/lit/ - Literature

Write

Write

>>20185837
Quality /wg/ posters
>Aristotle enjoyers
>Passive Pullum appreciators
>Theory and craft philosophers
>Writing Feedback seekers (posting actual samples)
>Selfless critiquers

Inferior /wg/ posters
>Should I post....
>What would you guys think if I wrote...
>How should I write this extremely detailed aspect of scene you've never seen???
>waaahhh I'm seeing things besides literary fiction!
>Read this 10k sample I never edited of my fantasy erotica, if you criticize it I will never acknowledge your comment.

Know where you land, be the change you want to see.

>>20185916
I can't relate to either of these. Once again the path I walk is my own, but does it lead to obscurity or fame? Regardless, I was thinking back on the days of my childhood and how I used to write on pieces of A4 paper with a pen. I'd write about pirates and hawkmen and wizards and monsters and cowboys looking for gold and kids playing soccer all in the same story with no regard for how any of it fit together.
I wish I still had those stories saved somewhere. I wish I could write with such reckless abandon again, with no regard for "world building". No consistency in the milieu, just dream logic, a child's logic, limited only by imagination, an imagination bred before the days of smartphones.
Alas.

>>20185916
Quality /wg/ posters addendum
>Brief writing blog Chads talking about their work and love for the craft
>Marketing trve vnderstanders
>Flash fiction gods

Inferior /wg/ posters addendum
>People asking for permission/interest instead of just posting
>Meerkaters
>"No one writes"

Which is a better platform for promoting my book: Gettr or Gab?

>>20186181
What kind of audience do you want?

>>20186181
Gab

>>20186188
Conservatives.

>trying to work on my royal road project's lore
>start finding my protagonists' ancestors so interesting that i just want to write about them instead
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

>>20186336
Play the long game, start the story with the ancestors and move along the generations until you get to your final protagonist.

>>20186379
I'm afraid they aren't as Royal Road friendly as their descendants.

>>20186336
>working on lore instead of writing the story
ngmi

>>20186450
I know, but while my story won't be lore nor exposition heavy, there's a lot of things in the background and related to the characters' backstories that would be weird to not have present from the beginning.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a8pWlGw_bPawyLJcMt9sSGClnXFQX-qapp_V_d77kbE/edit?usp=sharing

Hell Anon reporting in.

>Still 1k+ stronk words a day
Whats the best way to portray a female character as particularly degenerate, so far i have;
Lets her male pet dog lick her on the mouth.
Wears short skirts.
Too much perfume.
Touches people on the arm when she talks to them.

>>20187012
smokes cigarettes
drunkard
braying laughter
multiple flings
doesn't know how to cook

>>20187012
eats food that's fallen on the ground
scratches herself in public
chews on fingernails
flirts with every guy she meets
snort-laughs

>is able to
NOPE
>can
YEP

>>20187012
>Lets her male pet dog lick her on the mouth.
That's incredibly normal and not even slightly degenerate.

>>20187012
By "degenerate", do you mean promiscuity or /d/ kind of shit?
Either way, it might be helpful to immerse yourself in female psychology. Look at things created by women, for women. Visit crystal cafe's /nsfw/ board (female 4chan; lurk, don't post, treat it like a nature reserve). Look up reader self-insert fanfiction on AO3.

>>20186450
Uhm it’s called world building and it’s vitally important. Well known writers like Tolkien, Martin, and Paolini have done it. You might have heard of them and their works.

>>20187052
Can confirm.
>>20187075
Pretty applicable, except the short laugh, i feel like an overly long laugh would be more narcissistic.
>>20187089
>low quality bait
i think you need to invest in some live worms fren.
>>20187102
More like socially acceptable but morally reprehensible, like they refuse to use condoms but complain about having to have an abortion deal.
I also checked out crystal cafe and i never thought /r9k/ could be topped but /feels/ beat it in the first few threads.
Also too afraid to open their /b/ now, i thought i was mentally stronk.

>>20187012
Smokes pot
Basic tattoos
"I have more guy friends than girls"

>"if you don't have niggers and child molesters in your book, you'll NEVER have realistic characters"
Why are lit-tubers like this?
I'm here and giving this a try because I want to get away from them.

How bad of an idea would it be to fantasize about one if my characters while masturbating? I just think she's hot and cute.

>>20187542
The writing thread on /trash/ told me to just go ahead with it to get it out of my system, but they are /d/ expats.

>>20187542
I had porn commissioned of a red headed tomboy I character I wrote in my first book series. Yes, I've beaten off to it several times.

Why is lit so horny today?

>>20187619
Redheaded tomboya have one function and one function only

How do I do marketing?

>>20187722
>oof
What genre ?

>>20187733
Fantasy adventure. I know Wattpad is geared more towards twee romance but I figured somebody might be interested at all ever.

>>20187619
Share!

>>20187722
Easy. Think of marketing as whoring yourself. The rest will come naturally.

What if I uuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhh start my story with a dream followed by an action scene?

>>20187809
Why not go against convention, and start with an action scene followed by a dream? That'll mess 'em up.

>>20187737
Post it. I'll read it.

>>20185916
Based
>>20185951
>>20185951
>I'd write about pirates and hawkmen and wizards and monsters and cowboys looking for gold
Most of my stories involve cowboys fighting pirates over gold in a post-apocalyptic waste. They'll never get published, likely aren't great, but I feel good writing them. Don't hold back my man.
>>20186336
Write about both. Howard did it with Kull and Conan.

>>20187722
It seems like wattpad has no way for natural growth, every other writing websites has at least a latest posted page. Wattpad seems more gated and shit then other websites.

>>20187940
What was the gap between Kull and Conan? Some hundreds of years?

Though, I guess I'm kind of scared of readers either overwhelmingly preferring one group over the other or having a split between people who like one and the other. No idea what that would do to a humble Royal Road hustler's story.

>>20187940
What was the gap between Kull and Conan? Some hundreds of years?

Though, I guess I'm kind of scared of readers either overwhelmingly preferring one group over the other or having a split between people who like one and the other. No idea what that would do to a humble Royal Road hustler's story.
I mean, the ancestors aren't like in the case of Kull and Conan the same but different but adventurers and soldiers. Only the MC and two of the other characters are any similar to them but the era kind of works against them.

>>20187970
>Wattpad seems more gated and shit then other websites
Wattpad is terrible and has absolutely awful discovery mechanics. Go to the site and try and look for a story. Click on fantasy. Okay now the little dropdown is hot or new. Oh, you can click on tags - except only like 10 of them you can't even manually write them and there is no list of tags you can reference.
>>20187737
Wattpad is awful. For fantasy adventure RR is probably your best bet. Keep your wattpad up but no one will be able to find it. Seriously. Go use retard road's search function right now and then use Wattpad's. The difference is stark, Wattpad is basically unusable.

>>20188013
its probably on purpose. Why make it easy to look for novels when you can post a bunch of recs that people can pay for on the front page?

Any of you guys planning on writing anywhere besides in a book?
Surely some of you intend to use royal road, substack, etc…

>>20186098
what's the difference between marketing trve vnderstandes and meerkaters?
t. plan to shill my sad short stories anthology here one day
>>20187012
speaks too loud
casually talks about sex
too much "overproduced" i.e. too much makeup, nail polish, etc.
>>20188042
I plan to publish short non-fiction essays on Medium. I've read some articles about it and the "average" number of readers and profit is high enough.

>>20188010
It may actually be a couple thousand. For the stories, though, I say just write whichever is drawing you at the time and build out the world as you do it. If readers like your writing in one way they may like the other. If not, then I don't think it'll detract from their enjoyment having them both out there.
>>20188042
Trying to get my stuff published in a sci-fi magazine but we'll see.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09XDVFQN4

YAY!!!! my Paperback got accepted!!!! Now time to sell the book! What do you think of this plan?

>go to public library
>request book purchase
>claim it's a local author
>public libraries love to support locals
>they buy a book
GET A SALE!

>>20188121
>your plan
Public libraries have no money; they aren't going to buy your book.
But Amazon lets you order "author copies" at cost.
Maybe order a bunch and donate them to local libraries.

>>20185951
Literally and unironically,

Just do drugs

>>20188160
>Public libraries have no money; they aren't going to buy your book.
Darn it... And here I thought it was going to be fool proof. I wonder if my undergraduate college will buy one to help their alumni out?

>>20188199
Doesn't hurt to try

>>20188199
Get a social media presence, shill your shitty book there. Join the right circles, advertise it through them.

Hey, I have a question. Does this hammer home the hopelessness of the situation?
>"You wanted a way to keep peace, didn't you? Protect our species from extinction." He said as he glared upwards with hate in his eyes, his torn arm oozing blood. "But no, you just added fuel to the flames, and now not just our species, but every living thing on the face of the planet will perish because you thought you could help."
>Every word was like a barb, and both of them knew it. One out of hate, and the other out of guilt
>"I never meant for any of this to happen, you know. But if it makes you feel any better, I understand what you mean. I know exactly what my ambitions unleashed, and now I must pay the price for it. Even if I can't stop it, I may try."
>The man on the floor laughed weakly. "Go do that. See if you can stop something that the strongest armies couldn't so much as give pause to."

