/lit/ - Literature

No one in /wg/ writes.

>writing regularly for a few weeks, but wish I could push out more than ~250 words a day
>monkey paw curls
>today 2000+ words worth of text manifests itself in my mind. Not images that need to be translated into words, but the words themselves. Four different scenes.
>but it's all gilf erotica

>>19822489
Show me

>>19822602
When it's done

Reposting in honor of the author, I'm praying we get the next installment

wrote this poem today, what do you guys think?

>>19822489
>coomers also have 0 work ethic
incredible
Find God and repent.

Describe it in your best prose.

What is some advice given by renowned authors? like hemingway saying that prose "is not interior decoration, but architecture" or henry miller saying "forget about the book you want to write, focus on the one you're writing"

>>19822789
I really don't care what larpers have to say

>>19822824
seethe
repent
detransition

>person likes treasure
>they're a bit of an outcast
>dad gives them the responsibility to go with his two business associates with a caravan to the nearby city
>meets an eccentric elf on the way back
>sees person wearing elf treasure as jewellery and asks them where they found it
>person gets excited and tells them all about the treasure they found and the treasure they like
>elf decides to follow them home
>elf realises that the treasure is from a lost elven civilisation 5000 years old
>person gets excited because they love treasure
>they go off on an adventure to find the lost cities
>nothing much happens beyond getting kidnapped one time because the person is very small

You will post your writing.
You will ignore baseless criticism.
You will improve your prose, your settings, your characters, and your plots.
You will market not because you have to, but because you want to share your creation with the world.
You will make it and you will be happy.

>>19822848
you will never be a real christian

>>19822932
Been in an endless downward spiral slump since November and never could bring myself to finish this wip chapter. Been too busy drinking myself to death since then. The rest of the story is in the authors Pastebin but here's a shameless link to the series as a whole https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/31062/saga-of-the-cosmic-heroes

>>19822489
that fucking plot twist dude what the fuck lmao

Boys, my account is growing rapidly. In less than two months, I will reach a stage where I will start hinting at a book. God bless all of you.
Keep remembering to advertise your way to success.

>>19822932
ogey. Here's something I threw together in an hour, with minor editing:

It was that time in the summer when you could feel the sun’s weight long after it had fallen over the edge of the world. Betty had left a few windows open the night after her air conditioner burnt out, and in doing so let in a night pygmy along with the draft. In the morning she went into the kitchen to make some iced tea and caught sight of the pygmy as it was sprinting behind the refrigerator. Night Pygmies ate the good dreams of sleeping girls and laid bad ones into the ear canal. They would sometimes steal fingernails too. Sleep throwing itself from her eyes, she grabbed the phone beside the kitchen door and started dialing.
An hour later Alphonse showed up with his circular pygmy-saw. Betty showed him the refrigerator where the mannikin was still hiding. A yank of the cord, a squeeze of the trigger, and the pygmy-saw was on.
“It’s loud,” she said, plugging her ears with her fingers.
“What?”
“I said it’s very loud!”
He let go of the trigger and the sawblade slowed to a standstill.
“What was that?” he said.
“I said it was very loud.”
“Oh yeah, it’s supposed to be. It helps with hunting pygmies.”
“Why is that?”
“Loud noises remind them of church bells, and church bells make them think about god, and thinking about god fills them with crippling guilt.”
He turned the saw on again and the noise addled Betty grabbed one of the bottom corners of the fridge. Alphonse signaled her with the point of a finger and she pulled the refrigerator away from the wall.
Now in the open, the pygmy came towards Alphonse, clicking aggressively. The first saw swing missed and the second nicked the kitchen floor, scattering tiles and loosing the sawblade free from the rest of the contraption. The serrated disk ricocheted off two walls and flew into Betty, bisecting her horizontally along the abdomen. The pygmy disappeared into the dining room.
Betty's top and bottom stuck back together with an easy click, but all Alphonse could find to dress the seam that ran across her navel were a bunch of old hello kitty band-aids in her drug cabinet. They made a neat line across the wound, each a couple inches a part.
Unfortunately the saw didn’t fare nearly as well. The blade had bent into uselessness after colliding with Betty’s panini press, and the joint where the blade was meant to attach to the rest of the device had shattered when the saw made contact with the floor. Alphonse would have to get it fixed, and she would just have to live with the pygmy for the night.
She went to bed that evening with ear plugs and rubber gloves. She dreamt of nothing and woke with a pyramid pile of nightmare pellets on the side of her head.

>>19822972
Dose comments and reviews though. You finished the entire first volume and then just left it 11 months ago? Come on bro, put down the bottle
>>19823032
Nice and surreal with good sentence clarity. The personification in "Sleep throwing itself from her eyes" and the ending parts of the first sentence were a bit much. The part about Betty coming back together reads like she just drew herself together as if by magic, so if Alphonse is doing that, a clearer description will help.

>>19823103
You gotta click around to the other covers. Vol 1 and 2 were finished with the latter completed in July 2021, and I took an August-September '21 hiatus and started writing it in October at a pace I thought I could work with.

Posted last thread.
What do you think the market for non smut romances like courtly romances like that of 13th-14th century France would be?

>>19823372
The market is there. Non-smut romance is the largest and most popular book genre.

>start following indie authros on twatter
>#writerlift #follow2followback post your links for RTs!
>follow like 50 of them and post and engage with their stupid fucking posts
>One singular person follows back
What a shithole

>>19823507
Shilling is a losing man's game. Marketing effectively is the winner's path.

>>19823507
>using twatter
meerkaters get what they fucking deserve. instead of scheming like a dastardly jew you could be writing.

>>19823517
I wrote 2100 words today, recruited another beta reader, and finished the book I was reading.

I've been wasting time on twitter because my gym membership lapsed and I don't want to re-up it yet.

>>19823417
Interesting

>>19822822
>I don't think that an artist should bother about his audience. His best audience is the person he sees in his shaving mirror every morning. I think that the audience an artist imagines, when he imagines that kind of a thing, is a room filled with people wearing his own mask. - V. Nabokov
>I am a lousy copywriter, but I am a good editor. So I go to work editing my own draft. After four or five editings, it looks good enough to show to the client. If the client changes the copy, I get angry—because I took a lot of trouble writing it, and what I wrote I wrote on purpose. Altogether it is a slow and laborious business. I understand that some copywriters have much greater facility. - D. Ogilvy
>Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”… he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances “full of rape and adverbs”. E. Leonard
>Nobody wants to read a book. You’ve got to catch their eye with something exciting in the first paragraph, while they’re in the process of throwing the book away. If it’s exciting enough, they’ll stop and read it. Then you’ve got to put something even more exciting in the second paragraph, to suck them in further. And so on. It’s exhausting for everybody, but it’s got to be done. - J. Swartzwelder

>>19823517
>refuses to market book
>shits vigorously on those who will do better because they are ready to market what they've worked so hard on
I am Ea Nasir, and you are the man who no one remembers.

>>19823589
>Ea Nasir,

>he's too poor to afford a consonant in his first name

>>19823578
>Nabokov
Excellent advice
>Ogilvy
Not exactly advice
>Leonard
Good advice to an extent. You can do use adverbs sparingly and everyone does, just don't pepper every single speech word with an adverb.
>Swartzwelder
bad advice. don't think about what the reader will think. write it the way you want it to be told

Do I have the right framing when I write an outline and plan a story? Should I write down that "the character encounters a horrible truth that causes him to cripple himself" and leave it to my future self to figure out what the horrible truth is, or should I write "The character learns that he killed his father and fucked his mother, a truth he finds so horrible he tears out his eyes"?

>>19823637
Two schools of thought on this. I subscribe to both.
1. Let your unconscious brain work for you on plot points you aren't sure about yet.
2. Use logic to ensure the plot makes sense.
Someone in the previous threads mentioned a "because... so..." train of thought to build a plot using logic as a framework. Then you can let your brain in the writing "flow state" fill in the moment to moment between your known major plot points. If that makes any sense at all.
Tl;dr let your future self figure it out, but build yourself up for success

>>19823637
depends on if they're the protagonist or not

>>19823699
>previous threads
Got a link?

