/lit/ - Literature

Yeah we first
Keep posting

>>20821957
Bumping and following with enthusiasm.

Also I would love some comfy book megas

Howdy everyone, I'm trying to write what I affectionately refer to as "literary fantasy," if such a thing exists. Despite being fantasy, it reads more like historical fiction. An agonizing amount of research went into this. The book will be released around next summer, but in the meantime you can read the first two chapters here if anything strikes your fancy: https://www.dylandevinewriter.com/book-preview

I'm not entitled to any feedback just because I post something, so I genuinely thank anyone who takes any time to read even a sentence of it.

Likewise, as always, I'll be going through and critiquing the other writing samples here, and if any of you post Google docs I'll hop in and start leaving comments.

Also, in the last thread very few people shared their writing, but if more people post their links I can contribute more. (Insert "Nobody actually writes here" meme.)

I don't feel particularly comfortable critiquing screen-plays though because I'm not experienced enough with screenwriting to give valuable feedback.

>>20821999
Forgot the cover like an idiot

>>20821957
The knock-off Gardner thread had me worried for a second

>>20822007
That looks like a great cover. But animeish for my taste but very nice

>>20821960
No niggers.

>>20822026
Thanks, I love what the artist did, but I worry I’ve gone the wrong direction with the tone, since the actual content of the book reads like historical fiction while the cover might mislead people into expecting it to be more YA-ish.

For now I can’t afford to redesign the cover the way I want, but I’ll see how it performs next summer when once it releases.

Do you write outlines and notes digitally or with paper? Why?

>>20822041
Digital is the only way to go, because you can highlight things and comment on them, you can copy/paste things and move them around, you can type quicker than you can scribble on paper, and it's much easier to organize and re-arrange your thoughts this way.

Here's Unresolved Textual Tension doing this on-screen (if you can get past Will's voice): https://youtu.be/H8_i85pYrnc

I'm big on astrology and tarot cards how do I incorporate this theme into my writing?

I know how to do astrology birth charts so go wild with your ideas go over more then just the sun sign. (Like planets and signs and stuff)

>>20822040
Oh 100% this looks like a YA fantasy.

>>20822131
That’s impossible to know without reading your writing, anon.

But generally speaking the same way you’d introduce any theme into a story—by giving it multiple appearances in parts that tie together cohesively.

>>20822131
You don't because you're not a writer.

>>20821807
>>20819298
I'd like to thank both of you guys for your feedback, it helps a lot. I do need to flesh out this story and tighten the writing. I want to submit it to some magazines but it's too short.

>>20822139
My writing is trash I choose not to share it since the prose and pacing is terrible The diolog is fine but I only started writing in dec of 2019 so i'm pretty fresh

But in my current story (the outline is still being refined from the last out line but if you wish for me to share I can) Its about a man who becomes schizo and falls into his maddness I.e becoming homeless, and stuff other schizos face its not a horror story its just supposed to be about a man's sanity going away and the problems that causes in todays society. (I have schizo for those who wish to say "Don't write schizo you'll get it wrong")

one of the big themes in this story is music. And I was wondering how I could work with my interest of astrology. (As a B/minor theme in the background)

>>20822167
You’re welcome anon, it was a tight narrative.

>>20822174
You will never be a writer.

>>20822193
Get off /lit/ Nobody's a writer Not even you.

>>20822202
No one here is a writer, it’s all just LARP.

>>20822205
Your starting to get it anon

>>20822131
Pagan nonsense has no place in literature

>>20821999
From your sample you do not have the talent to write literary fiction so give up the pretense and embrace whatever it is you’re writing. If it’s fantasy it’s fantasy. If it’s historical fiction its historical fiction.

Your mistake is to try to be literary and all you succeed in doing is gumming up the works. You have a lot of editing to do.

>>20822040
She's to small in the cover and her jaw is too sharp. I'd prefer an impressionistic style as it work look serious while retaining a mystical element.

>>20822241
forgot pic

>>20822259
Words cannot express just how much I love Impressionism as an art form. It's probably why I love the Modernists so God damn much.

I’ve released the first five chapters of my first work ever and it’s an izekai.

Am I doing it right?

>>20822151
>>20822205
>>20822202
>>20822193
>>20822208
We are becoming writers if we're not there yet.
We're improving writers if we think we are.
We will all make it, one way or another.
You will make it too.

>>20822501
If you write you're a writer.
You don't need to make money to call yourself a writer.
If you think about writing all the time but don't do that part where you actually write shit then you are not a writer and I hope terrible things happen to you.

>>20822040
Forget the cover, the summary sounds 100% like YA fiction with absolutely no historical elements

Is creative non-fiction on topic here? Except for the "Techical aspects of writing", everything seems to focused around fiction

Where are you William? WHERE IS HE?!??!

Egregore anon here. Come talk about your review. You are right about most of the negative aspects save a few you spent an unfair amount of time focused on.

>The "You ok?" "I do." moment. Pg.56
Not a mistake. Read the paragraph between.

>References to Plato being cringe
Yeah. Saundra was intended as a near insufferable pseud. As shallow and 'well ackshully' as this excuse is, overcoming the self brainwashing of higher education is her character arc.

Did you take notes? If so, can you point out the purple passages you found comical? Getting out of the habit of writing these is where I'm focusing with my next project. Some soar, some splat. I'm too deep into it to tell sometimes, as I spend 99.99% of my week with a toddler, which makes me borderline crackheaded aphasic on good days. I navigate around it with flowery speech. It's annoying.

But I have to sacrifice one of the two, raising my kids right or focusing on craft. Kids are obviously going to win out, as I don't have a mountain of cocaine or an office door to growl through like King.

You mentioned needing an extra set of eyes. Thanks for being said extra set of eyes. I'm gonna go back and patch it up.

Thanks for the review.

>>20822713
Also, what about the epilogue made you "question your understanding of the book?" I probably wont elaborate on much, but this ties into possible further discussion on whether or not I succeeded in what I set out to do with the plot.

>>20822713
Philip here, I gave you a review too. There's a number of other things I wanted to say outside from what I already wrote.
I really liked the allusion to Corinthians in chapter 7 where you just say she remembers "darkly." Your use of single words to evoke things is pretty cool and something I see some of modernists do. Joyce would just write a single word sentence on something seemingly unrelated to shift you thoughts. Faulker would quote half a sentence and make you finish the rest in your head like when he would write "father I have committed"...committed what? I do like what you did there with Corinthians but in my personal opinion starting with something in the first half can work better, it's just that "darkly" is a creepy concept in that it is impossible to understand what we are before we die. I thought the fishbowl metaphor was odd but I liked when you brought up the word "fishbowl" a couple times later and it reminded me that they were out of time.
Your use of changing font, font size and bold sometimes made my heart stop. It wasn't too often to be annoying. I got this most creeped out when you used it Act 2 chapter 6.
I'm trying to think of other things that bothered me, but if it's as you say most of it was me cringing a bit at Saundra struggling to understand what was going on. Honestly the way there narrative was set up I was to into it to be bothered by much. Your descriptions of things early on are so unsettling that I wanted to see what was wrong with the characters.
I did make some notes on what I perceived to be mistakes unless you fixed them in another edition. Most of them are inconsistent use of hyphen, en dash and em dash. I could be more specific if you need me to be.

Grade my piece

Is it possible to get better at poetry? Mine sucks :/

>>20821999
I like what I've read so far, and you've clearly got a good grasp on writing fantasy, but I'm really not seeing the literary aspect of either your prose or your subject matter. It reads to me like a normal fantasy story - not that that's a bad thing, of course.

Were I you, I'd either ramp up the literaryness to make it literary-fantasy as you pitched it, or tone it down a bit and make it a fantasy story that's comfortable with what it is. Do whatever you feel is right - hell, maybe don't change anything at all - and don't get dragged down by that other guy who just wants to be a cunt.

>>20822809
Read "Poetic Meter" by Paul Fussell. Read good poetry. Develop a style and understand which techniques can help you say the things you want to say.

>>20822827
But if I was ever gonna be good wouldn’t I be kinda good already because of an unconscious “feel” for it? Like an innate intuitive understanding? It just seems no matter what I do I suck and I’m afraid I’ll never get better. I’ll try this but I feel like I’m not going to improve

>>20822847
If I can expound upon a specific issue in my poetry, I find that atleast the language or the rhythm suffer no matter what. Like if I focus on the rhythm my words suck and if I do the other, vice versa. I can come up with good single lines being randomly inspired but to make a whole poem of good work seems impossible to me. Like when I look at the best of Yeats, Spenser, Shakespeare, it’s like they just know how to capture something entirely out of reach to me

>>20822826
Thank you, I needed that. This likely has something to do with my interpretation of literary fiction; I've always thought of it as being slower, taking time to be more thoughtful, and emphasizing descriptive prose and the internal monologue of character's over more than genre fiction.

