/lit/ - Literature

What's people's opinion of Kobo? I've never heard of it before but Royal Road, my next best option is kind of a mess honestly.

Southern anon here. I submitted my first short story, that one set before my novel, yesterday to &amp magazine and hopefully it will be in the August issue. It's a scifi called "And Over the Town" and I posted excerpts on /wg/ for feedback last year. I've mostly been working on the rest of the novel this year but I finally tied up that short story. I hope that it drives some speculation for readers, both for the fiction and their own lives.
Been working on these for years but now that I've got more in order I feel my writing output is increasing. If you've been looking forward to it, please check out &amp.

>>20801034
Hey anon I remember you, I was the one who asked if anyone was writing short stories / flash fiction the other day. Glad to hear you submitted that story, I'll keep an eye out for it.

What should I change for my Nolan-canon Joker film? It can't be produced now that they made a real one, but I'd like to improve the third act.

https://www.scribd.com/document/551280851/Unfiltered

here's something some of you might find motivational
guy writes 5 books and none of them sell
he tells himself, "okay, one more book. if it doesn't sell i'll find another hobby"
it sells like hotcakes
his books are ranked #1 on the ny times best seller list
it's an action adventure series with a lot of political intrigue. very grim dark at times. male protagonist.

>>20800958
If you people didn't live off the drug of instant gratification when showing some writing to someone, or even self pubbing like shameless idiots, then you would be miles better. Hone, hone, hone.

>>20801177
>He thinks self-pubbing is a bad idea
There's literally no reason to not self-pub as you work on your craft. You're an idiot if you think you should rewrite the same book 20 times.

>>20801158
>Sorry, I never lose
>Destiny behind it
Anyways I don't really have a recommendation. Good luck anyways.
>Am I being detained?
>Uhh, (smoker's cough) I can't breathe!

>>20801177
>Implying I ever show my writing to anyone.

>>20801177
I am doing some work for indie and some for traditional right now. I will probably move more to traditional so I can have that more refined process but I want to cut my teeth trying to finish stories and share them with /lit/. Only about 10% of my writing time is going to that so it's no big deal.

What makes a character's tragic backstory compelling to you?

>>20801220
Watching them lose something they value as a core part of their identity and striving (in vain or not) to reobtain it.

>>20801189
Good luck keeping your IP when Amazon goes awry. Or you find out you were too stupid to get a proper editor and just hired one to speak sweet nothings in your ear so you'd pay them more... Or you never actually got one and have dog shit proofreading, bad structure, and embarrassing grammar mistakes... I bet you motherfuckers are uploading PDFs without using InDesign, which is the industry standard for book layout and design. Writing was always supposed to be elitist and kept out the retards or unwashed, including writers and readers. Now we have an endless stream of shit no one wants to read.

>>20801190
actually the best i ever did in trials of osiris was five wins

>>20801228
Go away, demotivational pseud.

>>20801264
You fucking suck and the only person keeping you that way is YOURSELF, self-pubbing and impulsive dilettante. Study and hone.

>>20801220
I like backstories that transform characters and give them some belief or misconception about their life. It becomes the force behind the character and aggravates the conflict in the story and becomes something they have to address.
I want to give the example of Lee's tragic backstory from "East of Eden" as something I don't like. Maybe it had a different effect on other readers. I loved that novel and I loved Lee but something about his backstory rang hollow to me. Yes it was tragic and yes it gave context to the experience of Chinese Immigrants in America. But the only part of the story I saw this become relevant is how Lee actually had the background that Cal and Aron originally thought they had: the death of an innocent mother. Technically it was also a mother who has pretending she was something she wasn't (Lee's mom pretending not to be a man and Cathy pretending not the be a whore), but that's it. I didn't see it being the reason why he got aggressive with Adam about the bookstore. Lee didn't really have problems so I kinda felt his tragic backstory was overly tragic seeing that it served only to contrast him with the twins.

>>20801224
Agreed, I don't like a backstory that feels passive.

>>20801294
Yeah, I think a big problem behind some tragic backstories is that it doesn't seem to touch the character the way it should.

I finished my story of the snails that can mimic speech invading an abbey. I sure wish you could all read it but it's in Finnish just like everything else I write

>>20801276
Amazon going away? As if.
Why would that affect anything anyway? I copyrighted my novels through the U.S. Copyright Office. Amazon doesn't own them.

>>20801345
How bad is this expressiveness loss when translating to english?

>>20801365
I did write the opening in English a few threads back, here.

As surely as Jerusalem is the navel of the world is this narrative true. It is a record of events as transpired in the environs of Escargot abbey in the Year of our Lord 1119, occurring in the most part between the week before midsummer and harvest. May God have mercy on our souls and the souls of those who find it, if any do. Carry salt with you always and remember the lesson of the tortoise and the hare lest your days end before their allotted time.
The matter concerns as beast of unnatural make, one never before attested to in bestiaries known to any in the abbey, and these being learned men it is unlikely such recordings can be found elsewhere in Christendom either, nor among the Greek or Roman pagans or even the Muslims, in so far as their writings are known to us. This beast neither walks on four legs as do wolves and bears and lions, nor does it have poison fangs as snakes do or wings as the mosquito or fly. The beast in its natural state is a snail, having the full characteristics of a snail as recognized by anyone who has ever laid eyes on one, that is the shell with its spiral shape inside of which the creature can bodily hide itself in full, eyestalks as can retract and protract, a slimy mucus which is secreted as to allow the body to move and a lack of any bones save those which are recognized as teeth of which there are many in the jawless mouth much like eels.
The beast was at first thought to be an ordinary snail, and though these sometimes made nuisance of themselves in the garden or the cabbage paths they were not accounted a great threat either to foodstuff or to the wellbeing of men, and it was not unknown that monks should cook snails on Friday to supplement their meals when no meat was allowed and this was not forbidden by any law or canon or tradition, hallelujah!
A sound was reported in the garden as sounded like men speaking, but no men were found, and the sound was exceedingly quiet, like a whisper. Ghosts in broad daylight were unusual but exorcisms were performed when enough brothers had heard the sounds and this put minds at ease but to no avail for the sounds continued still.
Brother Olivier claimed the sound came from a snail and he brought this be inspected indoors, in the room where also was kept an injured wagtail as was being nursed to health.
Here then were heard the whispers from the snail, and then after it mimicked also the song of the wagtail upon hearing it, and also the gasps of the brothers upon witnessing this, and thus was it dubbed The Mimic Snail and with that beast is this record concerned.

>>20801363
Just don't engage with him, he's just trying to freak people out

>>20801387
bretty good, i'd read the whole thing if you ever decided to translate everything.

>>20801409
But it's such a pain to go line by line anon, it takes forever. Brief summary of the story: it's a ripoff of the chimera ants from HunterxHunter, meaning the snails will eat something and the next generation will have the characteristics of what they ate.
One brood of the snails eats earthworms, another eats a spider, then a rat and eventually people and in the end there is a big battle where the snails are fought by the monks wearing barrels as armor to mimic the snails themselves, with a Spanish knight who behaves like what Don Quixote parodies as the monks' champion. There are many gory deaths.
In the end a snail managed to eat the wagtail being nursed to health and its offspring fly free from the abbey
Also the whole story is being told by one of the characters as he tries to shittalk people he doesn't like and make himself look better so he'll be chosen as the new abbot.
I think it's a pretty decent amount of stuff going on for a story that's 5560 words long.

>>20801427
>But it's such a pain to go line by line anon,
understandable, just putting it out there.

I forgot to finish the book I was reading this week. I wrote so much yesterday and this morning. Glad to be feeling progress again.

Is the idea of the author who slavishly goes over every line of his prose dead? I'm not at that level. For me as long as the prose is decent and guides the reader enough through the story I'm content.

I feel sometimes though that I could spend weeks on getting the chaper perfect, but then I don't think I would ever be finished with the book.

>>20801519
Why would it die? You need to write good sentences before you can write good books. Maybe a mature writer should trust his instincts rather than over-editing his sentences, but for most people, it will take a few passes to get things right.

I feel bad going to the next chapter in Burroway without doing the prompts, but it's taking so long to get through the book.
Do you feel like the content or the prompts/practice is most important when reading books on writing?

>tfw someone legitimately doesn't realize their book is baiting coomers with promises of degenerate smut
>tfw you realize you are the group's resident degenerate
>You are the only one that can warn them

>>20801714
I have animal people in my story, I just like animal people.
BUT, I also to some extent hope that furfags read and recommend my book or create "art" of them for free advertising.

>>20801743
Intentionally doing it is fine.

This person just doesnt understand they literally wrote a fat bastard/sex slave scenario

>>20801714
I think tweaking the intro, title and art should be enough to fix that, right? I can't wait for critique of my next story to be something like:
>there was gonna be a sex scene why didn't you show it
>what is that mysterious noise behind the door why didn't you explain it
>this character clearly has sexual trauma why don't you tell me what happened
>can you describe the tits more
I won't.