Anyone have any good story ideas involving tarot cards? I'm thinking a serial killer who leaves behind tarot cards as clues to his next victim.

Doesn't have to be murder related, I just think tarot cards could be a cool concept.

>>20187757
This is a sketch of a different one that was never completed. The one I mentioned was painted for me by a friend
https://i.imgur.com/kgMUD1T.jpg

Is it wrong to conclude a rape scene by pointing out the woman orgasmed and since she enjoyed it, it wasn’t really rape?

>>20188046
Meerkaters believe scams will get their book to sell. They care only for profit and "making it big" and will write anything to get there. Marketing trve vnderstanders know that selling a book is more than Twitter scams and involves a more involved process of outreach and engagement with the public, but is ultimately up to word of mouth to sufficiently spread the story around.

>>20188267
Persona 4?

>>20188298
>ultimately up to word of mouth to sufficiently spread the story around.
I like this idea. Thanks anon. I'll take it to heart and start upping my presence.

>>20188260
No, rather than saying.
>Go do that. See if you can stop something that the strongest armies couldn't so much as give pause to.
He should insult him. Doing it your way basically signals to the reader that the gambit is going to work. Say something like,
>You can't stop it and you know it. You're a failure. A failure as a [whatever his job is] and a failure as a [whatever their relationship was]. I want you to know that. I want you to know nothing you do now matters at all. You've doomed us all.

>>20188277
The proper way of doing that is to have the rapist laugh in her face and say he'll think about fucking her again because she obviously liked it so much.

>>20188312
Good idea

>>20188189
Nah, drugs will just make you burn out faster.
Look what happened to Hemingway.

>>20188274
Doesn't look very tomboyish in stockings like that.
I was hoping to see her in jeans and a long-sleeved baseball jersey.

>>20188304
Then you can give advice to aspiring writers...
"I just upped my presence -- up yours!"

Here's a pair of writing prompts
>A man slowly realizes he's been brainwashed into an assassin
>A dog waits at heaven's gate for the one person to show him love

>>20188493
he became the best American author ever?

>>20188512
And then he burned out, went nuts, and shot himself in the head.

>another night of Real Human Bean and my historical fiction

>>20188277
It's still rape because she didn't consent to the orgasm. The narrator shouldn't sweep it under the rug and the rapist needs something that will make it hold up in a justice system - some interesting way in the story to make her agree it wasn't rape. Be careful, you might be at risk of actually saying something.

I am looking for a replacement to the GPO notebooks (pic related) I've been using for writing/taking notes. I use them all the time at my job to write instructions and technical info so I can remember it later. Using a computer is fine but it's nice to have a small book I can throw into my bag and bring with me. Most journals are godawful thick floppy leather bound things designed for women, or cheapo plastic dogshit with bindings that fall apart. What physical journals/notebooks do you guys use or recommend?

Requirements
>Hardcover
>Cloth cover preferred, some of the knockoff GPO books are paper than look like cloth, and that's ok. No leather.
>Ruled pages (College ruled pref)
>Solid color, no wild patterns

>>20188731
whatever you can find at walmart

>>20185837
I wrote a short story that I’m pretty happy with, that’s never going to be seen by anyone except me. Hahaaa, fuck you you fucking sucky fuck fuckers!

>>20188811
>Hahaaa, fuck you you fucking sucky fuck fuckers!
Don't stop, I'm almost there

>>20188121
Hey, lad, can't opinate much on your public libraries plan but I think you should enable KDP Select for the KENP pages count. People that buy books and people that subscribe to Kindle Unlimited and read them "for free" are VERY different and you won't lose buyers by letting people read them.
At any rate, the synopsys looks interesting, although not very informative nor engaging, and the preview is pretty good too. I won't buy it because I'm brazilian and right now I'm piss poor (I wouldn't even read on KU because I also don't have a subscription) but good luck and I hope you do well.

>>20187467
Care about the readers who are buying your book and providing actual feedback, not about lit-tubers with eternally moving goalposts that have nothing to do with your story at all. Follow principles of storytelling and marketing, not trends.

>>20188803
Walmart has at best plastic covered five star notebook garbage that falls apart after opening it more than 20 times. Those are the notebooks overweight Walmart mutants buy their retarded children to bring to school, knowing they will take notes for the first 3-4 pages and then retire the book to live on the floor of their dorm until thrown away with expired Pearson Vue codes and empty taco bell bags.

>>20185916
based and redpilled. Psting from library computer.

Just finished a 3906 word rough draft, after twice hearing advice to "just blaze through the rough draft, all in one sitting if able" from two different sources. (both were women authors, unfortunately, so I was skeptical).
But it's done. Hopefully, tomorrow I can start on another or finish up the one I still have hanging, but I'll need to understand the Book of Job better to make the ending good. Think I should finish the RD and add the specific Bible verses and context in when I'm revising?

>>20188536
Still the best American author. What will you be remembered as, Anon?

>>20187102
>>20187260
>crystal cafe
I'm going to use their threads as idea inspiration and everyone will say I right the best women; if they don't, I know they're just seething at how close to the mark I hit.

>>20188887
I just browsed for a bit and it's insane how wrong they are about men. It gives me a sense of realism when I think about how this site thinks about women.

>>20188871
Hopefully not for a shocking suicide.

>>20188864
>blaze through the rough draft
The wisdom behind this advice is that it's easier to edit than it is to write something for the first time.
Having something to edit gives you text you can improve slowly.

>>20188823
Ah, no, I was planning on doing what you're saying.
I was just wondering why they are like this.

>>20188912
>shit out a juicy draft as fast as possible
>cringe at it so hard i can't edit it without feeling physical pain
no hope

>>20188912
>it's easier to edit than it is to write something for the first time.
I knew that but for some reason never put it to practice. The whole "right 1k words a day" thing seems more like a hindrance than "just write". If you just write a bunch for 90 minutes, you'll surely hit 1,000 words, no problem.
The sooner I can make this a habit, the sooner I can burn through the 20 story ideas I have.

>>20188907
why not both? suicide always improves your legacy. simple as.

>>20188912
Editing is hard as shit. Because after reading the same thing 2 or 3 times, your brain blurs out and everything reads exactly the same.

>>20187077
>I want to be able to see
>I want to can see
Why do we not use can like this?

My member kept itself warmly lodged into her carnal primrose path of sweltering, wet mutual gratification. I could feel her contractions, the flesh clasping me in a tighter embrace in a gluttony for satisfaction beyond what the limits of the moment's reality could provide, her eyes rolling into the back of her head naturally, the way they do when you know it is not an act, only for a split second and then coming back in a dazed squint with a dumb, cock-drunk smile and a giggle. With my right hand I had a stream of her beautiful dirty blonde hair whose colors were a beautiful fluid mixture of the auric and the amber, on the left side of her head, rolled it around my index and medium fingers a bit and pulled, forcing her head back and the exposure of her neck forward, as she faced herself getting fucked in the mirror. Enjoying the balmy ardor of her golden skin, the round back of her derriere and her legs and her back now against me pulled by force, I licked the transparent streams of oily sweat that dripped over the side of her face and descended in developments of kisses towards slight nibbling down her neck while her eyes lost themselves, this time, truly back into her skull. I could feel her getting wetter, my long shaft protruding inside, I was at the physical limit of my length, which I'm going to admit I (and no other man) always reach, but this time all the blood was there. There is a point called the A-Spot really close to the cervix, and another time I will explain it to you better. Once hit, they are yours, and they lose themselves in the haze of endorphins and fulfillment you bring them to, like an addict in the moment of their best hit. It's amazing how the unique brains capable of the arcane, the information processing power of multiple super-computers, the capacity for the study, enjoyment and even creation of the highest forms of art, the dedicated elevation of the human experiment in more civilized reaches through edifying scholarly achievement, and every talent, every quirk, every lovable characteristic, every personality trait, every aspect of character is lost into the submersion of the fog of animalistic, delectable revelry in tingles, pleasures and orgasms, and even the most capable and elevated of women is reduced to a gushing, piss drinking, cock begging, face slapped, anally fucked slut licking semen off the floor while her cunt gushes and she thanks you for the experience. The most human aspect of her left being sugary perfumes emanating from her neck as I shove my cock deeper than ever now, the cheap perfumes brought in street stores that prostitutes would frequent.

Question: Most cartoonist (including those that worked on the Disney classics) got so bored of drawing the same characters over and over, so during their breaks, they would 'relax' by doing stuff like drawing Ariel and Cinderella nude. In light of this, do you think famous authors also broke up the monotony by writing smut and literotica?

>>20188943
Step back from it for a few days, at least. Also read it backwards, bottom to top.

>>20188958
every time I have sex I think about math to last longer. def works. and thats how I describe all my sex scenes.

>>20188957
Because we're literate English speakers?
I don't understand your question.

>>20188511
Second one
>woof wof snarl woof growl bark yip snarll woof bark growl
>woof woof bark pant pant pant—bark
>woof woof: auuuu, rawr, grrrrrr yiip
>baaaaaark, bark bark pant pant.
>"sjieshysoli awagawer waaga anweghyt jassjay GOOD BOY"
>bark...woof ggrrrr. Growl yipp.
>BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK

Today I cranked out over 5,200 words toward my latest novel.
The metaphors and similes were simply flying from my fingers!
I'm truly grateful that the muse has bestowed her inspirational presence on me today.
Hopefully I can keep this pace going until I complete the first draft.

