/lit/ - Literature

Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour as the visible absence of colour; and at the same time the concrete of all colours; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows—a colourless, all-colour of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues—every stately or lovely emblazoning—the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge—pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear coloured and colouring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?

And to start the thread off, this plebbit post about self publishing platforms for other newfags

>>19942503
>Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere)

>3 years for 327 pages
lol, lmao

How do you solidify your own style? I feel like I’m way too diverse in my writing to a degree that’s hurting it. I took writing the last two years as a personal venture more than anything, exploring my own abilities and limits within the different styles I like. The results are varied and for the most part I think are good. However I can definitely see I mostly just copied what has already been done before, unconsciously and consciously selecting what Ive liked in my life. How do I break out from this and find my actual muse, a language I can develop that I can call my “own”.

>>19942520
I tried Royal road. It’s full of stupid faggots who don’t believe in planning or revising and just want to shit out the billionth isekai of wuxia story.

Do you think this is a game?
There is no doubt you will write.
You will improve your characters, your settings, your plot, and your themes.
Becoming a better writer is inevitable.
Do you think you have a choice?

>>19942569
I know of multiple top-50 RR authors that did multiple rewrites. That said, RR isn't a site for publishing finished books, it's for serialized fiction. One couldn't exactly go back and do edits after a story had been published in a pulp mag back in the day, and I doubt many would have even if they had been able.

>>19942584
I finished writing what I was working on, and I'm currently fixing the format for printing/pdf

What have you been up to?

Hello guys, I started on a new book recently.
It's a Victorian era romantic noir. I want it to be a noir with a cozy, dreamlike atmosphere. so it takes place in the winter. The protagonist is a writer who runs away from his wealthy family and freeloads in the storage room of a women's bathhouse. It's split between the past and the present. 15 years later in the present, there's a serial killer at large and he's framed for the murder of another woman.

>>19942746
>lives for 15 years in a closet
"Wow, he's just like me!"

Romance isn't my favorite, but it sounds alright. Bonus points for the ambience concept. Good luck and remember to give each woman different stat sheets

>>19931223

How do I market my book? It's not a litrpg. I don't think I'll make it.

>>19942781
>>19942781
I think I'm retarded and wrote that confusing. The past is about him living in a village and the conflict about him being betrothed to a woman he isn't interested in. He goes to war, comes back emaciated and distraught, and eventually just fucking abandons his responsibilities to go to the capitol and write. He only moves into the closet at the end of the past timeline. The mystery ties into his past from 15 years ago.

But yeah, I am practicing getting ambient prose. I have a copy of murakami and various dream-like visual novels for research.

>>19942848
Maybe try >>19942520, but idk, I'm a publet as well

>>19942848
Also, the guy that constantly talks about his reach sucks dick on twitter, maybe make an account there

>>19942584
>Becoming a better writer is inevitable.
Becoming a worse writer is inevitable because of the decline of old age.

>>19942848
On the bottom of page 5
>Unfortunately, the dark room put a strain on
his eyes forcing Caleb’s body to pop loud cracks popped from his joints.
It's redundant to say the pops popped from somewhere, eh? Doesn't flow too well.

The hell is this LitRPG thing you guys keep talking about? Is it like the novelization of a non-existant RPG game?

Can I upload a pdf on one of these threads? Do I just do it on “choose file” or do I post with a link. Maybe one of these days when I’m satisfied with Chapter 1 I’ll upload for what I can only guess will be brutal feedback.

>>19943028
Try it :)

>>19942848
What’s lit-rpg?

>>19943007
Books involving RPG elements. Like ones overtly set in a world where RPG-esque mechanics like levels are a thing, or ones where the MC is special because they specifically have RPG-esque progression (these are often called System novels).

>>19943031
Don’t have a pdf on me rn, plus I’m on mobile

>>19943051
When you realize it doesn't work, try uploading to catbox.moe and posting the link here, it's how I do it

>>19943078
Thanks fren

>>19942554
It's just some memeshit novel that the retard who makes these threads won't stop shilling even though it's been shown to be crap time and again. In fact, most of the "prose" books up there have fucking nothing to do with prose at all.

>>19942988
>>19942988
You're right. These typos are going to kill me. Well guess that's why we have beta readers for a reason

>>19943048
This would be cool if the writing wasn't terrible. Take this as an example of how poorly wrought they are.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/45434/echoes-of-the-tribulation-an-historical-apocalypse/chapter/727255/prologue-the-tribulation-system

>>19943101
>almost as many text colors as the LGBT flag
Too gay for me, sorry, can't do it.

>>19943101
I've read my share of LitRPG and System stories. Like literally any other remotely popular genre, there's an abundance of "okay at best" works, but the genre at large is fine.

>>19943028
You want brutal feedback. It makes you a bunch better writer. You start catching yourself writing stupid sentences and will change it on the spot. My robot book tends to get bashed with added words and odd sentences more than it being boring, terrible premise, purple prose, pacing etc. So that's a huge plus for me.

LitRPG still has a lot of potential if you're creative.
If you want to make a name for yourself here's what you do.
1. Take an idea that isn't LitRPG and has nothing to do with LitRPG (time travel adventure)
2. combine it with LitRPG (trapped in another world with game like mechanics, must cross 100 floors across the axis of time)
3. profit
Most of these retards writing this shit have no creativity.

>>19943137
This exact template is 9/10 of successful LitRPG stories.

>Part of my character's development is reflected in the terminology of his own internal monologue, which shifts gradually over the course of the story.
>However, since the story is in first person and the change generally goes from an unnatural to natural style of thought, it also looks a lot like I just got lazy and started to use easier words. Also the character himself is largely unaware of the change.
>In an effort to remedy this issue I deliberately drew attention to certain aspects of it once or twice during edits.
>Still worried people won't get it.
Why do I do this to myself?

>>19943115
I know I know. Brutal feedback is a necessary medicine for an author. Just wish it wasn’t a suppository.

>>19943007
The goblins were coming. Bane "The Masketta Man" could feel it in his gut, along with the eggs and bacon from his breakfast. Goblins meant a long day preparing, goblins meant a sleepless night on watch, and goblins meant that by this time tomorrow, Bane would be missing some friends. He wouldn't be able to bring them all along. Its a good thing he was also a level 15 gravedigger in addition to being a level 20 Big Guy. Bane shook his head. That didn't matter. That was tomorrow. The only thing that mattered today was the plan. He got to his feet and started preparing to crash the goblin raiding party with no survivors.

>>19943160
If he's changing somehow, shouldn't he be aware at some point and questioning why he's changing?

Any of you guys ever had a Google Docs file lose all its data?

Not that it's happened to me, just wondering how reliable it is as I'm 70k words in and it's lagging a bit, I'm worried it'll crash some day and delete everything.

Any advice on creating an ambient dreamlike winter atmosphere?

>>19943279
It've written over 800k words on gdocs and I've never lost a single doc. Fair word of warning, gdocs starts sperging out and doing weird shit like randomly moving sections of text around once you reach around 170-200k words in a single doc, though the precise limit seems to depend on the hardware specs of your machine.

>>19943108
Can you recommend me any? I want to write a LitRPG but I need good influences. Could I just write one set in DnD (Open Game License) or would that be seen as derivative?

>>19943279
It never hurts to back it up locally on your computer every now and again.

