/lit/ - Literature

No one writes in /wg/.

No one but bots read Gardner’s books.

>>20454085
Does it matter if you make more profit from self publishing when no one will read your work?

>>20454090
I do. But nobody ever wants to read my stuff because I'm not as good as Gardner

Just gonna link this here so I don't have to retype all my shit. >>20454013

“I must not shitpost. Shitposting is the mind-killer. F.Gardner is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will ignore all shitposts. I will permit them to pass over me and through me. And when they have gone past I will turn the inner eye to see a pure thread. Where the shitposting has gone there will be nothing. Only critiques and help will remain.”

Oh boy. This should be good. Commence the Gardnerposting as usual, gentlemen.

Does anyone else experience short periods of being unable to write, followed by a general improvement in skill? This has happened to me twice, where I'll spend days thinking I've lost my mojo and I'll never do anything decent ever again, only to come out of it feeling way better about what I can do. I'm in the middle of the slump right now and it's frustrating, but I'm confident I'll learn from it again.

>>20454135
I happen to have this saved from an MS Paint thread.

>>20454153
I call that "resting".
It's necessary every once in a while.

Previous thread >>20448655
Lazy-ass OP

>>20454108
>Are exposition dump chapters innately bad
No. They're awful at the beginning because the reader won't give two fucks but later on when it allows for character/world reveals it can be fine. Obviously *something* should happen during the chapter while he's waxing philosophical, maybe someone falls overboard and he has to rescue them, who knows.
>I have a feeling readers might bitch about Chekhov's gun if I just give one line of set up early on and it doesn't materialize into something until later down the line
If it's a single line they likely won't even remember.

>>20454085
what time of night or day do you fellas like to write?

>>20454090
Why are writers so up their own ass?
>wow you don't write high class literature that whacks off your own ego? are you even a real writer?
What's wrong with being a writer for entertainment instead of some stupid "deep" and "philosophical" theme of humanity? Even in LitRPGs there is a class of writing of its own that allows some to stand above others, so why do these "writers" act like they're so high and mighty as if they could too write those LitRPGs with the same exact kind of skill, but deem it not worthy of their time? There's a certain art and craft in such high speed action, plot-focused and expansive world that other genres of writing allow and yet, many writers look down upon these writers as if they are of trash. As if there aren't many different forefronts to be discovered and improved upon. You don't see mathematicians tearing down others in their research, what reason would a mathematician focused on analytic geometry look down upon one mathematician focused on number theory.

Hows my cover?

>>20454135
All the chatting about Gardner has been pretty endearing. F Gardner just seems like such a lovable retard. It brings a certain charm to these threads.

How's my cover?

>>20454108
>>20454013
>Are exposition dump chapters innately bad even if I do all I can to make them seam as seamless as possible?
Sort of yes. But they're not always fatally bad. When it's just a paragraph or two wedged in with other stuff, no one will complain. Chop it up and mix it in.

It would be stronger to have a guy stand on deck and look at water for a brief time and remember a few pertinent facts. And then a second character shows up to talk about related topics. Then the guy retells one of his dad's anecdotes. Then he goes back to thinking private thoughts. Even there is one main topic to that whole thing, it will feel less dumpy.

Conversation also allows giving different or opposing perspectives on the thing instead of just 'here it is." And it can do characterization at the same time. One guy could be hopeful and the other is bitter or whatever.

>>20454090
No one *reads, you dumb newfags need to learn your memes
>>20454193
Night works best for me because I work during the day.
>>20454219
>>20454235
Needs more text on the back. Large, blocky text that still only partially fills in the space to me shouts amateur book. It also should be justified across the back cover. Author blurb, reviews, something to pad the space.

>>20454235
>deletes image to fix minor grammatical error and leaves in "toegether" on the cover
terrific bait

>>20454184

This literally doesn't even work as a meme. You have to change the punchline to something actually relevant to negatives about objective morality.

One extremely easy way to change this on the same topic would be, say,

Panel 1: "Morality is objective."

Panel 2: "I don't want to think about the limits of human knowledge, and will pretend my social group's dogmas are objectively right. I will have no way to reject the morality of my group if I feel that their judgements are unjust, so I will be an unthinking sheep.'

This is objectively better content than your meme.

Thinking about getting back into writing after a year off, I've got a good idea for a story which will hopefully become my third published. Wish me luck fellas.

>>20454235
do not mention direct names that change the setting of the book in the back blurb.
The stock fire image overlay is throwing me off, go on fiverr and pay for a real cover. You’re nor seriously willing to spend hundreds of hours writing a book but nor $200 on a cover, cmon.
Also play with the font color. I suggest opposite colors from your main cover colors, like yellow.

>>20454260
>ambiguous situations and making tough choices scare me so I will simply adopt a set of previously existing social dogmas so that I can offload the burden of decision making to the collective, avoid responsibility for my actions, and never have to adopt or defend any truly controversial opinions or thoughts

>>20454292
Is this what Aristotle was going on about "rule followers"?

>>20454235
Is the text supposed to be aliased? I would make the blue image a bit darker, maybe increase the contrast or something like that.

>>20454256
>>20454243
How about this one?

>>20454307
reads like YA written by a YA

>>20454307
it doesn't help that the text is white and some of the background has white spots. If the background was slightly grayer that would solve it but it would loose the punchiness

>>20454281
Can't I at least try?
>>20454316
it is a YA written by a YA for YA.

How about this one?

I spend way too much time re-writing one or two paragraphs instead of writing new lines.

>>20454307
Take off the two quotes on the back. ONLY MENTION QUOTES FROM READERS BY REAL NAME BASIS not their titles! That is shady and no one believes it!
Also, follow these changes.>>20454281

>>20454348
This is YA? Your book cover does not imply YA. All a book cover should do is convey the genre to the reader. If anything I thought this was some magic fantasy book, or a diary by an angry mother.
Here is an example of a YA cover.
Clearly young people must be displayed on the cover, young themes, young clothes, YOUNG

>>20454365
I'm just putting it in there. I have no real quotes right now. It'll change into real quotes when my friends say something.

>>20454349
I have the same problem, brother. I find the problem is either being able to see my previous paragraphs as I write, or being able to backspace easily. I usually hide my previous paragraphs now.

>>20454378
yea... YA fantasy?

The problem is I need to sit down with many of you for a few hours and tell you everything wrong about your approach. It’s not bad, there’s just nor enough of me to go around to get you guys in good standing to be published.

I HATE writing dialogue
its just not visually pleasing having all these " " and all these

intended
things

>>20454184
>n-no u
I hope you try harder with your writing than you do with your memes

>>20454396
Then just don’t have it. You are the writer. Make your own rules.

Where should anon start if he needs to understand what kinds of stories are market friendly?

>>20454392
Good thing I have a giant printer and a giant marketplace, and giant servers, and get to have exclusive deals from 6 billion people.

>>20454349
>>20454381
Some of us are natural born editors struggling to be writers.

>>20454412
r/eroticawriters

>>20454431
I'm doing the same thing right now, but I also think it's for the best. If nothing else, I've learned quite a bit and grown as a writer and a creative by producing 70 pages. I know I have some really solid ideas, but I also know that being hypercritical of myself is key.

>>20454170
Is that what resting is? It doesn't feel like I even have a choice in the matter, it's like my brain just refuses to write something good and it's forcing me to take a sabbatical

>>20454444
It makes for a really slow writing process, but I do agree that it can enhance your skill-set as a writer. Attention to quality-control and scrutinising past-lines with a close-eye can only improve your writing as you go.

>>20454085
Been struggling to actually write recently. But I have learned how to not overuse commas.

As an example, I used to write like this, using commas excessively and just, in general, being pretty atrocious. One takes the victories one gets.

>>20454460
Sounds like ADHD. Executive Dysfunction.

Name for a wizard's Catman butler in the model of Jeeves?

Purr'cy too on the nose?