Since this is passage is a childhood memory I didn't indulge in her thoughts or internal conflict that much, but later on after the time skip we see a lot more of it. The descriptions might be too much.

I wasn't expecting this feedback--outside of this board I got some good feedback, everyone here thinks it's trying too hard to be literary, but then someone yet thinks it might not be literary enough--just goes to show how much wildly different feedback one can expect, I suppose.

>>20822847
No, that's bull. I didn't have intuition for lots of things that I do now and that I make money for in my day job. Don't believe that born-to-fail mentality, it is pseud talk. If I believed I had peaked at highschool as far as my capabilities I would probably be homeless today yet I'm not.
What you need to understand about poetry is that meter gives another layer of complexity where you must consider more than in prose. It's not easy to make a poem that nails everything and Fussell will show you examples of some of the greatest poets making embarrassing decisions. So trust me when I say it's okay if you mess up. Just go for it.

>>20822886
go to literarydevices.net and read all those techniques, especially the ones employed in poetry so you have a better understanding of those things.
Some of what those poets are doing is not just looking for rhythm, they are taking words they want to use, looking at the stresses and how they might fit into another technique, they're thinking about how important the word is and where it should go in the line. But what they are doing is judging words that can accomplish more than one task for them. It's economy of words.
You could write many versions of the same line before deciding on what it will be and when I said it's difficult it's like a slide puzzle that when you attempt to solve it, the piece you thought you solved has been shifted. It's tough but with persistence I think you can do it.

>>20822919
This is good advice, poets anon. Also, it's important to understand that stresses matter because when you're speaking, certain syllables are emphasized and others aren't, but even in writing sentences seem to "flow" better when the important parts are stresses and the unimportant ones aren't. That's why iambic pentameter is used in Shakespearean sonnets; it makes the words flow nicely. It's not merely an arbitrary rule, there's a rhyme and reason for it. (Pun intended.)

>>20822934
Yes and thankfully, dictionaries show where the stresses are in words so it helps you test your scansion.

>>20821999
This is far from the worst thing I've ever read, but it seems a little boring, though I've never been a huge fan of most fantasy to begin with. I didn't read all of it but what I read wasn't bad. I definitely know people that would read the shit out of something like this.

>>20822805
I feel like a lot of your sentences go on for too long. Maybe try to shorten them up and drop some of the longer descriptions. It seems like you use commas as periods sometimes. There are also some areas where I think you probably edited it but missed some things,
>after waking up on the beach having with only a few...
>having with
Personally, I think if these descriptions aren't absolutely necessary for the story, many of them can be dropped or shortened for a more readable piece. Not that details are bad, but I feel you have a lot more than most people.

>>20822174
you should post at least some of your writing. If it's bad yeah someone is probably gonna shit on it, but some people here will try to give you good feedback

>for people looking at my writing, please don't just shit on it if it's bad.

>>20822934
>>20822919
>>20822894
Thank you anons, yeah I think I have been quite arrogant and not respectful enough to the artform

>>20822983
Here are the outlines:

Finished outline:
https://pastebin.com/328vHHxN

WIP outline:
https://pastebin.com/51k52pwn

>>20823046
I can't post my idea drafts atm because paste bin and its shitty rules thinks its smut or some shit.

sorry about that, Ghostbin is also down

>>20822805
I give it a D as it makes no sense at all. Pity the reader who tries to read through this.

>>20823046
I can't post my idea drafts because 4chan thinks its spam or something if i use an alt website because Pastebin hates porn or something.

Sorry about that. if you have other websites that 4chan doesn't think is spam that would help a lot

>>20823106
Just copy / paste it into a Google doc, nerd

>>20822809

here's a video about how to get better at poetry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arE2yyQe1PY

>>20823046
These are my idea drafts. i.e random scenes from the story to get a feel for the characters, setting, or plot

it predates the first draft by prepareing it to be written:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/145nsE-z9h2y2rmt8h2reMzRC_Qu6tc1BAW2z7uGhVhE/edit

>>20822983
I like the idea of a misty morning in the Caucasus, and I like the idea of poring over archives in the Vatican in search of clues.

But beyond those images I feel like there needs to be a clearer sense of the driving force or idea here. The landscape is nice but, without context, it doesn't mean much. Her recollection of her time in the Vatican seems like a random disconnected thought that pops into her head.

Does she feel like the clarity of the mountain spaces is a nice relief from musty reading rooms? Does she feel the tranquil scene at odds with the darker world she's caught up in? Does the eagle in the empty landscape unnerve her? Can she not let herself get distracted by her tiredness?

Basically, what's she feeling and what's at stake? Right now, it's not clear. This could be a PhD student taking a sabbatical from her research and leisurely hiking to her Airbnb or it could be a occult investigator being pursued by an evil cult.

You guys ever write on a traditional or electronic typewriter to avoid distractions, or do you have better will power than I do?

>>20823134
This is good advice, anon.

Still want to shave some words off our first page, suggestions?

>>20823134
thank you for the feedback. I really like your criticisms. I only posted this part because I just wanted an opinion on how it generally reads and if my prose is good or not. The rest of the story does a good job of contextualizing it and addresses the other concerns you have. I promise this section makes sense with the rest of it. Though I still might want to flesh it out a bit more with the character's internal thoughts. I find that's a problem I have. I try to show their emotions through their actions but maybe it would be better if I just said it sometimes. And it actually is pretty close to an occult investigator type thing as well.
Thank you for reading :)

>>20823166
Anyone who writes on a typewriter is larping

>>20823129
I don't know how much editing you did between this and the first draft, so if you've already corrected these things, then it doesn't matter.
I think your dialogue reads a little awkward. Maybe it's the excessive cursing, though if there's a point to that then ignore my comment. I do like your descriptions though. While it's not quite my writing style, I think your word choice is interesting and not bad.
Basically, tighten up the dialogue a little bit more and make sure everything lines up grammatically.

>>20823166
It's just too inconvenient. They're novelty items these days. I like to write my first draft by hand (most of the time) then type it out on my laptop for the second. The third and subsequent drafts are really just tidying up and editing, with the occasional edition. You simply can't do that on a typewriter.

>>20823265
this

>>20822801
Thank you for elaborating, I appreciate your taking the time to write a review.

>it was me cringing a bit at Saundra struggling to understand what was going on
There was a way to go about this with a bit more tact. On my first revision, I realized I had leaned too far into melodramatics. Every revision afterword was an attempt at making Saundra less whiny and more unhinged. I'm sure a few purple sections of prose were tied into the melodrama, therefore a bit out of place when it was removed.

William mentioned the Plato thing. In an earlier draft I had intended to really flesh out the idea of reality/society as an egregore, including a few long house of leaves/patrick bateman style chapters on egregores present in academia and especially the western canon. I found it much too masturbatory and borderline incomprehensible, axed it.

I know I have a lot of things to work on, purple prose especially (I am cripplingly influenced by Bradbury). I joke that If I someday end up somewhere between Bradbury and McCarthy, I'll die happy.

>>20823281
>>20823265
>>20823166

Get an Alphasmart neo2. Seriously. Don't spread around that they exist, just get one. It is pure, cheap, distraction-free writing that transfers keystrokes over USB when you are done.

I wouldn't be able to draft without it. Keep it on the DL though, they are a finite resource, and I haven't stockpiled.

>>20823277
thank you. These are just idea drafts so of course they are unedited.

I did feel that way too about how much swearing was in it in was unnatural.

I was working on it with my idea drafts. Like I said its get a feel for the characters. so of course its going to read awkward. thanks for reading though.

>>20821999
Well, Dylan, have you considered going to the pastebin of /wg/ authors? And giving them some support? Buying any of the books that have been published from here? You kind of seem like you just showed up from another board.

>>20822007
Also, your typography is illegible.

My write-something-every-day-even-if-it-means-resorting-to-rhyming-poetry poem:

My sweetstock sings of heaven,
My sweetstock has grey eyes.
She walks the roads alone at night
And I've never seen her cry

Her boots are leather relics
From an uncle now in jail.
He killed his darling wife, it's said,
But that's another tale.

Oh sweetstock, how I hate it,
When you climb up to the roof,
And chalk you theorems on the tiles
And contemplate your proofs.

It's hard to live with you, my love,
In our hurricane of gloom.
But I love your yarns of feral cats
With empires on the moon.

So I stew the supper cabbage,
And I fix the ladder you broke.
I felt you saw the ghost in me,
the last time that we spoke.