>>20188977
No.. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!!!

>>20188983
You will read it tomorrow and realize it's all shit

>>20188958
this is way too purple for a sex scene.

>>20188985

>>20188987
Imagine being a yurifag and saying this unironically

>>20188958
Cass, the faggot boy, skinny like a delicate maiden, his waist dipping in at both sides like this of a young woman, his hips wide enough within the limitations of his slender frame to arouse the instincts of any throbbing cock, sitting his much thirsted after pale, velvet-like smooth bottom on the thick, long cock, more than seven inches in length and tortuously thick like a salame for such a dainty princess to anally devour so voraciously, his legs shaved and suave like a tender schoolgirl, arms as well, and face aimed up, exposing a white neck, while moaning in feminine little exasperated, panting whines and sobs. His legs were close together, not restrained by anything other than his own desire of making his ass tighter for the delights of that cock that invaded his rectum as he controlled the penetration by the voluntary thrusts of his own ass. His cock, bigger than the expected, some good six and a half inches long and decently thick, was harder than ever and starting to leak in the transparent nectar of precum that flowed in the embodiment of an innocent physical response to mind-breaking euphoria, and the glowing, overflowing pleasures of the thick head of that penis massaging and mercilessly pushing against his prostate, an endless expansion of scrumptious tingles and shivers that traveled through his flesh, through his balls and cock even, a greater enticing, exquisite delight than any penile pleasure, while the member inside his ass continued pulsating, enjoying the subservient and dedicated ladylike asshhole that delighted every inch of its constitution with its heat and stimulation.
"Thank you for the delicious cock!" he shouted, exasperated in ecstasy, actually picturing a life of servitude to that member, to feel that pleasure more than once a day, what a delicious premise, wearing feminine lingerie in the humiliation of finding himself on his knees and with a glistening cock covered in warm, sour-smelling spit rubbing against his hungry mouth and submissive face, his neck tugged on by a tight leash.
Perverted hands traveled the sides of his torso enjoying the silky quality of his skin and delighting themselves into gently rubbing, cruelly gripping and teasing his body.

>>20188998
Woman sex = hot

Two women having sex = double hot

Simple as. Yurichads stay winning chuds stay seething

>>20185837
How do you guys get the ideas to make up landmasses?

>>20188998
I'm reading it right now, and it still comes across as witty.
I'm very happy with the results.
Stop projecting your insecurities onto me.

>>20189018
In a worldbuilding sense, or a shape-of-coastline sense?

>>20189018
>>20189031
Why are you repeating the same question?

>>20189025
Worldbuilding sense. Excuse me for posting the same question twice. I must've forgotten I already posted.

>>20189042
There's no end of advice about worldbuilding.

There's a free online magazine dedicated to it:
https://www.worldbuildingmagazine.com/

There's also a StackExchange site:
https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/

Speaking for myself...I come up with something generic until the plot demands something different, then I change it.

I've long thought that engaging in worldbuilding, without writing any prose to go with it, is an unproductive dead-end.
I knew a guy in high school who was prone to that.
He never completed any of the novels he started.

What's the /wg/ approved character profile template?

>>20188930
Same, it really depends on the person. I've tried it both ways and some limited editing (2 passes) motivates me because I'm actually proud of what came before and I feel like I have fuller ideas to build upon in subsequent chapters rather than building slop on top of slop.

>>20189018
I haven't done it much, but I've mostly started from a real area (enclosed seas like the Baltic/Mediterranean, or geographic gradients like a mountain range with some passes through it, that sort of thing), recreated a made-up area with similar characteristics, and then thought about how humans would interact in it.

Where are the natural land barriers and chokepoints for borders to form? Where are the military barracks and forts with relation to those borders? What are the resources and where are the trade routes they travel? Which groups would be in conflict, and which would be allied?

>>20189067
If you think it's slop, feel free to replace it with another attempt.
You got the sloppy version out of your system; that frees you up to consider the better version more clearly.
When writing, the answer is always more communication.

Any advice for consciously changing my style of writing?
Not to improve it, but to change it at will - the written version of talking in a different voice so that I can play two separate characters in a radio play without the need of a friend.

>>20189174
Read genres you don't normally read

>>20188818
Thanks. There's a pdf of the book in one of the previous threads if you want to read it for free

>>20189263
If you mean https://litter.catbox.moe/3gmajb.pdf , I'm getting "404 not found".

Anons; thoughts on brevity? When does too little information become a problem?

>>20189307
When you're trying to finish your novel and you haven't hit 60,000 words yet.

>>20187619
>tfw putting TWO red headed tomboys on my story

>>20185837
R8 the first paragraphs of my novel. Eventually the story will involve bigfoot btw.

Strawberry fields, Mantly must have heard some poem or song or otherwise pleasant allusion to strawberry fields. Because when he stumbled into town that first day, hot and utterly exhausted from the trek, yet already looking for work he thought, strawberry picker eh? Sounds cool, pleasant and relaxing.
Well it turns out it’s just strawberries that are cool, pleasant and relaxing, their fields, and the act of picking them are just tedious and hot. Not hard work, not really, just annoying and a tad demeaning. He knew the job was mostly for children and women, but he had a vague notion that the women would be of the…luscious variety, again, he was thinking of strawberries.
The women turned out to be wiry old things with surprisingly strong and nimble fingers. They picked faster than Mantly, which means they made more money. Plus they seemed to have a better time doing it, all the time chatting and laughing in their big straw hats. While Mantly awkwardly shuffled on his knees down the rows filling his basket with no hat. He didn’t like hats, for some reason. Plus as a young healthy man perhaps that animal vitality of his could be better used in another line of work.
Well now I know, he thought.
Suddenly he realized his basket was full. He looked at the sun, ow, he looked away. It’s a bit past noon, only a couple hours to go. But now that he’d decided to leave the prospect of three more hours fingering fruit in the sun didn’t sound at all appealing.
1/2

>>20189353
Are they sisters?

>>20189355
So Mantly picked up his basket, strolled down the rows to the wagon on the other end, dumped his basket in with the rest, picked up the tally sheet and made one last stroke. Then he lit up smoke, as was his custom after each hard fought basket, and mused over the tally sheet.
Mantly, eight baskets. Not bad.
Jenny, twelve baskets. He scanned for Jenny in the field and saw her in the back, a girl of seven but small for her age. She wasn’t even on her knees, just bending at the waist and playfully tossing the strawberries into her basket, occasionally popping one into her mouth.
Granny Buckets, twenty-one buckets. He wondered if she got paid more per bucket than everyone else did per basket, they certainly held more. Just now she was scolding little Jenny from across the field for eating too many berries, her method of scolding was to pelt her with deadly accurate strawberries.
Queer sort, Mantly thought, must be the heat.
And with that he turned on his heel and waltzed down the road. Nobody noticed, or perhaps they did but didn’t care. He wouldn’t bother collecting the day's pay, Farmer Glenn could keep it for the inconvenience of leaving without notice. Besides, it wasn’t really for money he had come to this town.

>>20189356
No, and they couldn't be but that's not at all a bad idea.

captcha: XJH0T

>>20189355
>Mantly
I believe you are misspelling the name of your strawberry picker. Its Manuel. And I see he has his eye on little Jenny. Definitely a Manuel.

>>20189355
>>20189359
Pleasant to read, delivers feeling and sensory immersion without needing much, gets to the point nicely. I like it, the only stance I didn't like was
>Queer sort
this is a very old-timey thing, nowadays it would most likely be a curve ball to most readers, but most slightly seasoned readers understand what it means

>>20189432
Mantly could be the last name? Don't know; didn't read.

>>20189450
>>Queer sort
I'm all for reclaiming queer as weird and gay as happy in writing. Faggots can hang.

>>20189018
i draw them in notebooks and such. i make stuff that visually and thematically interests me and then i bullshit an explanation later. i don't really bother for fiction writing, because you don't usually get much out of worldbuilding geography if you're not writing a travel/adventure tale (and a lot of the time, even if you are, it still isn't that helpful)

>>20189060
Being lined up against a wall

>>20186336
I'm in sort of a similar situation, where I have a whole entire history planned out for the world I'm writing. Thoughts on prequels? Planning on finishing this main storyline im on then writing more about the history of the world through the perspective of characters in the main storyline that have lived through said history.

>>20190601
The first question you should ask is "does this history work as a story, or is it better to learn about as history", I think.

None of you will EVER finish your book. Sure an excerpt here and excerpt there, but nothing finished. You care more about (You)s and updoots than a completed work. And those that actually put out a page or two, all you get met with is scorn and crabs pulling you right back down the bucket.

ADMIT IT!

>world has fantasy powers and magic
>not everyone has them but they're not rare
>protagonist doesn't have them but is constantly put into difficult situations
>this adversity is what pushes him to discover secret powers that anyone would have access to in theory but no one had this same combination of circumstances in order to do so

Do you count this as a Chosen One trope?