>>20454479
I think there's a time and place to use a lot of (grammatically correct) commas. Something about a lot of pauses could create a stuttered, anxious, or maybe confused tone.

No one writes in /wg/.

>>20454575
You just did (:

>>20454575
F Gardner has written a ton of books and he’s from /wg/

>>20454307
>>20454318
An option you have to fix this issue, if you see it as one, is to add a slight transparent rectangle as a background text box around the back. That way the background bleeds through slightly but the text is supported by the text box color.

>>20454575
Check out my new LitRPG!
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/54832/leave-bad-enough-alone
The bad guys are the sort of auteurs that end up on MST3K.

>>20454575
No one *reads

>>20454307
If you want to make the text stand out, you need to create a highlight around it. Here's the steps for GIMP:

1) Duplicate the text layer.
2) Hide the new text layer temporarily. (Click the eye next to it in the layer list.)
3) Select "Discard text information" on the original text layer.
4) Select "Layer to image size" on the same layer.
5) Choose Select -> By Color, then click somewhere in your text.
6) Choose Select -> Grow, then type in the size of the highlight.
7) Choose your background color, select the pencil, make the tip pretty big, then scribble all over your text until the selection is filled in.
8) Unhide the duplicated text layer.

Now your text stands out!

9) Choose Image -> Flatten Image.
10) Export as PNG.
11) In your book cover project, choose File -> Open As Layers, import the PNG, and place it.

>>20454575
Tell that to the meme man.

Do any of you have any "warm-ups" you like to do as you sit down to write? To make an analogy, I assume a musician will take some time to run through some scales or easy songs before starting serious practice of a new piece etc.

Back to writing, I often feel like it's tough to immediately jump back into my manuscript, so I'm looking for ideas to ease into a session. I'm also just interested to see if this is a common sentiment or not.

>>20454695
I reread the last bit I wrote, fixing typos and making little wording changes and whatnot.
That usually gets me ready to continue writing it.

I'm finally ready to start uploading my story to one of the self-publish sites but I'm not sure which one. I was thinking Royal Road, but how are ScribbleHub and Wattpad? Should I just upload to all three? Especially if I think I might be able to get donations for it?

>>20454739
You can submit it to all 3, but know that RoyalRoad will make you authenticate that the other versions of it online are yours, which will delay your story becoming public.
I've only posted one novel online on all 3 sites, and maybe it's a one-off event, but I've got almost 20 times more chapter-views on RoyalRoad than on either ScribbleHub or WattPad. Your experience may differ.

>look at chinaman story
>they make it big and land a huge sale during the Hen Fever craze of the 1800's
>have no idea how to write this chapter
>no conflict
>only thing i can think of is a bunch of irishmen get jealous of his success
>no idea how to set it up
What do?

>>20454802
Not enough supply for the demand.

>>20454802
You kill the mayor.

>>20454802
I dunno...have a bunch of Irishmen seething at him during the big hen sale?
Or trying to steal his merchandise?
When confronted, they say stealing from a damn Chinaman doesn't count?

Then you can have a plot development where insects are ruining the Irishpeople's potato crop?
And the solution is to let chickens loose to eat the bugs and fertilize the soil with their poop?

I'm just spitballing here.

What have you written recently /wg/?
What genre was it?
How long did you spend writing?
What were you doing before you started writing it?

>>20454802
>irishmen get jealous of his success
Do you need cartoon racism and direct conflict at every turn? Make somebody sick, experience a change in relationships, or just something unexpected and enchanting happen.

>>20454826
>Do you need cartoon racism and direct conflict at every turn?
Yes. The entire story is rooted in racism.
>Make somebody sick,
Done.
>experience a change in relationships,
Just did that in the previous chapter. Rich snooty tooty girl tries to seduce one of the characters. No it will not be the insectoid.
>or just something unexpected and enchanting happen.
They just went to a circus and watched PT Barnum. Then reflect how everyone in the crowd called them freaks and outcasts from society.

>>20454858
>No it will not be the insectoid.
are you trying to get traditionally published or not. Interracial relationships are the big thing right now.

>>20454650
>7) Choose your background color, select the pencil, make the tip pretty big, then scribble all over your text until the selection is filled in.
Or you could not do that and instead just select Edit > Fill Background Color and do it automatically. I usually apply a 1.5 gaussian blur as well, to soften the edge of the background color.

>>20454650
I never heard of GIMP. Thank you for the free program. I don't think I'll ever pay someone to make a cover for me. I just can't justify spending $300 dollars for a book that'll only make me $100. I rather hire a very good editor. Because I can always be very minimalist and go with a catch-22 style cover.

>>20454887
Obviously, it can be improved with more effort.
I was just trying to give a basic tutorial.
>>20454903
A very worthy GIMP add-on to get immediately is G'Mic.
It has a lot of powerful filters, including the best inpainting algorithms (i.e. object removal) I've seen.

>>20454348
Man, what are you doing? I don't know if you know how to write, but you sure as hell have no business doing graphic design. This is beyond terrible.,

A quick poem I wrote.

>>20454863
Hey, there you go!
Because...let's face it, Chi-anon...nothing is happening in your story.
Have some rich spinster eye him from afar, come up with some excuse to get him in her home (e.g. extra labor for money), then she starts abusing him sexually.
Maybe she makes him perform oral sex on her, and he's grossed out by the dirty snatch.
The next time she abuses him, he offers to start with an erotic bath, which she accepts; his real goal is to wash that nasty pussy of hers.
She keeps abusing him, but she thinks they're growing into a real relationship.
At the end, when he's about to leave town, he robs the shit out of her first.
She confronts him as he sits in the carriage that's about to take him away from all this, and the others realize she just admitted to sleeping with a Chinaman.
As the crowd insults and catcalls her, she breaks down, and he gets away.
And thus he begins the California trend of sleeping your way to success...as traveled by our Vice President.

Before you dismiss this out of hand...this sort of soft-core porn is how Lawrence Block first made money as a writer...and now he's been named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.

>>20454348

You should really try tweaking the font and text more, it's not actually too distasteful but you can tell its a self published deal from the text alone

>>20454919
Not that anon, but screw you...we writers need covers for our books, and what he has there is perfectly acceptable, especially for something that sounds like teen-lit.

A piece I started working on recently

1/4

>>20454938

2/4

Can MPB be sufficient basis for tragedy?
It's not a fucking joke.

>>20454944
Sure, if you want to write for old people.

>>20454950
What about younger men with early onset baldness? I think it could really resonate with men.

>>20454959
I can guarantee you people would think you were trying to be funny.

>>20454961
I know, and I hate that, I want it to be taken seriously but it's always used as a joke so I'm afraid it will never be able to be used in a serious context.

>>20454944
Necessary but perhaps not sufficient
>>20454938
You messed up the ATM part. The redundant part is machine machine, not the the.

>>20454977
Nevermind i misread

>>20454941

3/4

>>20454981

4/4

>>20454919
sorry? I'm just trying to best I can with zero training.

>>20454944
At what age is it a tragedy do you think? Is age a part of it?

Is it wise to start a new work when you're not even close to finished with your current one? I feel stuck in a deadlock with what I'm working on now, and I'm seriously considering either rewriting it from scratch or putting it on hold for something else entirely.

>TFW rejected for publication again

>All this talk of Gardner

I’m going to post this guy’s video. This is what convinced me to give Gardner’s series a shot. Watch this and tell me this doesn’t sound like a good story.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gqmbpSJ-1iE [Embed]

>>20455019
>[Embed] [Embed]
You copy pasting replies now?

>>20455019
This is writing general, not reading general. Unless you are Gardner I strongly suggest you go make your own thread.

>>20455021

>>20455021
I accidentally posted that in the old thread. So I just copy and pasted once I realized I still had a dead thread open. Thankfully it seemed you guys were still talking about Gardber so I posted it in the new one

>>20455022
Um ok. I only did because it seemed people were discussing him.