>>20823369
Not sure exactly what the function of pastebin is—I’ve been reading the pastebin links and responding to them here in the threads, but you seem to be implying that you can somehow support people in the pastebin itself? If there’s something I’m missing there please enlighten me.

I’m currently reading Bleed More Bodymore by Minds writer Ian Kirkpatrick, and then I was going to check out Eggplant and Egregore because they sounded good. Not giving any money to Gardner, though.

>>20823309
I wrote my first short story as a kid with one of these things 15+ years ago. I wiped the floppy disc though, all of my stories were turbocringe. I kind of remember them but I just can't even describe it. It's actually kind of nice to take away the internet from you and definitely nice if you're a poorfag and only have books. Some of my friends in school didn't even have computers growing up so they'd write papers with those.

>>20823419
If you're the 'Enid' guy, everyone is piling on you because they sense you're just trying to promote your book. The writing itself is respectably above the /lit/ average.

>>20823373
This is pretty great. A lot of good parts especially the reference to the uncle’s misbehavior.

>>20823434
That’s fair, but I also don’t want to be called a namefag for attaching my name to all of my critiques, but that might be the better option. Last week I spent two hours alone in the Google doc of “Finding San Fransisco” for another anon, another thirty minutes critiquing “Moxy” and who knows how long responding to little tidbits of writing with constructive criticism.

Maybe I should just become a namefag so that people see me trying, eh?

>>20823373
I really like this. You've established an engaging, enigmatic character in a few verses. Not an easy feat!

>>20822827
What other books on poetry would you recommend

>>20823419
>not giving any money to gardner, though.
Good lad, though the joke is that you were supposed to come to this conclusion on your own.

I'll be glad when the meme dies. If he ever lets it.

>>20823457
Dont namefag. Writing styles are thumbprint enough on this board/general. You'll start to suss out individuals as you lurk/post.

>>20823483
I’m moreso worried about people being able to suss me out than the other way around, which is one reason I like it when people share Google docs, because it allows for highlighting and commenting, and hopefully some peeps will take notice that I’m spending hours trying to help people.

>>20823470
I'm not a poet myself. That's the only book on poetry I've read so far, and just reading a few poems a day (Ray Bradbury's suggestion, along with one short story a day).

>>20823505
>hopefully some peeps will take notice that I’m spending hours trying to help people

I'm going to be blunt. No one gives a shit how much time YOU put into this. We come here to give and receive anonymous critique. This is the glory hole of the writing communities on the internet. A good blowjob here is an ephemeral thing. Anonymity is part of the charm.

If you want the updoots reddit is that way. If you are seeking validation, you are wasting your time.
You wont find much sincerity here, just vitriol and a lot of scat and gore smut.

It took me two weeks but I finally finished revising the 10k word chapter and eliminated about 1,700 words I’ll need to split the chapter in half though.

>>20823546
>Just vitriol and a lot of scat and gore smut

Ah, so this board really is no better than /b/.

It came to me on a subway ride. I don't know where from or why.

>>20823655
Good job, I like it.

I just read The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives. It was pretty good. The chapter on transitions had some clear advice and examples which I don't believe I have seen in other books

>>20823705
I haven’t read this but it sounds insightful—is it possible to summarize its teachings on transitions? That’s something I’ve always struggled with and I find it an interesting aspect of writing that doesn’t get discussed much.

Would you put down a book if it [REDACTED] every description of an object including its name? The idea is it's a magic object hiding itself not just from the public, but from the reader.

It wouldn't happen often in the story, since the story would be written as though the reader got the description, ie there's an upfront description and then occasional references as the story goes.

>>20823747
Could be interesting. I think the novelty of the mystery would wear off after a while. There's a SCP that sounds something like this, where you always forget what the object is, does, or looks like.

>>20823754
I think I'll have to just do it and try it out with beta readers.

The characters wouldn't be forgetting it, the story would be written as though it weren't redacted because that would complete warp the story away from space pirates

I know people have a tendency to worldbuild too much, but what would you consider to be a sign that you don't have enough structure to begin your story?

How does I writ a cozy rape?

>>20823797
Stories that meander in the middle. Most writers have an idea for a beginning and end, but not the middle, so usually what happens is the story might start off fine, then fizzle out and become completely endless. Then out of nowhere the plot suddenly becomes revenant again to cramp in a rushed ending at the last second.

>>20823843
I like it when things get crammed into my end.

>>20823843
Well shit, guess I do have to think more then not so much about the world building but whether the interactions of my characters don't create plot holes everywhere. The middle is especially important for me because that's when the more visible antagonist is introduced.

5 hours writing tonight. 52 more days to finish the last draft.

>>20823866
Yeah, middles are the hardest for most writers. It’s the connective tissue between events, and fleshing it out before reaching it in the first draft seldom happens.

>>20823904
You can do it anon

>>20823925
I see, would it benefit me then to lay out the groundwork for the beginning and ending then write until the middle? I've never had to think about this before because all my previous creative endeavors were short stories, and this is set to not only be a long story but also one where basically everyone knows someone else.

Sometimes, I think about uploading my novel for free and letting 4chan and reddit have at it. Then, I remember I have a Faberge Egg ego. Letting someone tear the whole thing down would ruin me mentally.

>>20823797
When you have a collection of scenes but no story. I have this problem with a story I'm working on. I have a lot of interesting scenarios and scenes that will make the story very funny, but no thread really connecting them or propelling the characters. Ive got a few general ideas of what may work but nothing concrete, so I know that I'm not ready to just start writing the text. I need to spend more time drafting at least the concept of what I want to do, what the main character's goals are, etc.

>>20823976
Most likely not.Some writers write best "pantsing" (making the story up as you go, flying by the seat of your pants) but for the majority of writers this just makes editing 10x harder, because their first draft is messier and has all sorts of structural problems. I used to think I was best pantsing, but once I sat down and created a thorough outline, basically chapter by chapter including the middle, writing became much easier, and my first draft had far fewer problems. Still far from perfect, but at least it had a solid structure.

What I would suggest doing is creating a roadmap in a separate google doc or something--not the main document--and just go through all the different ways you can think of to link the beginning and end of your story. Maybe try out 10 different possible ways to take it, and keep notes on how each will affect the tone and character development.

Then when you start to write it and get a feel for how it actually plays out, if you decide to change something you've already got several viable alternatives to roll with, or you can end up combining different ideas that previously hadn't occurred you--really just get the creative juices flowing. I think if you sit down for an afternoon with some music and force yourself to come up with a handful of different ways to do it, you're sure to find one. Looking up some common story structures might help too--there's the Hero's Journey, the Three Act Structure, the 7 Beat Plot, etc.

>>20824020
I prefer something in the middle. Extensive outlines are great, but there are some things that just aren't apparent to me until I'm actually trying to write it. I've had plot points that I realized just wouldn't work well at all when I actually got to that point in the draft

>>20823994
I would say mine is a story at the beginning and the end and then a whole load of nothing right at the middle, which is worrying.

>>20824020
That's a great idea! I did get some of my most exciting ideas from just pantsing but the connections between my characters is something that can get messy as fuck without a structure, so I was looking for a good way to define important plot points without being too strict. Thanks for the advice.

How do I avoid spamming common words like "The", "He/His/", "A" in paragraphs?

>>20824495
I have this browser extension called LanguageTool, and one of the things it will do if you set it to “picky mode” is point out redundant words. At first I had to use it as a crutch to weed out most of them, but over time I started to intuitively recognize the redundancies before the tool highlighted them, and now I just notice them on my own and don’t need it anymore.

>>20822131
Each main character is related to a tarot card, They all draw power from their star, constellation or planet whatever.

How do I do world building? How does someone like GRRM come up with a thousand names and locations that all sound real while my shit always sticks out

>>20824567
It might be worth it to study how names and locations work like in real life historically and culturally. I just pick names that come from the same geographical location in my case so they at least don't stick out like a sore thumb.

>>20823988
Just write a story you're personally happy with and don't care about what other people think. Trying to please others is a neverending hell.

Am I just supposed to look at MS Word and start vomiting out what comes into my mind just to get started

>>20824567
Find some real place or time period to shamelessly rip off

>>20825021
There's no right way, obviously. But I always have to have some kind of jumping-off point: an image, an line of dialogue, a scenario that strikes you as funny or sad. As you write, more branching paths will emerge from the words you put down, and you can just follow whichever seems most interesting, or most challenging to do justice to. Sometimes a more complex or far-reaching path will suggest itself, and you might want to pause and make a note of the general trajectory, so that you won't forget it while you focus on the micro-level stuff. But I've never produced from a pure void of my consciousness pressing up against the blank screen, there always has to be a little foundational nugget that feels cryptic and evocative enough to not exhaust itself in the first sentence. And often I abandon that starting point once its done its stuff and the real core of the story has emerged.