>>19943296
when you're setting the scene focus on something very large and in the distance. For instance if your characters on next to a lake describe the frozen lake and how big it is, and how small it makes your MC feel. Personify the trees on the opposite bank, have their branches waving or doing something they're normally incapable of doing. Emphasize the strangeness and seeming alienness of an ordinary landscape.

>>19943279
I don't trust alphabet inc with anything. 70k words - only text - shouldn't make it lag.

>>19942848
>page 97
What the fuck. Why the fuck would you write a scene where the robot gets cucked?

>>19943329
It would certainly BE derivative, not just be seen as it. If you want to base it on an existing system, I recommend one of the more obscure ones.

There's a couple obvious ones like these:
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/16946/azarinth-healer
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/15935/there-is-no-epic-loot-here-only-puns
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/26534/vainqueur-the-dragon
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/29358/dungeon-crawler-carl-book-5-the-hunting-grounds

Thoughts on Brandon Sandersons Creative Writing Lectures from BYU posted on Youtube?

Why are we talking so much about litRPGs?

>>19943429
I give it two thumbs up :)

When you guys write foreshadowing, is it better as a subtle reference or a more blatant obvious one?

I'm always afraid my readers won't be able to recall the foreshadow if it's subtle and a few chapters prior to the event happening

>>19943456
I think the safer bet is subtelty

>>19943442
Its one of the few genres that people read and that authors actually get paid to write. Its basically 100% self published. And, unlike the other big genre, romance, its readership is male dominated.

>>19943442
It's how writers can grift money from entertainment starved third worlders.
>>19943429
Robert Olen Butler's Creative Writing series is better but that one is good for laying basic groundwork. You won't find too advanced topics there.

>>19943442
Hard to say anon. Can't imagine why you'd choose to read LitRPG when you could instead pick up a low magic epic fantasy about world conquest, without a single stat to be seen. Except for the 4.88/5 average rating.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/49395/the-undying-emperor

>>19943475
>low fantasy
why
it's a buzzword genre just like LitRPG

>>19943489
I didn't say low fantasy, I said low magic, which is actually descriptive of something.

Namely, that problems get solved by large numbers of men stabbing the problem to death with swords, rather than a wizard waving his phallus around to break macguffins.

Epic Fantasy is itself a genre, indicating that the main character (usually) is a chosen one set out to stop a dark lord (usually), though admitadly, I'm using that as a bit of a buzzword, which you'll understand if you give it a try.

>>19943469
>>19943473
>>19943475
I need to write one too. Does this involve tons of
*FLASH!"
*CLANG!
The swords hit each other with blazing speed and power! Sparks flew into Mike's face, singing his cheeks, as the heat of battle intensified.

>>19943515
Mine doesn't, because mine isn't LitRPG

>>19943514
>>19943489
wait you're right, I'm fucking retarded

>>19943515
>this sentence is better than the shit RR has
>RR shit makes more money
>no editing
>no revisions
>"muh spontaneous thoughts and writing

>>19943515
My advice would be to make it fun to write. If you find FLASH CLANG fun you'll definitely find readers. Shit seems like it'd get boring to write 2 battles in.

>>19943552
>>19943515
write it like a martial arts manga and sperg over small details while also doing big flashy finishing moves that couldn't realistically work, readers will suck your dick about immersive fight scenes

>>19943248
Part of his whole character is that he has very little ego. Mentally speaking, he's been broken down and mindfucked into a shell of a man so to speak. He thinks of himself as a tool, not a person, and (especially at the beginning of the story) has little long-term self-determination. You could say that his normal state is one of dissociation from himself, and gradually he becomes less and less dissociated because the stimuli that were keeping him that way vanish.

I'm too attached to my characters

>>19943638
So if HE lacks awareness, does some other character see what he doesn't? Does some other character confront him on these changes?

>>19943972
Near the end he ends up acting so out of character for himself that the person who is closest to a "friend" to him is genuinely confused by it, but I guess the main change is in how people react to him. At first, partially because of his appearance but also because of his behavior, the people who find him literally think he's an animal of some kind. Then it progresses to weird animal-man, then weird foreigner, then sort of just "dangerous person", then arguably just "person" at the end of volume 1. There are exceptions, obviously, but people's conceptions of him grow gradually more human as he does.

Spent a bit over an hour making a little icon to add as a pen name
It looks so beautiful

Can I get some running from the gendarme music? I'm trying to write a scene and can't find anything. The mood you'd be in the writing for is classical/jazz type music . It should have a sense of urgency but romance and fear at the same time

>>19943473
>Robert Olen Butler's Creative Writing
thank you for suggesting this, I'm watching the first episode right now (partially as background noise) on YouTube and it's so comfy; I love hearing other people's creative process.

>>19943160
>telling not showing
dramatize (mimesis) don't prattle (diegesis)

>>19944151
I want to ask if you even read the post you replied to, but I already know the answer.

Just wrote a prologue for my LitRPG. What's a good site to host it? RR?

>>19944187
Yeah, RR is kinda the one. I suggest also simultaneously hosting on ScribbleHub.

I tend to feel like I have no good ideas

>>19944179
Yeah that I did understand it: Subtle changes in internal monologue is diegetic telling. The slight vocabulary changes are not 'showing' - especially if you don't tie them to events or episodes, and this is precisely why you have anxiety about whether the audience will 'get it'.

>>19944229
"Muh show don't tell" is unironically, legitimately CIA propaganda.

>>19944179
>>19944229
Just to be clear its cool that you're trying to convey a character arc through a formal device, but that kind of formalistic experimentation is often overwhelmingly likley to be opaque, especially in this case because of show/tell.

>>19944215
You don't need good ideas. Take a story you like from a genre you liked. Ask yourself what part of this you liked, what part you didn't like, and how you would make it better, then write a similar story in the way you would prefer it to be. Do this for similar stories in that genre and put it together. This is the database method.

>>19944235
No it's because 2/3s of your brain are involved to visual processing which is orders of magnitude larger than the portion of the brain dedicated to sonic/audiological processing and as such most language is constructed on analogies to the parts of the brain that deal with visual processing. If by 'CIA' you autocorrected "Cicero", then yes, Cicero said that if we can bring things as if before the eyes then it is the best form of writing. I'm sure Quintillian says something to the same effect.

>>19944194
What does RR stand for

>>19944255
I'm not making this shit up. The CIA propagandized the importance of show don't tell to undermine works of literature that could contain dissident political messages.

>>19944268
>All metaphors, at least such of them that are best chosen, are applied to the senses, especially the seeing, which of all senses is the most exquisite. Thus when we say, the tincture of politeness, the softness of good-breeding, the murmer of waters, and sweetness of language; these metaphors are all taken from the other senses. But the metaphors taken from the sense of seeing are much more striking, because they place in the eye of the imagination objects... otherwise... impossible for us to see or comprehend. For there is nothing in nature but what we may adapt its name to signify something else; and every object from which a likeness may be raised, as it may from all objects, if metaphorically applied...
-Cicero, De Oratore

>>19944268
The CIA have done a lot of dumb shit.

>>19943160
I'd just try not to let the change happen mid-chapter or paragraph unless it's externally recognized by a different character or something happens outside of himself to give him an epiphany. If he doesn't notice have other characters notice, have him notice things he wouldn't have before, have motifs in his thinking and have the way he thinks about them change so even if he doesn't notice the audience notices that his views have changed.
Those are my suggestions, but I'm sure you've already thought of them.
Remember words are a tool and only pseuds will think a book is bad because it doesn't use "complex" words, it's not the words you choose it's how you use them and purple prose should be a deadly sin.
Pseuds also think books are bad if the narrator doesn't stop halfway through and have his MC give themself both metaphorical and literal fellatio to show how the the post-ironic futility of the arrogant trying to change represented in the cock-sucking ouroborus.