>>20454937
>>20454994
You see those red lines I added? That's the dimensions your spine will need to be in order for the spine text to not be on the back cover. So, either your book is 800+ pages and has off-center spine text, or your book is going to have a wider front cover than back cover.

>>20455022
Call of the Crocodile is mentioned in the /wg/ description. Seems fair to me. Gardner’s the biggest success from /wg/ so it’s not a big deal if he’s mentioned.

How does it feel knowing this Asian 20 year old has a NY times best seller by retelling Romeo and Juliet with MONSTERS?

>>20455051
I used that exact amazon template.

>>20455053
After you or one of your close friends put it there.

This is a writing general, for the people who write to post about their own stories. Unless there is something specific you would like to share about Gardner's story that helps authors write their own stories better, then please stop advertising his book.

>>20455057
I don't care. My end goal is to sell 5 books a day. NYT is irrelevant to me.

>>20454802
the woman should fall madly in love with a fancy rooster.
>The phenomenon is attributed to the Greek medical writer Galen, who is supposed to have written that "Every animal is sad after coitus except the human female and the rooster."[2]

>>20455069
One of my close friends? What are you talking about?

>>20455076
You people really just love falseflagging, huh? You must get off on it like a fucked up tranny gets off on stuffing his tiny penis into a pair of panties. Not to say that you aren't potentially a fucked up tranny.

>>20455063
Then, sir, you are retarded.

>>20455084
then so i am.

>>20455084
>anon asks for an opinion on the cover
>right now it's on a cover draft
>should fix the font, background, possibly the front
>actually trying to make the cover in the first go
>actually seething at an attempt at a cover
>not knowing about resizing
>thinking it's going ot be perfect the first way through
Here's a protip Gardner, people actually write first drafts.

>>20455057
They totally lifted that title from Westworld lol

>>20455019
Woah. This is the plot of one of F Gardner’s books? I’ve been seriously mislead. This sounds amazing.

I’m tidying up a novel I started writing in the hospital. I’ve never written a story before or anything like that. I would appreciate some criticism and impressions of my intro. It’s a two minute read.
https://pastebin.com/4ygCxE9g

>>20454928
Not bad until the end, then it was like a 2-year-old trying to remember which bedtime story it wanted to hear.

>>20454090
>No one writes in /wg/
>>20454095
>but bots

>>20455075
I'm not madeline Engles. i can't convincingly write about a woman wanting bestality and win a literary award

>>20454085
Why does is the OP changing every thread stop rewriting the links and keep it consistent.

Chinaman Anon here. Speaking of book covers. Are old photographs good or bad for covers?

I found this picture from the 1800's of literally a chinaman and a white honky sitting together peddling produce. Which is a theme in my story.

>>20455156
these both look like Chinamen. I like photographs as book covers personally. I do instantly assume it’s going to be a dour affair though. Maybe add some character to it.

>>20455156
Both of those men are Asian.

>>20455156
Out of pure curiosity, which one did you think was white?

>>20455167
>>20455166
are they? I'm blind as a bat. back to digging around. I'm thinking of doing a collage of old 1800 photographs of different people to represent "their story."

>>20454153
It feels vice versa for me, honestly. Probably because I have shit ideas on how to structure, be it poetry or a narritive I want to create.
Any tips for this?

>>20455172
mustache man.

>>20455114

Thanks, that's a great observation

>>20455136
As a young girl, she witnessed her father strike her mother and call her a 'cock loving slut,' disturbing what had heretofore been a placid childhood. After that shocking incident she went to the hen house to search out the cock her mother loved and suffered for. And was it really so bad? To love a cock? They were so proud and colorful. Not coarse and violent like her father.
It wasn't until years later that she discovered the word also referred to human phallus. Her first sight of the fleshy worm between a man's leg utterly revolted her. It was grotesque compared with the bright feathers and red cockade of a rooster. It didn't deserve the name. Unbeknownst to her, she began to transfer her budding desires to a more worthy object of her romantic sentiments and womanly affections. A poisonous idea had taken root.

>>20455198
Jeez anon. That excerpt is a literary masterpiece. You're published traditionally aren't you?

>>20455198
show the tree

After a year and a half of writing regularly, my average is 583 words per day. I have two novel manuscripts I'm working on right now, one at 56k words and another at 28k words. At this rate, focusing on only one at a time I'll finish the first one in August (the month I also finished my first ever novel manuscript last year) and the second one will be wrapped up in December.
I could, theoretically, finish two manuscripts this year. That's without proper editing or second drafts though, but I could pull it off. The math shows this clearly.
Pic unrelated, it's me cutting tuna at Okinawa in 1995

>>20454928
Interesting wording. Are you trying to adheer to grammatical customs or just freeballing?

>>20455255

1) I've been reading a lot of old books and poems, 2) I think it reads smoother this way despite being a bit goofy, obviously archaic... 3) yep, pretty much freeballing, but it's not pure wordplay by any means. I started writing more structured, quite long (90-200 line) poems not long ago which were almost pure wordplay and structure-experiments but the poems themselves were meaningless.

>>20455217
Nope. Just a dumb asshole putting off work.

Went from 1/10 submissions being accepted to 1/20 submissions being accepted... Does it mean... that I should quit the sauce?

>>20454481
Nah, I've dealt with that struggle and this feels different. I can write, it's just all crap that doesn't "work". It persists like this for several days until I see the light again.

>>20455093
No, oh Champion of the Mediocre and Talentless, this is not acceptable. If you can't even get something as basic as formating the image to properly align the elements right, then you're just stupid and incompetent. That isn't "it's a first draft" that's "I don't have any fucking clue what I'm doing."

Design is hard. Choosing the right image, the right font, the right amount of text. But formating? From a template? That is easy.

Stop defending lazy, incompetent idiots. They don't need smoke blown up their ass, they need someone to tell them they aren't even putting in the minimal effort to be respect for trying. That guy's mistake are beyond rookie mistakes. Those are the kind of mistakes that are born of pig-headed stupidity and lifetime of gross incompetence, of being a dumb, arrogant asshole who thinks he knows everything and can't even be fucking bothered to read a WikiHow article before getting started.

Here's a protip, you mouth-breathing faggot: You're defending this crap because you're the same sort of lazy, arrogant, incomptent and talentless piece of shit as that other guy, and rather than put in the effort to do things well, you try to guilt people into giving you a participation trophy.

No participation trophies, shitstain. If you need them, then fucking kill yourself. Because you're fucking useless and pathetic and will never contribute anything of value to the world.

>>20454537
Percy would be fine.

>>20455343
you’re so mentally stable man

>>20455156
Photos can work as covers, but that's a bad photo to use -- unless you want to do a big title bar. The problem is there isn't enough headroom over the subjects to fit a title.

You can do a big title bar and frame the picture, but that can give a book a textbook/nonfiction vibe.

>>20455343
I'd actually like to read a excerpt from any writing you've done.

>>20454650
Thanks for this post. Not him but I was also in the process of creating my book cover.

>>20455389
>the following is from the first draft of the novel I'm currently working on, Slaves Girls On A Death Moon, and was written in the last 3 days. I wanted to write some schlock sci-fi based off combing the premise from "Slave Girls Beyond Infinity" with dinosaurs, space pirates, Burrough's Lost World malarky, sword & planet, the usual crap sci-fi inspirations.

It took several minutes for the tractor beam to draw them entirely within the ship's bay. The gravity shifted again as they settled into the bay. After another long minute there was a loud knock on the pod's hatch.

“Should we open it?” Mia asked.

“They can cut it open if they have to,” Scotty said. “And it's just going to make them angrier.”

“Open it,” Gwen said.

Mia shrugged, climbing over to the hatch and punching in the open command. The air pressure inside the pod was greater than the ship and the hatch opened with loud whoosh.

