/lit/ - Literature

>>19965611
>start writing a fantasy short story
>it balloons to 25k words and still unfinished
This is why so many fantasy series consist of many thick-ass books. You just keep coming up with new shit.

>>19965648
This guy should drop the knife and just use the sword two-handed. Completely impractical fighting style.

>>19965652
Tell that to Musashi

>>19965652
Sword+Knife was historically one of the only truly practical dual-wielding combat styles, brain champion. It doesn't matter either way, the obsession with faux-realism in fiction is cancer. Your glorified GoT/Witcher fanfic isn't gritty and grounded, it's unengaging misery porn.

>>19965674
My story isn't misery porn. My plucky young adventurer dual wields enchanted bardiches while accumulating a harem of boys and girls.

>>19964400
You should turn that into a children's book. Comfy, funny and entertaining full of drawings sounds perfect for the genre.

>>19965674
With that sword? That heavy sword balanced for two-handed combat? He’s not cutting shit swinging that. Sword+knife is practical with a short, light sword.

>>19965611
>still shilling garbage in the OP

>>19965674
This, I like it when my fantasy have people dual wielding two double edged axes

For a fantasy isekai series about an MC getting stronger (among more important narrative elements), Is it a fundamentally flawed idea that the most dangerous enemies have, as their main power, the ability to paralyze him?

I want to focus the magic on dreams, which seems to me that the natural monsters to focus on would be sleep paralysis demons, but that pushes me into a somewhat binary situation.

Either the character can't move and is helpless, or they can and they win the fight.

Maybe I take the angle that the paralysis demon can only target one person at a time and they need a comrade to fight it off for them? Which would make being alone the most dangerous thing, which could have some nice friendship themes built into it.

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

Chapter 27 just went live. I'm going to have the rest of the Act finished this week. Probably another 15 chapters to bring it to a close and start the next narrative segment.

Cringing at the fact that I'm about to write a 2k word chapter that's nothing but a fucking sword fight.

>>19965757
>>19965611
Don't write a fantasy isekai about a guy getting stronger. Write an isekai about a guy struggling to fit in with the medieval world he's been transported to. Or write one about a guy being reincarnated and just living a simple and normal, but good life. No special powers or anything, just using his brain to accumulate wealth and a wife and kids.

>>19965742
Well maybe you shouldn't have been so fucking lazy and started the new thread yourself, you worthless sack of shit.

>>19965778
No, I'll write what I want to write. And what I want to write is character growth paralleled by growth in physical strength/combat prowess. That his breakthroughs in Ki require him to fix his own issues, both mental and spiritual to make it very obvious that his own shortcomings are what hold him back. That he needs to become a better person in order to succeed and that the biggest obstacle to that is himself.

>>19965781
Or you could just stop shilling fucking garbage you lazy shitwit.

>>19965788
You're the one who couldn't even bother to start the new thread, you dumb fucking nigger! You have no place to call me lazy.

It's your chance.

>>19965785
That's fine but how are you differentiating this from all the other fighting shounen/isekai/wuxia/xianxia that have similar structures?

>>19965611
>isekai
>dropped
never picked up

>>19965880
You don't understand how to sell books, do you.

Is there any point to writing if you know you will never be published or read by anyone?

>>19965880
>how are you differentiating this from all the other [pimp games] that have similar structures?
Our pimps are at sea

>>19965611
>got sick over the weekend
>have to stay home from work
>get to spend the day writing and watching Arcane for the first time
>mfw it just started raining

Good afternoon, gents.
It's been a... less than pleasant start of the week, but tomorrow should make things more writing-friendly.

I think we've talked about real time interactive fiction before, but what do you all make of it? Tried it out yet?

>>19965880
You significantly overestimate how easy it is to differentiate in this ultar-homogenous genre. The tiniest variation and spins on things will get lauded by reviewers as original and new. I speak from experience.

>>19966033
You mean rolepalying?

>>19966050
It's different. it goes more along the path of a gamebook that gets its chapters added in real time, as the readers collectively pick a route

>>19966033
*unzips dick*

>>19966096
Sounds like it would be really hard to make the gimmick work without an existing audience.

>>19965771
>I'm about to write a 2k word chapter that's nothing but a fucking sword fight
I feel that. The next chapter I'm dropping in a couple days is a 1v1 duel, and fights are just, I don't know. Half the chapter is some cleanup from the previous one and people talking and conflict regarding that, but then the rest, like 1.5k-2k words is the actual fight. It needs to be gripping and exciting and I just need to muscle through it. I had a draft version of the fight but that's basically been blown to pieces with the way the story has developed in editing, so I can salvage a bit, certainly the ending, but the meat of the fight needs to be completely created from nothing.

>>19966117
Naturally. I suppose we could run a prototype around here...

>>19965754
While eating potatoes and wearing their purple full plate armor

>>19966033
At this point I've written nearly half a million words of interactive fiction, across many stories (most of them abandoned), many websites, with varying quality. I've cracked the code to the medium only to realize that it's really not a good way to spend one's creative energy. The communities are generally toxic, the vocal minority is interested mostly in escapism and power fantasies, so it's very difficult to introduce any kind of failure without people sperging out (because they don't like the idea that something they voted for/chose led to a negative outcome--and this effect is actually multiplied the more invested they get in the story). Consequently this greatly limits the kind of stories you can write.

I think it's the natural endpoint of the litrpg genre though, so I don't see it disappearing anytime soon. Just be warned that it will make your writing worse.

>>19966096
Can you provide an example?

>>19966136
I'm just going to sperg out about fighting theory and perhaps dabble in some backstory of one of the guys

I spent the entire previous chapter setting this up, so it needs to last. At least I have a good way to end the chapter.

>get inspired at work on how to continue my stories
>come home and lose it

Any good words for disgusting and fascinating at the same time

>>19966188
Grotesque

>>19966143
We have a prototype. It's called /qst/.

>>19966184
write it down on your phone or computer

>>19966153
By the sound of it, maybe a setting or concept in which seeing the characters failing has appeal in its own way would be better fit for that idea
...So yeah, outside of grimdark erotica it doesn't sound like it has much room to work with

>>19966159
Not in my person, but online discussion on the genre mentions Homestuck as a popular example

I just wrote my first Socratic Dialogue. /wg/ really needs some more non-fiction, although the dialogues could possibly be considered as a bit of both.

It’s fairly short, and I’d appreciate any feedback on it. I intend to give it a good polishing tomorrow, but it’s more than clean enough for now.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10NQXcfDmAwGKk59HlcSCBGZznPO4ZCdwORGekyZ8hWw/edit

>>19966096
You mean quests?
>>/qst/

Why do stories need to have relatable protagonists?

>>19966412
They don't.

>>19966517
They don't if you're okay with it sucking.

What's the most disgusting thing you've ever read? Preferably to do with body fluids.

Can any german speakers confirm that "Willst du mich verarschen?" is the right way to say are you fucking kidding me in German?

>>19966578
The communist manifesto

>>19966578
I read Fate/Stay Night and Bible Black.

Blimp Anon here.
I am currently at a Montana’s Bar and Grill with my family.
This is one of the worst places I have ever been in my entire life. There is pop-country music blaring from the speakers. All the waitresses are extremely attractive and wearing flannel shirts that are far too small.
My pepsi is enormous and flat. My sandwich weighs more than my head and has zero flavour. There is a vintage truck directly above our table, and I feel like it’s going to fall on my grandmother and uncle.
This is canadian redneck hell. And it’s packed. Who enjoys a place like this?

>>19966631
The people who enjoy that place are the working class that are also the target of your books, assuming you want to make money.

>>19966650
I feel like I’m more writing for the Applebee’s audience. Always a B-.

>>19966631
Describe the meal in your best prose

How is my writing?

Is it okay to have a protagonist murder a girl?
https://pastebin.com/3AdH4kk9

>>19966672
Fair enough

>>19966756
We're all the protagonist of our own lives. Use that information how you see fit.

>>19966756
I will now read your book.

>>19965757
>For a fantasy isekai series about an MC getting stronger
Quit.