>wrote outline for a novel, beginning to end, 2 years ago
>Never got around to writing more than like 3 pages
Damn...

>700 words today
having a job sucks

>>19823845
May I ask why you're choosing to write a novel if you have a job?
I have a job, wife, kid, etc. too. Monetization would be unlikely for me when I finish writing, so is it just to have a meaningful work of art that I can keep and others can read?

>>19823856
live to write
work to live

Today I was going to join discord and engage in a thought silo circle jerk.
Instead I made chicken curry and got to 56k words.

Did you remember to drink lots of water today, /wg/?

>>19822461
Is there an english light novel scene? Which websites are best for posting and finding what's popular?

>>19823987
I've only had my morning tea.

>>19823987
mmmm heavy metal laced water

>>19824008
Webnovels there are plentiful. Most commonly found on Spacebattles, Royalroad, and Scribblehub. These are the only ones worth posting on. It's also ok to not put your eggs all in one basket and crosspost them to other platforms as well. Do not post on webnovel or wattpad for your sake.

>and finding what's popular?
Litrpg, gamelit, isekai, are all pretty popular.

>>19824187
wattpad was the most easily findable website, what's wrong with it?

>isekai
Nice

>>19824227
It has zero discoverability. You will write entirely into the void.

A short story I'm working on. Whaddya think?

>>19824238
good so far; only thing i dont really like is the chemical imbalance thing. i understand youre trying to insinuate that there is something more sinister going on but this is played-out le ebin sociopath tier
as i said the rest is very good looking thick solid tight keep us updated

>>19823032
last sentence is cool. i think you should cut her being sawed in two completely though, its too much

>>19823032
>laid bad ones into the ear canal.
Bad. Fix.
>They would sometimes steal fingernails too.
Excellent.
>Sleep throwing itself from her eyes
Garbage. Fix immediately.
>“Loud noises remind them of church bells, and church bells make them think about god, and thinking about god fills them with crippling guilt.”
Excellent.
>and the noise addled Betty
Horrendous.
>The first saw swing
Awful.
>but all Alphonse could find to dress the seam that ran across her navel were a bunch of old hello kitty band-aids in her drug cabinet.
Excellent.
>pyramid pile
Redundant. Pyramid alone is sufficient.

>>19822489
>it's all gilf erotica
we have the same problem

how do i come up with a good idea for the evil in the story?

>>19824551
What you need is an irredeemable person, someone who is at the same time pathetic in his cowardice, clumsiness and lack of integrity, while also being the human embodiment of greed, pettiness and pointless malice.
A spineless worm who has no loyalty to anyone, no dignity and nothing of value to contribute but an endless sense of entitlement and envy.
In other words, you need Andou.

>>19824551
In my opinion a depiction of "evil" in a fictional narrative should demonstrate that evil is not only a necessary consequence of human nature and of the world order but it is also a potentiality within all people who are not "saintly" (to use religious vernacular), so to pick a side between good and evil is the personal responsibility of every (almost) human being. But our primitive conception of evil cannot distinguish false human evil (= "shit I hate is EVIL, shit I like LE GOOD") from real metaphysical evil, existentially speaking it's a problem. I recommend you read Spinoza's Ethics on the subject good in evil where it is demonstrated that real metaphysical evil is anything that brings our conscience further away from understanding the true nature of reality with it whereas real metaphysical good is anything that brings our conscience closer to understanding the true nature of reality (again, to speak in religious terms, good is what brings us closer to a union with "God", but this concept is not necessarily religious). Evil is life-denying, good is life-affirming. So a good depiction of "evil" in a story would take all of that into account.

Reposting from last thread: seven short stories.

justpaste.it (SLASH) 8zb53

good morning sirs!

>>19824892
Happy Friday, gentlesir.

>>19824286
Lmao everything you're saying is bad was added in edits. Thanks for the feedback

>>19823103
Thanks you for the feedback as well

>>19824892
>>19825097
A good Friday to you all. I am committing to playing hookie from work for at least one (1) hour this morning to write and I hope you do too.

>>19823748
>>19793371

>>19824892
Do not redeem the card pls

>>19825333
I almost always read a bit, through an hour of my lunchbreak and then 30 more minutes. I tried writing at work and can't stand it, maybe if was stuck in a cubicle I would.

>>19825333
I woke up this morning thinking of the dialogue I was working on last night and ended up writing another dozen lines in my phone over my oatmeal. I think I'm effectively conveying that this group of people don't actually care about the topic they're discussing (funding a college) so much as the larger and more political elephant in the room (defunding the war effort).

>>19825499
Noice, I also throw in a few lines via google doc on phone. Slower but it adds up/gets the ideas on paper.

I wanna write today.

>>19826113
Do it!

My ideas are too complicated.

>check inbox
>no rejections came in for 5 days now
give me my rejections! RRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
>>19825333
same. we have a company meeting and i'm wfh. lmao. i'll either write, read, or send more queries.

Can I get published by a university press just by getting a job in the printing office of the school?

Is it possible to write a 5k word short story in a single day?

>>19826492
yeah yeah sure, give a try man

>>19826492
Obviously yes.

>>19826255
Or do you think they're too complicated when in reality you're instinctively limiting your word count to an arbitrary number and saying "I can't tell the story in 100k words so it's too complicated"?

>>19826492
10k's the most I've done in a day

Hey OP, you've been posting many greek island pics lately. Any particular reason ?

Is it a bad idea to double/triple up on the motivation?

For example the protagonist needs to travel to a faraway land to find something, but also because he has a companion that also needs something in that land, but they're also chasing a villain there to prevent him from getting there first because he could use things the protagonist and companion are searching for etc. I could pare it down but I'm wondering if this sort parallel motivation is a bad practice because a lot of my characters' motivations seem different but end up going towards the same place to be resolved.

>>19827055
If the motivations are thematically linked then there is no problem (e.g the Wizard of Oz). The problem is when you have additional motivation for no good reason. A good example is the movie Lethal Weapon (forget if its 1 or 2). Mel Gibson's character simply has too much motivation to kill the bad guy, to the point where it just becomes ridiculous. That's true of a lot of his movies actually, The Patriot, Braveheart, etc.

I need help. After years of not writing, I came back to it trying to write a pulpy short story about some heroic adventure just to see how it goes. But to mu horror I realised just how cyinical my writing is. Everything just exudes resentment, characters and their action, but not only that even descriptions come across very cynical. There is no grace, hope or optimism, everything and anyone seem so miserable.
I just cant bring myself to write something not drenched in coat of bleakness. I guess it could pass in todays world, but it is not something I want to write. How can I get in right state of mind for writing something specific instead of just being carried by my own sensibilities?

>>19827382
shut up

>>19827382
Write again

>>19827382
Try working out and not looking at porn, and don't associate with negative nellies like yourself.

>>19827428
That is the weirdest thing, I do all of those things and I'm cheery in real life.

>>19827382
I haven’t tried this yet myself but reading happy text for half an hour, then writing could help if one is to write happy text himself. Why i say it could help is because of some sort priming effect. Moods and milieus carry over - i’ve noticed it in writing courses where we’ve read an excerpt of a piece and then write something fresh on the paper.

I'm familiar with both british and american agents, but has anyone submitted to australian or canadian ones before? until now i haven't bothered

>>19827382
You need to read. Nearly any problem with writing (blocks, technique, structure etc.) can be solved just by reading more and reading better books.

Try reading Melville's adventure novels like Typee (and of course Moby Dick--if you haven't already). Read the Victorian humorists like Dickens and Trollope. Especially Trollope.

Or, alternatively, embrace the misanthropy and cynicism write a stirring satire or polemic. You can write it in the form of a confession of a character and then to make it good fiction, just create a character from pov of the opposite side and display them in juxtaposition. All the great writers do this (Tolstoy, Melville, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Steinbeck etc. etc.). See your particular pov not as wrong or erroneous for your fiction, but rather as incomplete.

