/lit/ - Literature

>list of /wg/ authors pastebin and anonymous flash fiction anthology
https://pastebin.com/ruwQj7xQ
If you want to be on this list then reply to this post with the site you posted your novel on and your pen name.

For the anon last thread asking about screenplays:

>>19669925
Read Aristotle's Poetics - primarily pertains to stage-plays, but the structure is identical, most of the difference being the emphases on dialogue/action: films action based; plays dialogue. He is concerned specifically with tragedy, which is what you should be writing if you want to write a film of any value.

Read the work of every great master that you can get your hands on (the scripts, that is)

Dreyer
Bergman
Haneke
Von Trier (whether you like him or not, is the foremost contemporary master. Breaking the Waves is his best film)
Kubrick
Nouvelle Vague, Neorealists (at a stretch are worth paying attention to)
Tarkovsky (for everything not screenplay-wise)
Schrader's writing
etc. etc.

Hardly needs to be said, but watch a lot of films, and only good ones. Silent era films (Dreyer, Chaplin, Lang) are the height of film's achievements thus far. The Passion of Joan of Arc is the best ever made, with few rivals. Schrader has several lectures on the Tube which are good intros to thought process for screenplays. However, don't even think about trying to write one before you have watched the best of what has come before, which, being film, is not very hard to do - pick two dozen films and study them: how the plot works and who the characters are; how the two interact. Don't fuck around with software until you already have a film written. Again, Schrader has a good method which I would recommend using.

Film is a bastard art - an art for the masses. So treat is as such.

>publisher said they'd read my manuscript in a week and get back to me with comments
>it's been a month since this
>sent them another email a few days ago to see how things are going
>no response
I'm dead, aren't I?

>>19670563
read more authors than just Houellebecq.

How do I not make a magical boarding school book derivative? I want the students to be witches but I can’t stop mentally comparing to Harry Potter even though mine is contemporary fantasy and American with zoomer protagonists.

>>19670697
write something else

>>19669760
I make it up as I go along if that means any difference.

>>19670621
Say that a friend of yours wanted to send it to his publisher. Ask them if it is still under review, or if they would be alright if you sent it elsewhere.

If anything will encourage them to shit or get off the pot, it’s the prospect that another publisher may be interested.

Yes, in all liklihood they’ll just say ‘nope’, but that was the case anyhow. This may at least give you a resolution.

>>19670697
The only experience most Americans have with the idea of boarding school is Harry Potter…they’ll make that association even if the boarding school was non-magic.

Pick something unique to America: a small rural schoolhouse, a cult/commune (they’re witches, after all), a summer camp. The catch is you need to separate children from parents, something wealthy English parents are all to glad to do, but American helicopter parents are not.

>>19669760
Remember that worldbuilding is context for you to understand the character actions, but for the reader it's just a stage for actors. They could admire the stage, but it's still just a place for characters to live their lives.

For example, I wrote about half of a story where mechs fight kaiju but I could as easily replace it with alchemists using golems to fight whatever threats, or set it as fresh graduates going from making models to actual vehicles. Because the story is about parents with fame and knowledge doing their best to set their heir up for a grand role, it's about that heir developing their life on their own terms, it's about their former friend who plans to usurp that role.

>>19670697
Set in a public school, but the teachers and their crazier lessons are actual magic disguised as whatever.

I wrote two versions of chapter 1 of my zombie story, currently on #3. After the first version I refocused things to be on the characters per some feedback, then after the second version and feedback on it I refocused again just on one character. The part I'm unsure about is the fact this is the character that's basically me, an anxious little nerd. Is it OK to base the main character on yourself as long as the other important characters are different?
Also, I've had some advice to join writing groups on Facebook, does anyone know any good ones? It's so fucking hard getting feedback on kik which is mainly where I chat these days.

>>19671321
>Is it OK to base the main character on yourself
Yes.
>as long as the other important characters are different?
Why do they need to be different?

Spent the day modernizing my website. I'm gonna stop before I get burnt out and start editing again.

Is there going to be a Reading General for people who actually read too?

How does one write a smooth transition from an event in a dream to the character waking up to that same event in real life? I tried and it probably feels jarring.

>>19671701
Post excerpt. I would personally just carry on as if the dream was hyphenated. It doesn't matter if it is jarring, not everything needs to be smooth and easy to understand.

>>19671742
Forgive my phoneposting (and the fact this is mostly unedited).

>>19671625
You could start one. It might help filter out the bad meme threads

>>19671217
Not the original poster, but this anon
>>19670920
has it right.

Boarding school is a very convenient device to remove parents from a story about kids. Public school is fine, but what do they say when they go home each night? Really makes the story hard mode.

Aside from summer camp, though, when do kids in the US go for more than a few days w/o parents?

>>19671800
>reads your excerpt
You’ve got more than phone-posting and editing to apologize for…

Does it feel like I 'tricked' people if I intentionally don't describe a character until partway through the book? My intent is that the character's real heritage is as much a surprise to himself as it should be to the reader.

How well read do you need to be to write? I'm afraid I haven't read enough to try writing seriously. By this board's standards (assuming it's all true) I am a casual. By normie standards (low bar I know) I'm a "book worm"

I'm at a loss. I'm trying to write a scene where they run an experiment to see if a mouse can see ultraviolet light. Any ideas on how they'd do it?

>>19672284
Probe the mouse brain and stimulate the rods and cones with only a UV light source. If a signal is measured to the brain then there is a sensitivity curve for UV light. Vary the wavelength, map the electric intensity and done

>>19672261
I think to be an actually good writer, you need to have:
1. Read most, if not all, of the western canon
2. Read the major works of your genre/form
3. Read the majority of your competitors/contemporaries

As heuristic, I've noticed that good writing happens when you're reading 10X as much as you write by word count. So at least 10K words read every day for every 1K words written. It's even better if you read the best works multiple times, trying to go deeper each time. I myself am currently working through a dozen of the best short stories in the public domain, annotating them over multiple passes, really trying to break them down and understand how they were written.

>>19672300
Damn you an educated nigga or something?

>>19670621
>>19670881
This, you want to be pushing it to multiple publishers in quick succession.

If you get rejected it isn't necessarily because you're shit, though it probably is, it's more likely a question of whether they want what you're offering right now and what projects would it be competing with.

>>19672330
I'm a photonics engineer so I studied the human vision system and visual optics, yeah

Could a publishing house catering to our demographics succeed?

are there any good books on playwriting? my play is somewhat stuck in limbo as i don't know what form is most appropriate to the topic and my sensibilities
>>19672261
very, though i honestly don't think it needs to be as extreme as this board makes it out to be. if you know your own language's literature and the classics, i'd say you're all good

>>19670881
>>19672372
The thing is, if I was shit, they wouldn't have actively requested my manuscript after reading the synopsis and sample I provided. I've been rejected by enough publishers before to know that this situation is something different.

I have a habit of reusing characters I've made before when I'm thinking about writing a new story. Is this normal? Can I replace them with new characters when I get down to actually writing it, or is my approach flawed?

>>19672467
I tend to just read the genre and try and figure out how they did it. I don't like reading "guides" because if they were that much of an expert, they'll have 1000 plays already in production or have 10000 published books.

Mark Twain doesn't even have a "grammar" or "writing"' book. He just gave suggestions and that's what I try to follow.

>>19670555
So I'm almost done with my first book. In the process of editing it now and I'm just going to throw it on amazon. I designed the cover myself (nothing special) and juts plan to throw it out there. Would any of you fine fellas want a copy? I'd love some feedback. I don't think it's a greatbook and even after my attempts at editing i'm sure there are still multiple grammatical/punctuation errors.

It's about 3 people. 2 work at a dump and one works at a store like Wal-mart. They all manage to get themselves in trouble with different groups (Cartel, Mob and BLM/LGBT Mob) and sloppily try to get out from underneath it using stupid methods. The best way I can describe it is if Kurt Vonnegut had a frogtwitter account. It's not a great book, but some of you guys might like it if you don't take it seriously.

Once it's online I'll post the think and if a few people throw it in their wishlist I'll buy it for you.

Here's to hoping I'm not the next F. Gardner.