>>20801773
Wait was that my story?

>>20801177
I agree. Even as someone who is, in some instances, pro selfpub. It’s ok to labor for a while in obscurity while honing your craft. The first few drafts of your first few works are unlikely to be publishable. Ironically, self pubbing and then languishing in obscurity will likely just hurt your motivation as a writer. The writers on this board capitulating like this is demoralizing, because none of your books sell.

>>20801805
>as someone who is, in some instances, pro selfpub
You will never be a real author.

>>20801852
Not that guy, but the goal of self pub is honestly just to get some extra cash for car payments. And to kind of have fun.

>>20800958
>Here's an excerpt from a short story I'm writing. Is the storytelling engaging? Is the style obnoxious? This passage's qualities are representative of the story as a whole.

>Also, for context, the main character has lost his sense of touch. He has just accosted a woman lying on a park bench in great pain.

I thought of my unpaid meal inside the Caffe Cambronne. It was already behind me and yet I was considering turning back, the fool that I was. I squinted and unsquinted. In the face of the woman there lay a promise of life, something to flee from or sprint towards, something other than nothing. I was possessed. I leaned over and accepted it. Our burning bodies met in the middle. I surmised a vague tactile sensation pressing against the creases of my elbows. This sensation was thought rather than felt. I conjured a memory of similar quality and intensity to the current moment and rode the contrived storm. Maybe it was my personal blessing that she was lighter than a feather, or maybe I was really a fireman. No more time was spent deliberating. We were off in a dash, heading along the-

“Rue du Laos. Two blocks. Turn into an alley on the left-hand side of the street. The buildings should look jumbled. There’s a fence with a human-sized hole in it. Peel it back and pin it to the wall. Don’t mind the guard dog. He’s a vegetarian. Push past him forcefully, though—he has a biologically coded wimp detector. In his shadow there should be a rusted door: the back entrance, propped open by a moldy shoe. My lady wedges in an old converse when she knows I’m coming. Kick it out of the way as you enter. Don’t look at the walls of the stairwell, they’ve been known to blind the uninitiated. Don’t inhale too sharply. If someone, if anyone is standing, sitting, walking, milling about, doing anything in the stairwell, do not make eye contact. Whistle a tune and carry on. Her room is on the fourth floor, her hallway right behind the door with the harlequin-patterned welcome mat. Mind the acid stain, mind the loiterers in the hallway. They’re half-insane anyway and fully blind. Most of them can chew through a femur in eighty seconds. The others don’t have teeth. My lady’s door is 423, at the end of the hall. The code is simple: knock once; wait fifteen minutes; knock twice slowly; wait fifteen minutes; knock three times rapidly, and then...”

We waited as the zombies of the fourth floor batted their own fluids around. The woman stood now at my side, hanging onto my shoulder. I felt lopsided, out of touch. The mold framing her lady’s door was potent enough to tickle my nose hairs.

1/2

>>20801859
don't respond to him, really avoid responding to anyone who does nothing but try to bait out replies with smug statements like that.

>>20800958
2/2

I grew impatient. I could have sworn one of the adolescent vagrants bolting through the hall had tried burning a hole in my pants with a barbecue lighter. The bastard snuck up on me as I was staring at a concave patch of asbestos, daydreaming peacefully. I felt nothing, of course, but the woman at my side slapped away a mysterious hand and a childish form fled in fright. Noises from the other side of the door floated out into the hall in varying intervals. The sounds of construction seemed to pulsate just above the background threshold of AC coolant. At one point I swore I heard a succession of wild mating calls issued from the mouth of a bonobo or orangutan. The woman assured me it was just an Animal Planet special playing from her lady’s TV.

“Apes are her fascination,” she noted.

I noticed how the woman moved with hesitance, often holding her elbow with the other hand before bending it or stepping lightly as to avoid shaking the tendons of her knees. Her eyes darted over her shoulders in passing, at rest, in search of vague dangers. In the hallway she kept glancing down at her barren wrist, searching for the hour and minute hands of an unworn watch. Our obtuse caution, our inefficiency mirrored one another’s, for I moved just as top-heavy as she, skeptical of the force of impacts, fearing I would not recognize their true danger until my wrist hung by a bloody sinew.

Where is the list of /wg/ works? I want to pick one up for review.

hey /lit/, here's an excerpt from my novel. it's about a bike trip I did with my friend a few years ago. it's about masculinity, alienation, and mental health. looking for feedback:

>https://larthurhunt.files.wordpress.com/2022/08/trans-canada-01.pdf

>>20801172
Is the protagonist a good man?

>>20801889
it is clearly out of date but there is a pastebin in the OP, and if you look at the older threads you will find images showing some books from /lit/ authors.

>>20801177
How do I hone without showing off my half-finished draft to someone and instantly regretting it!?

>>20801873
>I'm about to ask anon if he watched The Patty Winters Show this morning—the topic was women fascinated with apes—but he gets out on the floor before mine and repeats the name of the restaurant, "McDonald's," and then "See you, anon" and steps out of the elevator.

Sometimes my mind wanders when I'm trying to write and I think of upsetting things. Has this ever happened to you? I never improve because I'm scared of my mind habitually wandering.

>>20801852
Volume 1 of "In Search Of Lost Time" by Marcel Proust was self-published.

>>20801889

>>20801927
Daydreaming is a perfectly valid ideation technique.
Write down whatever you come up with while your mind is "wandering"!

>>20801951
Surely my copy of E-greg will be in the mail tomorrow. I believe.

>>20801865
I honestly like the style, but it always annoys me when /lit/ writes characters who drop everything to tend at the foot of some random beautiful woman, justified only by intense emotions. I'd much rather he be motivated by a sense of civic duty or pity than sentimentality.

>>20801906
So I guess this never happened?
>>>/b/883463716

>>20801949
You can tell by how I've never heard of it.

>>20801955
This isn't daydreaming though, that's the problem. It's the same shit over and over again.

>>20801519
>slavishly goes over every line of his prose dead?

you can line edit your prose or pay someone to line edit. it's a line by line check for spelling errors and grammar
it's something trad publishers do

>>20802012
You are a world-class midwit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_Lost_Time
Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

>>20802041
Then write it down, just to get it out of your head.
I've found that writing down things allows me to purge them from my mind.

>>20802063
>wikipedia
It could be worse, I could be a pseud like you.

>>20801967
I understand what you mean. My intention is to get across that he is roused from his numbness by the sight of a face so in pain that it partially restores his belief in sensation, but I understand that based on the way it's written, and the established trope of a female character giving a male character a "will to live", it comes across a little trite or sentimental. I will work on it.

>>20802082
Then find your own reference for the same material.
For instance, here's the Encyclopaedia Britannica article:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/In-Search-of-Lost-Time
You'll see it says the same thing.
Seems that calling you a midwit was an inadvertent compliment.

>>20801951
Remember to leave reviews on Amazon/Goodreads/etc. if you buy an anon's book.

Feed the algorithm.

>>20802173
I always do.

>>20802082
Proust is one of the most famous authors of the twentieth century.

>>20802173
Indeed. How else are we to punch through the apathetic Establishment, consisting mostly of people with the "right" connections, and little else to offer in the way of value?

>>20802133
The absolute state of pseuds.

>>20802226
Gotta do our own networking.

Speaking of which, if anyone here wants to build the skillset of tuning up AI genned artwork, let me know. If you can't reply to this post, I'm in the unreal press podcast discord server.

I can set aside some budget for such work, but I can't set aside the time to learn it myself currently.

why do i obsess over these metrics instead of just looking at the words themselves

Just finished Poetics. It's better to read about this book than actually read it

Follow my Telegram as I try to read all of the major texts on creative writing

https://t.me/+zJHXO8WYybQwZGJh

>>20802518
>Telegram
I don't want to be killed by glowies.

>>20802415
What's your target/thinking here?

Pic related my latest chapter - it's ogre for me.

>>20802518
Have you read Character and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card? That one gets recommended a lot.

>>20802570
>What's your target/thinking here?
It's a fantasy story written largely for myself. I'd like it to be reasonably high (~4.8 or so?) but I'm finding it dreadfully difficult to get anywhere near that without sounding intolerably pretentious. First person doesn't really help. As far as words per sentence goes, I'm just watching to see if it ever has a massive deviation, I don't have any real goal.
Could you link whatever tool you used to make your screenshot, I'm now interested in looking at my own data.

>>20802570
Sorry for the dumb question, but what program lets you analyze your writing like this?

>>20802587
>>20802693
https://wordcounter.net/character-count
Is what I used this time since phone posting, but MS Word has a nice spread of this info if you turn on Readability Statistics on under options - gives you a lil report out when you run a spellcheck.

