/lit/ - Literature

best writing software?

No one writes in /wg/.

>>20427509
F Gardner has written 11 books

>>20427516
F Gardner has 11 AI generated pieces of toilet paper.
They really just smear the shit around though.

>>20427508
Is this question legally required to be asked and answered every single fucking thread?

Do you have a reoccurring theme in your writing that you keep going back to? Ever since I read Paradise Lost I can't help but agonize over the relationship between peace and corruption. It keeps me up at night.

>>20427527
put it in the sticky then, just saying

Reminder:
You WILL write and finish your book.
You WILL make interesting and unforgettable characters.
You WILL make something that touches with your audience.
You WILL take your time and not rush anything.
You WILL take breaks when needed.
You WILL publish your book.
And most importantly...
You WILL love what you're writing.

How to write low level and nothing that involves the destruction of the world and humanity? Why is writing about that stuff so easy anyways? All you need a is a MacGuffin and it's the simplest story.

>>20427539
You’re asking about sword and sorcery.
Unlike world ending consequences in most fantasy books, it involves local disputes and struggles.
See Conan the Barbarian.
It’s one of my favorite genres (marketing anon)

>>20427537
I will NOT

I'm trans. Can I write a novel?

>>20427140
A Viennese Pilgrim And Her Guardian
Son of the Suns

>>20427572
No, but you can write a very special note.

>>20427572
I recommend starting with something shorter and non fiction first, it really helps to get the blood flowing.
Have you tried a suicide note yet?

>>20427485
People always tell others to advertise, but never teach people how. Do you just buy ads on 4chan? Twitter? Reddit?

>>20427570
You WILL

Ayuh, writing be bussin, no cap.

>>20427589
I’ve been considering buying 4chan ads like Call of the Crocodile. Memeing myself to success sounds like a good route.

>>20427598
Don’t, the engagement on 4chan is abysmally low. Literally throwing money away.
Stick with Amazon ads, trust me, unless you want to end up like Gardner, selling no books and buying fake reviews.

>>20427532
Nostalgia, either as a direct subject or as a source of inspiration. I have a personal theory that childhood emotions are richer because you’re experiencing everything for the first time. But rather than write about childhood, I try to take those emotions and generate scenarios that have the same effect in adulthood. For instance, when you’re a young child, most concepts and locations are almost entirely discrete. You don’t think about the logistics of a monster managing to sneak through your neighborhood undetected, and choosing to hide behind the garbage cans on the side of your house. You just see that it’s dark outside and you’re all alone. As an adult, you recognize the absurdity of that, but you also have the ability to overcome these obstacles and make the concept more plausible.

I feel like my internal grammar has been mangled after reading Blood Meridian. Any books to read to fix this issue?

You've all heard of the 'uncanny valley' before. Vaguely human things, such as smiley faces and muppets, are considered charming. Near perfectly human things are also acceptable, like the best cgi models. But in between lies a valley of creepy shit, dolls and mannequins and wax museums.

My theory is that a similar valley exists for bad fantasy writing. A Grotesque Valley. At one end are the barely literate. This edge is occupied by people who don't speak English, machine translations, children, and fan fiction writers. They can only produce simple prose. It's bland and artless, but it also ends up being fairly readable for those same reasons.
At the opposing end of the valley are people who have developed their style to a level of competence or even excellence. Professional and semi professional writers dwell at that much higher elevation.

But other writers sink into the middle ground to occupy its deep caves and grottoes. These people have read widely and gained a taste and appetite for good books. In doing so, they have also developed a dangerously large vocabulary and preference for the baroque. These writers misjudge their own powers and try to mimic their favorite authors. They always overreach.

I believe new writers must make a journey through the Grotesque Valley. They see simplistic garbage and think 'I could do better than that'. They can't rest at the starting point, so they plunge into the lowlands. Many become blind troglodytes who prefer to wallow in the grottoes. Others look to the steep slopes ahead fearfully, to discouraged to continue. A few regain their power to write direct, unadorned prose, which gives them the strength to travel up and out of the valley.

>>20423754
Get drunk again? LOL. I kid.
>>20424842
Still, you gotta admit, if the god that created this universe is blind and insane, it would explain an awful lot.
>>20425788
Better not to mention 4chan.
Normies will think you're a racist incel school shooter.
>>20427098
So, Yu-Gi-Oh?

>>20423052
I can only speak for myself.
I have twice the views on RoyalRoad for the novel I'm serializing.
I have hardly any views for it on WattPad.
inb4: It's a mystery.
>>20426320
As in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown
Use any text editor. I use Pluma under Linux.
>>20426748
Pirating is the new advertising. Learn to live with it.

I'm trying to write some characters and stories about delinquency but I have troubles with some themes and ideas, I'd like some advices:
- I need some inspo (the media doesn't matter) on stories that approach the coming of adulthood for male teenagers.
- I'm trying to think of how a character that acts evilly (bullying, stealing, illegal stuff) could be brought to reason without sounding to cliché or namby-pamby and I'm having so much troubles.
- What kind of childhood traumas do you think are the most found in the past of criminals and delinquents?
Also it's the first time I'm writting. It's for a video game I'm making so I'd like some advices on how to connect all these notes that are completly unconnected (I have like an event happening there, another one happening somewhere else, etc. but for the stuff inbetween, I just don't know. Same for dialogues. It's my first time coming to /lit/ so please don't make fun if these are meme questions.
I wanted to ask for some tools to help me with this other than notepad obviously but >>20427508 made me back up.

>>20427692
>direct, unadorned prose
Examples?

>>20427675
Henry James for the complete opposite prose.
>>20427692
Some of the AI generated text is really fucking funny.
>The man in the dust cloak walked towards the door and knocked softly at it.
>"Hello?"
>The man turned towards the man who had just attacked him, and spoke in a more gentle, more calm voice. "What's wrong, ma'am?"
>"There, is something I will just be here," said the man in the dust cloak.
>"I don't think there's anything for you."
>"Not me," shouted the man in the dust cloak.
>"Don't say anything about me. As long as I'm here, we have nothing to worry about," said he.
>"He is afraid of you," said the man in the dust cloak.
>"Then you're only worried about me," said the man in the dust cloak.
>"I will leave you an instant later," said the man in the clock.
>"If it's something for me to worry about in the future," said the man in the dust cloak.
>"Don't worry, Ma'am. It's something you aren't worrying about. Do you understand?" said the man in the dust cloak.
>The man in the dust cloak opened his mouth to say something before abruptly returning with a long white dagger.
>"You're right! I, my brother, did not use a blade. It was your fault for not fighting in the first place. Your hands, the daggers, my cloak!"

>>20427759
Are you male? Did you have male friends? Write from your own experiences, exaggerating and embellishing as necessary.

>>20427810
I like how it kept repeating "man in the dust cloak" like that'd somehow make that make any more sense than just 'dusty cloak'.

>>20427762
Don't ask me. I'm still climbing.

Canuckfag here, I finished up a book but I'm genuinely paranoid about sending it anywhere for publishing cause I know nothing about guaranteeing your copyright in Canada or what's really stopping some publishing house from taking my manuscript and selling it as their own under some puppet author. What do I do?

>>20427812
Yeah that's where I take my main inspo from, my own life, experiences and the ones from my friends. I actually spent a lot of time with delinquents so I kind of know some shit about it even if I never took aby part in this world. I'm more lacking in the narrative writing skill. I obviously don't need my story to be high level litterature but desu I never took interest in writting in general. So I can imagine and picture some ideas but putting them down in well built story is where I'm blocking.

>>20427831
You have copyright on anything you've made unless you sign the rights away, I'm fairly sure. If you can provide proof of ownership that's enough, and I highly doubt publishing houses will really do that.