Dead branch, reindeer antler
this is winter, its winter
Grass coats itself in a crystalline pomade
Powdered sugar floats down plains
Flurries, flurry, hooraw, hooray

>>19672140
I don't think so at all. A mysterious character can draw a reader in significantly.
>>19672520
I can't tell if you're describing a series or not. Either way, there's never a problem using all your characters multiple times as long as the processes and endings don't conflict with other stories, unless you're into some multi timeline stuff.

anyone print? for what reason?

>>19672310
>1. Read most, if not all, of the western canon
doesn't make any sense as a criteria. the western canon was written by people who had not yet read the western canon because it didn't exist yet.

>>19672716
say what you want, but F. Gardner makes money from his books

>>19673018
nothing against him

So when you're writing your rape fiction, does the rape just happen quickly and au naturel, or are tools involved? A woman has more than one hole after all, and if the rapist is acting alone, which, for the sake of intimacy he must be, then it stands to reason he would need tools to pick up the slack.
Your thoughts, good sirs?

>>19673035
That's what multiple rounds are for.

>>19672716
Would be interested, anon…but please put in some effort at cover/description etc.

F Gardner’s writing is shit, but the ‘Call of…’ series def had a hook. Do yourself a favor and give at least as much shits on presentation as you did with the work itself.

Throw it out there for free, but market the hell out of it. Maybe you can make $ on the next one (if #1 is half decent). Also beware that 4ch readers will fuck with your reviews…may affect trad publishing in future, so consider a pen name.

Best of luck, congrats on finishing something - far more than most of us achieve - don’t fuck it up.

>>19673042
But at any given time, this would leave orifices unattended. Look at this graph.

>>19673035
>So when you're writing your rape fiction…
Sometimes I really question why I’m participating in /wg/.

>>19673120
Thank you for the feedback, friend.

I actually previously published it and then pulled it once I realized I had overlooked a ton of errors. Here is the "out of print" page.

Don't worry. That's a pseudonym. I'm working on a new one that's more serious than this but I feel like I worked too hard on this to not at least throw it out there and see what happens. Is the cover design too sloppy?

https://www.amazon.com/Corndog-Zen-Wallace-Mack/dp/B099JP1S82..

>>19673121
What about the action scene before the rape? Or to prevent the rape? Any graphs for that?

>>19672836
Not true, and you're clearly coping because you are too lazy to read. Every author in our canon (whatever that may be) read their own literary canon. There is not a single doubt about this. Yes, the "canon" is obviously not a singular, static entity, but you're a tard if you think that means it doesn't exist.

>>19673162
explain to me how the people who wrote the canon would have been able to read it before they wrote it

>>19673139
I have no idea how to graph such things, sorry.

>>19673138
>Front cover
Actually pretty decent. Add a vintage/grunge filter to age the image (piccrelated), change the font, make the title larger (look at 1960s pulp westerns) and author smaller.


>Back blurb
It’s shit. Remove the first three sentences, replace ‘the trio’ with ‘they’ and you’ve got something.

Godspeed.

>>19673234
Appreciate the feed back. Thank you.

I was going for that sort of pulp font but it was hard to find a royalty free font that really fit what I was looking for. I was just so done with the book that I got a case of the fuck its and threw it on amazon prematurely. I'm afraid that back blurb is a lot of what the book is. Little gems held together with a lot of shit.

It's 12 am and I've been staring at my story for the past 2 hours. I haven't added a single word. I know what I need to write but I have no idea how to write it.

Any tips?

>>19673259
Just dump it out and edit it later. Better to have the work to edit than to have nothing.

>>19673035
repent

>>19672140
>don't describe a character until partway through the book
>the character's real heritage is as much a surprise to himself as it should be to the reader
Your character never once looked in the mirror in his life?

>>19673259
You're pre-editing. Write it down as bad as you possibly can. You'll pick up a flow eventually. Don't stop to think of a better word or better phrasing, you can go back once you've made some progress and reword.

>>19671800
Hi.

Stopped reading after second sentence.

Sorry

>>19673250
>I was just so done with the book that I got a case of the fuck its
I hear ya, anon…but the look can be fun
Check this site out for some ideas: https://www.truegrittexturesupply.com/products/infinite-pulp

Shitty/basic art + retro paper texture will give you a good pulp feel. Make sure the font is still modern enough to stand out. If you gotta pay $10 for a decent font, just do it.

As for the blurb, I like keeping it less specific. No character names, just ideas:
>Three down-and-out dirt people find themselves strapped to the rickety, wooden rollercoaster of American life in free fall. Together, they do their best to survive the changing times. How can they understand a country which defies all labels?

and a fake review for good measure:
>“Corndog Zen is a bold exploration of American norms and values. Mack’s unique perspective and memorable characters will stay with you long after you put the book down.” - Anon

There. Who knows if it’s any good or not, but I’d at least give it a skim.

Idiot here. In an intentionally pretentious context, is the word "jejune" sufficiently obscure? Would the average reader of literary fiction know what it means? I am, again, an idiot, so I didn't.

>>19673404
Really appreciate it. Thank you.

>>19672716
>the next F. Gardner
Nobody would even care about him if he didn't pay a twenty pajeets on Fiverr to make constant threads about his garbage, worse-than-fanfic-tier "writing." If you don't do that, you won't need to worry about attracting that degree of scorn.

>>19673179
It? I didn't say they read the "Reddit Western Canon," anon. A canon, like I already said, is not a singular thing, nor is it static, meaning it is a different thing in different places and times. This is hardly complicated. Chaucer read whatever works were considered to be "canon" during his life. Homer obviously was familiar with the canonical stories of his time, and so were the Modernists (to a certain degree).

How can you expect to write something great if you don't even know what great is? This is a retarded discussion fueled by lazy retards who are complacent in their ignorance. Obviously a writer hoping to be of any significance has to read our canon.

>>19673409
I would suspect no.

>>19673468
No it's not sufficiently obscure or no the average reader won't know what it means?

>>19673488
Depends what you mean by the average reader; the average person absolutely wouldn't have heard the word.

>>19673518
Thank you, anon.

>>19673454
>How can you expect to write something great if you don't even know what great is?
Because you have an intuitive conception of what greatness is. If greatness were contingent upon familiarity with the work of others, academics like Harold Bloom would be counted among the greatest writers. Instead, we get the Flight to Lucifer. This make-believe obligation to be exhaustively familiar with the entire canon is one which has no real logical basis. It refers only to a succession of hacks and academics in an endless ouroboros of self-reference to the middlemen who came before.

Is reading important to writing? Absolutely. A writer should read. But he doesn't need to read the entire canon.

Why do people encourage writing a shitty first draft and endless rewrites when you could outline meticulously, write a clean draft and edit a bit? I’m confused. I wouldn’t want to go through the writing more than once.

>>19673550
dangerously based

>>19673634
No matter how highly you think of yourself, no matter how much you love the smell of your own farts, your first draft will always, ALWAYS suck and you need to rewrite the whole book from scratch anyway, so you might as well get it done with.

>>19673667
Why would it suck if you thought about it long and hard and outlined well? I just don’t get why that’s a common saying when I just read about a trad pub author who did exactly as I said, sold her book after one draft but had a huge detailed outline.
The long ass outline is essentially the hard work you do to avoid rewrites.

Once upon a time there was a me who wanted to become a writer. So writer i became: i dumped my ideas on paper, preserving the best ones for later. Then i used my best ideas on paper too. Now i’ve exhausted all my ideas and no more comes out. I go and look my earlier writings and they are all juvenile and shit. Even the best ideas are meh-tier at best. There’s some sort of uneasiness setting in. In my mind i’m thinking am i not going to be a writer after all? Maybe is this a crisis that every becoming writer passes on. It’s all so confusing and tiresome.

>>19673684
dumb frogposter. Just keep reusing the same ideas and refine them to perfection

>>19673667
Everything I've ever written has been in need of only minor editing by the time I'm done drafting. Granted, this is probably because I write on average a hundred or so words a day, but I've gotten a couple works published at this point. So something I'm doing is working. I know you probably want to pretend that I'm self-publishing and/or attack the legitimacy of even being published "these days," but I'd like to invite you to consider the possibility that this grand Common Wisdom you're repeating as fact maybe isn't as close to universal as you seem to think. Maybe—just maybe—what you're actually doing is talking about your own personal experiences with drafting and, with some heavy reference to common consensus, relaying it as fact.

