories. kinda kool tho

>>19191995
>ableist

>>19185994
Do it yourself

>>19191400
ritahow393@neragez.com

>>19192668
>hopefully he's dead
Ended up in the military, shattering his hip and becoming a tranny. I definitely could inspire a novel about the twists and turns of such a life but I don't think I'm ready to analyze it until I see the ending myself.

>>19193674

Shit sorry forgot excerpt . It takes place in Japan after a heavy rainfall

>>19193956
I like it... one issue... it is a bit wordy!

Do you use Grammarly? It helps cut down on wordiness and forces you to compact your prose.

>>19194024

Don't use grammarly I'm trying to make it 3-5 pages like Borges, poe, Lovecrafft, etc. Main idea is a massive rainfall happens in Japan and the puddles become portals or doorways to other dimensions a bunch of kids fucking around learn the hard way.

>>19193956
Your should try narrowing down your focus. Setting, which idea you want to express in a given sentence, and which image you want to use for metaphor/similes. As it stands you could probably re-write this with twice as many sentences and half as many words, and still carry the same amount of intrigue and impact. Examples:
>through one of the many empty lanes behind the backs of the house
Sure there are lots of lanes, but we're only in one of them, and that's the only one that really matters to the reader. There is probably a clearer way to express "in one alley out of the many that are here" while actually making the scene more immersive and dynamic. Imagine you'd just landed in the alleyway where your story takes place. By what methods might you infer that you are surrounded by similar alleys?
>feet and ankles were completely soaked
>previous shades Hoshino had seen
>portals or windows
These could all be tightened up in a similar way. If you tell us that he is "soaked up to his ankles" or something similar, the reader will assume that his feet are soaked too. If you pick some exceptionally black object that Hoshino had seen before, and say that the puddle was blacker than that, the reader will a)have an actual scale by which to judge the darkness of the puddle and b)infer without effort that this puddle is therefore blacker than all other objects Hoshino has seen. Portals or windows, pick the one that works best and go with that.

Other than that, good work so far. Does Hoshino actually fall through a portal while looking at the puddle?

>>19194172

Hoshino doesn't fall through but it is all about the experience he witnesses of another kid falling through. The name Hoshino comes from Matsumoto's Ping Pong. Cheers for advice.

>>19194186
Definitely. A compelling idea, this is probably the first thing from /wg/ that I've actually wanted to read more of. But regarding your desire to imitate Poe and Lovecraft, I would say that a)their prose was so tedious that they probably wouldn't find an audience today and b)your prose comes across as clumsy, not archaic or exceptionally verbose.

>>19191995
Indoctrination, friend.

>>19194140
Grammarly is good because you can use it to self-criticize and it helps you find things that your own biases overlook.

If you email me, I can plug your work into Grammarly for you and show you what the results are!

>>19188707
add @wgplebe

>>19192512
Bumping again, for anyone but Jason since he has now replied twice

>>19194379
Well damn, sooooooorry!

>>19194385
There wasn't anything wrong with your replies. I just want more opinions.

>>19193582
so give me a blurb for your book. real quick, a few sentences.

>>19181851
That's not true, I've written over 300k words of fetish smut since the start of the year.

>>19194433
futa or ss I hope

>>19194451
Why not both?

>>19194406
Believe it or not, the blurb part is the hardest part of writing the book!

>>19194483
>"I'm bad at writing summaries lol"
good sign not to read

>>19192358
imagine going to all this effort and the first sentence of your free sample is garbled nonsense. why is the handle reaching for the coffee pot?

>>19192793
this is, unfortunately, irrelevant. we have no access to your love life, only to how you present yourself, and you present yourself like a faggot.

Where's the love, Writing Bros? All this hate gets us nowhere :(

>>19194521
what's getting you nowhere is your eight-grader's grasp of grammar you schizo shill

>>19194521
>waaah where's my hugbox
Anywhere else? I like 4chan the way it is, so you'll have to conjur your own "positivity".

hi guys. So I gave some chapters out to my test readers and they said some chapters (one at the start and one at the end) have too much dialogue. I don't know how to fix this, the first chapter is a democratic debate (about how to handle book's central conflict) and ch11 is an exchange of knowledge with a new party.