Any music to write scenes of running from the cops to? Nothing really modern, it doesn't fit the "black swan" vibe I'm aiming for.

>>19944268
I find that hard to believe since the overwhelming majority of anti-establishment literature today tends to wards showing not telling. It is visceral. Sensationalist. Straight to the limbic system. The reason why everyone rolls their eyes at leftist literature is because it couches and obscures itself behind latinate suffix heavy words like pic related. it becomes so abstract as to be impenetrable to anyone who isn't familiar with the jargon
>the performativity in discursive gestures undertaken by postcolonialist narrativists leverages neo-scientific-racisism rhetorical tropes
snoooore.
Not that I'm accusing you of doing that, but you must see it all as a spectrum where there is ease of communication in the middle: the visceral and visual kind, and then the more diegetic abstract kind on the edges. The visceral and visceral is always going to be more easily understood

>>19943515
>>19943545
>>19943560
when I read these posts I have a sinking feeling in my heart, I hate zoomers

You guys actually read the shit people post or just read the first paragraph? I'm fucking sick of going to normie writing groups where everyone wants to talk about writing without actually doing anything meaningful, where no one critiques anyone's work.

>>19944348
>You guys actually read the shit people post or just read the first paragraph?
Depends. Post what you have Anon.

>>19943515
>Singing
Do you really think people know the word singe? I bet they all read the word like the act of making melody with voice.

Just use burn. Slept isn't even a word anymore. It's now sleeped

>>19944348
>You guys actually read the shit people post or just read the first paragraph?
I do. I haven't read anything in this thread but I do read beyond the first paragraph as an exercise in self-discipline.

>>19944324
ask me how I know you loved the champagne socialist propaganda piece that is Disco Elysium

>>19944324
I don't get this weird overthinking about show don't tell, if anything I see in more modern literature that everyone explains and explains instead of giving you a scene and letting you puzzle it up. If you see someone's room and there's trash on the floor anfd cobwebs hanging from the ceiling it paints a better picture than telling me that the character is living a disorderly life.

>>19944374
Anon just doesn't know that singeing is a real word, forgive him.

HERE'S the first third of my short story I've been thinking of. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6777r4czrrq6owz/what.pdf?dl=0

>>19944348
I do but I request they also read my work in turn, since that's only fair. Most writing here is not exactly pleasurable to read. Improvement is a boring process.

>>19944387
I'll be honest, I did not know the e is kept for singeing

>>19944380
You flatter me by assuming I'm well read, but seriously I have never heard of that book before. And I hope it's a recent book (post 200) so I at least don't sound like a total philistine.
>>19944383
Exactly. much better than "trust me, it's all crazy and disordered here"

>>19944413
*post 2000
Although that would be gigachad if I was like >doesn't read anything written after the reign of Caracalla

>>19944259
Royal Road.

>>19944424
>>19944413
It's a well-written, well-reviewed, and well-disguised adventure game bordering on an interactive novel that subtly attempts to skew the player's political views to align with those of the developers. It pretends to deride all political stances equally, but if you know how to spot this shit it's pretty obvious it's supposed to make a vague ideal of communalism seem like the only real option while undermining all other options.

>>19944259
Degrees of lewdity

>>19944361
>>19944378
https://pastebin.com/h5uQzSB7

It's a victorian era noir with romance in it.
The premise is the son of a wealthy merchant family runs away from home after coming home from war, abandoning his duties, and goes to the capitol to pursue writing.
15 years later he's freeloading at a women's bathhouse and in the dead of winter, he finds himself framed for the murder of another woman.
I would like to hear your guys thoughts on it and specifically on how the vibe and atmosphere feels.

How many synonyms of dick is there?

I hate weebs, you're all faggots

>>19944579
No idea, but the worst one I've ever read in a romance novel is "manroot".

sooo... can someone take a look at my story and give me some advice?

>>19944348
I'm reading the Emily book that got posted last thread still. Usually if people just post a paragraph with no context I ignore it. I'm very busy in my personal life so I feel bad not being able to help out for critiques.

>>19944187
>>19944194
Crosspost it on Spacebattles too.

>>19944864
How useful would this actually be? I didn't think Spacebattles had a notable audience. Would SB be a good way of capturing new readers?

>>19944881
Yes. Almost all the notable top rated stories started on SB, like Beware of Chicken, Stray Cat Strut, and many more I can't be bothered naming.

>>19944889
Guess I'll have to crosspost my whole fic onto SB then.

>>19944920
crosspost everywhere is what I mean to get at, not just SB

>>19944930
I can't handle 8 different fucking platforms

>>19944934
then PERISH

>>19944935
I just might, I didn't think a site could have worse tables than SH but SB has impressed me

So i have a conundrum; at what point is poor writing contributing to the polution of literature in general.
I get that you have to write a lot to get good, but at what point is consionable to accost beta cucks with your work?
Even then if they upvote it but you still think its not good enough to be published, do you go with your loins and only post when your need for autistic perfection has been satiated?

>>19945042
Drop your pretentions of perfectionism. Write garbage, take criticism, get better.

>>19945042
There's shit writing and unreadable writing. Most writers fall under unreadable. Which is about 90% of people. Then of the shit writers that can write, realize their writing is shit. So that's another 90%. Then of those 10% only one emerges as a classic.

>>19945074
Alright, that's an overly uncharitable statement. You can't brand vaguely okayish schlock as "violently average" and then act as if the average is much higher than it truly is.

Come on, anon. I've read shitpost greentexts written better than many popular lowest-common-denominator novels.

I keep wanting to add more to a story I thought I had finished, my attempts at creating short stories in the same universe I feel would be better off incorporated into the original story. what do?

>>19945087
timeskip and write a sequel, of course

>>19945091
this makes sense, thanks anon

>>19944864
>Spacebattles
People are posting warhammer 40k fanfic and posting codex pages along with it. Is that allowed? Surely, GW is cracking down on plagiarism, pirating, and derivative stuff.

>>19945114
GW only cares about fan animation/fangames

I wrote this today. Kindly want to know what do you think of it bros

>>19945213
I enjoyed it

>>19944860
Aahhhh stop reading!!! I found tons of typos later!!! And even a missing word!!! Does Google docs randomly erase words? Either way it's shit and needs to be edited like crazy now!!!

>>19945091
This is actually my plan if, by some miracle, my webnovel takes off. It's pretty firmly planned out to be three main parts and wouldn't work well past those, however the universe itself can easily survive and even benefit from a timeskip. Readers would probably be pissed about me axing the whole cast though.
>implying I'm going to be successful
lol, lmao

>>19943469
How the fuck is this different than the light novel isekai/mmo shit nipps have

>>19945601
It's not really, it's just the anglo version. The average LitRPG is more creative than the jap version, however, which is fucking sad when you think about it.

>>19945213
I feel the third and fourth stanzas lack something. The ambition to fly in and of itself doesn't feel vivid enough to me, like you've tried to bring some concreteness to it with 'to the edge of the sky'. But I can't help but read this as just using the caterpillar to express the generic yearning by someone, possibly a suburbanite, to be someplace else.