I'm trying to work out if a comma here is necessary, can someone please give me some guidance?

>Otto’s bowl sat on the table in the hall overlooking Tommy as he pulled on his already-tied shoes.
or
>Otto’s bowl sat on the table in the hall, overlooking Tommy as he pulled on his already-tied shoes.

I was thinking no comma because the second clause isn't independent?

Not ESL, just uneducated.

>>19673695
Replying to my own post.
But then I'm worried without the comma it reads that the hall is overlooking Tommy rather than Otto's bowl on the table.

>>19673691
Whoah look out, this guy has gotten "a couple works published". Surely that means we should all be sending our first drafts out.

>>19673701
Not the point, and you know it. Even if you won't admit it.

>>19673691
this is based
>>19673701
this is underage

>>19673701
NTA but the point is that people should stop parroting that first drafts are all garbage. That’s such a broad and weird statement. Some are okay. Some are good.

>>19673691
Good for you. You're the fringe case though. Most people will need to go back and change things over and over. Though, this becomes less of an issue with experience; how long have you been writing for?

>>19673689
I will meditate on your wise words and reinspect my projects. Now that i’m thinking it i had once many separate stories that in later readings wanted to go together. Different characters were actually one character etc…

>>19673695
The sentence with a comma separates "hall" and "overlooking" - without a comma there is slight ambiguity as to what is doing the looking. I think "overlooking" is the wrong word anyway.

Also uneducated, however.

>>19673698
Why not just rephrase the sentence? There are many different ways you could arrange it.

>Tommy pulled on his shoes in the hall; Otto's bowl looked down at him from a table.
>Otto's bowl sat on the table in the hall, looking down at Tommy as he pulled on his already tied shoes.

>>19673773
>Otto’s bowl sat on the table in the hall where it overlooked Tommy as he pulled on his already-tied shoes.
Do you think this works better to remove the ambiguity?

>>19673788
Sure. Seems like an unimportant sentence, though.

I'm writing a story that makes me feel really anxious. It's difficult to write more than a hundred words at a time because of it. Although, I want the feeling to come through in the writing. For now though, it feels exhausting and it's hard to shake the feeling for the rest of the day.

>>19673842
>the feeling to come through writing
The reader is no telepath, so it's usually done through lots of practice and experience. If it's your first, maybe you should try to write for yourself first. Then put it away and return later, to see if you can feel it.

>>19673893
It's a first draft. It's also one of the first, but not *the* first, short story I've written. But you're right, I shouldn't get my expectations up too much.

>>19673035
My rapist character is a lot stronger and powerful than his victim, not to mention they live with each other, so he doesn't need much to get the job done. On special occasions, he might tie her up, and on really special occasions he'll overstimulate her with toys.

How do I write twists and turns in a novel when I’m not clever?

You are now aware of the fact that if your book ever makes it people will try to read way deeper into it than the level of complexity you actually wrote

>>19674115
Providing a platform for interpretation is ultimately a far superior approach to fiction than is painstakingly shoehorning a concrete meaning. It just reads better. It's a better aesthetic and vehicle for the genuinely sublime. There are certain exceptions for philosophical fiction (e.g. the stranger, Houellebecq, etc.) but fiction-as-art is without exception superior when left open-ended.

>>19674115
Then I can steal their ideas for the sequels and make it seem like I'm a master planner.

Has anyone actually read f Gardner stuff? Anons say his writing is shit but I have yet to see a sample

>>19674399
Literally just look it up on Amazon and read the sample. He never figured out how to correctly format dialogue tags, for example. The writing is dogshit even before you get past the actual mechanical, nuts-and-bolts convention of the craft.

>>19674399
When he made it free, I prob spent 10 min skimming through it. Each page I found would have been like a B+ in high school english. Not terrible, but extremely amateurish and rough. Nothing which belongs in a final draft, let alone available for purchase.

Some books are ironically bad. Not an excuse for shit writing, but there’s a place for intentional cringe humor (Napoleon Dynamite, Real Ultimate Power) but you can tell F Gardner is clearly trying and this garbage is the best he’s got.

>>19674467
Lets see your writing then, I bet you can do better than me, right, Or are you just talking out of your arse?

>>19674498
Hi F Gardner!

>>19674498
Listen, buddy. I'm in the write thread because I know my writing is shit. Difference is I'm trying to improve it and not shitting out garbage to put on sale.

>>19674521
Cello my friend, what are you working on?
>>19674526
Globehead on the copium, it's pretty telling.

>>19670614
No offense, you seem like a huge prick and you also don't seem to know a droplet about writing, at least teaching someone writing or giving advice about writing. Telling people here to read anything that is not an autistically concrete guide is simply a bad idea. You already need to know how essentially how to write and finish a piece, be that a novel, a play, any kind of literature, before being able to take anything valuable from the poetic. Also, Heidegger would actually be a better choice for teaching people about what poesis means fundamentally and how it might be suited to writing, as most every art is poesis at the core.

>>19672140
I just finished reading Crime and Punishment recently, and the character Svidrigailov, while things around him are described through the story, is mostly ambiguous and creepy. You don't really get to understand him until the final act where we learn how depraved, criminal and unaccountable he is. That character had the most profound effect on Raskolnikov's redemption, only second to Sonia I'd say. So I think yes, you can shock readers with a vague character that we only get to understand near the end, it can work.

>>19674498
I’ve written some things I’m proud of, and many more I cringe to look back at. This isn’t about writers measuring dicks, it’s about trying to improve - and you can’t do that if you’re convinced your shit doesn’t smell.

As I said, your writing isn’t bad…it’s better than 70% of the samples posted on /wg/, but that doesn’t make it good. You’re a meme, and you’ve done a great job riding that out…but don’t mistake that for talent.

>>19672435
Make a business plan and assess the risk, I'm sure you could do enough research to estimate how much money you could expect.

>>19672140
I personally write first person in the present tense. I never give my protagonists names or descriptions. I want my (apocryphal) reader to feel as little possible separation from the situations in which I place him. I want the sense of proximity to the sickly, decaying minds I try to portray to be almost overwhelming.

That's the goal, anyway. The result is probably a far cry from the ideal. Mislead your reader all you want to.

>>19674624
The difference between me and you is that I'm humble and down to earth, I know there is artistry to be appreciated on a more personal and intimate level than sheer praise, I know that there are people out there starving for a dialogue between reader and writer, I know I can fill that small niche in their hearts in even the minutest way possible and I will do so not for me or the fame, but for them

>>19674632
>he's in that phase
yeah, buddy, that sounds cool.

>>19674648
Yes, I'm in "that phase" where I prefer an aesthetic you've discarded for arbitrary reasons you've conflated with some "objective," abstract measure of maturity as a writer. Sound about right?

>>19674642
>I'm humble and down to earth
mm hmmm

I just want to write something that gets published

This is not the place to come to nourish your mind. This is the place where things go to die. This is the place where hopes and dreams are shattered.
Post your work here and it'll be left in tatters. Post your work here and either have it unread or raped. Post your work here and you'll know of real dread.
There are anons with wicked bile in their stomachs and maws. There are anons with cantankerous sores and long claws, beware! There are anons with degrees and some are autodidacts, but in knowledge and empathy they sorely lack.

>>19674712
I disagree. Anons in /wg/ have a lot of passion in this hobby and are more than willing to help out. I've gotten tons of tips.

>>19674718
Ahhhhhh, the anons. So wise. How could I forget about that nugget of advice: "I don't know why you used this word, oh, that's because it's the actual word academics used in that field that you're writing a fictional story in. Well you're a faggot anyway!"

>>19674735
What are you blabbering about?

>>19674745
I just told you. Also, I think you don't take writing very seriously if it's a "hobby" to you. I think you can paint as a hobby but it doesn't mean it should ever be in a gallery or seen by anyone, except maybe at your funeral.

>>19674676
sure, buddy

>>19674735
/lit/ is still 4ch, anon. You’ve gotta be good at taking the well-meaning comments and letting the shitposts roll off your back.