>>19966812
blow it out your ass niggerfaggot
bet you would've whinged about pure high fantasy stories when they were at their height too

>>19966631
Describe said girl's breasts

>>19966887
Dear god, they are unreasonably large and wholly fake, and she jiggles them on purpose when she leans to set my food on the table. What horror, to have encountered such breasts as these. Take them away.

>>19966631
Been to Montana's once in my life. Only thing I remember is being served my drink in a Mason jar and getting an ugly look from the waitress when I didn't tip. 3/10.

>>19966846
As the one that's going to write the isekai, I do have to say that, statistically speaking, anon has a point.

The absolute worst fucking authors are writing isekai right now.

This is why my webnovel is straight fantasy instead of isekai. I wanted to write something serious at the time. Now I want to write primarily about cute girls, so I'm using isekai as marketing, shameful as it is

>>19966990
>straight fantasy

Sweety, it's 2022.

Nobody wants to read your heteronormative dreck.

>>19967072
Judging by my views per chapter and follower count, you are correct.

>>19967072
Actually, I do

>>19967100
Well you're on the wrong side of history.

There.

Are.

Black.

Dwarf.

Queens.

In.

Middle.

Earth!

>>19967079
I know that feel. Sorry. Actually, does anyone do blatant parody of this woke faggotry? Maybe a "I Got Hit by a Dildo Truck and Woke Up as the Only Straight Male in a World of Homoqueers"?

>>19967114
I mean, there's the manga World Of Moral Reversal which isn't really about wokeism as it is about horny teenagers, but I'm going to reccomend it anyways.

>>19967114
The wokeism in the Rings of Power show inadvertently retcons orcs into being niggers beecause there are no nigger elves in the original trilogy, so they either all died off or became orcs

"Crack! Is the sound my jaw makes as he decks me across the face. My body goes flying backwards. I didn’t resist it. My body hit the wall and collapsed. I didn’t get back up. I didn’t have the strength. The detective walks up to me.

'Don’t make me repeat myself. Did you kill Mrs. Williams and Elizabeth Powell?'

'No.' I said weakly.

He kicks me in the chest.

“Gwah!”

I cough blood on the floor.

“Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.”

Every day, for the past several days, has been like this. The officers initially threw me in jail for a night. Afterwards the detectives questioned me. When they realized they weren’t getting a confession out of me, they left me to rot down here, only returning occasionally to force a confession out of me. The grisly murders happening in this city lately has had everyone on high alert. The inspectors and detectives have been scrambling to find a lead. They’re desperate now and will take anything they can get their hands on. I just so happened to conveniently land at their feet when they needed a suspect most. "

I came to /wg/ to learn from the experts but you guys fucking suck at writing

>>19965611
Reedsy link for a manusrcipt format doesn’t even work just leads to the homepage and I can’t find an article on it. I would really like to ensure proper manuscript formatting!

>>19967405
>Crack!
Is there a consensus on the use of written "sound effects"?

>>19967405
Onomatopoeia is 99% cringe, awkward and should be avoided but if you insist on it being there “Crack! went my jaw as he decked me across the face.”

Also, the first couple sentences are in present tense but they change to past tense. I’d stick to one or the other.

>>19967405
>"When they realized they weren’t getting a confession out of me, they left me to rot down here, only returning occasionally to force a confession out of me."
Sloppy. Reword it.
Other than that, don't switch tenses. you're doing it every other sentence, for god's sake

>>19965611
Better thread is up without the retarded anime OP.
>>19965362
>>19965362
>>19965362

>>19967562
Then why don't you go over there?

>>19967562
Critique threads are not /wg/ though.

>>19967594
/wg/ came about from /crit/, newperson.
>>19967577
I am, lol.

>>19965945
This sounds marvelous. Except for being sick, but still

>>19967671
It was peak comfy. The show gave me some new perspective on characters, too. If I can drag myself through the next few paragraphs in my book I'll call it a successful night and go to sleep early.

>>19966578
gore vore porn, some of the shit I have read made me so disgusted by the dark nature of it that I didn't jack off for weeks

>>19967405
>is the sounds my jaw makes

That's passive. Don't passive. Writing is "Agents perform actions that affect objects". There's always a thing that acts onto something else.

>He decks me across the face. My jaw makes a cracking sound.

or
>He decks me across the face, and my jaw makes a cracking sound.

Or even,
>My jaw makes a cracking sound as he decks me across the face.

"Pancakes vs Waffles"
Please read. I took the time to edit and rewrite it.
https://files.catbox.moe/lotac4.pdf

>>19968010
Combine first two sentences: "The kitchen smelled of butter churned from the night before."

Such a strange feeling I have within me to yearn to grow and to absorb more knowledge, with which to more fully grapple with life, and yet I know it will take time, and that I have stories within me under my grasp at this immature time of my life. So I write knowing that my best work is yet ahead of me.

>>19968010
Fifth sentence change 'forming' to 'formed': "The
smell of both delicacies mixed together formed an aroma of buttermilk, vanilla, and eggs"

>>19968010
Just finished that story, that's fucked up bruh

>>19968113
>>19968084
>>19968071
Thanks for the help! I made a few more edits. here's the google doc so nobody has to keep redownloading it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rE7fR45CiN52_F9OUuaCOwCypmkOpn9yNL13enZBAL8/edit?usp=sharing

>>19968113
>>19968084
>>19968071
Thanks for the help! I put in the edits, and now I just need to wait for Flash Fiction guy to come in here and I can share this with the rest of the world!

>grey vs gray conflict
cringe
>grey vs black conflict
crange
>white vs black conflict
photograph of a smiling bodybuilder Ernest Khalimov

however...
>white vs white conflict
TRULY ASCENDED

If I use something like novelai.net to write my book is it cheating? The AI has helped me churn out more content for my world than ever before.

>>19968337
>>white vs white conflict
any examples of this in fiction?

>>19968348
do it
serialize it on royalroad
I want to see how successful it is to decide whether to use it myself

>>19968368
Lucifer vs Gabriel in Paradise Lost.

>>19968368
No. But that's something I wanna try and make.

Pro Tip:
Drink 500ml of water before writing, then put off going to the bathroom to lend your writing a sense of urgency.

>>19968348
damn, i've been looking for something like to generate character descriptions for inspiration. it's pretty good:

>Marshall is a successful gambler with a small fortune in New York City. He has been married three times but his wives have all died. Marshall lives by himself in an apartment at the top of a tall building near the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue. His home is elegantly furnished; he owns a fine automobile which he drives about town alone. He has two servants who are both French Canadians; one is a valet while the other serves as chauffeur. Marshall's interest in life is gambling. He travels to Paris frequently for this purpose, and he has formed a close friendship with M. de Villars, the well-known patron of Monte Carlo. He keeps no books there, but makes his bets orally. He is a good-looking man, of medium height, with gray eyes, dark hair, and a somewhat melancholy expression. There is something about him that does not attract women easily. He goes everywhere alone or with Mr. de Villars.

>Mordecai is fisherman working on an old shrimp boat but before that he was a successful stock broker in New York City who lost his money in the crash of 1929. He has had some bad luck with his love life; first losing his wife to cancer when he refused her desperate proposal for divorce so as to marry another man (a rich one named Henry). Then, after the death of his infant son, he met a lovely woman named Ruth and fell deeply in love with her (although he knew that she was married), but they could not be together because of this. After the war came along, Mordecai found out that Ruth's husband had died (presumably killed in action) and they were finally able to get together, but her husband's family did not want them to be together, believing that having a Jewish man even as their distant relation would make them look bad. They were separated once again, with Mordecai living with his sister, while Ruth was at a resort on the coast.
In the end, Mordecai is killed by a shark, despite being a strong swimmer.

>Mercy is a twenty-three old hostess at the "Old House" hotel in New York City. She has reddish hair which she wears in an elegant bun; blue eyes; a thin nose with a widow's peak; Her dress consists of her best black silk; white gloves; and a necklace of pearls which cost $50. Her father died three years ago from heart disease. Her mother took sick shortly after he did and now lives in a nursing home. She never went to school because her family could not afford it.
Her hobbies are reading detective stories (especially those written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) and going to the theater. Her favorite actor is Henry Irving. She has always wanted to go to the opera but cannot afford it. She likes to wear expensive clothing, especially evening gowns. However, she dislikes wearing them outside of a social setting. She also enjoys walking through Central Park, admiring its beauty. Though she considers herself to be vain, she is not.