Mia climbed out first and one look at their captors confirmed they were pirates. All of them were dirty, unwashed and unkempt. All wore tattered, black outfits covered in make-shift armor plating and carried kludged laser blasters and chemical firearms.

The pirate closest to the hatch wore a ragged Trade Authority captain's cap and jacket. He was tall, heavyset, and ugly. Bald and brutish with pockmarked skin, he exuded a sense of menace and barely contained rage. A bulky cybernetic prosthetic covered the left side of his face but did nothing to conceal the way he leered as he looked Mia over.

“Eh, what's your name, pretty pretty?” he asked, licking his lips.

“Technician Second Class Mia Paterno, Terran Trade Authority,” answered. It was all she was required to tell the enemy.

“And what 'ave you got to say to your rescuerers there, pretty pretty?”

She thought about quoting him the paragraph on a crew's duty to castaways from the space code, but assumed he didn't care much about the law as the Terran Trade Authority defined it.

“Thank you for the courtesy, Captain...?”

“Wardy Parkins,” the captain bellowed and his crew cheered. With a wave of his hand he indicated the ship around them. “And this is the Drayton's Revenge.”

Mia tried to hide her delight. That name could only mean one thing. These men, or at least their captain, were veterans of the Scorn Wars and TTA deserters. Vance Drayton had been an admiral in the TTA during the war, called the hero of New Germany. When Terra accepted the Orion negiotiated peace settlement, Drayton had been one of the most prominent critics of the Orions. His objections had turned to threats of mutiny and he'd been driven from service. Thousands of veterans, angry at what they saw as Terra bowing to alien interlopers, had deserted and many had turned to piracy.

[cont]

>>20455432
If they had to be captured by pirates, better a former military crew hopped up on anti-Terran outrage than some of the more violent and depraved marauders out there. These were reasonable, disciplined men they could negiotiate with.

The captain made appreciative noises as Sam and Gwen climbed out of the pod, then scowled as Wade emerged followed by Scotty, and Mia remembered Wade's prediction, hoping he was wrong. Finally Zarah emerged, looking angry and hellbent on complaining to someone. She took one look at Captain Parkins and decided he was the man to take those complaints to.

“Are you in charge here,” she demanded, walking up to the burly captain, who towered over her, without an ounce of fear. Mia had to admit she had chutzpah. “I demand to speak to whoever is in charge here.”

Parkins chuckled, apparently amused. “I'm the captain 'ere.”

“Captain, my name is Zarah Albracht. I am a senior projects manager with Vanlith-Jaenke Amalgamated Engineering. Have you heard of us?”

Parkins gave his crew an amused look. “Can't say that I 'ave, love.”

“Well, you should know that Vanlith-Jaenke has an established ransom program. You will be compesated for my safe return to a registered space port. But captain,” she said, raising her finger and jabbing it in Parkins's face. “I want you to hear me when I say this. That ransom is dependent on your treatment of mysef and the survivors of the Mercatur's crew. I won't tolerate any abuse by you or your crew. Are we clear on that?”

Mia blinked. She wasn't at all surprised the suit had traded on the influence and power of the mega-corporation she worked for, but she hadn't expected her to use that influence and power in an attempt to protect the rest of them. She had to give the woman credit. Then she saw Parkins smile vanish as he looked down at Zarah with hard eyes and Mia's pulse quickened with fear.

“Just one problem, Ms. Albrach,” Parkins growled.

“What's that?” she sneered, confident she had complete control of a situation she didn't even understand.

In a flash he drew his pistol, shoving it under her chin. Zarah went white with fear as she realized too late that she had overplayed a worthless hand.

“I don't give a shit about your money,” he sneered as he pulled the trigger.

Zarah's head exploded in a fountain of red gore, splattering all them with bloody chunks of skull and brain. She wobbled for a second, an empty space where her head had been, then tumbled backwards, falling at their feet. Sam finally lost and began screaming maniacally, falling to the ground and scrambling away from Zarah's twitching corpse. Scotty turned green, clearly struggling not to throw up, while Gwen turned white and froze in shock, her mouthing opening and closing like a fish gasping for breath. Only Wade seemed to maintain his composure, glaring at Parkins with murderous fury. Mia didn't know what to say or do. She only knew that these were not reasonable men and they could not be negiotiated with.

>>20455391
i like this, the repetition and the rhythm of your sentences

>>20455468
Is that your poem? It's a good poem. Gave me mad feels.

>>20455468

Thank you anon, it's a strange little tidbit but I like it and haven't gotten much feedback.

Your poem is quite nice but a bit sentimental. I like the lines that are more dreamy and present. Here's a quick color coded review - green = good, red = bad, yellow = mid, etc.

>>20455488
>>20455487
thank you i really appreciate that

>>20455488
Oh, no. "Waiting for the same bus I took in high school" is the best line and the sentiment is the best part.

>>20455505

I take back the meditation part being weak btw, it just needs a little work but I love how it's phrased. You've got chops for sure, but again the sentimental stuff doesn't work for me so much because there's no sense of wistfulness or say, passing of time or decay or change. When you're speaking in present tense it's emotional, from the heart. "I must admit I love to walk" is, for some reason, an awesome line, and I don't even want to scrutinize why I love it.

Have you tried experimenting with more structured verse? What's your pedigree with poetry (roughly)?

A short, unfinished piece I wrote pretty much automatically waking up one day not long ago. I'm not sure what to make of it, or what works and what doesnt.

1/3

>>20455536

>>20455537

3/3

Would appreciate some thoughts on this, I quite like the premise and find it pretty funny and bizarre but not sure what direction I should take it in.

>>20455533
thanks, yeah I agree the meditation part is a little hokey. Ill experiment more with the present parts.

my process lately is writing in first person in paragraph form, then i turn it third person, then i turn it back first person into poetry, i want to create really immediate resonate images that are sort of in laymens terms

i self published a poetry book but ive never been published anywhere so im trying to take things more seriously lately,

A silly short piece I wrote about Elon Musk.

>>20455558

Do you have a burner email or anything? Would like to chat/read more

>>20455566
for sure, heyyy.u.up@gmail.com

>>20454153
Progression isn't linear.

/lit/ is so fucking comfy anon bros, I'm so glad it exists. Finding a non-pozzed group in real life to discuss writing and reading is borderline impossible - I live in a major city and every one I've looked into is obsessed with the latest drivel to come out about critical race theory and nothing else. /lit/ on the other hand is about as close I think as you can get to the atmosphere of a late 19th Century Viennese Coffee House. Yes there are a fair amount of retards, but there's actually honest, insightful, and deep discussions here everyday on philosophy, religious thought, and great literature, along with a good amount of dark humour. I don't have anything else to say, I just wanted to thank all of you glorious spergs for continuing to shitpost and helping keep spirits up whilst I make my way through my novel.

>>20454153
Improvement comes in fits and starts. You climb a cliff and walk across a plateau towards another cliff. Your taste and skill leapfrog. When you feel like your skill hasn't improved, that's the point at which your taste has improved.

The relationship between skill and taste are probably offset cliff/plateau graphs. Your taste improves, then plateaus. As your skill rises to meet your new level of taste, your taste is plateaued. Then, once your skill rises to meet your taste, your skill plateaus and your taste begins scaling the cliff. This is why reading is so important for a writer. You're missing a major developmental mechanism if you don't both read and write.

>>20454349
My method is to write the most god-awful first draft I can muster, just throwing words at the page. The tinkering comes in the next phase.

>>20455411
>>20454984
>>20454981
>>20454941
>>20454938
>>20455491
>>20455493
>>20455502
>>20455547
>>20455561

Very bizarre

>>>/mu/110848741

>>20455600
thanks anon :)

>>20455653
Very well.

Rewriting an old piece

>>20455634

Yes,

Sacred and Terrible Air, the first installment in the would-be Disco Elysium universe, is obscure why: because it exists in Estonian only. And nobody understands that language except for Estonians.