How do I get that to be less dialogue-y? Do I even need to? I feel like its uninteresting

>>19194508
Okay did you read the entire first sample chapter?

The 420 page book is great, you'll like it!

>>19194518
Have a nice day, friend!

>>19194490
How about...

After having his bicycle stolen, Ken tries to move on in life but is unable to let go after a series of unfortunate events. This leads him to record himself striking back against the criminals of Vancouver and putting the video online.

His impulsive actions lead him to get caught in a web of intrigue and lies, forcing him to become the puppet of a Machiavellian e-thot helping him stay one-step ahead of the government agent hot on his heels.

Will he find a way out, or lose it all?

>how's that, /lit/?

>>19194508
That first line, I wanted it to be like "we" are reaching for the pot with the worn handle, seeking out some nostalgia in forms that, while worn and cliche(the batman, vigilantes, rorschach), are very satisfying forms of anti-heros

>>19194565
How much physically is going on in those scenes? Is the dialogue actually the most interesting thing, and what's at stake in the dialogue?
Having more going on, off-stage or on-stage in the debate, can make it more interesting than emotional beats alone. Sometimes you do have to have more dialogue to tell ideas and slow the pace, but be careful about how slow it feels. If a lot of the scenes are quite slow in a row it can feel bad to read. You don't even have to show the whole conversation either, you can jump in right when it gets interesting. Just options you have.
You remind me that I'm editing some dialogue scenes and one I am adding some subtext to hint more towards fundamental disagreements between three cooperating characters. It will help the reader think more about them until its explained later. Before I treated it like a throwaway explanation for the inciting incident, but I realized I have to give more attention to it the ideas clashing at that moment or it would let readers down.

>>19194643
Thanks anon. It didn't come to me to just cut out parts of it, I don't have to show it all. Also, your picture is cute, you have good taste

>attempt to scan my writing into text via OCR
>get
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rv-Tre\ srritiD Jral" irva .1.*-9"1111•Iva `fir
1k ve r. Slirr AM
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irit N Rotors r rritS v Nm1s-9 lir 743c -044 rrki, r rk.). slily\ rosl,Nrr TN 'il'Ii eTt v, `TievecrIc iCutl =c v il r irem si : ; • ,,0 3.4 . L''t"ru 7 , if 1, -•-•-• . 7 ^7, - ;•-•-,•• 7 • , .• ----/vciwar) "IV' T ,,, ,„„..„,., ' , , ry t 'or "it r 4Arm srPit -4ealss 1 ( "F”. - 5 Wu 11•-• 'Cmirtr.1_ 'smls, "I k ' . r4 ' • % .A/11 --vet' -0.... r It . loft .• •

fl \ : 'f-4'rC). .., . TVA ■ r - • 1 1 , c. . 6 1 WIVA tar - 'T ■ 'I*? -"tn I_ slrivrei os vgro ‘ori inzi crt wrn. r mthrik\ .r"‘") %tv fir I cs ' n gt 1 at'lltlGr"1"1 In nvolra,ingl atm In 'irA vm V IT'Ill r '6 1r ) "an- sn'llcr"Ir kArr I 17T"*`s INI . , . .-Trel frr -v " Tr nts 1.vot-PI. (c‘rf lri 1tartticIvramtartv rei._ instead
Haha, FUN. Guess I'll write it manually.

>>19194643
I feel like you can also add summaries in narration and skip to the most important dialog chunks
"so and so told me about their day, their bs with their cat, how they stubbed their toe and their co-worker's onion breath. When they told me about the mysterious redhead showing up at their door last night, I nearly dropped the phone"
Then start there with the dialog... that sort of thing

>>19194685
my story (the other person) is post apoc, so its like a new society describing to main characters how their city functions. I feel its important to the audience as well as the characters, it just isnt interesting. I tried to make it more interesting by having the city leader insert his weird personality into it, but the dialogue slows it I think

