/lit/ - Literature

No one writes in /wg/.

>>20391201
No one *reads

>>20391201
How then pray tell, am I replying to (you)?

Romanians are my favorite people in the world

>>20391201
Tell that to F Gardner. He’s written 11 novels.

Romanians are my least favorite people in the world

>>20391201
I’ve yet to see people post their work here, makes me wonder why even make this General in the first place.

>>20391201
Not true. Look at gardner.

>>20391256
Impossible, every thread there's someone posting.

We have hell anon, Chinaman anon, cigarette anon, and people that claim they're writing something

>>20391231
>>20391257
You unironically do not count, Frank. It’s not about quality, it’s about intent: you are purely a scam artist trying to trick simpletons into paying you. You should honestly be sued for fraud. I know none of this will get through to you because you’re such a committed grifter, but know that as long as I’m on this board I’m not letting you say this stupid shit unchallenged.

>>20391218
No one sneeds

>>20391257
Based. I loved Call of the Crocodile. It’s the Silent Hill of literature.

>>20391355
>heh heh, just ignore them Frank. They’ll buy your books soon enough, if you can just keep pretending to be other people…
You’re honestly fucking sad as shit. I bet if you had a scrap of intelligence you’d be suicidal.

>>20391294
I am still in in 2nd draft of mine and Ive learned I dont get much helpful comments until I get 3rd draft and start removing all the retardwriting and put more style into it. My first draft always comes off schizophrenic and 2nd just is more consistent narrative and perspective. I have learned some anons think I have a stark writing voice which was intentional. I do like long breathless sentences but I mostly write short ones with the impression of a vacant stare. But yeah anyways 10k words last weekend so Im doing my damndest.

>>20391256
Because you fags, especially the ones who make these threads, are crabs in a bucket who do not provide any criticism or just shit post. The only "work" that gets any attention are the ironic shitposts, it's better to create your own thread if you seriously want people to see your writing

>>20391401
this is incredibly wrong, even just looking at the previous thread. Good feedback happens frequently here if you ask for it

>>20391401
...Yeah.
I recently finished my second book and I'm just now beginning serialization on the third, but I never even once considered posting any of it here knowing full well that this shithole would just try to stop me from actually getting anything done

I don’t want to post my work because
1) my ideas are so awful I will be ridiculed or, even worse, ignored
2) my ideas are so good, they will be no doubt be stolen

>>20391186
I don’t post my work here because it’s evidently filled with retards and or zoomers obsessed with Germanic philosophy. such internet randoms are not who I want considering my work

>>20391401
It wasn't like this when the animefags created these threads, people wrote then, but the pseuds drove them away.

I don't post my work because the thought of being vulnerable scares me.

>>20391453
same

>>20391193
The problem is editors cost 2-3 grand. That's a very expensive hobby if you can't plough sales back into it. Imo it's not worth making that outlay upfront before you know you can make it. There are other skills you should be developing before you start worrying about editing. Simply finishing a work for one. Publishing, marketing, and writing the next one. If you didn't make enough in sales from your first three unedited books to hire an editor for your fourth, then you are doing something seriously wrong that an editor can't help you with and need to go back to basics.

>>20391492
Anon, serious question, have you had success with your own stuff?

>>20391500
Not enough to justify the expense of an editor. But enough to make me confident I'll be able to afford one by my third book.

>>20391515
ballpark of your gross profits? This isn't to judge you, it's to gauge where i can be within a book or two. Full time career otherwise, very interested in getting money via writing

>>20391492
Im willing to bite the bullet because I believe in myself. I was a complete loser 7 years ago but I made a life for myself somehow. I dont see what you mean by other skills, Im always trying to improve my knowledge of the world, writing and the business side of things but if I am still working a day job then its either midsized /major publisher or bust. I need an editor and agent more to save me time.

>It was a cold and sunny day. I didn’t know it then, but I know it now, that life can turn on a dime. I never would have thought in a million years that these things could happen to me, but they did, and now I’m forever changed. I was walking down the street happily, minding my business. I was thinking about nothing in particular, amusing myself with silly and sumptuous thoughts, when suddenly, surveying the street and sidewalk, I spied something scary. The sky was blue and sunny and the air was very cold, making me chill when I saw the terrifying figure before me.

Well, /wg/, what did he see?

I'm unafraid to post my pre draft work.
Do your worst wallpapers.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C1EXYB9V5d6Tvq03bst9X4y9V3m5jV6If2htaiMr744/edit?usp=drivesdk

>>20391450
No it wasn't. Animefags are the majority of posters here and they still post about their exploratory anime-inspired stories. No pseuds drove anyone away. There is one who loved to spam anime OPs and he just took over WWOYM because /wg/ is too slow for him.

>>20391569
BENIS

>>20391534
I have only written short stories, about 60k word count worth, and made $500+ over their lifetime. That is 100% profit. I'm judging future success by extrapolating to novels. I would be happy with $500 in sales from my first 60k which I'm planning rn. Since novels is a bigger market, $500 seems a reasonable target. My plan is to write 2 books. 1st with no expenditure except cover, 2nd with cover + marketing. If I can't afford an editor by the 3rd I will go back to square 1. Hope that's not too disappointing.

Sweet Juanita.
Mortal goddes dipped in the nectar of the virgins provided by Allah himself.
Nita, oh how that name ripples through the pelvis of a man knowing your secret
Who could have fathomed that so few syllables could amount to the most beautiful word in any language
And those words that lifted me from this plane to another
"I have a penis"
Sweet Juanita
Let me taste you

>>20391606
I also only write short stories. Were your profits from magazine submissions, or did you release a compilation that sold well? Thanks for all the insight, by the way, it really is appreciated.

>>20391595
>It was a penis, a man’s penis, piercing the cold air like an obelisk of meat peering out from the zippered window of a pair of denim trousers. I begin to run now, horrified by this site. I’m too scared to even look behind me, but I did anyway, and I saw the man shuffling after me with his cock in hand. I shrieked. I’m horrified and terrified and very scared and various other scintillating synonyms that elude me at this writing, so tortured am I at recalling this story. My sanity was a house of cards, waiting to collapse. The man chased after me still. Suddenly, I run into something that makes me stop.

>>20391595
damn those thighs look soft

>>20391584
I gave you feedback the first time you posted the intro and it's really been tightened up.

I know you refuse to see reason on this topic but the dialect/accents gotta go though.

>>20391542
To quote the sticky
>Traditional Publishing
>don’t
By other skills I mean writingcraft, writing to market, self-publishing and marketing. I want to get traditionally published some day too, but only for prestige. Imo the best way is to have a cv of proven successful writing. During that time you will also learn how to craft books publishers will want to buy. No need for self-belief when you have self-knowledge.

>>20391636
Don't get me wrong I did consider it. I do have another draft where the accents are gone, just deciding which sounds better.

It more or less reads the same. If I wanted to emulate the books of the 1800's the accent stays, if I wanted it to be more contemporary and this more accepted and higher chance of being traditionally published it goes.

He kept replying with murmurs and other non-answers, hoping that it'll make her leave faster. Having some sort of mother figure wasn't a new thing is his life, having a girlfriend was. At the moment said girlfriend was sitting in front of him on the same bench, her a little chubby ass pressed against his erection. Once they were alone she turned back and kissed him. It wasn't exhibitionism, they simply loved each other.
Soon they'd have to get up anyway because the exhibition was about to start. With their connections combined getting to test drive the newest Mercedes was a real possibility. He briefly wondered if there would be a camera inside. It wouldn't be exhibitionism though, they simply loved each other.

>>20391662
If it does go, them the pidgen English also goes. Which would make the story odd since the only guy that speaks with an accent is the Chinese guy. Which makes it worse. But if I get rid of his accent, it'll be too unrealistic. We have people born and raised in immigrant families that still have accents

>>20391626
Self-publishing on amazon. I wrote historical erotica, made covers in gimp and uploaded to amazon. Nothing more. And people actually bought it. Erotica is very forgiving, which is why it's good for learning craft. Four 5k episodes with a basic romance arc and bundled into a 20k novella. I'm insanely and disproportionately proud of them. My writing dramatically improved just by doing that and so did the income with each new episode. With self-publishing, after you've attained a certain quality of writing, quantity is all you need to produce to see progression in income. In fact, you can write like total shit and still see progress just by writing more of it. There are 10s of thousands of hacks doing just that on amazon. However, that was 3 years ago and I still haven't written that romance novel.

>>20391723
Neat. Thanks anon. Do you think self-publishing a small fantasy novel on Amazon would be worth it? Ads paid for, etc.

>>20391650
But you can find out from agents if you have a book publishers want to buy. And its still a numbers game with sales and attention can potentially make up for the lower percentage.
From published authors Ive talked to I already understand self publishing is far more legit since 2010 than in the past. However traditional and indie can still work but it really depends on where your audience is and a number of factors that can shift. I'm sure I can make it either way but I will hammer out the details myself. Trying to do literary fiction but I do lean into Southern Gothic and even scifi and historic fiction. From what agents Ive identified and contemporaries I know that are read get published under MacMillan or Penguin Randomhouse. There are some exceptions but that is at least my understanding of it today.

Hell-Anon here after some time away. I've had a very busy week.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nBQqfx2AnFoC55tovM91pqKgCkXS_5MjW_Np9aCrTC4/edit?usp=sharing

Some alterations, I still have a lot of restructuring to do, but I have figured out the idea for the main plot/conflict arc thing moving forward and I have to say I actually think it's a pretty good idea.

Love you all.

How do you all feel about basic plot drivers? An example would be, 'someone or something threatens or kills MC's family, so now MC must respond'. I feel like that's an easy way out when it comes to starting a conflict in a more fantastical setting. At the same time, I couldn't really say I was ever personally turned off a book because of an opening like that, I'm curious how you all feel.

An awkward argument over skillsets was one thing, but no warrior of these clans, even the less enthusiastic ones, had ever been known to hesitate in committing to a duel. In such an ancient and complex landscape of histories, legends, myths, stories, families, and spirits, the crash of a wooden blade was often easier understood than the machinations of speech. To the men of the land, it was better this way. A blunt edge could not play the tricks of a forked tongue.

pic unrelated

>>20391688
But you also have people who don't.

In this political climate, the accents in writing more and more seem prejudiced against minorities, so they've come less acceptable to see in print.