>>20427842
Yeah I mean I know that if it came to a legal challenge I could submit the earliest printed copies and computer files with specific dates of creation and editing on them and stuff but that feels messy and expensive.

I've read this site here https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/wr03915.html?Open&wt_src=cipo-cpyrght-main&wt_cxt=toptask

But somewhere in the fine print on one of these forms it said something like when you go this avenue you are acknowledging the Canadian government as the owners of the copywritten material or something.

Chinaman Anon here, what sounds better? Starting a riot scene

>We won't be silent! Remove the Chinese or we riot!

OOOORRRR

>“Protect the Chinese? Drink your wine? You all must go, capitalist swine!”

is there a site that will let me upload drawings with my book? like if I want to have a drawing in the middle of each chapter, sorta like an alice in wonderland book

>>20427556
You're right. I completely forgot. There are some very good examples to draw from. My hands were already hacking out ideas. Although, you say most fantasy books, does that imply that sword and sorcery is rare? I never thought about it until now, but if people aren't writing sword and sorcery then is it always an epic or high fantasy?

>>20427834
>>20427759
>I'm trying to think of how a character that acts evilly (bullying, stealing, illegal stuff) could be brought to reason without sounding to cliché or namby-pamby and I'm having so much troubles.
Perhaps someone he care about personally is negatively effected by his actions, or the actions of someone who behaves in a similar fashion, forcing him to reevaluate his outlook and behavior. Alternatively, you could give him a mentor, someone he looks up to in spite of himself, and tries emulate that persons morals and actions.
>- What kind of childhood traumas do you think are the most found in the past of criminals and delinquents?
Personally, I'm really burned out on the "bad person is bad because bad thing happened" trope. I consciously noticed it in one of the X-Men movies years ago, where Magneto's villainy was explained because his mother died in a concentration camp or something, and I haven't ever been able to stop viewing said trope as a cheap moralizing guilt trip to get you to empathize with an antagonist. Sometimes an asshole is just an asshole.

I like this guy's perspectives on writing for villains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCA7sGZKFIY

...and writing in general: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxX5cs0pX-E&t=1s

>>20427675
Just be conscious of your own grammar style when you edit on your next draft. And on McCarthy's style I wanted to point out this post >>20427821 talking about the AI text reminds me of how conscious McCarthy seemed to be of Cacophony and Euphony. There are some passages I noticed especially in the chapter 5 Comanche scene where he alters words just to achieve the cacophony and it makes it so uncomfortable. Since I don't want to crack open the book I'll use "dust cloak" as an example.

I think it's a matter of the sounds. "D" is a cacophonic harsh sound and "T" is a cacophonic hissing sound. "Dusty" sounds less cacophonic than "dust" because it has the pleasant long vowel sound. Dust is also short and sparse, and pairs with "cloak" which also ends with a harsh sound. You can reach for short words a lot but sometimes you can swell sentences with much bigger, weightier words for pacing when he you want something grand especially when you focus on another topic such as the sky or horizon which evokes so much more than the quaintness of dusty garments. Prersonally I try to go for natural speech but sometimes you need to have style and thankfully since I am experienced in science I can throw in crazy terms like "full factorial" or "fugitive endpoint" and simply expect readers to know what I'm talking about.

>>20427831
Doesn't Canada have a copyright office?
Here in south Canada, I can file for a government-registered copyright online for $65.
>>20427879
I know RoyalRoad and ScribbleHub allow pictures to be inserted into the text.
WattPad only seems to allow a picture at the top of a chapter.

>>20427888
Nice infinity trips.
> Personally, I'm really burned out on the "bad person is bad because bad thing happened" trope
I agree and disagree with you. I'm also tired of the fact that you should feel empathy for a villain because someone he loved died in a tragic way or whatever but there are other more realistic reasons for someone to turn bad.
I'll take my friends as an example. Most of them, if not all of them got into criminal stuff for a reason either related to their ego/self confidence or from bad examples they knowingly followed or not (parents, elder brothers/cousins/uncles). And the ego/self-confidence problem can be engendered for another set of reasons (most happening during childhood). It's not always the case, I know but it's still something that happens a lot. Thanks for the links and tips.

>>20427885
I’d say popular sword and sorcery is rare. Think of the first 5 fantasy genres you can remember in popular culture. I’d bet 4/5 if not all have the world at stake.

>>20427951
I came off a little to aggressive on that point, maybe.
I think that there is a general trend of armchair psychology in pop media, and now everyone who wrote a paper in college on mental illness or watched a season of Dexter thinks that they're an authority figure on mental health. This tends to overemphasize backstory and pathologizing experiences and behavior of the characters, often to the detriment of story telling and narrative pacing.
A matter of personal taste, and I know its an unpopular opinion, as I receive a lot of pushback when discussing this publicly.

>>20427534
This brehs

>>20427508
I use Scrivener. I like it, but there's a bit of a learning curve and quite a few features I have yet to use. I used to use Word, but I'm not paying M$hit additional money for an upgrade to an application that should have been included with the base OS.

>>20427508
>>20427978
>MS Word (universally used)
>Libre Office (free/open source)
>Google docs (free, saved in the cloud)
Personally I tend to write in Google docs (often on my phone with a baby in my chest) and back up with a local copy in Word. Some weirdos like writing in notepad too. Sorry I was haughty before, I'm sure you're coming from a genuine place.

>>20427692
>Grotesque Valley
Define this more, you have my interest

>>20427941
neat thank you very much friend

>>20427974
> This tends to overemphasize backstory and pathologizing experiences and behavior of the characters
Yeah exactly. They tend to bring a specific answer to something really vague and that's what feels annoying I think. My characters aren't going to be murderers or extreme psychopaths (I kind of want to add one to show that not everybody can be saved and that there are people in this world that you can't do anything for) thus, I'd really like for most of them to have this trigger that happened in their past. Not only for bad behaviour but maybe from their lack of self-cofindence, cowardness, greed, physical weakness, etc.

>>20427508
I honestly just want something lightweight that's basically just a blackscreen and my text. No widgets, window frame or whatever. Just good old formatting.

>>20427759
I can't say for certain but of the few people I knew who did resort to crime there are a few things:
>impression that they are one-upped by their siblings or peers even if it's not true, feels they are a disappointment
>extreme pressure to outdo peers and willing to take a huge risk for a huge reward like a kind of magic bullet that always brings them despair at every scheme the fail they have to reinvent themselves and make new friends
>getting into a garage band or cover band, said band doing drugs, crashing at the house, late night tv or card game parties, smoking together, passing a cigarette or joint around at their home basement as highschoolers
>skateboarding (damaging property or being where you don't belong)
>possibly gamble
>fight friends for fun
>friends steal from you then pretend they didn't or become friends again later
>some friends overdose, suicide, get into an accident or get murdered
>get paid to chauffeur people who may or may not be dealing drugs and possibly witness murder, even deal yourself
>wanting to be adored, falling into a cult accidentally that promises fame, sees some shit and get gangstalked
>hears voices after cult forces them to abuse drugs, becomes suicidal
>put into mental institution and forcibly injected on regular basis with rare family visits
>become homeless multiple times
>become missionary/soul winner of some kind with evangelical religion of some sort (Mormon, IFBaptist, Adventist etc)
>end up a temporary worker
>live in a shelter and a foreigner sleeping in the bunk next to you slams your head into the wall never explaining why
>leaves shelter and month later it burns to the ground
>rob a store, or punch a fucking window in rage and break cut your hand when the glass cracks
>join the military after a veteran tries to help you, fuck up and go to separation unit
>considers prostitution and/or trannylife as the next magic bullet
>mind still fucked up from past drug use and unable to form lasting relationships with regular people, can only be around people that are also delinquent, violent and idiosyncratic
Not speaking about myself but I had some close friends that have been through some of these things as I used to hang out to watch their garage band and every one of them ruined their lives and I bet I don't even know the half of what they went through before some of them died.