>>19182073
>posted exerpts a few times
>now paranoid that if i ever get published a search will show that i posted on this shit board and i'll get canceled for being a neon knot sea
>>19182181
i made some of the first threads. they really help me make progress. suffers from crab mentality though
>>19182331
i was using the /write/ header. crabs mainly but there were thread regulars who actually wrote content. it was fun. beta readers were volunteering too. mainly i wanted to prompt /lit/izens to write novels because everything being published is trash and i want a new writing school movement from people who read and value the classics, instead of the modern garbage where everything is about wokeism. more than the political aspect what pisses me off is the lack of effort and academicism in shit churned out now. it's obvious the people writing now don't actually read books and despise all classic literature, and just want to *be* a writer. what they produce is shallow and amateur, and the MFA school is no better, they're formulaic and style over substance, everything is kitschy and cheap gimmicks, and their novels leave no lasting impression and lack soul and sincerity. /lit/ may be a shitty board by most regards but anons have the best taste in literature of any large literary community in current year. i'm hoping to revive classicism and prompt some new virtuosos to stay dedicated enough to get publishes and fill the shelves with something worth reading.

(Started this while waiting for a train, and saw one pass by the station, and then continued writing it while I was aboard a train to the city.)

Sitting on the station platform I am taken back to the amusement park trips of my youth, where in the noonday sun the highpitched whine and surge of rollercoasters would wear on against the metal tracks above in a grating dissonance, only for it all to taper off into nothing just as quickly as it emerged. Now I wait for a train. If the platform were made of wood and not concrete, I'm sure that the rumbling could be felt from at least a mile off, if not more. By the time I hear the groan of metal accumulate out of the silence and feel anticipation swelling, it has already cut through distance with an otherworldly brutality, all time and space evaporated in its wake. In that split second when hearing and seeing have converged, existence communicates itself through this sullen rush and roar, until it passes and there is nothing left to see or hear.

I am now on the seat of a train. The window is partly opaque and lined with the dried and swirling remnants of vapor at one side and breaking out into a streaked craquelure at another, like ghostly lichen stretched across a pane of thin rock. I pass residential areas, towns unsure of their suburbanhood, parking lots, while the sun beats down and casts an oblique glow on the passing affair. The window a bleary screen to a rapid conveyor belt of sights, as the filmstrip unspools to reveal houses, fields, restaurants, places sharing nothing but adjacency to the tracks, absorbing some of its mockery of time by proximity.

>>19183557
>tfw
I keep a document with a list of all the applications so I dont hit up the same agent twice. desu this far I've deserved rejection because I could have been better. I'm revising and going to try again.

If you get more than 10 rejections it's time to pause it and evaluate if your manuscript deserves to be published or if you couldn't revise it better.
>>19183681
tfw. I've written best while unemployed. Now I have a stable career job and am wiped out after work.
>>19185928
I feel like 72k is too short. I had one at 80k I'm revising into 100k.
>>19186742
that advice is cancerous and aimed at amateurs. there is a time and place for internal monologue.

>>19190946
I know someone who works as a copywriter and could probably get me a job. It's this reason I haven't asked. My job is shitty but it doesn't poison my personal writing.
>>19194024
>letting a shitty app dictate how you compose prose
Way to ensure your writing will only be as good as the writing of the programmer.

>>19194742
You don't use the app to dicate your prose, you just use it as a method to help, that's all.

I wonder if the most based man alive and the Waldunchad himself still lurk this space?

>Writing a story that takes place in a setting that's basically a mishmash between European and Japanese culture.
>Can already hear the complaints of 'cultural appropriation'.
>White people using curved swords and saying vaguely Asian terms? RACIST!

I hate that I worry about this kind of shit now. It's not like I'll ever get published anyway, but I can't shake the concern.

>>19194805
Just embrace it. Add a buck breaking scene on top of it.

>get idea for story
>develop it
>get too attached to it
>decide to leave it to write when you git gut so the story doesn't turn out trash
Rinse and repeat until you run out of ideas.