At the end of the day, in dialogue, what's important is what people say and not how they say it. "Realism" should not be the primary thing you are looking for, especially at the cost of readability and political or critical acceptability.

If you read good literature, even from very famous and acclaimed writers, half the time, the dialogue is not "realistic" at all, but it works fine, reads well and nobody ever objects to it.

>>20391773
Just fucking do it my dude. Literally why wouldn't you? You might be surprised. Nail your cover and blurb. Stuff the keywords with what your readers will be searching for. With ads, don't spend what you're not prepared to lose. I will not start marketing till book 2, because it pays to have a back catalogue. And also want to test how marketable my books are. If it doesn't sell from cover and blurb, I wouldn't consider it worth throwing money at.

I'm this guy >>20390742. What I want to write is historical fantasy. But was getting nowhere. I want to write quality, reading 100 books a year, writing 2k words a day (Stephen King's criteria for what defines a professional writer - his first published works were also short erotica in Penthouse). How can I get there? Reading 100 books a year is just about doable, but 2k a day after work? Not happening. I need to be making money from writing yesterday so I can wfh. That's when I got serious about writingcraft and realised how little I'd learnt studying English to masters at top universities (though at least I read a lot of quality). So I googled how to make money from writing and stumbled on r/eroticauthors. I swear I'm not a redditor, but it's an incredible resource that's applicable to all genres of self-published writing. Check out especially the sidebar and title:search dataporn posts (people's reports on their self-publishing failures and WILD successes). Also, check out this guy. Chris Fox. Sff writer. He also wrote a series on self-publishing. His book Writing To Market is essential reading for self-publishing. Selling books is a formula that anyone with professional writing skills (or hacks) can apply.

Anyway, since then I stopped pumping out porn, because I was happy with the self-publishing process and progress, and started planning my novel. It's historical romance because romance is a massive market, formulaic and readers are forgiving. And historical is what I know and write what you know, right? That's going to be my craft training. I've read deep in my genre, reading about craft - planning, character, dialogue, structure, etc - so I'm not just spaghettiing on the page, and feeling confident for the first time in my life that I'm on the right writing track. This will be my craft apprenticeship. Next is marketing. Then finally epic historical fantasy.

Tl;dr: write what readers want to buy and you will be able to afford time and money to write what you want to write.

>>20391453
This is a major hurdle for me, writing feels like baring my soul for all to see to I either don't show anyone or unintentionally censor myself so no one can see my true self. How do you get past this?

>>20391799
I feel that traditional publishing is a lottery. Even JK Rowling was rejected by 12 agents. I've read about trad writers who got rejected literally hundreds of times over decades. And all you get is an advance, a cover and some marketing in exchange for half the royalties. And you will still have marketing responsibilities. It doesn't even necessarily improve the chances of success. Whereas you can self-publish rn.

>>20391983
Make a pen name and don't tell anyone what it is.

>>20391893
there's some basic story archetypes out there. "The underdog sports" story is about a guy who isn't very good at first but wins the game at the end.
then you have "the heist" archetype where a team of experts is gathered and you steal something.
You can find a lot more story archetypes online. Usually you combine two or three story archetypes together.
"Harry Potter" a combination of the sports underdog, mystery, boarding school, wizard school archetypes.

>>20391995
This. Learn to love tropes. Plot is just a frame to hang your writing on.

How do I know if I'm not being subtle enough?

>>20392012
>Plot is just a frame to hang your writing on.
this is the real reason most self-published retards sell 2 copies.

>>20392014
Peer reviews.

>>20391995
I guess to me, my issue isn’t necessarily the archetypes, it’s the beginnings of them. For something like a heist, someone needs money, maybe they’ve got a sick kid or something. It’s a question as to whether the classic sick kid as a motivator is really interesting or not, or if it causes people to tune out because it’s just overplayed.

>>20391332
>I know none of this will get through to you because you’re such a committed grifter, but know that as long as I’m on this board I’m not letting you say this stupid shit unchallenged.

>>20392036
for the longest time i thought this was young ben shapiro

>>20391995
Those are not archetypes. Please for the love of God don’t make me start mansplaining about Jung on fucking /lit/

>>20392049
Enlighten me

>>20392026
I was paraphrasing Virginia Woolf (I think). People should learn tropes. There's no escaping them, even if all you want to do is (((subvert))) them.

>>20392034
there's dozens of heist movies out there
you don't need to watch all of them
you can go to imdb and read the synopsis
and learn about the beginning of each

>>20392055
I will do the literal bare minimum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_archetypes

>>20392034
Heist readers love formulas and hate departures from formulas and will 5 star/1 star accordingly.

>>20392028
But my story's not finished yet

>>20392049
>mansplaining

I think it's safe to assume you're talking to fellow men.

>>20392114
If you're still drafting then worry about it later, don't you think?

>>20392124
And you didn’t comprehend the bitchy and passive aggressive inference that person was behaving like a woman.

I thought you were all writers and readers here? Masters and commanders of the King’s English and gardens of prose?

>>20392012
>my Le Big Damn hero moment!
>mentor has to die here
>Sidekick type B
You trope niggers are nematode souled pop-culture addicted ghouls without a spark or even thirst for original thought.

Tropes are trends towards certain patterns, not a paint by numbers "connect the dots" solutions you can slap together to make a story worth 2 shits.

>>20392217
Way to hyperbolize to get mad at something no one said

>>20392222
quads quads quads quads
but he’s not misrepresenting him anon, plot is just a frame to hang your writing on sounds like some reddit advice for soulless genre fiction writers.

>>20391915
Accents give soul though. You can easily give background to a character by using accents. Take Gone with the Wind. One French slut uses ze instead of the. As well as chee instead of these. As long as that anon doesn't go crazy making fun of the way a person talks I think it gives a tiny depth to the characters. Like when anime draws erect tits in beach episodes

>>20392230
Name one plot that doesn't have any tropes.

>>20392138
Take a chill pill, sweetheart.

>>20392230
>genre fiction writers
Also, he's writing a heist novel.

>>20391915
>half the time, the dialogue is not "realistic" at all, but it works fine, reads well and nobody ever objects to it.

Speak for yourself. When I'm reading a story where the main character bumps into, say, a young man who has lived his whole life in an American ghetto, I want that upbringing to be reflected in his speech -- the same way it is in reality. Having him speak like any other person would be ridiculous.

>>20392251
No plot doesn't have tropes, but there's a difference between writing from tropes and writing and letting the tropes fall where they do.

I have successfully ruined /wg/.
: )

>>20392311
There wasn't anything to ruin.

>>20392311
No you didn't nerd

>>20392309
That's all I was saying. Guy's loved one gets killed. Guy gets revenge. Nothing wrong with that or to stop you doing it originally.

>>20392251
nice tautology

>>20392234
I do things like that, I try to change word choice and sentence structure more than pronunciation but you can have cool effects whem a foreign character speaks. Recently instead of writing "fill your hands" I put "fall your hands". Also theres a Faulkner character named Doom after a french chef called him "du homme" (the Man). Stuff like that where ideas emerge out of how people speak is great.

i dont read except for criticising the "writers" in this general
you can never stop me :)

>>20392309
Also, consider Shakespeare. He lifted almost all his plots from the classics and history books. Was he unoriginal and soulless? What about Ulysses? Joyce produced some of the most original writing ever still to this day. But the plot was copied straight from the Odyssey. And his first book was just a coming of age. It's not worth agonising over basic plot points. Just go with what pops in your head. It's the detail that matters.

>>20392428
This is what hacks and pseuds will never understand
nobody gives a shit if your story is, on a macro scale, a nearly perfect retread of the hero's journey formula, it's the execution and details that actually matter

>>20391891
Sorry I haven't read your stuff in a while...I've been cranking out the scene-flow for a new novel & want to continue as long as the muse is upon me.

>someone reviewed my short story collection on RR
>very kind, lots of nice compliments

My heart is warm.

>>20392401
>>20392401
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pf94P3uPXj93SzZ9Y2-kc-foQ9XG01bBt267IgtBJew/edit?usp=sharing

EAT MY SHITTY ISEKAI LITRPG!!

>>20392458
>you need access
>request access
i'm not telling you my email nigga

>>20391983
I guess I'm naturally exhibitionist.
Or maybe I'm just autistic & am too socially clueless to know why I shouldn't bare my soul.
Either way, I write.

>>20392463
My bad. Changed

>>20392452
post it

>>20392511
"I like it"

>>20392458
>ISEKAI
I read one line and ordered a rope from amazon. well done, anon, you have successfully stopped me.
at least you have spirit.

l'm going to do it. l'm going to start writing again.

>>20391983
That's the price you pay anon. It has to be worth it. If you are truly talented, then you have a chance at fame and it's worth it. If you'r not talented, then you are simply exposing yourself to shame and humiliation and get nothing in return.

>>20391986
She may have been rejected by 12 agents but that doesn't mean her manuscript didn't improve each time.

>>20391986
Your best bet for actually making money is serializing your work online and using Patreon advance chapters, but pseuds seethe at the idea because they still aspire to tradpub when tradpub is pozzed and dying.

>>20391940
Keep it up anon. You're an inspiration. Funnily enough, my book is essentially about a form of succubus who cut her teeth writing erotica in her human life and is recruited to put those skills to the test. You and I likely have a lot in common, though I dare not think too far ahead about the publishing process because right now all I want to do is work on the story and my craft.

>>20392447
You owe me nothing Anon, but I appreciate your interest. Work hard and keep at it. We're going to make it.

I'd love to get some feedback on the idea for the conflict I have in mind to introduce though, as I'm really excited to write it but I just hope I'm not the only one who finds it compelling.

This is only the first page, but I would appreciate any feedback on how it reads.

>>20392654
Hey, I want to read what you have now, I really do.
As soon as the muse lets go of me, or I get too tired to write, I'll read it.
I look forward to seeing its new state.

>>20392452
Want to be added to the author pastebin?

>>20392654
>the conflict I have in mind
good. your book needs a conflict. things are awfully peachy all around for the setting allegedly being hell.

>>20392711
Sure! Throw me in as JonH.
Thanks!
https://www.royalroad.com/profile/285435

>>20392674
Thanks Anon.
>>20392800
The basic plan I have right now is that someone works out the protagonist's true identity, or former identity rather, and threatens to blackmail them with this, which would be social suicide for someone so vain and self-absorbed. She decides to attempt to take matters into her own hands by hiring someone to take care of the threat and seeks someone out from the underworld's underworld. Ultimately though when the person she hires takes care of her problem and passes the information along to his boss, she effectively winds up trading a rather benign and likely even manipulable blackmailer for a much more dangerous one who now threatens her life.