Google docs chads, I keep getting a "synchronization error" My internet is fine, I tried restarting my device and clearing my cache but I'm still getting it. What does it actually mean? Doesn't seem to be affecting my documents but I don't want to risk writing a ton and losing it all.

>>20821957
fag here who's trying to get into a school for writing plots/screenplay/scripts. Need to make a "finishced screenplay of 5 to 20 pages" as part of my application. Question: do i begin my synopsis with a summary of the world this story is set, so I don't have to explain it later or no. Thanks in advance!

>inb4 absolute rookie at this.

>>20825374
If you think it's helpful then sure, but make it brief and interesting, not an info-dump. But ideally, the details of the world would be revealed in the same way that they would be to a viewer of the movie: through the action itself. Could you give us some idea of the kind of world you want to describe?

>>20825398
so its fanstasy setting (Elves, Orcs, magic, demons) with a emphasison the cultural and religious differences between the groups that inhabit it. For example: everyone in this world agrees that they and the world they live in were created by a God (like Abhramic religions do) but differ after that: some believe in woreshipping this deity directly, others through nature or nature itself and even those who believe that this God died or has forsaken mortals and choose to worship the shedim (a collection of immortal demonic races) instead. On top of differences in lifestyle, sedintary kingdoms and city states versus (semi)nomadic tribes and historical disputes: Orcs and "Dark" Elves being the result of punishment by after civil wars among "High" Elves.
Plus an overview of what magic is in this world but that might me too much

>>20825556
>inb4 emphasison

>>20825556
I think you could definitely communicate most of that stuff implicitly through action, e,g. 'Before they start their dangerous journey, the pious Character X prays at the nature temple of their tribe,' or 'Character Y is wary of Character Z, because the latter comes from a demon-worshiping culture.' If you're writing this as part of an application, the people reading it will be 100% more focused on your ability to tell a story than the world-building details. You don't want people thinking 'that sounds cool but what role will it play in the movie?'

Can someone explain to me why only is stressed the way it is? The following paragraph also points out that a word is stressed based on its sound and not where it is on the page, but I would think that only would have at least one stress. In the poem after that there is a line with three stressed syllables in a row, and for some reason I thought you could only have two stressed or two unstressed syllables in a row.

>>20825811
Here's another scansion except here only has a stress on the first syllable and in the phrase "the only" it too has a stress on the first syllable of only.

https://www.rhymezone.com/r/rhyme.cgi?Word=lonely&typeofrhyme=adv&loc=advlink

>>20825398
>>20825612
this what i have now (nowhere near finished of course)

>>20825851
note: somehow my "royal magic guild" became a sorcerers' guild in translation. Not sure how that happenend

I was going good, got to the second act, and suddenly my outline made no sense.
time to rewrite the outline
sigh

>>20825857
oh yeah and "godless" became evil

We're a minute short now, so I might have to add a few more lines. First page is much improved, but I think we still need to remove some unnecessary actions and stage directions

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

>>20823289
Its okay I like Bradbury and McCarthy a lot too. And you were right to axe the academic stuff. I think you leaned just enough into Saundra's writing and the medical system that anyone who thinks would think more about it. If you had dug deeper it might have felt didactic or some cliché "big meds were bad all along???" Instead you just leave it there as "theyre lawyered up sorry lol" and get back to the more serious issue, so I thought that was mature.
Oh also want to mention I forget the chapter but the part in italics when Saundra fears Tim had been much longer than a week, that hit hard. Being vague that way made me ask, was it when they moved into the house, when he got cancer, when they stood in the fairy ring, or was he always this way? Is mankind itself cursed? Something about that line got me panicked and made me turn pages back looking to see if Tim was actually a monster.

>>20825811
>>20825842
Sorry for filling the thread again with a question but this frustrates me. To me, lap sounds stressed.

Hear me out guys - I've been reading some of my old writing, and found this.

I know it's the most imitating DFW thing ever, and thankfully I've grown out of that now, but I think in spite of that it has merit so feedback appreciated

>>20826427
Part 2

>>20819580
WTF is this meme about knights fighting snails

>>20826551
Was a common trend in English manuscripts for around 100 years, probably a kind of mimetic joke

>>20825141
>"synchronization error"
https://www.minitool.com/backup-tips/google-drive-not-syncing.html

i leave everything in my google mydrive. no problems

>>20826551
>>20826575
I remember reading that since medieval writing was often done on parchment which pest snails would sometimes eat and destroy books in storage. So the monks who manually maintained, copied texts,and drew the illuminated borders would often work in little knights defending against snails as a joke/light hearted good luck charm.

>>20826618
Ahh that's a great little explanation, true or not

>>20826618
Seems legit

>>20825811
stress isn't completely binary, it's a matter of where you draw the line, i think
i've seen some analyses of swedish poetry where they use a third symbol to indicate a stressed syllable in an unstressed word

>>20826427
Is it really dfw you’re channeling or Pynchon? Or hunter s Thompson?

Either way it’s really not bad for what it is. I’m sure if there’s a whole story there it’s publishable.

>>20826758
Never read any Hunter, and not sure I'd read any Pynchon at this point, think it was almost during and after reading Infinite Jest. I got about 100 pages in before deciding it wasn't my own voice - writing something new now but it's a slog trying to find a voice that feels authentic. I may revisit and expand on this so cheers

>>20826707
How does this happen? If it can be predicted, I'd like to know how. I don't trust my ears.

>>20826814
i'm neither a linguist nor a native english speaker so i'll refrain from detailed speculation. you could look through these books if you're really motivated https://b-ok.xyz/s/?q=%22english+prosody%22

>>20826849
I'll check it out in case someone else doesn't respond.

>>20822713
>office door to growl through like King.
If this a reference to this guy?

>>20825842
Well I can't really explain it other than by saying that for me the stress feels natural - I think having only preceded by the or a word that ends in a vowel stress makes me stress the o of only and let the rest trail into useful if that makes any sense. This is not a very linguistical analysis, I grant you

make your own thread poetry homos you're gaying this one up

>>20821957
Do you guys vocalize while you're writing? I'm still pretty new at this but I realized that when I talk while I write, the writing flows more naturally and has the feel of a conversation.

>>20826951
Yes, reading out loud what you've written is the number #1 method for making it flow and sound natural.
Also a big reason for why writing is done alone, so people don't see you make funny faces or talk to yourself.

>>20826961
i do it in public/ at work when im bored and i'm 900% conviced that people don't pay attention to their surroundings. I do keep my voice down as a precaution

How do I worldbuilding

>>20826996
Depends, what is it your struggling with?

>>20826996
Ahh forgedaboudid

>>20826996
By not being a writer.

>>20827001
Names and locations
Everything sounds unnatural, like it's plucked from a shitty fanfic

>>20826996
first you need to spend money on map making software. I recommend Inkarnate. now that you've gone through several iterations of maps and started making one you like (you're maybe 5% done, whew that was a lot of work), you now realize that you actually want a sci fi landscape. so now you need to start researching all those latin and greek words so you can come up with cool names for starships. then you need to come up with aliens. I recommend honorable warrior cultures or bug xeno ones. now that you have some names in your head and you know the local cuisine of the Flargathons, you are ready to retool your idea again! this time you realize you can combine fantasy and scifi so it's back to the map making software.

three to four years later you'll find you have notes of all sorts, a 50% complete map and ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING written.

How about you come up with a STORY that contains a CHARACTER who has a GOAL and then make up all that superfluous worldbuilding shit as you go, hmm?

>>20827135
>How about you come up with a STORY that contains a CHARACTER who has a GOAL and then make up all that superfluous worldbuilding shit as you go, hmm?
Don't listen to this fag, he's a writer not a worldbuilder.

>>20827135
This Faglathorn is right.

>>20826608
I've followed all the steps and I'm still getting it. Although I haven't noticed any actual problems so far. It's just an annoying error message that pops up every time I start writing. If I make a change on the document, I can still see the change even when I switch devices.

>>20826996
Don't get twisted over writing an exact wiki page for every feature in your setting. Write notes and guidelines to keep things coherent and focus on the stuff that serves a purpose, but don't get autistic about if you don't want to. Leave a bit to imagination so things feel more dynamic and eerie and you have some wiggle room for possible plot holes.

>>20826911
What we're discussing is still relevant to prose

>>20827145
>a worldbuilder
Can someone please explain to me the reasoning behind building a world and then not doing anything with it? A world is meant to be in service of its characters and its story. If you don't have a story, and you don't have any characters, of what good is the world?