>>19194805
You can be aware of the criticism, but don't let them write it for you. In a previous thread, anon mentioned the Bechdel test. Those kinds of tests shouldn't hold you back from telling the character you want to tell. I have a female character that takes pride in traditions that aren't even my own, they are there to help explain why she makes the decision that she does. If I ever hear the critique I'll just ignore it at this point. The point of the story isn't about saying "pluralism is bad" it's about saying that it's not even important. I'm aiming to hit a more fundamental issue on human nature, and by forcing characters to stop struggling with pluralities helps me highlight that.

>>19194742
>Way to ensure your writing will only be as good as the writing of the programmer.
That's a baseline level of quality which far exceeds most of the excerpts you see in these threads. And honestly I think a lot of anons, myself included, would be satisfied to run the scenes/details they have in mind for their stories through an "acceptable prose" generator and then go back and add their own artistic flourishes.

>>19194861
This but I write the whole story thinking it'll be my magnum opus but then midway through I get excited about another story and think that one will be my magnum opus but then, etc.

>>19194897
Don't worry about being amazing your first time, sheesh!

Do people think David was the first statue sculpted by Michelangelo?

>>19194805
Nah the nips are fair game.

>>19194637
>Machiavellian e-thot
is retarded, but that summary works. gl Jason

>>19194911
Thank you!

Why is the Machiavellian e-thot part retarded? I think if you read the book you'll like Saman... I mean, Mistress S.

>>19181363
I hit 50 pages on my draft this week. The novel I’m writing consists of seven parts, and I’m almost done with the second. At this point it feels like a matter of just sitting down to write every morning. It’s not always easy. I’m writing everything with pencil and paper, then revising pages while typing them up before setting them aside for more in-depth revision later on.

>>19194927
Wow pencil and paper!

How do you deal with hand cramps? I tried that and after like 2 weeks my hand was hurting soooo much.

>>19194932
I don’t get them. I think maybe it’s because I’ve always written this way. You probably need to relax your grip and attend to your posture.

>>>19194844
There is a cool nigger in the book but I don't know if he gets broken, necessarily.

>>19194868
I mean, I stick to my guns, it's just annoying to have it at the back of my mind.

>>19194905
Not anymore. You get cancelled for mispronounced names nowadays.

>600 words tonight
>>19194805
>Can already hear the complaints of 'cultural appropriation'
iktf
tfw

Whsy are you poeplle the way that you are i womseitmnn s wonder how you n hurt so many when it is better tyo be nice to people do as to whether

I wish I ever coul;dve been nice to someone at some point in my life but I was never giben the oppotuniy to myselg to be nice because i was always too confume dd by anger

>>19195320
>>19195331
Don't drunk post bro.

>>19195359
It;'s hiow I do all my best writing

I have a problem and want to know how you would feel as a reader.

My 89k word novel (YA fantasy) mainly takes place at a school, and it begins there for the first three chapters of 6k words, but a flashback to the protagonist's childhood happens after that for 17.5k words.

Would you feel angry that it is taking that long to get back to the main setting? Not concerned with agents but mainly web readers, as I'm probably going to throw it up on some shitty site eventually.

>>19195418
Depends

What does the flashback reveal and how does it affect what happens after, and does it put what happens before in a new context?

Like, example
>First 6k words is a bomb goes off at his school and kills the nice guy teacher, everyone devastated, media frames him as amazing
>flashback for 17.5k words reveals teacher was a pedo babysitter
>rest of book describes character's horror that their rapist is their grade 12 teacher and decides to take revenge

Could be awesome!

>>19193956
you might want to discover the comma, it's good shit

>>19194682
that's some good shit. I mean honestly - it's code for something. Now we just need the key.

>>19194703
i haven't read it (of course), but i get the feeling that you're assuming something needs to be described that actually doesn't. If a city functions in a certain way (laws, rituals, whatever) the reader can also slowly get an understanding about this through the results of the actions of the characters. Someone just infodumping the rules etc will just make the reader lose interest, since there's no real reason for the reader to be interested in the rules and functions of this city until someone is considering doing something that would be frowned upon or happens to be just the right thing.

