/lit/ - Literature

>>20414931
>Schizo
That image isn’t schizo, post nose.

>>20414922
female protagonists are kino

My work doesn't resemble his at all, yet Jodorowsky is the person who inspires me to work the most.
>>20414948
I've got a female protagonist, she's an apprentice mason and sleeps around.

>>20414950
For me it's Neil Gaiman. My themes don't really match his at all, but he's a big inspiration for my personal productivity.

>>20414931
Is it just me or do I see a lot of young adult novels having the same brown girls for a protagonist? I went to the library yesterday and thats what most of the books in those sections were.

>>20414970
BIPOC shit sells now. Also Asia American authors for some reason. Westernizing old folk tales from China, Korea, and Japan are what's being promoted. Also some Chinese Romeo and Juliet.
The worst thing is the prose of these books write like the Journey to the West translated.

>deer skull, wood, detailed
What did nightcaffe mean by this

>>20414970
Brown girls are hot.

>>20415014
Yeah, but not the brown girls in those books.

>>20415010
Skinwalker leftovers

>>20415010
>Laughing adventurer mirror
The joke was on me

>>20414931
I received a literary grant to write a story about a brown girl in adapting native american myth and NOW IM WONDERING IF THATS APPARENTLY GENERIC where exactly are all these popular and modern era books filled with brown girl portags?

Uh oooooh, tradpubber buttblasted that there were selfpubber materials in the last OP got his hands on the thread!

I'm more intelligent than anyone else in this god forsaken thread (creatively not academically), and I ave the untapped potential to write masterworks beyond anything that any of you could ever comprehend, and yet, here I am slumming it with the midwits and missfits because of my autism and mixed personality disorder.

Can't wait to die.

>>20415243

Make her trans. Imagine a trans protagaist who is native American in a story set prior to European colonisation.

That shit would sell.

>>20415376
You can't have it all anon

I'm more intelligent than anyone else in this god forsaken thread (creatively not academically), and I have the untapped potential to write masterworks beyond anything that any of you could ever comprehend, and yet, here I am slumming it with the midwits and missfits because of my autism and mixed personality disorder.

Can't wait to die.

>>20415376
I'm writing a chapter where a child is taken on a fishing trip by his father. Dear old dad is a drug-dealer on the run from both the law and some less pleasant people he owes money to, and his son doesn't know about any of this.
I'm having fun, the characters aren't.

>>20415382
and that’s exactly why I won’t.

Again, where are all these popular and modern brown girl protagonists?

I saw earlier a few of you complaining about the terms and agreement of Grammarly. Is it a real concern that they can take your work? Like will they even bother with that

>>20415433
Yes. Let's say you make it big. They can always say hey we want royalties from you using our grammarly service. I think google docs have that issue as well.

>>20415433
>>20415437
Word processors are one thing (use libreoffice) but what are the consequences of posting your work to websites like royal road?

>>20414931
How do I write scary and effective gore? Any stomach churning examples you guys have read?

>>20415449
rr's terms make it clear your work is yours

>>20415386
Oh my, you got autism and DID, and you're creative?
Just like me, maybe this is our place after all.
But tell me, what's stopping you from just writing? None of my problems have stopped me from writing and i barely have enough money to eat instant ramen every day.

Why do you blame your mental issues? That is clearly not the problem, what is the real problem anon?

>>20415463
(Dont) look up hairy freddy

>>20415463
Start by calling it “Macabre” instead

>>20415463
Gore is childish, you can't write "scary" gore.
Shocking, disgusting, weird, visceral, sad gore, sure, but scary? Nah.

>>20415463
the end of the Odyssey kek

>>20415397
Does it matter if the protag is brown or not?
Last time i read about a brown character, the color of this character was a plot point in the story as the main character gets accused of racism. The story was set in the old times too, book's called "The blackboard jungle."

Besides that, i don't see a fucking point in mentioning the color of the MC if it won't play an important role in the story.

I read a very neat article today about the seven generation sustainability theory that I think has important literary value for writers here considering long-time spanning pieces of work. There are three ways to look at it and I'm using it as a frame of reference for one of my main characters, a king in the story.
>Consider the generation that comes seven generations after you when you make decisions
>Consider the generation three before you and the generation three after you
>Consider the oldest person to have touched the oldest person in your life, and then consider the same but toward the younger when you are old as well
I think bearing these decision trees in mind can help you create more realistic effects from decisions previous and see how they propagate into the future. I'm a fan of the second one personally since my MC is threatened by the memory of his grandfather while being at the age where he's thinking of having his own kids.

>>20415437
>>20415433
The level of paranoid delusion you people create to fret over about instead of writing is honestly impressive.

This has never happened and there is zero precedent for anything like a Grammarly of Googledocs claiming ownership of your work because you wrote using their software. You wrote it, it's yours. And even if successful it is nearly worthless to them.

>>20415486
>Besides that, i don't see a fucking point in mentioning the color of the MC if it won't play an important role in the story.

It's just cheap marketing and servicing bureaucratic idiots.

I wrote a story. Can I post it here?

>>20415463
I would suggest Call of the Crocodile.

>>20415526
no

>>20415526
Absolutely not

>>20415526
Yeah!

>>20415486
You misunderstand. I am asking for names of books, apparently popular and over saturated, with modern brown girl protagonists. A book list, not a hot take

>>20415526
Yes

>>20415533
No

>>20415533
Based

>>20415449
AIDS+cringe+ratio

>>20415542
but no one here reads

In all honesty I immediately thought of the Girl with the Dragon tattoo - but I'd never read it. I assumed it was about some asian chick but it was written by a norwegian and they're all white. So then I thought The Kite Runner. But that mc is a boy. I legitimately have no idea.

>>20415582
...Then why did this thread start off complaining with the massive recent influx of brown girl protags and historical fiction?

>>20415526
Stop fucking asking these useless questions and just post it already holy shit I fucking hate everyone here including (You)

>>20415471
I looked it up and found an article about Five Nights at Freddys on the furry wikipedia.
What did you mean by this?

>>20415582
The book is Swedish. The protagonists are white Swedes. The girl's father is a Serb, though.

>>20415463
maybe start with the monster first and then have it eat people, carefully documenting their feelings as they get swallowed whole and digested?

>>20415626
>T.Vore enthusiast.

>>20415604
>>20415626

i want to write something in the vein of Houllebecq, or Knausgaard, or Yates... like a depressed narrator with a strong POV going about some contemporary setting and acerbically critiquing everyone and everything around him...

however all of the ideas for scenes and settings that pop into my head are autistic action scenes, erotica and violence, etc. set in feudal japan or medieval europe.

am i being an idiot by trying to force myself to write contemporary lit fiction ... something that people would take seriously? should i just follow my baser childlike fantasy nerd instincts?

i like reading both so it's hard to decide which to pick. how do i pick?

>>20415636
>>20415638
maybe I should advertise my book as vore

>>20415609
Is the book series actually any good though? Or more like, what is exactly the thing that draws people to it? I haven't yet read the books (but plan on doing so at some point, in hope of reverse engineering something out of it)

I have only seen a couple of scenes from the original live action adaptation. The punk girl was raped (i think?) and some other scene she did an over-the-top looking dropkick or something to a biker. Is that the *thing*? Rape and cartoon violence?

>>20415671
She is raped by her legal guardian in the first book and this plays an important role in the third book. I don't think I'd describe them as having "cartoon violence", except in relation to the character of Niedermann (an enforcer for organized crime who can't feel pain), most of it is people talking to each other with occasional violence that happens explosively and suddenly.
I'd rather you just read the books than tried to figure out what makes them work without doing so.

>>20415575
Thats pretty bad

>>20415691
>I'd rather you just read the books than tried to figure out what makes them work without doing so.

Yeah. I'll do that. Thanks.

>>20415433
>>20415437
how are they even going to check if you use grammarly?
just say you didn't use it

>>20415756
It's online they already have it in their server

What if /wg/ thinks my work is shit? How could I live with myself knowing it's not good enough for abung of anons on the internet? Is reddit nicer in their reviews?

>>20415833
>>20415756
It's pure paranoid delusion. What is more valuable to a software company - being something people and companies will buy/use to work on OR ruin their reputation forever by siccing lawyers to get a 10% cut of the $500 you're lucky to make off your shitty web novel or your legendary 5k advance if trad pub.