>>20827181
that's your opinion homo and it's not a good one get out

Normies and the internet have utterly ruined sincere storytelling and I'm so utterly tired of pretending that they haven't. The corny ethos of the mainstream internet, combined with the take over of ironic meme culture, the cringe culture of the mid 2010s and the ironic ethos surrounding media that dissuades any thoughtful and in depth analysis has all combined to ruin any sincere storytelling. The 90s is when this first started popping up in large numbers, and it was only exacerbated since then.
You have terms now like
>"Edgy." Implying most artwork isn't transgressive.
>"Self-serious." Implying stories aren't supposed to take themselves seriously.
I'm so fucking tired of it all. I'm so tired of looking at storytelling through so many different layers of ironic detachment. I'm tired of people looking at the world like this. Nobody wants to be impacted by anything. People don't care about fucking ANYTHING. All that people want is to glorify themselves and get their cocks sucked.

>>20827185
>Can someone please explain to me the reasoning behind building a world and then not doing anything with it?
Autism or ADHD, usually.

>>20827135
>How about you come up with a STORY that contains a CHARACTER who has a GOAL and then make up all that superfluous worldbuilding shit as you go, hmm?
I have that though
I have no problem writing plots; I just need to have something more than
>character a said this to character b at location z

>>20827222
No you don't.

>>20827231
Yes, I seriously do.

>>20827238
Post it up or no, you don't.

>>20827246
It doesn't make any sense without any names though

>>20827254
That's cope, not a story.

>>20827222
>character a said this to character b at location z
That sounds like an outline. Maybe dip your toe in and try to write the scene. The opening scene. Character A arrives at location Z and talks to Character B about whatever your initial opening plothook is. Then all of a sudden some shit happens and the book starts.

>>20827267
I seriously don't think you understand what I'm asking or saying
I know pretty much every detail of the plot at this point. I just don't have the "superficial stuff"
Names, descriptions, etc

How do I come up with original names for nations, cities and people set in a world loosely based on mid 19th to turn of the century Austro-Hungarian Empire and Balkans/Ottoman Empire?

>>20827278
Find real ones and slightly change up the letters like GRRM

>>20827270
>I know pretty much every detail of the plot at this point. I just don't have the "superficial stuff"
>Names, descriptions, etc
An actual story, etc.
Anon is right on the money. You have an outline, at best. I'm personally not going to believe that either unless you post it.

>>20827270
And you are completely missing the point. Your main characters name? Call him Fred, who gives a fuck, you can always change it later. You have an outline, sort of. Descriptions are discovered while writing, What is your main characters goal in the first chapter? That is the important question, not the initials on his monogrammed bathrobe.

>>20827286
>>20827283
I asked a question; how to worldbuilding. Can you help with that or not?

>>20827290
go ask the fa/tg/uys they can probably help you with that

>>20827290
No. This is a general for writing, not worldbuilding. Your posts are off-yopic, in poor taste, and worst of allthey're dishonest. I think it would be best for everyone if you left.

>>20827306
wtf is tg

>>20827193
i've seen you make this exact same post as its own thread before. what kind of answer are you seeking that you need to repeatedly ask the same question? it sounds like you just have a problem of too much screen time and over consooming bad media.

>____ and i'm tired of pretending it's not.
even the way you start this post, you're using internet-speak. you're repeating a meme appropriated from the Joker movie. you're obviously inundated with social media, marketing, and terrible shit that the algorithms are feeding you. I myself am a victim to this, but i suggest you start meditating, for ten mins a day when you get up, avoid looking at a screen first thing. start an exercise regimen, get daily exercise and time outdoors. focus on media that fulfills you rather than empties you.

maybe explore this sentiment of yours in a diary and figure out why you believe the lack of "sincere storytelling" is a real problem, and why you believe "people don't care about ANYTHING" and "all that people want is to glorify themselves and get their cocks sucked."

>>20827290
It's extremely fun and interesting to world build, don't listen to them. I've always found it best for me to focus on one small aspect of the world, fully realize it, and then move on to the rest of the world. Also just freely use inspirations from other stories that you like.

For instance, as just an exercise in world building I wanted to make a fantasy world, but I started it just in one small town and it's surrounding villages in a hidden isolated river valley. As a basis, the people that live there were fleeing from a total societal collapse as survivors and lost all knowledge of their past and of the outside world, so the world building was done from that perspective. After I built the entire world of that river valley, I started slowly expanding out the world in the same time as they would be discovering and relearning about it

>>20827337
>I hecken love worldbuilding
Post your writing. (He won't, he doesn't have any).

>>20827222
>character a said this to character b at location z
Anon, that's not a story. That's not even writing. You've basically got a list of vague bullet points and you're waving off the actual content of your story, the actual creation and effort and art, as "Yeah, yeah, I've got it done already" when you don't even seem to have started.

No one's saying setting's not important. Harry Potter likely wouldn't have become the phenomenon it is if it'd been set in some boring ranch house in Ohio. On the flip side, if all Harry Potter had to offer were some drawings of a castle and few bullet points like "Harry and Ron talk about Hermione in the common room," it wouldn't have been anything at all. That's not a story.

>used to start writing with the locations I'd like to flesh out and then base everything around them
>then moved to starting with the twists and story concepts
>then moved to basing everything around characters and their growth and choices
>now start with a feel and build everything up so the feel can make sense

I think these drastically affected the quality of my writing and that they might be how my favorite works were written, since I doubt their feels emerged on their own from the setup rather than being the central framework around which the stories were built. Wish it was given as writing advice in the books on writing I read back when I was starting.

>>20827337
It's also just an exercise in expressing things you think are interesting. I wanted to create a world based on my ideals, so this river valley grows and develops into a mercantile guild republic that's overseen and directed by an order of druids who's beliefs are akin to early enlightenment naturalist beliefs.

I used to worldbuild, 15 years ago that's what I kept doing with a buddy of mine. We'd write about 10 pages of setting info to act as a backup, then scrap it.
I didn't start to get anything done until I completely ignored all that shit and started to just put characters down on the page and have them interact. I wish my buddy had learned that too because he's 30 years old and still worldbuilding and planning his magic systems while I just make shit up about snails with no rhyme or reason behind it.

>>20827346
You're being a crab in a bucket right now. Your attempts to gatekeep this thread clearly stems from insecurity in your own ability to write

>>20827353
>Anon, that's not a story. That's not even writing. You've basically got a list of vague bullet points and you're waving off the actual content of your story
I think you still misunderstand. That was just to illustrate what my problem is. That's not literally what I have written

>>20827372
You are actively making sure the person with the worldbuilding disease doesn't get over it and actually get to writing. You're being mendacious at best and malicious at worst.

>>20827361
That's great, but why are you posting about in a writing general when there's no writing involved? It's like going on a painting forum to talk about how you collect canvases, and that's the extent of what you do with them. Interesting hobby, but how's it relevant?

>>20827372
Where's your writing anon? Why do you care if I'ma crab when you're just larping about being in the bucket?

>>20821629
I am reading egregore, but honestly I going slow because it puts me in a very sad mood reading about people losing their minds because of their ailments, hits too close to home,

>>20827354
>now start with a feel and build everything up so the feel can make sense

Can you elaborate on this?

>>20827384
>>20827385
>>20827387
Robert E Howard puts it best I think, why world building is valuable. You all seem to think there needs to be one or the other, but a balance is what is needed. Which is why I described by process of world building as being slow and gradual that builds as I write the story

>Nothing in this article is to be considered as an attempt to advance any theory in opposition to accepted history. It is simply a fictional background for a series of fiction-stories. When I began writing the Conan stories a few years ago, I prepared this 'history' of his age and the peoples of that age, in order to lend him and his sagas a greater aspect of realness. And I found that by adhering to the 'facts' and spirit of that history, in writing the stories, it was easier to visualize (and therefore to present) him as a real flesh-and-blood character rather than a ready-made product. In writing about him and his adventures in the various kingdoms of his Age, I have never violated the 'facts' or spirit of the 'history' here set down, but have followed the lines of that history as closely as the writer of actual historical-fiction follows the lines of actual history. I have used this 'history' as a guide in all the stories in this series that I have written.

>>20827421
That's not your writing is it.

>>20827381
No, your problem is you're trying to compartmentalize your non-existent writing, and seem to think the act of forming a world is somehow different or separate from the process of forming characters, a story, a tone, sentences, and so on. It's not.

You keep saying you're going to do something with it one day and to be completely honest with you I think you're trying to convince yourself. I get the impression that your true love rests in fictional architecture or the like, and though it's a cool hobby in itself it's got nothing to do with writing. You're procrastinating doing something you don't like by doing something you do like.

so i got to the midpoint of my novel
my outline fell apart, the story wasn't working
started a second outline today
now things are coming together
i think as i pushed through the first outline, bulldozing to get it done, i wasn't paying attention to whether the content was any good
so here's hoping outline2 works out

>>20827450
Ganbarre anon

>>20827448
It really seems like you're trying to work out your own problems with writing.