There’s a ton of generosity and creativity and thoughtful /crit/ in /wg/. It’s also a place to put voice to the insecurity and fatalism any striving writer might face. There’s also furry loli rape fanfiction. So, yeah, a tapestry.

>start writing fantasy
>it actually starts to bother me how people can communicate when their cultures are clearly different
>"I know, these islanders speak a bastardized dialect of the language of these city states! Genius!"
>realize the naming conventions I'm using for the islanders' homelands are also consistent with a location in a different part of the world that's relevant to a mystery cult
>start setting up ideas for how said cult originated in the islands
>but the cult is using a lot of nomad-culture trappings and animals not native to said islands are important to it
>therefore the islanders must've originated elsewhere and those actually living on these islands are just a remnant from some older civilization that was driven away from the mainland at some point
All this work, and I just needed a character who was ignorant of brick & mortar masonry to act as a POV character at a construction site. Fantasy worldbuilding is bullshit. Learn from me and only write about real things.

>>19674802
no

>>19674679
Literally lol’ed at that image.

>>19674632
>I never give my protagonists names
Nope. Unless all of your stories have no dialogue and everyone starts already knowing each other, it's incredibly obvious what you're trying to do and it always makes people roll their eyes

>>19674809
O-okay.

>>19674760
Well ya, I'm not quitting my day job. Writing is supposed to be fun not some crazed passion that consumes your life.

>>19674843
I'd argue the exact opposite.

>>19674843
>Writing is supposed to be fun
Said who?
>not some crazed passion that consumes your life.
Except for Kafka, McCarthy, Pynchon, DFW, Pound, Joyce, Beckett, et al...

>>19674802
>Learn from me and only write about real things.
I want to, but the period I want to write about was only, like, ten years long so it's either I cover everything how it happened for real and have nothing if I want to make a sequel or make it incredibly obvious I'm holding back material to sequel-bait.

>>19674852
>Kafka
Died at 40
>Pychlon
Worked at Boeing before made it

I think I'll take the Pychlon route

>>19674868
Based :) keep it up anon

>>19674868
Ah yes, Pychlon. The author of such works B. and the Frying of Dot 35.

>>19674883
I thought Pychlon B was what the nazis used to gas people.

>>19674903
No that was Zircons, ground up Zircons

>>19674868
>Worked at Boeing before made it
He didn't even work there for long, and QUIT to write. That was my point.

>>19674108
let your imagination fill in the gaps. i mean it. when you let your mind run filterless the strangest things come out
>>19674399
no, but i once talked to them on a server. interesting person for sure
>>19674843
not quite. writers have other things they pursue, but the great ones USUALLY write because they need to lest they go insane. i'd say a balance is necessary

>want to write porn novels
>end up just roleplaying on f-list all day instead
At... At least it's still writing, right?

>>19674955
No one here writes

>>19674975
This.

>>19674975
But you're writing right now! 4chan posts count.

>>19674679
Well is he wrong? Everyone on /lit/ seems to know about his book. Maybe infamous would be a more appropriate term. And from what I've seen F Gardner gets bash unfairly for succeeding where psued authors failed and still fail because they've yet to produce something.

AAAHhHHH every time I try to start writing I get debilitating headburn what the fuck

>>19674955
This is actually something I've been thinking about. Most femdom stuff is ruined by cuckoldry or other gay shit, so I've been tempted to write my own stuff.

>>19675051
Porn's a great way to get your feet wet as an author and it usually makes some money even if it's complete garbage. Though you will have to front some money to get cover art commissioned unless you draw yourself. Can't get away without a hot pic as the cover.

>>19675070
>>19675051
Slightly related, I looked at the best selling novels of 2021 on Smashwords and they were all romance and erotica.

>>19674772
>furry loli rape fanfiction
Is it really the weirdest thing that's come to this general in its lifetime? Or is it the current weirdest?

I have a really bad habit of writing a story in my head. I'll come up with an idea, like it, and before I know it I've drafted out various beats and an ending. Problem is, none of it really connects and I'm left with this uneasy feeling instead of actually writing. How do I not let that habit bother me? How do I channel it into productive ends instead of using it to procrastinate and daydream all day?

>>19675200
It’s far from all-time (or even the current) strangest…it does, however, illustrate pretty clear contrast between the philosophy/classics pseuds on /lit/, the weeabo/coomer influences inherent to 4chan, and the folks on /wg/ just trying to learn a craft.

No, as much as I shit on the whole loli furry rape thing, it comes from a place of kink and positivity. It’s not something someone depressed would put that much passion into. The strangest part to me is the level of input/analysis you’re trying to get for you’re dumb porn fanfic.

The shit that scares me is the depressed/suicidal stuff that comes through here. When the hate and self-loathing of /pol/ or /b/ bubbles up here. Some of that really worries me, when you’re not sure if what you’re reading is fiction of a cry for help. And then the author disappears, and you don’t why…and you wonder if you were too hard on them. That’s /wg/, too.

As I said, a tapestry.

Is there a market, at all, in the west for male-oriented romance plots? The enduring popularity of harem anime, manga, and LNs make me think so, but when I look at what's published over here it's nothing but a feminist wasteland. Is this another case of Western publishers being totally out of touch, or even intentionally snubbing potential customers?

>>19675426
>popularity of harem anime, manga, and LNs
that's only because there's an overlap in the anime demographic and the sheltered manchild faggot demographic
men who are into romance animes aren't into books

>>19675434
I said LNs there, anon. Yes, people do read books about guys having a bunch of girls orbiting them.

>>19675437
what the fuck is an LN?

>>19675426
Women read porn, men watch it.

Women will read a romance novel, coom, and read more. Men will skip to the sex scene, coom, and then have zero interest in anything sexual for the next hour.

Women have less inhibition when buying/discussing/recommending a romance novel; men will def be more likely to read something with sexuality in it, but will claim they really liked it for the the plot/ideas.

I find asian men are much more honest about their kinks, and asian women less so.

>>19675455
>an LN?
Never speak to me again if you're this ignorant.
>>19675458
You too. You have no real familiarity with what sells on amazon, let alone what this very site consumes.

>>19675484
>You too. You have no real familiarity with what sells on amazon, let alone what this very site consumes.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=best+selling+fiction+novels
Just tell me how far i need to scroll before I find a book read by more men than women.

As for ‘this site’. I think men will write/comsoom free porn lit all day, just don’t expect them to pay for it. The question was ‘is there a market’…here, I think supply far outpaces demand. You can make it selling to women, but (western) men are a dead end.

>>19675516
Sure, one sec.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=best+selling+light+novels

Fuck off, you worthless rube.

>>19675419
>the level of input/analysis you're trying to get for you're dumb porn fanfic
Is it that no one cares enough about craft in porn for me to care as well? Or that no one will care about mine based on the subject matter? I know it only appeals to 0.05% of the population, but I want it to be appealing in more aspects than just the sexual one.

Also, do you have any examples of depressed writers that came and went? Maybe a keyword I can search in the archives?

>>19671625
that would be pretty awesome.
>>19672140
nah, that's fine. a lot of work doens't even physically describe characters.
>>19673035
can we please stop writing about rape
>>19673259
just start. if it isn't good you can always delete it afterwards. write anything. write a shitty first draft.

>>19675532
>All fantasy isekai
Travesty

>>19675426
I think what you are talking about is actually the typical adventure genre. These stories tend to be full of action, exotic locations and bare skin, three things which appeal to hormonal adolescent boys. All the mediums/genres you mentioned are nothing more than extensions/offshoots of this genre. If you read some classic pulp fantasy from the 50-70's you'll see its basically the same "harem anime/manga/LN" as today. I mean even those fall under the genre called "shonen" which is a description of its audience, young boys.

Shonen/adventure is not at all the same as romance (unless meant in the classic sense, a la medieval literature). A male oriented romance plot is basically the buddy-cop genre. The expectations are very different, though admittedly there is some overlap in demographic since buddy-cop films naturally tend toward, violence, action, exoticism and nudity via its intersection with the crime genre.

I think, in general, it is more helpful to think of markets not in terms of content or tropes, but in terms of expectations of genre meeting particular market needs. Our porn addled word means books have to tend toward more extreme lasciviousness but the principles remain the same.