>>19968348
That's pretty cool. But if this takes off we're going to see a lot of repetitive styles and stories

Remember that this is the type of person sitting behind anime reaction pics. This is the type of person shitting up /lit/

>>19968443
So nothing will change

>>19968443
from what i understand you can even train the ai on your own writing? wouldn't that help against that?

>>19968561
I have a good amount of writing to work with, so I might try it out. 10 bucks just for an experiment seems a bit much tho.

The beer entered his mouth occupying more of its space than he wanted to allow it to, flowing through the gaps between upper and bottom rows of teeth and between each of them. He was trying to use of a conscious control to limit its ever present acetous sourness, a caustic main motif that attempted to corrode tongue, cheek and gums, domineering instrument in volume over a symphony of deeper bitter percussions on the back, that left an acerbic aftertaste like a black shadow that painted the tongue, as the last fumes of sourness traveled around it, evaporating once swallowed down the now ardent entrance of the esophagus. This was a fancy craft beer placed in a chubby cylindrical bottle that claimed on its colorful label to be prepared with all sorts of exquisite processes that involved honey extracted from special bees and what not, but the taste of the honey came in sporadic colorful little notes that faintly managed to pass through the haze to make themselves present for one ephemeral second or another, like the notes of sugary perfumes that enter through your window in a chill night of a hot day, that your propped up nose tries to detect, but that are too shy to entice your senses. In the belgian tulip glass, its color was of an almost lively orange amber, as if further beguiling the drinker to believe in its acidic lies of unattainable honey. A dame of huge hazel eyes leaning on one arm over your table and with a coy mischievous smile of adorable dimples that expects your reaction to her playful coquetries. Despite the concealed involuntary impulses of queasiness, mal de mer from a pocket sea of honey and hops that in swirls of the glass produced waves of golden tangerine, this was not his first beer, and thus, his mind found itself enveloped into a nice silky embrace of mellowness, the senses numbing to all discomfort of sharp edges the physical world produces on our soft bodies. It was easier to relax and accept those big hazel eyes for what they are, and the caustic kiss like this of a familiar lover.

>>19968435
damn

>>19968588
>>19968443
It gets pretty scary, gpt3 has so many parameters and is trained on so much data many of the traditional critiques don't even apply (technically they still do just not in the way most people think). It's almost like it's tapped into the subconscious of the internet in a way. Remember that hemingway app that's supposed to make your writing terse and concise a la Hemingway but is super bad and formulaic to the point of giving The Sun Also Rises a failing grade? Well with a primitive brain powering it trained on hemingway things might look a bit different. And what's even scarier is because the experiment of simply scaling up the transformer model was a success they're going to scale it up again within the next year to see if it'll hit diminishing returns. Talk about modern day alchemy.

gwern has done a lot of interesting experiments with it if you want to take a look, particularly the sections about rewriting passages in a certain author's voice.

https://www.gwern.net/GPT-3

Also with a lot of these gpt powered apps you have to be wary of which version you're using. Some of the free versions are powered by gpt2 which is a magnitude away in terms of complexity of sentences generated

>>19968634
>his mind found itself enveloped into a nice silky embrace of mellowness
This is horrible, terrible, no good line. I wish I hadn't read it.

>>19968634
I hate it. Here's a rewrite cutting out a lot of redundant/unnecessary descriptors.

>The beer entered his mouth occupying more space than he wanted to allow, flowing through the gaps between his teeth. He was consciously controlling the ever present sourness, a caustic motif that attempted to corrode tongue, cheek and gums, a domineering instrument booming over a symphony of bitter percussions that left an acerbic aftertaste like a black shadow painting the tongue. This was a fancy craft beer placed in a chubby bottle that claimed on its colorful label to be prepared with all sorts of exquisite processes: honey extracted from special bees, the taste pf which came in faint, colorful little notes that made themselves present for one ephemeral second, like the notes of sugary perfumes that enter through a window on a chill night of a hot day. The color was a lively orange amber in the belgian tulip glass, as if beguiling the drinker to believe the acidic lies of unattainable honey. A dame with hazel eyes leaning over your table, with a coy, mischievous smile and dimples that already anticipated your reaction. Despite the concealed involuntary queasiness, mal de mer from a pocket sea of honey and hops that swirls in the glass producing waves of golden tangerine, this was not his first beer, and thus, his mind found itself enveloped into a nice silky embrace of mellowness, the senses numbing the sharp edges the physical world. It was easier to relax and accept those big hazel eyes for what they are, and the kiss of a familiar lover.

>>19968659
novelai seems to use fairseq 13b euterpe instead whatever that means

>>19968688
The word that throws it off is "mellowness", but given that the rest of the paragraph ping-pongs between concrete and abstract it isn't that weird that it is "embraced" in something abstract, but compared with the rest, the line is kind of basic.

>>19968700
Thanks Mr. Editor, you made it less prosaic and more akin to the autistic style of clinical short sentences that people put on in modern literary fiction, that is completely incompatible with Nabokovian affectations like this.

>>19968727
>its color was of an almost lively orange amber
sorry its shit. sorry you didn't like me making it readable. consider this line:
>its color was of an almost lively orange amber
amber is a color. orange amber is slightly redundant but whatever. of an almost lively orange amber is a fucking mess.

>>19968754
The point of orange amber is to specify that it is the type of beer that is more orange-ish than the rest, like IPAs tend to be (which the one described clearly is. being fancy craft beer placed in a belgian tulip glass). Think of orange-amber as being one color (easier if hyphenated). What it means is:

It's color was of an almost bright orange-amber.

>>19968772
>of an
Why do you do this? These aren't platonic forms you're describing. This is a real glass of beer, presumably. And is there a whole line of beers in front of this guy that he chooses the slightly less bright orange-amber one? I think its retarded, I think you're going out of your way to make the scene less concrete for whatever navel gazing reason I couldn't possibly imagine. It sucks to read. But you do you.

>>19968787
I just noticed this may not be a thing in English as much as it is in my first language of Portuguese. When we describe a color we often do that, as if to indicate that it is "one of those" colors that are not specific or exact.

>>19968634
Masturbatory and Pretentious. There’s nothing wrong with simple and legible prose. You’re using flowery language to mask the fact that you don’t have anything interesting to say here.

>>19968634
> This was a fancy craft beer placed in a chubby cylindrical bottle that claimed on its colorful label to be prepared with all sorts of exquisite processes that involved honey extracted from special bees and what not, but the taste of the honey came in sporadic colorful little notes that faintly managed to pass through the haze to make themselves present for one ephemeral second or another, like the notes of sugary perfumes that enter through your window in a chill night of a hot day, that your propped up nose tries to detect, but that are too shy to entice your senses.
One sentence

>>19968803
There is nothing wrong with being overly prosaic and poetic either. Other than narrative devices and plot structures, prose is the first and foremost, the most concrete technical aspect of writing and literature. Aesthetics and technique are of main importance in art. Want pure, unfiltered substance and reflections? Read philosophy. Want pure reporting of events? Read journalism. In art, form often matters more than the subject matter in itself. People need to stop pretending as if style over substance isn't a valid stance to take, it might as well be the most valid, otherwise there is no point to the creation of art and everything can be non-fiction. It is not even the complete absconding of substance, but a priority placed on technique.

>>19968588
10 bucks for this isn’t that bad. I use grammarly to track my usage and I’d say I’m getting my money’s worth

Nothing makes me drop a read faster than padding with purple prose. I’m sure the author has all the excuses in the world about how his 700 word breakdown of his breakfast is actually high art but I’m never going to read that either.

>>19968815
None of this is false, as long as the author has a talent and an eye for what makes poetic writing fun to read. This guy has neither. It’s just mush. All those words, and at the end of it all I would rather just read “A guy goes to a bar, gets a beer and sees a pretty girl”. And if I come away from what is supposed to be interesting and exciting prose feeling like that, the author has failed.

>>19968727
Okay, if you want to be defensive about it, feel free. It's no skin off my ass. The passage sucks though, and "enveloped INTO a nice, silky mellowness" is just bad writing. I may not know exactly why it's bad, but it is.