>>20415887
You have two conflicting goals here.
You clearly want to git gud at writing so you can make something that dazzles us. Yet you want no criticism at all and only fake meaningless asspats.

Well I fucking did it, I wrote 4300 words today. Time to go masturbate.

>>20415887
Its possible /wg/ does not share the tastes of your target audience. I personally prefer literary fiction. Just keep working on it but eventually you need to start another project.

>>20415919
Congratulations on being motivated and productive. I have written 1 word in 4 hours and erased it as it wasn't effective enough.

>>20415936
Wasn't Ulysses written at an average pace of 17 words a day?

>>20415928
But I like Isekai, litrpgs, and power medieval Tolkien fantasy, just like /wg/

>>20414931
I got into the best creative writing course in the UK. Should I go?

>>20414931
What is your handwave tool?
Personally, mermaid DNA. It does weird shit.

>>20415978
What's it called?

>>20415978
How good are their feedback and critiques? Isn’t that the only thing that matters? You can’t teach genius, only write it.

>>20415992
>>20415996
University of East Anglia
wikipedia.org/wiki/UEA_Creative_Writing_Course

I've read online it's cw program is one of the best in the world in the English language

>>20416025
>Norwich
But yes, do go. Why not? No point asking any of us mongs either, its your life

>>20415010
Im writing a book that shares a lot of mythology and themes with elden ring (not superficially (and quite by accident, i just chose to use irish folklore as a mythological basis). Tell me your home address and ill mail you the manuscript once its done.

>>20416205
My post magically jumped threads wtf

>>20416223
It's more likely you made a mistake when posting anon, but who am I to say?

>>20416205
>Tell me your home address and ill mail you the manuscript once its done.

>>20416236
Not possible, it was posted to the intended thread simultaneously

>>20415463
Write it matter of fact, don't luridly describe viscera, less is more. Implied gore is best, as is implied body horror.

How do I write with this constant diarrhea?

>>20416456
get a little table for your laptop in the bathroom

>>20416205
21620 N 19th Ave, Phoenix, AZ
I'll be waiting for you, big boy.

>>20416615
>Phoenix Arizona
Are girls from ASU as easy as people claim they are?

>>20416615
Big if true. Alabama checking in

>>20414970
I don't know anon, but it's happened with everything else, so it's probably more of the diversity agenda being pushed. I doubt it's just you.

So I read Emilyanon aka KK Wgon's "The Emily Project" yesterday and today and here are my thoughts.

The coverart in this addition is highly compressed image which is unfortunate on the minimalist art and its a bad first impression. Wgon uses workman prose and sparing reflection on the why characters feel the way they do. The feelings and reactions are easy to comprehend, and there's little digging into the past. Some lines dont feel thought out and clarity is at times questionable. There are a few spelling and formatting mistakes.
The story is a kind of coming-of-age novel about an incel that makes friends with a robot for a year. There is awkwardness, romance, cheesy humor, a few internet meme references, but the strongest parts I find are the cruelty and sadness.

The themes explored the most are loneliness, memory and feeling at least as I recall. There is a gutwrenching arc of Caleb's loneliness and Emily's quest to make him happy. If you have any sympathy at all even with this simple story you will hurt for Emily more than anything. The last chapter made me misty-eyed although I didnt cry, and things come full circle in a satisfying end before an epilogue that slightly surprised me but was inevitable. In the end Wgon tells a nice story of how fembots do not rob a "biohole" of her man. Far from it, Emily makes Caleb a real man by teaching him valuable lessons about love.

Dont try to compare this to the depth of literary fiction. It really is more genre with blend of romance, comedy, and scifi. If I had to rate it Id give 3/5, if you prefer litfic its not for you, however if you lean toward cynicism toward women I recommend this tender-hearted story.

>>20416711
That's a great review. So should I buy the book?

>>20416762
Depends I guess. I like to collect books and it dealt with some things I write about, although it didnt offer much I'm glad to have a cute anon romance on my shelf. I think I'm gonna look at Woolston and K-anon's stuff next month if I can help it. Not particularly interested in anything else besides the flash anthologies unless some anon is about to get something on shelves.

I'm finally forcing myself back into writing, but right now my stories are very much more like long summaries rather than an actual narrative. Is that okay, at least to start out?

>>20416832
Yeah, some people do their whole first draft like that.

>>20416832
No. Don't train yourself with bad habits hoping to change later. You can write an outline first, but your story should be a real narrative.

Some of you guys need a fuckin reality check.

I've realized game design theory is really useful for writing. There's a video essay in which the guy describes how portal clones are weak compared to the original: the reason is that the clones rely on one mechanic only. Portal is famous for the portals, of course, but the game keeps presenting new mechanics all the time, so you never get tired of it. That helped me to realize that you cannot only focus on one theme or character. Create side plots and goals, and as you develop them, mix everything together.

>>20416846
Then is it okay as long as I treat it as an outline where I actually get the ideas out of my head?

>>20416898
Sure. I've got an idea file where I write out short descriptions of ideas / plots I'd like to use as part of my main or side stories, helps a ton in clearing my mind of clutter.

>>20416908
NTA but I have a notepad on my phone because sometimes I think of something funny or interesting and know I'm gonna forget it in 5 minutes and hate myself for it. If any of you guys don't have a notepad yet, get one.

>>20416711
Wait someone from /lit/ actually finished a book not named F. Gardner?

>>20416955
Yup, got a file on google docs. Can't tell you how much value I've gotten out of it. Once I got shitfaced and ended up writing 6k words during the bus ride home, half of it was barely legible but holy moly it was kino after editing. Maybe I should write drunk more often.

>>20416996
A single file? A single file where you hammer down whatever comes to mind? Not opening up separate docs?

That sounds fun. Maybe I should do that.

>>20415526
No

>>20415594
still no book list of brown girl protags

SAD

>>20415646
Can someone answer my stupid question please

Hey, so I have 700 twitter followers now and my book is editted and ready to be published. What’s next?

>>20416711
Emilyanon here. Kek /wg/ anon (K.K. Wgon). Thank you for giving my book a chance. It means a lot someone read it.

Guess it really wasn't 100% ready since two anons here already said it needed more polishing. I'll take the criticism on the chin and do better next time.

If possible, can you post your review on amazon? I'll like to try and game the algorithm to hopefully get a bit more views. Thank you!

Is there a name for when you're incapable of writing a simple story without it spiraling into some sort of action packed uprising against a world ending conspiracy?

I want a cure for it.

>>20417167
it’s a stupid question. you write stories, not genres, and let the librarian figure out the dewy sticker

>>20416847
Why? Am I asleep right now? Will this make me lucid dream?

>>20416847
Yeah, keep it to yourself

>>20417203
i don't disagree with you, but i wouldn't want to read a fantasy book with a houllebecqian narrator, or a literary fiction book filled with fantasy elements and fight scenes. i feel like you have to make a choice to write within a genre when you start a project -- or at least different stories lend themselves to different stories

>>20417167
>>20415646
>am i being an idiot
Yes.
>should i just follow my baser childlike fantasy nerd instincts?
Yes.

>>20417219
it’s literally not your job to decide the genre. and it’s literally the librarian’s. you can write genre fiction but if you’re already stuck there, you’re not a writer, you’re practically a librarian

>>20417183
Yeah I will, I was looking for it on Goodreads as well, you should throw it up there.

>>20417258
Oh I thought Goodreads themselves have to put it up there and not the users. I'll make an account

>>20417167
>I want to write a hateful, sneering pseudo intellectual snob
>but all I can come up with is fun stuff that people will actually enjoy

>>20417201
Try to limit the ways you escalate conflict. I've heard your problem described as "the bigger bomb" problem. While it works in some stories not all necessarily need a an object raising the stakes. Make characters fail even at just small things while adding another layer of conflict, it could be a change of place, it could be an idea, a character conflict, it could be a simple event.
>someone is forced to take a detour one day to an unfamiliar place,
>character hears about a secret club at school and he wants to know who the members are
>man gets stood up by a woman and now he can't see her the same and takes a massive blow to his selfesteem
>girl gets goes to a festival and witnesses something so bizarre that she spends the week trying understand what happened
If you want something more quant just limit things like pride, personal safety, security or interpersonal relationships at risk. Once you involve entire comunities or humanity youre getting over the top. We can learn a lot even by inspecting one char so no need to involve all humanity.