>>20392662
This is the first thing in here I've seen that I'd actually read if it were a book. Nonetheless, I don't know what is going on. How is Samuel Spindry in the building?

>>20392863
That is beautiful to hear, thank you.

Well, he lives there! In the basement! The brothel owner shuts the place down on perceived command from Jupiter, and my Mr Spindry is a God's fool character who forces him into a sort of congregation, out of his solitude...or something like that

can you suggest any omissions?

>>20392662
I'm not well-read enough to tell you what you ought to remove, but I will say it's a great hook. It was humorous and I immediately wanted to know more about the characters and the situation they were in.

>>20392919
Yeah, I'm a fan. Granted, I don't read much in here, and I don't intend to you fellate you so I'll stop there anyway. Only thing that struck me was
>He stood in the downstairs parlor densely. Densely grinning,
If that was intentional, I don't get it; if it was a typo, then yeah.

>>20392674
This anon replying
>>20392853
Oooh, nice twist! I look forward to reading that!

>>20392940
>you don't want to fellate me
Of course, I know ... its just encouraging to hear something other than "woow this is terrible"

>>20392967
I didn't want to say anything, for fear of jinxing it, but it seems like there's been a marked reduction in seething here lately.
I don't know why that is, or if it's real, but I hope it continues.

There was some all-encompassing cultural commonality between the mid-west and Los Angeles, as different as the dispositions, accents, diets, geography and music may have been, but it was hard to put to words. These intuitively understood things, first captured at a surface level by gut instinct, by a general feeling that allows us to savor the aromatic superficial notes in the burgundy glass of the experience, are by nature painfully ellusive, and thus, they can be taken from us. Things we can't articulate and consciously understand, but that we know are present, can be made even more incorporeal and abstract, once they are predominantly just a feeling, more an emotion than a logically comprehended cause and effect mechanism, and silver-tongued foxes and snakes can, through their more material concoctions of language and rhetoric, take them away from us, focus our attention in that which can be understood and pronounced, written and heard. The eureka enlightenment we feel, the epiphany that clears our mind in a rush of excitement for a route that has been opened, that we experience once someone can articulate what we can not, this feeling is what we are looking for, like the scratching of an itch or the relief of a physical ache that we didn't even know was there. And once we are actively diverted from our underlying, half-conscious thirst for that understanding, it burrows itself like a dormant maggot into the humid dark soil of possible budding ideas, only to occasionally awaken, submerged, to feed and contort itself, fertilizing and softening the dirt, bringing the first vibrations of that itch back to consciousness. These things are not the supernatural perception of an energy or a clarivoyant's powers of premonition, they are the detecting of subtle hints towards a factual truth, but the brain is more enticed by the oncoming sunrise than it is by the seductive glow of the first golden apricot beams that tear the skies open to bleed the crimson blood of twilight. Because of that, we don't retain these hints, their connections and contextual commonalities. But eventually that truth exposes itself in splendor, at the climax during which the self-appointed owners of truth have allowed it to transpire in the tapestry of the collective consciousness, either by being discovered by those with huge social influence or by the big picture scope of ideas pulling more towards a position that brings it to the everyday discussions. On that day, the sunrise will feast your eyes, much like you once beautifully dreamed, unconsciously as it is the default, a dream you forgot as soon as you woke up.

>>20392853
>The basic plan I have right now is that someone works out the protagonist's true identity, or former identity rather, and threatens to blackmail them with this
I don't fully understand why the mc would care all that much but maybe she still feel a connection to her old life I dunno. I assume part of the blackmail is going to require sexual favors that the mc does perform, but afterward the blackmailer raises the stakes even further so she tries to find a hitman.

>>20392989
I don't take it as seething when I get responses like that. I get that people don't know how to give actual critical feedback. I think if something is shit it should be reflected to the poster, but it is really difficult to do that substantively.

>>20393047
The seething I'm talking about doesn't even pretend to give critical feedback.
It's mostly ad hominem attacks and what the milquetoast outsiders would call "hate speech".
If this calm keeps up, I might actually link to my just-released novel.

First chapter complete.
It’s short.
It doesn’t leave out important details.
It’s elegant.
It feeds the curiosity of the reader.
It’s exactly what I was looking for, nothing like the previous dozen attempts at a first hook chapter that I’ve tried to create previously.

>>20393160
I’m the anon who completed his outline about 4-5 days ago.

>>20393038
My logic is sort of that this mc fancies herself something of a "Stacy" now, and the thought of her origins becoming public knowledge and following around forever is mortifying. She's gotten a second chance at life, ironically in Hell, and now someone is threatening to ruin that. Maybe I need to find a way to better elevate the stakes to something of a mutually assured destruction thing. The point being I want the vanity surrounding something rather harmless to spiral into her getting caught up in far more than she bargained for, ultimately wishing that she'd just found another way to work things out.

>>20393160
Now repeat fifty times.

>>20393181
I’m months ahead of you. I should say I’ve been attempting this and reattempting this off and on for about 10 months.

the current biggest obstacle to me writing is i dont know where to write
can i seriously start writing with google docs or is there some big security thing i need to be aware fo to not write secret books tuff on there?

>>20393200
gdocs works fine, the biggest issue is that it starts sperging out if you push a single doc above 170k-ish words, it hogs ram at times, and ctrl+f makes it choke and die if your manuscript is beyond that length

>>20393200
You can't just write on your own computer?
I use a text editor, writing in Markdown format, and use pandoc to convert to formatted text to LibreOffice format for e-books and paper books.
All open source, all free.

>>20393200
???

How to avoid making my protagonist of what it's really just an experiment, feeling the setting out, although I do plan on them being the face of my attempt, a little bit too special?
I am afraid, I'll say it like it is, I partly ripped off or like took a page from Gibson and one from the Xmen and I may have gone too far, I don't want a mary sue ok, I dont want to be told that
Im neurotic, always try to cover every single window for nitpicking.

>>20393200
Wix bro, no excuse

>>20393732
I'm trying to be like my hero, Phillip Dick and I went to batshit on this, I'm embarrassed, felt the need to justify stuff and I kept adding to the setting and now well I have a character that's too special, not that grounded which is what I'm trying to emulate.

>nothing really happens in my book.
>Just dudes sitting around talking bullshit
>Ghosts break shit
>Nobody has bothered to wonder what is going on, just blame other occurances
>An entire three chapters of a guy getting finding the right suit for his daughters wedding
>Ghost is still around fucking with him and his wife
>Yet nothing really happens
Is this a plot?

>>20393769
i'm gonna take a shot in the dark and guess that you're shitting on some popular book in a roundabout way

>>20391186
My Microsoft 365 account has its subscription ended and when I tried to log into my employee account, it said I don't have the 365 covered by my employer. I should probably transition to pen and paper anyway, but it's annoying because I need word to give feedback in my irl writing group.

>>20393932
Just pirate it.

>>20393932
Using any of the zillion free office clones out there is absolutely not an option?

>>20393944
I have a mac because it's used for work. As far as I can see, the mac versions of word on tpb are sketchy.
>>20393949
Pages sucks dick but I suppose I'll use that instead.

>>20393960
i use this one macadmins (dot) software. no problems afaik

>>20393960
>merging your personal work and belongings on a work laptop
are you retarded? get your own laptop, and pirate shit on it and keep your own life separate from work.

>>20394014
>just consoooooooommmmmmm

>>20393960
Pages has the superior apple courier font

>>20394175
I like the San Francisco font far more. It triggers my autism to write in a font that isn't the OS default.

I see a lot of wannabe writers in real life who claim they only want to "tell a story" but also lament they don't have fame or recognition yet, saying "I just want to be noticed." Well, which one is it?

>>20394509
They want lots of people to read their story.

But most of all, they think it'll make them rich. Make life easy.

>>20393744
Give him a flaw/weakness/limitation.

>>20394509
Niggas just want to be heard and writing is one avenue for them to do it in. Other people want to write and getting recognized is a wanted outcome, but not the primary one. The ones you describe don't really want to tell a story, they just want to be famous.

>>20393732
Stories are about the exceptional. People still love Superman and he's absurdly 'special' because he's a good-natured guy who has to deal with the fact that he can't save absolutely everybody. To him, that's a crippling flaw, because he thinks he's responsible for every life he could have saved. Make them a character first and foremost and people won't care too much about how 'special' they are. Mary Sues aren't overpowered characters, Mary Sues are boring black holes of personality that suck in the rest of the story to be only about them.

>>20393015
Nice. Needs more reddit spacing and some of the sentences could be broken up.

>>20393769
Does it have a 3 act beginning, middle, end that goes something like this (my personal plot template)?

>hook
>inciting incident
>end of the beginning

>act 2:1
>pinch point
>rising action
>midpoint
>act 2:2
>pinch point
>crisis

>beginning of the end
>climax
>denouement

Also, what do you think of my plot template?

Anyone querying? Why does nobody talk about traditional publishing here?! Do you people write for fun?

>>20394745
I tried that last year. It didn't work.

>>20394745
I was querying for my comedy book and then thought I'd better try going hard in the paint for self publishing first just to see if I can make it. If that fails, my next book will be trad pub.

>>20394651
It does, but nothing really happens

First time actually posting some of my work instead of critiquing other's. Would be interested in hearing your thoughts

>>20394825
prose is a little wooden

>>20394825
>He does x

>>20394873
Thank me that it's not a neopronoun

>>20394831
>>20394873
Yeah, I can see that. If I remove the repetitive "he", would it make it any better?

>>20394825
>A janitor mopped the floors at a local school.
Mm'yes, that's what janitors do. This is one of the most tedious opening sentences I've read in a long time. the entire paragraph is drastically improved just by cutting out the first sentence alone.

>>20394941
First sentence removed

>>20394873
He no longer does x

Better?

>>20394976
No description of where he's cumming at, see me after class.

>>20394941
what if future generations found the text and didn't know what a janitor was? atleast leave a footnote anon!

>>20394979
>>20395044
Thank you guys so much for the feedback!

>>20394509
I just want to be able to write for a living. If I can take home a bit above minimum wage without having to sink to litrpg isekai I'll be happy.