>2 more queries sent on lunch break today
>>19827650
>You need to read.
this

>>19824238
it's pretty good writing, anon, But watch your tenses (you switch from past to present). Also I don't like the ending as it spoils the story. Don't tell us she becomes the love of your life. If you tell us that then it feels like the story is already over.

>>19827382
Why not use your cynicism as a strength? Plenty of writers have. Just challenge it - poke and prod it around and figure it out

How do I write for fun again?

>>19828415
Start by writing something simple that makes you laugh. It opens you up to writing irreverent, inconsequential stuff. And then you can remember what it feels like to write for fun

>>19822752
Fun concept, but it's too pedestrian. Work on using description that you wouldn't be able to find elsewhere. The mark of a good poet lies in their ability to create unique word combinations, after all.

>>19828427
Thanks, I'll see about that. I'm too used to writing for praise, for others, and I feel hollow, like I'm not myself.

Ait, here's a question for you, in your opinion would a story about a sci-fi-fantasy setting be better told via a structured, single pov novel style of book, where you have one character that's effectively the audience, a fish out of water that gets thrown into a world they know nothing about, and steadily learn about & discover, or would such a story be better fitted to being told in the forms of short self contained stories which take place from the perspective of characters already familiar with the way their universe works. I am aware that this is pretty vague, but I'm at a point where I'm unsure if I should go with the former or the latter scenario.

>>19828497
IMO they tell two different styles of story which aren't comparable. The question I would have for the first would be how does the character not know about the sci-fi universe if he lives in it? You also run the risk of telling and poor exposition to convey themes or ideas, or if you avoid it, the organic explanations may come off clunky. For the second, you won't have a character cast the audience can connect with unless they're all repeat characters, which means you have a cast and a setting and only need a plot and can skip the self contained story idea altogether anyways. You can balance it by doing hybrid where the main story is the first and there are small interludes with the sole purpose of worldbuilding.
In the end I'd prefer the first, if only because with the right chops you can make a good story, and not the second which is hindered by the problems previously mentioned.

>>19828497
what sci-fi story is better? Bioshock Inifinite, or Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare?
there's your answer

Since getting a fulltime job, my writing productivity is down to 1/3 what it was while unemployed.

Wow.

Can I sometimes omit the subject of a sentence in first person, if it can be easily inferred by the reader? I know it's not proper grammar, but neither are sentence fragments, and I see plenty of those in things I read. Stylistically it matches the flow of what I'm writing far better than having to write "I", all the time.

Wrote a purple paragraph I think some Anons might enjoy.

>>19829018
Was too much by the end, but otherwise I liked it.

it's amazing how much a great song can put you in the mood to write. (Letter in Icelandic from the Ninette San, by John K. Samson)

>>19829099
Are you a mind reader? I was just about to post about how I Will Wait by Mumford & Sons put me into a near fucking fever dream the past hour and a half.

how many pages per hour can you write?

>>19829005
in japanese, sure you can
learn english you fucking zoomer

>>19829427
Of size 800 text? Thousands. Of size 8 text? A spare dozen, maybe. Word count matters more.

>>19829427
500 words an hour

>>19829613
No. I'm going to write my pulp, and enjoy doing so.

>>19829005
You can do it if you want it sound like you're really talking and clarifying something, but otherwise I wouldn't.

"I went to the hilltop to watch the sunset every night with her that summer. Eating fruit from her father's orchard, rolling around like lovestruck teenagers."

It works in the above example I just made up, I think.

1200 words tonight and I got the "meta" conversation finished along with the perfectionist's meltdown I wanted. It's not quite perfect yet but the bones are at least 60% there. Tomorrow I chart out the assassination attempt and our hero's search for a wife

>>19829971
>I, too, thank the Lord for that; show my appreciation every Sunday down at the old Gothic cathedral on Saint Marie and seventh. Can’t say I’m much of a sinner, though, no more so than any other man here in Lincolnshire.

Works, yeah?

>>19829005
In my first person story which I'm posting on royal road I made a stylistic decision to never have the MC use the word "I" outside of dialogue. Only me or my. So for dialogue tags for the MC I omit the phrase "I said" entirely. Its just, "Blah blah blah." I personally like it. Your mileage may vary.

>>19830247
that's pretty soulful, wish i thought of it first

is there any way to do two different points of view for the same scene without having to go over both of them afterward with a fine tooth comb?

Is it possible to write a beast races that doesn't appeal to furries? I am currently working on a fantasy setting that has a couple beast races, and I don't want it to look or appeal to furries. How would I go about doing this?

Is it possible to write a beast race that doesn't appeal to furries? I am currently working on a fantasy setting that has a couple beast races, and I don't want it to look or appeal to furries. How would I go about doing this? I am not a furry and want nothing to do with the furry community at all.

>>19830587
>>19830592
Furries will jerk off to anything. Beast races are pretty much always furries though, if you didn't want furries jerking off to it you wouldn't be writing beast races.

>>19830587
There's nothing you can do. Degenerates are going to be degenerate there's no reason to even factor them into your decisions at all.
Unless you're planning on sticking it to them a little bit. Like the idea I'm toying with now is having this vampire chick love interest with a fem MC. The sort of moral issue I'm going to have it address are 1. vampires are bad (I mean, no shit, they're vampires) and 2. homosexual relationships are ultimately pointless and unfulfilling because they can't produce children and mutual hedonism isn't really the basis of a healthy, long lasting relationship.
So maybe make a point of having your beast race(s) be romantically insular and only interact with others out of common interest.

>>19830613
Thank you. This is good advice

>>19830183
Yeah that works. The tone is very casual and you're getting the point that this is written in the person's speaking voice though.

>>19829018
>Flower Power
>pure testosterone
>to stand on point
Stepped on a banana peel here. Delete everything within parenthesis.
>myrtles square
At this point on it’s brilliance.

>>19824238
>>19829018
Really enjoyed both of these, they both had distinctive voices

The “Galaxy Tomato”.

>>19831361
Have you ever considered writing in your own language ESL-kun?

>>19830553
Copy-paste the first point of view as the second point of view and change the perspectives around. It's much easier if the scene is based on dialogue.

>>19831717
Unironically already trying this and yes it is based around dialogue, but i get locked in a vicious cycle of editing the original and the new pov. Then i get the knock on effect of having to go back and edit the stuff around it to match and it just spirals from there.

send.
help.

Anybody else generally a short scene writer? I write YA and scenes are generally 700-1300 words, chapters are generally 2-4 scenes. The most important parts usually get a 3k chapter without any scene breaks, but the majority of the novels are shorter scenes.

>>19829018
Does purple prose mean using similes metaphors to you?

>>19832027
i write short-mid length mostly. kind of marvel at writers whose chapters are maybe 5k words and it's all the same scene and then the next chapter is a continuation so the whole novel is essentially one long strip

>>19829089
>>19831242
Thanks for reading, friends.
>>19831112
Yes, I agree the pure testosterone bit is clumsy and pointless fluff. For "stand on point" I had Hamlet 1.5.18-20 ringing in my ears, but I guess I just couldn't get it to come through.
>>19832075
Yes, I do think a superfluity (both in number and in nature) of metaphor and similes most effectively "purple"s a piece of prose. Though I was just using the term mainly to deprecate the overwrought style I fell into while writing.

Writing shorter more numerous books is more profitable than large bricks.
Why would you write a 900 page tomb as your first entry when it's unproven if the public will even like 90 pages of your best writing?

>>19832663
>profitable
unkino
>tomb
tome? you illiterate fucking retard
>why
go ahead and accuse people of what they havent ever done and argue your point. everyone for tradpub writes within the accepted scope of wordcount for their genre.
you seething retard.

>>19831361
FBI agents and Gentlemen,
I give you the quintessential meerkater.

>>19832688
>everyone for tradpub
>makes 5-15% of the profit of their book
Wew lad, and you called me retarded for using a near homophone before my morning coffee.

Does everyone here just write some variety of fantasy/sci-fi? Anyone doing something beyond the scope of pulp?