Instead of going " And for those considering eating pineapple on a stick on thursdays, remember that it can only be done counter clockwise" bla bla bla

What would be a more subtle way of letting the reader know there are certain rules that need to be followed is perhaps introducing the "guide" character - the person who knows the city and laws, who can go
"Stop! What are you doing?"
"Huh?"
"It's thursday, what are you doing?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Don't you know?"
"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about"
"Oh, you're new - right! You can't eat pineapple counter clockwise on thursdays here. It's because The Fat Moon Mother lost her fourteenth tooth when doing that, and it happened on a thursday. So ever since, no one is allowed to eat pineapple counter clockwise."
"Oh. Thanks, i guess. I mean, what would happen if i got caught?"
etc, etc, etc

I think the tl; dr of this is the basics of show don't tell.

>>19195777
Limit was 1000 words, I hit it exactly T_T

>>19194598
why would i buy a whole book by someone who doesn't care enough to fix bad grammar in the first sentence? you are legitimately deranged.

>>19196040
It is clearly a stylistic choice

>>19196082
sure and then there's another "choice" in the next paragraph to describe a yawn as having arms. you curiously tend to make the same "choices" children often make before they've figured out grammar, so please respect my choice to consider you retarded and your book a waste of time

>>19196185
You didn't find anything in the first 15 pages a decent read? Certainly you enjoyed SOMETHING, right?

I've been working on a story for a few years, and I've finally moved on to posting it. I update with a chapter or two every Friday, on Substack and Royal Road, although I'm not sure if I'll keep going with RR.

It's called Filters. It's set in the present, with the point of divergence in 1954, when all of Earth is covered in a strange fog that lasts for a month. In the present, a very small number of humans possess a vast telekinetic ability, and the story follows one of them.

I've always felt unsatisfied by how other works present the overman, and my desire with Filters is to realistically depict overmen and how society would react to their existence.

I have an excellent writer whose opinion I hold highly as my editor, but aside from him I've received no substantive comments on my work, and when I thought about where to share it, I realized the best commentary would probably come from here.

https://filters.substack.com/p/index

>>19195418
>flashback
>flashback is 1/4 of the whole shit
yes, jesus christ how horrible

>>19196284
>chapter 1
>character wakes up
Why always? This is a pet peeve that makes me instantly nope the fuck out

>>19196305
This is so unexpected that it made me laugh and I changed it just for you, bb.
>>A middle-aged man is hungover from a night of celebration.

>>19196305
Please explain exactly your problem with it. Is it because it is simply overdone? Or does it remind you in some fact that this is a "story", not a close imitation of a could-be reality?

>>19196342
Much, much better.

I'm sorry, this is just something I see ALL THE TIME in amateur writing and it drives me nuts.

>>19196284

To comment further, your writing is clear and readable, no jarring mistakes, which is half the victory already. However, I don't think present tense suits the story. The narrative is detached like a weather report, jumping over days and weeks in a few lines. Present tense gives the impression of being there in the moment, but what actually happens constantly pulls you out of the moment. It's like being thrown around at windy sea with nothing to hold onto.

The first chapter reminds me a little of Moby Dick, so look at Moby Dick. You first need to anchor the reader into the story through a person. In MB that person is Ishamel. You introduce Kuboyama as your protagonist and then he's barely mentioned. A tsunami of other new characters follows. Weebs are familiar with Japanese names, but I dare say most of your readers on substack can't even pronounce any of them and just go "blaa blaa". This is kind of a problem.

tl;dr the story needs a more character-driven approach and flesh on the bones, if you want to increase your readership.

>>19196386
The fishing boat is just the first prologue, there's a second prologue and then Chapter 1, where the protagonist is introduced and the timeline moves to the present.

Tense is an interesting point. I'll ask my editor what he thinks about revising the prologues, but I'm much more certain of present-tense for the full story. That could change, I'm going to rewrite the entire story once I've finished it, which should be around next August.

>>19196470
>The fishing boat is just the first prologue, there's a second prologue and then Chapter 1

What made you think this was a smart thing to do? Rewrites save very little if everyone interested has already dropped you

>>19181363
How would a female oriented isekai bingo look like?