>>20427873
I think the key to those chants is they gotta be short. especially the second line because its typically what the crowd chants back in response to the singular lead
look up what the rioters chanted back in 2020. personally think both of your choices are too long

>>20428034
Scrivener has this in F11 mode.

>>20428044
Oh how could I forget this one:
>backup car into fence accidentally
>Italian guy runs out screaming "You breaka my fence right in fronta my face!"
>get into shouting match with said Italian guy and insist the fence is fine when the post is clearly ripped right out of the ground

>>20428044
Thanks man. Some of these will be useful, others are too extreme or don't fit the general feel of the story I'm trying to write, but I feel I can turn a lot of these around to the narrative.

>>20427762
Classic pulp.

>>20428088
Yeah I thought so. A lot of deliquents really are just dumbasses trying to look cool and then get hurt when they get dared to do something like choking themselves or playing with lighters. Anything beyond that isn't funny it just becomes a spiral of tragedy.

(reposting in new thread) Hey all. Attempting yet again to start a story and finish it. This time I feel good about it, actually. Might stick with this one.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tbueaegpy6vb42i/5-26-2022.pdf?dl=0
As always, let me know if you want critique on your work and I'd be happy to do a critique exchange. And please be brutally honest, but also sincere. I try to filter out bogus reviews, positive or negative.

>>20428014
More than glad to help!

>>20428097
Yeah. Robert E Howard is the champ here.

I went back to read Fritz Leiber's F&GM series. I remembered them being as really dark and stylish. To my surprise, almost every sentence was a simple subject-verb-predicate. Hardly a comma in sight. His prose feels sophisticated mainly through word choice and subject matter.

>>20427537
Bless you, anon

Do I need to double space my manuscript? I personally think double space is ugly as fuck.
How do you format?

Hell-Anon here, just doing my best. Hope everyone is having a good evening.

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

What font do you use when you print your books? Times New Roman seems like the default but it's so overused

>>20428316
Single space, 12 pt font.
No need to make your readers pay for extra paper.

>>20428366
Does font matter? Should I just always use Arial?

>>20427759
>how a character that acts evilly (bullying, stealing, illegal stuff) could be brought to reason without sounding to cliché or namby-pamby
They don't. With rare exceptions these people either fail at life completely or else change after many years of fucking up. Nobody gets talked out of it.

Possible exception - actual sociopath being convinced that he can get better things by learning to use the system than by low level fucking with people criminally.

>>20428435
>>20428435
I used Baskerville this time around

>>20428366
Um, no, double spaced, 12 pt, and in courier font. It will literally be thrown out otherwise.

Guise, guise, guise... In the elder times, double space have extra room for an editor or publisher to mark notes in the margins... this is 4chan though and there IS a glowie school shooter board right next door so I shouldn’t be surprised but HOLY FUCK some anon is posting smash bros fan fiction and I’m like, okay, clearly wasting my time with teenagers and retards here

>>20428353
Sylfaen size 9 is sexy as fuck.

>>20428464
Even for more contemporary novels? Courier seems old-timely and inconsistent for a fantasy novel.

anyone have an opinion on Understanding Fiction by Robert penn warren

>>20428486
It. Will. Be. Thrown. Out. Otherwise.

Manuscripts, anon, are page numbered except the title page. The title, on that page, is middle centred in all caps, with a By line, and the author name beneath that in all caps. The top right of the page should have your contact info and real name if using a pseudonym. Four lines beneath the author name, begin your manuscript indented and left aligned. All new paragraph and quotation slash dialogue with be indented. Double space. 12 pt courier font. End of manuscript, either write THE END in all caps or more modern use a single centred dash.

I type this because this should be common knowledge. And if people are saying otherwise then I am happy to share common knowledge with those who need it... Like holy fuck /lit/, actual baka

>>20428511
>I type this because this should be common knowledge.
Nobody sends manuscripts to publishers anymore, grandpa. People upload directly to Amazon in the twenty first century.

>>20428511
Thank you anon.

>>20428563
Let’s pretend you’re completely right and I am a literal grandpa and Bozos is the future of the written word. Even then, a manuscript is a manuscript, and it’s a manuscript because of what makes it a manuscript. You can write literally any other document, but if it doesn’t follow what you deem archaic rules, in literature of all places golly gee, what a world, then it’s not a manuscript, is it?

It’s just some text file on your computer.

>>20428518
Push harder. The stone is heavy, but you are stronger.

How do you guys balance writing and wanting to read to absorb other writer's energy into your writing? Analysis takes a lot of time with first reading for the plot, then rereading breaking down every single thing down to the word, but the gains are true.

>>20425840
>>20427052
>Prize promotions in which there is an element of chance and a prize is to be awarded are permitted, but to avoid your promotion being an illegal lottery, participants should not be required to provide any consideration to take part. Consideration is any type of payment or purchase or a requirement that a “substantial expenditure of effort” be made. Prize promotions and contests that require a purchase by participants are illegal in the United States.
I was right. These types of contests are illegal if the only way to enter is with payment.

>>20427333
I'd just woken and was retarded.

>>20428670
>wake up
>drive while listening to e books
>work to music
>drive back while listening to e books
>write book while listening to relaxed quiet music
>go to sleep
>repeat
Simple as.

When I'm writing a date, do I use July 1st, July First, or July first?

>>20427508
neovim

>>20428738
I would prefer "the first of july" but I would say it's more important to be consistent with any other time you've written a date

I'm writing a book and I'm coming up on about 400 pages, and it's starting to feel a tad bit long; but I would still say that I'm only about half-way through the full story I want to tell. Is it better to reign in my ambition and go for a shorter but perhaps more digestible book, go all in on one long and more detailed book, or two separate books which are self-contained but have an overarching story?

>>20428995
Giant tome

>>20428995
Agents don’t like to see more than 120K for a first book in the industry right now, sweet spot according to them is 90k, from those I’ve talked to and know

>>20429053
90k what? words?

I want to write a comfy wish-fulfillment fantasy for shekels but everything I come up with turns into an endless bleak nightmare for the characters. Just like my life

>>20429067
Yeah. So it equals out to be like 360 some pages. Not all new novels are like that but agents will be cunts to you about it until your book sells well then magically it was okay all along and they knew it was lol

>>20429067
Paragraphs

>>20427485
How's this for the beginning of a fantasy novel? It's pretty much gonna be conan the sorceror vs king arthur. Nothing too fancy.

"Battered by the merciless wind of the wyrm's pass, a boy ran below the twilight's sky. Behind him, dogs and horses closing in. Headhunters on the chase ever since he left Vaurons, seeking the bounty Count Berand held for those like him: necromancers.

The war of the arisen had ended with the decisive defeat of the necromancer armies, who now found no safe haven in all the kingdoms of the great alliance. Not all of his kind had fought, but it did not matter: for his arts he was marked, and for the defeat of others doomed. His only hope was to cross the steppes to the south, and there lose himself in the inhospitable mountain range known as "The clash". It was a terrible fate, but fortunately it was reserved only for those who longed to live. Many others would have given up, accepted the whims of fate and the merciful death that the paladins offered his kind. However, that's what separates the weak necromancers from the strong: their will.

>>20429119
I know fantasy authors love their infodumps, but are you sure you want to subject your reader to it straight off the bat? A boy is chased by headhunters, but that's apparently not such a distress that we couldn't have a history lecture in the next paragraph

>>20429119
I don't read a ton of fantasy but this feels like an exposition dump to me. And also too many made-up proper nouns in the first paragraph like wyrm, vaurons, necromancers, etc.