>>19832663
I don't mind short books but I always end up needing many books to tell my story. My last series was 440k over 3 books and this one right now might end up being 6 or even 7 books long.

>>19830587
Maybe you could use a beast that future hate. Like insects, monkeys, apes, turtles, stuff like that. In all my years on the internet I can't say I've ever seen a fish furry, for example.

A good book is something that takes you to a place and along the journey of mind or landscape gives you experiences that you value. Failing to do any of the a fore mentioned is just a waste of words.

>>19833043
Fish exist, they're just overshadowed by furfags. Scalies, as they're called, stick to their own kind.

>>19833001
I'm an essayist

>>19833001
it's not pulp, it's a respectable time-honored genre of storytelling.

>>19833081
That's pretty based. What subject matter are you currently researching?

>>19833091
lmao

>>19833001
The first story I'm writing is speculative scifi but I'm looking at different genres starting out. Already have an outline for a historic fiction and then present day literary fiction. What happens after that just depends on how I'd like to tell a story but I'm leaning toward Southern Gothic because I want more of it in the world and not "grit lit".

>>19833071
I guess I've just never seen any. I found this pretty cool fish guy on Google images though. It has qualities that furries would probably hate, ugly, squat, fish head, so it seems like something in this vein would pretty much be un-furryable.

>>19833001
What is "pulp"

>>19823637
how to outline a novel, by robert olen butler, from the book 'from where you dream'

>always start with a character before all else
>when character is solid, you daydream the novel they are in
>write down concrete details of scenes, concrete, sensory. no summaries, no abstraction e.g. the sound a bloody knife makes as it bounces off the floor
>collect 200 or so of these scenes
>pay no attention to chronology or structure when daydreaming. the character can be black in one scene and white in another, just follow the dream
>when you feel you are done, structure the notes you have. lay out the cards in order.

>now you write using the cards to dream from
>do not be a slave to the cards, if while writing you need to change something, change it. if this changes the structure of the novel, simply repeat the previous steps to redream the outline

>>19833247
have you actually read the novels that come of this "method"? they're horrendous. it does work for short stories though.

>>19833269
>have you actually read the novels that come of this "method"
name them

>>19833306
Literally just google any of Butler's novels. His short stories are usually pretty good (and for which he's won awards) but his novels are either completely scatterbrained or utterly cliched.

Hey guys, people always say there's low brow stuff, high brow stuff, but does middle brow stuff counts?

>>19833402
We call it midwit stuff. Things like Wilt.

>>19833001
We had 2 avatarfags that have thankfully toned it the fuck down that were doing non-fiction historical writing.

Does this sound too Purple?

>The summer night air filled the room as an owl hooted in the backdrop. Crickets sang as they hid in darkness underneath piles of debris scattered in the backyard. The moonlit shadows stretched around his room, creating flatten claws that decorated his four walled canvas. Caleb turned and slept on his side. His blanket curled with his body as his pillow conformed to the curvature of his head. The mattress dipped and curved alongside his body as his arm reached across the other side. His arm flopped directly into a cold flat mattress. He woke up.
>“Oh yea, Emily isn’t here anymore,” Caleb thought.
>Caleb returned to his initial position laying on his back. The summer heat felt cold tonight. His blanket was too light for him to fall back to sleep. Luckily not a single soul knew Caleb laid staring at his own ceiling in silence. The chirps from the crickets drowned out his heavy sigh as a single droplet, became a small creek of tears rolling down the side of his head, only to be quickly disappeared as it touched the cotton underneath Caleb’s head. The light from the moon soon exited the sky and welcomed the rays from the rising sun.

>>19833402
>middle brow
Yes they are called "middling writers" and get plenty of disrespect on /lit/ but I like Ray Bradbury anyways.

>>19822461
hi /wg/ can you critique please? https://seanald.ca/on-nihilism/

>>19833634
it's just shit

>>19833681
>I’ve been meaning to put in a solid effort on an idea about how a solution to nihilism because what I see in my life is people being trapped into this state of mind that I certainly once had.
really?

>>19833634
>[noun] did thing
Jesus anon.

>>19833634
it's not purple, but there's no variety in your sentence structure at all and that makes it a bit annoying and boring to read. If anything ,you need to be more creative.

>>19833634
Not sure if it's too purple but it's just boring. This may just be my personal preference, but I believe everyone already knows what laying in bed at night is like. With owls, crickets, moonshadows, etc. The entire first paragraph could be done with one sentence and you'd be fine. What I believe is more important in this scene is why he is crying and what he is feeling, and why it's important. This would turn it into a tedious description of a generic bedroom into an interesting "can't sleep, brain too awake" situation that many people are more familiar with and can sympathize with.

>>19833156
Furries fear the wrath of the fish

>>19833001
yeah

>>19833634
It's pretty repetitive in it's structure, you start almost every sentence with "the thing did/was" and so on. It's like you're just listing things off without any rhyme or reason.

I don't like where this flash fiction is heading. How hard is it to write about two old niggas talking on a couch in an art gallery

>>19833634
My prose looks crappy like this. I feel like I internalized "show, don't tell" the wrong way and I never, ever narrate anything except what's going on at that exact moment. How do I fix this?

>>19833700
yes

>>19834426
how about you at least have the courtesy to do some basic line editing before you expect others to critique your navel gazing trash?

>>19834448
you have no idea how hard it is to put such complex ideas in few words

>>19834386
Recognize that readers can fill in immense amounts of detail by context, so for example in your scene someone wakes up in bed in a cold sweat - you don't need to explain to the reader where the bed is, if a light is on, etc. Just give one or two concrete/Sensory details to establish the scene.

Read books with this is mind. You'll be shocked how little room/face description you get for most scenes and characters, yet your mind populates them effortlessly

https://pastebin.com/9N40GUK3

So this is a recent rough draft that I would love some feedback on. It's a new writing style I tried that greatly differs from my brief ranting that I have posted on here for years. Let me know what you guys think.


And before you ask, yes, it is FF9 Fanfiction.

Question.
A character in my story is a Native American bear god named Kaiti, which is Haida.
Is this a bit much?

>>19834493
Thanks for that warning. I almost clicked on it.

>>19834849
Don't read anything made by a frogposter.

>Think I came up with a cool concept.
>Get an itchy feeling, I should look this up.
>Google it.
>Find out about yugas
fuck

>>19822461
>Publishing Scam Edition
just noticed edition name. i wonder if that poor retard ever got help about his pay-to-pub contacts
>>19833634
it's just kinda all over cringe and amateur, i wouldnt say it's purple except that last paragraph which goes full retard. look, just be elegant and well composed. read better books

what you guys think?

>Indeed there is something odd about waking up with no recollection of anything. No language, no memory, not even a name. Yet that is exactly what happened upon that night.
I found myself laying upon a grassland, arms spread like an eagle in flight looking up at a starry expanse of black.
>I shall never truly know how long I layed there, staring at that immortal beauty of the night sky. Sometimes I think it was thousands and thousands of years, sometimes it feels as if it was a matter of seconds, sometimes it feels as if I never moved from there at all, sometimes it feels as if I dreamt that night sky. Eventually however I was soon away of another fact.
I was hungry. Or at least whatever approximation I interpreted as hunger at the time. Thus after laying in that grass for however long I did, I sat up.
>The large clearing I found myself in appeared to be in the middle of a forest. Trees covered all sides of the clearing and I was surrounded by blackness. The clearing seemed to be unremarkable. Suddenly through the trees I could see a dim light coming closer to the clearing

>>19835075
Fuck I'm so retarded

>>19835075
I try not to think. It makes me write better.
In short, the author is trying too hard. The piece reads like it's trying to be grander than what it is and that's the path to pretentiousness. The adjectives and phrasing only add to the muddle, like someone was trying to sound like what they think a good author should sound like. "Immortal beauty of the night sky" can be used correctly in the right context but it's too out of place here. "Starry expanse", too. Besides that, the description of the clearing is repetitive and uninteresting. If the character is in the middle of a forest and the clearing is unremarkable, the author can just say "forest clearing." Implicitly I take it to be unremarkable, but when the author announces that it is unremarkable, my first thought is "Okay, so there IS something remarkable about the clearing, but he missed it somewhere."
If the intent was for a lyrical introduction to a piece, my suggestion to the author would be to tone down on the shiny phrases (immortal beauty, et. al), pick a few distinctive and memorable things to discuss, and cut out the weak metaphors and similes. Then the piece may read better.