I was just meming about worrying over letter frequency though, but I also check my words per character/word length every few chapters (I'm also primarily writing 1st person fantasy).

I also found my numbers comparable to yours I think, I only remember my words per sentence. But agree it's I interesting to check from time to time to see if your tone/style shifts. I need to check how it compares to my 3rd omniscient piece.

Would nature wrap nothing in light so fair?
You are hidden by its dappling haze;
Like a swimmers shadow through heavy air,
To not make clear what is clear as day.
See the victim of my memories crime.
Feel its pulseless silent quivering.
And this ghost was living in another time,
Caress forever the face which won't sing.
My memory falsifies itself with age;
Wide as sight only is sight of minds eye;
And no more deep than its own shallow gauge,
Long until horizon's steep fall; And my
Pen that cannot write your figure truly,
Is blunted still: it mocks me cruelly.
? read the first word of every line

>>20802570
>>20802745
interesting

>>20802745
Thank you!

any resources for writing stage plays?

>>20802977
Other plays

>>20803018
if you're the anon that recommended those two plays, they were fantastic and helped a lot. Thank you.

I have zero training in art, how can I make a good cover? Worth paying $200?

>>20803061
Covers make or break most "window" book sales. Unless you have an insane word of mouth campaign going, you better have a great cover.

I think I've discovered the ultimate grift. Don't make a page or group or Discord about yourself. Make it about writing.

What will happen is hundreds of people will flock there in the hopes of becoming writers, and maybe a few of them will, but most of them are going to just be there to share memes and ask for help filling out their character development infographics. They don't care about writing. They just want to be seen as literary or sensitive or whatever it is they want from posing as writers.

And what do you think happens next? Suddenly if you're an admin or major poster who is known in the community, you have an audience. An audience who so desperately wants to fit in with everyone else that they will eagerly eat up whatever book or serial you put out because, well, you're the authority around so you've got to know a thing or two and maybe they can learn something to help with their own writing! Which won't happen, of course, because they aren't writers. Now you have a reliable train of paypigs to live off of and you can thank old uncle anon for helping you along.

>writing a story about Mars
>can't use the word "earth" to describe soil
this is actually very restricting

>>20803174
use a different name that they would use.

>>20803174
I wonder how many interplanetary scifis have poetic characters that quote poetry from Earth and get in the habit of referring to alien soil as "earth" anyways. As long as you hang a flag on it, you can get away with anything.

>>20803193
the problem is that it's not really Mars, it's 19th century New England with a scifi setting, so too much distinct Martian culture is discordant
>>20803206
I've tried leaving it in and it always sits ugly on the page. I haven't looked around at other scifi authors to see if they write around it too or if it's just me.

For context's sake, this character is trying to get a good grip on her abilities. Figure out how they work, their effects, etc. And just so you know why it behaves the way it does, she's basically a walking fusion reactor, with her own magnetic field and whatnot. I like to do my research.

>She had been hard at work studying her abilities, and had built a sort of target range out of a bunch of large rocks. That thing she had done last time she fought... She needed to know if she could do it again.
>She looked around, checked if everything was in order, stuck out her arm as straight as a branch, and tried focusing all of her energies into it. But all that happened was her fist glowing a bit brighter than it normally would. No electrical hum to be heard, just the whistle of the wind and snow. She tried other positions with her hand, turning her arm, focusing into other parts of her arm, but again, no dice.
>There was something missing, and she understood this perfectly well. She stood straight and put her hand to her head as she sat down on one of the rocks. She thought back to when she used it for the first time. The context, the position she was in. Everything, she recounted aloud to herself. She always tended to do that when she needed to be specific.
"That thing pinned me down, tried to eat my arm, I tried to make my arm hot so it couldn't do that, but it pulled it down it's throat anyways... Then I put my other arm on it's face and tried to pull it out, and then it happened the moment I gripped my elbow on a reflex. Blew up it's entire body and left nothing but it's head. But what was it?"
>She then realized that it happened when, well, she gripped her elbow. She bolted upright, stuck out her arm again, and focused her energies. After a couple of deep breaths, she grabbed her elbow, and with it her forearm was covered by a borderline transparent cylinder of blueish plasma, along with emanating a buzzing sound. Yet nothing was coming out. In a mild moment of curiosity, she opened her other hand up and out it came with a slight static-y noise She jumped a little at the sight of the beam. It looked like the cylinder but extended far beyond her arm, reducing the rock she was pointing at to a molten state in an instant
>She grinned audaciously as she realized the functions of her new weapon .
I could probably improve the sentence structure here.

>>20803174
You just have to get very autistic about the specific kind of soil being dealt with in each given scene.
If it's sand, call it sand. If it's loam, say loam. Between that and synonyms like soil and dirt, you should be fine.

>>20803298
thanks, that's actually what I've been trying to do. It's funny the kind of stuff you end up researching as a writer.

>>20803061
You can't. But I'll make one for you.

>>20802573
No i haven't. I will add it to the list, thank you

My writing skill is not good enough for the story I want to tell. What do I do

>>20803417
get good brainlet

>>20803254
>She needed to know
>she understood
>She thought
>She always tended to
>She then realized
>she realized
Using these phrases is the weakest way to convey information to the reader. It starts to read like an outline of events. Sometimes there's a legitimate need for them, but you should make an effort to strike as many as you can. Google "writing filter words" for more details.

>>20803419
How do I know when I am good? I have been grinding fanfiction to practice my writing, right now I am at 113,264 words of fanfic written.

Here's a little extract from something I've started recently - very pleased with the skeleton of the whole thing, at that stage where my brain is bubbling with ideas and its about conveying them as clearly and sensually as I can. Feedback welcome

>>20803426
you will never be good. if you're satisfied with your work you're wrong. practicing fanfiction isn't practicing fiction.

>>20803451
>you will never be good. if you're satisfied with your work you're wrong.
Ok fine, when does one know when one is good enough to move from fanfiction to original work.

>practicing fanfiction isn't practicing fiction.
It's like a training bike, one can ride it before one learns to ride a real one

>>20803486
it will never be good enough. just stop writing fanfic. it's not training you to write good fiction just bad fanfic.

>>20803512
You don't know that.
You're just being a seething schizo pseud.
I can't believe you're still wasting oxygen.

>>20803423
I feel that I need to find other words to communicate what she's doing

>>20803512
Very well. I will try at original content for a bit.

>>20803610
it's not a matter of variety, it's a matter of the reader feeling the action happen vs reading about it having happened

>>20803417
>>20803426
Read good writing. Stop with this fanfiction shit.

>>20803627
To recount
>She sets up a targeting range after blowing up a monster's entire body
>Tries to figure out how to use it
>Doesn't work
>Sits down, remembers what she did when it happened
>Realizes how it works, uses it

>>20803686
It has nothing to do with the events, it's your prose. Rather than say
>She needed to know if she could do it again
rephrase it as something like
>She itched to summon that power again.
the flow of "needing to know" something is all fucked up. She itches, it's immediate, it's happening right now. It is followed by another immediate action which chains into a logical flow of events that are all happening exactly as each word unfolds on the page.

>>20803451
>>20803512
>>20803630
seethe
>>20803617
Don't listen to the seething schizo pseud.
He's like the monkeypox of this thread.

>>20803583
>>20803760
i do know. anon isn't seething. neither am i. you're seething on their behalf and about something that doesn't affect you in any way. get help.

>>20803760
YWNBAW

This is what it takes for you to make it. 50k investment.

>>20803851
Of course it affects me.
The ranting brings down the tone of the entire thread.
You'd have to be solipsistic to not realize that.

>>20803880
what year is that boomer stuck in?

>>20803880
Sweet! I sold tens of books for FAR less than that.
Also, Andrew Verlaine's book, "Stigmaplay", isn't listed on Goodreads OR Amazon.
But he has a Goodreads account.
Not sure what's up with that.

>>20800958
minimag issue05

submissions open for poetry, prose, art, articles, whatever

miminmagsubmissions@gmail.com

>>20803942
minimag.space for pdf downloads

>>20803958

>>20803967

>>20803972

>>20803972
rest of story @ minimag.space

>>20801387
it's a great idea, did you base it off the painting or did something else inspire it?

>>20803984

>>20802746
i chuckled

>>20803991
submissions: minimagsubmissions@gmail.com

pdf download: minimag.space

and thanks to anons who have already contributed

>>20801873
naked lunch vibes

>>20803880
I can sell tens of books by just posting a link here.

Right?
Right??

>>20803886
then go somewhere else.

>>20804207
You wish.
The decent people here vastly outnumber the demotivational failed-crabs.

>>20804238
oh ok i guess you'll just have to seethe about it then

>>20803880
Instant meme.
Saved.
Should shut up the meerkats quickly.