>>19196616
>prince and his father fight over girls affection
>super healing powers that can mend any heart or nature itself
>forced to choose between mysterious dangerous man and prince charming

>>19194547
No, you don't, you're a miserable failure digging the trench deeper just because.

>Writing a murder mystery
>Detective is intelligent but not a genius
>I put errant thoughts and observations into the narrative prose
>Explicit thoughts get italicized on their own line like internal dialogue
>Get told that all thoughts should be done that way

Am I the NPC here? Or are they?

>>19196202
i really don't know why you can't get it through your head that being bad at the basics of writing disqualifies you as a writer. nobody's going to read page 2 after page 1 offends them with terrible grammar, nobody owes you that time and attention. fix your shit instead of making a spectacle of yourself because i feel like every other time i open this board i see you in some thread making puppy eyes at people and begging them to please please keep reading your crap, it gets better i swear, and it's just fucking distasteful.

>>19196818
they shouldn't, how thoughts are integrated into narration is a matter of preference and plenty of writers will just drop them in with no special indication at all. if people are confused by there sometimes being italics and sometimes not, i'd consider dropping the italics everywhere and just indicating it with "he thought" or whatever.

Is there any crossover in /wg/ with /ic/? Anyone here draw for their book/novel/whatever?

>>19196818
Italics are specifically used to isolate character thoughts from the rest of the narrative. If such distinction doesn't exist in your work, then there is no meaning in doing that.

>>19196816
Oh, you're right! I actually do hate 4chan! Every story I've ever read was really a 10/10, I've just been seething so much over how my own works were never NYT bestsellers to ever admit that! Oh, woe is me!
Are you done being retarded, because I can do this all day.

>>19196616
>Every dwarf character is male
Everything about this chart makes me cringe, but this specifically makes me irrationally angry.

>>19196896
Yeah dude, my writing is amazing. The way I describe the vehicle launching, the lady in the elevator, and the nervousness of getting pulled over. I add some foreshadowing in there and a bunch of other little queues but your pea-sized brain simply wants to focus on "grammar" which you mistakenly attribute to an error and not a stylistic choice.

I mean... that's what a pseud would do.

Besides, you don't even write while I'm making sales.
>let me know when you've actually written something

>>19197639
The creator of the dwarf race didn’t know about females so made his race crudely and even the women have beards. Tolkien lore anyway

>>19197700
Better correct my cues so this pseud doesn't go:
>muh wrong word, you can't write!!!
It is good to see the pseuds are back. Next thing you will do is go off about needing to go to University and that you're not a writer unless traditionally published.
>must kill you to see that people are writing and finishing books while you languish in your own failures, attacking others for doing what you cannot do
I actually feel sorry for you. I'm available to help you write and create if you want.

>>19196818
Learn about free indirect discourse.

>>19197038
No. We try to do real writing here. Not comic books. Maybe you should go to reddit or something.

>>19197787
Learn about free intercourse lmao

>>19197639
Booba is evil. My mother died of breast cancer so now I’m gay.

>>19197700
>>19197728
my man, i 'm not an expert so i can't tell you which kind but you definitely have an untreated personality disorder. talking to you and trying to get you to reexamine your bad situation just produces more embarrassment, like when you just tried to impress me with twenty seven fucking dollars. you are well in that "lolcow" territory and the aspect of internet culture concerned with provoking the mentally unwell to funny outbursts has always made me uncomfortable so i will have to stop talking to you now.

>>19196616
Read/Watch Outlander to find out

>>19198186
Nothing feels better than taking your ideas, writing them, polishing them, printing and binding your work for others to enjoy.

Maybe if you spent less time analyzing people who create and produce to try and attack them with your armchair psychology degree, you could instead focus on writing your own book and have something to be proud of?

As it sits, everyone in this thread on /lit/ can see you expose yourself as a pseud that:
>does not write
>does not produce
>does not add anything to the conversation

I mean, if you want to continue with this, by all means, go right ahead. Please tell me how mentally ill I am for pursuing my dreams and enjoying the process of creation. Oh look everybody, this guy over here has a personality disorder, he's delusional, he needs help?
>other anons ask, "what is he doing?"
Oh he's written a book and he has setup a home printing press to sell it while having complete control over the process from A to Z, he's nuts, he's got a mental illness!