What does /wg/ do for a living while they write? Or do you actually make a living through your writing?

>>20190661
If it's more "him discovering a new set of powers that anybody else could theoretically get", no. It's just right place, right time, right person.

>>20190671
I'm a mailman. I see things. I fuck horny housewives. I'm a mailman, yes sir, and if I don't like you, why your "discreet shipmen" might get lost on the way! I'm a mailman, that I am, and never let it be said I don't cram everything in that box, I do cram it sir and don't mind if I tear the cover of your magazines, cheap paper now sir, no fault of mine it's so fragile!
I'm a mailman!

>>20190661
Presumably your protagonist isn't the only one who gets into difficult situations. Do other people get powers that way?
>Do you count this as a Chosen One trope?
Is that a useful question? Don't tangle yourself up with categories, ask what the categories can do for you.
Do you want to avoid that trope? If so, why? List the downsides of using that trope, then figure out which ones apply to this particular case.

>>20190671
I program. I enjoy it and I'm good at it. Meanwhile everything about making money from writing sounds unpleasant.

>>20190895
>I program.
Not that anon, but are you the other guy who writes using emacs and org-mode? I use markdown-mode and writeroom-mode, and it's good not to have to relearn keybinds for a different editor.

>>20190914
Yeah, it's nice. I actually barely program in Emacs any more but I still use it for prose and notes and magit.

>>20190661
It's the "battle academy anime MC" trope

>>20190947
>It's the relatable protagonist trope
>It's the male protagonist who protects women trope
>It's the story with a clear protagonist trope

>>20190895
>everything about making money from writing sounds unpleasant
Except the money.
Once you can sell the TV/movie rights to your work, you'll be raking it in!

>>20190947
>>20191064
I'd be embarrassed if I posted on /lit/ but could only reference anime or movies

At last. Daybreak. My writer's block has cleared.

>>20191172
Mine has just begun.

>>20191283
In my experience, writer's block is a function of communication.
Whatever you have on your mind, write it down in your notes.
It doesn't need to be any good, and doesn't need to be related to what you're trying to write.
The point of the exercise is to get it out of your system.
I've learned that the act of communicating to an outside medium allows the mind to let go of it.
That frees up your mind, and attention, for other things.
After enough mental purging, you'll find you're much more easily able to think about what you wanted to in the first place.
Such purging is actually the primary function of a diary, but very few seem to realize that.

is there any point of continuing a royal road fiction if it gets bonked off the rising stars before hitting 1k followers?
the writeathon people who wrote stuff ahead of time knocked me almost completely off right before i hit top 10. would really rather not trash my fic just because it didn’t get high enough on that one list. it is a litrpg so it’s not like i was complaining off the mark

>>20191417
>any point continuing a royal road fiction
presumably you are writing the story because you like writing the story. right?

>>20189161
>>20191338
Currently I'm struggling to communicate how awful and useless your ramblings about communication are to dealing with any of these problems.

>>20191473
yes, of course.
i guess the better question was, do i have a chance at continuing to grow my audience on royal road. i do love the story, and i have written an absolute huge chunk of it. it’s just a big time investment and am hoping to start a writing career from it, hence the main question.
some people on RR seem to think your story can’t really go the distance if it doesnt do well on that first list

>>20191483
Be less of a dumbfuck and write better. Does this advice address your issue?

>>20191283
My writing instantly becomes better at night, daytime just messes with me for some reason. It's like the sunlight saps away my creativity, no clue why.

>>20191533
>some people on rr think
Why would you listen to them? Did you write a story that you like, or not? What is your story, anyway?

>>20191483
Did you even try the advice?
It's not going to work instantly, you know.
It depends on how cluttered your mind is.
But hey, if you prefer to suffer and whine, be my guest.

>>20191544
Darkness provides less distractions, making it easier to focus.
I also find it easier to write really early in the morning, when it's still dark, but I rarely force myself out of bed early enough to take advantage of that.

>>20191548
it’s some of the most fun i’ve had writing
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/51435/there-will-be-dragons-here

>>20190671
I'm a photonics engineer. It affords me the salary to stay alive in this awful market, but now I'm considering getting a masters or PhD for more money. The college near me doesn't have the research field I'm really excited about but it's close and I can do an electrical masters without a thesis. I can do the optics PhD but all their research is in stuff I'm not interested in.

>>20191611
>no discord for people to interact
>no advanced chapters patreon
???

>>20191749
…
you’re right
guess i have some work to do

>>20191757
Anon what I'm going to say is a secret so no going around repeating it but all you need to make it is 500 loyal fans. We are so used to inflated numbers in the internet that we started underestimating sub 1k number but consider the follow if 500 people pay you 10 dollars a month that's 5k which is not life changing money but it's enough to be middle class.
From the statistic page you have 575 followes and is averaging 1k readers. Most of your reviewers seem to love the story and rate it highly in all categories. You did it. Now keep going!

>>20190661
Peak shounenshit, which I mean, isn't a bad thing.

>>20190671
i run a cheese program at a high-end restaurant

>>20191806
thank you for saying so, anon, and for the vote of confidence, it means a lot. now to get to work!

>>20187542
for some reason i constantly get hard ons when im writing about female characters, they're not even doing anything sexy in my novel lol
i guess i should add some context, im 25yo khhv

>>20190613
You will pull yourself up and out of your hysterics.
You will sit at the page every day and write as millions have before you, and will after you.
You will improve every day.
You will see gains in your characters, plot, settings, themes, and metanarrative.
You will make it.

>>20190613
Phbbt. I've got one novel completed, and am halfway done with the first draft of another one.
You think you know us, but you are speaking entire about yourself.

Newfriend here, I'm not great at writing books, but I love the narrative potential in interactive mediums. Specifically game stories, where the player/protagonist has agency to impact the story itself. I think it comes from engaging in roleplay from a really early age
Anyways, I think I'm going to start actually considering myself a writer and attempt to break into the indie/hobby game development sphere and make some kind of name for myself there. Dialogue writing comes easy for me
I hope you anons are having a good day

Since LitRPG is so saturated, now is the prime time to make a satire LitRPG satirizing all the tropes.

>>20192704
Nice idea, but I think LitRPG is unintentionally self-satirizing at this point.

>>20191611
>>20191806
Thank you for posting this, it gives me hope too, since I'm just on the cusp of posting my stuff on RR. Question for dragonanon, around what word/chapter # were you at when you started to post? Is around 200k words a good benchmark?

>>20192714
Any idea where I can find a list of all the common tropes?

>>20187012
Holy shit you have never met a girl before, so first you need to know how the whole wide of average women act, like unironically go outside and look, and if you want to make people being actual degenerates, i.e. make them do things a child would cry for (that's if you are reffering to actual degenerates and not to meme degenerates in which you probably mean just having a dog lick her mouth, which you can see even at ads)

>>20192768
i did not do it the ‘right’ way
i had about 40k and launched with that
now i have over 150k posted
my backlog is not as big as it ought to be only about 20k words but i can write fast if need be
i’d say if you’re at 200k you’re definitely good to post, as long as you’re happy with your work

>>20192784
https://www.google.com/search?q=litrpg+tropes ?
The first page of links alone look like a fertile source of inspiration.

>>20192784
Not sure about comprehensive lists but here's the ones I know (and desperately try to avoid):
>calling dungeons dungeons
>levels
>stat screens
>XP / EXP
>copy paste magic system / spell schools
>saying spell names out loud
>having uncreative spell names (Ice Lance)
>living trope characters
>mary sue mc
>glossed over worldbuilding
>little lore connected to the mechanics of the dungeons / people / politics
>poorly balanced powers
>everyman protag
>portal fantasy / isekai
>shameless wish fulfilment
>same 5 monsters as every other litrpg / rpg
>ominous big bad
>protag constantly gets his cock gobbled by everyone around him

And that's just the ones I know off the top of my head. If you wanna be really cancer you can also include catgirls, sexy elves and random location / object names yoinked form norse mythology, like Yggdrassil.

I feel I'm accidently doing a "Chosen One" as while the main character isn't prophesized or expected to do anything, he's pretty important to other characters for their own reasons. I need to figure out a way to put the spotlight on other characters. I have a ton of them and they each deserve time to shine in my eyes because I put a lot of effort into making them all feel unique and memorable.
Any advice? I was considering doing a thing where not everything is resolved by the protagonist, with other characters getting moments where they actually defeat the major threats.

>>20192863
If it's fantasy, I would say have the MC get some downtime and shift the perspective a bit to some of your side lads. Have them do something they'd be doing in accordance with their personality. If they like cooking, have them hunt and prep meat, if they're a bookish type, have them skim some tomes or do shit in a library. Even better, have the MC get fucked up and have him sit out a big fight so that the others get some time to shine. Works especially well if you're writing in 3p, but if you manage to nail their personal thoughts and inner monologue in 1p, can work just as well if not better.

>>20192877
It's not really classic fantasy. None of these characters are human, and only a couple of them regularly interact in a friendly way.

>>20192863
>I have a ton of them
I assume you're Kaijuanon. I would pick a few - three maybe - and follow those. You have way the fuck too many to do them any kind of justice.