A translation to English was promised in late 2020 but it's 2022 now and it's nowhere to be found.

Overcome with impatience, I seeked out an unofficial, fanmade translation of the first few chapters. Even through this sloppy, amateurish translation, the kino of the original can be seen shining through the cracks.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RJAWEOwYMhaxaZi3sdlSF_D8-rnLqRlg/view

>>20455653
Why in metal?

>>20455679
>Surprising as it may sound, Robert Kurvitz intended to write several novels in a row. As the 2013 year edition cover reveals, 'Sacred and Terrible Air' is a preface to the series that, fortunately for the roleplaying game (RPG) 'Disco Elysium' fans, didn't materialize. So instead of writing in an RPG manner, the author decided to create one.

>Here is a synopsis for those waiting for the English version of the book (the translation is mine and may be subject to changes upon the official release.).

>On the day before the last of the summer break, four daughters of the education minister Ann-Margret Lund disappear on a public beach. A new ship with one thousand five hundred passengers vanishes on its first trip. Three classmates of the missing girls do not stop their search even after twenty years. The world comes to its end, but the hope to find Lund children is still alive.

>The book starts slow, with two alternating realities, one of the crime itself, the girls' disappearance, and the second depicting grown-up men who meet again after twenty years to resume an investigation. The parallel lines go hand-in-hand, and there is not much to speculate about. The interesting thing happens when the story strays aside and multiplies to the level of surreal. Differences in time can be one day or one hundred fifty. Space pulsates, expanding to the whole fictional world and then deflating to a single car. Languages - Estonian, Swedish, Russian, Finnish - are shuffled like colors in Rubik's Cube. The stakes rise higher and higher until the slow, yet unstoppable greyness destroys the whole planet.

>The central theme of the book is vanishment. Death means vanishment. To vanish means to die. One of the examples is the missing girls. They disappear and stay exceptionally in the minds of their grieving classmates. Nobody cares about them like they never existed. The greyness (similar to the wave in 'Far Rainbow' by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky) is the epitome of vanishment. Everything that it devours dies, if not instantly physically, then mentally.

>The book is constructed as an RPG game. In the game, the main character moves, unaware of the upcoming dangers, thus creating a surrounding area map. Yet, in a sense, the map is still unreal, like the contorted figures in the twilight. Like the past and future compared to the right here and right now. The only reality lies in the eyes of the observer.

>Communism vs. capitalism, vanishment vs. dizzy reality, and otherworldly Sweden vs. Estonian language. I'd recommend being patient and wait for the English edition. The book is much more than worth reading time.

>>20455679
>>20455693
Why are you shilling communist propaganda here?

>>20455701
Because you are rich and I'm going to kill you for that.

Pic related my writing progress history of my first novel. I have written 30 out of 32 chapters now. The goal is to shrink the book later into 120 000 words. First three months went steady with roughly 800 words per day, 750 being the daily word count to reach. Then, I was busy with the holiday season and I got some health problems together with work stress. Now, our company is going down hard and I have had nothing to do at work so I've been pushing 2000 per work day and rested during weekends. I have to say, writing "as a job" is much better than trying to force yourself to write after mentally hard day of work. I've been writing a chapter every other work day so I'll be soon done with this first draft. Then the editing begins. Overall during these 192 days my writing speed has been in average 662 a day, but it was about 800 during first three months and now for the last 27 days it has been over 1300.

>>20455235
>>20455762
Didn't you wordcountfags get BTFO out last thread?

>>20455762
>The goal is to shrink the book later into 120 000 words

Unless it is fantasy and you can split into a trilogy or something, you are going to struggle to do anything other than self-publish

>>20455767
I don't know about any wordcountfags of last thread but I guess that you have issues with your own wordcount so you'd rather not discuss it. After all, books are made of words and the more you write the more you'll learn and improve. If I only wrote whenever my "inspiration" sprouted I'd never write. I push myself to write. Do you think professional, published writers sit around? No, they sit down to write.

>>20455773
Fantasy standalone. To be honest, 120 000 words is not that much for fantasy. First, like any other retard I was thinking of a trilogy but later I realized I could push the story into one book and just have it more dense.

>>20455776
Yes, but they focus on the QUALITY of their words, not the sheer bulk. We had this conversation already.

>>20455784
First draft, you get the story through. Then you go through several editing rounds, polishing the turd you have made. No one writes a perfect book on the first go.

lol
lmao

>>20455783

Good luck Anon! Congrats on all the hard work. Even if you don't get it published, remember you have done something few other people have: write a book. There is satisfaction to be had in the discipline it required

>>20455803
forgot pic
...lol
...lmao

>>20455804
And perhaps learned something. I mean, how many get their debut novel published anyway. The way I see this, it's good practice. And let's say I write a shorter fiction later and get that published I could always present my older manuscript.

I'm trying to write a gothic fiction and one thing I learned is that gothic fictions often are about an internal struggle, where the main character strugglles with some sort of fear or anxiety that reflects the current fears of society.

What are some fears/anxiety of the society?

>>20455810
Another good reminder to never ever visit that shithole of a website.

>>20455810
I have no idea what I'm reading but it sounds like a lot of whiteknighting for parasites. Why would anyone defend literary agents? That's like defending tapeworms or leeches.

>>20455838
What does a literary agent do?

>>20455391
>posts something actually passable ITT
>no way to follow
Pain

>>20455851
He tries to get you a book deal in a publishing house. Most traditional publishing houses don't accept unsolicited submissions. Basically agents are the first filtering round, if no agent is interested in your book, then its not worth the time of the publishing houses. Get good.

>>20455411
>>20454984
>>20454981
>>20454941
>>20454938
>>20455491
>>20455493
>>20455502
>>20455547
>>20455561

Probably one of the best things I've read on /lit/. There is some heavy exposition in a few places, but you've got something fun going on and really tight, readable style. Nice rhythym.

>>20455861
"Gahhh... Kill Jamiq! Gaaahhh... I'm a Janitor aaaahgg... kill Jamiq! Now!"
Show me your tight little readable puckerhole, little boy.

>>20455851
>what does an agent do?
When you finish your book you can't just pitch it directly to a publisher anymore. You first have to write a groveling letter to one of their friends so they can "vouch" for you and set up contract negotiations. For doing this, they take ~15% of your book profits for the rest of your life.
>b-but that's not fair!
lol
>but my favorite author didn't have an agent!
lmao
>but they don't even write!
rofl

>>20455902
What the fuck? That's crazy. Is the 15% for every book you publish through them? What if you decide to self publish afterwards?

>>20455902
If an agent will handle the slimy money-people who only care about money and fight for my creative control, then they're welcome to 15%. I don't really care that much. I don't write for money in the first place. The solution to the slimy, profiteering nature of the publishing industry doesn't seem to be taking up that nasty shit myself. I just want to write and be left alone.

>>20455861

Thank you anon, that really means a lot. I've been experimenting a lot with these shorter pieces lately and everything is pretty rough still but I'm glad the energy/momentum is there

>>20454761
How did people find your story? Did you post on the forums or just get lucky with trending?

>>20454085
Not trying to shitpost but what's even the point of going into writing nowadays? Nobody reads or accepts books unless it's trite YA LGBTAQJDHSJBBD+ fiction with every mental illness checklisted for inclusiveness. Writing is dead.

>>20456048

Because writing is in itself is good for the spirit and the mind. You don't need a good-boy token and praise to do something.

>>20455852

Like on social media?