Please anon, continue highlighting how this process is the result of someone mentally ill and not of someone who enjoys the craft of writing and the independence of owning the means of production!
>meanwhile, I will continue to write, market, and teach & encourage other /lit/ anons how to write, edit, print, and bind their own books

It was over before it ever began.

>>19182181
Hi anon. It was me. I kinda started this whole thing.
Unlike >>19182212 said, that thread was not the first. That honor goes to >>/lit/thread/13960416 from october 2019. I saw that thread when it was posted and it just lay dormant in my mind, until july 2020, when, for some reason, I searched for it in the archives and posted an identical thread (the one that poster linked).
Things just went of smoothly. I made the first 4 or do threads after that 2020 one. One day I wake up and find another /wg/ on the catalog not made by me, and then I just stopped visiting. Odd that I rekindled this whole thing and never participated in it mysrlf, after it got going :) but I'm glad it has been helping anons here and it makes me happy to always find a /wg/ in the catalog. /sffg/ being the only one always felt wrong. Keep on writing.

>>19198601
Bless you, anon

>>19198301
i wasn't being facetious, i really don't want to talk to you anymore.

>>19191995
>Is this ableist?
The fact that you even care proves that you shouldn't be a writer.

>>19198767
Then why do you keep replying?
>rent free

>>19198601
Absolutamente basado

Nigger.

Why does it happen so many times that my writing with low effort is well recieved and popular, whereas the ones made with max effort and are just lukewarm?

>>19194730
>70k is too short

I’m sorry but if you are focusing on word count and not on structure and story you are mislead and are misleading others. A good novel can be of any length. Do not listen to this person.

>>19199473
your low effort work is more authentic

>>19199473
It fundamentally comes down to pure luck.

>>19198601
>Keep on writing.
LOL nobody here writes

>>19199561
Shitkick.ca

If a mentally ill, delusional person like me can write, edit, print, bind, and publish his own work...
>so can you

Currently editing my 130k novel, about a third of the way in. I'm considering greatly expanding the length of the story by incorporating in another set of characters and storylines I already have written out (in a first draft I never got around to editing), because while I like what I have so far, it feels a bit like it's missing something. The two settings are connected so it wouldn't be a difficult thing, but it would probably make agents balk at the length (it would easily be over 220k).

The first story follows an initiate of an order of assassins who, in order to be accepted as a full member of his guild, is given a contract to kill the enemy of the Emperor of his home: a labyrinthine, machiavellian city-state that has been under siege by their enemy for generations. In his effort to complete the contract, he inadvertently causes a bunch of stuff to go increasingly wrong, and struggles with a conscience torn between his feelings of inadequacy and the collateral damage he causes, and his loyalty to his order and desire to be accepted. It also follows his best friend, already a full member of their order, as he slowly becomes disillusioned with the reality of their condition after stumbling on a deep-seated conspiracy.

The second story follows a dynastic war between three countries, and follows a war-weary prince who joins his father on a campaign in order to protect his younger, foolhardy brother. During the first major battle both the prince and the king are killed, but a sorceress who is accompanying their campaign as an envoy of a distant God-King resurrects the prince as part of her lord's scheme. The prince suddenly finds himself thrust onto the throne and fighting a war he never even wanted; and as his court, soldiers and people look upon him with increasing fear and distrust at the fact he returned to life, he finds himself forced to travel down a path of increasing ignobility in order to protect his only remaining family and to realize his father's dream. Yet at the same time, the white lady of death is outraged that the prince was stolen from her embrace, and masses dark and otherworldly powers to return him where he rightfully belongs.