>>19673409
>je·june
>/jəˈjo͞on/
>naive, simplistic, and superficial.
people will accuse you of abusing a thesaurus.
>>19673634
to find out what works, you need to start by finding out what doesn't. that boi didn't invent a functioning lightbulb on the first go. he made like 400 gimp ass lightbulbs first.
>>19673695
you dont need a comma i think
>>19674115
but i have so many layers of complexity even an academic would struggle to identify them all, anon.
>>19674843
>not having both a day-job and a crazed passion that consumes your life
>>19675426
those are called fantasy rags with elf waifus

>>19675532
Pull your head out of your ass

>>19673454
This is your excuse not to write.

>>19675675
>I think what you are talking about is actually the typical adventure genre.
No, I specifically mean stuff like The Quintessential Quintuplets. Or for something from years back I remember, MonMusu. Those are stories where the girls are the main focus.

>>19671625
no because that's ostensibly the entire board, it's like making a /tv/ general for people who watch shows and movies

just realize my achiles' heel is that I have so much details I have planned for my novel before starting writing that I get overwhelmed trying to assemble everything together.
Any tips how to keep all these notes cleanly organized for me to refer to without resorting to buying a second monitor?

>>19672435
4chan specifically? No. There are like a hundred or so people who post here, and of those you might get a handful who would ever buy something from you. Remember most people here don't read.

You could maybe cater to the wider Fox news base, but I don't think that's what you had in mind

>>19675712
jesus christ ignore all the grammar mistakes. That's only because I was typing too fast

>>19675455
lmao newfag

>>19675716
There were ~250 posts in the "roll for goal" thread the other day.

>>19675532
Wow, anon. I’m actually trying to be constructive here and you’re jumpin’ down my throat.

Never heard of ‘light novels’ before, but if your list is the ‘best of’ it seems far from mainstream (in the US, at least). Wikipedia pretty much confirms that this is a genre that’s massive in Japan, mid-sized in other parts of Asia, and very niche in the west.

Further, these seem more like picture books than actual novels…again, women will read porn while men want something to look at.

I’m stickin’ with my guns here. If you’re an aspiring English language author writing LNs (and apparently, you’ll need an illustrator too) there’s no profit in selling to western men. There’s a huge catalog of Japanese/Chinese/Korean content just waiting to be translated, while you’ll only have a handful of US readers and will never break into the saturated Asian/global market.

Idk why I’m trying to engage in this discussion, you do what you want.

>>19675712
you gotta treat urself like an autist
physical color coded notes where colors represent what order they should appear in the story

you can also do that thing some writers do where they have entire walls full of sticky notes with lines linking them like some schizo who found out the guards that were in charge of Epstein weren't investigated at all

>>19675759
LN is just YA without the SJW bint. Because Japan doesn't have SJW--they have yakuza victims the police will ignore.

>>19675760
>what order they should appear in the story
that's not really the problem. Best explanation I can give is that I have a lot of scenes where 12 things unfold simultaneously and I each of them gets incorporated into the stream of text. My problem isn't the structuring, but instead it's keeping about 30 things that need to be mentioned at the front of my consciousness so that I am aware that each one exists while I'm talking about 15 of the other details

>>19675809
Use Scapple

>>19675809
Sounds like a fun challenge!

To start, try to write the scene a few ways and take the ‘best of’. You can run yourself ragged overplanning, and miss some glaring issue (or clever solution) that a quick first draft would have uncovered.

Once you have taken a few stabs at it, and think you know the problem points, i agree with >>19675809 go ‘full autist’

Caution: don’t let the temptation to check all the boxes get in the way of writing a good story. If you’ve got too many loose ends you can tie a bigger knot, or cut one out. You’re the author, you’re god. Kill a character off, make them 10 years older, leave shit ambiguous…sometimes being too clever can make the work much more dull than leaving it open to interpretation.

>>19675861
agree on everything you said, but sometimes I just want to paint a vibrant picture because I have a really strong vision of that exact scene. I know that the reader's imagination can be your greatest ally but in these exact cases I'm setting up a place that I want to convince them is as real as possible. Most readers fill in the blanks with generic shit, and in those specific scenes the blanks are anything but generic. That's why I feel the need to tell them everything

>>19673673
Just do it however you like, and find out for yourself! Maybe you'll make a fantastic discovery: lazy idiot writes perfect book on his first try - no editing!!

>>19674586
>huge prick
>know nothing about writing
Correct on both counts, anon. I get carried away in pretending I have a clue as to what I'm talking about, basically I'm a big fat liar. Forgive me?

>>19674586
also, where does he talk about poesis?

>>19670555
Question:
I'm writing a story with Kaiju, and am trying to determine slightly more realistic/believable weights, using the SCL.
I've only been able to do it with two of them. A 35 meter tall bipedal mutant frog that weighs a bit over 30,000 tons, and a 5 meter long rat that weights 173 tons.
However, every other monster just keeps coming up short for some reason. For example, a 25 meter tall bipedal hyena abomination only comes up as 1730 tons.
Is my math off or something?

>>19675745
That surely includes some samefags and people rolling again, but even if we say 200, that's not enough to sustain a publishing house, unless it's an online only thing like &amp (which has 4 people supporting it)

>>19676035
ffa anthologies (sold at cost, and mostly just to the authors) likely has sales in the low two digits.

Just b/c there are anons on /lit/ doesn’t mean they’ll have the interest or $$ to sustain a single author (let alone a publisher).

>>19674586
>huge prick
>knows nothing
Guilty on both counts, anon. I struggle with my vanity. I was just trying to help the sir, though.

Where to find that Heidegger?

>>19676035
it was ~250 unique posters, i mispoke
and a 4chan publishing house is a terrible fucking idea. all you faggots want to write about is rape, my diary, and /sffg/ manchild schlock.

>>19676135
>rape, my diary, and /sffg/
Women love these things though, and according to this thread they're the only demographic that matters

>>19675046
every time i try to run a marathon my legs start to hurt, what's your fucking point?
Your brain is a muscle, little man. Exercise it. Get moving bitch.

>>19676010
I love you guys, wg
What the fuck is an SCL?

>>19676205
Square Cube Law

>>19676010
Eh, the weight depends on composition. If the bones are super strong and light, they can weigh a lot less.

>>19676224
Lol, i have a math degree and def never heard that abbreviation before.

So a kaiju 2x taller will have 4x the surface area and 8x the volume/mass. What’s your starting reference?

If it’s the frog (35m, 30k tons), then the rat (5m) is 7x shorter and therefore 7^3=343x lighter. So 87 tons.
The 25m hyenna would be 1.4x smaller than the frog, so 2.74x lighter (11k tons).

>>19675759
>Further, these seem more like picture books than actual novels…
They have a few pictures at most. You know, like what old pulp novels had?

>I’m stickin’ with my guns here
Fuck off.

>>19676382
>Fuck off.
Wishing you the best of luck, anon. Go write the Great American Isekai and prove me wrong!

>>19675745
>>19675716
Much more people visit the site and just lurk. It's one of the most visited sites in the internet even if there's so much slow boards. There's also a lot of people that would be here if they knew more about the site. I imagine there would be a lot of press (negative, of course) if there was a publishing house that focused on the 4chan demographics.

>>19676332
My math was basically
>Take size of animal, be it length or height.
>Multiply it by 2 repeatedly until I get near the size I had in mind.
>Multiply the weight of the animal by 8 repeatedly for each number
>Then I take the size I want and divide it by the closest number I've got, then divide 8 by the resulting number. Then I multiply the closest number by the next resulting number and then I've got my weight
Let's assume something was, say, 18 feet long and the animal I'm basing it on was 2 feet long and weighed 5 pounds.
2, 4, 8, 16.
5, 40, 320, 2560.
Divide 18 by 16 and divide 8 by the resulting number.

At what point does an idea for a story become too simple to be considered adult literature?

I've been mulling around an idea for a new trilogy that deals with plants, animals, and the larger natural world in a political sense (e.g., in how humans exploit them, in how regions are defined by them, how culture develops around them, etc.), but I'm struggling to keep the plot complex enough to be palatable by my intended audience. I think the content itself easily lends itself to YA themes on a character level, and while I don't think there's anything wrong with that, I'm afraid the larger points I'm trying to make will easily get lost within these folds.