>>20417201
>>20417345
I'm dealing with something similar. I just don't know how involved I want my protagonist to be. It's not in character for them to want to help.

>>20417351
Oh, I hate that. I hate it when I know my character wouldn't act one way but I really want something to happen so I force them along until I don't recognize them anymore and toss the whole story aside because I defiled it.

>>20417258
>>20417282
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61162451-the-emily-project

It's up. Here goes nothing.

>>20417006
You may want to consider an outline editor.
I use TreeLine; it's free and open-source.
>>20417201
I think it's called the Splinter Cell Syndrome.

>>20415010
I asked nightcafe for "super mental powers" and got...a three-year-old fingerpainting with oils.
I dunno...still fun.

>>20415325
Uh...and didn't post any of the informational links.
What lazy pseud made this thread???

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/54446/the-mystery-of-the-real-live-dead-person

New chapter

I finished a sci-fi book but it might be just a little too short for a publisher (50k). Where do I go from here for self publishing? How do you make enough money to do that?

>>20417543
Hmmm...well...thanks for publicizing my book.
Guess I'm back to having LARPers.
They seem to be doing a good job, so I guess I don't mind...sort of flattering, actually.
FYI, for reasons mostly related to approval delays, ScribbleHub presently has more free chapters of my novel than the other sites.

>>20417513
Someone who's tired of playing around. Now sit down and write your fucking book.

>>20417511
This is what nightcafe generates for "mind blown"...
...guess that means "triangular passage with stairs, way the hell up a wall with ancient hieroglyphs"?

>>20417583
I would, but my day job sucks all the life out of me...still, 3 day weekend coming up.
Also, I'm in a "research" phase, so I can flesh out my post-apocalyptic survivalist setting.
Going through picrel ATM.

>>20417584
Oh...maybe I should attach the image...
I'm especially brain dead tonight.

>>20417593
And here is "mind blown" evolved with "human head".
Kinda looks like it should be the cover of David Gilmour's newest album, i.e. now that he's 76 and all.

>>20417600
Your taste in art is shit.
Take your meds schizo.

>>20417560
You can just self publish for free on Amazon

>>20417560
First off, if you’re reading this and just finished your book, you can publish for free on Amazon BUT BUT BUT
I strongly advise that you do not throws months of effort into the wind by casting a fishing hook (your book) into the water (amazon) without first having some audience to help boost your initial launch by purchasing your book to boost you in the algorithm (the many fish).
There’s 1,000 books published to Amazon A DAY, how will people find you?
Sit on your book for a moment while you think about these facts and formulate a strategy. There’s plenty of resources online.
DO NOT listen to anyone telling you to publish without a launch strategy or prior audience.

>>20417600
Dumbass, read the thread...these are being generated by nightcafe.
Rent a brain, seether.

Picrel generated with "seminefrious globule fartknocker"...and somehow, it's entirely unlike Beavis and Butt-head.
Methinks the AI was trained on prog-rock. Which is kind of a based choice.

>>20417634
Any reason not to publish on Amazon and THEN formulate a strategy?
Does publishing early somehow ruin anything?

>>20417634
>>20417643
His idea is that the bulk of sales come from the first 3 weeks of release. But books aren't like most other goods. Books typically sell through word of mouth and recommendations. The best thing you can do right now is shill through tik tok

So I've posted here once or twice before, but I've been putting a lot of work into revising the first bits of a historical fiction piece I've been working on over the life of Harald Hardrada, the last Viking King of Norway, captain of the Varangian Guard, Protector of the Byzantine Emperor, and tons more - basically the guys life doesn't even need to be embellished to make an amazing story

So yeah, here's the first chapter and a bit more, but again it's been revised and I would greatly appreciate some feedback on how its coming along in terms of character development, pacing, plot establishment, combat, dialogue etc.

The first chapter is ~25 pages depending on the document format but yeah, you could knock it out in 5-10 minutes tops

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

Thanks again for anyone who wants to take a look, also I post the updated/latest versions every few days if you want to follow along as it fleshes itself out into (hopefully) a full length novel

also PasteBin says it has bad words hence the Google Drive doc

>>20417643
Yes actually, so the first 30 days you are published to Amazon you have a new release tag, which essentially makes it easier to make sales and reviews when you so far have sub 50 or so reviews.
Also the first 100 days Amazon boosts your books visibility naturally.
To make the most of both, you should go in with a strategy FIRST and see your book do well EARLY because it’s time sensitive.
Ask any more questions, I’ve done nothing but research this while not writing my book myself.

>>20415386
>i'm more creative than anyone in this thread but i've literally created nothing
>can't wait to die

then kill yourself faggot tf you waiting for

>>20417657
Well, that was true for me...because that's when my friends & family bought their copies.
Then, I hit a sort of drought.
Oh well.

>>20417636
And now...the same image, evolved with "the one and only almighty Cornholio".
I can almost see Beavis' face now!
To Time-To-Kill-Anon, or whoever found this site...thanks!
Like I needed an excuse to crank the Hawkestrel.

>>20417667
What's a good way to build an audience? And how would I go about trying to get it in physical form as well (either at the same time or after)?

>>20417690
I’ll leave that for you to decide based on your own personality, but I’ll give you two things to mull over.
First, I’ll say that the internet is huge and there’s dozens of social media platforms to garner eyes before a book release. Which platform you decide to use depends on which medium best suits you.
For some it’s instagram. For some it’s tik-tok. For others it’s twitter. For even more it’s youtube or elsewhere. The point is it’s free and you should think about that before paid advertising.
The second thing I’ll leave you with are two podcasts.
The self publishing show, and novel marketing. Both are on spotify and I know at least one is on youtube. Both are great resources and one is done by an author with a networth of several millions from his action thriller novels.

>>20417702
Would you get a cover/art for the book before advertising?

>>20417715
Yes, the front cover is the best way to advertise a book.

>>20417690
Youtube, tiktok, twitter. Still very hard, because you need to start a youtube channel and still be somewhat known.

>>20417720
Thanks for the answers, man. Do I need to have everything finished (editor credits, etc) before getting the cover or is that added later?

>>20417668
seethe
shitpost
irrelevant

>>20417734
Including an editor is usually included in the colophon. It’s entirely up to you to mention them.
Once you have an edited book and a cover, I’d get a name for yourself.
Once you have enough people to get 100-1000 sales on day one, you’re good to publish.

>>20417744
How do you know how many you have?

>>20417723
Since when did writers have to make youtube channels now? Is that to stay up and hip?

>>20417661
Well if anyone gets a chance to read this, let me know. I'm going to finish the bit I've written tonight and crash, I'll try to check back in the morning

Also if anyone has any questions about writing, let me know and I'll try to answer the best I can

>>20417769
Depends on engagement. Most conversion rates vary per platform.

dr willy and his wars

would you use a kickstarter for self publishing fantasy?

>>20417661
I gave you feedback once before so hopefully others give some as well, but personally I found it still to focused on Explaining rather than Experiencing the story. The big blocky paragraphs also made it structurally not flow for me.

This may sound like a dig but it is not at all as it's a technique I personally use often, and that is my suggestion to rewrite this chapter from scratch (not twiddling at the edges with edits). Take all the practice and experience of writing this chapter as self-education, stew on it, and write it again off a blank page. It might even be that the story starts in a different place (the fact there are so many flashbacks to the night before/past events makes me wonder if this is the right starting point to ground us in this character).

I'd also suggest checking out the first ~20 minutes of this Sandersoy lecture for good conceptual thoughts about how to break up those paragraphs and make the language more concrete:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2KpWOLTXx8

What’s the difference between romance and a love story?

>>20417864
Romance is passion, lust, violence (for women audiences)
Love is innocent, pure, and wholesome (for male audiences)

>>20417849
Amazon lets you self-publish for free.
What would the kickstarter be for?

>>20417849
No.

>>20414931
Based schizo OP paranoid about schizos

>>20417899
Copy/line editor (~$600) and also just to advertise through that too.

>>20417922
Hey, you'd be paranoid too if everyone was out to get you!