>>20827420
I try to identify a feel or a moment most people would find appealing and engaging and would like to see, and then figure out a scenario that could convey it, stuff like
>character turns on the broken system they've been part of and takes it apart
>meek character takes matters into their own hands
>weak character stands up to impossible odds
>etc
I think of it as themes but even more specific, even the examples I've given here are kind of generalized. To me it's usually about the contrast of the character being the last person you'd expect to do something like it, but them doing it anyway but still having it come across as believable and cathartic. It's also not limited to specific characters, it can also have groups or locations as the subjects.

>>20827483
That's what writing is. You'd know that, ya know, if you were a writer.

>>20827511
Tell us more what it's like to be a real writer anon

>>20827483
I don't have any problems with writing - I love doing it, I write almost every day, and I've gotten published already.

Do you do any writing? At all? Or do you just put it off and get mad at people who try, as politely as they can, to tell you maybe your passion isn't in writing, but in something else? Because, logically, if you liked doing it, you would be doing it, right? You wouldn't be treating it with the reluctance of a housechore.

>>20827531
What genre were you published in? How much did you make?

>>20827530
A writer writes.

>>20827531
I don't believe you. You haven't been punished, and you come here to self loathe when you aren't writing, trying to express your own inner pain on others.

On the other hand I have been published

>>20827530
>Us
Appeal to authority fallacy. You're just one salty bitch. Anyway you already know by process of elimination. Take everything you know and think and think you know, that is, what it's like to not be a writer, and just imagine the complete opposite of that.

>>20827545
Real writers spend time on 4chan writing threads telling other people they aren't real writers and talking about how much they write

>>20827550
Sounds like you can't tell us what it's like to be a real writer. I wonder why that is?

>>20827546
>On the other hand I have been published
Great, it should be super easy to post then. Really makes ya wonder why you haven't.

>>20827558
A lot of cope, still no writing.

>>20826891
No. Its a reference to stephen king neglecting his children to snort coke and write about prepubescent orgies.

>>20827448
Cool copypasta.
Just use this as a reply to anyone on here and it will work.
I'm going to go review some trash on Royal Road with that and break some hearts.

>>20827707
Fuck off Sponge.

>>20827674
To be fair, that is the best thing a writer can do. Think about it. Say you do it yourself. Then someone in 180 years will read about you on Wikipedia 3000 and mutter "Based" under their breath. You'd have truly lived.

>>20827730
No one will be reading about king in 50 years, let alone 180, mostly because no one will be reading.

I had to vomit this one up like a hairball. I want to die.

Does anyone know how to get access to CMOS? Don't feel like paying out the ass for it.

>>20827290
Worldbuilding is an essential part of epic-fantasy style writing. I'm writing a very long and very hefty story that while character driven, has a big sub plot about exploring and pathfinding. So I focus a lot on the places I want them to go, especially for how they fit into the story and how the characters would interact with them. Then, I think about the differnet sub-locations they could find, villages with some quirks to them, ruins, flora and fauna, sights they could see etc etc.

On a side note, I need some advice concerning suspension of disbelief. One of my main PoV characters is an alcoholic who is almost always at least tipsy. If he doesn't drink for a while or goes cold turkey, he gets tremors, shakes and chills running up and down his body. I have it written so that these negative consequences disappear as soon as he gets drunk again, thus necessitating him to constantly be drunk, thus prepetuating bits of his story.

What I'm asking is, is this too weird / unrealistic, or is it just realistic enough for people to not find it stupid?

>>20827742
As long as you people keep uploading your work with shielding, defensive "humble" self put downs like
>It's vomit
>I know this sucks, but
>It's just a first draft
I'm going to keep taking you at your word and not read it.

>>20827768
There's a torrent of the 16th edition available on some of the obvious sites. (It's weirdly formatted: I think it's the online HTML version converted to PDF, but it's still very functional.)

What do you guys think of the world of Super Mario 64?

I know it feels right in my gut, but I'm ringing my hands over this

>Criminal group A kidnaps the princess from group B
>Offers trade, princess for their magic sword
>Trade almost happens when suddenly the police girl gets exposed
>Confusion explodes
>Leader of B decides "fuck it, I'm killing A's leader for kidnapping my sister"
>MC has to rescue both police girl and the princess
>The thugs never form up ranks to fight because they barely know who they're supposed to be focusing on
>MC doesn't have the magic sword but is surprisingly good as he cuts people down in a big giant, messy brawl

Part of me says there's enough justification. Part says it's plot armor. I hesitate to introduce bad guys that can actually fight well for the MC to square off against because MC isn't actually very good in a fight, and I want to justify that the good ones are all busy with the leader who has the magic sword?

>>20827967
"wringing," dawg. do you want an editor?

I'm confused. Do writers here really treat worldbuilding as a /tg/ thing? The amount of worldbuilding that goes on over there is miniscule, additionally, as another anon in this thread pointed out, if you write characters with a plot that moves them, where is it all taking place? In a featureless void of nothing (which would still be a built world)?

>>20827994
Building a good world is just a symptom of writing a good story. You get it for free because you, the attentive author, have given texture to the way in which your characters interact with their surroundings and how it reflects on them and their journey through your plot. It doesn't justify itself.

any writing resources for radio dramas?

So how do I write good?

>>20828056
>write good
You can start with grammar.

'Good' is an adjective. It describes a noun.
'Well' is an adverb. It describes a verb.

A good way to remember this is, "I am good because I treat them well." You ARE because you DO. Got it memorized?

>>20828077
then what?

54k words down. Shooting for 100k for the first draft of my crime thriller. If I stay on track, will have it done in 23 days. Focusing more on the connective tissue that drives the plot, trying to include cool weapons and murders, worried I am neglecting one of the 4 POV characters and their stories. Today's word goal was a bitch but glad I got it done.

>>20828010
Yes, that's the "pants" method of writing. Little, if any, outlining or planning prior to putting words on paper. But then, you have the "planners" who don't touch any ink (or keys) until the outlines and worldbuilding are done. Both are valid methods.

I think you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. If an anon is a writer, but sticks to writing headcanons their entire lives (i.e. no words on paper), they're still not writing, just creating stories. And I'm sure there are plenty of people who would debate me on that, as stories told before writing are just as valid.

TLDR: You're being over-corrective and splitting hairs. This isn't /tg/, not every worldbuilder needs to have dice accompany their worlds, anon.

>>20828109

Stories for a long time were verbal and told in song as well as passed down from generation to generation. To say that you need to write down your ideas to be writing a story is to discredit the most ancient method of story telling. But i do agree that in the same sense that you can't be a painter if you never paint a picture.

I think it all depends on what the author is trying to write about, example if i was going to write a horror/fantasy story i would use the "pants" method. Lets say i wrote a story about Atlantis and their war with Greece (fiction or non-fiction) i would use the "planning" method.

But i do agree that they are both valid methods and you should consider what you mainly like writing about and use the method that enables you to focus on what you like.

>>20827813
You post cat memes on 4chan, you're not doing shit lady.

>>20827813
>Worldbuilding is an essential part of epic-fantasy style writing.
Tell that to leguin. Earthsea is very, very light on the worldbuilding.

>>20828213
Does that look like a lady's hand to you?

>>20828246
Havent read any Leguin and I'm not sure what 'light on worldbuilding means'. I assume it means you only get context about the world from character interactions / central plot bits without overtly going out of your way to describe stuff?

Hey, I'm drawing a complete blank. Who was it that said (paraphrased): "You should write about the most interesting characters. If you have characters that are more interesting, dump the ones you have/make them POVs and write about the more interesting one).

I want to say it was Gaiman but I'm drawing a complete blank and I Googled/Ducked myself silly.

>>20821957
for some time now i've been fascinated by mercenaries, their historical and modern role in warfare. Thoughts?

>>20828471
>kneel gayman
you have to go back

How the fuck do I make a non-earth fantasy world?

Finished organizing my objectives for the next draft. This weekend is gonna be a lot of writing.
>>20823950
Thanks, I will

>>20828610
just take some small piece of earth geography and blow it up to world-size
tidepool world
river world
pit world
glacier world
volcano world

>>20827323
As in >>>/tg/

>>20828675
thx.
I am really struggling.

>>20828083
What exactly is it about writing that interests you?

>>20828716
How much practice do you have with fantasy worldbuilding?
Maybe you should tackle some easier projects before taking on something you find to be this difficult.

Hey OP, you forgot:
Previous thread: >>20817651

>>20828737
zero.....
I might have to step back to something simpler for now.

Is there a good service that will print my novel? I want to print a single copy for my grandmother. I still haven't finished it after 4 years, but she has asked to read it a lot and I've accepted she's probably going to die soon.