What do you guys think? If I combine them, it would make a pretty hefty novel that could I could easily turn into a full series with all the ideas I have. The two main plotlines wouldn't directly converge for a while though, though where are definitely some small things that overlap, comparable I guess to Daenarys Targaryen's story being largely self-contained for quite a while in ASoIaF

Also, do you guys listen to music while writing? What kind? I'm very partial to some Adrian Von Ziegler, and if anyone has any other recommendations for similar stuff I'd love to hear them. I especially find that his Relaxing Music series really helps me concentrate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_kKFjwpwqc

>>19199597
Not all the time, but I mainly listen to anime/VN music. Usually the melodramatic or hype ones depending on the mood and scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTaA89dlORE&list=LL&
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXC6rasajmo&
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUkrN3adC_0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg-6_PIVqqQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TaBp61g4WI

>>19199597
How would you say the character changes over your arc?

>>19199712
Answering that would be extremely spoilery, but let's just say he has to come to terms with his own failures and the fact that sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you don't always get what you want.

I write a few pages in my journal every night. I almost exclusively write about myself and my own struggles. Is this strange? If I got hit by a bus and someone found my journals with hundreds of pages of my own personal struggles and triumphs, would they be a bit put-off and assume I was full of myself? I'd say so.

>>19199473
What kind of stuff are you writing? So your your low-effort and high-effort stories share the same themes?

>>19199836
Not full of yourself at all.

You are introspective. Cherish that!

>>19199890
Thanks for the perspective

>>19197323
Who hurt you? Why do you keep making it worse?

>I actually do hate 4chan!
I know you do, it is pretty obvious you do.

>>19199597
>Also, do you guys listen to music while writing?
TSFH, Hans Zimmer, games OST's and just whatever ends up on people like Epic Music Mix or Epic Music World.

>>19200073
Right now I listen to a playlist a made specifically for what I'm trying to write. Every track is a nocturne and there is a variety of keys. Mostly Chopin. Each piece has a personal feel as it's just one instrument, but there are a variety of emotions at work. I wanna make sure I can spark that variety, but I want to stay within a style. While I know it's not the music a lone, I can say certain movements of these nocturnes have helped illicit lots of ideas. I hope those emotions come through in the final draft.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtIW2r1EalM

>>19200119
what is this webm

>>19200186
A good example of how you can show what a character is thinking without telling the reader directly. Have a character do something or look at something as before, but change how they respond. See how the cat starts to run, but then it stops and waits? See how slowly it goes through the hall, staring through the empty doorway, only to stare back down the hall? If you know the past about the hall, it's clear the cat misses the other cat, though she'll never be able to tell you.

Fuck I had a lot of shilling to do today but I just made a 2nd sale, phew!

What to avoid when writing anime, so far on my no-go list

>fanservice
>power levels
>ass pulls
>harems
>too much exposition and dialogue
>training, exams, tournaments
>clans, elite fours, boss squads

>>19200775
cringe

>>19200775
>trying hard to avoid cliches
ngmi

>>19200819
I just like working with limitations, they force me to get creative. The story I had in mind already didn't have any of those, that's why I'm asking for the ones I might be forgetting.

>>19200827
thats a good point. maybe it would be nice to avoid the hero journey altogether. or replace the usual shinto/shitty christianism references with a different culture that you're into. so instead of the usual yokai and monsters you can have beings based on other spiritual traditions.

>Fan disservice
>No power
>No surprises
>No romance
>No exposition
>No hard work and nothing to show it off
>No power structures
damn that sounds exciting sign me up

I enjoy subversions of expectations that make the story less interesting.

>>19200859
Rian is that you?

>>19200846
I mean yeah I've seen those hundreds of times and can roughly know where the plot is going before it even gets started, I'm not saying avoiding those makes for a more interesting story but I'd like to see someone try to make it work without them

>>19182251

Write the story that pulls at you the most

>>19200861
>>>/tv/

>>19200775
>What to avoid when writing anime
Oops, forgot some punctuation
>What to avoid when writing? anime

>>19200859
same except i dont subvert anything i just write boring stories

>>19201003
based

>>19201003
Same except I actually do subversion: I call myself a writer and then don't write anything

>>19201025
>subversion
>doesn't actually write
nice try, that's like half the writers here

Subvert all of our expectations and actually write.

>>19194451
Giantess actually

>>19197038
I only commission art for my series. Only thing I 'drew' if you wanna call it that was a map in photoshop.

>>19201048
Why not all three?