Why is weaving plot threads together the most difficult fucking thing

>>20417927
Yeah no.
A kickstarter is a terrible idea for a first time author, especially since no one knows who you are.
You should pay for these expenses yourself. $600 is very small all things considered.

>>20417968
Alright, thanks anon

>>20417934
Love is simply two schizos out to get eachother

>>20417311
>>20417224
>>20417230
thanks for the advice homies. i will try to follow my inner child and baser instincts

Is there a good reason not to self publish through kindle? Are there other good sites/apps to publish through?

>>20417810
There's a lot of authortubers now that give out tons of "writing advice". Their books usually score poorly though.

>chinaman anon here
>writing my story on google docs
>anonymous octopus and ibex keep popping in and out
>reads my shit
>never leaves any comments
Are you enjoying the story?

>>20417872
I understand romance, but I don’t understand love. What is love? What kind of stories would those entail? I’m not sure I’ve ever read a love story if that’s what love is. Can there still be conflict in a story that is innocent, pure, and wholesome? I suppose I think of novelized Disney movies when I think of such stories.

>>20417661
There's just way too much exposition too early in the beginning of the story. You need to break it up and make me care more about the Herald. I barely know the guy except he does things. Add in some dialogue, or action sequences.

>>20415526
no, sire...

>>20417844
lol

Mike Ma sells 400 books a month between his two books. Lol.

Is getting a book agent worth it as a first time author?

What do you consider good prose? Or your favourite prose style?

Hemingway-like, or more flourished?

>>20418514
When I started reading Pynchon's V. for the first time, I laughed out loud during the first paragraph. Pynchon good.

>>20418450
Why wouldn't it be?

>>20418551
I only just heard of it today so it sounds strange to me

>>20418620
Are you not American? Smaller countries might not have agents at all.

>>20418628
Y-yeah, I'm... third world. That's why I never heard of them.

>>20418514
douglas adams

>>20418514
actually no, I hate Douglas Adams, because I know a guy that writes like him and I'm jealous

>>20417968
I saw some fag on twitter raise money for his goddamn weeb light novel and somehow people funded him too

>someone bought the kindle edition of my book
>refunded
God damn, how bad do you have to get triggered to refund 4 dollars? Wish I knew what went wrong

>>20418753
first sale?

I've come back to a story I'm writing after an extended break due to final exams. I'm noticing on re-reading the chapter where I left off that things seem to happen very quickly, it's not that the book feels fast paced, but it feels like there's not a great flow to the story at the minute. Is the best way to fix this to keep writing for now, finish a draft and then come back at the end and introduce more descriptive passages where I want to slow things down?

>>20418815
No, the latest. There have been 10 full price sales so far and 40 free copies were downloaded during a campaign. But no reviews or ratings.

>>20418828
Yes.

>>20416955
I always carry a little notebook with me, it's slightly taller and a fair bit skinner than A5. Perfect for fitting in my pocket with a pen. I also use living writer and onedrive to transfer notes from phone or laptop to my desktop.

>>20418833
I feel for you anon, I hope things pick up. Has it been out long?

>>20418846
A year...Do not pity me

>>20418849
These things happen my friend, don't sweat it. And if anything I'm envious you've actually finished your book.

>>20418753
That's tragically funny anon, but I'm sorry for laughing.

>>20418860
Well, I have three out at the moment. I never really counted on one to get me anywhere. You'll finish yours and I'm sure it'll be more successful than mine. Good things come to good people.

>>20418753
Is your book good? Can you post a link or excerpt?

>>20418871
Cheers anon. I wish you luck.

I’m still waiting on that book list of brown girl protags and or historical fiction, anons...

>>20417661
I'll make a few small recommendations which I think could greatly improve this piece:

1. Use the simple past tense (instead of "began to peek" or "finishing speaking" just write "peeked" or "finished"), likewise cut as many of the "As XYZ,..." constructions and -ing verbs as possible. You're overusing them.
2. Cut out all the exposition in the first few pages (all the stuff which is not taking place in the immediate scene)
3. Make a short list of all the things you want this part of the story to accomplish

I think you mostly need to figure out the structure of this before you go on. What needs to be rendered as a scene and what as summary? Here's a hint: scene is useful for showing change (in character, in the reader's perception, in the situation). Summary is useful for setting up scenes (particularly with dramatic irony) and transitioning between them. The opening scene (it's hard to get away with an opening summary) is perhaps the most important in the entire book. Above all you need to introduce something that makes the reader really want to keep reading.

Remember that the reader is not some blank slate, the title of the book and its subject matter has already created some expectations in him. You should at least fulfill some of those expectations so they know they've picked up the right book. You also need to establish your authority very quickly. Since this is historical fiction, the reader expects you do this primarily by means of interesting facts. I mean consider how long it takes you to establish that Harald is only 15 at the battle of Stiklestad. There is so much opportunity here to order things in such a way as to create suspense, surprise and foreshadowing but much of that is gutted by excessive exposition. I would recommend starting with two characters interacting in a scene (perhaps an argument between Olaf and Harald).

>>20418944
Probably not the anon you mean but I could have my historical fiction done by 2024. I still have to publish my first and I quickly have another novel after it, a tragic romance that I am on a warpath to finish, 1st draft was 40k words in two weeks so far.
I have a lot of damn reading, organization and careful reading to do to start the historical fiction: Jewish History and theology, Samaritan history and theology (just got the pre-eminent text on that yesterday), Persian history and even going to study Evola's trafitionalism to better depict the intensity with which Samaritans embraced tradition and had a critical eye to Judea on the fall of the northern kingdom centuries prior. Also there will be powerful Persian women, maybe minor characters but if I can find records to back it up I will have the richest female merchant set up post in Jerusalem for a while or even a female general look from on high atop her horse at the little Jews and Samaritans. I'm really excited about writing it later.

>>20418892
I'd like to read it also

>>20417661
>the first few beams of light poking it's face
I'm pretty stunned that nobody seems to have caught this. It's in the very first sentence. Not only should you have used "their" instead of "it's," you should have used "its" instead of "it's," if it were the correct particle to use in the first place. Nothing else matters until you've ironed out all your grammar. I would be tempted to just push through this and work under the assumption that you'll correct this (and all similar errors that I'm 100% sure will follow), but the problem is that the vast, vast majority of self published novels never get fixed. I don't know why it is that we agree to collectively overlook these errors. I haven't seen ONE self-published novel from 4chan without immediate and glaring grammatical errors. Grammar is important. It matters. An author needs to have a native and effortless command of the basics of the language. If you don't show this, it's going to be really, really hard to get the vast majority of people to read further than that error.

This is not some kind of pedantic and theoretical argument I'm making. If you write, you need to master the most basic conventions of writing.

FIX YOUR FUCKING GRAMMAR, IF YOU ARE READING THIS POST.

>>20415978

Obviously yes. Don't throw the chance to have a potentially positive experience away by worrying if 4chan would think it was cool to do so

hello friends
>https://pastebin.com/cT3z4Dbz
this just failed a writing competition so i'd appreciate anyone taking a read of it and telling me where i've fucked up or if i just need to improve as a writer thank you.
pic unrelated but funny.

>>20419075
It doesn't interest me much, but it doesn't strike me as anything especially terrible either. Typical ametuer work. You need to slow the scenes down a touch and decribe what they look like. Keep all of the human senses in-mind and be particularly aware of space. Keep at it and you'll get there.

>>20419075
The first thing you need to do if you want me to look at your work is to stop using gratuitous obscene language.

>>20419154
Who are your favorite authors?

Writing used to be a hobby of mine some 10 years ago. I liked to write short stories, primarily thrillers, but I have also tried my hand at philosophy/mysticism.
My biggest work was a novella sized story about a man uncovering a human trafficking scheme by local gangsters, before falling victim to this world himself and finding out the true scale of it all as he finds himself trapped on an island used for human hunting games and gladiator style battle royale chaos. There is no shortage of gore.
It's not necessarily good but I enjoyed writing it.

>>20419202
Have you read it back recently?

>>20419213
It's a conflicting experience. I put the protagonist through such torture, reading it back I don't know whether I am a sadist or masochistic. The main drive to keep reading is morbid curiosity.