>>20828854
Do you have a printer for your home computer?
You could always try that.
Barring that, a copy store like Kinko's or UPS Store may print it, though they were quite a bit more expensive than just printing at home for me.

>>20828854
Could you just loan her or buy her an e-reader? You could do convert it to that. Would probably cost wise bit be that big a difference for a one off and you get to keep the gadget.

>>20828918
It'd around 55k words. I don't have a printer at home and I have to do this, so price is no object. I just don't think her eyesight is amazing and I don't know if she'll like having dozens and dozens of sheets of paper.

>>20828188
>Stories for a long time were verbal and told in song as well as passed down from generation to generation.

>>20828918
It'd around 55k words. I don't have a printer at home and I have to do this, so price is no object. I just don't think her eyesight is amazing and I don't know if she'll like having dozens and dozens of sheets of paper
>>20828937
She doesn't like technology. Hurts her eyes, but I appreciate the idea.

>>20828918
Then yeah, a copy store will print it, and spiral-bind it too.
Then you can pick a large font size that'll work for her eyes.
Re: printing at home...use a 3-hole punch and 1-1/4" brass brads, like what's done for screenplays.

>His skin was tough, but less like leather and more akin to a boulder that had all the weak pieces shaved away by the winds of time, leaving only smooth, invulnerable perfection. It was like watching a statue walk around.
>His muscles were like ropes and wires. Tensed and wrapped and tightened over and over again until nothing could unravel or undo their binds. Surprisingly, his vascularity was almost non-existent. Not a vein was visible.
>His hands were like plated gauntlets, with the claws at his fingertips resembling arrowheads.
>A single glance at him communicated all of these things
>More than a mere beast, he was an outright monster.
Look, I can't use much more than metaphor/comparison to other things in order to get across what this guy looks like because that's the only thing that I think our minds would be able to grasp.

What is a legitimate criticism of power fantasy?
>It's pointless because the main character beats everyone effortlessly without any tension
Yeah, in every novel the main character has plot armor, what difference does it matter if they struggle or not when you already know they will win in the end?

>>20829066
Because the win could come at great personal cost to the hero.

If my story is about the leader of an elective state who wishes in implement an primogeniture monarchy to stop the chaos that occurs during succession does that reveal my monarchy fetish too much?

>>20829066
>Yeah, in every novel the main character has plot armor
Whats the plot armor of Crime and Punishment?

>>20829066
I try to keep a balance where my protagonist stays in the top-tier overall, but he still has legitimately hard fights more often than not.

>>20829254
If you really lived in Russia during that time period you whould have been mugged and killed in the first chapter

>>20829066
>Yeah, in every novel the main character has plot armor, what difference does it matter if they struggle or not when you already know they will win in the end?

Because suffering is a powerful thing. You can swing it both ways, have people sympathise with your character and be happy when he succeeds, hate him and get catharsis when he is crushed, hurt with him, cry with him, laugh with him and feel empty when he gets broken and battered and left in the dirt. It motivates both the reader to keep reading, and the character to keep getting back up and keep walking. Or he might not get back up, and leave the readers with the bitter disappointment of almost making it, but not quite. Firewatch style. And as far as legitimate criticisms for power fantasy go, I just find them boring and gay, so gay I can hear the author jerking off while writing every paragraph.

Is it fair to set up fantasy mystery elements that the audience will want to solve if the solution is something that completely depends on internal fantasy logic rather than real life parallels and can't exactly be guessed.

For example imagine if the origin of the Others in ASOIAF was something abstract and metaphysical like "they're the frozen tears of an ice god angry with humanity given life" instead of the logical guesses like aliens, fallen humans, an ancient elf race, magic robots, etc. I guess you could put in foreshadowing and hints for the ice god tears but it just doesn't feel satisfying to me.

I like to be unique with both my diction and narrative structure.
For example, each POV character in the story has a different style of narration, with different sentence structure and all that.
For example, to describe the same thing with different characters
>I don't know what this thing is, so I'll just get rid of it.
>I did not know what this object's purpose was as I held it, nor did I consider it important, so I just discarded it to the ground like waste
>What the fuck was this thing supposed to be? How could I know? I just chucked it instead of thinking any more about it.
>Useless. Don't need it. Get rid of it.
And so on

>>20829498
>I like to be unique with both my diction and narrative structure.
Finally, someone who seems to be taking it seriousl--
>POV characters
Oh, it's another genrefaggot to throw in the garbage.

>>20829544
What's wrong with POV?

>>20829544
What's so bad about having a character who narrates the story?

>>20821957
You won’t let anyone trample on your dreams, anon?

>>20829492
Depends on the mystery. I personally find mundane or near-mundane explanations for the supernatural terribly boring, but looking at the general trends in popular fiction, I must be in the minority in that.

>>20829577
Well, for one thing...we know the character lives until the end, negating a lot of possibilities for narrative tension.

>>20829640
Yeah, just like Ned Stark

>>20821957
There are diversity hires. Is there such a thing as diversity publishing?
I'm a SEAanon who wants to write a historical fiction book based on my country's history. Would my nationality improve my chances of getting published, even if only by a small margin?

I want to write the modern-day Lolita. How do I get into the mindset of a pedo?

>>20829640
My story just ends in the middle of nowhere, so you can think the character died.

>>20829655
Yes, but you're not diverse enough.
Consider going trans.

>>20829665
The endless loli/shota threads on >>>/b/ ?

>>20829655
For seaanons I’m guessing it would help your chances to get published if you are writing about your group in America as immigrants or refugees. They would be less interested if it’s genre fiction/historical fiction set in se Asia

>>20829665
It would never get published. They don’t like to publish modern day this or that. If there’s already a classic they’ll have no interest.

>get recommended some writer's method/advice to improve my own writing
>hate said writer too much to consider entertaining any of his perspectives on anything
what do?

>>20829640
Sometimes it's present tense, other times it's past tense, etc

>>20829806
Do your own thing, obviously.

>>20823373
I really like this, it builds a great deal of character and personality with each line, though maybe it's because I think rhyming poetry is the best poetry.

>>20825992
(we're going on a field trip)

Day 62 editing
Couple more plot holes shored up
More chapters posted
Closer to beginning book three by the day my fellow troglodytes

>>20822805
>It would be one of our games
>There would be pieces of debris
You use and 'would' and 'could' too much.
>A golden rule was that
Same with using 'was' to state what something is instead of what it does. That makes it repetitive and static. Try rearranging them with stronger verbs in past tense.

"We played games to stave off the boredom."
"we hunted for suitcases among the debris that washed ashore."
"we established a rule that..."

> I tried to work out what could be inside...
>...only heightened my curiosity.
You can cut out most of the paragraph. Just saying something 'clanked mysteriously' is enough.

The sequence of events is really jarring, especially the one where he books his vacation. You can start in the middle of the action and jump around, but you have to stay in a spot on the timeline long enough for the reader to get their bearings. Are you describing routine life as a castaway, the day he found the mystery bag, when he booked his trip, or the night he heard screaming. Pick a scene and linger there awhile.

>>20826996
>How do I worldbuilding

I think the keys to good worldbuilding are:
1. Only include information that is relevant.
You should tell readers only things that are necessary to understand the events and the characters' behavior.

Example:
>The folk of /k/ hated swords more than anything. Anon pulled the cloak over his scimitar before he went through the gate.
Later you can reinforce this knowledge with a quick callback.
>Anon drew his scimitar. The guide from /k/ shrieked like somebody stepped on a cat and covered his head.

2. Try to establish important information before it happens.
That way, it looks like you know what you're doing.

Example:
>Chapter 1: Have you heard? The King will give half the country, his daughter, and a lifetime subscription to Netflix to whoever kills the dragon!
>Chapter 98: The dragon's severed head fell to the floor and Anon raised his sword in triumph. A beat later, emissaries from the kingdom waltzed into the cave. "Sir Anon, guess what happens now?" Anon: weet ik

Not like this:
>Chapter 1: This story will definitely not include killing any dragons.
>Chapter 98: Emissaries from the kingdom waltzed into the cave. "Sir Anon, the author was winging it and we now have a LOT of explaining to do."

So, ideally, you should plan what kind of story you want to tell first and then build the world to give it flavor. Planning the world first and the plot after is like staging a recreation of the battle of Troy just to see if Achilles was wearing sandals. A lot of wasted work.

Is there any other way to get good at writing that isn't just writing more?