I've thought about expanding the scope of my series and adding multiple POVs, but to be frank, I don't know that I'm gifted enough to weave those stories into something people would want to read, adults or otherwise. Has anyone else run into these issues before?

>>19676417
I bet if you branded it as an “anti-cancel culture” publisher it would get some eyes. It’s a broader appeal (mostly political/right), but would prob include a large 4ch demog. It would immediately get flooded with low quality conspiracy rants, so you’d have to find a way of promoting quality without getting hate for policing content.

There’s potential in this, right wing media has money if you’re willing to sell your soul to get at it.

>>19676493
>I bet if you branded it as an “anti-cancel culture”

The only submissions you would get would be either neo-nazi or pro-pedophilia. It's the same problems 8ch had.

>1,000,000 kinds of flowers and they all bloom in special specific seasons so you have to do 900 google searches to see if x flower will bloom in y location in z month
holy fuck

>>19674586
what sort of

>autistically concrete guide

would you recommend?

Is writing scenes out of order kosher?

>>19676408
Been done.

>>19676556
Just make it up, only autists will really give a fuck

>>19676729
>only autists would care
>looks at URL bar
yes, hello
>>19676651
why not?

>>19676744
I mean, only autists will care if the Clivia miniata in your book bloomed in mid-September on the steppes of Austria versus late February in northeastern Kazakhstan like it SHOULD in da real worlde. Nearly no one else will care. You could just say scarlet flower with wide petals and long stems and that'll be enough for anyone

>>19676421
That is so much more complicated than it needs to be.

Okay, let’s go with a human: 6 feet, 200 lbs.
If you want them to be 80 feet tall, divide 80 by 6 = 13.33x larger.
The weight is then 13.33x cubed (2,370x) more. 200lbs x 2,370=474k lbs.

In a formula:
[kaiju weight] = [reference weight] x ( [kaiju height] / [reference height] )^3

Good luck!

>>19676806
I have literal autism my friend. I've googled to see what moon phase a certain day in history would have had, before.

>>19676938
If you want to research 1 million flowers and be that dedicated to precision that's perfectly safe man. Don't break yourself over it though

>>19676877
I'm gonna need to figure that out, huh.

>>19676877
>474,000 pounds
M-MOMMY

>>19676988
and i'm still not as autistic as kaijuu-anon
btw you fucking weeb they're called sea-monsters in english

>>19676877
I put in the new math, and the frog now weighs over 100,000 tons.
Christ.

>>19677087
Can the earth even hold that kind of weight?

>>19677104
No fucking idea. Now it makes everything seem really god damn impressive because the Kaiju in this story range from 5 to 100 meters.

>>19677119
And yet, the snake Kaiju is inexplicably lightweight.

>>19677104
Earth has a mass of 5,972,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms
The kaiju frog isn't even massive enough to get a paperweight to orbit it. It's gravitational pull would be negligible compared to the pull that the earth has on it.

>>19670697
just make it a public school but the 'special needs' class is actually full of magic retards and autists

>>19677119
Googler here. Mount Everest weighs 350 trillion tons and the worst you can do is bend the crust without a sudden impact from a meteor to break it. Also the crust held glaciers which are way heavier than kaiju

>>19677177
No, wait. I redid my math and it's only 9084 tons or something.
Pemdas and whatnot.

Any general advice for writing science in science fiction? My aunts said it went over their head

>>19677236
Read Andy Wier. His characters merge humor with nerdiness, and break down complex ideas using easy metaphor.

>>19677286
I want to read project Hail Mary but its booked at the local library and I dont read pdfs

I'm almost done with my 2nd draft. I reworked almost every chapter/sequence, cut the chaff, and added a whole bunch of new stuff. It's far more coherent as well. Yaaaaay.

>>19677302
It’s well worth the read.

>>19677302
>I dont read pdfs
t. retarded pseud who has never read anything worth reading.

>>19677358
I approve

I have an idea about a girl blackmailing a guy into sexual acts, but I don't want to write it because I know there will be those who jerk off to it and I don't feel like having """""psycho-analysts"""""" project shit on me.

>>19677484
>I know there will be those who jerk off to it
Yes, me.

>>19677484
Is a "psycho-analist" someone who goes around anally raping people in vicious ways?

>beat personal record yesterday by writing 700 words
>feel really good about myself
>wake up
>reread what I wrote
>I still like it
Feels good, bros.
What's your favorite scene that you've written recently?

>>19677497
No, that's Bruce (me)

>>19677502
not a scene, but in new year's i wrote this 100+ word poem about time i'm rather proud of. if there is interest i can translate a portion of it

>>19677502
I liked writing this since it was a breath of fresh air from writing melodramatic mopiness, and because I never truly did get to write interactions between characters that haven't met much/didn't meet in the story proper. >>19667462 Was 2k in a day and I was a hours off from NYE, so I was happy I could get it out in time after accidentally slipping in hiatus for December.

I wanna start a blog where I just write my thoughts about random things(books, movies, whatever). What's the better site, wordpress or tumblr?

>>19677558
Wordpress might get you more followers but lots of tumblr is practically built for niche interests like book reviews. Just be aware some truscum or ENBIE with purple coloured hair will likely fuck with you on tumblr. Wordpress is for the older generation and you can pay to get rid of ads and the domain “.wordpress”

I made a twitter account to try start building up a potential audience and advertise my book. I'll probably 'finish' it by the end of this week after working on it for a year, and I hear social media presence is extremely important to finding success.

>>19677584
desu, getting push back from the usual tumblr crowd is part of the appeal for me. I just find it funny. The slightest difference from their worldview sends them into a tailspin and I find it hilarious.

I do admit, the potential and """"professionalism"""" of Wordpress appeals to be too, but not nearly as much.

>>19677446
I just dont like staring at a screen because I have sleep problems :(

My new years resolution is to write what I want. I don't care about making a thin dime on my work in 2022 or getting people to read what I do or being able to quit my job or any of that crap. In 2022 I go back to writing for fun.

>>19677484
There is nothing you can write that won't titillate at least one person. I say go for it. Also, would read.

>>19677620
>writing for fun
ngmi

Writing should be done because you don't have a choice. It pours out of you one way or another.

>>19677484
So what
that woman wrote that story about the female teacher who fucks 14 year old schoolboys and she didn't get shit for it

>>19677660
I just hate the idea of there potentially being published opinions(even if just interviews) of faggots and kikes saying shit about it. Maybe that's vain or egotistical, but that shit fucks with me.

>>19677484
>writing coombait
>but totally not a coomer guise
repent, coomer.

>>19677708
Look, sometimes characters just come out of the darkness and tell me their stories. All I really have choice over is which ones I actually write down, and sometimes not even then.

>>19677596
Well you can try do something like this where you write like 300 words of review and give stars, but not for YA schlock but for adult literature
https://the--art--of--reading.tumblr.com/

>>19676877
So far, I think the frog Kaiju is 10,598 tons.
I used a basic tree frog as a basis and converted meters to inches.
3.5 ounces x (1377.95 / 3)^3
Long story short, I convert it to tons.

>stealing words from books written in the 1800s to enrich the vocabulary of my novel
heh. checkmate modernity.
how do you guys get over how ugly the english language is? i wish i was native in french.
>>19677647
>Writing should be done because you don't have a choice. It pours out of you one way or another.
tfw

>>19677739
The series was going to be called "A Racist Reviews" both for the provocative nature and so that anyone looking for a different perspective than the usual "20/30 something shitlibby English major" book blog out there.

>>19677749
French is form over function.
German is function over form.
English is a perfect balance.

>>19677774
I guess if you don’t even mention race in your reviews, you can’t be taken down. Just do what Varg does and hint at racist thing without ever actually saying it outright. Say “they” instead of “Jewish overlords”. Unless getting taken down is your idea of fun, but I’m not sure I’d bother with that.