>>19942503
I always feel that to truly write, I have to set aside a lengthy amount of time. I'm very unmotivated to write in bits and pieces whenever I have free time in between classes and such, but I wish I was more suited towards the latter. How do other anons like to write?

I just hit 25k words on my project and im quite happy with it so far, friends that have read whose opinions I take seriously have said it's terrific and maddening prose, that said - I feel like everything is just a lot of buildup and farcical red herrings and I have a good idea of how it all connects into a single process but im struggling with the characters the most- they all feel one-note and I'm starting to wonder if the lack of real conflict/stakes is dragging the entire ship down too heavily at this point.

How do I do peril, /wg/? Ever since I've started writing I've always been mindful of a certain kind of cruelty you'll see an author impose on their character (see Lars von trier's dancer in the dark) and want to avoid this but still have a sense of danger.

>>19945738
I sure hope whatever you're writing doesn't consist of more 100-word sentences.

>>19945813
Anon was no mere faggot: he asserted proof of faggotry through judicious run-on sentences, jamming words together with gay and homosexual abandon; this affectation did not affect his affect, not effect any effect, but solely served to sever his shreds of slipping soul, running through the thread like cum through a beard or men through his bed or horse-cocks through his weak-chinned head, swimming in the pool of his own verbal ejaculations as he swam through the literal ejaculate of others: quickly, eagerly, slurpingly, supinely, shuddering in the sheer showers of sultry semitic seamen's semen, sinking submarine-like to send shivers spiralling through spine and scrotum, cerebral cortex cocked and loaded and ready to fire hot loads onto cold chodes - in back-alleys, or sprawled beside roads, or in strangers' abodes.

Holy shit I just read the preview of some litrpg on Amazon. I had never actually seen one before.

Who reads this trash??

>>19945813

Try 1000-word sentences

It's kino

>>19945906
>Who reads this trash?
Make it one. I’m in.

>>19942503
Anyone read this and have thoughts on it? It’s SS Van Dines rules for writing detective stories…
http://gaslight-lit.s3-website.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com/gaslight/vandine.htm

>>19945325
Fine, but you owe me for my time. I want a copy of the Emily robot sent to my house right now.

>>19945990
Will I be gaslighted?

>>19946091
By what? Huh?

>>19945715
I try to snag an hour or so a day uninterrupted and only with my word documents. Rarely I'll get on my phone and dump out an idea or short scene I just thought of. Writing pen and paper is also rare for me, though I've done it in the past. It's important for me to scribble ideas when they come and do the heavy lifting on my computer at home in the same area, at the same time, with similar music going if needed.

>>19945286
thanks anon

>>19945658
thanks for the feedback, anon. Really appreciate it. I guess I should exercise my vocabulary more. Do you know any recommended books? ( other than Shakespeare's Sonnets)

How do I make a unique magic system? I feel shackled to the asian inspired mixed with judeo Christian shit I’ve been consuming my whole life ughh

>>19946226
Hard magic is a mistake. Magic systems go against the wonder and awe magic is supposed to elicit.

>>19946230
Yeah but there has to be some logic so characters aren’t overpowered and there’s magic to learn imo

>>19946239
No. Gandalf was overpowered and that is good. Frodo didn't learn magic from him and that is also well.

>>19946247
How would harry potter have worked if there was no system?

>>19946247
But Gandalf wasn't overpowered. There were clear limits what he could do and what he couldn't.

>>19946250
What system? Magic does literally whatever Rowling wants it to do

>>19946271
Harry Potter is a school book example of how to not do magic.
>plot needs drama
>oh no magic stopped working for whatever reason
>plot reaches a dead end
>asspull magic nobody has ever heard of solves the situation!
>character sucks at magic
>well, they magically got better when they really needed to!

>>19946271
There’s clearly some order
Wizards can’t just reality warp with the flick of their wrist

>>19946624
Isn't that what magic is? Warping reality by waving your hand and saying key phrases?

>>19946090
Uh.. nevermind then. Read away! Also have a name you want to be put in the acknowledgement page?

The only characters I can write well are psychotic scientists. My "normal" characters all suck.

>>19946668
No, thanks. Even though I've got my own name out there, I thought your nod to strangers on the internet was fitting enough.

>sent manuscript to two local publishers
>both say up to three months waiting time on their sites.
>it's been 5 months now without any reply from either of them

At least let me die quickly.

>>19946747
Send them a letter that asks them if they're going to do anything with it because you're entertaining several other strong offers. They're just sitting on their hands so they can lowball you.

>>19943663
Same. I'm too sentimental to let anyone I create go, even if I scrapped the idea behind their creation. Like a hoarder for imaginary friends.

>>19946665
No?

>>19946800
Then what the actual fuck is magic if not a suspension of physical laws? You tell me that, Mr. Sanderson.

Any advice on using textured language to evoke disgust? Or any good examples of it in books you've read?

>>19946807
Scifi that doesn't bother trying to bullshit a scientific explanation, How explained the scifi is depends on the world

>>19946817
I give the disgusting things some "personality"
>the smell penetrated his nostrils and violated his sense of smell en depths he didnt know he could feel, etc

>>19946807
Energy manipulation through spells, runes, gestures, etc. Not all witches can just blink the universe out of existence. There are levels and limitations depending on the universe.

This pain of waiting is sometimes worse than rejection.

>>19945715
I have that habit too but Im getting better at when Im not busy somewhere pick up a notebook and stream of consciousness onto the page. Later I will take parts out to riff on if it fits. Having a seed to sublime onto really helps kickstart a writing session. Reading also helps me think by taking an idea and trying to transform it with an alternative view or rephrase it.

>>19946884
What is that

Does anyone here have a literary agent?

I'm getting a new place and need to replace my writing desk for something more sturdy. Does /wg/ have any recommendations on what to look for?

>>19946891
I’m not telling BWAHAHAHAHA.

Does this passage sound right, or is it clunky?

>>19946884
>>19946891
>>19946959
SUBMIIIIIITTTTTTAAAAAAAAAAABBBLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>19946977
Stacking weird imagery on top of another without connection isn’t doing it for me. Try to write about things plainly without telling too much, you’re really just vaguely gesturing at stuff now. Some of it is worded well but then something will seem disparate or strange afterwards.

>>19946986
All right, thank you. I'll try rewording it better.

>>19946981
Found any good journals on “discover”, anon? I try to keep an eye out for calls for submission but it’s hard to find every good journal/prize.

>>19946897
No, I have a physical agent

How many rapes does it take to seem comical?

>>19946282
Whatever CHUD. She’s made billions with her writing and influenced millions. What’ve you done?

>>19947063
It's a matter of frequency.

>>19947068
I read 1000 pages an hour.

>>19947068
>She’s made billions
I was counting seconds until this sublime riposte

>>19945525
I'm definitely planning to timeskip after my current arc is done, but that's to let me do a new POV MC that will meet the real MC and then have the story shift focus back to the real MC, so as to capture new readers and try my hand to see if I can pull off writing as if my already established MC was new.

>>19943456
Why are you considering compromising your work by appealing to the lowest common denominator of reader?

>when I write from a womens perspective

>>19947377
Because he’s realistic. There’s a difference between being a good, simple writer and being on the nose. Then there’s a pretentious nobody who thinks he’s good enough to do high wire feats, and he’s easily forgotten within not even a few years of being published.