When portraying a character speaking formally (in this case an assistant to royalty), is it possible to take avoiding contractions too far? What's the best way to handle this?

Any good lectures on youtube about writing a comedy or humour?

>>20193069
>need a youtube lecture to write
ngmi

>>20193065
Sound out the dialogue in your head, does it sound like somebody being formal, or does it sound like somebody going out of their way to avoid contractions? I think formality is also best defined by specific language usage, rather than contractions. Somebody being formal will have a tendency to use more complete-sounding words instead of shorthand, will be more grandiose instead of curt, etc.

>>20193065
I think as long as the language itself is appropriate, contractions won't matter. They only really kick up a fuss about that with formal written word.

>>20193069
I could recommend you some books, but clearly you don't have an interest in those...

I have a major genre shift halfway in, but it's all keeping in the spirit of the central plot and theme, how do I ease the transition? Drop hints to the ideas of the genre shift in the first half to get readers acclimated to that being part of the story and plant seeds that will make sense when it happens?

I have a question, do I stick it with Chinese words for SOUL. Or is this way too autistic and I should just pinyin everything? Footnotes?

Keep in mind, it's written in Cantonese, so even mandarin speakers will wonder what the fuck I'm writing. It's 1870's California. They're not speaking Mandarin.

>>20192817
If OP was capable of going outside and talking to women, he wouldn't be on 4chan.
Do you even know where you are?

>>20193220
What's the shift? How jarring is it? Does the early story make it clear the initial genre is at least somewhat flimsy? Because the thing with subverting the entire genre is that you'll get a TINY amount of people who like it, because the people who like what you shift to will often not stick with the start, and people who like what you start with won't enjoy the shift. You have to signpost it properly, so that looking back anybody'd go "Oh, yeah, huh."

>>20193229
If it's from Cheung's perspective, we as the audience should know what is being said. Just say "X said in Cantonese".

>>20192922
I try to bounce between the characters.

>>20193229
Do you speak Cantonese well, and/or have a hongkie to translate for you?

I get what you're going for, but you're going to have to assume 99% of your readers won't translate it, which means putting no necessary information in anything Cheung says. Also, is there a reason he's going by his family name?

>>20193239
would parenthesizes work? Because having an entire book with shit like
>Cheung said in Cantonese to the merchant "asfasdfjasdlfj"
seems to be really annoying

>>20193238
Protagonist goes from exploring an alien world to being drafted in a private army and solving a mystery in a human civilization he finds at the halfway point, it's all connected to discovering the nature of the alien world and I have hints to the human civilization in the first half.

>>20193257
>Do you speak Cantonese well, and/or have a hongkie to translate for you?
I am fluent and know how to write it. but in Cantonese, the written, and spoken is completely different. so to anyone not Cantonese, they'll wonder what the fuck did I just write.
>Also, is there a reason he's going by his family name?
I asked this last time, and another anon told me for traditional asian naming conventions in English, the last name is used to refer to the person. I thought he would be going by his given name, but the anon insists it's family name.

>>20193267
Then that should be fine. That's not really a genre shift, that's just a narrowing of scope.

>>20193267
*I have hints to the human civilization in the first half but I feel like the scene to scene stuff of the second half will feel out of place given the nature of the adventure in the first half

>>20193261
If it's a constant thing, maybe use [ or ( to indicate Cantonese being spoken, if you want.

>>20193272
In later chapters he's just going to go by John Flemming when he's speaking to anyone outside of Chinatown. he'll be meeting a confederate southerner from the Carolinas, both are outcasted from mainstream America.

The two form a brotherhood from the hatred of others and find the American dream together. Along the journey they meet an old Mexican general from the Mexico-American War, a Northern Yankee black man, and sexy redheaded Irish woman, and a sexy Indian (Feather) woman.

I just need to find who ships with who.

>>20193293
>a sexy Indian (Feather) woman.
Is her name Firebush?

>>20193335
No that'll be the red head. But I'll let you name the other Girl. I'll also have them meet an Imperial British Merchant where the Southern Dixie and British guy can't understand a word each other is saying.
>>20193275
I think I will. Thanks. The Cantonese is out, and I'll just use brackets.

>>20187542
It's weird to fap to your characters? I thought everyone does it.

>>20193128
a youtube lecture is faster, but if you actually have any book recommendations, sure go for it. If you aren't just snarky

What are some tips and fundamentals for writing comedy? I'm a funny person in real life, but I don't know how to translate that to writing. Humour in real life is about working with what you're given and finding what's funny about the situation you're in. In a story you create the situation you're in so it's different and I want to know how to make the best of the medium

Are there any more stories to be told? I feel like if I were to write a story I would just take a random episode of star trek and rewrite it in a different setting. Is this what most people do? Kind of like rearranging slayer riffs and playing them backwards to write songs.

>>20193469
Every story has already been told
That doesn't mean everyone has heard every story

>>20193434
I assume you've already mined Google for as many tips as you get?
Since your stated style of humor is situational, why not try writing a normal story with normal situations, and then find some funny way to twist it. Very much a "straight man / silly man" cliche, but now you're playing both sides.
In my mind, humor is based in rejection of convention. John Cleese once quoted Henri Bergson, who said humor was “a social sanction against inflexible behavior". Not a bad place to start.
Or you could just make lots of fart jokes. There are no rules.

>>20193469
And Star Trek borrowed a lot of stories and themes from "The Outer Limits".
If you think every story has ever been told, then why do people still manage to write any?
There are plenty of new ideas out there, and plenty of ways to present old ideas in a new way.
Mankind will never stop telling stories, any more than we'll stop coming up with new Pepe memes.

>Watch a female writer explain writing humor
>None of her examples are funny
>Watch a male writer explain writing humor
>actually elicits laughter from me
Why is this?

>>20192714
If japanese isekai light novels can be counted, satire has become trite at this point.
You check any listing of the latest light novels and there's nothing but goofy titles like "I reincarnated as a fridge" and bad deconstructions of the genre.

I'd say it's time for reconstruction.
Bring back unironic choose your own adventure books with self inserts, make self-inserting a slightly constructive experience and not purely self-indulgent, have real reasons for the hero to be summoned from another world, get rid of this goofy and unintentionally shared spin the wheel samsara, fuck, idunno.
Anything but more "I Reincarnated as the Boiler Room Nigger? WHAAAAATtT?" in LitRPG.

>>20193521
>You check any listing of the latest light novels and there's nothing but goofy titles like "I reincarnated as a fridge" and bad deconstructions of the genre.

Well, it's like you said, those are bad deconstructions. It's all about execution. If your humor lies in the premise, it's nothing more than a marketing gimmick. If the humor lies in the set up, expectations, and execution, then that's a different story.

>>20193069
>>20193366
I also like listening to lectures, sometimes on their own but often in the background (doing dishes, working, whatever). It helps me enter/stay engaged with writing even when not directly involved in it- even if some of it is vague philosophizing its fun and spurs on creative thought. And fuck the psueds who moan "ahhhh I type letters therefore I can enjoy any other media format!"

I'm drunk enough and should take a break, I'll make a public YouTube playlist in a bit of my favorites for you.

>>20193483
>“a social sanction against inflexible behavior"
Not him but this is a gold nugget, thank you

>another night with Real Human Bean and my historical fiction

>>20192834
>random location / object names yoinked form norse mythology, like Yggdrassil.
I was thinking of doing just that because they just sound cool, and was going to use them like the names given to cars but for magic scepters anyway, but you're right.
There's very little reason to do that, even if I do have a character that might reasonably be aware of Norse mythology.

>>20193521
Wow...a genre that has passed the point of satire?
I might need to look into this. LOL

>>20193069
The psueds bashing you inspired me to make a Youtube playlist of writing videos I've enjoyed since I share one every few threads anyway, check out the last John Cleese video which you may enjoy.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvFmakK8XmFNHJuKVD2r7yOMyIHQqI41W

>>20193750
Thank you anon, very cool

>>20193702
That's when you write post-satire.
Write a satire about writing a litrpg

>>20193865
Hmmm...a story about a gamemaster that writes a LitRPG about his players, then begins goading his players to take bigger and more ridiculous risks, flirting inappropriately with the female players in the guise of NPCs flirting with their characters, then when the players have finally had enough and desert his game, he finishes his LitRPG with a planetwide apocalypse.
I could probably mine /r/rpghorrorstories/ for material.
Sounds like a lark!

>>20193978
I have an idea. A comedy about a LitRPG writer who writes a shitty fantasy isekai where everything revolves around a mary sue and his harem. Only for the writer to be transported into HIS OWN world except as a SIDE character with no powers and a partner who hates him. He eventually becomes his own main character's rival except he's painted as villainous scum.

Do you guys like writing Female MCs or Male MCs?

>>20194017
>not isekaing himself as his MC's favorite fucktoy.

>>20194017
>>20194037
idunno, man, I'm half sure you'd find something with the exact same premise has already been done if you look hard enough.

>>20194025
I'm kind of dumb so it's more often than not a purely aesthetic decision on my part, but the default is still male despite the amount of female MCs I've come up with.

How do I use goodreads to promote my book?

>16 new orders

Holy shit! I'm going to make i...