>>19835183
Thanks for the info/criticism
> If the character is in the middle of a forest and the clearing is unremarkable, the author can just say "forest clearing." Implicitly I take it to be unremarkable, but when the author announces that it is unremarkable, my first thought is "Okay, so there IS something remarkable about the clearing, but he missed it somewhere."

That is actually the case so I guess its alright?

>>19835242
I should clarify, my issue comes from the clearing being overly described. "Clearing" is used 3 times and implied 4 times in 4 sentences. That's quite a bit of redundancy that can be changed out. If it's an unremarkable clearing, remark that it's a clearing and continue. Something like
>The large clearing around me appeared to be somewhere in the middle of a dark forest. [Optional delay sentence here; transition word to next sentence, stylistic choice] Through the trees I could see a dim light coming closer.

Is a trio unbalanced if it's a pair of twins and their friend? I really like the idea but I wonder if it's too biased in favor of the twins(due to the blood connection) or the friend(due to the LACK of a blood connection). What can I do to alleviate my worry?

>>19835311
Throw in a complexity. Maybe the non-twin feels left out somehow, the twins can find eachother's wavelength easier and that makes the third feel disconnected sometimes. From there you can create conflict, subtle or not.

>>19835311
I'm doing this. I have a plan for a book series about two brothers and an immortal man who shows up as a plot device, usually to drag them into things but sometimes as a helpful character

>>19835286
>I was hungry. Or at least whatever approximation I interpreted as hunger at the time. Thus acting on instinct, I sat up and began to examine my surroundings.
>The large grassy area I found myself laying in appeared to be in the middle of a forest. Trees covered all sides of the clearing and I was surrounded by blackness. Above the trees and in the distance I could see mountains and the moon reflecting off a massive lake at one of the mountains’ foot.
>The clearing seemed to be unremarkable, yet it had a foreboding feel to it, as if something important was supposed to happen there or was happening there. Suddenly through the trees I could see a dim light coming closer to the clearing.

Any better?

How would you handle power progression/variety as the story goes on?
See, I start out with basic stuff for giant monster crap
>Monsters show up, destroy some buildings and then fight
BUT THEN we get into stuff like
>A monster casually firing a literal particle beam that hits a nuke dead on in the atmosphere
>A monster stomping another monster's head into the ground so hard it makes a crater nearly a 10th of a kilometer wide.
>A clash between a high-pressure blast of mist and a heat ray creating a literal thunderstorm on a clear night.
I try to make it so that there are very clear power divides between the monsters, so the weaker ones can stay in their own league and also develop as the story goes on so they don't get shafted out of the storyline.

>>19833492
lmao one of those was me

>>19835075
Be succinct. That's the most important criticism I can give to you

You write a lot like I do, in ways that I'm trying to correct. If you spend 30 words conveying info to the reader that you could have done in 10, you're going to lose them eventually.

If you're going to flesh out thought or a description it really needs to be worth it

I've been rolling an idea in my head for a while that I am finally going to attempt to put to paper.

Neo-Noir Cyberpunk story.
Theres a lot of fun ideas and themes in cyberpunk that don't really seem to get explored too often so I thought it would at least give me a nice framework to write something. I specifically want to cover themes of class, consumerism, and hedonism/desensitization

I'm currently writing my way into a scene at a jazz nightclub - and the MC is far lower in class so he's stunned to see real musical instruments, solid food, and clean clothing all in the same place.

As he interviews the woman that asked for him an attack by 'low class terrorists' ensues on the building, and the screams/gunfire coming from the guards turrets is quickly drowned out by noise cancelling speakers. Everyone carries on with their meal

How the FUCK do you decide names for your characters? I'm having a hard time picking one that "feels right" for the main character. Additionally, picking names for other characters that aren't too similar to the main character but still feel right for them, is a nightmare.

>>19835625
>Okay I need to introduce this character
>What's her name
>Sylvia's nice
>okay she's called Sylvia
Names don't need to mean anything. Just pick something you like.

>>19835625
Programmatically shift/shuffle all of the phonemes of the English language, then put English names in to get new names out.
Only works if you're writing fantasy though.

>>19835038
>>19834386
>>19833985
thanks anons i knew something was off with it.

>>19835625
Eytmonline and baby names to get the meanings I'm looking for to match the personalities I'm designing. Sometimes names come to me and they stick and I don't question them. Other times I have to look hard. Right now I have "John" and "Steve" as placeholders for two guys.
>>19835385
About the same. Foreboding already describes the feeling of something about to happen, so you can nix the second clause. Is the character on a hill they can see above the trees, or on a sloped ridge in the forest? That's important to note. I got lost wondering how the character can see above trees if they're sitting up on the ground.
>>19835423
To avoid power creep, I change the stakes from from world ending to situational impact. You don't have to have the guys get bigger and badder. They just have to go after stuff that's important every single time. Maybe the nuke destroying particle beam monster is shooting his beam at stuff the other small guys can destroy, like hydroelectric dams or power grids. He CAN use it to wipe out cities but he doesn't, and you don't have to even explain why. Maybe the thunderstorm mist is the peak of a power crescendo and it tapers off from there. Spectacle is always nice but I'd point to DragonBall Z as a great case study of "new enemy, new powerup" repeated ad infinitum, which I find awfully predictable and boring from a storytelling standpoint.

>>19835625
i like taking real names and then rearranging the letters a bit. im particularly proud of turning Edward into "Enward."

>>19835767
stop being racist Jake

>>19823637
I always try to use explicit verbs.
So in your example "learns" I would specify how he learns, now of course Sophocles had to make it through dialogue since it was a tragedy, but even in plays you can choose between a variety of different mechanisms "overhears" "infers" or even "endures a diatribe" which could all describe passive or active forms of learning something.
>>19824238
I didn't care for the banalities, there's too many details that are insignificant to the story
>I knew... I knew... I knew...
Well, we don't need to know. Yes I realize this is because the husband told him all this. But the details themselves, there so many of them, that they don't mean anything.
The twist did surprise me, i knew they were gonna fuck, but I didn't realize it was a sting.
>>19827055
Motivations should externalize struggles within the character. You can double or triple up, but only if each of those motivations represents an internal struggle. Otherwise your character just won't care.
>>19829018
Seems more like bathos than purple prose to me. I understand purple prose to be less about the obscurity or esoteric-ness of the word choice and more how unhelpfully poetical it is
>>19833757
>>19833634
I agree with everything this anon said. Compress. Crickets and Owls and debris isn't relevant to Caleb crying
>>19835625
Since most of my books are contemporary fiction I always ask myself where their family is from. Do I give them an Irish name? A Dutch Name? An Anglicization of a Chinese name that tries to sound generic?
Then I try to imagine their parents at the time the character was born, what were the fashions with names? Who were their parent's heroes? Were they named after a sports star at the time? A politician? An uncle?
>>19835311
Make it from the non-twin's perspective and it'll work. Because they'll always feel frustratedly left out.

>>19835007
So? What's the problem?

>>19833753
good pic. I'm starting to like blimps

>>19835863
one of my favorites. I've always preferred the American Rigid Airships to the German Zeppelins.

>>19834840
Should've made him Okku.

Does anyone else put in racial diversity in their stories? There's absolutely no reason for a character to be black but you just made the character black to reach racial quotas?

What's the sweet spot for a short story's word count? I've seen everything from "as close to 1k as possible" to "whatever fits your story, lol"

>>19835625
I look at the character and ask them, what is your name. And then they tell me their name.