I think I understand now why so many self-pubbers end up releasing novellas. The urge to publish with what I've got (~40k words) can be pretty strong sometimes. Part of me wants to just edit what I've got and go. The other part knows I'm barely just getting started. I'm gonna keep going.

>>20419240
For me its projecting profound weakness and vice onto all my characters and I know it pisses some people off as Dostoevsky enraged people with that but Im trying to make it less melodramatic by making some have bad attitudes and some good. A prostitute character I have is still a shallow bitch and one church girl I wrote is incredibly timid and well-mannered while I try to instill uncertainty in the reader about the legitimacy of her wholesomeness. My main thing is that I personally despise hubris and envy as the most dangerous elements of mankind so I aim to always chip away at reputation of my characters to temper how we esteem ourselves.

>>20418450
No lol, bot even close.

>>20419316
Switch 'em around for novelty. A cunt of a nun and a relatable whore. Sounds more real to me in fact. Satanic ecclesiarch sodomizes orphans. Orphan girls learns to live off the street. Assembles a team and comes back with a vengeance, burns down evil nun in her church with God's grace. Poetry.
Steal that.

>>20419372
Thanks bro. Actually after writing my 1k this morning I was organizing my writing prompts for a short story collection when I realized one story has so much anguish and family drama that it deserves to be a novel. Goddammit Ideas really are diamond dozen its now 4th on my list unless I can belt it out like this 2nd one. Something about interpersonal drama that I can write very fast because Ive seen so much bullshit at my age. So basically the mother of the family has a degenerative disorder where she infantilizes mentally and occasionally sublimes the fact that she is the mother and cries. The daughter had the potential for being an famous athlete but she took care of her mother and special needs kids instead and explore her erosion of trust with men that makes her abusive despite her nurturing. I know it sounds like the Sound and the Fury but its based on something I actually witnessed in my hometown and it still destroys my soul to this day how tragic that family was and I want people to cry about it.

>>20419401
Writing is innately therapeutic. Processing hurt is perhaps best done by sharing.

>>20417947
Because it results in the most rewarding story and that demands an intense devotion to construction.
>>20418514
Hemingway had the barebones stuff down in a way I really felt had this restrained power. You could feel the emotion and unsaid really permeate the writing which not only leaves it open to interpretation/projection but allows for an easy entry barrier. Joyce on the other hand just puts me in a chair every time I read his less experimental stuff. The man certainly knew how to put together a metaphor and write sentences that didn't feel clunky or unusual.
I've read some James recently and I find it more interesting to parody his style than really read it, especially since he loves to waffle between time periods within sentences.
Melville and John Williams are honorable mentions. I hesitate to mention any international authors since I can only read English and you're at the mercy of translators, but I've liked what I've read of Tolstoy so far.

Have you guys been building an audience lately?
I know you want to succeed.

If I write a piece that is set in a non-modern time, but doesn't use magic or fantasy elements, and draws on but does not reference real historical places and events, what genre should I call it? The only comparison I can think of is Gormenghast and I haven't even read the full thing.

>>20419493
alternative history
aka fiction

>>20419487
No I've been looking for a job instead
Dear God it's the worst

>>20419487
>Have you guys been building an audience lately?
How do you even do that?

>>20419487
Lit is my audience

>>20419487
My target audience is milfs that read Cormac McCarthy or Jesmyn Ward that want Southern Gothic but in reality I am writing for men who want literary fiction.

>>20419622
It's /lit/, newfag. Lurk.

>>20419624
>milfs that read Cormac McCarthy
So you're targeting my mom?

Alright guys, what recent stories posted here that you've enjoyed.

Where are all the talented iconoclasts? Why are they not here, of all places? Are all of our brilliant young people too absorbed with video games, drugs, and material pursuit? What happened to the artist? Who killed him?

>>20419487
My writing prompt responses on reddit usually get a hundred+ upvotes, and my RR fiction has 5 followers while only having 2 chapters out. I feel pretty happy with myself.

https://pastebin.com/7JjdK8R8
I'm halfway through my short story for kids. I hope they'll like it.

>>20416963
My dog there’s a whole list of people in the pastebin in the OP
fucking wagmi

>>20419686
Most of those are royal road shit. And they're not even finished.

>>20419691
just notice there is no pastebin link in this OP, but I know for a fact at least a couple of those are legit.
Same anon you’re talking to read Eggplant and said it was good too, and I’m pretty sure there are other real ones on the list

>>20419624
I bet you don’t have the skill to pull off literary fiction.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/54355/dread-within-and-without
Just put out another short horror-ish story. Hope you enjoy.

>>20419714
Why don’t you use Webnovel instead? I prefer the interface. I’ll have a look.

>>20419732
I'm honestly still exploring the different self-publishing sites. Webnovel hadn't made it to my radar. I'll check it out after work today! Thanks for the direction.

Hell-Anon here, going to work very hard today. I had some pretty good ideas recently and I also think I found some nice ways to neatly reorganize previous sections and address some issues with the metaphysical/paranormal stuff or "powers". I don't want to have X-Men style abilities in my story as I find that type of stuff to be incredibly boring. Interesting sometimes, but I find that it lowers the stakes in too many ways.

>>20419714
>>20419751
Okay, no problemo. Just do whatever you like most.
Finished now.
Your voice is pretty good but sometimes I find it hard to understand what you’re going for when your use of punctuation is a little too choppy. E.g.
>Even as I watched them hover behind her, around her, I told her.
This sentence is just too jarring even if I understand it after a re-read. Remember that you can direct the flow of your writing to be either smooth or have resistance, so use it wisely. Elsewhere your punctuation could be cleaned up, as in:
>How were they enticing her to go out so often with them-- what made her long for them to such a point?
Please think about using dashes rather than hyphens, it just looks way better, and remove the space between it and “what.”
Commas should also fall inside the speech marks.
Nonetheless it’s a compelling story and it made me wonder how reliable he is as a narrator. Some of it resonated with me: the paranoia, jealousy, and negativity. I think you captured it well enough. Some descriptions might be tweaking but it was interesting all the same. My opinion is that he killed her but tell me if I misread it.

>>20419807
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I've been working to tidy up my comma/semi-colon/punctuation in general. While I'd like to blame too much early reading of Charles Dickens', it's really my own fault. lol.

'Jumping At Shadows' was one of my short stories, the one most recently published was 'Death on the Wind', in that same collection.

Thanks for the feedback, seriously. The bit about directing my writing to be smooth or have resistance, in particular, made an impact.

>>20419732
Webnovel is just a chink scam, you're better off staying away

>>20415463
Violence is midwit-tier. The best gore, is that of unrequited love.

>>20419714
Skimmed over all three stories in that link and enjoyed what I saw. Going back for more later, will leave more fleshed out thoughts then.

>>20419706
Why do you bet that, are you daring me to try?

>>20419714
sick fucking cover art

>>20419779
Keep going anon.
You WILL make an interesting story.
You WILL make unforgettable and interesting characters.
You WILL love what you're writing.
You WILL be glad that your art touched your audience.
You WILL succeed.
You WILL have a good time.

>>20419714
Is that coverart from Nightcaffe? Holy moly what prompts did you use, always comes up with weird shit for me

>>20419881
Based litcoach Fitzgeraldanon. I got one of the classic coverart copies of Gatsby this week, havent read it since I was a kid and about time I read it again, maybe this time I will see it in a new light and really these days his themes of disillusionment are more relevant than ever.

>>20419856
Thanks!

>>20419895
Yea, it's nightcafe. You may have to try a lot to get exactly what you want. The prompts for that particular image were:
>witch walking over a railroad track
>shapeshifter
>woods
Then I cycled back and forth from the sinister/horror prompts while swapping between artistic/coherent generation. Took about four evolutions

>>20419874
It’s more about natural talent than daringness.

>>20419962
Natural talent what does that even mean? Practically every work of genius required a massive amount of learning and work but especially the motivation that goads someone to achieve. While I dont mean to say it's full translateable, Ive already succeeded in professional life managing large science projects, teaching theology and then of course the drama and struggles of my previous life. I think with enough cultivation and work I can make something good. I refuse to believe that I'm only what I am now because if I still believed that I'd work in a factory probably missing a finger by now.

>>20420098
Some people are better writers than others. Some simply cannot write, at all, and lack the inner diction for writing coherent sentence of non-fiction, and or lack the mind’s eye to even visualize a scene of fiction.