>>20395124
Not even accomplished writers "write for a living." You almost always have to be doing something else, whether it's teaching, touring, speaking, etc.
So you need to give up this "write for a living" thing.

>>20391422
Just do it.
I've picked some stuff from here for my book.
The more I can steal, the better.

>>20394509
i don't think people are used to someone who writes for a hobby
if i play soccer with some friends, nobody expects me to go pro, but for some reason, if you're writing, people expect you to want to be traditionally published
a lot of famous books were written by guys who made up stories for their kids

>>20395130
I've seen them talk about their standards of living, and have concluded that they crave greater comforts than I need. I'd be fine if I had to work 15 hours a week at McDonald's to make ends meet, so long as I can pound out the other 25 hours worth at a keyboard. I do not desire a flat in a big city or to own my own home, just let me rot between suburban meth dens where I can create what I want.

>>20394651
absolute newfag here.

what's the difference between hook and the inciting incident?

in fact, could someone give me an example for all the green text in >>20394651

t. i may have a story in me, but I have no idea how to start and make sure it's worth reading.

>>20395097
Footnote needs to be more detailed.

>>20395202
should be plenty of examples on youtube or the internet
hook is on the first page or close to it. it's what makes a reader want to read a book.
the inciting incident is when the protagonist leaves the normal, boring world for the exotic, exciting world. luke leaving the farm and traveling on the millennium falcon.

>>20395202
Hook is what is happening immediately to draw the reader in, like, why would the reader even care about this guy. Inciting incident is what causes the mc's life to change and set all the events of the story in motion. The reason they're often different is because without giving some perspective on the character before everything changes there's no real appreciation for what his life is like.

Ex. guy is preparing to give a speech. let's say he's a local politician. so we see him backstage he's thinking about the speech, someone comes up to him to remind him he needs to be at a dinner in two hours so don't take too long, he see's another staffer he's currently having an affair with, whatever. So then he goes out to give his speech and then midway through a bomb goes off. The hook is you getting the reader invested in the character in the first place, and then the inciting incident is the bomb that, presumably, doesn't kill him - although it could, and then we swap POV over to his widow, who then finds out about the affair, etc. etc.

>>20395044
>>20395097
>>20395215
The janitor[1][2][4] mopped[2] the floor[7][8].

>[1]: That is, the main character of the story which you are about to read.
>[2]: A janitor (American English, Scottish English), also known as a janny[3], custodian, porter, cleanser, cleaner or caretaker is a person who cleans and maintains buildings... A similar position, but usually with more managerial duties and not including cleaning, is occupied by building superintendents in the United States and Canada) and by site managers in schools in the United Kingdom. Cleaning is one of the most commonly outsourced services.
>[3]: Not to be confused with the 4chan janny, who does it for free, a janitor makes $15 an hour on average in the United States as of May 2022.
>[4]: The janitor[2] has a long and storied history. Since there have been messes, people have needed others to clean them up. The name janitor derives from the Roman[6] "Janus", the god of portals and doors. Note the term anus used in "Janus". This is because janitors[2][3][5] are the anuses of the hospitality industry.
>[5]: An annoying, irritating, or unwanted presence.
>[6]: The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. Some women[5] associate men who like the Roman Empire with a lot of red flags. For further information on the Roman Empire, play Total War: Rome II on PC.
>[7]: A floor is the bottom surface of a room, house, dwelling, or vehicle. They are designed to support loads up to and including your mom[5], but some industrial strength floors may also handle your grammy.
>[8]: Floors have a storied history. Multi-story buildings need many stories (or floors) to support the weight of the occupants. The earliest floors can be traced to prehistoric times when cavemen built shelters out of palm fronds and branches. Even then, when they shit on the floor, they had a janny[2][5] come and clean it up.

>>20395319
>>20395329
perfect. thanks.

>>20395319
>internet
true.
i'm an idiot. should've just googled. sorry.

>>20395193
Be careful what you wish for.

>>20395334
Kek, I may need to rewrite my book's opening to have a janitor cleaning the floor. It's a provocative line apparently.

>>20395202
Just take all this story arc, pinch point, and other plotting advice with a huge grain of salt. They give you a mental model of one way a story can be told but are not that meaningful at the end of the day in my view beyond helping you troubleshoot. Book's are read (and written) chapter to chapter, with a few inversion/escalation points along the way- the last thing you want is a really artificial feeling sequence of events to fit some arbitrary theoretical target.

Does Anon know how he wants a book to end before he starts writing it? Or does Anon let the chips fall where they may?

>>20395618
I'm trying to do a hero's journey.
so obviously I know my hero will win in the end, and I have a little idea how. But only a little. The chips will fall, but perhaps neither exactly how I want them to, nor entirely as they may.

but then, I am >>20395202, an absolute newfag to writing.

>>20395618
I wrote what will be the last lines of my book before I had a single complete chapter. It has seagulls in it.

>>20391584
Jeez this is pretty good. But predictable

How DO you guys write? Do you plot out the general story or just wing it? What are your methods?

>>20395670
Ideas become an outline, outline is then filled with details, details become prose, prose becomes the first draft.

>>20395687
But do you write down the outline?

>>20395694
Well obviously. Things only exist once they've been written down. Your ideas don't exist either if they're only in your head. A head full of noise is nothing. Write it all down. Random lines of dialogue that come to your head, descriptions of places and people. Anything, you write it all down. You'll need that material to work with.

>>20395706
>he doesn’t have an eidetic memory

>>20395719
That's not the point. If it's only in your head, it's not there. You haven't done anything. You're daydreaming, not writing.

>>20395618
I have ideas for how my story might end, but to me that feels like the hardest part. The finality of it feels crushing, because I feel a really strong connection to the story and the world I'm writing. If I were reading it, it'd feel like avoiding the last finger or so of the book would allow me to simply imagine that it didn't have to end.

>>20391186
>Self Publishing Options
>>https://archiveofourown.org/
>>https://www.wattpad.com/
Is this a joke?

>>20391355
I wasn't going to say anything, but comparing CoC to Silent Hill is an insult I will not stand for.

Call of the Crocodile is essentially a Goosebumps book written for adults. Silent Hill is one of the few games I could classify as art. I'm not even trying to be an asshole here, you wanna say Call is enjoyable, that's your bag. But don't say a quarter-pounder is the same thing as filet-mignon.

>>20395618
I usually visualize the concept of the story during a daydream and have the ending come shortly after the story starts taking shape. Filling in the median parts is the hard work. That's when I subconsciously plan and let my brain wallow in the feel of the book and build a story for me.
>>20395670
Whenever I get ready to write, I sit down and reread what I did recently to get into the mood of the piece. Then I hop right into where I left off. If I ever am uncertain about where to go with it, I fall back on the "action, so..." thing where you write an action that happens, then "so" as a prompt to help you think about what should logically follow. That builds the "plot" for me and then I let the characters react to each other and the rest is all in the structure of line prose.

>>20395618
I write the ending first then the journey it takes to get there

>>20394416
Cool beans. publishers and editors throw out manuscripts not in 12 pt courier, so...

there, actual writing advice in a thread full of zoomers and normies and retards

>>20391773
I've published 3 books through KDP and advertised them all here, which is what I suspect many anons in /wg/ plan to do. Whether or not it's "worth it" depends on what you're hoping for:
>Profit
That's gonna be a solid no. I've sold two digital copies, and moved about 25 free units. For a total of $4.12, after spending $60 on advertisements. Competent editing will run you at least $1000 for a novel.
>Prestige/Discussion
Also no. Unless you already have a social media presence, like Waldun or Q, or you're willing to completely debase yourself through constant shilling, nobody is going to give a shit about your book. Doesn't matter if you really manage to capture the zeitgeist of 4chan, or include a bunch of wacky memes, or give it away for free, people will just flat-out not care. Despite running ads for weeks now, I only saw one organic post about my books, and the thread died pretty quickly.
>Satisfaction
This one kinda ties back into the first two points, so I'm going to call it a no. I'm proud of my books. The prose, the plot, the characters, and the covers I designed, but the truth is that even the most diligent self-editor is never going to catch all of his own mistakes and even though I've moved on to other projects, I still find myself thinking of ways that the books could be improved.

That being said, I'd still encourage you to do it. In the process of publishing the three books (KDP is a bit trickier than you might think) I lost sight of how much work actual writing is and what an accomplishment it is to finish just a single novel. It's somewhat like the hedonistic treadmill, when I started my first novel and eventually began to realize the magnitude of what I had set out to do, it seemed impossible to ever finish the first one. I never planned to write another, let alone two more. There was a time when I looked forward to the day when I would release my first book and say "well, I finally got that out of my system" and sometimes, if I close my eyes and go back to that moment, I can look forward to the present and realize what I've accomplished, and even though it hasn't really brought me much in terms of objective success, it's a good feeling. And I don't think I would feel the same way if it were just a random word file saved somewhere on my hard drive.

>>20395846
Where did you advertise at? Just 4chan? 2 units sold seems incredibly under what should happen, even with self publishing.

>>20395846
when you say, you advertised, do you mean amazon ads for kindle?

>>20395851
>>20395883
Yeah, I pretty much just advertise on 4chan. Still trying to figure out how Amazon ads work. But my goal was more about getting noticed on /lit/ than making money.

>>20395846
Based fellow 3 book anon. I did the same but went the Facebook/personal website route instead and stayed off Twitter and 4chan. I agree with you on all your points and feelings save for one.
>There was a time when I looked forward to the day when I would release my first book and say "well, I finally got that out of my system"
I knew I was going to do a book series as soon as i started and I knew it would lead me to other places, and that place changed over the years. I went from wanting to do a follow-up series to starting a new series several times, then making a stand alone book not tied to a series. I think it really depends on how strong you are in filtering out bad ideas.

Writing a dark comedy about funeral crashers. My other idea is about a guy mercy killing his crippled son and making it look like an accident then meeting up with his wife years later when they are like 80 and saying he did it after being cleared by the police.

>>20396131

>>20395905
>Yeah, I pretty much just advertise on 4chan.
A waste of money.

>>20395846
>>20395928
You guys really inspire me, I'm the writer of >>20391891 and I know I'm capable of doing this. I really believe in my story and I know I'm on the right path. I don't think too much about the publishing process because I know I'll get there and that'll be it's own thing to worry about, but I am prepared to ball hard when it comes to the advertising stuff when the time comes. Even if it doesn't work out I'll at least know I went all in.