>>19968848
>“A guy goes to a bar, gets a beer and sees a pretty girl”
The girl was not real. She WAS the beer (as in a poetic metaphor). The point is that the dude was seduced by the fancy colorful beer and its promises of honey but it was torturing his mouth and he didn't really like it, like how treacherous the seduction of a woman can be, but falling into drunkness, he doesn't mind anymore.

>what is supposed to be interesting and exciting prose feeling like that, the author has failed.
But if the point is to create exciting PROSE, the author succeeded, at least in that isolated goal, as the goal wasn't to create a scene or a plot in this particular moment.

>>19968727
>Nabokovian affectations
The problem is that in order to emulate Nabokov, you need to be able to write as well as Nabokov. The man himself, ironically, would have laughed you out of the profession if he were alive to see your self-association with him.

>>19968867
>But if the point is to create exciting PROSE, the author succeeded
No, he fucking didn't. It's bad prose that TRIES to be exciting. It's just not good.

>>19968867
>but if the point is to create exciting prose, then he has succeeded by creating unexciting prose
What?

>>19968807
>like the notes of sugary perfumes that enter through your window in a chill night of a hot day, that your propped up nose tries to detect, but that are too shy to entice your senses

>>19968867
Embarrassing post.

>>19968815
>People need to stop pretending as if style over substance isn't a valid stance to take, it might as well be the most valid
The problem is that I actually agree with you. I am probably the most unrepentant prosefag in this thread. The reason why you feel comfortable writing things like this here is likely because I spent months and months sperging out about this specific thing. The problem is, no matter how much I agree with what you're saying, what you've written is still bad. It's tasteless, not in the targeted and purposeful way of Nabokov, but in the sense that it is low quality writing.

>>19968893
>The reason why you feel comfortable writing things like this here is likely because I spent months and months sperging out about this specific thing.
Look at fucking Socrates over here with his philosophical influence over everybody, get the fuck outta here son.

>>19968882
Stay mad.

>>19968903
I hate authors like you who refuse to accept criticism despite posting in these threads for attention. Never post your dreck here again.
Or do, so we can all laugh at you once more.

>>19968634
why is this written as if the beer were a pov character? why are there half a dozen synonyms for sour? I admire your courage. I would never have posted this if I were you.

>>19968918
>why is this written as if the beer were a pov character?
There are no "point of view characters" unless they are in first person, stop reading epic fantasy. If there is a character here it is the man drinking the beer.

>why are there half a dozen synonyms for sour?
Because it is very sour.

>I admire your courage. I would never have posted this if I were you.
Please, you people post Isekai and litRPG shit around these parts.

>>19968926
>Please, you people post Isekai and litRPG shit around these parts.
Oh, so you're choosing to interact with us from the assumption that we're all writing isekai and litRPG. Well, nobody's going to be able to stop you from shaping your own solipsism.

>>19968912
There is no criticism to be posed other than pointing out facts about it.
>It is overly prosaic
>It is too nabokovian
>It is too self-indulgent
It is. All those things, but does it succeed in being all those things? If you look at similar literary fiction, so it seems. It ALL grabs some inconsequential sensory element like a simple beer and draws all sorts of poetic metaphors and descriptions from it.

You can't get objective about it, because there is only one objective truth:

It is objectively good.

This guy's enjoying the attention a little bit too much.

>>19968940
I've been suffering with tall poppy syndrome my whole life. My lessers foaming at the mouth at my talents. At some point you get cavalier about it.

>>19968940
I feel like it might be part of a humiliation fetish at this point.

>>19968941
If you truly believe this then why the fuck are you here? Go show this crap to publishers.

>>19968926
Holy shit, you'e actually ESL

>>19968961
Thanks for revealing that another further aspect of your seething is that an ESL wrote prose on a level you can never attain.

>>19968634
This is what happens if you give an anime watcher a thesaurus.kyr0s

>>19968967
You are an unbelievable fraud and talentless hack, and I can’t wait until the day that you realize it because a hundred and twelve publishers have rejected you

>Thanks for revealing that another further aspect of your seething is that an ESL wrote prose on a level you can never attain.

>>19968978
>>Thanks for revealing that another further aspect of your seething is that an ESL wrote prose on a level you can never attain.

>>19968967
Jesus fucking christ.
“You COULD”. Not “you can”. How can you huff your own shit while making basic mistakes such as this? How can you not see that it should always be “you could” in that context?

>>19968973
Hate me with all your might, you know that even inside your own heart you don't believe this. Publishers have orgasms over shit like this. What even represents the great achievements of literature in our century? Karl Ove Knausgård and his supposedly good prose and retellings of his life.

>>19968989
>you know that even inside your own heart
“Even” is redundant. Just “Inside your own heart” is correct. Adding “Even” is clunky.
You have no grasp of these concepts you’re spouting. Do you think that adding more words makes things more interesting? You did it up here, too:
>>19968967
>another further aspect
Another aspect. A further aspect. Not both. Preferably the first.

>>19968988
>You did a bad grammar here, you STUPID SON OF A BIIIIIIIIITCH

Yeah, so. That guy sucks. How's everyone's writing coming along?

>>19969001
You’re so mad. You’re fucking seething. I can hear the steam whistling out of your ears from here.
Can’t fucking handle it that no one likes his ridiculous prose. Just pathetic.

>>19969009
>You’re so mad. You’re fucking seething. I can hear the steam whistling out of your ears from here.
>Can’t fucking handle it that no one likes his ridiculous prose. Just pathetic.

Look at the shit posted in this thread before the beer post. You niggas got hardcore mogged and are seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeething

I’d rather listen to advice from the Twitter follower marketing tard than listen to this pseud huff his own farts. If you’re here give me a break down of your engagement metrics

>>19969013
Are you talking about the only other anon who posted an excerpt? That wasn’t good either.

>>19969021
>I don’t need a grasp on basic grammar because I know the word “Acetous”
It’s actually painful speaking to you. You write at the level of a 5th grader with a thesaurus.

Hey what happened

>>19969039
I think the janny happened

>>19969205
>jannies
>on /lit/
lol. The guy just got buttblasted and deleted his own posts

I pour back in. The stale smoke hangs thick and smells of yesterday’s beef and brimstone. The crackling of oil—my oil—rings still in my ears with echoes of a pop. A pop? What was I doing? What….

I wave the smoke away. It’s a bilious hanging fog. I can barely see past my nose. Nascent sensation weighs down at my pelvis. Solid, heavy, firmly there. I’ve got to see it. As the smoke clears out, slowly there grows a light, diffuse and dim through the smoke still clinging close. The pain is dull and throbbing and my eyes transfix on what appears like a ship’s mast as my hands carve out more and more space for its approach. There are flashes now, a microclimate, pyroclastic lightning in miniature violet-blue streaks scything smoke and raising singed arm-hairs up on end at their static passage… the smoke is thick, viscous, tangible, and I tear it apart in great, clumping clouds flung outwards where they seethe and rage and collapse into tiny cosmic furnaces which burn like quick mad fireflies, or send final, crashing thunders out beyond as they disperse, and the storm grows the closer I get—it is a crescendo—and it furies and pulses and it glows ionized blues, vibrant purples with neon fringe, some deep and weeping reds commingling thin, greyblack ashen flecks suspended and dancing their flutters frenetic upon the hot air, the colors shifting with pulses of pressure from the still-hidden epicentre, pushing and pulling the ashes all-together inwards, outwards, inwards, outwards; they pass back and forth like schizophrenic shootingstars at the margins of my vision as the clawing continues, the clawing clawing clawing… clawing at clouds, clawing towards my salvation, my last redoubt, the last hope I have at… my last… I feel the thing under my hands, hot and cold at once, rejecting and demanding my touch in turn….

And there it is. In large, tourmaline quartz it juts, a final smoke cloud clutching tendrils at its faceted, circumcised glans. I wipe it away, leaving my successfully attached member bare and alive in its molten mineral glow. Small, veined fingers of flesh in smooth-edged tatter reach up the shaft, peeling back in places to reveal quartz like overstretched leather, the skin around its base backlit to pink incandescence and windowing thick, shaded veins’ traverses to and fro.

>>19965935
Depends if you write to be read.