>>20419651
>Who killed him?
Steve Jobs

>>20419881
Thank you Anon. I was toying around with the idea previously that these agents of sin could employ "Magic" while on Earth to effectively perform their jobs. While the idea of using Faustian exchanges to explain Earthquakes and Typhoons wiping out invading fleets or changing stock prices is interesting, I don't really want to grant that type of "power" to individuals. It just feels forced at best and cheesy at worst. Instead I'm thinking it could be something as simple as having insider knowledge of said weather and using that in antiquity to engineer the sales pitch for himself.
>Tell Persians or whoever that it's smooth sailing for two weeks, Greeks are defenseless
>Go to Greeks and tell them they're being invaded
>Sell invasion insurance to some selfless Greek who damns his own soul in exchange for a Typhoon (that was already coming anyways).

I find this to be a bit craftier, or am I missing the mark? Too much?

>>20419651
>Where are all the talented iconoclasts?
They're out there waiting to be discovered. Maybe some of them are here. They're growing their circles of elite writer friends, studying the classics and the masters, building up their strengths and writing their works. Some of them might not make it in their lifetime. But genius is always discovered in time. Even Bach was forgotten after he died until Mendelssohn discovered him again. I hope they're here. We need them.
>Why are they not here, of all places?
They are. Plenty of people here have been posting work of increasing quality. Maybe some lurkers are still waiting to post their own work. They might even be trad published already, waiting to be discovered by an innocuous reader with great influence.
>Are all of our brilliant young people too absorbed with video games, drugs, and material pursuit?
Yes and no. Truly brilliant minds can balance the game and their work, or they are consumed by the game. In the latter they are tragic, but not brilliant, because they couldn't make it to the end. Maybe they are brilliant, but as long as they're lost, we'll never know.
>What happened to the artist? Who killed him?
They're undiscovered and unknown. They're people like you and me who are reading and writing and trying to make things like the masters did, or show them that we are even better than them. I know I'm reading and writing more this year than I ever have before. It's my year of hope. I'm going to make it better than anyone who came before me or God dammit I will go down trying.
We will try and we will die. If I'm lucky, I'll have a small piece of graffiti on the world's stage that reads "Anon was here". I'll have made it, then.

>>20420233
Wait, so, let me get this straight:
>Demons from hell get magic
>use said magic on earth to get people down to hell by killing them with whatever, hence 'agent of sin'
>this has been used in many historical catastrophes across the globe

Does anyone know any writing courses they found helpful? Paid or free

>>20420310
I listened to the Writing Excuses podcast to get familiar with basics but learned more by just reading acclaimed fiction alot. Its still helpful to listen to writers talk about what they do so you will understand the common struggles even if they arent writing what you write.

I've got a plot twist near the end of my book.
My guess is that over half the readership of my book will be able to guess the upcoming twist.
Will readers react negatively to foreseeing the plot twist?

>>20420409
If it's just written well (as in the plot twist itself not the building-up) then you should be fine

>>20420310
brandon sanderson videoed his BYU creative writing class and put it online
look for the 2020 ones because he has like three different years. 2020 is the most recent.

>>20420409
When I see a plot-twist coming, I only dislike it if it seems obvious, whether it is or not. If I feel like I worked it out ahead of time then I'm happy, if I think everybody else reading has worked it out at the same time I have then I wish it were a bit more discreet. Of course, I like it most when a well-written plot-twist catches me entirely off guard.

>>20420310
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvFmakK8XmFNHJuKVD2r7yOMyIHQqI41W

>>20420463
I think that's what I have on my playlist, which I need to add a couple items to. But I think I actually like his older lectures better because there's no COVID remote learning bullshit and they feel a bit more natural. All good listening though.

>>20420260
Said Demons in my setting are just humans who are in Hell, permitted to travel to Earth. They peddle influence by appealing to peoples' baser desires. Some are crude, some are more nuanced. How they accomplish the fulfillment of the arranged services varies on the particular Demon in question and the job itself. My goal is to have this be vague enough and realistic enough to explain events from deep antiquity or the middle ages without being too over the top. Things like the consolidation of wealth or power in a relatively short period of time, martial success, or even being bequeathed with seemingly preternatural artistic talent or musical ability of some sort.

The twist, or part of it at least, in my setting is that humans can't actually sell their souls, as it's not theirs to sell. The act of believing they've sold their souls and compromised themselves however essentially disparages the value of their own soul in their own eyes to the extent that it effectively accomplishes the same thing, that being their postmortem destination.

>>20419039
I mean, basically this. That said, the fix is incorrect. The sentence should chopped down and written:
>Harald Sweynsson stopped to warm his face in the early morning sunlight poking through the evergreen canopy.

>>20415463
>Any stomach churning examples you guys have read?
My drafts.

>>20420409
It depends how obvious it is. If it's blatantly obvious to the point the characters in the story should be able to see it coming, that feels weak. If it's just obvious enough but only to the reader who has a wider perspective, that's fine.

>>20419075
Refusing to name the characters
Poor word choice and imagery
> the vortex of flame engorging his view
> cold wet eels drip from his hand
>locked together by their soliloquy dance
Dull dialog.
>“I don’t know. Sorry.” “What are you sorry for.” “I’m not sure.”
Nothing interesting happens. No stakes. No conflict. Some guys look at some stuff.

>>20420136
Aphantasia doesn't really affect writing. You bigot.

>>20419075
lost interest about two paragraphs in. i will say the piece suffers the same problem as literally every other piece of shit posted on here. you begin the story by vaguely focusing the narrative. no defined establishment of protagonist or setting. no one likes vague beginnings. vague vague vague. seriously, vague intro paragraphs are the bane of these threads and I think the most common hallmark of the developing amateur writer

>>20420793
yes, it does, and any contrary discourse is cope

>>20420793
I disagree. I don't think it's entirely debilitating, but it's certainly a limitation.

>>20420619
The fix is correct. I chose not to change it for taste, and because just deleting the offending passage doesn't actually help anon figure out the grammatical error he made.

>>20420824
The thing is, it was only discovered/labeled in 2015. We don't know how many previous authors might have had it. People think Asimov might have been aphantasic due to some of his comments on writing. Not a great example, as I find his writing really dull.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/01/being-an-author-with-aphantasia-mark-lawrence

>>20420922
My mum's father is aphantasic and he's writing a novel currently. It's yet to be seen how well he can write scene descriptions though I find him to be quite creative. I'm not an expert on the matter but logically it can't be viewed as advantageous and knowing how much I use my mind's eye to visualise when writing I can only imagine lacking such a skill being a limitation.

Posting some more of mine

>The urge to save himself finally took hold, driving the young man to run as quickly as his feet would carry him, his eyes turned to the ground so that he wouldn’t trip again… But he couldn't help it. In his panic, he had run out of breath after only a short distance, hyperventilating as he doubled-over, his gaze yet again drawn to the source of that terrible noise, the roaring and growling, the repeated thunderclap noise of gunshots.

>The False Drake had somehow gotten itself upright, its legs braced against a tree as it tried to envelop the woman’s head in its maw, her armored left hand somehow keeping it open as fire washed over the metal, her right hand empty - the weapon had been knocked out of her grasp. She reached out, exhaling a stream of Fog, and by some magic, one of her braids came alive. As though a serpent it shot out, wrapping itself around the tonfa and whipping it straight into her hand. That terrible electric arcing started up again for just a moment before she sunk the shiv into the drake’s throat, the muscles of its neck and forelegs undulating under its skin uncontrollably from the current. Simple electrocution was something that just… Didn’t work on arcane beasts, by Victor’s reckoning - it was like trying to cook someone alive by forcing a flood of Ignis into their body, or forcefully turning someone into stone, a feat that only worked if one’s own magic could overwhelm or otherwise unravel that which suffused another.

>Either she could just create enough Fulgur within her own body to supersede a False Drake’s breath of fire by an order of magnitude, or her control over the element was so refined she could use it as to disrupt the complex bio-arcane organ that generated a False Drake’s fire breath. To entirely subvert the meticulous work of genius mutagenicist, or to overpower it - regardless of what combination of these things she possessed, Victor couldn’t quite believe it was real. People like this were so far removed from his reality that even his memory of the events felt unreal, almost dreamlike in nature.