If it's the beginning of your book I'd personally rather have it start in the middle of a scene or something the reader can immediately slip into, rather than a history about some land they have no reason to care about yet

>>20429103
Sometimes I question why you guys don’t just become agents yourselves. Seems like new agents are in abundance.

>>20429162
Less money in it. And a real agent needs a decent education to negotiate contracts or you need a good teacher to learn that from on the job. That’s why most agents are shit.

>>20428004
>with a baby in my chest
based xenomorph spawn carrier

Have you ever seen romance or erotica books based on flesh crafting? With borderline Cronenbergian body horror. Like Twilight but instead of becoming a hot vampire, she gets morphed into a freaky sex mutant.

>>20428004
you know theres software specifically for writing books or screenplays right?

>>20428511
>>20428486
Courier is not standard, idk what that guy is talking about. Times New Roman is cited everywhere as the go-to.

>>20429119
Yeah, it's infodumpy. Situate the action on the boy or the headhunter and don't be afraid to plunge the reader into the story.

>>20429338
There is?

>>20429331
CoC

>>20427516
Wish he'd write stuff other than "Call of X"

I'm here to prove that /wg/ doesn't write.
Fix the following sentence.

>She giggled while looking away shyly.

>>20429483
Giggling, she turned her gaze aside.

>>20429490
>2/5, you tried
Next try!

>>20429483
>As she wrestled her gaze from my turgidity, a quiet giggle escaped her lips

>>20429515
Too much. Also you have changed the core meaning and the tone of the sentence.
>1/5, thanks for participating

>>20429521
>Unmanned by my intimidating girth, he fled on feeble legs with a parting mumble over his shoulder

>>20429499
>She giggled and looked away. Despite her shy demeanor, he knew all females to be treacherous man-destroying slut-devils put on God's earth to drain his vital essence and bank account.
Something like this?

>>20429526
5/5

>>20429483
>Giggling, she looked away.
>She shied away and giggled.

>>20429529
>She shied away, giggling.
4 words in one can stomach the +ing verb

>>20429483
A giggle, eyes averted. Shy woman.

>>20427485

>>20429555

>>20429483
What did she do while shyly looking away? She giggled.

>>20429555
checked. also it's bad practice to include shot descriptions and soundtrack stuff in the action.

>>20429555
>>20429558
please empty your harddrive and all its backups

>>20429483
She shyly giggled and looked away.

I write about 500 words in a sitting and it feels very slow and difficult, but I'm only really starting, so I'm interested in hearing how your endurance has improved.

How many words do you all write in a sitting? Has it changed much from when you first started writing?

>>20429555
>>20429558
Too many swears and stuttering. I skipped everything else. Try again.

>>20429589
I don't much follow how much I've written in a sitting. I aim for 2000 words per working day. I write from 9-5 unless I reach my word count before 5. Most of the working day I don't write, I procrastinate, which I need in order to write.

>>20429594
I wish I had the luxury of being able to write 9-5. Procrastination would definitely be useful if you're writing that much in a day.

How does one sell one's book? The publisher doesn't do shit so I'm not sure what to do, especially since nobody knows me.

>>20429610
read the OP
>>20429605
I am basically gonna lose my job soon, that's why I have the time. When I worked my real job I write like 500-750 words a day in the evening.

>>20429528
Know your audience.

>>20429483
She erupted into a roaring laughter. Her eyes fixed on mine, unwavering.

>>20429616
Sorry to hear that anon. Maybe this is a change that'll improve your life in the long run.

>>20429483
She wasn't accustomed to showing her teeth, lowering her head as she started to giggle.

>>20429483
As a side note, I really like this as a mini-challenge to see how everyone else interprets it.

>>20427537
Thank you anon.

YWNBAL/GFW. Become a screenplay writer instead.

>>20429483
>She let out a small giggle, looking away with a red face

>>20429621
Is that
Is that a TATTOOO ON HER BACK?

>>20429666
This is the least shit one imo, but don't think her having a red face is clear enough to indicate she's doing doing it in a shy manner. To be fair, I have no idea how to properly fix the sentence.

Also checked

>>20429684
>This is the least shit one imo, but don't think her having a red face is clear enough to indicate she's doing doing it in a shy manner.
How about using the following verb
>to shy
>she shied away
combining both looking away and being shy

Just checked the archive... /crit/ in 2017 was way better... people were having arguments about the use of semi-colons within lists or as separating clauses. Now we just get endless shitposting.

>>20429717
How about instead of complaining about it you make a post that you want to see?

Still got no idea how to use semicolons in fiction without it looking like shit

>>20429717
I use semi-colons and m-dashes a lot. I like them. I like them for pausing. I like them to make the sentences longer.

>>20429719
I bet you came here after Drumpf. It has got considerably shittier.

>>20429737
I didn't say it hasn't. I'm saying why not do something about it? Aren't you just contributing to how shitty it is by talking about how shitty it is?

>>20428795
I wish word had a vim plugin, I feel immensely frustrated not being able to move around like I normally do.

>>20429483
All the reasonable solutions have been presented. What's your suggestion and why?

>>20429741
So you're a newfag redditor who doesn't even hide it. /wg/ as a whole was a mistake because it shills dumb "how to write" content like creative writing "professor" shills.
>I'm saying why not do something about it?
No one even bothers posting whole excerpts besides the same people who make the same mistakes. I just checked the thread and there are next to no excerpts to critique.

>>20429757
You keep saying no one does X and no one does Y. Why don't you do it? You keep avoiding this question that I've now asked three times.

>>20429757
>No one even bothers posting whole excerpts
nor you lel

>>20429761
I did. Pic related.

>>20429756
>Giggling, she shied away.
The giggle or titter word could be changed a little depending on how I want to present the laughter, as something more continuous or something that lasts for just 2 seconds. Anyways it fixes most of the problems and makes good use of a proper word instead of "looking away shyly" which is basically a weak verb with two modifies.

>>20429769
To shy away doesn't mean to literally avert your gaze from something you feel shy about. 3/5
I agree with the first of >>20429529's suggestions. The shyness is implied in the act.

>>20429767
You didn't respond to anyone who replied. I get that it's annoying when people give unhelpful one liners for critique but asking them specifically what they didn't like might get a more helpful answer.

>>20429780
You have it right, thanks for pointing it out. At least one of my own suggestions was okay then.

>>20429784
>You didn't respond to anyone who replied.
Maybe because the script was a joke, you numpty. You are all too autistic to even see it. I'm out.

>>20429780
I'm still thinking if there was a way to avoid saying
>looked away
and replacing it with some one-word verb like
>veered
>turned
but I guess that is already pushing it too far

>>20429483
She looked away while giggling.

>>20429794
>Giggling, she veered.
Immediately put me in mind of a giggling woman driving off the side of the road. Laffed.
I think in this case you reach the point in the balancing act where less complexity becomes an impediment. Your option there is to abandon that specific sentence and return to the meaning, trying to convey "embarrassed yet captivated" in other words. Here are three attempts that basically mean the same thing:
>Smiling, she protested.
>She denied it with an offended smack on his arm, sliding just a little closer on the couch.
>"That's so not true," she said, but her seriousness betrayed her amusement. "You're just trying to rile me up." She looked down, and then the smile came, a flash in the shadow.

At this point it's more style than anything.