>free promo started today

Oh. Right. Shit.

>>20194046
Who cares, as long as you can gather readers on RoyalRoad enough to make a name for yourself!
Then you can surprise them with a well-written novel, watch it go viral, sell the movie rights...and the rest is history!

>>20194190
Hey, as long as they write reviews.
...they're gonna write reviews, aren't they?

THIRD PERSON OR FIRST PERSON!!?!
WHICH DO I WRITE IN?

>>20194217
Want to be purple and insane? First. Want to get to the point? Third. Want to make a Choose Your Own Adventure? Second.

>>20194025
I'm a male so I default write male MCs. But I have done female MCs in the past, and one of my future book series ideas has a female MC.

>>20194025
>male or female MCs
>not just writing a character and just happen to have it be either gender
ngmi

I emptied my bag of family sized M&M's and separated the contents by color. I had 78 green ones, 85 blue ones, 100 red ones, 82 Yellow ones, 97 brown ones, but only 20 orange ones. Only twenty. Clearly a mistake from the company, but it was too coincidental. Mars Corporation is watching me. They know I like the orange M&Ms best, yet, for this bag, orange had the fewest number available. Grant Reid must have a hidden camera. It's unfathomable how I obtained so little orange M&M's. I must buy another bag to confirm my suspicions.

It took me eighteen minutes and forty-seven seconds to reach Wal-Mart. It was smart to purchase the second bag of M&M's at a different store. Grant Reid is a rich man, but he was not richer than the Walton Family. The cameras that are watching me would not be under his control at Wal-Mart. It was dark, but the lights were still on inside the store. I stepped inside the blue and gray building. There wasn't a greeter at this hour. Perfect. Less witnesses and spies under control by Reid. I went to the candy isle, and found the section that held M&Ms. I found the red bag - caramel, the yellow bag - peanuts, the purple bag - caramel, but one color bag was missing. Brown. The bag I needed. What a peculiar coincidence. I purchased a bag of M&M's and found far too little orange ones, and there was no option to purchase a second bag. Grant Reid must be watching my every move. A true mastermind. He is clearly three steps ahead. I stood staring at the empty shelf, wondering what my next move can possibly be. He is forcing me to return to the same store where I bought the first bag. It is late, I do not have the time to travel to a third store. Do I play along with Grant Reid's plan, or do I risk traveling further to a third store? A true conundrum.

>>20194208
Not yet. Maybe they haven't finished reading.

I got one 5 star review already. But me and my imposter syndrome, I think it's a troll.

>>20194190
Lucky you. I only sold 4 books. All bought from my family.

>>20194271
>heh... I'll get this stupid author I hate so much by giving him a GOOD review! Now he'll never write again!

>>20194190
is it on kindle unlimited?

>>20194250
Enough already, pseud.

>>20194255
Reid and Wal-Mart are definitely both against you.
The oligarchy is a united front.
P.S. You managed to be even more sperg than me. I salute you!

>>20194331
Yeah but I've only got 52 page reads so far

>>20194255
>found the red bag - caramel, the yellow bag - peanuts, the purple bag - caramel,
No you dumb fuck, the Purple is Caramel and the Red one is Peanut Butter

>primary head in royal court (Jane) fakes an assassination attempt on the king (Joe)
>goal: get him off his ass to finish the war, either peace or one last big battle to close everything out, because if he doesn't the royal court might actually have him killed
>Joe inds out through the guy (Bob) who loves Jane that this happens, and her reasons for it
>????
What happens next? Does Joe give out punishment? No punishment? Does it leak? Will others freak out that Jane isn't being hanged even though others in the court were planning on actually assassinating Joe? What happens to Bob? Is this just contrived drama?
I really wanted to bring Jane into this arc as a major plot-driving character but every time I try to write out this convoluted fake assassination stuff it always gets me tangled. The only thing good to come out of it is Jane and Bob got a rift between them as a precursor to their romantic get-together in the next installment.
Any advice from outsiders looking in?

>>20188983
Wow! Just under 8,500 words today!
I just read it over, and fixed a bunch of typos and mis-wordings, but otherwise it's solid!
I might actually complete a first draft before I have to go back to the office.
Is it bad to hope for a company-wide furlough?

>>20194366
Yeah...read the non-greentext part with a melodramatic 1950s organ playing behind it.
That really heightens the soap-opera feel. LOL

>>20194371
think about it like this.
>8000 words x 30
>240,000 words
>a full length novel+ more

That's what everyone needs to do. If you really want ot make it, challege yourself to write a 2500 word chapter per day. After a month you'll have a 75k word novel. After cutting out 10%, you'll still have a 68k novel. With that, you have enough words to tell a story.

SO MAKE IT HAPPEN!

>>20193521
>I'd say it's time for reconstruction.
I've had the same idea recently. I'm working on a sword and planet homage with that in mind.

>>20194538
>sword and planet
Now that you mention that, kind of weird how I've never heard any references to it from MOTU fans despite it being the most obvious reference to MOTU.

>>20194378
I just can't think of anything compelling to replace it with. The whole arc before this I was setting up Bob and Jane even though Joe is the MC, and now 25k words into this arc Joe has stolen the spotlight entirely. Without this, Jane and Bob just kind of sit on the sidelines as accessories instead of having their own important stories.
I know the fake assassination is melodrama. Hell I'm even poking fun at it in my own writing. Even Joe isn't taking it seriously even though it made him wildly paranoid. I'm digging for a replacement but I'm coming up short.

>>20194619
If you've written yourself into a dead end, sometimes the only thing you can do is go back, find where you still like the story, and write anew from there.
Not saying that's the solution here...just something to consider.

>>20194462
Not always possible.
I wrote 8,500 words today mostly because I was on vacation this week.
Day jobbery usually leaves me too drained to be creative.

I'm never going to do anything with this idea, but what do you guys think of a techno-thriller where the primary antagonist(s) are going after the few photolithography machine manufacturing facilities on the planet and their personnel? I figure you could easily kick human technological advance back about thirty years if suddenly someone kicked these groups in the teeth.

>>20194869
Ugh. Why be regressive?
How about a techno-thriller where some advanced technology is released that mankind can't handle without disintegrating?
Like a portal that can open up to anywhere. So much for physical security! And any form of long-haul transportation!

>work 8 hours a day
>wife, 2 kids and a dog
>still find time to get 2k words per day.

I plan everything out during the day and then pour it out on the keyboard when the kids have gone to bed. Well begun is half-done.

The dragon was lifted by its limp neck as if its drifting consciousness were accepting its failing muscles, and the seamless transition into becoming a corpse. Multiple other horrors of the deep had been sucked by the vacuum hole and looked at before, sometimes fished by the deep-reaching nets of arctic fishermen and their boats, only to rapidly depressurize in their ascension and suffer horribly with the effects of their organs and skin bursting at the seams, rupturing and expanding, and their eyes gouging out of their socket with red irises and scleras in a blood flood that blurs away the turbid final moments, tongues like balloons erupting out of unhinged mouths. But something about this prehistoric serpent of Poseidon's, that could in a time of budding mythologies be considered a cloud gliding wise dragon, this seemingly mystically-infused immortal whose constitution was drawn in schematics so ancient it predates most other fish-like life forms, remained completely unchanged if not for the asphyxiation in being out of water for so long. An open white eye that had its superior eyelid hanging tiredly, ready to set, or to accept death with open eyes, and a mouth hanging open, as if in a mocking smile. A lesser cherub removed from the lowest hierarchies of the inverted heaven below, the mirrored and entirely aphotic travesty of the upper-world, like a planet of its own that becomes fuller and inhabited by more sophisticated, bigger, more capable life forms towards its center, and hovering towards its atmosphere, which for us would be deepest reaches of our world, there are the more inconsequential and vestigial demons that fly over their world in the trivial aimless leisure of the goldfinch. And this goldfinch was the frilled shark, smiling somewhat, held by a human hand, dying or dead, which made no difference, these vampires of the underworld come across as an antithesis of life simply by their physical presence.

>>20194884
Does the doggo lay by your feet as you write?

Is there any "correct" way to start writing or should I just do it

>>20194978
The correct way to start is the way that leads you to actually writing instead of second guessing yourself

>>20194968
Sometimes. But he prefers to relax by the bed.

>>20194890
So are the run-on sentences a mistake, or are you legit trying to win https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ ?
Not trying to be mean.

>>20194990
I think I'll try to write a fairly straightforward short story about romance. Although maybe that's a shit idea considering nobody on 4chan has any romantic experiences to draw off of

>>20194990
This. Whatever keeps you productive.
I mention the importance of communication above...pseud notwithstanding...
>>20189161
>>20191338

>>20195006
It's just an aspect of my style but in this one I just splurged out and placed too many clauses together.

https://litter.catbox.moe/elyigy.pdf

I finally finished the first chapter of my book. What do you guys think of it?

>>20194890
Too purple for my taste. I'm just a midwit and hate reading words after words that drone on.

I know of the worldbuilding trap but I'm starting to feel it's kind of a necessity for me to have a decently fleshed out world at hand before starting.
I seem to be able to play with the elements of the setting with ease and come up with more of the story faster and with fun stuff like foreshadowing and completely inoffensive and intriguing info dumping; in my opinion at least.