1/2

>>20420999

>Three copper coins arced into the air in the distance, a woman in a black dress following in their stead, holding up a giant revolver, firing off three shots in impossibly quick succession, their report like the smashing of a sledgehammer upon an anvil.

>CLANG

>CLANG

>CLANG

>Each flaming spear of lead and smoke bounced off a thrown coin, careening down into and through the False Drake’s back, the three projectiles landing safely between the tan woman’s legs. The beast’s hind legs went limp as its blood spurted out onto the ground. He’d caught his breath and then some, but… He couldn’t help himself. It was like watching a trainwreck.

>The taller woman left her weapon stuck inside the drake’s neck, grasping both its jaws with her bare hands, the hand of her right arm taking on a metallic sheen as she pried its jaws open wide and wider. Despite her monstrous strength, the beast’s skull wouldn’t budge, until… With a deep, sharp inhalation, arcs of lightning flashed over her arms, and with a mighty roar she ripped the drake’s head clean off the neck in two pieces.

>It was this feat that had shocked Victor out of his fascinated stupor, reminding him that these people could very well just decide to kill the other hunters as well, and him with them, so it was safer to just get the hell out of there. The drake was dealt with, job done, paycheck on the table.

2/2

>>20421005
Someone's played Ultrakill

>>20420922
Do people with this meme condition have no memories? Because imagination is basically just like seeing memories of events that never happened. Most of the contents of actual memories are made up by the brain too.

>get sloshed on absinthe
>listen to earrape hardstyle music
>write on the toilet for 3 hours
>its kino
Welp lads, I've found the recipie for success. Bottoms up!

>>20421054
Based, I might skip sitting on the toilet though.

>>20421005
>Onomatopoeias
Stop

>female protagonist written by a male
>woman has agency, is an active participant, makes pivotal decisions, can command the action

>female protagonist written by a female
>woman dawdles, doesn't accomplish a whole lot, hem-haws over feelings, has only a vague sense of what to do in any situation, everything is resolves serendipitously or by a male side-character/love interest

>>20421084
I think they can work very occasionally, but like that it just feels awkward. For one, don't put them in as all-caps comic book-style.

>>20421089
>Man writes a man but slaps boobs on it
>Fake bullshit
>Woman writes how women are
>Realistic and amazing

>>20421097
who the fuck wants to read women that act like actual women (besides women, and in that case, who the FUCK wants women readers)

>>20421097
Being a passenger in one's own adventure is hardly amazing. If the result of the story is "Everything could have been resolved without the protag even existing", you've failed as a writer.

>>20421050
Yeah. Not too many sources of good inspiration for a gunslinger type character's powerset that are remotely original

>>20421089
Its not that difficult to write women you just have to shift the behavior of several things slightly and consider a few different secondary motivations that men usually dont consider. There are plenty of lists on how female voice differes and its all a matter of how feminine that character is going to act.

Here's something interesting.
There's multiple conflicting forces at work in my story. Humanity, ancient civilizations, eldritch horrors, all that jazz.
The main villain of the piece is someone that everyone shits their pants at, and with incredibly good reason. He's awe-inspiringly dangerous, destructive, and powerful. He's a huge deal, and the reader is wondering "Just which one of these factions is he related to?" And the answer is none. That's right. He just showed up one day, started kicking everyone else's ass because he liked fighting, and never stopped until they shoved him in a salt formation. All this grand cosmic and historical shit, and the main antagonist is someone who has fuckall to do with any of it

>>20421127
Why thought? I like it. But what's he after?

>>20421134
https://youtu.be/McQ58nhhpHM?t=7

>>20421127
That COULD be cool, but the execution matters (who is he actually, why is he such a big deal, what does he want, where'd he come from, etc.)

>>20421140
He likes kicking ass so much he committed genocide on an advanced ancient civilization of superhuman godlike beings with his bare hands. One at a time.

>>20421127
based and "It's just goku" pilled

>>20421155
Pretty much. Think more Yujiro than Goku, because this guy beats the shit out of stuff for the sake of it. I mean, what else are you supposed to do with such power other than square up against the biggest fucks around?

>>20421127
I have a villain that's sort of in a similar vein. He and his people don't care for anything other than having good stories. Their entire culture has only one moral rule: don't fuck with your own people, for everything and everyone else they have carte blanche. The only thing that matters to them is to leave behind a riveting tale when they die, be it one of peace and kindness, or one dripping with blood.

>>20421160
Yujiro is also "just goku", but horny

>>20419714
Rating the stories here:
>1. Death on the Wind
You mentioned the year each story was written in, and you can see a lot of improvement from where you were in the first two. On top of that, it has a pretty decent plot twist. Nice.
>Jumping At Shadows
You really nailed the feeling of paranoia. Honestly jealous.
>The Prison
Interesting premise, needs more build up though

I write a story about a city called Fahdfjk1000, where a man called 6969420XXX calls upon great lords of Rakul to resurrect JISDfasdnf, an ancient and sleeping, but powerfull dragon.
what do you think so far?

>>20420922
see: cope

>>20421164
Understandable. But seriously, that's how he functions. And when he reawakens in the modern day, he finds that his potential foes are drastically smaller in number. So he decides to start sparing them because he can.
That is, until he ends up nearly killing the main character, and causes said protagonist to turn into a cold, almost sadistic killing machine who just maims him to near death.
Think this as how that goes
https://youtu.be/w__kXen0t9s?t=294

>>20421051
We have memories, we just don't see them. The data is on the hard drive, but the monitor is not plugged in.

I always assumed that police sketch artists had some dark magic techniques for recreating faces. But it turns out that people can just conjure up pictures of the suspects to compare to the illustration. That's bonkers to me.

>>20420989
I'm not sure. It might be a problem. But most writing doesn't involve exact descriptions of distances or rotating objects in space. It's more impressionistic. Just like having good eyesight doesn't make you a good painter, having an ability to visualize doesn't give you the power to describe what you're seeing.

In his online lectures, Brandon Sanderson talks about 'stained glass' prose versus 'a clear window.' But that's a bad metaphor. No one can actually see through the writing to what you're visualizing. Words are opaque. Writing is more like painting than a window. So, in his case at least, visualizing might be a problem. He's seeing cool stuff but writing bland prose.

I don't know what it does to my own writing. I worry that I hyper correct by over explaining space and setting and architecture. I've also developed a weird habit of always noting light sources. Lots of torchlight and moonlight flying around. Also I barely describe characters at all. Talking about eye color and shit seems pointless to me since it's impossible to precisely describe a face and people will just imagine what they want anyway.

>>20421210
I personally get a little annoyed if there aren't at least some descriptors of a character to get something of a concrete image down (hair, skin colour, eyes and general build + any distinguishing features are typically the things I like to see, because I tend to forget characters if I don't have some sort of image to attach them to) so I'm aiming for appearances to be as much a part of a character as their, well, character. I'm also trying to work on abstraction for high-action scenes where the nitty-gritty is just awkward to follow. The action scenes I'ved enjoyed reading have always been about clearly described moments with abstracted other stuff between, and I think that's a style I'd like to try (whenever I get around to writing action scenes).

>>20421210
>We have memories, we just don't see them.
I suppose that makes sense. Unless I'm remembering something in a split-second I'll see it in my mind also, but on the occasions where I don't I still that I know what I've done or witnessed. Do you dream?

>I always assumed that police sketch artists had some dark magic
I did too for a while but apparently they spend hours in a room with the witness to get an accurate description. Now, I'm no good at drawing, but I imagine with the right information and constant double-checking they can get something out in that time. I can visualise the faces of everyone I've ever spent a decent bit of time with, most people are the same I believe.

>>20421097
Tolstoy wrote good women

>>20421229
I usually give them one notable trait. Mention it during the introduction and then repeat it again on occasion. Like a guy who's getting sort of pudgy and out of shape. A woman with unmanageably curly hair. Stuff like that.

From reading crap on RR, the usual method is to have the character look in a mirror in chapter one and list off all their features: tall, hazel eyed, auburn hair, etc. And then never mention them again as if the reader will remember that two hundred chapters later. That's weird to me, but maybe it works fine for normal people.