>>20804018
Very few people here buy books written by anons, despite them being from the closest they have to peers.
I do, but not all of them...but I'll read the "Look Inside" portion (if available on Amazon), and I'll either buy a paperback, or I'll post on here why I'm not buying a copy.
But I'm the exception.

>>20801427
>>20801387
damn this sounds interesting, the translation is still quite good

Sunstruck and prayer muttering, harsh
As pine skeleton, eight feet in awe
Stitched together half-chewed clumps,
Narrow forearms of this month. We share
A subject, forefront, dominating
As the landscape, uniform;
Steam pooling, slight,
And softening overhead
Spoke, lauding its tongue, teeth
All evacuate,
Chattering to a delicate hum;
Caught with crumpled pockets and spineless storage,
Stray lines weaving mindless elaboration
Whipped forward between station to station
Pipeline sighs shuddering the evening aluminum
Surrendering short schedules
With such a spare, sickening patience.
The obstructive ridges clutching my skull
A loose head in blue blown grass ripped
To consciousness, terrible chastity, honest apprehension
At an unbreathable distance; long, dark legs
Knotting under deficient roofs.
Thrashed bare with the typical tools
Spider foam clinging to nervous walls
Sprawling carpets, only enough time once
I had abandoned all the sense of it,
Held tighter then I’d known to, took
All the easy talk out of it and turned my wrists
Over and over lodged in tight circles, slender aisles,
Breezy reeds and before, howling, a half-human clutter
Counting coarse claims all sneering to myself,
Struggling to a stutter as I could only learn to sleep.
To the clean estimation, kneaded faces
Shaking the green from their surfaces
Running water, possessive, responsive fingers
Stumbling in the assumption, coarse sand, brittle
By the afternoon, as foreign ripples
Prying provident minds, sullen and immediate.

Any thoughts? I'm aware of a couple things but would like to see what anyone here thinks

>>20804465
You suck.

>>20804482
Can you tell me why

>>20804500
Yes, I can.

>>20803443
I like the overall hastiness of this excerpt, but I don't like the "rhetoric and misery" part, specifically the word rhetoric, it seems to me a little extraneous. Also the names "Brightside" and "Coleman" I personally find a little phoned in, but nothing really all too important and maybe a little nitpicky. Other than that though, nothing but encouragement

>>20804515
Will you?

>>20804482
Don't mind the seething schizo pseud.
He's been a demotivational failed-crab for a long time.
>>20804500
>>20804528
Don't take his worthless opinion seriously.

>>20804528
I don't see why I should.

>>20804537
It's my first time actually posting anything anywhere I can expect honest criticism, I appreciate whatever it is regardless

I feel like I have bitten off more than I can chew with my story, a lifetime spanning fantasy tale.
I just don't really feel like I know what I'm even writing, I am about to enter my next arc which I have some outline for but I'm just not feeling it.
I know a first story isn't going to be great generally speaking but I feel like its been aimless.
I am almost tempted to start writing my second story and writing both of them at the same time since I think the other story is just going to be more simple.
But more than that I am tempted to read for the third time a story that I like a lot, hopefully being inspired to write more as it is also a fantasy story.
The only issue with reading that story again is that it is over 2000 chapters at roughly 2000 words each, that's lowball 400,000 words.

>>20804545
Is it an overreliance on adjectives for imagery and not enough verbs? Keep in mind this is all written frantically over the course of maybe 15 minutes. Not enough verbs, especially for the intended pace I want to establish, might make the whole thing seem a little muddy or somehow sticky but I like to think some people might find this conflict somewhat interesting? Probably best not to place too much faith in assumption either, or to really even conceive of an audience other than myself

>>20804557
What's it about?

>>20804557
take a break and write something else for a bit

come back later with a fresh outlook

>>20804570
which thing?
My story I am writing now is about a baby found in the woods and raised by a farmer, though the main character is a human sub-species leading him to naturally be better at working with souls for magic, but he is otherwise a fairly normal person.
the other story I would write is a sorta post fantasy world where magic isn't as potent as it once was and it takes place in a wild west town where the sheriff is a golem made of copper.
the story I would be rereading is an isekai called Supreme Magus, also a lifetime spanning fantasy story but I feel I haven't copied it and I am trying to not just write the same story with a new coat of paint, though it has inspired me to start writing. it's also an ongoing story on hiatus.
>>20804596
yeah that is probably for the best. I also need to read egregore as well, and I've been uploading a chapter a day. I should be able to schedule until the 10th or later without anyone even knowing I stopped writing.

>>20803727
That works. And yes, this does come into play later, because one of her arms gets broken later down the line, and it renders her unable to use that ability effectively for a long time

What do you think of this idea for an antagonist?
>A prince when he was alive and raised to be blissfully ignorant
>Sacrificed at the end of ten, and let's say that some rather unsavory things happened then
>He couldn't be killed off completely though, and in this state of being undead he learned of the previous world and their attempts to reach immortality
>Being a child with such an extreme dichotomy between the memories he had and the abuse he suffered, he aims to create a world with replications of everyone's happiest moments
>To that end, he tries to take advantage of what he knows to manipulate the protagonist who's essentially his twin brother and the one who will destroy the world

>>20804667
It sucks.

>>20802070
Other way around for me. It becomes a haunting, eternal reminder.

Text structure is vexing me.
I have to start the book at a specific scene but that scene is very much in the middle of things from a character arc and story perspective. I've got to chop up the before and after in a way that avoids confusing the reader and muddying the message.

>>20803984
It's pretty much just the painting and that one arc from HunterxHunter.

>>20804871
>but that scene is very much in the middle of things
can a prologue or a flashback work?

i want to start writing. but i'm 35 with no experience.

>>20804985
You just need to put in 10,000 hours of practice my man, start today and in a few years you'll have some skill

>>20805000
i think i could nail it in 5k

>>20804667
I think you shouldn't care what others think about your ideas and write them anyway.

how do you outline arcs?
I want to right a webnovel and webnovels rely on story arcs and rarely ends

>>20805016
True, though I do need to give my outline more structure first.

>>20805024
>right
fucking brainrot

>>20804978
That's the issue, roughly half the book is flashback

>>20805016
why even have this general, faggot? maybe his goals are different from yours; maybe he's pitching some ideas and needs snap feedback before he wastes his fucking time? pretentious nigger
anyway,
>>20804667
i'm not buying it; maybe if you deconstructed it a bit-- like the main idea behind the memories (nature/nuture) stuff youre trying to portray? how would you even reveal this to the reader?

>>20804871
not enough to go on. can you keep writing in the meantime? you can come back to it later; you might need to.

>>20805049
Yeah, it's probably just going to be a very frustrating editing process that involves a lot of rewriting. When the story works as a linear narrative, it can be hard to make it continue to work when chopped up and interleaved.

>>20805024
this is some 101 stuff (building to a climax and eventually resolution), you probably already have a good idea. google that exact question and there's lots of good info.

>>20805081
do you care to explain why you need to start at a specific point? there are several good reasons that you might want to do this, so it'd help to know what you're going for

>>20805090
The opening scene came to me in a dream.
An exiled heir duels the usurper to his father's throne in the light of a blood red sunset. I've learned to listen when my subconscious is very insistent about something, but sometimes I'm left to fill in the gaps on execution.

>>20805107
tricky.. arguably the payoff/climax being spoiled. ideally you'd make the reader want said duel after some riches to rags fall of the family from the sons perspective.. something like that.
if they know he's already pulled it off.. well, there are ways you could do this.

>>20805004
well I think you can do it in 4k, good luck Anon.

>>20805037
The protagonist is supposed to find out the truth later on, and the antagonist takes advantage of his lack of knowledge to speak to him in his dreams while pretending to be another self of the protagonist. The protagonist struggles with odd visions of a destroyed world and the antagonist seemingly dispels them, but the way he behaves suggestively towards the protagonist hints at something more sinister, along with his remarks about the protagonist's journey. Sorry if it's unclear.

>>20801034
I did the same. Where did you submit it too?

Awe. That's the word. My eyes were transfixed on the sheer beauty. There, equipped with the sharp underpinnings, the rounded body, the sleek shape, the beautiful mask. It was perfect. My very own Masshine-kikai, or Machki. I touched the body of the armor. It was cool to the touch. Leaving my print on the metal, I could scarcely believe it, I was going to finally get my own Machki. I've dreamt about this since I first saw one fly through the air on television. It was the World Championship Tournament of 3024. Ja'Thomas was the last American to win the games. That was two hundred and twenty five years ago.

A lot has changed since watching the documentary, but I was engrossed with flying my own Machki. My mom supported my dream, or at least entertained it. I don't think she ever believed though. The parts were expensive, and flying one takes years of practice. But when there's a will, there's a way. It took me over fifteen years to build the suit in front of me, and now it's ready to take off.

>Too anime or not enough?
>Should I switch to 3rd person?