>>20428670
I read more than I write but I have to write. Do not forget about writing because you need to cultivate your thoughts by letting yourself speak. I recommend active reading, if you dont like marking book margins them have a notepad writing comments. See prose that you love then write it down and figure out why it works. See a theme that paid off figure out how it was built up. Like the vocabulary then add it to your own. See a provocative aphorism then rephrase it or challenge it. Reading is critical to developing the writer because you are not only developing style but also your mind.

>>20429822
Good points. The amount of words and attention you put into this moment depends on how important it is to the rest of the scene. You could even make the moment gigantic two pager if its very important, pivotal moment of insight.

>>20429859
I'm pretty sure it's a line from an actual published book that's literally just a small line that doesn't mean much, for the original example.

>>20429483
Her face snapped away like South does from South giggling sound by tender sound.

>>20429868
Yes, it is — however, as its taken out of context we are free to theorise.

>>20429869
I hope this wasn't a serious attempt as its the worst one so far.

>>20429874
I should have tried more than twice. The magnetism reference makes no sense but I always feel that when Im shy like another force pulls me away. Oh well.

>>20429885
It could be anime that has fried your brains.

>>20429889
I havent watched anime in 10 years. I even quit video games. There are no other reaction images on my phone to express how devastated I am this morning.

>>20429483
She giggled and looked away.
Everyone else has no idea how to write.

>>20429483
She blushed as she turned away and giggled.
Or
Her cheeks blushed as she turned away and giggled.
Or
She turned away and, cheeks blushing, giggled.

>>20429616
>read the OP
>videos
>They last an hour each
Isn't there like a summary of all that?

>>20429946
>Giggling, she looked away
is better because the actions are simultaneous instead of
>giggle
beat
>looks away
which feels unnatural and robotic.

>>20429483
She giggled while looked away, shyly.

What are the 2020s literature trends?

I just been seeing tons of female protagonists in fantasy settings. She also uses her pussy to slay men.

>>20429946
imagine being so sure of yourself and still being ripped to shreds by >>20430023
I think this is a great test to who actually has a grip on good prose and who doesn't, it holds inside it also rhythm as was pointed out. I will keep doing the test on others some other day.

>>20430038
my WIP only has 2 male characters and only 1 male character of any significance. literally all of the rest are women, I am going to game the system and get paid

>>20430038
Being LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC, but I'm sure that will go away at some point when people don't care to read the same oppression story over and over again.

>>20429402
I've got friends in the film industry. Final Draft is what's most commonly used. MS Word with an appropriate template is also common.

>>20430023
The comma literally separates the giggling and the "looked away", which is a degree of separation that does not suggest absolute simultaneousness.

>really enjoy doing 2nd and 3rd drafts
>can't fucking do a 1st draft
Coming up with stuff is really hard, it's much easier to polish what's already there.

>>20430059
I love coming up with shit but hate the 2nd draft like you wouldn't believe
3rd is okay

>>20429483
>She, our splendid subject, flashing her bright eyes and white teeth--the latter of which she was most proud of--giggled, not quite a bellow or a chuckle, nor a laugh, or a snicker, which, of course, as you know, are all manly ways of laughing, but a giggle that started in her little throat and ended in her little nose; her head thus turned away, at the same time, that is, in shyness, and those bright eyes that so transfix were cast to the side in the same manner of shyness, as if the giggle was in part as embarrassing as that which caused her gaze to turn away in the first place.

>>20427692
>These writers misjudge their own powers and try to mimic their favorite authors. They always overreach.
This doesn’t just apply to fantasy writers. Look at the Bucksneed pseud.

>>20430055
That’s complete bullshit, and I’m pretty sure most style guides will have a come there.

>>20429483
She giggled at the sight of his cock. Her eyes shied away from his; averting her loving attention on his big large member instead.

>>20430115
Go read a real book. Don't overuse -ing verbs, and also the best sentence depends on context in the overall paragraph.
>Giggling, she looked away.
>She giggled, then looked away.
>She giggled while turning away.
>Turning away, she giggled.
>She turned away and giggled.
>She looked away and giggled.

>>20430055
Learn where to put comma
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/mechanics/gerunds_participles_and_infinitives/participles.html
As in, after a participial phrase that starts a sentence.
Wrecked and kekd

>>20430122
You don't need big and large. Choose one and put a different adjective

>>20430128
I never said it was incorrect dumbass, just that the comma causes the reader to pause between the two halves. Thus if you want to suggest that it's entirely simultaneous, you may want to word it differently.

>>20430141
It makes a pause when reading but it does not imply a pause in the story like “and” would do. Jesus, /wg/ really doesn’t write.

>>20427485
I haven't touched my first draft in so long..

>>20430160
Good now it's time to edit

>>20430156
Read a book.

I've written a 1000 words today! Time to wait another 3 months before I write another 1000.

>>20430163
Seethe and dilate. Seems you ran out of arguments. Go back to writing your anime web novel.

>>20430165
I have 4 days to write 2300 words to hit my monthly quota

>>20430172
I’ve written 30k in the past 20 days.

>>20430172
That's plenty of time. Get to it lazy cunt

>>20430194
I'm reveling in my leisurely pace, anon.

>>20430207
Are you? Or are you gonna procrastinate for 3 days and then channel the spirits of long-dead pulp writers to manifest massive crackhead energy and write it in a couple hours?

Imagine being a writer and not being able to push 2k a day.

>>20430215
Anon, I'm writing as we speak. 2300 is down to 2160. I'll be fine, I promise.

>>20430218
I wish
I can consistently do 1k/day but 2k is still out of my reach, at least consistently

>>20430218
That's a chapter a day anon... Are you telling me you can write a full length first draft novel in a month?

>>20430224
My current record stands at 4300. I drank six cups of coffee and only left the house to check the mailbox.

>>20430232
>a chapter a day
Not that anon but my chapters are around 3k.

>>20430218
I can draft out more than that in a day, but then I get stuck in editing hell. A curse, and a blessing.

>>20430232
I’m writing 2k only weekdays, and my chapters are 3,5-4k long. But yeah I could push a short novel in two months.
Current novel gonna be 120k

>>20429792
Mongo

>>20430232
It's the webnovelist grind

Fuck this hobby I give up. I rather try and have sex.

>>20430232
You can do it in three weekends if you try hard enough.

>>20430250
That's even harder to accomplish than getting tradpub

Every now and then I like to take adderall and write these pieces where I have no clue what I'm gonna be writing about and just write some crazy shit at a breakneck pace, focusing on the voice and not the meaning. The result is usually very entertaining, they tend to end up these whacked out ultra-hard-boiled pulp and sci fi short stories.
This is the first entry in a series I'm writing in this style called Maximum Price. It's emblematic of the style, and its my favorite that I've written so far. I think its very funny.

>>20430167
>She came into my room. We put on Charlotte's Web since it was a movie she had loved as a kid. We watched for about an hour, lying on top of each other and groping and getting closer to the real reason we were both here - that atavistic desire to fuck. In the movie, the spider started weaving words into her web to save the pig's life. I decided she was ready.
>"Hey. Want to hear a joke?"
>"Sure."
>"Tonight, I need to put a load in my dishwasher. Can you help me with that?"
>It took her a moment. She stared at me funny, pinching those long eyebrows together in a gesture of thought. Then, she giggled and turned away.
>"You know, you're probably the most retarded person I've ever met."
>Damn. I had to keep it going. "And you're the prettiest dishwasher I've ever met - plus, you've got that turbo-deluxe rinse cycle to keep dishes spotless."
>"Um, yeah." She eyeballed me.
>"I've got extra detergent to spare. You want some, sweetheart?"
>"Look, two hundred bucks isn't enough for this shit. Tone it down or pay extra."
>I frowned. "Oh."