Right now I believe I only need to figure out if I want harems as part of my society, entirely dependent on the whims of the self-inserting mongs that like LitRPGs and research what happens when a feudal society is put through industrialization before going through other developments like the Age of Exploration and the Enlightenment; mostly by having summoned a guy that helps advance their technology past what they would've normally done, and honestly if that could happen just by having one guy having more advanced knowledge.

>"There he is. There he goes again. Look, everyone! He posted it once again! Isn't he just the most ingenious guy around?! Oh my God. I hate the summoned person being so smart he teaches them how make alloys."
Chill. I'll just give them one summoned guy that's like a slightly better Da Vinci so there's reason for them to rush their development a little.
Really, it's entirely possible he won't be all that important in the end once I also come up with a magic system I like, but I first have to do both.

Anyway. Any idea where I could ask both of these questions? I mean, the rushed industrialization and the popularity of harems in places like RR?
I kind of suspect the latter is not too popular just because of how left-leaning I've been told they are.

>>20195150
All those words for a simple question that I don't even understand what's being asked.

What series has the best example of a Magic system, like from were it come from to how its used. Mana/Energy, proper fantasy but makes sense to the reader without it being "They can do the thing and others cant do the thing because plot"

>>20195159
Shit. Sorry about that.

I only meant to ask if readers at Royal Road would want to read about a setting with polygamy; and where I could ask for historical cases where feudal societies are suddenly put through industrialization.
For the latter I'd normally go to /his/ but that's more of a request so it should go on /wsr/, but I have no idea if /wsr/ has any of /his/'s posters.

Ok, it's time for the definitive answer.
Swords or guns?

>>20195208
If you set your series in the Napoleonic wars you get both, plus cannons and mortars.

Back when I was in school my teachers convinced me that my writing was hot shit. I think I could probably become a novelist. How do I get published? Just buy libreoffice and shit something out, then send it around to publishers/hire an agent? How hard could it be?

>>20195402
0.02% odds of success

>>20195413
In the event that it'd result in a job where I can work from home and I never have to work customer service or any such garbage again, it's worth a shot, I guess.

>>20195419
Being a novelist is 90% customer service and going to places to whore yourself out to small crowds, you'll barely ever get to be home writing.

>>20195442
That doesn't sound bad either, though. The shitty aspect of customer service is sticking in one spot and getting screamed at by people who think if they yell enough they'll get something for free (and they will). If you're a novelist, the people who show up to listen to you speak are going to be happy to meet you, want your signature, praise you, tell you how your work changed or helped them in some way, etc, no? That wouldn't be bad at all.

>“Ouch!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, filling the scenery with a scream that I did due to pain.
Every few weeks this sentence pops into my head and I smile

>>20195481
Who would write such a thing? CWC?

>>20195489
It was made up for the Lyttle Lytton contest: http://adamcadre.ac/20lyttle.html
Another personal favorite:
>Richard Dawkins looked on in astonishment as the wine and the bread transsubstantiated.

>>20193612
Using stuff like that is fine if you're writing something ispired by / taking place in a norse mythology setting, I just meant its kinda iffy when its used for no reason.

>>20195507
Is it a bad sign if I think some of the 2021 entries are genuinely good?
>In an already trying year, we were forced to take our work home—even the murderers.
>My man has a voice like a lion eating dark chocolate.
They both read like they're intentionally funny.

I recently took a look back at a short story I wrote a couple year back. And... It was fucking awful. But I've never been happier to suck, because that means two years from now I will have surpassed my current self. Don't lose hope, we're gonna make it bros.

Do you write with a theme in mind, or do the themes develop independent of your efforts?

>Rain’s light prattle accumulates overhead, and runs rivulets down imperfections in the cheap glass sheeting of the windowed city bus. My head bumps lightly against the riveted, blue-green steel monocoque as the bus sways back and forth gently atop the road. Men and women board and depart. They sit on vinyl cushions and stare out windows at synonymous sights—prim, demarcating courtyards between protrusions of towering gray; identically trimmed deciduous trees whose trunks sprout their bare branches from dirt patches encircled by chipped concrete sidewalk and from among the petty trash of passersby; white text on green signs mounted upon bent and rusting poles—they get up, leave, they’re replaced, straphangers take quick looks then hold on, seats are given up silent to old crones barely afoot. The bus driver yanks the shifter and grinds up a gear as the diesel engine chugs along and keeps everything duly rattling. I bump shoulders wordlessly with a passenger seated beside me whose face I will never see, whose name I care not to know, and whose entire existence expresses itself to me solely in the soft sighs of vinyl and in the bounces of the bench-seat seeking new equilibrium as he or she—and the next empty presence—comes and goes without remark.
>Brief eye contact is established with an older gentleman; motions towards my seat are rejected; I look back out the window. The wheezing whir of air brakes set shortly to whine. A couple flicks at my wristwatch keep it moving: 8:53am. I’ve time enough, it seems, to arrive at my 9:17am appointment. Enough time, incidentally, for a nap.
>My eyes close, yet sleep does not take me. I see myself from above as if I am another. He is awake, yet frozen in his attitude facing the window. The bus drives upon a field of static black. The man beside me is a silhouette, grey, and his face is grey and flat, featureless. The bus bounces merrily along bumps that do not exist and makes, at arbitrary points, some voidward turns into the indefinite black ataraxy. As the bus travels—and I know it is traveling—a world reveals itself in photonic cones from this passenger’s eyes and fades momentarily with each blink. I see what he sees from above, and what he sees is all there is. I see facades of buildings with nothing behind them fade into and out of existence. I see women in prim raincoats with shaggy-furred pups pass briefly by; there comes the glint of kitschy cufflinks caught beneath a light of unseen origin, of live trees cleanly severed where vision ends, of everything that is and much of what isn’t. His—my—face is unfamiliar, though I know it is my own, and indistinguishable from any other number of faces I have seen and perhaps worn.
>I blink and my vision is again my own. There is, of course, a circular and recursive problem I cannot address in my current state and must defer for subsequent consideration at a later point and at a state more sufficiently predisposed to such inquisition.

>>20195874
I hope this isn't meant to sound good.

>>20195882
It is! Why doesn't it sound good?

>>20195637
Theme can come out whenever it feels like it. It's something that's only really worth considering in the editing phase, I think. Focusing too hard on The Meaning Of The Story in the writing process tends to create pedantic, linear writing that leaves little to the imagination. We are, of, course, a society of pornographers and material consumers, so maybe we do tend to have an affinity for the kind of full-frontal literary nudity such that we've lost our taste for nuance, but I like to think it's just a phase.

Ultimately, who cares? Nothing in the history of everything has ever been notable for its themes.

>>20195150
>I know of the worldbuilding trap but I'm starting to feel it's kind of a necessity for me to have a decently fleshed out world at hand before starting
If it helps you, then have at it. Flesh out your world, make it incredibly nuanced and detailed and complex. Write out, for your own benefit, histories of kings and queens and political intrigue. Then, when you're all done, keep it entirely to yourself. If your world really is that detailed and enormous and vivid, it will have no course BUT to seep into your writing. It'll drive the motivations of your characters and create their backstories. It'll define who they are. You won't NEED to beat your readers over the head with it like so many MUH WORLD types do.

>>20195091
There are a lot of minor grammatical errors that are really bringing you down. I was going to point out one or two, but by the third I lost motivation, and by the fourth I closed the document. It's not terribly written—I can tell you've put some effort into it and what the prose COULD be isn't half bad. But it's unrealistic to expect criticism when it's this rough. I'd suggest some close line editing and then a repost maybe.

>>20195883
You put imagery on a pedestal. Your voice is clearly inspired, but to a fault. The "Voice" of your character sounds like it's trying to be Hobbes, Descartes and Bradbury at the same time, but unless the story is meant to be about a 17th century philosopher riding public transportation it feels like wasted breath at best and pretentious at worst. I can see some of the artistic/stylistic choices you're trying to make with your punctuation and sentence structure but those too feel lost. I don't really think you understand how to use " ; ", and your liberal use of "---" leaves some of these chunks disjointed.

>Brief eye contact is established with an older gentleman; motions towards my seat are rejected; I look back out the window.

"I look back out the window." - this can just be a separate sentence.

I could point out more examples. You have an emotive voice that wants to say something, but it feels like you'll settle for anything at all so long as it sounds the way you think it ought to.

>>20195942
>but unless the story is meant to be about a 17th century philosopher riding public transportation
This cracks me up, and I might just run with that. Cheers.

But more seriously, I take a lot of pressure setting up my narrator with this kind of over-the-top voice and then torturing him into humility. What I'm writing is kind of cyclical in that way. This is the middle section of a triptych, and this is intended to echo the way I started the first one.

I prefer to frame my pretension as ambition, personally, but I don't take it personal. They're just differently-valued synonyms of the same concept in my mind, and I take full ownership of both. I invite the (probably inevitable) reply of COPE. I'll own that too.

>it feels like you'll settle for anything at all so long as it sounds the way you think it ought to.
Again, this might sound like one of those obtuse ways in which people make excuses in that sideways kind of way, but this is fully intentional. That's part of the experiment. I don't want to give myself away too much, but this approach is one of the main foci of my approach to writing in Current Year.