>>19947470
>he doesn't write girlbosses

>>19947564
Any actually advice for this? I'm writing a character whos been raped but has more of an existential/nihilistic reaction rather than a traumatized victim reaction

>>19948007
People becoming "numb" or "emotionally callused" from trauma is much more common and realistic than typical portrayals of such. It could be a good tragic backstory combined with a justification for why your female MC is a hardass.

>>19948022
Ya her whole arc is shes a bright eyed college student who has to cope with how brutal reality can be

>>19948039
its a realistic rape, right? substances may be involved and someone she trusts pushed too far instead of some lunatic stalker throwing her in a van

What is the difference between lore and backstory?

>>19948125
Backstory is for a character, lore for a setting.
Maybe.

>>19948078
Nope lol its a horror story about darwins whole survival of the fittest mentality so a mutant murders all her friends and impregnates her lmao

>>19948159
Btw I reject that mentality which is what the story is kind of saying. That might makes right is an evil ideology

Does a character need to be sympathetic to be tragic?

>>19948213
>Does a character need to be sympathetic to be tragic?
I think so, terrible things happening to someone we dislike is justice. Terrible things happening to unknown people is a statistic. Terrible things happening to someone we sympathize for is tragedy

>>19948125
Lore is historical reasons to do stuff, backstory is personal reasons to do stuff. Lore might also include worldbuilding, but eh.

>>19948213
No. Tragedy is about characters that stand high being brought low. You COULD make it so the reader feels bad for the character, or maybe it's what they fuckin' deserve

>>19948213
Tragedy means a character that stands high and then is brought low.
If you want, you could try to make the reader feel bad for the character, but it could also be what they fuckin' deserve

>>19948125
Lore is the gay fantasy synonym for backstory

I've been trying to break into the habit of writing for a while now but I always seem to write here-and-there for a few weeks or months and then something comes up at university and I stop. I'm hoping that when I graduate this year and get some routine back in my life that I'll be able to write more often.

Does anyone have any advice to make writing a habit?

>>19948341
just write

>>19948341
start a webnovel
set an update schedule
ride the pressure of deadlines

>>19948368
Maybe once I finish my course this would be a pretty good idea - I'm already used to deadlines so that may as well carry over. Plus, I have an idea for a story that could fit the demo for royal road, or someplace like that.

Maybe we could make one of the thread OPs a writing challenge

If you write something serialised on RR, is there an expectation that there's some form of planning or can you get away with essentially making it up as you go along and perhaps not resolving things that you initially planted that didn't turn out to be interesting/worth continuing with?

>>19948414
Challenge 1: write a story that will make me not want to kill myself

>>19948446
you can do whatever you want senpai

>>19948446
No, not really. As long as you have a remotely congruent storyline and don't constantly shit on your own lore you'll have a good time.

...And don't include MalexMale gay or wokeshit, not too popular on RR. Lesbians go over well.

>>19948446
the problem with not having a backlog set up, which would indicate some sort of planning, is there is nothing more important than posting regularly.

>>19948341
Do a little of something with it every day. Even if it's just thinking of how you can tie in something you read with your stories. Keeping it actively in your head every day will make it easier to write in the long term since it becomes part of you

>>19942503
I have a 10,000 word script I need to write for a video of a game review and I am struggling with being productive and getting it done.

What do you do to be productive when you need to write? I am considering handwriting my script (and marking corrections in the margin) because I am struggling so hard to stay focused on computer.

>>19948538
Write by hand so i dont browse the web

>>19948538
Drink some energy drink and unplug your router

>>19948538
I limit myself to the sites I can visit. my main board for awhile was /pol/, but reading /pol/ just makes me upset. /tv/ is a better one because I don't watch television or seek out movies, and its honesty more fun to read about what's coming out than actually consuming it because its nearly all universally crap. I've also quit playing certain games because they're too easy to be addicted to and my writing output has improved because of those decisions. basically get some self control and wean yourself away from your most time consuming wastes of time. tomorrow is coming no matter what you do today, so try and be more productive today in order to have a better tomorrow.

>>19946817
>textured language
wut?

>>19948538
I usually just let the adhd flow and do 4 things at once. Music, game, write all at the same time. I found that having mutiple documents about the same work open helps somehow, like switching between em is the same topic but quells the need to do other shit.

>>19948731
>reading /pol/ just makes me upset.
Why?

Do people on /wg/ write fanfiction?

>>19949676
Probably about half of us but no one wants to admit it

>>19949676
I wrote fanfiction back in the day. It's how I learned to write.

>>19949675
Not OP, but same sentiment. I grew up during and contributed to the downfall of the commie regime, watching westoids let themselves get curbstomped instead of fighting back makes me sick to my stomach

>>19949676
I was in a naruto rp with a close kit of friends a decade ago

>>19949720
Entropy and evil always win, anon. You have to get used to that.

>>19949817
They don't. Me and mine are proof of that. Westoids are just demoralized. Fortunately there are those who still fight - canadian natives recently torched a pipeline and sabotaged heavy equipment.

I want to be someone that eventually you have to think really hard to even remember if I was real. Was I ever there? Just one person? What was their name?

>>19950370
And that writer's name was Albert Einstein

>>19943475
its a crime this story had 0 comments and reviewers that didn't even read 1/4 of it.

>Think of a fun idea for an erotica
>Decide I don't want to waste it on erotica and make it a regular story
>No one cares because it isn't erotica
How do I break this cycle

>>19949676
wanna see my shitty mass effect fanfiction?

I think I've come to accept my back breaking 40-50 hour a week job and writing after work and on weekends is my life style. It feels comfortable. There's a guy on YouTube named Oliver Phren that is a stellar piano player but he chose to be a bus driver. Something about that really resounded with me. If it ever takes off, it takes off, if it doesn't, it doesn't.

>>19950462
Time to write erotica, anon

>>19949676
Duh, that's how you get into writing in the first place. Then one day your fanfiction becomes different enough to be legally distinct and boom, you're a real writer.

>>19950481
Same with Q Lazzarus, the lady who sang Goodbye Horses. She just drives a bus on Staton Island now. I like my engineering job and I'm good at it, but writing is what I want. I think of Chekov's quote where medicine is his wife and writing is his mistress. Mine is the other way around.

>>19950498
Fanfiction writers are real writers.

>>19950509
>https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/39336/valkyries-shadow
>literally better than what it's based on
>also better than 95% of the stories on the site
It really depends on what you mean by fanfic.

Is there any /ll/ books? I'm so thirsty....

Anyone down to actually read my prologue?
Do people here actually read shit?

>>19950623
I read stories, not prologues

>>19950623
I never learned how to read. I trained my cat to read for me and type out what I want to say.

>>19942865
>visual novels
What visual novels are they? I'm interested

>>19950659
I'll open yume miru kusuri and write with that in the background, denpa is something I'm planning on looking into. How they make that strange atmosphere

if my short story is only 1700 words does that mean I skimped out too much on fattening up the details and characters?

>>19950676
>does that mean I skimped out too much on fattening up the details and characters?
I dont know, did you?
Only write as much as you need Anon, if you want opinions on if the story is complete enough you'll have to let someone read it; 1,000 words is enough for one person to tell a great story, but for another they'll write 15,000 to tell an equally great story. Long doesn't (neccesarily) mean good and short doesn't (neccesarily) mean bad.

>>19950406
I think you're trying to compliment me? Thanks.

I have 19 comments, and the first two reviews occured after reading everything available at the time.

So...should I finish my book before I ask for feedback?