>>19969649
Pretty pretentious word salad to say nothing at all.

>>19969673
There's no way to respond to this graciously, so I'm just going to point out that there's no way to respond graciously to your comment. Cheers.

>>19969649
Very purple. Fancy big words do not make good writing. I learned that writing nonfiction history essays in highschool.

>>19969688
I respect your gracefulness.

>>19969697
I learned that too. Then I decided to unlearn it. For what it's worth, I'm just using my natural vocabulary. I have never once opened up a thesaurus in my life. I say that because it's something I've been accused of in the past. I just don't want to moderate myself because it's more comfy and fun to write more experimentally.
>Fancy big words do not make good writing.
But they don't make bad writing either. I'm not saying this IS good writing, but the point remains.

FINAL EDIT

“Pancakes vs Waffles”

The kitchen smelled of butter churned from the night before. Two plates adorned the table top. A red plate displayed three large pancakes, while a blue plate graced a single large waffle. The smell of both delicacies mixed together and formed an aroma of buttermilk, vanilla, and eggs. The steam from the two plates rose slowly, enticing even the most diet conscious person to break their vow to have a taste. The two plates were not alone.

"Waffles are much better than pancakes!" said the boy, swallowing his saliva.
"No way! Pancakes are much better than waffles!" replied the girl, with a knife and fork in hand.
"You're so dumb! Once I put syrup on, it becomes ten times better!" the boy said as he took the small jug of syrup and poured it over the blue plate holding his prized breakfast cake.
"Yuck! See! Waffles need so much syrup to taste good! Pancakes taste good with anything! It's so soft and fluffy that it doesn't hurt my mouth like waffles do! I just need a drop of syrup to make it yummy! Butter does not even spread well on waffles. It's always uneven! But pancakes? It's always super even."
'You're such a liar!" cried the boy.
"No I'm not!"
"You said pancakes taste good with anything!"
"Ya it does!"
"I bet it doesn't taste good with cum! If you can still swallow your pancakes even after being covered in cum then you win. Deal?" challenged the boy.
"Your cum? Gross! That's not even a real dare anyways. You can't even make enough of it to cover the entire pancake!"
"Fine, we'll get all our friends to help!"
"No! You can't have different cum on the pancake! Cum doesn't all taste the same! You'll ruin it!"
"Then just eat a piece of it!"
"Fine! But you better have enough!"

The boy locked eyes with the girl and steeled his nerves to the solution the two agreed to. Their cakes were cooling down from the commotion, as neither took a single bite. The wind rattled the shutters as a tumbleweed rolled in the backyard. The clouds outside casted a shadow and shaded the two combatants ready to end the timeless conflict between pancakes and waffles.

>>19969713
"Hurry up! I'm hungry!" the girl demanded, "Are you scared?"
"No! I just need to get ready!"

The boy with fury in his eyes immediately took off his pants. His member was still soft, but that quickly changed from the stimulation of his hand. It didn't pass 20 seconds when he grabbed the red plate and ejaculated onto the fluffy cakes.

"There! Eat it! I dare you!"

The girl looked at the white globs that covered her meal. The heat of the pancake kept the semen warm. Her tongue moistened her lips as she bit on it, anticipating the flavor presented to her. The girl took her knife and pushed the white ooze toward the edge and cut out a piece. The cum drizzled over the piece of pancake as it dripped slowly over the fork nearing her mouth. She twirled her tongue over the cake, licking the white condiment staining her lips. Her saliva quickly mixed with both cake and batter as she chewed, enjoying every second of her meal. Her throat moved as the pieces slid down to her stomach.

"Yummy!" the girl said, licking her lips again.
"Yuck! You actually ate it! That's nasty!"
"Nope! It’s super good! Told you pancakes taste good with anything!"
"I don't believe you! You're just saying that!"
"Nope!" the girl cut another piece of pancake drenched with a large glob of cum, "try it!"
"No way!"
"Nope, you're eating it!"

The boy quickly found himself on the floor. He did not even have time to pull up his pants before the girl kicked the chair causing him to instantly fall over. She pounced on top of him immediately, pinning him down with her weight. His pants and underwear tied his legs together, unable to push her off. Yet, that was not what caused the boy to freeze in fear. The horror locked eyes with him in the form of a grinning face of the girl. He started to panic as the cum covered pancake came closer to his lips. A drip of cum fell off the tip of the fork, landing directly on his eye.

“Wait!”
"Open wide!"
"It's in my eye!"

His screams were instantly muffled as the piece of cake shoved into his mouth. The sweet taste of the pancake and the bitter taste of cum blended into a harmonious flavor that the boy never tasted in his life. He felt his mouth shut together; pressed by the girl's hands. He had no choice but to swallow the cut given to him.

"See! I told you pancakes go with anything! Even your cum!" the girl proudly boasted, "it tastes so good you're even starting to cry!"

Even if the walls had ears, they could not confirm anything the boy said that day. His voice and speech was lost to history, as the girl's victorious laughter drowned out any praise or criticism the boy had. Defeated, he accepted the outcome, leaving the miasmatic aftertaste waft with every breath he took. Not even the waffle he prized so much was able to revert his mind. Only a single thought swirled in his head. He was ready to accept the truth.

Pancakes are superior.

>>19969712
I agree with you that you should not shrink your writing down to be more palatable. However, you should consider finding something to write about that you actually care about. This just feels soulless, pointless and meaningless. My main issue isn‘t the words you use. I do like your writing stile. The issue is that you failed to write about something you care and so it will fail to make the reader care. Nobody wants to read a whole bunch of grand words for nothing. There needs to be some substance to it. Make me care.

>>19969713
>The kitchen smelled of butter churned from the night before
Stopped reading there. Churning butter has a very faint and fleeting smell. Definitely not something you‘d still smell the next morning. Unless you live in a butter churning factory. In which case the „from the night before“ part becomes weird since then it would be more the accumulated rancid smell of years of butter churning. Destroyed all realism and made it feel like you‘re just trying to paint some overstretched fantasy.

>>19969730
you son of a bitch. Now I have to rewrite the entire first paragraph.

>>19969727
To be fair, this is an excerpt from a greater work. I've been building up my narrator's lost penis for like 40k words now, mostly because I'm a giant asshole. I'm kind of banking on prior work here to carry its significance. I will probably follow this up with some more direct interior monologue. The entire work is one huge gamble, really. It may be lazy, but I'm hoping that by building it up for this long, anyone who hasn't put it down by page 2 will have at least wondered at the significance of the penis. If I'm lucky, and if I've done my job as well as I hope I have, the reader has constructed almost an entire penis mythology at this point, and that they will instill their own significance to the imagery I've rendered here.

But maybe not. Thank you for the input though. Mucho appreciado.

>>19969735
Nevermind, i‘ve read the rest and it is just an overstretched fantasy.

>>19969740
Ah well, in that case, it might be decent. I mean, it is about a penis. Half of humanity might already care a bit for that alone.
I just wonder why someone would take the time to write about a penis in such length but i guess that‘s because i don‘t fall into whatever category of audience you hope to reach. So, more power to you and your audience of choice.

>>19969750
I just enjoy using the penis as the framework from which I examine the 21st century experience. It's so banal and juxtaposes perfectly, in my opinion, the competing paradigms of modern life. They all take themselves so seriously. The mighty cock is at once a symbol of power and virility, as much as it is one which reminds us that we're all just human beings at the end of the day. We've got dicks and cunts. We piss and we shit and we need really basic, mundane things in order to stave off our inevitable deaths just one more day.

Plus, it's a lot of fun to write.

>>19968842
Just for you, I'm going to go add even more length to my description of why my antagonist cares about a chair.

>>19969794
And why not? If Melville can spend a chapter and a half on a guy walking up two steps of stairs to a pulpit, anyone else can be a little purple.

>>19969718
>>19969713
I laughed. But if we're going to have disgusting fetishes, she should regurgitate what she swallowed earlier and spit it on the boys face.

>>19969790
I‘m more a sucker of blunt writing, so admittedly, purple prose isn‘t doing it for me but i do appreciate your attempt to bridge the gap between the perceived mighty cock and it‘s human reality.