>>20421324
>the usual method is to have the character look in a mirror in chapter one and list off all their features
Fuck. Would a more organic way to describe someoen be to have other characters mention key traits?

>>20421324
I feel a little awkward that the thing I'm writing does this (though it's a pensive staring into a sword and his features do get brought up again because it's something of a nervous habit).

>>20421337
If you're doing third-person, just have the narration describe them. No need to really worry yourself. Nobody has to diegetically be described unless you're first-person or really hardline third-person limited.

>>20421288
>Do you dream?
Yeah. Apparently dreaming is from a different part of the brain. My dreams are very murky and abstract. Only rarely do I see vivid images or color.

Also as I'm falling asleep I can sort of get slight flashes of things. Hypnogogic visions. But it's involuntary random stuff.

>>20421356
Dreaming for me can be like watching a movie, though it's not often well directed and the script is always nonsense. Memories are a more coherent version of that, though less vivid because my eyes are open.

>>20421324
Is that a uniquely RR thing? Or do you just read more RR novels than anything else? Curious why the specification as well as to whether or not you find RR novels more interesting than other novels.

>>20421344
I have a hardon for diegtic stuff. I want everything that happens be in-universe or in the MC's head, I find it to be jarring otherwise. I write in free indirect discourse, and having him describe himself is a bit odd to me. On that note: I have a character that's this weird surgeon guy who likes to travel around and dissect the various wildlife and people he encounters along his travels, and he keeps a little logbook in which he draws sketches of the stuff he's minced. I'm planning on inserting them whenever he nails something new / cool looking.

>>20421337
>>20421339
Lol. 'Main character looking into a mirror' is definitely one of those hallmarks of amateur writing that editors will complain about. It's not bad in itself, but it's so common that it's developed a stigma. It's up there with 'first chapter starts with the main character waking up'.

>>20421384
I'm doing it more to establish a character habit rather than specifically to describe him because his appearance doesn't actually matter all that much due to the circumstances. How WOULD you have a character describe themselves in first-person, then? Just mention bits and pieces of their own appearance (hair getting in their face, that sort of thing) as and when?

>>20421395
That or have other characters mention it. I wouldn't usually write strictly in first person though, third person limited gives you far more options.

>>20421407
I do admittedly have the prologue in third person (I'm actually thinking of tweaking it to be a mostly omniscient prologue, then sort of zoom in, for reasons), and I'm probably gonna have the occasional interlude from other POVs in third person, but it is tricky. Alternatively, I can just say fuck it and let the mirror thing happen. If it's not just a one-off thing I don't think it'll be too awkward.

>>20420409
What kind of twist is it? A big reveal for the reader, or just a surprising turn of events for the characters?
If it's the latter, I find that when the story is well written it doesn't matter that much if you can sort of see where it's going, a good build-up is its own reward and it can even be a pleasurable experience to watch the story unfold to the inevitable conclusion.
If it's the former, a big "reveal" that happens many pages after it became obvious to the reader is just annoying in my experience. You might want to consider throwing in some misdirection, or even shifting the reveal to an earlier point in the story if at all possible.

>>20421372
>Is that a uniquely RR thing?
I don't think so.
>do you just read more RR novels than anything else?
I waded through the slush pile of new releases for a few months to see what was popular and why. I sampled first chapters until it became psychologically traumatic.

>>20421429
Honestly, RR is a mixed bag. I've seen some real stinkers on there, but there's also stuff I'd legitimately call fantastic there. It is a bit of a mud walk, but there definitely diamonds in the rough.

>>20421443
I mean, it's just a webnovel site like any other, any without any real screening, of course there's gonna be a lot of junk and a lot of great stuff.

>start writing
>a new ending that's totally different from the one I initially outlined starts forming in my head after I actually start having the characters do things
Is it okay to walk on this new path?

>>20421534
If it feels more natural for where you've written the characters towards, yeah sure go for it.

>>20421092
For another, either have them on one line together, or intersperse them between paragraphs.

>>20421089
This is why I hem and haw over writing a story with a female protagonist even though I want to, because I know I wouldn't actually be writing a female protagonist the second I had her show any backbone or proactiveness.

>>20421552
What's wrong with fantasy, anon? Why don't you allow yourself to dream? Holy shit, imagine being this depressed.

>>20421126
>There are plenty of lists on how female voice differes and its all a matter of how feminine that character is going to act.
Link?

>>20421552
You've never met a proactive female? You've never met a female with backbone?
What kind of job do you work?

>>20421562
>What kind of job do you work?
Life.

>>20421567
Oh gotcha. So, you're saying you don't interact with women.

do you guys take breaks when youre in the groove of writing? I've been writing non stop since the morning and now my eyes are starting to hurt from staring at my screen all day

>>20420463
>BYU
Am I FUCKING supposed to READ YOUR MIND to figure out your fucking shitty acronyms?
Why did you shorten it?
Why are you too lazy to write the whole thing? If you don't want me to get that information, why even put it in the sentence? To confuse the reader you fucking pigheaded nigger? I want to throw a rock at your head.

>>20421592
Some of us get all the luck being able to write all day. Yes, I take breaks. I find I either can zone in for at least two hours or I break about every 25 minutes.

>>20421655
sanderson is a mormon. the reason he shortened it is because he, I'm assuming like me, doesn't know how to spell it. Bring 'em Young is how it's pronounced. sanderson being a mormon is actually relevant to his writing career because mormons - like other fruitcake religious groups, e.g. jews - network amongst each other very heavily and that's how sanderson ended up getting his big break.

Why aren't you writing non-fiction?

>>20421800
Because I hate researching. I've written enough essays in my life already. I don't need to write another 160 page thesis

>>20421655
>Google BYU
>Brigham Young pops up first
????

>>20421155
I feel the need to elaborate. This guy is basically a bitch-basic "Mortal" creature who just so happens to inexplicably have truly impossible levels of physical strength, speed, stamina, and toughness. Probably a combination of genes and training or something.
Meanwhile, there's this civilization of merfolk who are really fucking powerful even individually, possessing great and amazing powers. They make the grave mistake of making themselves known to him, and he sees them and how strong each one is. So he proceeds to fight and kill as many as he can because they seem like they'd make good punching bags basically.
That's right, the guy literally single-handedly almost wiped out an entire civilization because he thought it'd make for a good workout. You know the whole "Precursors" trope? Meet the guy that made them go bye-bye. Their leader puts up an admirable fight, but is ultimately buried in rubble by the dude. So basically, this guy's fucking broken their society at this point because he could, leaving very few stragglers who hid in the furthest reaches of the earth. All except for one, who is the strongest fighter in their history, and stands against him. However, this other guy shows up and helps her fight him, with their combined abilities at least able to put him on the defensive. Eventually, they're able to bury him in an underwater fault, but at the cost of her hand and the other guy's eye.
Cut to the modern day, his body is unearthed in a salt flat. He immediately revives, basically goes "Phooey, and I was having so much fun" and then starts doing his usual thing of kicking the shit out of people. But he doesn't kill them this time because he knows the "Supply" is more limited.

>>20421800
Because life is too gay and boring for me to want to experience it while reading.

Is 1k words bad for the beginning chapter?

>>20421884
I'm going to keep it real with you, this sounds very anime and very bland.

>>20421999
Call it a prologue and you're set.

>>20414931
About cozy life in coastal Britain. A kid's diary.

>>20422031
>First sentence
>Boring run-on
You need to rewrite this because I dropped it after the Crab Contest.

New thread and quinta
>>20422222
You must now all advertise your books by law.

>>20422000
Having characters fight in a way that's central to the story triggers you that much?

>>20421089
Many men love tomboys and find them cute and interesting
But in reality most women aren’t that strong and prefer safety and family (some act like NPCs just to live as safe as possible)
My advice is to imagine being a prey creature like a mouse

>>20421109
>who the fuck wants
For sales dumbass
Housewives especially spend a lot of money
Look up contemporary literature or bestseller lists, they’re filled with housewife food.

>>20414931
Which of these books should I start with?

For Prose:
>The Art of Fiction, Gardner
>The Anatomy of Story, Truby
>Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere)
>On Becoming A Novelist
>The First Five Pages
>Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft
>How Fiction Works
>The Rhetoric of Fiction
>Steering the Craft
>On Writing, Borges