>>20396142
This is very rough.
>first two lines can be cut entirely.
>first paragraph is a run on sentence that serves no purpose
>misuse of a semicolon
All of these are bad but they can be written off as simple mistakes. The most offensive thing about the excerpt is how overly expository it is combined with how poorly it flows.

>>20396142
tis shit. paragraph is a run on sentence which reads like a zoomer text message

>>20395846
No one wants to pay for an unknown book from an unknown author with a shitty cover. Move it to Kindle Unlimited so people can read it for 'free' and you might get more readers.

Writing is so goddamn soul crushing. Trying to get literary fiction published is just fucking horrendous. Everything is milquetoast and safe. I hate the absolute non-culture of the United States. I hate that anything intellectual or difficult is problematic. I hate that there is nothing literary about literary fiction.

>>20396728
Stop thinking so hard. Consume product and get excited for next product, citizen.

>>20396728
Don't give up.
Don't allow sadness to crush your spirit.
Strive to make the art that will change it all.
Push back against the failure of culture to maintain its strength.
Drag it kicking and screaming with you, if you have to.
Feel pity if you must. Feel sadness, feel rage, feel hopeless, and feel fury. Then write.

>>20396728
Write short stories or poetry. It's all weird, experimental, and literary. There's no money in it though.

>>20393932
Use LibreOffice?
>>20394745
Literally in the FAQ in the OP:
>Traditional Publishing
>don’t
>>20395097
Wow, you're more autistic than I am.
>>20395124
This is my goal.
I've been writing for years but never made money at it.
>>20395130
Andy Weir sold the film rights to "The Martian" and now "writes for a living".
>>20395731
There's also RoyalRoad, Scribblehub, and Reddit.
>>20395846
It's difficult to find your book.
I did an image search on the cover and Google literally returned results on circles.

I sing to the blue bird.
My horse was calm, my banana blushing.
My house sees every month.
Today the balloon actually smells, and potatoes run my day.
Emotions stirred my heart.
Sparks revitalised my soul.
I came alive.

>>20396915
Short stories are the worst offender my man

Hey /wg/

here's the first 15-20 pages of a novel I'm working on. It's a historical fiction piece over the life of Harald Hadrada, the last Viking King of Norway, Commander of the Varangian Guard, ally to the Norman Kings of Sicily, and enemy to the Lombards of Southern Italy, the Berber pirate-kings, and heathen Muslims who wrestled control of the Holy Land from Nova Roma

But yeah, bad ass guy who's story doesn't need to be embellished, and I felt like it hadn't been told yet in this sort of style, so I'm trying my hand at it

>https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lzYKhkIa5SHgu64oJUtn1WOndBDVbkU_/view?usp=sharing

It's on Google Drive because PasteBin says it has bad words and won't let me post it unless it's set to private which makes it impossible to leave here

But yeah, 1st chapter and some of the second is up there, just looking for some feedback/constructive criticism as far as structure, plot, character development, etc.

Thanks and I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I have writing it.

>>20396950
If that’s the first chapter it reads like the middle of a screenplay

"What'll you take with you." Axed the boy
"Anything that'll kill a nigger."
Nathaniel swung his broad white jaw round, speaking this. He seemed not to give a fuck at all bout the laws of this land. He was afta niggers as he calls em niggas if you know what i'm saying.YAH.
Anjyway so this motherfucker goes to the door and fucking opens it up bearin' this evil lookin grin i tells ya. You do not wanna see that shit lookin at you no sir uh uh. nigga bout to get yo cap shpogled. fo real. looking at the room lain befo him he seen lotsa plants holdin' marijuana leaves out for you to just grab. Now this white motherfucker is unphased he just walks passem. anyway he's at the door to the next room, the armory. No cap.
"You better stay back faggot, i'm going in."
he pushed the security code and he went in trying to look cool while forgoing any slalomin'. anyway he approached the weapon he had already chosen a long time ago. A knife. You see he liked to kill niggas brutally, there was no otha way around it. guns was too fast and killed a nigger he liked hurting too much way oo fas. so what i'm sayin' he's cold bloodED

>>20397272
...shpongled?

>>20397272
Why Nathaniel in your shitpost?

>>20396765
thank you for the encouragement based anon

>>20397279
shitpost
>>20397277
look it up

>>20391201
What about le meme man

>>20393732
There's nothing wrong with taking inspiration (or stealing good ideas) from other places. The issue comes when they are derivative and you could just read Gibson or X-men instead.

If you're feeling like your character is too overpowered, depower him or introduce aspects he'd struggle with (like "afraid of water but on an island" but better than that)

>>20395334
I want this as a novel

>start a new novel 1st draft with stream of consciousness after making a quick outline
>6 days later Im at 32k words and missing half the scenes
>first story that is borderline erotic in some parts
>first story where I know I'm dropping hard R's frequently not for shock but as a signal word for identity themes in the story
Goddamn I havent had this much fun writing probably ever. My protagonist is angry and desperate as all get out and while I hate to see him conned I am staying up late just to torment these chatacters.

Ever gotten a critique so harsh it made you want to cry? I've had people critique my stuff, even had a few completely shit, but I got one that took it to a whole new level. Just thinking about what she said about me makes me want to thrash and destroy stuff like I'm 5 years old again throwing a temper tantrum

>>20397560
Not really, no. I wager it's because I've used a manufactured superiority complex to cope with depressive episodes and general social anxiety, so whenever someones tries to come at me with destructive criticism a switch flips in my brain and I instantly view them as subhuman.

>>20397560
What exactly did she have to say? To answer your question, that has never happened to me.

>>20397560
>Listening to women

I'm bad at coming up with names.
Should/Can I prepare a list of names in advance in case I need to name a character quickly?

>>20397647
just use fantasynamegenerators.com

>>20397647
I like using old German and Saxon names they sound cool as fuck

>>20397472
Read DFW. Though his footnotes aren't as funny

>>20397508
Sounds awesome! Hope we get to see it one day!
>>20397560
After years of taking shit from people, I don't really care what anyone thinks.
>>20397647
I sometimes pull out my old high school yearbooks and look through them randomly for names.
Phone books could once be used for this purpose, but no one has phone books anymore.

What does everyone actually want out of a fantasy book? Or a science fiction book? Like say if I was to start writing a book tomorrow and promised it would be a series, what would people want to see out of it?

>>20397695
that's kind of like asking "what makes a good tv show?"
the only way to answer that is to watch a bunch of tv shows and study them to the point where you can pick out what's good about the successful shows.
same with books. read everything you can in your genre.
not only will it teach you what is good, you'll learn what's already been done.

How do you write a hormonal teen boy's description of a sexy woman without it coming off as cringe coomer prose?

>>20397695
You’re literally asking the same questions a content algorithm would ask and algorithms don’t create art only novelties

>>20397737
Draw attention to the absurdity of it, I guess. Are you writing in first person?

I posted this in text form prior, but I adjusted it a bit. If you do read it, thank you genuinely

I once stayed with Sergey for a night, he was never the gracious host. His apartment was emaculate, not only in its state of cleanliness but the decor, God the decor; the subtle off-white finish on the skirting boards, the greco style ornaments adorning the ceiling, the tasteful marble countertops sourced from the Himalayas.

I was taking a midnight 'visit', taking in the city lights reflected off his apartment when I noticed a couch that I was sure was not their previously, it stuck out yet belonged. It completed the room, the Feng Shui gave me chills and I was drawn to it like a moth to the flame.

I slowly lowered myself onto the couch and the couch slide my panties to the side, why I had panties on and how the couch adjusted their position is still beyond me but what happened next awoke something in me I thought was not possible.

How could a couch plunge it's member into me? How could it feel so spectacular, how could it make me feel so complete? As a Muslim man, Allah had forbid me from seeking this pleasure but the couch knew what I wanted and gave it to me without a second ask.

I writhed in ecstasy to the pulsing of the full moon, engorged with the light of the sun reflecting off it. And before I knew it I had climaxed and awoke in my bed. 6 months on and I now it wasn't a dream, I was touched by an angel and now I feel it's progeny grow within me.

That's my story about how I became a gay muslim pregnant with Sergeys seed.

>>20397749
I would like to add that I didn't really write this. I wrote it, but I didn't. I'm quite a contradiction, like you

>>20397560
It sucks, no getting around it. The best approach is just to take it and suffer through it and, later, consider that they have a point

>>20397773
Please, be as brutal with me as you please; I was raised Catholic and and adhere to its essential masochism

>>20397746
No, 3rd person limited, though I'm changing the narratorial voice to reflect the thoughts of the current character

>>20397765
What is up with the ass portrait in the back? Im so confused.

>>20397695

Straight white (or honorary) male protagonist. A well spoken, intelligent protagonist, Not some sperg. Little to no women, no romance, no sex, no porn. No sjw, no gay etc. No ya.
Story with a ton of adventure, exploration, political intrigue, fighting, war etc.
Well though out magic system that has close relationship with the world, excelent world building. A plot with twists and turns.
You better deliver, anon

>>20397811
Oh yeah that's a little easier to deal with. I would try to pretty up the rest of the narration surrounding that part a little bit; use more delicate language and such to contrast the moment when you decide to drop directly into the character's cruder thoughts. Really shitty example
>Her beauty was beyond imagination. She was ethereal and delicate and completely unlike anything John had ever seen before. John dragged his eyes down her waist; her ass was huge too.

>>20397888
My protagonist is a girl. Every fight has her get captured and molested in some way. Yes my fetish is molesting women.

>>20397695
Follow through with the punch. If you ever think of an idea that would be really cool or interesting, but then think "but that'll fuck up the story and change everything" do it anyway. The original idea was probably nothing amazingly brilliant in the first place, and if you decide to have half the cast in your political thriller die in an explosion and the rest of the book be about hunting for pirate treasure it'll at the very least be memorable.
In other words, FUCK status quo! Don't write like a syndicated TV show.

>>20397678
You should be able to but Im trying to get my first novel published first. I'm a bit anxious of how this other one might affect my professional life outside of writing but I will probably go ahead with it anyways. I have a draft and source material for a 3rd standalone thats, from a theological standpoint, even more provocative to the point it might even come off as litpol though Im not. Now that is one I really want to do. I wanna not write so dam hard this weekend abd read, I just got Eggplant by O.Nesmer and Wgon's Emily Project in the mail so I'm gonna check those out tomorrow.