>>19677783
>German is function over form.
possibly the only language uglier than english in written form, with the exception of d*tch

>>19677792
last I heard tumblr was ironically really lax about that sort of thing. Probably because they haven't been infested with wrong-thinkers yet.

where do you lads get the lists of magazine titles to submit your work too? let's say horror or uncanny

>>19677839
Submittable and I check tags like “poetry” “fiction” and “short story”. I usually go for those that have good mastheads and have some renown.

>>19677783
I'm partial to Mandarin Chinese myself

>>19676417
>>19676493
>>19676539
The problem is the "4chan" crowd for lack of a better description don't read. They call people the gamer word in discord and jack off to anime trannies. The idea that they would buy books even if they were anti-cancel culture is laughable

>>19677875
thank you

I’m trippin /wg/. Can you tell me which version is correct?

“Ever since the king chose one of our own as his bride, I have counted down the moments until the Citadel became another arm of his family’s reign.”

Or

“Ever since the king chose one of our own as his bride, I have counted down the moments until the Citadel becomes another arm of his family’s reign.”

The “I have” and “becomes/became” isn’t registering for some reason, something sounds awkward. Help!

any other aphantasia writers here?
my mind's eye is the equivalent of wisps of shadow in the dark. I can't picture shit at all, but I can still 'conceptualize' things, if that makes sense.
If you describe to me a room, I understand all the components of the room and where they are and what colour they are, I just can't see it in my head.

>>19676408
Anon, I'm looking for real advice here, not you parroting standard publisher dogma.

>>19678109
the second is correct and the first needs counted to be pluperfect not perfect to make it correct (i think)

>>19678109
It depends on the tense anon. Maybe try either:
>"Ever since the king chose one of our own as his bride, I have been counting down the moments until the Citadel becomes another arm of his family's reign."
Or
>"Ever since the king chose one of our own as his bride, I counted down the moments until the Citadel became another arm of his family's reign."

>>19678133
Idk about ‘publisher dogma’, but if their experience aligns with my opinion…i think that strengthens my conviction.

Why ask a question if you don’t want an answer?

>>19677512
post the original. We can use google translate for the meaning but the beauty of the structure will only be evident in the original.

>>19678165
>>19678167
Thank you gents, very much appreciated!

It's a cold, dark day...here in Dreamland.
The wind blows through my hair.
Leaves me...the feeling of memories past.

>>19678111
That sucks. I have dreams so vivid I can see and read printed writing, hear songs, tacitly feel objects, see colors, and feel sensations of sunlight or wading into water etc, let alone my waking imagination's vividness.

when i describe a scene i can picture every last detail and sensation like i was there.

What are some other words for "slut"? I used that insult about 10 times in about 5 paragraphs. But shit like hoe, loose women, and even whore doesn't capture the power of "slut"\

Wrote 1,558 words tonight, lads. Felt good. Felt GREAT, in fact; it's been a few months since I've done some real writing.

>>19678641
writing revenge fantasies over the girl who turned you down, eh? quite an ugly color.

>>19678750
actually no. I'm writing a scene where a bunch of mean girls pick on a robo waifu. Girls call other girls sluts all the time, but for a story, using the same four letter word gets very tiresome.

>>19678750
I'm writing a scene where a bunch of mean girls pick on a robo waifu. Girls call other girls sluts all the time, but for a story, using the same four letter word gets very tiresome. Do you want to read it?

>>19678776
no girl insults other girls by calling her a slut. holy fuck go outside.

>>19678805
slut is the only insult girls use on each other lmao
i dont think ive ever heard a man call a woman a slut outside of the internet, because that would reduce your chances of obtaining your own woman down to zero

>>19678820
>that would reduce your chances of obtaining your own woman down to zero
I don't see the correlation

>>19678824
a woman will see the way that you treat other women and assume that you will treat her the same way.
be nice to your mom and never say slut.

>>19678805
It's always Bitch and Slut.

3k words today. other than two scenes, one of which has notes and the other is blank for insert, i only have one chapter left for the first (of 2) volume. going to finish the other volume then edit both together.

i have 82k words right now and it should finish around 90-95k.

What if no one ever knows or cares I exist bros

>>19679134
at least your mom will care

>>19678844
Or cunt when they're feeling flirty

I am not even creative enough to come up with a short story

I GOT AN AGENT!!!

>>19679446
Hell yea anon, proud of you!!

so I have picked up the pen for the fist time and I came up with a plot about two kids who live in a village where a priest has recently arrived. The kids are innocent and believe that anyone who is connected to the divine or religion can't do dirty stuff, but they see the priest use the washroom. Now the whole story will be them trying to get an evidence of his shit to show to the whole village how he is a fraud. I have the plot but how do I make it a story?

Books with well written sex scenes? I struggle with them a lot.

>>19679996
Make sure you describe the curve of the phallus.

>>19679446

How do I come up with a good villain that’s not cartoon-y? So many books and shows have villains who are even more liked than the protagonists and I want that too

>>19680503
First step is to make them interesting.
Second step is to make them right.

>>19680503
Find their motivations.

>>19680503
Villain and hero are deprecated relics of a more romantic, formalist past. If either or both are perceived as cartoonish, it's probably because they've been explicitly framed as hero or villain. If you want a believable character, write a believable character instead of an archetype. The hero/villain framework was never meant to be something instantiated and built around. The terms originate from the ex post facto identification of a pattern in abstract and for the (faggy, academic) purpose of analysis and categorization. Just get rid of that dumb shit and write.

>>19680577
>b-but the greekerinos!!!!!
And just because I know someone's thinking it, the fact that the ancient Greeks are long dead and venerated and whatever, it doesn't preclude them being sometimes faggy and academic. Thoughts are a mind parasite. You were never meant to become their powerless thralls. Return.

How the fuck do you write anything knowing that some retard with 0 interest in art, pandering with porn, shilling that he's a minority or some other whoredom will surpass you by leaps and bounds and if anyone will be interested in your work he'll feel entitled to pirate it? Are you seriously this cucked?

>>19680731
>Are you seriously this cucked?
I really don't give a shit what anyone else does. Try it. It's pretty fucking freeing.

>>19680738
>I don't really care who my girlfriend sleeps with

>>19680745
Who are you quoting?

>>19680754
The cuck in >>19680738

I have a premise that’s kind of ridiculous but would someone high iq be kind enough to help me turn it into something that makes sense!
It’s YA tho

Thanks in advance

>>19680731
speak for yourself
my books will be beloved by millions

>>19680761
>It’s YA
you want marketing advice, not writing advice

>>19680770
Yeah maybe I do want marketing advice but once I have a coherent idea

>>19680772
if you wanted quality you would not write YA

>>19680776
YA is an age quality. There will be good and bad books. Just like there are shitty adult books!

Can you help me or no?

>>19680731
>>19680745
>>19680757
Hey, you can choose to be mad at whatever you want, I guess! Have at it. You can even call me a cuck for not caring what gay little games the rest of the world gets up to.

>>19680783
Age category**

>>19680761
Are you asking permission to ask a question?

Fine, then. I’m the highest IQ-iest anon on /wg/ and I want you, poster 19680761, to submit your ridiculous YA premise for critique.

>>19680731
Envy and jealousy speak only to your insecurities as an author. Don’t project your incel logic on us.

Should every painter give up their art because they think so-and-so is a hack? Good art and good lit comes from people who are compelled to make their vision real, the rest of the world be damned.

Grow up, get over yourself, and write.

>>19680796
OK
So imagine there being a witch town but among the high schoolers, they’re dabbling in dark magic where they are gambling with years of their lives and their magical abilities to compete in challenges among themselves. Thinking that 1-2 years is nothing, they’re young, they can win better, etc.

That’s literally all I have. But I’m thinking why would 17 year olds be so stupid :/

>>19680825
>But I’m thinking why would 17 year olds be so stupid :/
You've obviously never been a teenage boy.

>>19680761
>>19680796
No need to tell us the details…follow the steps below:

Has the premise been tried before?
>if Yes:
If it was successful, why do you think you’ll do better. If unsuccessful, why will you succed when others failed.

>If No:
With so many YA books out there, perhaps there’s a reason you haven‘t seen this idea published before. Try to guess the reason(s) and be sure your premise won’t run aground on the same rocks.

>>19680836
The protagonist is female!
>>19680837
I’ve never seen my exact premise before. Isn’t that good tho?