>>19835985
I specifically made my main character a mutt of every race because it fits the setting he comes from. The setting he's in is full of isolated whites and he gets a ton of skin-based insults.

>>19835311
The third wheel ships the twins

>>19836019
It has to be exactly 782 words. Anything more or less than that and I recommend changing your name.

>>19835985
Whenever I need a full retard character, I include Anonymous. Readers often get upset with me, saying nobody could be this stupid, it's not realistic, and I'm like, "they can and they are"

i have a lot of trouble going from one paragraph to another.
i usually break paragraphs between major actions where explaining the minute details between it and another large action would bring 0 weight, but then makes it feel more like a chapter break than a paragraph break.

do i just start the next paragraph without considering the ending of the last one? or is there a better way to go about this? i find myself doing this a lot, and in retrospect im probably just a shitty writer as im a more visual person

>>19836235
Usually it's fine to break to a new paragraph after each item is fully realised and explained, and when a new item is started. For example, first paragraph: the description of an item and it's location in the world. next paragraph: what the item means to your character and why they are looking at it. Final paragraph:, they reach for it and the implications of this. paragraphs can be just a few sentences long.

>>19835625
For me? It's Vivienne and William. Vi and Will. Side characters are almost always Nina, Jared, Kari, Andy, Lily and Max. I usually change them as I write, when a good name pops into my head, otherwise after I'm done and it's easier to encapsulate who they are. But I use those as placeholders.

>>19836235
It depends on the style. If you're writing first person, paragraphs tend to link together more, whereas in third person they tend to be more standalone. As for deciding how to start and end paragraphs, each should have a focus and a purpose. You could try and practice by taking a page that you've written and looking at all the sentences and trying to rearrange/rewrite them into different paragraphs to play around with structure.

>>19836019
It really depends on the story you're telling. If all you're trying to get across is a dude sitting on a porch and seeing something that tickles memories of his childhood and makes him nostalgic, you may only need 1-2k words. If you're writing a sci-fi story which is attempting to explore some potential civilization that could exist, or if you're trying to make some sort of social commentary and need to establish the relationships between a number of people before breaking them in some way, chances are you're going to need around 10k to do so properly.
Literally "whatever fits your story, lol"

>>19836235
Try just not giving a shit. I start a new paragraph whenever it feels right. I know what feels right because I've read enough to have an intuitive sense and a set of preferences and recognitions and so forth. Stop worrying about the "should" angle. If we followed the rules of writing as formulated by scions of literature like Stephen King and Agatha Christie and professors Uhhhh and Literally Who, we would all be writing paragraphs of five sentences with only nominally varied sentence structure with terse, bloodless descriptions and subjects that never say nigger or have rape scenes or whatever.

I'm losing track of what point I was trying to make here, but maybe that is the point: I just don't give a fuck. You should try it. It's liberating.

>>19835985
I never describe their race. I leave it for a reader's interpretation.

>>19835760
That's just it, though.
The power levels actually peak really early on with one character, and it mostly shoots around the tiers from there. It's not a constant increase of power, we cut to different intensities of power as the story goes on.

>>19835625
I just pick the first name that comes to mind. I tend to use names pretty sparingly in general.

>>19837159
In case you're wondering about what kind of character could stand up to, and easily defeat
>Aliens with incredible powers
>Spiritual guardians
>Robots designed to be as strong as a countries military
>Genetically engineered monster warriors
>LITERAL GODS GIVEN PHYSICAL FORM
The answer is a dinosaur.
Fuck now I feel sad for some reason because I spilled the beans.

>>19833001
I normally write surrealistic junk that leans towards horror, but I've started outlining a trashy fantasy novel/litrpg.

What is the most popular genre? An isekai RPG?

>>19837246
Romance by a country mile. Erotica is next but popular erotica is borderline the same thing as popular romance. Then it's thrillers/mysteries/crime novels.
Then a power gap, then "spiritual" and "inspirational" fiction, then sci-fi and fantasy (combined).

The more time I spend on twitter, the more I hate it. This is a disgusting abberation of the art in pursuit of clout

Damn, it really wouldn’t be hard to make 6k a month from writing.
3 books with a BSR rank (in books and ebooks) of 25,000 or less and you’re in.
How hard can that be considering most of it is romance garbage and I actually know how to market.

>>19836093
what if it's a OT3 though

Romance can't be hard to write

>>19835985
Why though?
Why would I want black people in my fantasy?
At most there maybe some asians to the far east.
In my ideal fantasy it’d only be whites and white adjacent central asians in this world.

>>19835985
My readers are going to get it from the immagonnas and heyyohollups plus they are short tempered.

>>19835985
Whenever the plot requires a gay, trans, or otherwise degenerate, I make special note that they're black. No one else's race gets mentioned.

>>19837463
Very based

>>19837463
IF I wrote a gay person into my story, they’re obviously going to be jewish.

>>19837450
To sell

>>19837510
Bro, black don’t read. Know your demographics.

>>19837510
What next you’ll sell guns to lefties?

>>19837520
Yes but sheltered white girls do. And they want nothing more than taming big black carnal beasts.

>>19837504
>not making them blewish

>>19837541
Unironically, yes.

>>19837463
My gay is Scottish.

>>19837544
Blacks aren’t desirable and aren’t masculine.

>>19837544
They really don't. The best selling fantasy books have mostly white casts. The ones that don't have mostly asian.

>>19837336
Then don't use Twitter. Meerkaters get a bad name because of one Twitter shill who thinks follow-for-follow schemes will make his book sell. People in general here seem to conflate marketing at all with shilling and that's so far from the truth. They see it as a ball and chain on their souls when they should be seeing PROPER MARKETING as a way to share their creation with an audience who is interested in hearing what they have to say.

>>19835985
I bet this IP has only this post in thread, and I furthermore bet that this poster has never written anything outside of school obligations except texts, social media posts, and 4chan shitposts.

>>19837592
Fantasy is young male. Erotica is young white girls

>>19837621
Wrong. I wrote a letter to my mom once.

>>19837620
>They see it as a ball and chain on their souls when they should be seeing PROPER MARKETING as a way to share their creation with an audience who is interested in hearing what they have to say.
Marketing is the mechanism by which shitty writing is able to get undue exposure by virtue of its usage, and an element which is ultimately and completely extraneous to the writing itself. I want to part in it, and I don't want to be associated with any marketing or marketeers. You can't trust anyone who talks about something from which they can ultimately profit. Fuck off with your odious and apologetic attempts at reframing a social and artistic evil.

>>19837636
Still mostly white or mostly asian.

>>19835985
Yes. But they're there as conflict agitators to progress the plot, but not in the sense you're probably thinking. Their otherness is there to be used by the factory owner to sow division amongst the workers, in order to undermine the growing demand for unionization amongst the workers. Yes I'm writing socialist pulpaganda. No I will not stop.

>>19837510
To sell your manuscript to a blue-haired agent/editor that is. Then we have our white characters painted black on later editings just because she demands ”colour” that will ”sell”.

>>19837669
You're telling me you don't want a book to sell as well as EL James? I would gladly sell my soul to get that level of exposure

>>19837697
No one here knows these obscure nigger fetish artists.
Go to reddit if you want to find likeminded people

>>19837697
Do you mean this literally? Meet me at the crossroads at midnight, I'll hook you up.

>>19837697
Wait, why are you using a woman who became wealthy writing about white people as an argument for brownwashing?

>>19837733
JK Rowling and Stephanie Meyer are bigger names today than Leo Tolstoy. How does that make you feel?

How do I write asexual characters without them seeming gay?

>>19837748
Writing about smut with interchangeable races is the way to sell books. I need to harness my inner clueless lonely wine aunt and write about taming the races of all men. Like Madonna's Material Girl video

>>19837772
All of them wrote chiefly about white people, so you're hurting your case.
I mean one of the only non-white characters in the Harry Potter books is named something like "ching chong" ffs

>>19837774
How actually pertinent is their sexuality to the plot. Is there a scene where some whore is trying to get his dick? You can fairly easily write characters that look beyond the haze of sex towards more important things in life, like honor, commitment to some higher purpose, etc. You wouldn't say a knight is gay, just because he dismisses the advances of some bitch.