>>20397905
Very based

>>20397888
what if I want to write a story about about a silly little girl who is weak and dumb but scrapes by hard adventures through sheer grit and determination? nice trips btw

>>20397937
What are you writing? Atelier Totori?

>>20397912
Fair enough.
I just self-publish on Amazon, and serialize my novels in the usual places.

>>20397948
it does bear influence on reflection

Context: Character is looking over how the protagonist has degenerated over the course of the story.
>She couldn't really believe what she was looking at. The young one, resting peacefully for once. She felt relived to see the closest thing she had to family these days safe and sound. But her relief soon turned to a truly dreadful feeling when she saw of what had become of his body.
>When she first saw him, he was innocent. Confused, bright eyed, and wanting to know more about all that surrounded him. Sure, he fought, sometimes to the death, but never out of anything resembling malice or hatred, but only out of a desire to survive. And while he was wounded in battle, he never really bore any scars from it. He never held grudges, was eager to forgive and befriend, and would never back down in the face of impossible odds. He was kind.
>But now he had scars. Visible ones across his entire body that never healed right, even with his fantastic regenerative capacities. Surely, these had come from the marathon of a fight he had with that godforsaken monster that had truly caused all of the pain in her life. The same fight that had seemingly cost him his life, only for him to return as a hate-filled biological revenant, his body pushed to an unnatural extreme to the point of near self-destruction, just to kill that one thing.
>Even though he the change had indeed receded, it never really did so in full. The bony blades that jutted from his elbows had shrunk, but were still visible. His musculature had become leaner, but it still looked like it wasn't the kind he was known for. The face guard-like bone structure had fallen off, but it left a multitude of scars. Why was this happening to him? Why wouldn't he return to his old self in full? What did that change do to him? All these questions flew through her head, and she knew nary the answer to one.
>For now, all she could do was watch over him. Watch and hope that when he woke up, he would be okay. A faint hope, but a hope nonetheless.

>>20398013
A lot Shes, Hes, his, etc. Especially in that first sentence yikes

What's the best way to treat word count? Let's say you want to write a chapter that's two thousand words. Do you look continuously at the word count thus far, do you write whatever comes to mind and make sure the chapter feels "right" before you worry about the word count, or does a word count inhibit you?

>>20397360
Based famous guy.

>>20398139
I just write as the story goes and chop it up into appropriate-length chunks as necessary. It's not always pretty but it doesn't hurt the story the way writing to fit the wordcount would.

>>20398139
word counts only matter per submission rules and or conventions

short stories are 2,500 words publishable 3000 max

Anything more is a novella

Anything more than 8000 words is a novel

All fiction of course

>>20398151
...Wasn't a novella 20-40k?

>>20398157
Novella is 40k, novelette is 20k

>>20398157
According to scripture it’s actually up to 50,000 and then it’s a novel but I gave you the real numbers publishers care about. Good luck shopping a 7,500 word short story manuscript

>sanderson
>unironically
what the fuck is this garbage

>>20398194
anime books for WoW-addled westoids

has anyone from this place gotten published?

>>20398205
Do you write inoffensive lowest-common-denominator schlock or pozzed woke cultist tracts?

No?

Then you're not getting tradpubbed.

>>20398194
for better or worse it feels like reading a video game
not for me

>>20391584
I have read only three pages, but honestly that is enough,as it is a pre-draft anyway.
Your writing is solid, you got an interesting premise, and even though i don't know your characters yet, "John flemming" (kek) seems like a very interesting character.

You're doing good anon, i wish you the best of luck in your wonderful endeavor.

>>20391677
>He kept replying with murmurs and other non-answers, hoping that it'll make her leave faster.
Not a good way to open anything, way too many questions and rnothing for the reader to grab onto.

>Having some sort of mother figure wasn't a new thing is his life, having a girlfriend was.
Who?
I don't know your character, your character is literally " " for me, how can i care about literally no one?
You can't give your reader nothing and expect them to take out something.

>At the moment said girlfriend was sitting in front of him on the same bench, her a little chubby ass pressed against his erection.
She was sitting in front of him? Or besides him? Or on top of him?
Watch out for that, because for her "chubby ass" to press on his erection, she would have to be sitting on his lap.

>Once they were alone
You never specified there was company, i assumed they were alone all the time.
>she turned back and kissed him. It wasn't exhibitionism
I never assumed so, it's just a kiss. Maybe think about your scenes here, why not start with a kiss and then jump at her squiggling that erection between her buttcheeks?
I'm just saying one of these is much more suspiciously erotic to be done in public than the other. You could also just raise the stakes higher "She felt his crotch" or something.

>Soon they'd have to get up anyway because the exhibition was about to start. With their connections combined getting to test drive the newest Mercedes was a real possibility.
Anon, dear, i really honestly have no idea what this means.

What exhibition was about to start? Their exhibitionism? A play? A movie?
What are their connections? Why combining them made test-driving thenew mercedes a possibility?

Should i take this in a non-literal sense and assume the connection means dick in pussy and "test driving" suggest they took a car out to test-drive just to fuck inside of it?
It's just written in a bizarre manner, i know you're trying but maybe read a few more books and pay close attention to sentence structure and how things work within a story.

Not a big deal. I really enjoy doing what I do, and I don't need anyone else's approval or support, if they aren't willing to give it. It sounds "arrogant" (and I have often been told that I'm "arrogant"), but it's actually just "confident." I don't think I'm God's Gift to Writing, but I know damn well that I am in the upper percentile. I'm aware of quite a few others that are better than me, and I look forward to continuing to learn, and be humbled by the challenges.

>>20398205
only self published.

>>20398145
That's what I thought. My problem is for situations like >>20398151 where I have to be mindful of the length and pacing which causes me to stare at the wordcount and lose all motivation to write.

>>20391893
>How do you all feel about basic plot drivers? An example would be, 'someone or something threatens or kills MC's family, so now MC must respond'
Well, i must ask you, why are you writing?
Do you write because you enjoy the act of writing, as an exercise?
Do you write because you got a story you want to tell? Maybe a fertile imagination waiting to be explored?

It really depends on why are you writing at all, anon.
If you got a story in your head, you won't even think about whenever the plot driver is basic or not. Now, if you only got the characters and want to give them a story, it is ok to use a basic plot driver, because the start of a novel is not what dictates all the events and subplots of said novel.
The start is very important, because it must always be linked to the end so you got to keep that in mind, you can't just use /any/ basic plot driver, but you are free to use one or more fitting plot drivers to give your characters some motivations.

Just please, remember and keep it in mind, your ending MUST be linked to your begining.
A story about a man looking for life under the sea cannot do a 180 moonwalk in the middle of the novel to talk about how he becomes a zookeeper, not without some very serious changes to the story in general and what it's supposed to be.

>>20398309
Situations? You don’t accidentally write a short story, you choose to write one, and craft your art product accordingly.

>>20392034
>For something like a heist, someone needs money, maybe they’ve got a sick kid or something.
Develop your character.
Your problem is that you don't know your character, i can see that because you want to suddenly give him or her a sick kid like it's no big deal.

Anyone can become a bank robber for a myriad of reasons.
Why instead of just playing it easy, don't you just think of a character, and then wonder "What events could lead this simple, average joe to rob a bank?"

>>20392034
what if the character simply enjoys the rush of stealing?

>>20392222
>>20392217
>>20392012
You guys argue too much.
Why don't you show your best work to back up your arguments?

It is easy to say, but it is your actions that determine you, isn't that one of the basic rules of writing- And portraying a character?

>>20398336
Then I predict your reader will be bored.

>>20392234
I believe it is a lazy way to give depth to a character, it's like claiming having a weird accent it's a character's whole personality.

There are many ways to give a character personality, the words he or she uses, the job, how other characters react to this character, body language, physical appearance, how the character reacts to the world, etc.

There is no need to rely on accents, it doesn't matters if it gives "soul" to a character.
You can use it if you want, but never rely on them nor assume there are no better ways to flesh-out a character.

>>20398336
Why do they enjoy the rush of stealing? Explore that.

>>20398062
Because I don’t like having the characters referred to by name.

>>20392458
What's up with you guys writing in first person?
I guess it's valid, just like how second person is valid, but it's just so bizarre to me.
I can try comparing this to a first person novel like "The collector" but...Well...They just clash, the way this thing is written, it's bizarre, it's pacing is fast as fuck, almost like you're assuming the reader has ADHD and things must be happening all the time or he/she will drop the book...I don't know.
I also got many problems with the way you wrote that, i'm not even gonna list them.

>>20398361
it’s very 7th grade language arts which lends me to think /lit/ is mostly pseudo intellectual teenagers l

>>20398348
IMO not anymore boring than 'he had a sick kid he was good boy all along'
>>20398357
exactly this, the psyche of adrenaline junkies can be a fascinating place

>>20392662
Hey, you got a very nice opening paragraph there, nice work on that hook anon, you're doing great so far!
Let me keep reading.

I like what you did in this middle section, really fleshing out this place, showing it's popularity as well as keeping it entertaining by giving special attention to the first disappoitned guest.
I also really like the pace in which this is going, and the way you took your time to introduce the main character.

I like the sublte hints at personalityfrom the main character and how you indirectly describe the inside of the cabaret, i can see you trust your reader to use his or her damn head and that's great!

My only problem is that, so far, not only does the business owner wonder how the main character got in, but we as the reader also wonder how the heck did that happen, the place was closed so how did he get in?

I can see the main question here is "Why did Jocular Jarvid decided to close the business?" so, the mystery of how the main character got in feels like a mistake or a cheap attempt at mystery.

>>20394651
Generic plot for any novel really, that's how most novels work so it's good, anon.

>>20393769
No, that's a story.
>>20394818
Now it is a plot. A very boring one, but a plot nontheless.
I would say your problem is the characters, no matter how well written a plot is, passive characters = uninteresting story.

>>20394509
say you bake a cake and bring it to a party, by the end of the party the cake is left untouched.
You didn't expect to become famous nor to be the soul of the party, but it feels bad when no one tasted your cake.
It feels good when people like your cake, it motivates you to bake more cake, because you know some people like your cake.

What is the point of baking a cake if you're just gonna throw it away?

>>20395097
John had been moping the floors of the De'Rose local school for 13 years now.
Whilst the job wasn't particularly well paid and the children he had to deal with were nothing but trouble, the though of another day at work arouse John like no woman ever could.