>>20454928

Look up the name of this poem on Twitter and you'll find me

>>20456048
Do you live on the internet or something? Bet you don't read either. Not all books are like that and not all publishers are looking for those kinds of books

>>20456048
>Nobody reads or accepts books unless it's trite YA LGBTAQJDHSJBBD+ fiction with every mental illness checklisted for inclusiveness
>asking this question to a forum of aspiring patreon scammers who write trite anti-LGBTAQJDHSJBBD+ fantasy/sci-fi (in a YA style)
What you neglect to consider is that the male version of said trite inclusive garbage is almost exclusively written by puerile (autocorrect; leaving it) here for the exact same meta-reasons and pandering to the same mechanisms by which LGBTAQJDHSJBBD+ fic is popular with women and normies... just for men instead. Normies are everywhere. Write to spite them, and write because you have to. Write without expectation of results and for the sake of the writing itself. Write for any reason, really. Then become more and more cynical when even at the ass-end of the internet, where people can be as eccentric as they like, you find not more eccentrics, but just normies and anime fans using anonymity to be bigger dicks than they can be on their Reddit accounts.

Every observation in this post is completely accurate.

>>20455009

>>20456091
>>20455009
At least they let you know...

>>20456048
>Writing is dead
We'll all be dead soon, sonny. You might as well quit with the moaning and get to typing.

>>20454823
I wrote 40k words of a first draft the past two weeks. Southern Gothic. Maybe 80 hours and before I started writing I met a compulsive liar with a bizarre accent with poor grammar I couldnt place and it just inspired me to create a major character one of my novel outlines was missing to make it compelling. I took a break from writing the current work just to slam out dialogue between the major characters and in my next draft I can add narrative but might wait until Im done with this other book.

>>20455084
What tool is this? I know it’s somewhere on amazon, but where?

The protagonist loves rabbits.
But lives in a country that hates rabbits: Queensland, Australia.
The protagonist describes the favourite rabbit-themed video game.
https://pastebin.com/KAd5V7Rb

>>20456101
>get to typing
I will.
And on the topic of audience I have met enough people of different faiths and backgrounds, including flaming liberals, who are okay with my stories. I think a lot of young authors are just too on the nose and people get bitter. As a writer especially in literary fiction you must be dark. Present all the sides. Don't give a clear answer but give something to haunt them. There's no reason to stop writing, if anything you should hook all those women readers with something they like (violence, maybe a bit of romance or female POV from time to time) but have them stay for what you want to show them. Readers like surprises as long as its in the same temperament of the story opening.

>>20456149
FUCKING SALAD RATS

I hate them.

So how many views are your RR chapters getting each chapter?
Mine are around 300-600 per chapter, on my 7th post now.

>>20456186
How do you even write that much for an RR? It's been a month and I have only 12 chapters. Do you seriously just barf out 3k words a day?

>>20456193
I never mentioned post frequency. It’s every other week.

>>20456186
how much money is 300-600 views?

What about submitting to one of those many small time publishing houses that will accept submissions without an agent?

>>20456210
Zero dollars and zero cents.

>>20456258
That's my plan. Do I really need a big 5? It's not like the big 5 guarantees sales

>get a literary agent, they get 15% of whatever you make
>the publisher takes 70%
>you're left with 5% despite providing the product and doing all the marketing and footwork yourself
Oh wow

>>20455001
i would push through to the end. it's good practice if nothing else
sometimes writing is just work
i outline what i write. after i'm done with the outline, i know what i have to write each day
but still, while i'm outlining, especially in the second act, sometimes i struggle to come up with content

If I post chapters on Royal Road, can I still publish traditionally? Will it still count as a debut?

It took Sanderson 12 books before he made it big. And you just need one. Get one, and your other works also get popularized

I was convinced to start advertising for a buck a day on Amazon. Let's see how many sales after 30 days.

>>20455057
>The year is 1926, and Shanghai hums to the tune of debauchery.

>A blood feud between two gangs runs the streets red, leaving the city helpless in the grip of chaos. At the heart of it all is eighteen-year-old Juliette Cai, a former flapper who has returned to assume her role as the proud heir of the Scarlet Gang—a network of criminals far above the law. Their only rivals in power are the White Flowers, who have fought the Scarlets for generations. And behind every move is their heir, Roma Montagov, Juliette’s first love…and first betrayal.

>But when gangsters on both sides show signs of instability culminating in clawing their own throats out, the people start to whisper. Of a contagion, a madness. Of a monster in the shadows. As the deaths stack up, Juliette and Roma must set their guns—and grudges—aside and work together, for if they can’t stop this mayhem, then there will be no city left for either to rule.

1. Chinese.
2. Something familiar but with a twist.

>>20456048
Why cook when restaurants exist?
Why garden when you can get anything you need at the store?
Because I have 80 years to kill here bro.
Also it’s basically a spec script for a movie/show if you’re into that.

>>20455816
losing your job
having your secret discovered
i bet there is a whole list of "internal struggles" somewhere on the internt

>>20456301
You can publish traditionally, yes. The only exception is if you try to put it on Kindle Unlimited, as that has the requirement that you can't have it available elsewhere.

>>20456307
i'm interested in amazon ads too.
keep us posted?

>>20456327
If I post a book on royal road, won't that stop me from publishing it traditionally tho? I thought publishers wanted the right to first publish the novel with them? Like they're paying for that exclusivity. Wouldn't having it somewhere on the internet be a mark against that?

>>20456333
it probably will
even like for small magazines, they often want "first publication rights."

>>20456333
Not necessarily. It depends on the publisher. You can also just self-publish.

The more I read about how slimy these publishers are the more I think I'm going to wind up going the self-publishing route later on.

>>20456274
Youre not taking into account the rates after you meet the sales of the contract. Usually after that your percentage spikes way higher. Its difficult of course but I think a lot of anons get the wrong impression how contracts work. Some are worth it and some arent but the big money comes when you do better than the publisher expects.

>>20456353
With how things are going, it's probably the most sensible option.

Look I dont write to get women but have any of you had girls express interest in your passion only to leave you because you cant focus every moment on them? I can only alot so much time before people disrupt a project. It's also sad because Ive heard some married writers missed some of their children's life because they were writing and working another job. Any of you had to deal with that yet?

>>20454998
At any age. It doesn't matter if you're 1 or 100, the loss is profound.

>>20456436
>Look I dont write to get women but have any of you had girls express interest in your passion only to leave you because you cant focus every moment on them?
No but back in high school there was a girl who took enough of an interest in my hobby to read my stuff and critique it.

>>20455001
I know how you feel. I've written stuff that I really like, but realize needs a significant rework that essentially requires me to go back to the start. I think that >>20456293 has merit but on the other hand, depending on how long you want to make the work, it could be better to cut it off.

>>20454944
Lol, no. Only evil people go bald.

>>20456436
I have had a girl I was with tell me she doesn't like it when I write when she visits. I had to explain to her that just because we fuck doesn't mean we need to spend 24 hours together, and that I need some part of every day, uninterrupted, to work on my life's passion. Hurt feelings don't last forever, but making yourself suffer to please others might as well feel like eternity.

>>20456186
>sub-100 views on average, several months into the story
I see this as a win, because it means I succeeded in not making the kind of complete shit that appeals to the average RR reader. Still got a 4.9/5 so clearly people like it.

>>20456440
kek, surely its more tragic the younger you are, we are talking about baldness right?

>>20456186
500 average by chapter 6

>>20456627
No, what it really means is that your work is niche enough that the only people who bother to read it are also the types most likely to like it enough to rate it, and rate 5* or similar.

I had the same happen with my first fic, a cyberpunk western. It had a near-perfect rating because it was so niche.

>>20456381
I'm expanding the scope and scale of the story I'm writing by a large amount, because I think the world and premise are really good. It's going to be a long time until I reach the point where I self-publish or publish at all so I really try not too hard to think about it. I do think I'm on to something though and I can actually say that nothing in my life has ever felt as fulfilling as someone appreciating my work or getting feedback on it.

>>20456667
Nobody wants to be the one that chases off the guy writing a niche they like because it's not as good as it could have been.