>>20805140
interesting; you might want to give a LOT of consideration now on how you'd portray the subtle reveal of this sort of information without revealing it outright to the reader-- they don't have the audio/visual feedback of pauses and facial expressions that might reveal suspicion and such, and stating something in your writing usually comes with purpose and will be too revealing.

also the pace at what you do this is important; the reader needs to be slightly pulled by something that isn't just uncertainty (for too long). this is nearly stream of consciousness, but i hope it gives you some ideas.

>>20805132
Well, his "family" is a line of succession of clones, so when his dad got killed he was booted out into the wilderness as a child to not die.
The significance of the scene is less that he wins, but that he commits a breach of protocol in the course of winning. He's of course the only witness to this sin, but it continues to eat at him, especially as he realizes through the rest of the story that very few people would actually care if he confessed.
He has an immature understanding of honor and law as they are put to practice in real society, because of his sequestered upbringing, and the events that fall after the intro chronologically deal with him confronting those realities.

>>20804524
Cheers for that. I know what you mean about the rhetoric and misery part, it's a bit too unsubtle and unspecific. Agree about names, they're just placeholders until I decide the full fictional town's layout and stuff

>>20805163
oh, that's good. i think then, the most important part here would be the climax of the second part/half of the story.
id put a lot of thought into making this worthwhile. also subverting expectations with the duel.. bigly. i dont know. you could go anywhere with this-- definitely oesnt' seem hopeless, but you need to be very creative. think about what you want out of these events (for the reader).

How have you guys tackled introducing new political ideologies? I'm looking back at the one my protag follows and it's an odd blend of Socialism and Sharia law, I feel psychotic every time I write about it.

>>20805194
maybe through a foreign character; someone that needs things explained to them.. or someone that makes a booboo and needs to be reminded. depends how in depth you need to be.

>>20805194
>I feel psychotic every time I write about it
That's how you know you're on to something

>>20805200
>>20805212
Page 2 has a blob of melting glass placed and blown into a lady's mouth because she was talking during a presentation.

>>20805222
exquisite

>>20805226
I'm not going overboard am I?

>>20805222
:(

>>20805228
Nowhere onboard is worth going

>>20805228
yes, maybe.. i don't know..
critique (concern) you didnt ask for: can't imagine how she'd be in a position to make this mistake.. ie talking to someone and/or ignorant of such strict circumstances.

1/3

>>20805161
Yeah, it's kind of a problem because the antagonist would certainly never reveal his trauma directly and he happens to resemble the alleged murderer of the protagonist's father except younger. The other part of it is that he genuinely did want to save the protagonist and they don't actually clash until much later in the story.

>>20805250

2/3

Day 57 editing.
Chaptr 77 done.
Only a couple more fapters to go.
Initial plothole list almost filled.
Whole new list had been created in the process.
Truly the ride never ends.

>>20805253

3/3

>>20802518
So I just straight-up refused to read Joseph Campbell's book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. It was way too long, repetitive, and nonsensical. I read as much as I could stand and then just gave up and read all the wiki articles.

>>20805263
>>20805253
>>20805250
good.. schizoprose. i wonder what context would make this more palatable

Posted this in another thread, but I'll post it here as well.
A peice of flash fiction around 1400 words.
https://pastebin.com/Ur19rc3y

Get comfortable, boah. ‘Cus y’ain’t ne’er ‘gon forget this story.
Now, I ain’t much into this fancy-dancy book stuff, ‘nosuh, h’what interests me in this world of ours is the BUCK, and subtle art of ‘breakin ‘em. As my Pap used to say, “when e’er yer day is open, ye’ll always find a BUCK that needs to be broken.”
Heh heh, the Ole Fella was right about that, ‘yesuh.
I’ve been ‘breakin BUCKS for now on fifty years, and I like to reckon I’m something of an authority on the subject. Ye see, I’ve broken BUCKS all ‘round yonder. I’ve broken them in Ole ‘Virgin-ye, ‘mongst rows and rows of cotton; I’ve broken them in the ‘rollin backcountry of ‘Nawth ‘Jaw-ja; and I’ve broken them h’while watching the frothy channels of the ‘Mississip, that mighty river h’which flows with all the force of a h’white man’s seed into the bussy that is the Gulf of Mexico.
So skilled was I in the art of ‘breakin that h’when I turned twenty, or so, I was inclined to offer my services, for a small fee. So I started ‘puttin advertisements in the circulars.
“BUCKMASTER,” they’d read, “seven inches, will travel.”
Then there came a day h’when the boah from the Post Office delivered me a telegram. Twas all the way from Johnson County ‘Alabam, straight from the office of the Sheriff there. The telegram told a familiar story: A rowdy BUCK, fresh off the boat, upon first ‘seein a blonde-haired blue-eyed h’white woman had gone feral, broken out of his shackles, attempted to menace the woman, but fled for the hills at the sound of a h’whip. His h’whereabouts were unknown, but melon patches and chicken coops kept ‘gettin pillaged e’rey day ‘n night.
So’s I stuffed my carpetbag full of my ‘breakin tools, along with a stick of ‘buttuh, for ‘greasin, and made passage by bicycle o’er to Johnson County. Word spread fast ‘round those parts, and though I might sound a braggart, I wouldn’t be a liar if I told ye that I was greeted in Johnson County by cheering throngs and a ‘marchin band.
“Hurrah!” They cried, “hurrah for the BUCKMASTER!”
They gifted me with fresh wildflowers and h’whiskey, and I felt half-a-King. Yet, though I was, and still am ever-grateful to the people of Johnson County, I couldn’t be bothered by their platitudes, there was ‘breakin to be done. So’s I asked the Sheriff h’where he suspected this BUCK was ‘hidin.
The Sheriff said to me, he says, “I’ll eat my hat if that BUCK ain’t hold up in Ole Lynchtree Forest.”
I told the Sheriff I would depart for the forest with haste.
“Shouldn’t we muster a posse first?” the Sheriff, offering me a see-gar, h’which I was obliged to accept.
“Sheriff,” I says, ‘runnin that see-gar real casuallike under my nose, “perhaps y’ain’t ne’er heard of me, like ye says ye did.”
(1/3)

>>20805311
“Oh, I’ve heard of ye, Mr. Sneed. All the BUCKS from Texas to ‘Muri-lynd frighten their BUCKLETS into behaving h’with tales of Dixie’s Albino Cobra.”
I had a good chuckle at that, ‘yesuh, a good chuckle, indeed.
“Then ye should know, Sheriff, that h’while I do have the utmost respect for ye, yer Deputies, and the work y’all do, I am a solitary BUCKMASTER. ‘Breakin is an artform that requires the utmost concentration.”
“I understand, Mr. Sneed, but let us at least give ye a gun.”
I chuckled again.
“Won’t be necessary, Sheriff.”
That night, Johnson County ne’er been quieter, and I set out on the bicycle into the bowels of the Ole Lynchtree Forest. It was country-dark in there, and soon the briars and brambles were too thick for the bike, so I carried it and waded deeper and deeper on foot, ‘shoulderin and ‘duckin branches as I did. H’when I felt I’d gotten good and deep, I struck up a lantern, propped the bicycle against a tree, and turned away for a moment.
H’When I turned back, there was the BUCK, the bike already cradled in his arms. He ‘musta been ‘round se’em foot, with a double-barrel shotgun for a nose, two slimy red worms for lips, and two tree-trunks for arms.
“Ye best put that back, boah!”
He looked at me then, and his eyes grew as big as saucers before he bolted with all the speed of a spooked deer into the darkness, the bike still in hand. I gave chase, freeing my ‘breakin mallet from the carpetbag as I did. Though it was hard to see, I could hear him ‘tramplin ‘cross twigs and leaves, and I could hear those big nostrils huffing up all the air and mosquitos. Like many frightened BUCKS, he was fast, but as a hunter will tell ye, it’s patience that wins the day, so’s I kept a good pace, ne’er ‘lettin him get too far ahead, ‘til we came upon a gray crag. The BUCK dropped the bike and made to climb it, he pawed and pawed at the face of the mount, but soon realized it was far too steep.
He turned to face me.
“On yer knees, BUCKO!” Says I.
He let out a cry so savage it could scare angels out the clouds and he wound one of them tree-trunk arms of his back, and let fly a meaty fist. I parried, ‘havin become adept at ‘dodgin the wild haymakers h’which BUCKS tend to throw, and returned his swing with one of my own, ‘bringin the ‘breakin mallet down with both hands on his head. There was a satisfying bonk, and the BUCK went cross-eyed, and started a’wobblin hither and thither. I cast the mallet aside and strode over to the BUCK, bold as ye please, and seized him by his h’wooly mane, forcing him to the dirt, rumpside-up.
(2/3)