And then you can go on your perverted fantasies about a janitor fucking the chemicals or whatever.
I'm just saying your opening is really bad so i wrote this in literally 5 minutes so you can have an example of something a bit more decent at catching the reader.

>>20396131

>then meeting up with his wife years later when they are like 80 and saying he did it after being cleared by the police.
Make it realistic and don't time skip till they are 80. Not sure how you plan to pull this out.

>>20396728
Write a book that is an allegory about your frustration with the state of america.
Make it a good allegory, like brave new world or 1941.
Let's call this a "vent book"

>>20398367
it's not in first person.

>>20397650
>>20397654
God, fuck, no
A character's name is important, not only in a historical or worldbuilding context but because it has psychological weigh, don't randomname.

>>20397647
Sigh.
I have been posting here for a while now, i think i made 14 posts already.
Instead of a /wg/ some of you need a writing workshop.
I am sorry, anon, i feel too tired to be of any help at this point.

>>20398433
I guess it's time to sleep, i'm obviously too tired to process words anymore.

>>20398425
My first novel was like that.

>>20398225
thank you for your kind words.

>>20396728
>I hate the absolute non-culture of the United States. I hate that anything intellectual or difficult is problematic.
WTF are you talking about? US is rich with culture. Just write about a guy trying to lose his addiction to McNuggets.

Currently 3 hours into Robert Olen Butlers' "Inside Creative Writing". I have to say I don't really like the short story so far, but he does give some good advice about writing. Is this playlist worth sitting through the entire 34 hours?

>>20398554
honestly the best way to learn about creative writing is to just do it. Accept it'll be complete utter shit at first though.

>>20391186
>I hope you guys don’t buy reviews but do buy advertising to raise viewership edition
I will review any book here that I can get of Kindle that is lacking comprehensive reviews. Anyone need it?

>>20398390
Here, the cake actually costs money to make (ingredients, electricity and usually the clean up needs cleaning products) and probably enough skill to pull it off. You can write whatever the fuck you want in a diary, a word document, or even a scrap of paper for free (besides the writing implements), without any skill needed. As long as you don't show anyone, you told a story to yourself. You could even show it to close friends or family, and that is the end of the growing process of "telling a story." Sure, you COULD write with skill for a wider audience for fame and fortune, but that is different from just "telling a story."

>>20398631
just review anyone in the pastebin

>>20398676
frfr no cap

submission fees are expensive

>>20398631
I only have the one review atm and could use the boost. Look up Xenos Depths on Amazon/Goodreads

>>20398381
Thanks for the comments!

>the mystery of how the main character got in feels like a mistake or a cheap attempt at mystery

That is useful to know. I feel the "cheapness" is justified as the story goes on, but nonetheless perhaps needs toning down somehow.

>>20398748
No. I'm looking to boost authors with finished work.

>>20398787
I just bought it. I don't read sci-fi, but I'll get through it and give it a review once I read the few queued first. Keep your eyes on Goodreads in a few weeks.

>>20398844
Cheers anon. I look forward to reading your review

>>20398577
That's the thing though, his approach is very close to "just do it". It's not really a lecture or anything, more like 30 hours of watching him fidget and shape a postcard caption into a full-blown publish-able story.

What happened to the anime writers? I used to shit on them out of blind fear and bitterness, but they're a staple of /wg/ and I hope they're doing well.

>complete chapter 2 of one project and chapter 7 of another
>by a complete coincidence both files are 71kb in size
This is a sign, but of what?

Has anyone else considered going full Blake, and etching/printing/binding your own poetry in a garage somewhere?
I'm going to start out with some established classics, and then move on to my own work, once I feel like I've written something worth the effort.

>>20398948
I haven't because I'm no good at painting nor etching, but I think Blake was based for it. Godspeed anon. Fuck the blockheads, fuck the establishment.

Could use an eye on this little bit of prologue I came up with. I'm trying to convert a quest over to actual prose, so I worry some of the oomph might have gotten lost in translation between going from 2nd to 3rd person and between an established setting and a new one.

>>20399043
I hate it, when people write sentences, like this.

question for my fellow writers: why are you so averse to the idea of just coming up with new words? Like nigga how is that real. Just make up word

>>20399080
it’s been done and it’s called finnegans wake

reed moar

>>20399080
I did come up with a new word for a culture of island-dwelling savages. They call their chiefs bigan, a bastardization of "big man"

>>20399128
uhh based?

>>20399262
You they wuz kangz once and their whole language is a deteriorated version of a language spoken in a kingdom that was destroyed by a massive volcanic eruption. They do not remember any of this and are utterly amazed by things like metallurgy and masonry, which leads to them being taken advantage of by unscrupulous people with the aforementioned skills.
The protagonist of the story is an islander woman who becomes an apprentice mason.

>>20399293
hahahahaaha
if you do this subtly enough (that is to say, don't fucking use memespeak and don't make them obviously niggers) you could actually run with this concept and make the few people who call it out seethe and look like retards

>>20399050
they didn't write any sentences like that

>>20399043
Don't start with a boring prologue. If any of this shit is important, introduce it in the story. No one wants to read a wikipedia article before reading a book

Alright, a bit of mine.

>Hours of trekking through the forest, stuffed into a dead man’s gambeson that fit just barely well enough and armed with a boarkiller spear, searching for the duke’s escaped pet; supposedly one of the last surviving dragons in the region.

>What the hunting party eventually came upon was, however, a hunched-over, deformed thing, simultaneously bloated and emaciated, dull reddish scales flaking off its skin, its tail severed above the halfway point, its feet mutilated and clawless. The stench of burned meat and spilled viscera filled the air as it ripped at a deer’s carcass. Victor had, at first, thought its wings had been cut off too, but when it raised its head to sniff the air in suspicion, he saw that there were neither stumps nor scars where wings would have had grown. Its head shape was wrong, too, the stumps of what had been horns in the wrong places, its eyes not a dragon’s. The eyes of dragons and their descendants were well-known to shine with humanlike intelligence and to possess no visible pupil, but rather a cornerless triangle formation within a homogenously-coloured iris - a trait passed down to those who consumed the blood of dragons, and their children from then on.

>This thing was no dragon. It was an animal; an arcane animal, one capable of breathing fire and mercilessly lethal even in its sorry state, but not a dragon. A False Drake, a mutagenicist’s crude imitation of the ancient living weapons that dragons were. One moment it had been sniffing the air, and in the next it had sprung into motion with a quickness entirely unbefitting its haggard state, zipping about and breathing fire, encircling the hunters in a ring of magickal flame before they even knew what was going on. Had it not been for the Captain, they would’ve been wiped out in a moment, and even then, for all his strength, for all the power of that giant cleaver the Captain lugged around, the False Drake still seemed to shrug off its blade, its decayed scales still plenty tough enough to rob the singsong-resonating weapon of most of its cutting power. Victor had seen it cut halfway through a grown boar and sever its spine, but even the one full swing the Captain got on the False Drake was barely enough to make it limp…

>>20398413
Thanks. The opening in the first version of the text is inarguably bad, but the one you replied to -- is it trash as well? Does it just *feel* boring or is there a specific reason that it is? To me, I would've thought that it accomplishes the same goal as your example, but better. It gets to the point faster. Why else would you have a set bucket-soap-water routine or whatever, unless you were a janitor at a school? And again what would be the point of explicitly stating how aroused John would get at the thought of chemicals vs women, when that is already apparent in the text itself.

>>20399043
Reads more like a synopsis than a prologue. I think people sometimes misunderstand what the prologue needs to be. Although it ~can~ be a boring exposition dump, it would be leaps and bounds better to just have it be a short, but memorable intro to your world written like any other chapter, just shorter. Instead of explaining what was happening during the fall of Firegate like you're reciting a history lesson, speak from the people's perspective, really talk about the desperation, the fear and the panic, the dread of the whole affair, maybe even leave the ending vague, have the demonspawn barge down the gate, which leads into chapter 1 where the whole ascention bit happens, and then have that be hopeful and great and lead into the rest of your story.

Also don't introduce terms without explaining what they are, like ringworld. If your setting is different from your typical planet and if that's somehow important to the story, say what it is. If it is what I think it is, you can do this by having someone stare up at the other end of the ring and pray, or have a palce teetering off of the edge and have someone peer over and remark on the nature of the world, organic exposition goes a long way.

>>20399343
I like it, the explanation feels organic and smooth. One thing I'd comment on is having a bit of sentence variety, all your sentences are pretty long and you could cut up a couple of them to give it a bit of bounce and better flow. It's more of a personal gripe, but still.

>>20399080
I have: Stoatly. I love the word stoat and I wanted to have a word that describes being weasely and needed it to have a nice ring to it for the sake of alliteration. Thus, stoatly was born.

>>20399309
>memespeak
I'm writing a serious fantasy story, there's no room for that here.
>obviously niggers
They're more Polynesian/Melanesian than niggers.

>>20399043
I know some literary agents who will sneer at manuscripts solely because they have prologues. Just a heads-up. Could you also show all this happening without telling so much? Exposition has its place sometimes but this seems a bit like you're beating the reader over the head.

First part of a story I'm writing about a man who thinks the future of the world lies in utilitarian thinking and writes letters as a sort of memoir for whoever rents the room after him. The letters are found and then presented to the readers as we follow the life of a man who slowly comes to realise that living life by a mathematical and logical system only leads to ruin for himself. Enjoy boyo's

pastebin.com/TGu3Wre1

>tfw finally got through the middle of the book and now get to write action scenes
im such a guy, im so excited to write these

>>20399513
Why not just start off with an action sequence?

For the first time in my life I have written a small paragraph. It's a generic start, isn't it? I don't even know where I am going with it.

"Marradhavar, the twin-city, a name with a meaning its own citizens have forgotten, shoots angry structures up into the air, like skeletal fingers pointing accusingly at the sunless skies above. One such structure, amongst many of its like in the drab multitude of comfortless fingers, is turned to the east in the direction of the Plains of Ignhanbazi where nothing grows any longer. The forsaken building, with its desolate stone stacked by long-forgotten slaves whose anonymity or renown did not change by the fact of their death, houses dark corridors and an oppressive silence which is broken by soft footsteps and two sets of voices, their speech reverberating with surprising intensity in the grave stillness within the grim architecture. The figures, old, are engaged in monotone discourse.
“Debts have to be paid. It is time. They are ripe for slaughter and soon will not live to ruin another day. It is time.”