>>19837782
>interchangeable races
They aren't.
A white man sexually brutalizing a white woman is erotica
A black man doing it is true crime

>>19837791
They come from a society of all males where their masters were able to manufacture them. Their culture largely ignored sexuality. They’ve now found themselves in a world where men and women mix and so there are conversations between them about trying to navigate the social expectations.
Note that I don’t intend to do any gay shit. Someone in my writing group complained that none of them are apparently gay.

>>19837658
>has never read the book showing your work.
You’re right, I show up to my job, and don’t show my boss the 8 hours of value I put in.
Shut up and be willing to put out what you put your time into.
Or die unknown, Idc.
You’re too self righteous.

>>19837798
That's funny

>>19837805
So they're essentially human robots? Ignorance or stoicism are probably the best way to approach the interactions. If they aren't familiar with the conventions of flirting or seduction, then they would probably just act confused when accosted by such provocations.

So the following main characters makes a book sellable
1. Straight white male
Getting fucked by a
2. Liberal woman
With her best
3. Gay minority friend
Ending it
4. With a threesome where said straight white male becomes bisexual

>>19837827
Kinda hot, not gonna lie. Male lead has to become the meat in a sandwich in the final scene, ejaculating inside the girl's womb, thus impregnating her because he's overwhelmed by anal stimulation
How shameful, how scandalous!

>>19837827
That's 100% sellable

Is buck breaking marketable?

>>19837871
Only if the buck is white

Please nuke this /wg/ and try again.

>>19837886
Guess I'm out of luck since all these buckos are brown. Not gonna stop me from forcing every publisher to read it though.

>>19837903
Brown isn't good either. It has to be black. Brown also gets confusing because nobody knows if it's Indian or Native

>>19837912
Every black is dead in my story. The proud buck breaker is forced to make due with what he has left.

How do you learn to not feel embarrassed over your writing?

>>19838167
By never letting anyone see it under any circumstances, ever.

>>19837891
Why?

>>19838176
Because we started off great with the gilf porn post but then people tried to insert their own weird fetishes into the conversation and now the thread is unsalveagable

After the suicide of Drappi Di Capri's co-founder and CDO, the fashion community went intercontinentally ballistic. A cryptic man, shrouded in a réveillon death that, at first glance, begs the question of why. The details of his private life -- outlined in the writings a chain of tattletales have given us -- are capable of adding fuel to the flaming curiosity of aspiring designers, fashionistas, conspiracy theorists, and the few elites that aren't in the know. An irreparable childhood, a broken heart, corruption, lust -- rampant abuse and crime. We present these documents in a bareboned edition which is sure to panick the hush-hush, mainstream friends of Arthur F.M. Burns.

>>19835985
technically 90% of my characters are non-white
100% by some definitions
just write stories set in some shithole like tajikistan in the 1600s

>>19838167
By pretending to be 14 years old on the internet when I post it so people think I'm actually a genius. I'm 31.

>>19838292
Nice. Reminds me of some prose experiment I was working on myself, experimenting with early 20th century diction. The first sentence is the only one that doesn't fit with the rest.

When the fuck is a novel finished? I'm on rewrite three and every time I go through, I change the story to suit my current tastes, and I have a feeling I could do this endlessly.

>>19838598
>I could do this endlessly.
yes. you could. thats the point.

>>19838598
You will find out it is never finished and you just need to move on based on publishing schedules

>>19838598
When you decide it is.

>>19822489
I didn't realize what the g stood for fuck FUCK FUCK

It keeps getting harder and harder to write. I don't know whether I'm just stuck with a difficult chapter or if it's a bigger issue. It feels like it keeps going on and on with barely no progress and I don't have a good feeling about it. What should I do? Bear it and try to wrap it up, or rethink the entire chapter?

>>19822461
We are now only days away.
Who's hyped?

>>19838933
Is it just that chapter or is it the whole book that's stalling you? When that happens to me, I put it aside for a day or two to do other projects.

>>19838973
The chapter itself. I need to introduce a sequence of gambling in order to lead to an important character moment, but the build up is becoming kind of tedious to me. However, I also can't imagine the scene working without it because I want the reader to experience the same relief as the character when that moment comes. Maybe I'm just getting impatient, but I fear that this sensation will be noted by the reader.

>>19839006
If I've got the understanding right, you're working on a scene that has a very slow build up to an important moment and you're getting impatient or annoyed with the build up, but its necessary in order to really have the readers feel the relief of the character.
You don't want to over-write this if it's an important scene. You can try expediting the gambling sequence so the tension increases faster in a shorter time period. Copy the scene to a fresh document and work on it there so it's totally isolated from the rest of the text. You can try an extremely fast, sloppy build up and see where that gets you, if it helps or makes things worse. It's hard to get a feel for what to do without the chapter itself to look at.

>>19839076
Yeah, I understand the limitations of having to work with just what I'm giving you. Still, thank you for your advice. I think I'll try to rush a little through the gambling sequence just enough so that the reader can keep up and then move in for the kill.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/49395/the-undying-emperor
chapter 16 has gone live. I'm in the process of eating through my backlog, because my focus has switched to a new novel. The time might be approaching to go down to one chapter a week

>>19839285
>not even 20 chapters in
>~2k words per chapter
>already slowing down posting rate
This is basically how to not make it on RR defined. You should be posting 3-5 times a week until you hit at least 50 chapters before you even think about slowing down, that is if you're trying to actually get readers.

>>19839304
I've told him on multiple occasions to post daily until you exhaust your backlog, then you slow down to a normal posting schedule. He mentioned several times this is just a whatever venture for him that he isn't too interested in committing to for his other main novel.

>>19838772
now wait until you hear about BILFs

>>19839304
You say that like it's a recipe to success, but all you're saying is "post more to get more view"

>>19839356
>post more to get more view
This is literally how to succeed though

>>19839318
It doesn't even have to be daily. You've got shit (and by shit I mean generic fucking SHIT) like https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/33844/the-runesmith that hits trending semi-regularly and posts once every 3 days like clockwork with only brief periods of no uploads which are warned about in author's notes. The only reason stories like that get readers and attention is because they have consistent writing quality (note that I didn't say high quality) and a consistent upload schedule. RR isn't a site where you can get readers based on writing quality or story uniqueness. People will absolutely just forget about stories, even ones they're following, or lose interest if the upload rate is too low.
Too many fags in these threads think that the market forces don't apply to them because they can write above an eighth grade level.

>>19823025
What’s your account on?

i started working on nursery rhymes in november but a decent amount of them either come out feeling very similar to each other in rhyme pattern and structure or they are violent.

I am 26 pages in and just introduced 5 characters, 2 of them main characters and still have 5 more to go, one of them another main one. Is this what you would call bad pacing? I'm two chapters in and plan to write two more to introduce the rest.

What's a good resource for learning about what specific time periods, such as the mid-90s, were like in different cultures?

>>19839494
Now come on buddy. Don't you know marketing is a soul destroying violation of trve artistry?

>>19839715
Sure, but nobody here is making trve art no matter how hard they cope about it :^^^^^^^^^^)

>>19839725
Hold it! Are you saying that people who claim to be making trve art but don't want to market because "it's soulless" are really just LARPers who want to pretend to be reclusive shut-ins more than they want to create and display their artwork? Well imagine my shock!

>>19839551
Sounds reasonable to me

>>19839817
No, obviously what I'm saying is that the only person in the whole world capable of making trve art is a 200IQ gigachad like myself who only writes on a typewriter from 1880 and refuses to use any word invented after the first world war.

>>19839851
Wow! I can't wait to never hear about you!

>>19839869
You too!

why the fuck do normalfags find mindlessly browsing reddit to be so addicting but cant manage to read an actual fucking book
they could even put the book on their fucking phone

>>19840244
Reading a book requires thinking about the words in front of your eyes.