>>19680503
Find the evil in yourself, and other normal people, and contrive a way for it to impact the whole world.
For example, we all have some level of jealousy. Jealousy is fine, it's part of a healthy psyche as long as you can keep control over it. Without it, people would steal your things, fuck your woman, invade your space, etc. Everyone can identify with a jealous character to some extent.
A villain might be motivated by jealousy to do evil things. Maybe he's in love with a woman, and he threatens and manipulates people to make them do things to her benefit to make her thankful or feel indebted to him, or he lies to her and impersonates her friends and family through letters to separate her form them and make her dependent on him emotionally, or he uses violence or duress against a love rival, or whatever he does.
Maybe instead of that he's the lead restorer of a painting in an art gallery. He's been fascinated by the painting since he was a child and his whole motivation for getting into art restoration was to guard it specifically from the ravages of age and the uncaring hand of other restorers who didn't love it enough. When he has a rival to head the restoration, he goes to extreme lengths to keep the painting under his control. He might hire private investigators to dig up dirt on his rival, or sabotage the guy's other works, destroying other priceless art to defame him. He might even think of stealing the painting and running away to Panama.
Whatever he does, he's basically you, if you let your jealousy get the better of you enough to think that doing immoral things is ok in the service of it. If your jealousy was in control of you instead of the other way around.

>>19680825
Ahhh, you’re the anon who wanted to make this a boarding school (which would have been easier, but would have been super derivative)!

>So imagine there being a witch town
An interesting premise in itself, but only if done thoughtfully. Will be hard to pull this off as stage dressing for your main plot.
Is there magic outside this town?
Are they secret about it?
What if non-witches move in?
Is this town on a map? On Zillow?
How is the world different if witches exist?

>but among the high schoolers
Yeah, i get that it’s YA but witch high school may end up being too silly a setting for your rather serious curse idea.
Is it a normal HS, or one catering to magic?
How do you keep magical high schoolers from just killing themselves/others?
What year is this in? The internet will make this even harder.

>they’re dabbling in dark magic where they are gambling with years of their lives and their magical abilities to compete in challenges among themselves. Thinking that 1-2 years is nothing, they’re young, they can win better, etc.
Now this I like.
The hook that the stakes are high, but the pain/consequences are delayed is a very interesting idea. Common to many ‘dealing with the devil’ storylines, but the idea of kids making a game of something that dark has potential.
I was the anon that suggested a summer camp in an earlier thread. That will get rid of parents (which complicate the plot) and further lower the inhibition of the kids. You can scrap the witch town and high school as well, and make this a found cursed object or a new friend (one evil magical character is easier than a town full of them) who puts them up to this. Maybe a few witches/cultists that put the kids up to this for sport.
How do you show the consequences of losing a year of life? Flash forward to someone dying at 62 of a stroke that should have gotten them at 67? Show some actuarial mortality tables?
This would make an interesting Flashback/forward premise (Stephen King’s It) where adults have to come to terms with debts (and i suppose boons) they incurred as children.

Btw, are the protagonists boys, girls, or mixed? Will you add any sexual tension, or keep it PG-13?
>That’s literally all I have. But I’m thinking why would 17 year olds be so stupid :/
That’s the most believable part of this whole thing. I am very thankful I don’t have to live every day reminded of the decisions I made as a teen. I would have given years away for better grades, and I’d’ve gambled fingers and toes to see some tits.

If handled well this premise could actually be a good one. Think Stephen King and Lev Grossman…magical realism, a bit gritty but still checks the YA box because the protagonists are young.

Not sure if what I described above is the book you want to write…we’re a long way from ‘witch high school’ but the idea of dumb teens unwittingly making a dare game of something dark and powerful has got legs.

>>19680948
Lol, you deleted your post but i ended up greentexting it all (oops)

If you’re worried someone will steal your idea, don’t be. We’ve all got our own brilliant plots to pursue (and the odds that anyone reading it will actually publish is vanishingly small).

We’re at the bump limit, anyhow, so this will all fade away when new bread has been baked. I am curious to hear what direction you ultimately decide to pursue, I genuinely think there’s an interesting nugget in there if you can find it.

>>19680948
I wanted it to be 1st person with a female protagonist and a romantic subplot but o_o

Mixing high school drama with this potential plot sounds daunting. It could be a good story. I just wonder if it’s too deep and not commercial… being marketable is important for YA (don’t call me a sell out). I do want to get published one day!
Thanks for the thoughts

>>19680754
>he doesn't know the full intricacies and many uses of greentext

>>19681139
>I wanted it to be 1st person with a female protagonist and a romantic subplot but o_o
Fem protagonist and romantic subplot are both good for YA. 1st person is often clumsy, especially if you’re:
1. Not female yourself (takes practice to write convincingly)
2. Trying to describe a world different than ours (exposition/worldbuilding seems less shoe-horned in 3rd)
3. If you have a plot that requires understanding other’s thoughts/perspectives (as this certainly will)

>Mixing high school drama with this potential plot sounds daunting
Interpersonal drama will occur whenever you put multiple characters (esp teens) in an extreme situation. Don’t force it. Focus on building real characters and have them react as they would (perhaps add a bit of extra irrationality). The drama/emotionally clouded decisions may actually help you fill some otherwise implausible plot holes.

>It could be a good story. I just wonder if it’s too deep and not commercial…
Deep is fine for YA as long as you make it subtext and not text. Most decent writing should have deep themes, just be confident enough in your readers to not hit them over the head with it.
Try writing it first as a short story, based on the reaction you could take it in a few directions when you fill it out.

> being marketable is important for YA (don’t call me a sell out). I do want to get published one day!
Fuck yeah, anon. Don’t apologize for wanting your work to be read. YA is one of the sell-outiest genres (behind self-help and autobiographies, at least), but that level of competition means you actually have to have something good to succeed. Try to learn your target audience, what are the themes that attract them and insecurities that would really scare and motivate them?

Again, I see potential here (if you’re a decent writer, at least). Best of luck!

>>19681251
Thank you. Do you think it would suffer in first person past tense? I’m a woman so female protagonists are naturally easier for me.
LAST Q I SWEAR!
Would making a the love interest an enemy be a bad thing? I study popular YA today and ENEMIES TO LOVERS is the number one trope.

Thanks for all ur help

>>19680816
>Should painters give up because people just want you to shit out paintings they will look at for 0.2 seconds and move on to some thot whose selfie earns her 10000000 times the attention and most certainly money?
Yes! People deserve nothing. Why would you work for this public?

>>19681340
>Do you think it would suffer in first person past tense?
Past tense could work, if there’s a good reason. As i mentioned, a flashback/flashforward could help show the consequences of the decisions (and might foreshadow how relationships developed), the past tense would make great sense in that context.

>I’m a woman so female protagonists are naturally easier for me.
Lol, sorry for assuming you were male (hope you’ll forgive me, given the typical demographics here). Everything cringe about having a male author writing a 1st person teenage girl just got flipped on it’s head.
There remains the challenge of conveying the thoughts and motivations of other characters, but maybe her not knowing will add to the story. Go for it.
If you test this in a short story first you can even change later…changing tense/perspective in a full-length draft is brutal.

>LAST Q I SWEAR!
Keep ‘em coming!

>Would making a the love interest an enemy be a bad thing? I study popular YA today and ENEMIES TO LOVERS is the number one trope.
Sounds like you’ve got more research done on this than me…I say go for it. The idea of an ‘enemy’ in high school is somewhat silly, but discovering something to love in one she initially finds repulsive or mean…that’s YA lit 101.

>Thanks for all ur help
Np, hope to hear more about progress. Would love to read a short version of this (though I’d sacrifice 1 year of my life before reading a full-length YA novel)

Still no bread…feels like we’re having a discussion on the deck of a sinking ship.

>>19681435
Everyone works for the public. Cashiers, servers, celebrities, CEOs… My wife’s a cell researcher, and even in basic science you would not believe how much social pressure there is around where you publish, what mentors you work for, which conferences you attend, and which grants you get. In fact, I’d say writers and artists are in the professions LEAST subject to public pressure.

If you can’t handle even that level of detachment, you’ve got a rough road ahead of you.

>>19681520

Bread is baked