>>20455057
>Seethe! Get angry! Be jealous! You'll never make it so give up!
You people really are pathetic

>>20456738
This. It's not wise comparing yourself to others and if you look hard enough at lots of successful authors their lives are still mundane and struggled 3 to 8 years of unpublishable or passable work that you may not see on a bibliography but they didnt give up. This line of work isnt for the faint of heart. You dont need ideal physiognomy or a graduate degree or to kiss ass or to have had sex or to have been in war or even from the beginning know how to meerkat. You need the fire to create and refine and people will acknowledge and help you once you learn how to tell a story. I've talked to enough people who made it to know the struggle is the norm, none of us here should be discouraged.

>>20456863
We're all gonna make it. Even Bucksneed-anon, although his path is probably going to be longer than most.

>>20454307
I don’t understand the text blurb. It says “he” meets a woman, then everything “he” said was a lot? Then what’s this shit about Destiny and Evil? Is the main character Mayira or Foreth? Who is Valeria?

>>20456874
=)

I started writing my idea as a screenplay. I felt it would be easier, and if I like the idea when I finish, I can novelize it.

Thoughts on this approach?

Also, side note: Im 10 pages in and fuck me dialogue is hard

>>20456890
I don't know! I know I'm not going to make it since I can't even make a fucking blurb for a book! Fuck it all I'm burning it all down!!!!!

>>20456937
It's two different forms and require different sets of skills.

Incest seems to be a pretty common theme in gothic fiction and I'm writing a gothic fiction, so would introducing blood and nonblood incest be acceptable if it's used as an element of primal horror and disgust for the readers? The protagonist engages in a romantic relationship only for the twist to be that it turns out he's her long lost brother and worse, she knew. The internal conflict is that he still has feelings for her mixed with his own disgust. However, it won't end well for both of them.

Would publishers accept this?

How do I write a visual novel?

>>20456937
For dialogue keep in mind the motivations of each character. You may have to draft multiple times to show nuances like emotions, body language, responses to these things as well as the vocabulary and masculine/feminine voice. Start simple. Eventually as you know your characters better you can flip between each personality on the go and it will feel more natural how they respond. Make characters different and dialogue will naturally have some tension as they attempt to understand eachother.

>>20457045
There's a bunch of visual novel programs out there like Ren'py but generally it requires the same amount of research of the medium like normal novels, except it's even more niche

>>20457045
A screenplay would be easiest, I think, as far as an initial draft goes. Renpy for the actual game part.

>>20457045
Don't. The fuckers that read that shit don't even pay for authentic Japanese VNs, which they see as better than anything an American can make, they pirate everything. On top of that, they never read anything made by a Westerner because the EOLVN scene is full of liberal garbage thats nothing like a japanese VN.

On top of that, you need to pay for high quality japanese art. It's expensive, but lucky for you, the people that did the art for DDLC are freelance and will work for you. But consider that you're trying to sell a product to one of two markets. Either you're trying to appeal to japanese style VN readers who don't pay for fucking shit and that shit isn't cheap to make, or you're selling to people who read indie VNs and that market is small.

>>20457086
True on every account, you would be much better off making a web novel with occasional illustrations if you're trying to go for a weeb aesthetic

>>20457086
This is entirely a passion project and I’m aware no one will read it. I’m not trying to make any real money. Even with good art it wouldn’t be a marketable idea. I might translate it into nip anyway if I feel like it since I’m decent with the language.

Where are the best places to post for critique?

>>20457045
I'd like to know the answer to this myself. There's the initial script, then making that part into a game... It's a lot of work, but I'm pretty sure they outline everything from the start to boot.
>>20457097
I would strongly suggest paying a translator and probably an editor on top of that if you went that route.

>>20457114
Your family and friends

>>20457148
Yeah I wouldn’t assume I could do it competently without any help if I go that route

>>20457114
you can post bits of it here
there's a website, i think it's called critique circle or something like that
probably the best way is to find people who are as serious as you are and form a writing group
some writing groups even meet by zoom once a week or so

Why is every book rated so high on Goodreads?

>>20456186

>chapters up to 2nd last have around 500 views
>last chapter has 1,400 views
>2/3 just skipped straight to the ending

>>20456301
Why the fuck would you post it on RR instead of offering it first to a publisher? Why are you even considering posting it online if your goal is traditional publishing?

>>20457224
Because books are fun and reading is fun and when you read a book you like you want to tell others about it and support the author and and and

>>20457256
To become the next F Gardner, of course.

>>20457256
I wanted to build a readership base first before I got my first book out. I don't expect trad publishers to do much marketing for me so I wanted to put out part of my book first and send the whole thing out to a publisher so readers can buy the book and finish it

>>20457296
Yeah, don't do that

I just want to write a book where a vast majority of people won't shit on it

>>20457342
Why not?

>>20457375
The vast majority of people will never even know your book exists

>>20454085
>What the fuck do you even want from writing
It's just an itch that I have to scratch. I don't even have anything I want to express.

>>20457086
How can one person be so wrong? All it takes is to open up Steam or DLSite to know this isn’t true. To say you’re delusional is a blessing.

>type in Google docs
>Random anonymous animal pops in
>Haven't posted a link to the story in weeks
I don't know how to feel about this. What if anon is secretly a publisher from one of the big 5 and is stalking my work ready to pounce and give me an offer?!?!?

>>20457420
And thus cannot shit on it. No matter what >>20457375 writes, the majority of shit will remain unshat.

>>20457655
You should write him secret messages hidden in the story.

>>20457655
I get the same feeling. I'm about to scrap all my links here soon because it feels unsettling, it'd be nice if there was a way for people to leave feedback in the document anonymously. Maybe there is and I'm just not aware of it. Most people would probably just abuse that function though.

>>20457818
You can leave notes / suggestions on google docs

>>20457818
There is a way, it's an option you choose when going to share the document. You have to set default user mode to 'suggester' (or something; not 'editor', but not 'viewer').

And I doubt it'd be abused, desu. Even if it was, who cares?

>>20457652
Dude. I've literally worked on a translation team for a visual novel and worked with a translation company and a japanese company trying to get official rights for a game's release. I know what I'm talking about. It's not a money making industry. Profits are verryyy lean. The industry is strife with pirating because the culture of Visual Novels in the US was that the only way to get a vn in the west in the past was to pirate it and hope a fan translator translated it for free. Leading to this expectation among the fans that VNs are not something you pay for. Translators and editors make shit pay and do it for passion because otherwise the companies would go under.

>>20457818
Amazingly I did that with one of my drafts and people here are much nicer than you think. Although most line edits get scribbled all the way so it makes you sad that you're a shit writer

Singular they, yes or no?

>>20458097
Only if they are royalty or legion.

>>20457916
>>20457925
>>20458088
Really? I tend to hope for the best in people, but it would just kind of feel awful to see people abusing a system like that. I've been pouring my heart out into my story. I'm not desperate for feedback or anything, but I'm also learning as I go. One anon actually wrote me a super comprehensive pastebin with detailed thoughts on each chapter. Getting floored and humbled in that regard really helps me.

how the fuck do you outline without completely losing interest in the story after, gardener bros

>>20458181
Dialogue is a fun of its own.

>>20457224
i cant find the picture im looking for, but this one works
most fags dont use the full scale

>>20458116
4chan's not a great place to post for feedback in general. There are a lot of mentally ill seethers here who confuse cruelty for 'brutal honesty', as if the second were the golden standard to begin with. Brutal honesty is only the solution when the recipient of the feedback is plugging their ears; gentle honesty is more than enough for the normal writer, who is willing to listen.

So yeah, post here only if you're prepared for the chance someone deranged will rant about how bad your work is, and offer next to zero good advice while doing so. But most people seem to be chill.

>>20454085
i believe morality is subjective and have done more to improve myself morally in the last week than you will in your entire life

>>20458206
What did you do?