>>20430128
>He respects the rules
lol

>>20430292
holy kino

>>20430055
Nah. If anything, it creates a microbeat of suspense in the reader's head, but the action is still understood as a continuous. You might feel the need to debate this and defend your alternative, but
>Giggling,
Clearly indicates that the character, while giggling, is doing something else as well.
Your case is not clear.
>She giggled and looked away.
Has the same configuration as
>He drove to her place and rang the doorbell.
which I hope you'll agree makes no sense. Likewise,
>Driving to her place, he rang the doorbell.
is a formulation that you'll find in lots of beginner fiction, where the writer hasn't learned to make actions follow one another.
>>20430125
>Don't overuse -ing verbs
Hard to do in four words.

>>20430292
That was rad as fuck.

>>20430232
This is a good rhythm to aim for as a practicing writer.

>>20430359
If you can do that every day, then sure. If you can only do 500 a day, do that. What's with this dick measuring contest when it comes to wordcount?

>>20430367
Because Stephen King writes 2k words a day and Brando-Sando does even more than that! Those two are the best writers ever!

>>20429369
then why does final draft default to courier?

>>20430292
this is great

>>20430367
It's not really about ego (or scratch that, I've read that 5000-words per hour self-pub trash), it's about pacing. Many writers wrote at a turtle's pace and were no worse for that. But for a beginner, for beginners overall, it's best to focus on writing a lot, quality be damned, than to write a little and agonize a lot. This is in part because many mistakes are best committed as soon as possible (your first full-length work being one of them), and in part because it's easier to write by shitting out a first draft and then going back to it with a pair of pincers to sift for diamonds.
If we're both writing a 50k novel and it takes me 25 days to your 100, I will have have written that book, the sequel, and edited both by the time you're done with the first draft.

>>20430405
>your first full-length work being one of them
In three months it will be a year since I completed by first novel's manuscript. I wonder if what I'm writing today is any better than what I wrote then.

>>20427485
would like some feedback on the ideas presented here

https://pastebin.com/p1xC8g7x

https://pastebin.com/uvrLYmbc

https://pastebin.com/6Ap57xA8

https://pastebin.com/P2LyAx0g

https://pastebin.com/LmyKuYLH

>>20430340
>>20430348
>>20430403
appreciate it guys, here's the first few paragraphs of the next chapter

>>20430405
if that works for you, okay
but for new writers they might have to study to learn how to block characters and lay out a setting, and to learn how to write those sentences with two and even three commas.

>>20430292
>10 foot 10 ton truckload of tentpoles
>not his wife, ZZ O'Breezy
>who was still his son and not the piece of shit Max knew he would soon be.
>the three legged tarantula
I'm fucking crying, this is hilarious. I love unfiltered stream of madness writing. Usually when I do it, it ends up completely esoteric and incoherent.

Do we post our writing on here? I've got an Ao3. Been working on refining my writing skills and shit like that and been writing a series of original stories.

>>20427485
>Traditional Publishing
>>don’t
>>you make 10-15% profit max
>>self publishing you make 70%+
>>they’ll still require you to do all the leg work of a self published author anyways

Serious question...does anyone actively read self-published novels? I never hear people recommend them, I don't see them on /lit, and I have never found any self-published novels that are interesting enough for me to recommend to my friends.

>>20429710
Changes the meaning to withdraw or pullback. Also it's usually used to describe animals afraid of people.

>>20430666
Do you ever hear anyone talk about tradpub other than the TINY minority of works that passed into popular consciousness? It's the same with selfpub. MoL, BoC, Perfect Run, Dungeon Crawler Carl, etc.

>>20430666
I read and reviewed Eggplant and the Emily Project in /wg/ threads this week, both self published. Honestly I'd rather have more readership with tradpublishing than higher percentage because I have a career already and the writer only lifestyle isnt what I want right now.

>>20430638
You may post your writing here, but why bother?

>>20430666
Hey Satan! As far as I know, Chuck Tingle. But he's a fucking meme so I don't know if your devilry is looking for that kind of stuff. Though a good many years ago, Eragon started off as a self-published story series. His family owned a small press though. So this was before the time of Amazon self-publishing. The tale of PEter Rabbit is self-published. The Martian also.

>>20430696
The real question is why not? I just like to have people read and enjoy my work. And to give me feedback so I can improve again and again and again and to get myself out there.

Anyways,

https://archiveofourown.org/works/39258720/chapters/98234856

>>20430249
Why is it that webnovelists seem to write so much more than their counterparts? What are webnovelists doing that’s different in their writing that allows such quantity? Is it overuse of prose? Exquisite exposition? Is it a fault of amateur writing without an editor overlooking their shoulder? Is it a stylistic choice? Could it be related to the readers in that some don’t desire to read sophisticated writing and demand higher quantity with ease?

>>20430728
Isekai levels of stories set in an MMORPG world.

>>20430728
9 times out of 10 it's threadbare word vomit prose that delivers action but no introspection. This is not a bad thing strictly if your interest in reading aligns with plot, action, and dialogue, things most commonly found in anime and television/film. This lets those authors crank out mountains of words because they're doing chapters of action action dialogue dialogue, which is easy to write and make sound natural, though it may not always be to literary quality standards.
Turns out when you just have to write the summary of an anime or film you make in your head, anyone can dump 500k words into a book.

>>20430746
Now I feel insecure about having all that dialogue in my book

>>20430728
It's partly the general lack of editors among smaller webnovelists, and partly a different mentality towards the work.

They're usually not trying to get published, often writing for its own sake and just constantly pushing a story forward, since they don't need to worry about getting that shit printed

>>20430746
Weirdly, I see "it feels like reading a movie" being used as a compliment in reviews, even of tradpubbed novels sometimes.

>>20430666
I read Emily Project. It's actually pretty decent to dare I say, Good. Self publish books are like indie steam game development. There's a lot of shit, but also there's a lot of fun in something not AAA polished. I think this decade, we're going to see a larger increase of self publishing, and stories that are smaller and more self contained. The 500 page tomes with 5 books in a series I think are going away. With indie titles like in video games it's all about that sweet small digestible entertainment.

>>20430728
Pulp. That answer is pulp. Your pulp writers could produce immense quantities of work due to a complete disregard for quality.

>>20430773
And yet some of the best books I've read were old pulps. They had a roughness to them, but my point stands.

>>20430757
>Weirdly, I see "it feels like reading a movie" being used as a compliment in reviews, even of tradpubbed novels sometimes.
The only book I'd give this as a compliment to is Raymond Khoury's The Last Templar. It could have been a movie and was written with nearly the same setup: a unique and plot-starting incident apart from the main story, sudden introduction of the main character, etc., ending with a kiss with the main girl on a cliffside with the mystery's solution achieved, but discarded and never revealed.
>>20430756
Lot of dialogue isn't strictly bad anon. Especially if it's good dialogue.

>>20430787
It would be very difficult to write a book that's mostly about people having conversations and changing each others' perspectives without a lot of dialogue so I goddamn better get good at it.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I CANT FUCKING FIGURE OUT WHAT TO PUT HERE

SOMETHINGS FEELS SO OFF AND I CANT WRITE IT BETTER

I'VE BEEN AT IT FOR DAYS AND I STILL CAN'T PERFECT IT ALL TO MY LIKING

FUUUUCCKKK

>>20430666
It’s a fair point, and I don’t mean this to be rude, but you WOULD be talking about them and recommending them if other people were. It’s sounds redundant, but really, most of the things you talk about and share are the things already being shared. Granted, getting things started is another more elusive matter, but saying you don’t know of any means nothing, considering there are probably hundreds of books you didn’t know existed until the instant you did and suddenly became aware that loads of people already know and love said book.