>>20805317
I dropped my trousers with the air of a man going about some bustled task, but I damn near doubled-over when the BUCK’s trousers dropped. Fifty years I’ve been ‘breakin BUCKS and to this day, and I’m ‘gon say it again, TO THIS DAY! I ain’t ne’er seen a bussy like the one on that Wild BUCK from Johnson County. Imagine two ebon boulders, wide as a dinner table, speckled with delicate beads of perspiration. I placed a hand on each cheek, and had to force myself from bursting as they sank into the soft flesh of him, almost disappearing entirely. I parted those cheeks, just as Moses parted the Red Sea, and there in between found a tangle of black wire under h’which was a tight little pink starfish.
I went to work with my stick of ‘buttuh, ‘makin sure I was well waxed, a courtesy I offered to all BUCKS, no matter how savage. It was only h’when I was about to enter him that the BUCK started ‘comin to. I squatted down low in a froglike position, and mounted him from the posterior, he was a’moanin, and a’mumblin, but then he took to ‘howlin like a wolf when I thrust home in him. And let me tell ye, lil’boah...
He.
Could.
BUCK!
He kicked like a mule, and slithered on his belly ‘cross the dirt like a snake, but I kept my thighs tight around him, the only sound was that of the ‘whinin BUCK and a wet sort of slap, slap, slap.
He was broken by the time I finished. They all break, it isn’t as much a question of if, but rather, h’when.
I hog-tied him afterwards and went down to a nearby crick to wash the sweat, dirt, ‘buttuh, and BUCK-JUICE off me, the last of h’which was already ‘startin to draw flies. I grabbed the bicycle, the mallet, the carpetbag, and lastly the BUCK, and drug it all down yonder to the Sheriff’s office, h’whistlin a jaunty breaking tune all the h’while. H’when the townsfolk came outside, they saw me a’puffin on the see-gar the Sheriff had given me back h’when, the bound BUCK ten paces to my left, like a mackerel in the moonlight: shining, flopping, and stinking. Some of the Deputies could hardly contain their tears as they thanked me for saving that year’s melon crop. H’when the Sheriff went to hand me a hefty wad of bills, I put up a hand.
“Sheriff,” I says between puffs, a coy little glint in my eye, “this time, and this time only, I won’t charge ye. ‘Cus this time ‘round, the chase, and the ‘breakin was priceless.”
3/3

>>20805311
look i liked the buck breaking meme as much as the next guy but this wasn't funny

Game is canceled, thought I saw some specks of good writing today but frankly I don't give a shit anymore.
Life, learning, tiresome vanity. I'm ahead of the curve now and when I'm rotting on the ground in 4 months, I'll be the first one to meet you there, join that thing.

>>20805291

I'm not sure either and ran out of steam pretty fast, but I think I'd like to mess around with time more (long stretches of a single night and then a year passes, or the drama is sort of abruptly yanked away into some other conflict), as well as a sort of joyous/panoramic unraveling of this very opaque and squirrely narrator. Thanks

>>20805375
dont be shy anon

>>20805156
>Too anime or not enough?
If you're looking to write anime, it's the correct mix of completely talentless writing combined with a subject matter that's completely superfluous. Please, anon. It's time to grow up.

>>20805379
Lets see your writing, Anon

>>20801034
Glad to hear you're writing more, Anon. Keep at it.

>>20805378
No, as if I could have anything to say, whatever I think I do, it's mammal noise.
Spit, I am a meta lobotomite in that I anon, have no worth.
No, I am a negative flash to talent and grace, all my life until this point I've never had it, a moment with art. To be well versed is to be sexualized, primal and warm, I have no such relationship with anything that's not basic mammal life in a mammal dead world, carrying mammal shit inside my body.

There is one good thing, the mammal dies and rots, never to be seen again, never to fail, I won't even remember. I'll write a good novel in 7 billion years. I merely have to hope that my corpse rots in just the right way to arrange evey bone into perhaps, I hope, a single good line, that's the only chance I have at being a good writer.

>>20805383
>The shit has dried around my ass hole, forming a shit-wafer which might then be eased tenderly off living flesh, observing carefully the delicacy of the substance clinging clinging clinging filamentous, only slowly to release its hold on a bare-again sphincter winking into Turds' End, a recursion of sorts -- O fecal fractal! I clean the dribble from my cock and hand with paper towels first, and then in the sink with an extra moment's attention paid to my finger. Paul's been paid, and Peter had nothing to do with it.

The mountain was all that existed, or near enough. As soon as they were freed from the shackles of order and tedium they rushed to the hallway to put on their shoes and coats and hats and gloves and rushed out to the mountain. For the next fifteen minutes all that existed was the mountain, and all that mattered was who ruled the summit.
The mountain had been born of snow plowed from elsewhere in the yard, it reached taller than any of them, but not by much. Three or four separate layers of battle could be waged on those slopes. At times alliances were formed against stronger opponents, but the allies always betrayed one another in the end, for there could be but one king on the hill at any time, and that price was worth any hurt to another's feelings, worth any knife in the back or heart.
To be king of the hill is to stand above all others, to be their better. You survey the meaningless world beyond the mountain of snow and sneer at it, for none of it means anything compared to the mountain. Above you is only the sky, and the sun, moon and stars shine only for you.
Then another overcomes you and sends you plummeting down. The king is dead, long live the king! Now all of creation has a new master, and this master is cruel and unworthy, so you begin your ascent again, you claw at those above you like a crab in a bucket, look now! there's a fool with their pants loose, pull on and they'll need both hands to protect their vain dignity, and when they do so another pushes them off and down they go and up you go, ever closer to that summit of summits, the summit of the gods themselves, the seat of absolute dominion, the prize of all prizes!
The battle rages. Is each in turn king on his summit, is each in turn a broken wretch at the bottom, each in turn at every point of the ascent and descent? Yes, in this they are all equal. The mountain is life, the mountain is the wheel of fortune that ever turns, grinding all to dust and elevating all to heights unimagined.
Too soon rings the bell, recess ends and the mountain must be abandoned. Cheeks are red with the cold and the strain, smiles all abound, clothing and hair all ruffled. Soon they will return to their battle. For now, a period of rest, of boredom in the warm classroom. They will stare at the clock and prepare. The prize awaits. In their minds, all that exists is the mountain.

>>20805398
Lol.

>>20805378
I am heavy anon, not with regret but shit.
Out of all perspectives in life, I had to be me. Couldn't be anyone else, no, always me.
These eyes that I am using right now, a fucking curse, my entire being is just one huge delusion that I can't quit. I eish I could just fade away without dying, my body goes on without me, empty halls.
But no, I have to rot and I will soon enough, I'll burn myself to death because I deserve it, for being myself, seeing and acting in this disgusting world as me.

i started reading my first litRPG recently; one of the highest rated ones a friend recommended.
the writing is awful, but is that just the genre-- like they're actually skilled and anything else is impossible at this pace? .. it's just comfy rough-draft-freestyle of a fun prompt?
im just sort of at a loss..

>>20805410
>the writing is awful, but is that just the genre
That is LITERALLY the genre. It's not "just" the genre as much as it is an integral component of what makes litRPG litRPG. It's the lowest possible literature for people with the lowest possible standards: anime fans.

>>20805410
..but i'd like to attempt it as well.**

>>20805409
posting on 4chan is a lot like fading away without dying. very sand mandala-esque anyway. just keep at it homie

And I have no one to blame other than me. Hard determinism is my belief, I am not and will never be, afraid of playing the Russian luck game. If it was meant to happen it would happen, which makes me hate myself more.
I am a shit writer, a shit artist and have no single talent or grace because I was born like that, like me. My own birth is the first and only tragedy in my life.

>>20805422
This is the writing general thread, not your fucking blog.

>>20805420
right, yea.. it's like gruel for mass consumption. it's supposed to be comfy, and not much else. i guess the art is in the fun prompt and catering to the base.. primal shit the reader is into.

>>20805401
I wrote this because it's hot out and I remembered how much winter was as a kid.

>>20805422
Anon, what you just wrote was raw, honest, and strangley beautifal. You've got some talent.

>>20805437
>strangley beautifal
This is the kind of poster you attract when you stop gatekeeping.

>>20801363
>away
I said awry, you illiterate monkey.

>>20803174
I come across this problem more often than I'd like to. I just use other words.

>>20805311
>>20805317
I thought it was funny.

anyone write any litRPG/LN?

>>20805146
I submitted via email to &amp.
>>20805391
It made me very happy to let go of other pursuits (except my dayjob and reading) and feel more progress writing. Now I actually feel like I can surmount it.

>>20805258
Finally broke and submitted first chapter.
It.
Has.
Begun.

>Stop writing for a couple months
>Reread what I got
>It's a messy mix of kino moments splashed with unadulterated cringe shit
>Find out I have a knack for writing sex scenes
Life uhhhh finds a way, I guess.

>>20805774
I bet it’s actually all cringe and you’re just giving yourself more credit than is owed.