>>19840244
i have the same problem with this place but at least it's not reddit

>>19840244
It's a problem of decision and commitment. It's the same reason why those same people usually just browse facebook or reddit instead of watching shit on netflix, and also why youtube is so popular.
If you're looking at things on your phone, you're not committing to anything. It's all momentary and you can stop doing it whenever you want, because you don't care much and don't get invested in anything. It doesn't require a mental framework to do. Flicking through videos and watching anywhere from ten seconds to three minutes of a video based on your momentary interest, scrolling through articles or posts and reading anything that catches your attention.
If you want to read something, not only do you need to think about it, you need to make the decision to spend a slice of your time doing it. You need to say "for the next forty minutes, I will watch an episode of this TV show" or "for the next twenty minutes, I will read this book" and those are commitments, which our minds don't like.

>>19838772
what, did you google it?

>>19840302
Add to this that all content in social media is bite-sized and easily digestible. A novel will take longer to reach each stage of the story arc than a 6-second meme -- which itself is a 6-second story with a similar skeleton.

This post is bite-sized and digestible.

>>19840431
but it's bite sized SHITE
it's turd sliders

>>19840244
In my case, because I'm hoping the next post will be the one that has that nugget of wisdom that explains what I'm doing wrong. It's all about time investment.
Let's say I'm having a specific problem with a specific herb in my garden, now what's the difference between whether I scan the index of a book on gardening to see if it mentions the herb in question, or if I doom scroll gardening and herb subreddits hoping someone has the solution?
I know exactly what the problem is, why would I waste my time reading a whole book that's irrelevant to it.
That's why I mindlessly browse reddit, I'm looking for solutions to problems, hoping the next page, the next comment might have that special arrow that directs me towards the relevant wisdom: whether that wisdom is found in a video, a book, a blog post... wherever.
Of course it's a stupid enterprise because the only people who post online lack the expertise to solve the problem. And on reddit, if you ask for help they will answer a unrelated question
>Me: How can I fix the stain on my car from bird shit
>Dumb redditor: dude, you need to keep your car covered
>Me: I do, it happened while I was visiting a friends, the only parking spot was apparently near a nest, now what do I do about the fucked up paintwork?
>Dumb Redditor: I don't know. It's never happened to me.

>>19840506
I don’t come here for information, i come for community (these past fee years have been very isolating) and anonymity (not many normalfags i’d want to share my writing with).

Perhaps in other times, I’d find a writing group or something…but right now, you anons are what I got.

>>19837563
>not making it trans as well
Gay, Black, Jewish, Trans, ring a ding ding baby you've got yourself a winner.

>>19822489
kino twist

>Just finished first draft of volume 1 of webnovel
>~220k words divided into 100 "chapters"
>just needs an editing pass then it can be posted
Holy fuck the dopamine rush from this. I've had so many failed drafts of stories, finishing one is like blowing a load after edging for years. No I'm not posting it until it's edited, I still have shame.

>>19839318
Could you share your advice with me? I've thought about making a web serial but I'm scared.

>>19840682
Literally just have at least ~20 chapters of backlog and post at least twice a week. Also make sure you actually plot out arcs and plan them so you don't end up writing yourself into a corner. Other than that, the standards for what qualifies as "good" writing are quite low and people can be very forgiving of dumb shit. Just ignore retards who rate your shit 0/10 over nothing.
Also I'm not him.

>>19840682
NTA, but if it's your first webnovel, I recommend writing the entire first draft before you post anything. Then you can simply edit as you post. By taking this approach, you can write without too much worry about getting all the prose right on the first try while at the same time ensure a higher quality for the final product.

There are also a few drafting techniques which can make even entire rewrites easier which I can share if you're interested. Also the usual tricks to make sure your readers stick around. This is mostly for pantsers, but even for outliners I would recommend writing the entire first draft before posting anything.

>>19840709
>the usual tricks to make sure your readers stick around
What, like baiting gay shit but never doing it or adding LitRPG elements?

>>19840506
i'm talking about the normalfags who lay in bed for hours mindlessly scrolling /r/all.

>>19840719
Nah, more basic stuff that I picked up from the Victorian serials.

>>19840732
You mean like
>write chapters out in advance to pace them well
>split all chapters in the middle, attaching the second half of the previous to the first half of the next, so they're always a cliffhanger
>???
>profit
There's also a lot to be learned from korean webcomics when it comes to gaming human psychology to keep people coming back.

>>19840668
Congrats anon! I remember the feeling when I finished my first book. It didn't feel real.

>>19840753
Well it's not quite done yet, but soon it will be. A few months of editing at the absolute most.
I suppose I should also come up with a cover pic but that's a thousand percent less of a pain in the ass than editing.

>>19822932
>You will post your writing.
This is form a Touhou dojinshi book that started as a exercise (I'm form /jp/.)
It's in Raimu's pow.

"Alright, I'll bring them all to you'r-" Aunn stops mid sentence and glares somewhere behind me. I turn around and see a dumb polka dot hat in the bushes. I already know who's wearing it so I throw a yin-yan orb at her.
"WHAT THE FUCK!" Clownpiece yalls "WHATS THE BIG IDEA THROWING SHIT AT ME?!" She's wearing her usual garish red, white and blue dress and maching leggings.
"What are you doing Clownpiece?" I say as I approach her. She is a literal fiery form Hell so I know she is always up to no good. I first met her on the moon and she was a headache to deal with and the worst part was she flowed me home and now lives under my shrine.
"NOT A GOOD DAME THING!" she says louder then necessary. I know she's lying. She loves ruining whatever gatherings and festivals I host.
"Rally?" I ask her as I take out my Exorcism Rod "you're not going to wait for people to gather and run in meddle of a crowd, flash your torch and watch everyone fight?" That's what she did at my last flower viewing. Marisa and I spent most of the day braking up drunken fights wile she sat on my roof eating snacks.
"I- I'm an American!" Clownpiece says "That means I have rights wich means I have freedom and can do what ever the FUCK I want!" Clownpice folds her arms in front of her chest and gives me a defiant look as if belonging to some made up "Hell on Earth" means something. I think she's confused with a clan form Europe that left their flag on the moon. I've been to moon twice and haven't seen it so she may have made that up too.
I grab her by the caller of her dress and glare down at her eye to eye and tell her "whatever you where planing, don't."
"This Is Shrine Maiden Brutality!" Clownpiece says as she struggles to get me to let go of her "1776 will happen again if you-" she stops mid sentence and looks up at something. I look up and find nothing but before I can look away, I see her torch.

It's such a beautiful day, what I'm I doing wasting it arguing with a fiery? Actually, who was I talking to? Must have been my imagination. I sit back down next to my beloved Donation Box and look up at the clouds. I'm so jealous of clouds, thay can flout across the sky all day and no one asks them to do anything. I wish I was A cloud. Maybe if I meditate hard enough I'll become a cloud goddess and people will come to worship me. Then someone else can be MY shrine maiden. That's a great idea. First I need to make sure no one disturbs me.

>>19822932
Without context draft 1 stuff

The boss smiled. “You’re young, yes? Just shy of the draft if I had to guess. My daughter just got rejected, you know that? They said she was incompatible with the vaccine, and thus couldn’t be permitted outside. She didn’t take it well.”

Kyte shrugged. “So? You need me to be her escort or something? Like that Georgie guy?”

The smile vanished. Dead eyes once more. “Georgie is my nephew, and Raz is a eunuch. I don’t think you want to make the cut to be my daughter’s escort. We’ll find other uses for you, Kyte. Tell me : have you ever been tested for vax compatibility?”

“No, Sir. Was going to be part of my eighteenth. Except, you know, I’m here instead.”

The smile came back, like the boss had a switch he was flipping. He folded his thick hands together, interlacing fingers on the desk as he leaned forward. “Well, you’ll need the shot too, if you plan to actually survive outside. It just so happens we can help each other on that front. There’s something about the process that I would like to check.”

>>19840871
>>19840957
Don't worry fellas. There's always next thread.

>>19840747
Yep. But there's a few more specific ones as well.

>>19841034

bread baked