>>19969804
I‘m pretty sure the age of that working is over. Maybe that worked before you also had vidya you could play instead of reading someone‘s rambling thoughts about how they move their fingers for a whole chapter.

>>19969824
>Maybe that worked before you also had vidya you could play instead of reading someone‘s rambling thoughts about how they move their fingers for a whole chapter.
I think this is not a deficit literature has to overcome, but a new opportunity to further differentiate itself from film and vidya. Why try to be vidya-but-worse by emulating its form? New media which are easier to interact with allow literature to cede that space, and to focus on beauty in its own form. I sincerely agree with you that vidya just does some things better. So let it have the easy-to-digest corner of the market. It's going to happen anyway. Let literature fucking breathe again.

>>19969804
>>19969804
The actual answer is because it's a throne, and the antagonist has been waging a war to get it for the last 40 chapters, and if I just spent a few paragraphs saying "And then the hero caught up to him and cut his fucking head off" it would be rather anti-climactic. I would undercut everything worth thinking about in the story.

>>19969848
Can‘t disagree with that.

>>19969848
And just to add, if there's one thing I've learned about human nature, it's that children reject their parents' values. What do kids who grow up with hyper-CONSOOOOOMER parents and all the zimzams and wahoos reject? The video games and the Marvel garbage that their parents loved. I'm sure some will go on to just pursue newer and better versions of these things, but some will reject it for a more traditional approach. You can see its rumblings in the neo-tradcath movement brewing here on /lit/. I think that within the next couple decades, we'll see minor-but-significant revival in literature as art.

>>19969872
I sure hope humanity will one day reach the point where children can look up to their parents instead of wanting to be anything but them.

storytelling's purpose is to tell tales of heroes, gods, exceptional and larger than life characters
there's no good storytelling about normal realistic humans

>>19968337
What about black vs black conflict?

>>19970015
Don't care

>>19970002
You've misunderstood writing as a concept. It's to record, and there's no telling what is worth recording - at the time of recording - so the best bet is to record everything.

>>19970002
Wrong

>>19970002
Based and Monomythpilled

I need to just write a flash fiction this week. Everytime I obsess over a novel project, short stories fall by the way. Been reading Chekhov lately and now really appreciate how soul his endings are for some really short tales.

>>19970366
>Everytime I obsess over a novel project, short stories fall by the way.
Is this... surprising to you?

>>19970372
No. I used to write a short story or flash every wednesday but lately keep going into the novel. Sorry for blogging anon.

>>19970526
My point was that if you're excited about the novel, then why try to... unexcite yourself in order to not-write about the thing you're excited for. I get that we all get attached to our routines, but at the end of the day our routines should serve us and what we want to do. Just let yourself write the novel if that's what YOU want to do. You can always pick up the SS/FF Wednesday ritual again when you're ready.

For what it's worth, I personally like to give a novel my full and undivided attention. I barely even read in the periods of time in which I'm working on something of longer form.

>>19965705
Thanks bro. I'm considering it. What should the ideal lenght for such a book be?

Are writing competitions a good place to start?

I'm 20 in STEM and want to become a writer later on in my life. Rn I only write a little journal every week and also sometimes about some ideas I have. I was thinking of looking for writing competitions for short stories or something at my uni and improving that way. Amy thoughts about this approach?

>>19971013
A good place to start writing or a good place to start competing for a known name? By the context of your post it sounds like you want to improve, in which case you should read appropriate books, write whatever you can think of, and if you have the skin for it post your writing for critiques on any outlet or forum including this one.

P.T. Inspired me to want to write a story about a guy who can sudden and inexplicably transport himself to alternate versions of his hometown, where the entire story is set. I haven’t worked out finer details, though, apart from the slight horror aspect to it and the title “Aaron Isn’t Here”

>>19971179
>P.T.
what the fuck is p.t.

>>19971292
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.T._(video_game)

>>19971303
>(video_game)

I will now give each piece of silverware a distinct name.

We used to take a stroll together.
We used to take a stroll together all over Pompeya. Passed through San Juan and Boedo once. It made me happy, even if I wasn't paying attention.
We used to take a stroll together. Through Parque Centenario and Rivadavia.

You used to take a stroll alone. With friends, boyfriends and lovers, too.

I never took a stroll by myself. The big city was alien to me, and it made me feel scared.

We used to take a stroll together.
But we don't take strolls anymore.

i called it "Dried Leaves"
fml

>>19971456
sadge

I'm trying to think of an onomatopoeic word for a old style school bell ringing. It's going to be punctuating silence so it needs to have that quality where it feels like electricity - I'm not sure if this makes sense outside of my head.
I was going to go for a
BR-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-NG.
Does anyone have any other ideas?

>>19966812
Cope. Isekai is the future of lit.

>>19969794
You'll make nothing. SOrry bro, but in 2022, no one wants purple prose.

>>19971642
>onomatopoeic
ngmi

>>19971453
Distinct like DeShaown or distinct like fourchette

>>19971946
So far I came up with Red Sailor and Moss Tumbler, one mixes a pot of boiling tomato sauce while the other scoops pesto.

>>19967977
>Don't passive.
Stop repeating meaningless regurgitated "advice".
http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/passive_loathing.pdf

>>19968348
>adds bunch of filler words so you can increase your word count
Its a slippery slope

>>19971829
I just heard in the other thread how it’s becoming a next big thing. Everybody is using it now if he’s gonnem make it. Year from now, you must have a K-CHANG in your novel if you wanna make’em.

>>19972962
Pfft. Next time how about you SHOW and don’t TELL.

good morning sirs. I've wanted to get into writing and I'd appreciate if you could give some critique to this
https://pastebin.com/Pgv13iRA

its the start to a small adventure story not entirely sure whether to develop on it or not. Trash it all you want in any specific area I'm only starting so I'll take any criticism.

Is putting your story on Scribble Hub kind of accepting failure? Can a fantasy adventure find an audience on Wattpad or Royal Road or is it all isekai/wuxia faggotry?

>>19973126
depends if your fantasy adventure is pure wish fulfillment. Stories like that get massive audiences on RR and SH

>>19973126
There is absolutely nothing stopping you from crossposting it everywhere. Don't limit yourself to just one platforn.

I want to write a book, non fiction or trade history.

How do I start?

>>19972980
I think it can be a very powerful tool if you edit what the AI spits out as you go, and train it on a good amount of your own existing work (at least 100k words bare minimum).

>>19973161
Reading books.

>>19973123
Why do you want to get into writing if you do not read?

>>19971642
>bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk

>>19973126
Just crosspost, brain champion.
RR, ScribbleHub, and SpaceBattles CrW is the minimum.

>>19973173
I do read tough not as much as I should. I'm working on reading more stuff in english. All this because I do enjoy storytelling and want to write my own stories and eventually share them with others.

>>19973197
You should stick to your native language, or actually look at the symbols used in the English books you read to learn how dialogue is formatted.

>>19973207
I sound retarded with both languages, at least there's a much higher % of speakers of portuguese that know english than vice versa.

If the formatting of the dialogue is the biggest issue you found in it then it's def something I can work on. Any glaring, more specific errors with it ?

>>19973250
Are you the beer guy?

Did anyone like it?

l burnt and deleted all my writing years ago. Kinda regret it now

>>19973255
I'm not but nice dubs

>>19973274
Man, that's a sudden influx of brazileros.

>>19973276
Don't be mistaken anon I am from the original continent

>>19972962
I'm so fucking glad people are starting to push back on that shit. There is absolutely nothing wrong with passive voice, it can convey a tone which active voice doesn't. The only reason for the campaign against it is that ESLs and retards have trouble understanding it.

Just passed 80k words in Undying Emperor. That's fourteen chapters of backlog remaining. Plenty of time for my other projects.

>>19965648
>You just keep coming up with new shit.
You control that by writing a concise narrative with an actual point instead of cirlce-jerking about world building.

>>19965611
But I do like anime writing.
How do I do it properly? I want to write in a cutesy style like you see in those translations.

I want to write a story in a futuristic setting but I keep getting bogged down worrying about geopolitics.

How do I prevent the volatile situation of the real world from bogging my ideas down?

>>19968348
>paying to train your vemry own AI replacement

>>19973380
I’ve never been clear on what “anime writing” even was. Isekai?