>>20805774
Sounds based but also >>20805789

>>20805789
Snip snip

>>20800958
How much do you plan/outline before diving in and actually writing out your short story?

>no longer using 'it' for objects or animals
>no longer using 'he/she' for people
>ebonics doesn't use "are/were", only "is/was" regardless of person or plurality

Congratulations, we have now rendered English completely ambiguous. Abstract entities performing actions with verbs, no idea what it is, who it is, how many there are, etc. Enjoy.

>>20805894
>Using "he/she" for objects and animals alike
>Using "it" for people
>I have no idea what an eboner is but it sounds gay
English is only as retarded as you make it.

>>20805651
If I had an artist that wanted to do an action based series, I would write a litRPG but I don't believe combat based stories work well in purely written form.

This is why the MC of my webnovel is "trained by a sword master" and he fights "dangerous and powerful" men. I can repeat that level of danger without needed to escalate like a Marvel movie.

>>20805938
Haven't you heard? 'They' is the only pronoun in English

>>20805946
Those remain bad examples
Shakespeare did the first two (unspecified person of known gender), third one is not a native speaker and mixes it with "his"

>>20805960
Do you not understand what I said?
Shakespeare died like 3000 years ago, nobody cares.
This is modern times, this is 2022.
'They' is the only pronoun remaining in the English language. Accept it.
>not a native speaker
Nobody in USA is a native speaker, then, because they all talk like this.

'They' is the only pronoun remaining in the English language.

>>20805966
Then surely you can find tons of native speakers using "they" for specific people with a known gender? There aren't any in that screenshot.
>Nobody in USA is a native speaker, then
No, I mean that I checked and that Reddit user is Eastern-European. I'm not guessing here.

>>20804871
I had a major issue with giving the reader a good starting point for events in the story. The reader starts midway into the story, so a lot of major events have already happened. How do I make sure the reader isn't overwhelmed with information?

Have a character(s) learn that information, and me as the author makes sure that the character(s) aren't overwhelmed by the information. This involves pacing out the new information in the story alongside in-the-moment storytelling.

I created two young orphan characters with no experience of anything outside their orphanage as the reader self-inserts. Through these two characters the reader is able to experience and know what they need to know at the right pace. You can always keep track of how much the reader knows because you just have to know what your character(s) know.

t. Wish Mountain author.

>>20806001
I struggle to take your advice seriously after the pseud shit you pushed a couple weeks ago.

I finished a flash fic but I'm struggling over this one paragraph that is so omega cringe I cant believe I wrote it. Basically it is supposed to be an average Greek's response to his condemnation but not the eloquence of Socrates. But it seemed like such a reach, so melodtamatic that it ruins everything. I see it now. Just gotta alter that response and it will be all right.

>>20805379
It's written for kids though

That might sound weird, but I'd like to learn more about paranthesis and how to handle them. Is this something I can find in the general writing books? I use to have a neutral view of them, but now I find that they're almost always a mark of bad writing. Instead of working more on how to incorporate everything, the author threw a few paranthesis and was done. Is this how they actually work? Are there people that use them in a way that's positive?

>>20806227
New thought, new paragraph

>>20802745
>pic
oldfag spotted

>>20806099
What pseud stuff out of interest?

Have you considered having your work translated ever? I know it's expensive but whenever I do themes that are big in other cultures I consider it. Plus, Japanese translations encourage people to ask to do manga and eventually anime adaptations.

>>20805651
Writing one now.

>>20806227
It's helpful to see them in action. I checked three books.
Pnin is full of parentheses, most pages have multiple.
Slaughterhouse-Five has just a single pair of parentheses at the start of chapter 1.
Piranesi uses them densely in some places and barely in others.

Nabokov's sentences are dense, rich, showy.
>Pnin, then a rising young scholar and she, a more limpid mermaid than now but practically the same person, had met around 1925, in Paris. He wore a sparse auburn beard (today only white bristles would sprout if he did not shave—poor Pnin, poor albino porcupine!), and this divided monastic growth, topped by a fat glossy nose and innocent eyes, nicely epitomized the physique of old-fashioned intellectual Russia.
I wouldn't write this. But if I did write it I couldn't organize it any better. He wants to mention Pnin's white bristles, but they're best quarantined from the rest of the passage that happens in the past, and worse, it applies to a part in the middle. He could leave the parenthetical out entirely, but that's not what we're here for, that's not why people read Nabokov.
There are also smaller parentheticals:
>How Pnin came to the Soedinyonnïe Shtatï (the United States).
>In the Fall Semester of that particular year (1950),
>an inconspicuous reference mark against a still more convenient train (Lv. Waindell 2:19 P.M., Ar. Cremona 4:32 P.M.);
I have a gut feeling that you're better able to get away with this if you have those long justified parentheticals from before. The reader is already expecting them, knows how to read them, and that lowers the bar. They won't come as a surprise.

Vonnegut of course has a kind of anemic style, minimalist prose.
>He was sentenced to six months in prison. He died there of pneumonia. So it goes.

In Piranesi most of the parentheticals add a pompous anxious tone. The narrator often feels the need to explain himself. He rarely talks to people, keeps notebooks, invented a lot of his terminology himself, and there's much he knows he doesn't know.
>I am (as I have previously stated) approximately thirty-five years of age.
>Perhaps I extrapolated the idea of a ‘university’ (a place where scholars congregate) from these?
>The scratching out had not been done perfectly (gel ink is difficult to remove) and I could still make out the ghostly form of the ‘2’.
>I do not know where he went. (I never really know.)

I tried to sketch something, I hope it makes sense.
The first sentence is multi-tiered. It uses parentheses to add an extra layer for organization, like a footnote or a basement.
The second sentence is simple. Consistency matters: if all your sentences are simple without exceptions then the reader can let their guard down.
The third sentence only uses parentheses to change tone (color). Most of the parentheticals in Piranesi aren't like this but some are. I bet it works best if those other parentheticals establish it first.

So they can be justified, but use with care? I dunno.

Reminder to submit your work to &amp magazine! Also, check out the &amp general thread to discuss past issues and talk about your planned submission for the next one.

>>20801644

>>20805156
This needs to be 3rd person. So a robot fighting tournament?

>>20803061
>how can I make a good cover?
try fiverr

https://www.fiverr.com/categories/graphics-design/book-design/cover

i'm not sure the best way to vet the artist. maybe he'll show you his portfolio

here's courtney's video on book covers. she makes hundreds of thousands per year writing romance with her partner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VAU940jyAA

Another day, another 1k words successfully added. August has been good so far.
Today I skipped all the way to the end of my manuscript and wrote bits for the last two chapters. They take place around Christmas time, after 6-month time-skip from the rest of the novel. While thinking what one MC would buy as a Christmas present for his fiancé, the answer I came up with tied into her previously established watercolor hobby.
Don't you just love it when things come together?

>>20803880
kek

>>20803061
$200 is the low end of what you need for a good cover. Don't go to fiverr though, you'll get scammed.

Honestly, someone here needs to learn the finesse of AI generated art.

>TFW you found a site that has the sound of running water
Nice, that should help with this story.

>>20803889
>>20803880
>>20803908
He's a satirist and it's telling that you autists can't read his sarcasm.

>>20806405
Thanks for the writeup and the schema anon. It does make sense, it's well explained.

Maybe this is not the right place to post this but I've been writing to a lot of instrumentals for like 2-3 years. Just small phrases with clever wordplay that somewhat connect to each other. The problem is that whenever I try to stop and organize my loose thoughts and make a coesive song or whatever I completely freeze a my mind turns dumb. Is this normal? Îs this the so called writer's block? What the hell can I do to fix this?

>>20806405
>Vonegut's anemic style
you should see how low his use of adverbs was. He almost never used them.

>fantasy music for inspiration - costal village
What do you guys listen to when working?

>>20806541
I keep offering.

How do I write a good female protagonist? I think I have a good base now, but I wrote them gender neutral at first and then added some traits naturally.

>>20806839
What's the place of women in the world of your story? How would the neutrality of your character be moved by this?

>>20806827
instrumentals and, before i realize it, silence

Hello wuggies.
I'm the anon that was trying out storyboarding as a tool to work on my story. I'm pretty pleased with what came out of it, but I can't post pics atm.
Now, time to write.

>>20806843
>>20806843
I'd say their situation is quickly deteriorating, going from current standards to middle ages. It's not a main plot point considering the rest of the setting but it plays into motivations and decisions, there's no way it wouldn't.

>>20806862
Not your blog fag

>>20806876
Well, how do you think you'd feel if your place in society started to shift? How would others of your kind feel?
This isn't really advice on how to write a *woman*, but it could help you to write that character

>>20805978
>Then surely you can find tons of native speakers using "they" for specific people with a known gender?
There are plenty, but none that I've personally screenshot. I will add that to the next rendition.