>>20399513
based for not frontloading them I hate that shit

>>20399601
That's the sort of description you should put off until a bit later. It's a lot easier to hook readers in with something to do with character rather than the world.

>>20391584
Read through the first chapter. Save for a couple of spelling oversights here and there it's pretty damn good work.

>>20396950
I can feel your passion for the topic and that goes far but info dumping still feels like a bit of a problem - why am I being told all this background now, and who is the narrative/authorial voice telling me? Also I just didn't find characters relatable. Might be worth considering slowing things down to build connections.

Also felt like a bit too liberal with use of exclamation marks.

>>20398341
Anti-trope guy here, have posted my work I'm Copper Age historical fiction and Elderscrolls fic anon. My point is just that thinking in tropes simplifies your own creative process and makes the setting/characters feel less genuine. It's fine to have characters/plot points that conform to tropes but to build story parts from tropes whole clothe is very artificial and makes your writing come across as fake, or in the immortal words of Aristotle "stop talking like some disingenuous wine mixing faggot".

>>20391186
Pic related is unteresting bit of reading I came across this week. 1st century AD roman comedy that is written in a crazily modern style - a lot of slapstick, gay shit, cuckold humor. Actually reminded me a lot of some of my own 1st person writing (minus the buggery) - worth checking out for historical context of certain writing styles for anyone into that.

>>20399661
Thanks! I will try to start with some more dialogue. Is the writing itself too try-hard?

>>20398676
Well, i have written many stories for myself, my stories barely ever get released becaue i use them as practice.
But writing a story takes time, to plan the plot, the characters, the scenes and the world, all of that takes time.
If you don't care about a story without a formula, and just write a series of unrelated events, then you will end up telling a mediocre story.

Yes, writing is a lot easier than baking a cake, but baking a cake takes from 5 to 8 hours, whilst writing a novel might take up to 2000 hours.
You must know, even a young inexperienced author puts his soul into his work.
At least give the poor fella some constructive criticism, if you care about 'em, so that they might improve.

>>20398787
Just read the available sample on Amazon.
A couple of sentence fragments, e.g. "Though with good reason", the one starting with "One that Valentina hoped", the one starting with "To the point that it treaded the line of legality", and the one starting with "Which meant that Owen", that should have been connected to the prior sentence with an em-dash or something.
The sentence beginning with "Individuals from
all walks of life" has two semicolons that should be commas.
Still, that's better than most.
I've ordered a paperback.

>>20399870
Well, present-tense writing is generally not as liked, but if that's how you write that's how you write. It's very... Tone-setting, so if it's a generally bleak story that's solid.

>>20399933
Thank you. I feel encouraged! I'll try a bit more.

>>20398318
But how do I pay attention to the word count without obsessing over it?

>>20399043
You got a very strong opening right there, too strong maybe, to start with a goddess dying feels like your story is trying really hard to show how epic it is.

Watch out for the composition in your first paragraph, i would suggest for you to sketch the scenes you've got in mind in a piece of paper and consider which scenes go where.
I tell you this because the way your story jumps from the goddess dying to Ozul invading Erebus is violently abrupt.
Maybe instead of re-arranging the scenes, you could expand upon Kiara dying and find another way to tell why she is dying in the first place.
I'm sorry, the way it reads is just counter intuitive.

Also i'm not one of these guys that shit on passive voice for no reason, but consider taking into account the <<tense>> when you write.

Kiara was forced < Past tense, she was forced, it happened.
Kiara had been forced < Past continuous tense, she was forced, it's happening.
I would suggest you to double check my statement, as the Tense is something i am still grasping.

Also i see we jump from Kiara to Ishune right now?
Oh boy, i got a problem right here, you see, what was the point of Kiara in all of these previous scenes?
Kiara did an action and in all of the following scenes, she was a passive character that did nothing but watch- As a rule of thumb having a passive character is not very exciting for your reader, it is very bad mojo to have a passive character.
Having Kiara just sit there and do nothing feels like all the stuff you just wrote was pointless, as it was just exposition and setting the stakes, you don't even need Kiara as a main character to present all of these things.
It almost feels like Kiara was just a Hook Device.

Also remember i don't have any idea what Erebus is or looks like, for all i know, this is medieval high fantasy, but i could as well imagine Erebus as many, many other fantasy settings.

And also excuse me but Ishune did not get enough exposition, i know you're introducing her all of the sudden like that but do you really need to tell me all of her backstory to illustrate she is faithful to Kiara, over everything else?
Maybe calm down a little bit and "open up" Ishune later-on in the story. Right now you can hint at her being faithful in other ways, i mean to not rush it.
When you introduced Erebus to the reader, a question appeared "What is Erebus" and maybe "Where is Erebus, When is Erebus, Why is erebus?"
If instead of answering any of these questions, or the other questions that you have asked, you introduce a character and rush through it's backstory, the reader won't pay much attention at all, because the reader wants to know about the other things he or she is curious about, not a random character that just popped out of nowhere.

Uf, it took up until the end for Kiara to do something huh.
I understand you wanted the critical point to be Kiara putting all of her leftover energy into Ishune to advance the plot, and that is fine, but even then (1/2)

>>20399080
I keep thinking stallid is a word but it isn't and I keep using it to describe people's faces. I know pallid and stoic both exist

>>20399989
Even then, there are better ways to write the bulk of this scene.
I understand, you added a lot of foreshadowing with kiara dying and Ishune being her most loyal follower, but as i said Kiara has been a passive, uninteresting character and you should re-consider the way your scenes are written for better narrative sense.

I'm not sure about this penultimate paragraph, but that's your writing style and i'm sure you can make it work with the right critical point leading to this climax. I'm not going to critique it.

And well, we wrap this scene up very well with a simple resolution. From here on, the reader can pretty much play out how the fight went for the monsters, so it's a nice resolution.
I guess the question we're left with (apart from details like where is Firegate and what does it looks like) is what is going to happen to Kiara, and what is going to happen to ringworld.

It's a nice start i guess, but yeah, it needs some work.
I also wonder how are you going to follow this up, a huge battle with Ishune tearing through the evil forces could be either interesting or simply boring, depending on how you tackle it.

>>20399080
>new words
Because people don't know new words, honey.
It comes off as annoying, when two characters are speaking and using unknown words.

New words, or even a whole new language can be used effectively and it might play a major point in a story, but it's not a good idea to use new words or languages if you don't know what you're doing.

>>20398151
>short stories are 2,500 words publishable 3000 max

Wrong. I've had several pieces hanging around 4k words published. Typically, 5k is the short story limit.

>>20399601
It's a pretty good hook.
Maybe a little longish. A hook is to catch the reader's attention. Imagine you're in a bookstore and you're trying to decide which book to buy so you read a little of the first page.

You could even start off with:

“Debts have to be paid. It is time. They are ripe for slaughter and soon will not live to ruin another day. It is time.”

That's a very hooky paragraph.
And ad who is saying that to introduce your main character.

>>20391940
Questions for the helpful anon:
How much did you price the 20k novella?
Did you use a pen name or not?
Do you feel the title plays a big part in the readership, particularly in that genre?
Did you advertise at all either with a website or a social media platform? Or were sales all from self publishing and leaving it there?
Your story is inspiring, keep it up!

>>20399384
>Does it just *feel* boring or is there a specific reason that it is?
Your character is not fleshed out, i don't know anything about your character nor the setting apart from "a janitor at school"
Your character reads more like a secondary character than a main character, is he even a main character?

>It gets to the point faster.
There is no point in "getting to the point faster" if that means having a bland, two-dimensional character.
Imagine if lovecraft just jumped right to the point in "The shadow over Innsmouth", skipping any character exposition.
There is a very specific reason as to why it feels boring, and it is that i simply do not care about this character you wrote!
It has no name, no face, nothing, it's just "a janitor"

>And again what would be the point of explicitly stating how aroused John would get at the thought of chemicals vs women, when that is already apparent in the text itself.
Re-read what i wrote
>the though of another day at work arouse John like no woman ever could.
I never specified that he was attracted to the chemicals, this is just hinting that there is something very wrong with this character, as he feels aroused by the though of going to work at a school.
And i added "woman" there to imply that he has no interest in women, as the work "arouse him like no woman ever could", why waste time in woman, if he gets his sexual satisfaction somewhere else.

I'm painting your character as a deviant, that's it. I'm also trying not to waste four stupid paragraphs describing how he masturbates because that does not advance the plot in any ways.

Just remember i wrote this as an example.
My example provides a Who, Where, Why and when as well as a question "What is wrong with John"
That's it, that's the whole point of the two lines of text i wrote, and the point was for you to think about a better opening in your own style, one that fits your story better.

>>20399778
>Anti-trope guy here, have posted my work I'm Copper Age historical fiction and Elderscrolls fic anon. My point is just that thinking in tropes simplifies your own creative process and makes the setting/characters feel less genuine. It's fine to have characters/plot points that conform to tropes but to build story parts from tropes whole clothe is very artificial and makes your writing come across as fake, or in the immortal words of Aristotle "stop talking like some disingenuous wine mixing faggot".
I understand, and that's fair.
I don't like tropes either, but i have some faith Tropes anon must have something to back up his argument, at least i hope.

>>20391995
>You can find a lot more story archetypes online
Where?

New thread

>>20400181

>>20391940
>Tl;dr: write what readers want to buy and you will be able to afford time and money to write what you want to write.
I wish I had the guts to write what sells rather than what I really want to write. Maybe I'm just not taking the craft (making it as a self pubber) seriously enough.

Is there a software that lets you quickly combine documents together instead of painstakingly opening them up and copying+pasting one by one?

>>20400007
Stolid

>>20400555
I fucking knew it

>>20398438
Why not?

>>20399778
thank you! it's still the first/rough draft so it needs revision and punching up, but this is some of the best feedback i've gotten

>>20398369
I mean, the characters DO have names, I just think "Gaeryu" is one people would hate

>>20397906
Pretty sure this is the exact perspective that completely ruins modern cinema on a plot level.

>>20401063
that’s a shitty excuse for bad 7th grade writing

>>20400039
I have personally never seen a short story submission, contest, and or magazine outline, extend beyond 3,500 words, with the vast majority hard capped at 2,500. especially when one considers 2000 words usually extends into 7 or 8 pages of copy edit, 12 pt font, etc. that said this thread obviously advocates for self publishing, so if that was you route, cool I guess