Why isn't there well known writing from /lit/? I have been trying to make my magnum opus for years yet I keep failing and so does everyone here! Why does /x/ out of all places have two well know bodies of work?

>>19973466
Sometimes I search my webnovel title on lit and it gets recommended, albeit rarely. It makes me feel a little warm and fuzzy.

>>19973466
/x/ has two well known bodies of work?

>>19973508
yo mama has two well known bodies of work

>>19973443
>anime writing
Am i kawaii uguu senpai
I'mma charging my level 99 lazor attack. AAAAAAAAAAAAAA
What are we doing on the bed onii chan?
This simple meal of rice and whateverthefuck has completely impressed these natives. Japanese cuisine is the best.

Stuff like the above.

>>19973513
Do people actually write like that? Ones without mental handicaps?

>>19973530
It's far less common than coomer core writing, in my experience anyways.

>>19973536
what the fuck is coomercore

>>19973560
Ever read a story about a psychopathic dryad eating pixies because the guys she has the hots for doesn't want to fuck her, so she takes it out be biting the heads off of woodland sprites to prove that she's bigger and more important?

How about a witch trapped in an illusion for a week where the antagonist tentacle rapes her to try and break her will?

Perhaps I could interest you in "Bella Swan wakes up in a sex dungeon"?

>>19973560
this
>>19969713
>>19969718

>>19973582
That’s not at all what I expected coomer core to be. I just figured, like, sex stuff.

>>19973177
It just feels so slutty to have it in multiple places.

>>19973582
>How about a witch trapped in an illusion for a week where the antagonist tentacle rapes her to try and break her will?
I want to read this VN

>>19973365
I don't do world building, it's just a bunch of stuff that happens

>is this interesting enough to catch your attention? I don't know if it's good enough to compete with the other litRPGs on RR.

Dry branches snapped with every step and wild berries stained the armor of the order rustling through the thicket. Moonlight shined through the leaves casting shadows both large and small. The order moved together in a line. Five of them total. Their chainmail jingled through the silent woods, with the occasional chirp from hidden crickets breaking up the tunes of steel chains the group sang as they passed over the creek. The group hiked since dawn, equipped with a variety of weapons and tools to aid them in their hunt. Two swords each, a satchel of food, water, explosives, maps, and mementos reminding them of either their vows or loved ones.
“Disgusting,” Adah muttered as she picked the cobwebs off her face.
“Little flower can’t handle some wee spiders eh?” Darius responded behind her.
“Shut it before I shove my fist toward the back of your throat,” Adah threatened.
“Both of you, hush,” Morath said, “we’re getting close to the sighting of the Lich.”
Morath Warsinger, Captain of the Knights of Valora, crouched and raised his hand stopping the march. The group hid behind the fidgeberry bushes peeking through any holes. The cover of night and the scent of fidgeberries provided camouflage from any danger of detection. The jingles fell silent, as the group watched for any signs for the ghastly remnant they were tasked to destroy.
“It’s here,” Morath said.
It was more than twenty leaps away, but a faint blue streak of magic could be seen through the openings between the leaves. The ghostly figure moved slowly in front of them, not noticing the group watching it. It carried nothing but a staff, and cloaked itself in a robe with pieces and parts of a golden trim still visible despite the tattered cloth ripped in numerous parts. An insignia was printed on the back of the robe but could not be distinguished due to the lack of light and distance. Nonetheless, the five knew this was the monster they sought.
“Adah,” Morath said, “prepare your spell, you will be the initial strike. Reeves and Joann, move west and wait for my attack. Darius, you are with me. When Adah’s spell distracts the lich, we will attack in a pincer. Darius, you will have the task of disarming the staff.”
The group split quickly. Adah closed her eyes to focus.

>>19973665
>>is this interesting enough to catch your attention?
probably. I'm not even reading any litrpgs other than's anon's Erased story.

picrel is actual literary kino

>>19973698
Why is he so concerned about niggers?

>>19973704
Why aren't you?

>>19973704
See that's how you now it's a good story. Keeps you asking questions and wanting for more.

How much time do you spend on research? Is it better to research first and write later or break it up?

>story clams to be 'progression'; spends a whole chapter on a conversation at a bar, without a single character entering or leaving it.

>>19973860
how dare you call me out like that

>>19973698
I just wish I knew if the grammatical errors are stylistic or just errors.

>>19973860
>wrote 40,000 words about people having conversations at one bar
RIP my "novel"

>>19973893
There's only so much filler a man can handle anon.

>>19973897
Repetition legitimises. That's what I've learnt from jazz.

>>19967405
To add to what others have said, delete 'Gwah', it's anime.

>>19968989
Is it he Portuguese language that does this to its speakers and writers? Is it just too unyielding, demanding purple prose, refusing simple observation?

>>19968634
I quite like it. I'd enjoy it if there were less redundant sentences and adjectives, but the overall autism feels cool to me

>>19970002
Most retarded take ITT

>>19973698
When will this author return to finish what he started?

I'm writing a fantasy story and it's almost finished. However, I'm never going to post it, because I know people here would hate it. It practically checks all the boxes for things people hate in a modern fantasy story.

>>19974765
Alright

>>19974765
Post it anyways, nobody is going to read it

>>19974765
I'm also writing a fantasy story that's almost finished. I am also not going to post it, not because people would hate it (I'm sure you'd enjoy it) but because of the language barrier.
It's got jetpacks and daughterus in it.

>(I'm sure you'd enjoy it)
>It's got jetpacks and daughterus in it.

How do i increase stakes in a contemp fantasy while keeping the story small scope? I don’t want a chosen one saves the world, i want someone battling the town’s evil or something local

>>19974832
Just look at what Justin Trudeau is doing. It writes itself

>>19974824
Yes. It's exactly what people like you want out of literature.

>>19974832
Stakes increase when the odds of success go down

>>19974783
This is true. I’ve posted several chapters of my fantasy story recently with no responses here.

>>19974841
>It's exactly what people like you want out of literature.
So you're the 21st century Joyce, then?

>>19975010
Yes, yes my dear! My 4-page description of painful hemorrhoids should be pungent enough for you.

>>19975019
>another retard conflating writing quality with subject matter

>>19975023
Stop crying and go write.

>>19975027
I've finished my words for the day.
>dodging the point

>>19975034
The point is moot since you can never make any determinations of the language I'm using. This is the sad reality of the English speaker who never learns foreign languages. I'm so sorry you had to fail this hard, but do take the L in silence and leave the thread be. Nobody benefits from your attitude.

>>19975062
Life will humble you.

>>19975094
Little men speak such words often.

>>19965611
What websites other than wattpad can I use to upload my work chapter by chapter? I have about 10k words on a slice of life science fiction story that I originally based on Fallout 2. I want to do it for free.

>>19975098
You still dodged the point I was making. That's pretty small of you, slimy even. My point isn't moot because I can't read your writing in your native tongue (convenient smokescreen, by the way!) because my point was about the nature of writing itself. There exists no culture on the planet with a history of literature which conflates writing quality with the subject of the writing. Therefore, when you assume that what anyone wants out of literature is quirky and esoteric subjects, like jet packs and "daughterus," you are misapprehending the purpose of capital-L Literature.

You are conflating still writing quality with subject matter, and slick, but futile, attempts at distracting me by pretending your shit doesn't stink, will not cause me to forget that you still haven't actually addressed the point.

I'm starting to think you don't even understand what I'm saying.

Does /lit/ have the worst writing ability per piece of literature read rating? I mean you guys read so much yet the writing is so cringe. Or are you going to blame it on the influx of light novel tourists from /a/ and /jp/? Why doesn't /ic/ have this problem?

>>19975145
People who read a lot don't make good writers. You have to LIVE. People on 4chan don't LIVE.
t. Hemingway's ghost

>>19975114
>royalroad
>scribblehub
>CrW section of Spacebattles
>r/HFY
>r/redditserials

>>19975148
You wearing a dress right now, or nah?

>>19975167
It's called a kilt! A kilt! Martha's kilt!

>>19975157
I'm not posting my shit on Reddit but thanks for the first 3 suggestions.

>>19966184
I feel your pain.