>>20430710
Because it’s mostly retards and teenagers posting smash bros fan fiction. There’s a reason I don’t do book signings at the local daycare or special needs class either

>>20430589
your style is really entertaining and really funny. keep thinking about the midget's gun burning a trail in the floor. if you ever publish this stuff please shill it here, i'll buy

>>20430587
No one? Some of these actually have paragraph breaks, anons

>>20430800
maybe taking a few days away from it and focused on something else could help, come back to it with fresh eyes

>>20430852
Actually, that does sound like good advice. Thanks anon.

>>20430666
cradle book series is very successful and indy published
https://www.amazon.com/Cradle-10-book-series/dp/B0753FP6SP

>>20429483
>She giggled and looked away shyly.

>>20430858
Big selfpub book series like this really put a smile on my face. If I write 10 books of 300k words each, someone's bound to pick'em up eventually, right?

>>20430879
not whatsoever

>>20430851
We gave you our thoughts last thread. Nothing has changed.

>>20430894
I guess you can say that but you're wrong

>>20430922
this shit reads how slam poetry sounds
mega cringe

>>20430367
It's an easy metric to flex in a subjective art form but very unhelpful because quality is king and a "day" of writing could mean anything from 1-12 hours writing depending on your situation. In my experience going much over 2k a day results in a drop in quality I just need to clean up later. The rule of thumb I've heard is that most decently experienced writers can consistently hit 500 words per hour. If you're often below that you should consider experimenting with your process.

>>20430405
I agree that beginners should be encouraged to focus on having some pure drafting sessions where they sit down and put as much on the page as possible, but it's really dumb to suggest they make "top speed" their only writing mode in my view. This grindset mentality where you focus only on volume without having some mastery over the medium then you're going to produce a mountain of shit nobody will want to read and build an entire work on a foundation of sand.

>>20430728
Because they're writing serialized works. They need to put out x chapters a week. The medium also attracts voracious readers who want Sandersonian levels of content to binge on.

>>20430686
>BoC
Is that even published?

>>20430787
>Lot of dialogue isn't strictly bad anon. Especially if it's good dialogue
Not that anon but I hope so. My first novel doesnt have much dialogue but this second one on my first draft is 90% dialogue without tags, I just made little symbols or indentions and would figure it out later. My second draft Im going to "in late out early" with more scenes so they dont always feel the same, give new perspectives etc especially first person retelling conversations with his own monologue of what was going through his mind sometimes. I do have different kinds of dialogue and situations but the truth is a lot of it is a man who gets financially dominated by a woman that will never love him. So there are plenty of scenes just building that frustration, exposing the naivete of the protag until he gains new insight: all women are fat. Promise I will explain it in the book if I publish.

>>20430858
>All those sales
>All those wonderful reviews
Fuck. And here I am wasting time on my Chinaman story. I hitched my horse on the wrong genre bros.

>>20431186
Fantasy isn't even the best-selling genre, anon. Romance and thrillers beat it out.

>>20431198
Hmmm... Time to rewrite my Chinaman story with interracial forbidden romance themes.

But fuck I hate that shit in stories.

>>20431219
Just write the story you wanna write. You can set out to write in a popular genre, but trying to hamfist those elements in is never gonna go well.

>>20431198
I'm writing fantasy/sci-fi thriller. >>20428325
I often feel like I'll eventually need to incorporate a romantic element, but I have no idea what that's going to look like.

Do you write for genre or for yourself?

>>20431286
For myself, but I really like genre

>>20431286
Entirely for myself. I write what I wish to see in writing.

>>20431286
>>20431318
>>20431320
I write for myself, and I write the sort of genre/setting that I'd be interested in reading about and exploring.

>>20431286
Genre, because that's where classics come from. Do you think Melville wrote Moby Dick for himself? That he was so enamored by whales and whaling that he had to write a story about whales? No. He thought he could make money off the popular contemporary fiction at the time.

>>20431286
I don't even know anymore.

>>20430787
>Lot of dialogue isn't strictly bad
>Especially if it's good
whoa...

>>20430292
>>20430589
Best thing I’ve seen on /lit/ in a long time

>>20431469
>>20430595
>>20430403
>>20430348
>>20430340
samefag

>>20431360
>That he was so enamored by whales and whaling that he had to write a story about whales?
Given that he was on a mf boat for a few years, I'd guess so. But maybe I'm just not educated.

>>20430292
Goddamn, I need to get some adderall.

>>20427759
>I'm trying to think of how a character that acts evilly (bullying, stealing, illegal stuff) could be brought to reason without sounding to cliché or namby-pamby and I'm having so much troubles.

My late take. As you said they aren't "evil" maybe they are good people who do "bad" things because their judgement is clouded. They think what they are doing is necessary to reach a certain goal they have. Then they realize it's not the proper way to go at it. Or they realize the goal is not what they actually want from their heart, someone else put it there. That's at least what happens to one of my stories center characters. But it isn't a thing that is over in one or two books. It takes a lot for him to turn back from a twisted path his father put him on. And it's not so much about him really kicking dogs constantly in an obviously evil way. More like he does the right thing for the wrong reasons, mostly, and doesn't care when something gets fucked up.

Chapter 3 of the Kill List is now posted.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/54622/the-kill-list
As always, thanks for any time you spend reading my stuff. Happy Friday, all.

Watching my followers and list increase day by day.
Soon enough I’ll be able to count on hundreds of sales from day 1.
So far I can count on nearly 40 sales day 1, this’ll boost my BSR BIGLY

>>20431643
Great work Anon! How many followers? And how many books?

Anyone here use kindlepreneur or publishing rocket, and what was your experience?

Would you recommend new writers to post here for critique?

>>20431286
Both. I like what i'm doing, but i also wouldn't be spending so much energy and time on it if i thought i couldn't bring nothing new to the genre.

...But is this a sick way of thinking of my work? That it could become something great if i just work at it like crazy?

Right now i'm just (foolishly?) thinking, if i get my first book good enough for a publisher then that's a good first step. Self-publishing would just be a continued shadowboxing match in the dark.

>>20431718
I would recommend you post it. Alternatively, if you want to fill the thread with questions about should you post, when should you post, that you're afraid of posting, etc., then I recommend you bore your brains out with a drill.

>>20431636
This feels like a very generic fantasy assassin book. It doesn't interest me or do anything particularly different. The dialogue reads like a video game, short choppy sentences with affirmations and bunch of threats to make everyone seem badass. Then again that's my biggest issue with fantasy, everyone is a huge murderous asshole and threatening everyone else. Every dialogue is someone threatening to kill someone.

>>20431758
Not that guy, but isn't it ideal to try and write a very generic story done well first as opposed to trying to be the next Ernest Hemingway?

>>20431762
if that's his goal, then by all means go for it. That's just my criticism. And even if you're going to write a generic story, I still would like to see something unique enough that separates it from the others.

Have this Assassin girl start off as a whore pleasuring old men for money. Or kill her targets through whoredom, poison, traps, and other nefarious means, instead of marysue super assassin with blade, stabbing, and flips.

Am I really to believe a dethroned Princess is able to destroy enemies and become a seasoned warrior that can take on fifty men in one night? Is she Xena the Warrior Princess? who at least had the background of a barbarian, and blessings from Ares, Hades, and Aphrodite.

I have a bit of a question regarding bait and switches. I want to write my first chapter from the PoV of a guy who the reader might THINK is the protag, but who dies by the end of chapter one. Is this gay?

For a brief bit of context, the chapter involves three guys running from a beastie, the beastie ends up killing two of them including the PoV, while the real protag lives and CH 2 continues from his perspective.