>>19950923
Yes or dump a paragraph you think is good. Then when we tear it to shreds you learn.

When is it okay to infodump?

>>19950930
https://pastebin.com/dSz1egYk

788 words. This is my hook. It's from the end of my prologue. Tear it to shreds.

Got my first comment within hours of having my RR post approved. Feels good man.

>know for a fact I have too many major characters
>currently at 8, should probably be at like 6
>too attached to their characters squash any of them
im such a faggot

>>19950948
stop using so many ellipses

I've got an opportunity to write a webcomic. I can choose literally any story I want and my friend is happy to supply the illustrations. I think it'd be good practice for both him and I in our preferred modes of art to collaborate together.
However, I've got some questions that I'd like help in answering:

How would writing for a webcomic be different to a novel? Is there anything I should pay more or less attention to in the writing process?
As for genres, are people sick of the superhero genre yet? Is it too oversaturated at this point? I'm not interested writing romance so I'm looking at what other options there are.

If anyone would be able to help me out I'd gladly appreciate it, thanks.

>>19951336
pacing is faster. People expect the story to be significantly different by the end of each episode. Otherwise it'll feel like a slowburn every week

>>19951273
I have 17 in my current book, and 14 of them are main or main-secondary characters

>>19951273
You could just make them smaller characters.

>>19951265
What did the comment say?

>>19951341
>>19951342
problem is it's a "party" of characters who are in the wilderness for most of the story. i cant give any of them smaller roles without removing them from the group.

>>19951371
You could swap characters in and out.

>>19951336
There is this mangaka who can't draw but writers good stories so his publisher got him someone who was very good at drawing. What he does is he writes the story and then he draws the panels with the important details roughly just so the guy who is going to draw it doesn't miss things in the background or where characters are supposed to be positioned and then he let's the other guy do his job.
They NEVER talk to each other directly and once he sends the manga draft he can't change anything.
Seems to work very well for them.

>>19951371
what if you write in the story that one of the characters leave? maybe one of the characters has to stay behind and catches up later with the party for some reason, or someone is sent off to retrieve something, one of the party goes missing etc.

>>19942503
First, we go to TJ Maxx, buy a bunch of inexpensive but decent looking clothes, and cut our hair short to begin our attempt at becoming the All-American bro. We go to the nearby daily mass after our morning gym sesh and use the moment of silence following the communion to think about the best way to live as a good person. We inevitably come to the conclusion that the best life involves a family, a house, a dog, and the almighty glory of Effective Altruism. We educate ourselves on the stock market every afternoon for at least four hours, populating our bookmarks bar with pages from Investopedia and the NYSE. We quit watching porn and avoid our nightly plunge down the endless shaft of online rabbit holes, filling our time instead with dates and evenings out with friends. Now we go on dates frequently since we have upped our game, slightly lowered our standards, and plastered our profile with photos of fun and relatable times with the bros (like that time we all went to the beach together and had a blast). We blast Khalid on the aux cord.

We abandon our creative ambitions and prostrate ourselves before the gods of computer science and/or economics, working like a man possessed to catch up on what we missed. We network aggressively by befriending the most intelligent-seeming person in each class, but also keep a watchful eye out for shifty maverick types who might pioneer the next big thing in tech. We graduate from our state college with top grades (well, as good as we can manage, having made a downright mess of things before our Eureka moment) but if not, compensate for it with a not unenviable list of projects and internships. We start working at a respectable company, conducting ourself as someone who is team-oriented, outgoing, and not without a sense of humor- but also hardworking and assertive when the need arises. The unspoken goal at this point is to rise to the top of the corporate hierarchy and enjoy the accompanying benefits- or to break off and to live the startup life, we tell ourselves when we wake up feeling dangerous. When we have amassed a good deal of money through our salary and stocks we start looking to get married, going on more dates and vetting the lifestyle of each woman we meet through a combination of subtle yet discerning questions and online background checks to ensure that our children will be raised under the most optimal conditions. Not many hold up to our scrutiny.

>>19951499

When we meet the right one, we know it, because we feel not only a palpable attraction to her but also a comfortable and placid happiness in her presence, and think that we can spend decades eating meals together without wanting to blow our brains out. She's smart, not terrible in bed and the perfect foil to our shortcomings- a child of immigrants and also lost a dog too- and most importantly gets along pretty well with our parents. Speaking of parents, the surge of pride and happiness they felt when we we suddenly arighted our course has still not worn off. Once they passed on an invitation from a local hagwon who wanted us to speak before a few students weren't applying themselves- for a few days after work we draft cliches about the power of the work ethic and good habits and how it's not too late to turn things around, but ultimately decided not to go. We sell a good portion of of our stock and purchase a nice home in time for the arrival of our first child. When the few remaining artistic acquaintances in our life (who are still toiling through late night recording sessions and gigs to pay rent) swing by and say we must be rich, we respond by saying, "Oh, we're comfortable."

As we roll into middle age the house is filled with the barking of multiple dogs, all of uncertain breed- starting with one, then another because it seemed lonely, only to incite a rabid jealousy in the the original, which we then tried to fix by getting a third and partitioning a set amount of love for each in an egalitarian communism of human-to-dog affection. We talk about doing this with our own children. We fill the days by collecting obscure vinyl records, undertaking various house expansion projects, getting into somewhat unnecessary arguments with the wife about reshingling the roof- whether we can do it on our own and if we honestly really need a fucking professional to do something I am more than capable of doing for the love of god. We ensure that we avoid becoming complacent at work like many of our old friends at the office and keep an eagle eye on the old guard, who are dropping like flies. True to our word, we section off a sizeable chunk of our income and contribute it to charities of the family's choosing- at the start of every month we ask the kids at the dinner table to research and choose one- but when word of this gets out our family gets dirty looks at church from the clergy. This is less than ideal because confession has become something we rely on quite heavily- it gives us peace of mind after we can't help but chew out that one employee of ours who still can't speak English so well after years of living in the country. He reminds us somewhat of our father.

>>19942503
Is it better to underwrite or overwrite?

I've been working on a first draft. By overwriting. I know this scene can be easily underwritten by writing
>Meeting ends. Protag meets Yang and is reminded of his sister. But they both don't know they're long lost siblings yet. Charlotte asks Protag to meet at midnight. Marina asks Protag not to meet Charlotte because she thinks Charlotte is untrustworthy
But I'm not sure if that's better

>>19951507
Underwriting feels cheap, overwriting feels like a waste. Pick your poison.
In my opinion overwriting is mildly better.

>>19944374
>It's now sleeped
I both want to demand you prove it and am afraid to find out the truth. There's no way people say or write "I sleeped through my alarm".
Although I do sometimes see articles online of "25 archaic words we should totally bring back" where 20/25 of the words are ones I use semi-regularly in normal conversation so I shouldn't be too shocked by your claim.

How the fuck do I stop writing cringe?

The mahogany wall clock on the wall in the office of the east wing room dessicantly ticked softly as the fat bearded man behind the desk began to part his lips. He slothfully said a phrase but the brooding youth in front of him with cool undertones paid the words no heed. In the hallway a group of students sat in a row waiting for their turn to speak to the fat man in the office behind the desk. The brooding youth frustrated two generations at once. Tick. The time passed on the clock on the wall in the office. Nothing but steely eyed silence between these two men. One set of eyes counted the tiles on the floor of the office in the east wing. Another glassier set of eyes awaited a response and stared at the shaggy head of onyx blackened hair in front of him. Tick. Like a gentle houseglass filled with mildew. The fat man uttered some kind of passive dismissal, and the youth rose from the chair and walked out of the office, forever leaving behind the mahogany wall clock on the wall in the office of the east wing room

>>19944616
> worst
> not Anglo-Saxon kenning tier

Many those maids upon the manroot who mended our morale
I tried to write a second line but I'm not that good... canal?