>>20830253
read

>>20825556
Screenplays shouldn't have any background info. The audience won't know anything that isn't on the screen.

what are some "lonely" sounds? I want to make a comparison but all I can think of is night owl hooting and it doesn't really work

>>20821999
Wuthering gales rippled through the spruce trees, scattering droplets of fresh morning dew like mist. It was deep midwinter
if it's deep midwinter, wouldn't it be too cold for any droplets to form? water freezes you know. didn't read any more.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HsLfrpEAfB8

How does F Gardner’s video have so many fucking views?

Do not fall for it. Do not respond. Let him rot.

>>20830589
I'm going to do it.

I met a creative writing major last night. He's working an unrelated job full time PAYING MONEY to apply to graduate school programs. He confirmed that undergrad was literally worse than just writing for four years as a hobby.

The sheer amount of cope when I told him I got an engineering degree, which helps me write sci-fi.

So many things were confirmed by that interaction.

>>20827717
This bitch literally refreshes the page all day waiting for me to post.

Please stop using singular 'they'. I'm at the end of my rope here.

>>20830359
The sounds of leaves rustling in the trees. Far-off cars.

I'm doing it. I'm finally doing it, bros. I'm writing a rape scene.

>>20830838
Is your pecker pumped?

>>20822809
Unironically try The Ode Less Traveled by Stephen Fry.

>>20830839
No, it's actually pretty gross, honestly. But it's a big milestone and I needed to share it with you guys.

>>20830847
I'm just not sure yet if I want Bucksneed to help the narrator double-team the unconscious girl or if he's going to sit there and watch while eating his oatmeal. Decisions, decisions.

>>20821999
Does all this stuff like starting your own website, creating a book trailer, putting up preview excerpts, etc., actually do anything? I don't mean to be insulting; I think your book looks fine (and very much like a "real" book, if you know what I mean), but there are so goddamn many people desperately competing for attention online I feel like even with all that stuff it'd be a one in 100 chance that anyone would notice or care.

>>20823373
I like it a lot. The only bit that stuck a bit for me was "in our hurricane of gloom." "Gloom" is one of those words you hear so damn much in rhyming poetry. I think it helps you went with a slant-rhyme, though.

>>20821999
>Howdy everyone
Well, a howdy-doody to you too! And another to all you fine folx out there doing justice and loving you some heckin' SCIENCE!!!! Let's cut this shameless self-promo and get this BREAD!!!! I HATE NIGGERS!!!!

>>20821957
somebody please judge my little intro essay
>>20830666

When I was younger, I found creative writing very easy and pleasurable, and I felt confident that what I was writing was mostly great. (Looking back, I was probably wrong about that, of course.) Now that I'm getting back to creative writing after a years-long hiatus, I'm finding it incredibly laborious and not really enjoyable at all.

I feel like I must be doing something wrong if I don't take pleasure in the process. It's something I make myself do every ay just because I know if I don't do it I'll regret it later, like exercise.

>>20821999
>Enid knelt down and released her fowl
I read it as Enid kneeling down and releasing her bowels in a loose watery shit, which naturally makes her thirsty, whereupon she becomes trapped in a negative feedback loop by which each shit makes her thirstier, but each drink makes her shittier, because... well, because that's fantasy. I don't know why I hate fantasy so much, but I just can't fucking help myself. It seems so superfluous — always. Nothing of weight, nothing of substance, the closest the entire genre's gotten since Tolkien is loose-boweled Martin's coprophilia.

all i could think of reading your sample is this scene from ham on rye and how i'd rather be reading bukowski:

We walked to the church thinking about confession, thinking about what it would be like. As we got near the church a stray dog began walking along with us. He looked very thin and hungry. We stopped and petted him, scratched his back.
“It’s too bad dogs can’t go to heaven,” said Frank.
“Why can’t they?”
“You gotta be baptized to go to heaven.”
“We ought to baptize him.”
“Think we should?”
“He deserves a chance to go to heaven.”
I picked him up and we walked into the church. We took him to the bowl of holy water and I held him there as Frank sprinkled the water on his forehead.
“I hereby baptize you,” said Frank.
We took him outside and put him back on the sidewalk again.
“He even looks different,” I said.
The dog lost interest and walked off down the sidewalk. We went back into the church, stopping first at the holy water, dipping our fingers into it and making the sign of the cross. We both kneeled at a pew near the confessional booth and waited. A fat woman came out from behind the curtain. She had body odor. I could smell her strong odor as she walked past. Her smell was mixed with the smell of the church, which smelled like piss. Every Sunday people came to mass and smelled that piss-smell and nobody said anything. I was going to tell the priest about it but I couldn’t. Maybe it was the candles.
“I’m going in,” said Frank.
Then he got up, walked behind the curtain and was gone. He was in there a long time. When he came out he was grinning.
“It was great, just great! You go in there now!”
I got up, pulled the curtain back and walked in. It was dark. I kneeled down. All I could see in front of me was a screen. Frank said God was back in there. I kneeled and tried to think of something bad that I had done, but I couldn’t think of anything. I just knelt there and tried and tried to think of something but I couldn’t. I didn’t know what to do.
“Go ahead,” said a voice. “Say something!”
The voice sounded angry. I didn’t think there would be any voice. I thought God had plenty of time. I was frightened. I decided to lie.
“All right,” I said. “I…kicked my father. I…cursed my mother…I stole money from my mother’s purse. I spent it on candy bars. I let the air out of Chuck’s football. I looked up a little girl’s dress. I kicked my mother. I ate some of my snot. That’s about all. Except today I baptized a dog.”
“You baptized a dog?”
I was finished. A Mortal Sin. No use going on. I got up to leave. I didn’t know if the voice recommended my saying some Hail Marys or if the voice didn’t say anything at all. I pulled the curtain back and there was Frank waiting. We walked out of the church and were back on the street.
“I feel cleansed,” said Frank, “don’t you?”
“No.”
I never went to confession again. It was worse than ten o’clock mass.

>>20830958
meant for
>>20821999

>>20821957
This is an excerpt from a visual novel. What do you think?

>>20830980
Why do you brain rotted anime fans have such a simpering and obsessive fixation on actual literature? No, VNs aren't literature. They're anime.
>th-they aren't anime!!!
Why? Because the medium has a different set of characteristics? Precisely. Visual novels aren't literature and they never will be. Go back! Go back!

FUCK grey moral dilemmas
All my homies LOVE simple tales of heroes defeating ontological evil

>>20831031
Shouldn't the person tying people to train tracks be wearing a cape, a top hat and have mustaches?

>>20831033
Perchance.

>>20830879
anyone?

>>20831040
No.

>>20831048
low iq monkeypox spreading faggot

>>20831040
No one here is academic enough to know about essays

>>20830865
Not him, but it depends on who you're talking about. Does it help get sales from random readers? Not really. But it does help you get reviewers because it shows you have a more professional approach and implies you care about your quality. And those people get you sales.

and lo, at once it came to him. that the universe was spawned not of freedom but of will. evolved will, spawned from the crucible of life, ever growing, ever manifesting.
so great the collective will of humanity and its reaches has it paralleled Babel, civilisations doomed to fall into themselves.

what truly is the environment, the very cue of our manifestations and envisions. moulded to our purposes, refined for exercising will. the machine of man presses onward

for long have the imbeciles talked amongst themselves of freedom, not seeing greatness where degree lies will. we are not god, not yet, for still the masses question what why.
the why lies in our very essence, evolution, will. it sees to us the loftiest of scales, in all our efforts in creation of our children, we at will, manifest manifest.
named of what our reaches are, we know not, but we call him god. so has the ultimate plan come today, our end is yet but a beginning, a wash of sin and chain. absolution

okay how about that?

>>20829239
No, I think anyone with a brain could see that passing it on to a son or daughter is for stability rather than the author smacking his dick over monarchy. Now if you fetishized how great and cool the monarchy is compared to a previous system of government, maybe someone may get a little suspicious.

>>20830988
I just wanted to know what /lit/ thinks of the prose. Personally, I view books made to sell as fun entertainment, and literature as art made to express. Most visual novels are "books", but only a select few are "literature". Pic rel is an excerpt from a "literary" visual novel. In short, this novel's main theme is this. If there was a one in a million chance of you achieving happiness, would you take that chance and endure endless torture and misery just for the infinitesimal chance of happiness?
This particular one could probably sell well as a book, but it is so unmarketable as a visual novel, its a far cry from what you'd expect from such a medium. To ensure that they manage to cover their production costs, visual novel companies make their stories as appealing as possible. Commonly, this manifests as "average boy surrounded by girls lusting after his cock, each with their own ending". But this visual novel has none of that. It's "literature". I won't debate whether it's true literature or not, which is why I use quotation marks. Like I said, I just wanted to discuss about the prose

>>20831190
>>20831190
>>20831190
New bread

>>20829492
Yes but you should try to hint at it so readers can make the connection

>>20830253
>>20830284 this
Or killing yourself.