>>20431834
Sounds like a Prologue more than anything

>>20431718
>decide to write fiction
>open my Samsung VivoLite and log into 4channel.org
>go to a thread called "writing general"
>scroll past over 250 posts of people posting their writing and people giving feedback, past another anon asking to post his sample who got a response
>type out "Would you recommend new writers to post here for critique?"
>refresh the thread every 10 seconds until my unique question is answered by a passing strange

And somehow this happens every day

>>20431834
That's fine, decoy protagonists are a trope. The typical set-up there is to have the decoy SEEM to be like the ideal hero, and then the actual protagonist is somebody wholly unsuited for the role they're thrust into but you can spin it however you want.

>>20431827
>Have this Assassin girl start off as a whore pleasuring old men for money.
Yes, yes this is good. We all become old men in the end. Might as well embrace it while you're young.

>>20431834
Sanderson does this in chapter one of Way of Kings. Kaladin is introduced as a side character and the main focus character of the chapter is killed by the rock niggas.

>>20431881
Admittedly, the set-up is "Kaladin is this legendary cool guy and the seeming protagonist is this random conscripted fucker", so it's something of a reversal of the typical decoy set-up.

>>20428034
vim/neovim with goyo plugin

>>20427831
don't be paranoid. you have the original documents, timestamped versions, document history and notes. you can even drop your manuscript here on /lit and nobody would be able to steal it.

>>20431927
>>20431924
>weird ass formatting
>another moron trying to chalk it up as "art"
>close
Can't you fuckers just be normal for once?

>>20430067
My god! Henry James himself, returned from the dead!

>>20431953
He is actually really fucking fun to ape stylistically.

>>20427740
>new
Samples have been around for a very long time. Pirating is simply a more risky form of sampling where you give away the entire thing and hope they feel magnanimous.

>>20431939
But I'm not, though.

>>20431844
>>20431863
>>20431881
Okay, great. I've already got a good chunk of the story written out but I keep going back and redoing the fucking opener / prologue because I keep rethinking of ways to make it 'better. The story involves a lot of tribulation and a lot of character death + multi PoVs, and setting up even the story's "ordained protagonist" as someone who immediately gets mulched because of one small slip up sets the tone pretty well I think so I'm probably gonna stick with this one. Gonna go slug some absinthe and get to it, cheers lads.

>>20431758
Kill List guy here-- it's 100% generic sword and sorcery fantasy, especially at the start. It starts getting weird in how the city is more or less sentient, and using the protagonist to 'feed' it with blood/sacrifice. The main plot will pit her against her twin, who she initially assumes is dead. Twin wants the do the right thing, get people out of the city, cleanse it, etc. She wants to follow the path of revenge and etc. It's not the most original plotline, but it's a fun first go.

>>20430292
>5 on the left hand, 3 on the other: a full deck.

i fucking lost it. this was awesome

>>20432030
seek help jason

>>20432010
tfw no sexy naked alien apparition rubbing her bare ass on my dinner table

>>20431939
House of Leaves did it, so why not me?

>>20431360
He read Wreck of the Whaleship Essex and thought it was cool.

>>20431636
Felt like Chapter 3 departed a bit from the generic issue you've been facing. Starting to be really reminiscent of Dune, in a good way. Keep at it anon

>>20432056

Yeah I was doing this before knowing anything about that and, more relevantly,

About David Lynch's problem with language that kinda mirrors my own.

Or William Blake's worship of the subjective, the emotional, over logic / reason.

That's why I've spent 3 years rewriting this because the first time I wrote it was too structured, too hammered into shape, rigid... It didn't flow with the music I was writing to.

I write to music. Every chapter is half words & formatting, half music. Every scene is more or less a song.

Like https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/389293420943769600/979865006424342568/0.png

or https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/389293420943769600/979864940536025149/9.png

I mean,
I tried writing normal, but this story just didn't mesh with it.

It's a present tense, first person, fuckin literal zootopia fanfic anyway.

I'm just trying to get something done so I can look at something and say that "I've finished something, I accomplished something."


It kinda leans heavily on afro-surrealism, anyway.

I've already heard it a million times that this shit is dumb.

Just got K-anon and Woolston's short stories in the mail, will let you know in next thread or so what I think of them this weekend.

where can I read some good short stories? want to try reading some after work to help unwind, but also not get too invested in something long.

>>20432216
Classics? Best bet is to pirate a collection. The Snows of the Kilimanjaro, The Short Happy Life of Francis MacComber, any and all of Fitzgerald's stuff. Alice Munro is good, if you want something a but more contemporary.
If you want genre, I know Tor.com has monthly lists of free short stories published the previous month in spec fic magazines.

>>20432199
You already know. Both are shit

>>20432116
Thank you! Yea, I'm excited to get into the weird parts of the story. I worried it might be too much too soon

When you publish on Amazon, do sales come from the effectiveness of your cover and blurb or do you have the promote on other sites as well to get any traction? Any anecdotes would be helpful

>>20432318
it's like 80% manual advertising and playing fuck fuck games with the algo
amazon also bumps you down in searches on purpose if you don't pay into their inhouse advertising service

>>20432257
Have hope they'll be good. Don't be a pessimist you big dummy

>>20432216
Donald Barthelme wrote a lot of short stuff.

>>20432318
a professional looking cover and blurb helps.
having a good hook and a good first page helps too.
a social media presence helps.
getting people to review your book helps.

>>20432318
Are blurbs a meme? RR are just straight to the point of explicitly telling the audience what to expect. It's so strange. There's nothing hidden and just full "this is how it's going to be and this isn't how it's going to be and also I hope you enjoy it." Am I just lost on the olden ways in which you try to make your story seem the best thing since bread?

>>20432580
A lot of RR blurbs seem to be trying to sell the story more so than just a straightforward synopsis.

>>20432543
oh yeah, write a good book
no spelling or grammar errors
some kind of structure that keeps readers interested up until the climax
etc

>>20432580
>Am I just lost on the olden ways in which you try to make your story seem the best thing since bread?
Making "good blurbs" is still an art. It's just that RoyalRoad doesn't cater to that kind of audience. They read so much they want to be filtered quickly.

>>20432580
If you don't explicitly tell them what to expect on RR, readers will get angry it's not exactly what they want and review bomb your story.

>>20432661
I never did this and didn't get anyone complaining, and what few high-ranked stories I've read the synopses for didn't do it either.

>>20432257
Post some of your own writing, so that we can see what you don't think is shit.

how the FUCK do you use ellipses? these little bastards have differing opinion on every site i try to learn from... ...AHHHHH!...

>>20432737
however the fuck you want to
you'll know you've overdone it when people meme you

>>20431636
>https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/54622/the-kill-list

First three chapters get a 7/10 from me. Interested, want to see where it goes.

>>20432661
It's something that people who are bad at / new to writing do a lot. I think a good way to get a sense if someone is a beginner or not is by their blurb, this goes doubly so for selfpubbers / RR / scribblehub peeps. I'm the guy who asked about a bait and switch fake protag and I am sweating my ass off to write a convincing blurb that gets tossed on its head by the end of chapter 1. Wonder if the nigRRs are gonna get pissed or amused.

>>20432854
>>20432854
>>20432854
baked the bread

>>20432846
It's better to focus on the setting and an oblique reference to the protagonist in that case, if you're doing a decoy protagonist bit. Like mention how it's one person's story, but don't name them, etc.

Here's a pretty pussy ass confession, I'm scared to post any of my work here in case somehow it's memorable enough to one person that they see it later and... ok. now that I'm typing this out, that's a retarded fear, who the fuck cares. If I post something, will any of ya read it?

Fuck.
My character posed a riddle that I can't answer.
Maybe I should walk away and see if I can figure it out later?

>>20427485
How profitable is smut? Is there a market for it? Where would I find paying customers?