Hey would anyone be willing to take a look at this paragraph I wrote? It's not a lot, I'm just doing a thing where I have to write a narrative in +- 250 words, and some input would be really appreciated.

Thoughts on pulp fiction writing?

Sorry I'm retarded, ignore the Descartes thing total accident

>>19951587
>The mahogany wall clock on the wall
Anon.

>>19951565
You don't. Accept that your writing is cringe and free yourself to write the cringe you want.

The decor has been updated. Dramatic dildonics adorn the hall, these myriad phalluses throbbing in sculpture out from the walls, sprouting from the floor, a veritable graveyard of penises, they come cut and uncut, trimmed and untrimmed, from every angle by which the eye might pass; penises light and dark, large and small, some curving upwards, others in helices reaching up in pairs of two, in triplicate or more, towards the now-darkened lamplights, some rakish penises angled askance, others laid low along the ground; veiny, smooth, hard, soft, every possible configuration of cock expressing some dick dreamer's interminable gnosis, interred here for all eternity—or what remains of it—here in marble, in granite there, some chrysoprase detailing on lacquered hardwoods—ebony, hickory, olivewood—streams of gold sprouting mock-molten from rosewood glans… there are chairs here whose peniform backings rise from cushions of bristling black boarshair, felted brown upholstery, bare alder, to droop lazily down upon the seated’s ostensible shoulder, the crook of its laconic wooden foreskin inviting rest beneath its shade, the embrace would be warm and caring, like sitting under a banyan at the height of summer… and, in the distant past, were one to sit upon one of these chaises, he or she might have listened at dusk, the lights glowed down to incandescence, the timbre of campfire, to waters flowing, gently perhaps, from the pièce de résistance, whose flaccid Greek proportions bely a sheer magnitude of scope—its descent from the high-vaulted ceiling, some fifty or sixty feet up, drags nearly its terminant foreskin across the lobby floor—emitting waters which once flowed steady, dribbled fits and starts, or gushed voluminous bursts into an ornate and embossed circular basin of immense proportion held aloft by a colonnade in keeping with the finest of Ionian tradition, and whose facade entablature might have been carved by Michaelangelo himself… and which bears still a mysterious ammonic smell whose origin I cannot imagine nor postulate.

>>19951565
Stop using words like cringe

Man and the lion; set loose to return.
The enemy stood outside in the flames, and Beelzebub was lord of the flies.
Once there was pride, and attachment to perishable passions, and above all; PANIC! Which penetrates the heart , to the moral and intellectual DNA.

>>19951639
Your writing feels wooden. It's not evocative. Dramatic things are happening, but there's no dramatic tension. The opening is vague and too long. There are no suprises and revelations (except the "there's a lynching going on, by the way" part).

Is it possible to write a protagonist as simultaneously driven, determined, full of hunger and desire, but also sullen, listless, and hopeless? As being full of anger and resentment, wishing to escape the circumstances they're in, while also being caught up in the impossibility?

Are there any notable examples of characters with this sort of duality?

>>19952506
Cardboard cutouts have attributes. They are permanently in the state evoked by their design. Maybe they have a driven pose, a hungry pose, or maybe they have a sullen pose. They exist like this until someone comes and takes it down, to replace it with another snapshot.

The way you've framed this question implies an ignorance not of writing, but of human nature. People act different ways in different contexts. People often talk about "flawed" characters being interesting. They are completely right, but it's supported by spurious reasoning, by which a flaw becomes just a negative trait. A "flawed" character, in its most perfect implementation is not one with some negative characteristics peppered in, but one whose traits are applied imperfectly. A character whose mix of characteristics is perfect is still a flawless character. It's just a flawlessly good but negative character.

Real human beings aren't lists of traits. They're implementations of different traits in different contexts. They don't save the girl every time but ah fuck better kick that puppy on the way home. They're trying to do their best but failing—all the time and every day.

Try to pay more attention to the reality of the human condition than you do to ways in which other, similarly clueless authors, cobble together golems of human parts to make them dance the literary Macarena.

>>19943098
I’ve noticed that usually a book like this is no good if it shills over one concept only. They often feel wise but they reverse engineer the facts that prove their point from cherry picked dataset. It also seems that the target audience is always a failed writer, not an aspiring writer. Author almost always is a failed writer herself (authors of this genre are always liberal-leftist- leaning women writing for an oversaturated market of another one like herself.
It’s always an elongated blogpost in the style of 15 Things That Every Writer Needs To Know In 2022. Enough of it. In the other hand, if a man writes a book about writing it is always written in inspiration for aspiring writers because the author is truly a succesful writer and has had a considerable career or life story to back him up.

>>19952617
>People act different ways in different contexts.
I appreciate your response, and believe this to be the most critical point of your post. To clarify my question was less so about writing a "flawed character", and more about the juxtaposition of contradictory traits. When listing those conflicting sets of ideas and behaviors I wasn't thinking in terms of "positive and negative" or "a perfect balance of elements", but rather the writing that goes into a character with extreme dissonance.

If you consider the concept that all human beings are a mess of contradictions it's a question as simple as "How do I write people?" But this is such a broad question that asking it generally is almost useless. And because I lack the ability to birth the complexities of a truly complete persona inside my own mind, my only recourse is to compartmentalize and consider the interactions of specific elements and traits. Maybe this betrays a limited understanding of human nature, but I consider myself to be far from a complete person anyway. If I'm to create a golem, I should like it's shadow to dance suitably to the confines of the cave it was born in.

>>19951639
I agree with other anon on the beginning- it's a meandering and overly telly intro for a violent massacre. I wasn't even sure by the end what the boy's relationship to any of it was.

The action and characters felt very distant from me as a reader. I think this is because the POV was unclear- I couldn't see into the boys mind (and his face is described as an outside observer) but there also wasn't a clear narrator.

>>19952729
I regret calling you clueless, for what it's worth. I'm just as clueless as anyone, and that should (hopefully) be implicit in what I've said. Make the golem dance a jig, anon. I don't think anyone can hold the entirety of another person in their heads. Anyone who thinks they can is lying to themselves. I just think that more realism can be found in the try-fail dynamic and letting context and whimsy define the rest. What is your character trying to do? In each instantiation of the attempt, how does he fail or succeed? Why? I think these are the things themselves TO WHICH we retroactively apply the qualities you laid out here >>19952506, rather than the other way around. It might be more helpful to keep that in mind as you are in the process of writing that character which has those traits. They are derivative of the pattern of the acts, in my opinion. The acts are not expressions of the traits.

If you can find the nuance in that and think it's helpful, great. If not, feel free to dismiss it. We're all just flailing around trying to find what works. It's what makes us human.

>>19951639
Plain fields turning into summer fields and then wintery fields, then autumny fields. Taxing to read. Boy watches the mud burn; meh. To me, the story starts at the boy watched at the men part. Almost gave up many times before that. It somehow reminded me of the opening from that eighties classic Conan film.

>>19951639
>In the summer they were often an impressive sight

How did the fields go on, did they roll? What made them impressive, who are/were the people that worked on them. Right now they sound like a liminal space surrounding the house.