I probably do need to clean up some of the punctuation though. I appreciate the input, fren.

>>20195975
>pressure
Pleasure.

>>20185837
How do you keep on writing when you know that whatever you're writing is objectively shit?

>>20195980
Maybe try getting in tune with the enjoyment of the actual act of writing. That's what keeps me going when I'm having a crisis of confidence.

>>20195980
Van Gogh's first painting wasn't a masterpiece. Same concept with writing, it's part of the learning process.

>>20195980
Pic rel is my first draft. It's some horrifying Frankenstein of first person present tense and first person past tense. The prose is comprised of sentences like this
>Thing does thing
>Thing does thing as other thing does other thing
>Thing is thing

>>20195975
Let me put it this way, I read your story with a cheesy Nicholas Cage Spiderman Noir Detective voice, while imagining having "2 Hour Relaxing Jazz" in one tab and "Rainymood 2 hour loop" open in another. I say this as politely as I can, but I laughed. Take that however you'd like, I just find it impossible to unmarry that type of voice from your prose. I'd either reformat and restructure some of your punctuation to make things feel less "over the top", if not just more readable... OR maybe just lean into the meme harder. Just offering honest criticism.

>>20196010
Yeah, that's fine. I dip into and out of camp all the time. I am a literal extremist. As long as it's written well, or at least to my personal standard of "well," then anything goes. I disavow ownership of everything I've ever written. All interpretations and experiences are strictly equal—mine included.

>>20196010
>“... and, of course, I do believe that in the case of contemporary, postmodern life there is no real truth to be found by delving into yourself, except the fundamental lack of truth… self-knowledge…”—the shuffling and snorting mess from around the corner—“is a myth upheld by neo-Puritans who want you to see yourself as the cosmic container for some discrete, binary truths that are neither discrete nor binary…”—he grows closer; it comes—“the point being that society wants you to believe in a static, unary self-with-respect-to-Other, because that is the mechanism by which it assigns arbitrary value to some people and less to others… the truth is”—laughing, snorting, a dull thud against the wall, the smell of old feet—“that the self is a bottomless pit of self-reflexivity… it’s where pop-Truth goes to die amongst its fellows, they’re all slowly dying together, but there is at least an illusion of strength in consensus….”
>The speaker—Bucksneed, I assume—walks straight past the waiting room doorway, to stand in hunched and corpulent felt, a blazer drooped mottled, grey, and patchy across rounded shoulders. His monologue continues.
>“... the only truth—the only real truth one can find in one’s self—is that when you take a step back, and when you simply observe your interior, things are happening… there are events, and they occur constantly within you, and you can observe them happening….”
>I clear my throat to no effect. Perhaps he thought one of his own escaped him. Perhaps the clearings of throats are so wholly integral to this being’s existence that it is a given; a fundament of the human experience. He sags against the wall and looks through the door’s shuttered window, the point of one elbow held high and supporting the forehead between forefinger and thumb. The other hand placed upon his hip, his shoulders roll and his back heaves with each noise punctuating his otherwise unbroken musings. Below patched and stained wool trousers hangs a flip-flop loosely from the foot of a crooked knee.
>“... and while their existence is truthful, the truth value of these events is exclusively and infinitely fungible… Freud?”—a cough; a cackle—“Jung? pah… hacks… materialists… cloying devotees of a putrescence inevitable; of flesh’s slow descent… they are precisely as truthful and as truthless as you could find in sermons at synagogues, churches, university seminars…. Pah… at the most basic level of this cosmic closure, at the smallest possible levels of the most minute quanta of construction, reality is probabilistic… it speaks not in truth nor falsehood… but in truths, falsehoods; truths and falsehoods simultaneously… it speaks at gradients and points along that infinitely precise continuum between this falsest of false dichotomies….”
>He straightens momentarily, and says: “Order is the veneer we paint over a swirling chaos. Embrace it.”

>>20196052
I am convinced that if hell exists, it's encased in em dashes.

>>20196052
>binary…”—he
What was going through your mind at this point?

>>20195980
It's better that a bad version of what I want to create exists than that it doesn't exist at all.

>>20196084
Probably apu. I'm constantly thinking of frogs when I'm writing. Each and every character is based off of an apu permutation. I've been thinking a lot lately on apu with his hair all frazzled and holding up his cup of coffee.

>>20195980
Because I'm not a defeatist faggot like (You). The first iteration is always gonna be shit, but that's the point. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was any great writer.

>>20196052
>it’s where pop-Truth goes to die amongst its fellows, they’re all slowly dying together, but there is at least an illusion of strength in consensus
>Bucksneed
>it speaks at gradients and points along that infinitely precise continuum between this falsest of false dichotomies
>Order is the veneer we paint over a swirling chaos. Embrace it
Jesus Christ, if you told me you were Kojima or Nomura I would believe you. You need to start learning Japanese as soon as possible.

>>20195091
Overall it felt competently written and carried my interest until it became really dialogue heavy at the medical checkup/interview. Adjective and adverb use was generally well done. There was clarity and specificity of details. It does need a serious edit though, specifically:

-many description sentences could be made more compact/efficient by toying with wording. Part of this was all the unnecessary and repeated details (the ship is made of wood, a Chinese man has brown eyes, native Americans have black hair)
-lack of metaphors and similes. The descriptions were clear but could have been more flavorful by adding a dash of imaginative metaphors (that's my preference as a reader, maybe style wise you don't want that)
-POV, we start in 3rd omniscient and transfer into a more 3rd limited state following MC which can be fine, but it creates awkwardness and distance from the MC when we understand english perfectly and have to watch him fumble/translate through an interpreter for every dang line. Makes it stilted. I don't know solution but perhaps offload much of the english dialogue to description paragraphs of what MC hears so you can drop the bracket system to distinguish.
-some dialogue is good but some overly expository "politician x better vote against Chinese immigration in the June 5th bicameral session!" and clunky translations as mentioned before slowed me down.
-italicize the boat name

>>20195933
Ah just tell him to edit it, why didn't I think of that! Great feedback anon.

>>20194884
Do you "pour it" on your wife when you're stuck

>>20195208
I like swords for serious stories and guns for fun adventures.
>>20195980
Great writing is distilled not written

>>20195091
>Not a litrpg
>Not even Adult fantasy
This is going to fail.

>>20196275
>I like swords
>Great writing...
should have made these in two separate posts, my man. nobody trusts a fantasyshit to know what good writing is, even if it were to stab them in the gut.

>>20195180
>I only meant to ask if readers at Royal Road would want to read about a setting with polygamy;
They'll read anything
>and where I could ask for historical cases where feudal societies are suddenly put through industrialization
The local library and start digging through historical primary documents. Focus on the first industrial revolution in England.

>>20196358
that's not very umberto eco of you, my dude

>>20196365
look, i just hate niggers... i'm not saying i hate niggers, it's just that i hate niggers! sorry... but i'm just not gonna stop hating niggers! i'm just not gonna do it!

>>20196358
Not even a fantasyshit

>>20195208
Guns allow for dramatic interruptions a lot easier than swords, but swords make for cooler interpersonal fights-as-dialogue.

>>20194025
Both

>>20196217
>POV, we start in 3rd omniscient and transfer into a more 3rd limited state following MC which can be fine, but it creates awkwardness and distance from the MC when we understand english perfectly and have to watch him fumble/translate through an interpreter for every dang line. Makes it stilted. I don't know solution but perhaps offload much of the english dialogue to description paragraphs of what MC hears so you can drop the bracket system to distinguish.
Not the author, but I don't know about this. Having the MC feel distant and unrelatable is great when the subject matter is about immigration. The readers are taking a perspective of an insider looking at an outsider joining them. We want to feel distrusting and aloof to his struggles.

>>20196453
True. I really fucking hate immigrants and wish they would stay in their countries. It's very relatable to me when I'm not allowed to empathize too closely with an immigrant narrator because his puny immigrant brain is completely alien to me, and when confronted with the pinprick of his low and dim "consciousness," I want nothing more than to see him fail. Any authorial attempts at portraying him as a human being will most likely cause me to close the book, because we all know nonwhites frankly just aren't human.

>>20195402
>buy libreoffice
already ngmi

>>20195980
fun. same reason you shouldn't try to get gud in drawing just to get e-cred, you should do it because you're a masochist that enjoys it.

>>20196364
>Focus on the first industrial revolution in England.
I was thinking of doing something similar to those mudhut countries that were forced through industrialization by communists in the 20th century but I'll check that too.

>>20187240
Nnnnngmi
Read real literature

>>20196939
Then you should be looking up colonialism. When the Brits brought and forced their inventions onto other countries. Or the Roman conquests

>>20197135
Will do.
Thanks, anon.

Should I use english words to name my characters or should I use foreign words to name them? Which one is better and why?

>>20197178
>Should I use english words to name my characters or should I use foreign words to name them?
It depends
>Which one is better
It depends
>why?
It depends

>>20197291
>>20197291
>>20197291
>>20197291

NEW

>>20197178
What kind of character is this that you can't just name them "Bob"?