>>19966184
>he doesn't work at a desk and write 1k words every day at work
NGMI

>>19975157
>Scribble hub
The entire site is nothing but anime and Isekai.
>Read a story
>Truck-kun
>"What the fuck did I just get isekai'd?"
This has to be a parody

What's the difference between posting serials vs. a book chapter-by-chapter? Is it that a book presumably has a clear ending, whereas the expectation of serials is they run indefinitely? Is there a difference between the expected length to a serial installment vs. how long a chapter of a book should be?

>>19975276
I did that once. I felt really dirty and paranoid about it and worried there was a keylogger that would report me for typing so many sexual and violent words in the office.

>>19975276
My office is a defense contractor so anything I generate on their systems is technically company property.

>>19975343
>>19975364
I work in the public sector and feel that working on my own writing is a better use of downtime than playing Tetris like the dude next to me does

>>19975371
When you're on downtime you're supposed to seek out additional work to help your office perform more efficiently. Sorry you're not a team player.

>>19975376
My job is customer service. If there are no customers, I can't just abandon my post and look for something else to do.

reminder that you will never make it unless you're a teenage girl

>>19975385
Women have such easy lives.

>>19975385
meow meow lol

>>19975385
Holy fuck are women that stupid? Brb gonna try that

>>19975385
She writes incredibly well. Better than most of /lit/

>>19975385
>Femoids have easymode
not big surprise

>>19975321
webnovels are generally free to read and publish and it's easier to communicate with readers. Finished published novels are sent out into the void with little to no feedback or communication. Traditional novels like tradpub or selfpub had lag in between publications whereas chapters are written and published in real time, so to speak, but that doesn't mean that there may be hiatues ranging from a short time to months of radio silence, since life is a bitch.

> Is it that a book presumably has a clear ending, whereas the expectation of serials is they run indefinitely?
Webnovels do end. I believe there is no expectation that they will go on forever unless you're chinese and can write 1million words very easily. There is a famous chinese webnoveloist that does this but I don't know their name top of my head.

>Is there a difference between the expected length to a serial installment vs. how long a chapter of a book should be?
The "sweet spot" tends to be 2k~-4k. But my philopsoly for writers is to write as much as needed to tell what's happening in a chapter. A lot of my later chapters ballonup to 6-8k and I stress that it's OK to split huge chapters like these into 2 or more if it makes sense to do so, ie; there is natural stops in the chapter for a good hanger.

>>19975408
You determined that based on her feet, didn't you?

I bit on a pine needle to fill my mouth with the taste of sap. It wasn't exactly a pleasant to my palate, but lacking gum what else could I do?
Gravel made noise underfoot as Danny and I walked leisurely to the sandbox. He sniffed about intently. There's all manner of animals that walk about these parts at night, who knows what messages they left for a cat's nose to pick up on.
"Hey! Hey!" someone was shouting. Danny ignored it and kept up the cocksure walk all toms have, but I turned my head, spitting out the end of the pine needle from my mouth. It would only raise questions.
"You're the retard, right?" the man asked. His gut hung over a belt with a cellphone casing attached to it, his jeans were worn threadbare at the crotch. His face was red and his eyes squinty. There was a Charlotte Hornets cap on his head, covering what I knew to be a bald spot. Didn't remember his name, didn't care.
"No," I replied.
"Yeah, you're the fucking retard. Walking around barefoot like that? That's a retard thing to do. What, can't tie your shoelaces without mom's help?"
Mother was at the hospital after heart surgery, and I didn't appreciate this man's attitude. Danny, with his cat-typical inattention to human affairs, was walking up to the man to brush against his legs. I pulled back on the leash to keep him from going further. Danny responded by changing trajectory, as if it had always been his original intent to go sniff the slide.
"You know that cat of yours shits in the sandbox?"
"No, he doesn't. He's an indoor cat," I replied.
"He's fucking outside now, isn't he? And we found shit in there. So are you going to pay to have the sand replaced or what?"
I sighed.
"If it was cat shit, it wasn't ours. But I don't think it was cat shit. I saw the pictures in your little e-mail. Everyone did. Those little rounds things come out of rabbits, not cats."
He stepped closer to me. I could smell the beer on his breath now.
"You think you're pretty fucking clever, don't you retard?"
"Told you I'm not a retard."
"Shut the fuck up! Pay up or we're going to drive you and that whore of a mother of yours out of here. Our kids play in that sandbox."
"You don't have any kids," I said, knowing him to be a single man, a certified bachelor who spent an inordinate amount of time paying attention to the kids. He had the time, being unemployed.
"There's nothing to pay for at any rate," I added, pulled Danny closer and began to distance myself from him.
"I've got a gun."
He did. A regular old Glock. The kind of handgun that didn't have a safety on it. This gun was unsteadily being pointed in the general direction of me and Danny.
"Fucking retard," he said and pulled the trigger.
What a stupid way to go.

>>19975471
>left the "a" in the second sentence
I fucked up. Sorry.

I wanna use something like "In this vein,..." in my research paper but I listed several arguments... as I don't think the plural "in these veins" is possible, do you have any alternative that I could use?

>>19975408
>"A glistening bead of feminine dew trickled down the slender opening of Amara's rose © 2017 Random House Books[/spoier]. His eyes followed hungrily as it traced a path across the supple skin of her inner thigh and dampened the linen underneath. His lips alighted on her rosebud and her pink petals blossomed in response, beckoning him forth. He inched his head forward with bated breath. And as he gently parted the curls of her untrimmed hedge, he saw the thousand gnashing teeth of the Rosa-hulud emerge from between the delicate folds of her flesh.
>He stared at it for a moment. "Oh well, every rose has its thorn I suppose," he whispered into her entrance. The laugh track died away as he promptly inserted his tongue.

meh, reads like coomer smut to me

>>19975589
>literal flowery language

>>19975589
>he saw the thousand gnashing teeth
Gee Bill, so big a thousand teeth fit in there?

>>19975589
What the hell am I reading
Cunnilingus and vagina dentata?

>>19975589
>His lips alighted on her rosebud and her pink petals blossomed in response, beckoning him forth.
Why are women obsessed with cunnilingus? I can't name a more boring sexual activity for everyone involved.

>>19975650
They literally think with holes
That's why they default to arguing with holes

>>19975650
Because they get off on the idea of a man submitting to them. If a bitch ever asks you to eat her out, take her for a ride in your car then dump her in the woods miles from home.

>>19973790
I have pages of research and have written 0 words of the actual novel.
My advice is to write and only research if and when you don't know something.

>>19975589
100% this girl sexts

>>19975707
this
it reads like an ERP coomer's pet project

Write an erotic novel but say it's a YA scifi/fantasy/whatever with a female pen name and become rich and successful.

>doing chores before getting back to writing my royalroad money-making scheme
>have some amateur writing teacher youtuber's video about how to make good fights as background noise
>he talks about how we usually start our stories imagining an epic battle and are anticipating getting to that fight
>space out to check if it that's true for my case
>realize that the parts i always want to get to are scenes where two characters are hanging out or talk about something important to them
Am I going to make it?

>>19975757
Yes you are. Here's an interview of a pioneer of self-publishing who took his story from large-scale epic fantasy down to intimate and personal as he himself matured as a person. He pretty much says what you did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOPqv9wigl8

>>19975777
>who took his story from large-scale epic fantasy down to intimate and personal as he himself matured as a person.
Oh fuck, my first three books were epic fantasy and now I'm writing a deeply personal historic fiction piece.

>>19975757
>>19975777
I posted the wrong interview like a retard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1xUqOd15XE

Do ratings and reviews get the same weighting on RR to determine your overall?

>>19975854
As far as I recall Ratings and Reviews have the same weight, but Advanced Reviews are weighted more heavily.

>>19975868
I suppose I was just bad at estimating the average of my ratings. Thought it should have moved more than 0.01 but I was wrong according to the calculator.

>>19975932
To clarify, the weighting is only for rankings. Your average rating is a true average.

>>19975757
>>realize that the parts i always want to get to are scenes where two characters are hanging out or talk about something important to them
People always complain about these parts of my story because I'm not building tension. It's possible most readers are just retarded.

New thread is up!
>>19976042

>>19975661
>cunnilingus
>holes
anon, i...