>>20458181
I'm only scared of outlining because I think it might make the story feel formulaic and cookie cutter

>just some random dialogue/scene setup practice
“Nonsense.”, he said, chugging from the wooden mug.
“Oh, but you don’t know a thing, old friend.”
“Maybe. But I do know one – vampires do not exist. Not anymore.”
“Is that what you’re led to believe? That a force so powerful, so high and mighty would just, what? Disappear? Even you aren’t gullible enough to fall for that.”
“Blast you. I saw with me own eyes the final embers dance on their scorching flesh. It gleamed in the sunlight so brightly that I could barely look. We eradicated those things, and you’d best keep quiet lest you wish to dig them up from the grave.”
“Then call me a gravedigger. For these things are not mere humans. They do not live temporarily, nor do they die eternally. Their shadow is etched into our lands, a shadow as immortal as their cursed souls.”
“Go on, then. Dig. But don’t go a-screamin’ when you bring some ill upon yourself.”
“Ill? My friend, this entire country is ill. Ill with a single disease – vampires.”
“Pha! The last time I saw them, they were nothing but dust in the summer wind. The only disease they could cause is a pollen allergy!”
He snarled through a grotesque laugh, loud enough to echo through the tavern.
“And if they come back from that, we sure should have gone instead.”
“Sure indeed.”

1/

>>20458254

Both sat there in a brief, awkward silence only broken by their surroundings. Drinks came and went, each table soaked in the endless flow of ale. The people’s laughter, song, and indistinct chatter breathed life into this otherwise dull place.
“Well, it is time for me to go.”, he said, standing up.
“Sit yer arse down! I’ve only downed a couple; you haven’t even started yer first! What’s a man who goes home sober on a summer’s eve?”
“I apologize for this transgression. However, I must still insist on my leaving. It’s getting dark, and I’m not fond of enjoying it inside.”
“Enjoying the dark, eh? Always were a different breed, you.”
“What’s there to say? The Sun never had my love. It just burns the eyes and reddens the skin. I prefer the shade, the beautiful light of the moon. The people fall in love beneath a starry sky, not scorching heat.”
“Haha!” he growled, laughing. “Prefers the shade, he says. ‘ates the Sun, he says! Are ye one of them vamps you speak of? Lads! We ‘ave ourselves a vamp among us. C’mon, turn into a bat! Or, better yet, show us those ugly teeth of yours.”
The crowd burst into laughter, likely oblivious to what was even said.
He cast a sly, pearly white smile that glistened under the torches.
“Now that’s a smile one can hardly resist.”
“I always keep myself in good order. Farewell, friend.”
And with that, he upped and left, elegantly walking through the door. He couldn’t help but catch the sight of all his peers. Not a single one glanced anywhere but his way. Dressed in perfectly dark and red velvet attire, he carried a sense of nobility with him. In a village stricken with vamp scares, such a carriage was often considered barbaric. It stood out too much, and the folk were never fond of anything strange – not after what they’d endured.

2/2

>>20454085
>had a dream last night I think would make an interesting premise
>thought it was so good I wrote it down in my phone
>rereading it, it's really barebones and I'm neither artistic nor autistic enough to turn it into something worthwhile
>even if I was I'd be a dog chasing cars
What do /lit/? This is my first time on this board despite being here for fucking 13 years.

>>20458212
improve morally

>>20458274
How so?

>Wtf! You can't just write a character without flaws! That's a Mary Sue right there mister!

>>20458206
How did you "improve" if its not an objective thing? Did you simply "feel" that you improved? Well, I feel that you didn't improve and you can't prove me wrong.

>>20458283
My MC is literally a bioengineered gigachad, the flaw is being too based for in-setting normies to handle

>>20458199
I'd say that at 1 star it becomes likely to be excellent again, but yeah, more or less.

>>20458206
>i believe morality is subjective
i wrote a book about and edgy teen who was like this which helped me understand morality a lot

Why does /wg/ move so fast? Shouldn't you all be writing instead?

>>20458319
We're writing in the thread

>>20458319
No, I do my daily writing, then come here and it keeps my mind on writing and also motivates me to write because I see so many people who literally don't understand the first thing about the craft and my superiority complex gets tickled.
There are several of you who are intelligent and I've learned a few things since I started posting here, but many of you are beyond saving.

>>20458319
I'm not a writer tho

>>20458201
>So yeah, post here only if you're prepared for the chance someone deranged will rant about how bad your work is, and offer next to zero good advice while doing so.
this is my experience lately. i don't know why, but i used to get a bunch of really constructive feedback in /wg/, even if sometimes it was very negative. but some massive autist has it out for me now i guess.

>>20458307
Did your book argue in favor or against subjectivity?

Is there any fictional written work which is truly transcendent and meaningful, or is it nothing but temporary entertainment and mental diversions that lead nowhere?

>>20458344
There's like one guy here who really loves shitting on people. He's schizo and tries to pretend theres more of him, but he has the same writing style when he seethes.

>>20458352
It was about a girl who said everything is subjective, then a guy who was a moralfag who believed in the objectivity of law. Eventually, after the whole plot and everything they met in the middle but very close to the girl's side. She convinced him that every situation is subjective, but she also learned that it's not anarchy and complete subjectivity is chaos and leads to anarchy.
I should clarify that's the theme, the story is sort of a mystery about someone dying with no witnesses and many people being brought in and questioned.

>>20456436
I had a girl decide I was worth dating because I was creative, and then once we moved in together she complained everytime I wrote that I wasn't paying attention to her. She used to put on lingerie and come sit next to me while I was writing, then get angry that I didn't give into the distraction, then refuse to have sex with me when I was done with my daily write.

Not coincidentally, she's also the woman who taught me why "don't stick your dick in the crazy" is a thing.

>>20458361
What's the difference? Both are the same in nature.

>>20456436
Very much so. Unfortunately, I had two relationships and hated the lack of free time and forced communication of them so I've decided to be single until I actively crave one again. Also, when I lived with someone and I tried to get across "don't interrupt me when I'm writing" only for them to interrupt once a week anyway because "it's not that big of a deal" was the worst.
Chicks dig writers, but only if you have finished things for them to read and swoon over. The worst kinds of fags are those who get into writing for the girls. Makes no sense and they usually get zero girls anyway because it's fucking obvious.

>>20456436
I've told this story here before, but a black hambeast at college tried picking me up once when she saw me reading a book. She said she had read it too and liked it, when in actuality it was my own book unpublished proof copy I was doing a final proofreading on.

>>20458181
i don’t even know how to outline

>>20458557
New thread

>>20455106
>https://pastebin.com/4ygCxE9g

It's a good start for someone who's never written anything. I suggest you first take care of the "I" problem. Everything is "I" this "I" that.

>>20455106
>https://pastebin.com/4ygCxE9g

Another piece of advice if you've just started is to consider switching to third person and past tense.

The POV and tense you've selected is tightly constraining and you may notice later on the implications and it will cost you a lot of work to go back and change it all.

>>20458097
In the Elizabethan era people fretted about the singular you. Just accept it.

>>20458097
Not unless the character is non-binary

>>20458254
>>20458258
A long back and forth with no names is hard to follow. You can chop out the dialog tag if there's also an action. 'he said, verbing.' to 'he verbed' It's obvious the action is connected to the person who just spoke.


>“Haha!” he growled, laughing.
What?
>I saw with me own eye
Someone who talks like this won't say 'eradicate' You might want to make their voices more distinct

>>20458319
We're procrastinating

>>20458319
Posting on 4chan is technically writing

>>20458319
I stay in here to keep my interest in writing up. If I was browsing other boards, my interests would go somewhere else like television or video games. I wanted to stay focused on my writing this year so I'm working hard on staying on just /lit/ mostly.

>just hit Rising Stars on RoyalRoad
last time was a fucking shitshow, hope these retards don't sperg over me making the first antagonist a pedo rapist slaver

>>20459138
>pedo rapist slaver antagonist
i prefer them as unapologetic protagonists

>>20459138
Post story. Sounds like something I'd read.