>>20806838
This is the first I've seen you offer. Why didn't you respond earlier? >>20802261

How do I write to be more inclusive? Do I add ze/zers? And is it worth hiring sensitivity readers?

can i have one general without that nonsense please?

>>20806827
Classical or Zen. If you can find a really good Zen album, I've found there's nothing better to write to.
>>20806478
It's all a matter of things finally paying off after plenty of thought and hard work. Keep up with the writing, anon.
>>20807007
Study other people. No need. Not worth your money or your time.

>>20807007
you should write something for adults who have grown out of the need to be precisely reflected in the things they read

>>20806937
I have taken that into consideration which is why I'll mention that the character does meet the requirement for being a protagonist. But if you were to read them, you'd be able to tell they're not a male protagonist which I think means I did a good job on that but it's still, I don't think there's anything to change here really, let it be whatever it is, right?

>>20807007
>not dropping in at least one slur in the first chapter to get rid of undesirable readers

I might sign with a publisher to translate a novel (English to Arabic), how much should I ask for?

>>20806985
You started talking money. I just want to help /wg/bros. Maybe that will help me develop it into something more down the line.

>>20807096
That response baffles me. Do you think I'm going to turn down working with you because you don't want to take money?

And even then, do I not count as a /wg/bro?

>>20807096
Can you post some examples of what you've done? My story isn't quite finished yet but I might come calling a little further down the line.

>>20806756
bump to this question

>>20807035
>>20807040
>>20807059
They are adults and the main market. I hate to say it but reading about whales while not acknowledging queequag or boomer not being pansexual is a problem. Captain Ahab being asexual is very prominent too. Must be acknowledged

>>20807110
Nothing like that, you are a /wg/bro. Honestly it's just a turn off to me and it's antithetical to what 4chin is. I'm not here to profit from anons.

>>20807136
I don't have anything to show you, I haven't done anything like this before. Maybe someone will give me a shot and I will then.

>>20807261
I get that, but the subscription fee to the actual generator programs worth a damn isn't $0

How do people edit so well?

>>20807271
I'm fairly confident that I don't need them.

Does anyone need a cheap editor? I'm free tomorrow

>>20807298
Anon, if you're just talking about doing illustrations, why don't you start by making some fanart so the /wg/ authors have something neat to advertise with?

>>20807418
Graphic design is probably the better term. Give me something to work with.

>>20807487
Give me a category and I'll post a description from one of my novels

>>20806405
What are some books or YouTube videos which cover plot lines to high detail with real examples like this post?

What would be too literary for mass market? I have a mystery thriller idea but only read litfic.

>>20807489
Fantasy, sci-fi, horror? Anything, really. Those are just an easy excuse for doing something fantastical.

>>20807550
Scene? Character? Landscape?

>>20807287
We enjoy the refining process almost more than the raw writing process. There's a moment in the raw writing process where you have this high because what you just wrote looks amazing, deep, florid, and beautiful, especially if you write in streams instead of careful crafting. In the editing process, slowly tweaking sentence structures, moving them around in paragraphs, picking the right words, etc., gives me the same or greater high than writing something I instantly think is great. The slow refinement process really makes me excited. I love best when I get to a part that I knew was over or under written when I first wrote it and now, in view of the whole scene, I know how to fix it.

>>20807561
My bad. Character or landscape. A scene could go either way in terms of difficulty.

>>20807544
What would be a question too vague to answer briefly? I have an idea for a question but haven't asked it yet

>>20807608
Maybe not THE BEST scene for me to grab for this, but it came to mind. From draft 1 of one of my manuscripts.

[...]
From the moment Kyte stepped in, he started trying to build a profile on the techie.

He didn’t even get through the door before everything his father taught him failed. He had learned how to deal with normal people, who had normal desires and normal weaknesses. The inside of the techie’s workshop looked like a cybernetic horror show, with heaps of trash and robotic limbs. The air stank of solder and ozone and hydrogen peroxide and more. The techie wasn’t a normal person, he was an artist.

Dealing with an autistic sociopath would have been easier.

“It ain’t gunna bite you,” Raz said, and shoved Kyte inside so he could close the door.

He had been expecting some kind of enormous processor, maybe built out of refurbished cores bought secondhand from one of EVE’s relays. Maybe a guy suspended in an isolation tank, hooked up to the machine and speeding through data matrices. Instead, he stumbled over loose cables and forgotten boxes. He passed dozens of computers running training simulations or grinding through 3D modeling. Some of them seemed to make sense, based on the images, but most were nothing but lines of code spasmodically updating.

“You’re a new face,” a female voice said.

Kyte jumped back and put a hand to the void mask he had on. Getting to the workshop had meant passing through a few train stations. His heart still hadn’t slowed down, but he knew rationally that his face couldn’t be seen. It just made the woman laugh.

She was seated on a desk in a tight, white dress that trailed off into poofy lace around the legs. Legs that didn’t have skin, nor feet; the plug-in joint dangled exposed. Her left arm had been removed at the joint so a charging cable could be stuffed in through the auxiliary port. If that all hadn’t been enough, there was no rise and fall to her chest, no breathing.

“Looking for Miccolo?”

“Speaking. Real body is indisposed. To what do I owe the interruption?”
[...]

I'm discovery writing and i know where my story is going, like the beginning middle end, big tent pole plot points, but every time I sit down to write I just start to write the most "exciting" scenes possible. Usually stuff filled with sex or graphic violence. When I think about trying to add in the scenes that are the connective tissue for the story I get an overwhelming sense of dread or boredom, like the idea of getting these plot point scenes written is boring to me, or connecting the "exciting" scenes sounds boring or tedious. And by "exciting" I'm not trying to toot my own horn or something I just mean my tendency is to write things that are exciting to me in the moment like sex, gore, violence, etc. But I'm worried those things won't exactly make up a story if they're just a smattering of disconnected scenes. How do I generate the connective tissue that makes up the story without boring myself to death or writing something boring?

>>20807903
You may benefit from reading drama novels. The best imo are from the 1800s and are about high society. Great Expectations, Anna Karenina, Count of Monte Cristo (has violence and drama), Brothers Karamazov, those kinds. It'll instill in you the human element of "boring tissue" is really just as exciting as bloodshed or sex, just in different ways.

>>20806827
Pop music. Lately I've been writing when listening to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OSjtjoavqM

>>20807818
What would disqualify one's writing from being acceptable to a mass market publisher?

>>20807961
Not having a defined audience, unironically. Publishers are a business and there has to be a place to put your book, otherwise it's a no sale.

>>20808012
What about diction? Can one use too literary words?

It's time, you'll get another review sometime tomorrow.
Thanks, Weedmeign

>>20808086
Neat. Hopefully my copy gets sent soon.

Weren't you going to read and review Faceless soon? Or are you another reviewer?

>>20808133
I didn't buy Faceless so no. I was thinking about that another time.

>>20807832
Anon I'm not drawing your fetish.

>>20808256
Everything is a fetish to somebody. You should have been more specific in the category of suggestions.

Not that I'm agreeing that a character building a robot waifu is my fetish, nor that it's even an objectionable fetish.

I don't read. Haven't read a book in probably 5 or 6 years. But I am in the process of writing my own fiction scifi/fantasy book. I'm editing my first draft now, at 75k words. Havent written the end though, expecting that to encompass another 10k. I have an editor, who likes what he's seen thus far and is looking forward to doing a formal developmental edit on it. IDK why I chose this type of creative medium if I don't read. I just wanted to create something original and writing seemed to be the most logical. Thanks for reading my blog post.

As far as webfiction goes stuff outside of litRPG/cultivation/isekai gain any kind of traction? I go on these sites and that seems like basically all that's there.

>>20808533
How much you paid/paying for the edit?

>>20808533
$4,000 for a full developmental edit of a novel expected to come in at 100k words

>>20807924
thanks for the suggestions, anon. I really enjoyed Count of Monte Cristo and Great Expectations, although I am embarrassed to admit I tried and failed to read Brothers Karamazov twice. I will give Anna Karenina a shot!

now that I think about it, I think that I might actually be insecure in my ability to write compelling human drama.

>>20808533
You will read.

New thread while I workout.

>>20808691
You will read.

>>20805422
Ugh, you're back to doomposting, are you.
That literally has no place here.
It's sorta appropriate for >>>/lit/wwoym/ , but not really.
Please, just go somewhere else to whine.

>>20807086
Offer them 72 virgins in paradise.
You'd be surprised what they'd do for that.

>>20805946
They has always been neutral. You'd have to be a retard not to understand it.

New thread >>20809142

>>20809121
Oh fuck I've offered them 72 sluts from your family

I want to start doing the writing but I dunno where to start. I feel like trying to write a proper novel will just be a disaster so maybe I might want to go down sort of a collection of short stories routes. I have the characters for it, but will sort of a short stories style with some interlinking characters work?