I think if you're going to talk about the fields you have really build them up to juxtapose someone taking a fat shit on the house/community that toiled in them. I want to interrupt this as a beautiful farm, something to behold, but someone has come along and ruined it. There have to be stakes As it reads right now to me, it feels like a boring farm that just happens to be on fire.

General details about the rest.

I want to know what the smoke looks like, how is it billowing. is the air still or is it blowing. is it cold enough to see the breath of the men. are they sliding around in the mud. Was the shot a rifle, how did it sound. Did it ring out, did it snap, did it crack, was it muffled because she had been carted out, and how did they revel exactly?

I didn't dislike this at all, but I consume a lot of writing, keep that in mind.

I hope the next /wg/ doesn't rely on this degenerate anime faggotry in the OP.

What's the difference between writing a "strong woman" and a "rancid cunt"?

>>19951563
Let's just say this. "Sleeped" isn't spell checked.

When should I info dump?

>>19953000
At the very beginning. Like the opening text crawl of a poorly written sci fi or fantasy movie.

man i just like the sound of certain words.
i literally use them because they sound so cool and musical to my ears.

niiiiiiiiiiigggggggggggeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

>>19953000
Whenever you feel like it. Just be aware, if you do it where you think a reader might not want it, you should go out of your way to make sure he knows you think he's a simpering, wet little cunt and that since it's YOUR book, he can go fuck himself.

Preferably, do it with humor.

How do you name a serialised story if you aren't sure what its going to end up like?

>>19953081
Make it an ambiguous Shakespeare reference

>>19951499
>>19951504
We do X.

>>19952993
A strong woman is an independent character in her own right. A rancid cunt makes a showing of it.

Help out a non-native English speaker: Is it "treatises on this subject" or "treatises of this subject"?

>>19953358
the first one

>>19942503
I'm writing a manga, what books would be good to read? It's basically just dialogue/thoughts/narrator

>>19953426
Don't read books for style.

How do I deal with not having sophisticated taste?

>read super hyped universally acclaimed book
>it's okay
>read something derided as trash
>also okay, not really that much worse than the first one

Like I can tell if the technical parts were done well, but when it comes to subjective taste matters it feels like I live in a different world, people praise characters for being likable or funny when I found them boring, people praise plots for being new and exciting and they felt played out and derivative to me, they project some larger than life themes onto them when they felt pretty unambitious to me, or it in the reverse case just pretentious. How can I write my own stories knowing I don't resonate with these things and don't want them in my stories.

What's the best way to make children's books?

>>19953539
universally acclaimed works are oftentimes not actually as good as they are lauded to me
Harry Potter is the most obvious example

this is because the average reader is a retarded normie

>>19953426
You're not writing manga, you're not Japanese and you never will be Japanese.

>>19953553
That's what writers need to aim for. You think writing is art? No it's a product to sell

Life's too short to write sanitized shit. Write your fetishes into your story. Live through your writing.

>>19953553
Maybe I'm a brainlet, but the Harry Potter books read like crack. Very easy to understand, and good hooks that keep you going.

>>19953442
Started reading the classics

>>19953599
I don't want to be Japanese, anon. I'm not a weeb

I thought litrpg was basically a choose your own adventure, maybe fan fiction. I just listened to 40 minutes of what was pretty highly reviewed litrpg. It was just some douche bag narrating a menu screen and how much damage they did on a swing. Why on earth would anyone read that over fan fic or a well done choose your own adventure

>>19953610
Life's too short to listen to other peoples' advice.

>>19953827
Life's too short to read what other people write.

>>19953843
Life's too short to write at all.

>>19953717
Wait so litRPG is for people who couldn't be bothered to make their dream game so they write about it like an ARG instead?

Damn. I used to do that when I was like 11.

Is looking up a generic lesson plan the best way to go for describing one? I need to write one that includes general music education and specified instruments to introduce a student to music and instruments they connect with and want to learn. How would you structure that in the context of a story? It's about a platonic student teacher relationship. Mentor to mentee.

>>19953909
> be autistic
> get autism bucks from government
> write books for autists
> they send you a percentage of their autism bucks to patronize your craft

Really, it's a genius move and I wish I had been autistic enough to invent it.

>>19953910
Is there going to be sex involved? I ain't reading it unless there's lots of innuendo and disgusting sex scenes

>>19954008
It's going to be something like a happy ending for lolita, involving my waifu.

>>19954028
Sounds pretty comfy. The world could use more comfy fiction.

>>19952993
A strong woman doesn't need to put people down to show she is above and she should not be an imitation of a man. She still retains the qualities and flaws of a woman and should act in that way.
A rancid cunt believes there are no inherit man/woman traits and so emulates strong man in order to show her strength. She can't be a strong woman because she is just imitating a man and so she is a strong man who happens to be female.

>>19954312
A pithy little saying I say to myself to distinguish them is a strong man conquers a strong woman civilizes. A rancid cunt will be a woman who tries to conquer and a man who tries to civilize will end up looking like an effette poof. That isn't to say that men can't bring order or peace and that women can't overcome others or obstacles but the over-arching theme of their behavior should be oriented so that a strong male character is through whatever means and whatever context raising himself up and throwing down his obstacles while a strong woman is coming into a situation and settling it into it's proper place. Dad can go out because Mom is overseeing the home. Mom can raise the kids because the dad's of the world have tamed the wilder parts of the world.
Or if that's too traditionalistic a strong male business executive takes charge, has initiative and secures big mergers. A strong female business executive keeps the team working toward the same goal making sure nobody goes off script and that the accounts are all in order.
Both are very different kinds of leadership, both are very important kinds of leadership but an A type male and an A type female are going to be more inclined towards the one or the other according to their natural inclinations and when they step outside of that they cease to be A type personalities.

>>19954395
By those standards, female swords-and-sorcery protags are rancid cunts. A woman can be strong and even manly in the amazonian sense without being a butch lesbian rancid cunt

>>19954415
Compare Valeria from Conan the Barbarian to Zula from Conan the Conqueror and I think you'll see that my take still holds up.
Or Red Sonja with Belit from the queen of the black coast if you like.

>get drunk on friday
>come home and feel a creative boon
>write for hours thinking I'm a genius
>wake up and read my work
>it's incomprehensible garbage
WHAT A LIFE

>>19954520
I've tried to do this on purpose but even if I get smashed my actual personality barely changes, i just feel fucked

>>19954520
Here's the pro strat. Publish it under the title "Shit" people read it and think "this books is shit" and then they look at the title and think that it's on purpose and that there's a deeper meaning to it all and bing, bang, boom you're the next guy who wrote Ulysses.

>>19954520
>>19954541
Getting drunk is fucked anyways.

>>19954520
I'm convinced writing while drunk is a meme. Obviously people historically were alcoholics and wrote well but how many actually drunk *while* writing.

>>19949676
I cut my teeth writing a "Morrowind" fanfic set in Elsweyr. I must have been a dumb kid because I never thought I could "be a writer" prior but then realized I was basically doing my own thing.

>>19951951
>>19952770
>>19952890
>>19952965
Thanks for the suggestions guys, ill try to focus on the boy I think for my rewrite. I find writing in such short form to be difficult so I tried to mostly focus on an image I thought was evocative but perhaps I wasn't quite successful with that either. Anyway I really appreciate it dudes.

baking with some links i've seen around here

>>19955093
>>19955093