/lit/ - Literature

No one writes in /wg/

Taking the liberty of reposting the plot outline for my slightly evil novella, because I foolishly first posted it when the old thread was past the bump limit. As I mentioned before, I'm stuck as to how to end it. Any ideas for how to continue? Any thoughts on the story as it stands?

(1/5)

This guy -- who cares who he is, a nobody, a dead-ender -- takes the bus each morning to work and, each morning, sees a pale long-necked short-haired girl in a white nurse's uniform already sitting near the front. A very trim, 1950s-type nurse's uniform, although the exact dating of the story is indeterminate. He, of course, lusts after her with an all-consuming, dead-lonely, despairing type of lust. Occasionally he dares to sit right behind her, and sees the fur trimming the neck of her coat stir as he exhales, which drives him into a quiet erotic frenzy right there on the bus.

At the midpoint of his journey, each morning, she rings the bell and gets off. Scrubby land of pines and bracken, old-money mansions hiding behind leafless trees. She's for the hospital at the end of a winding gravel road, which leads from the desolate bus stop right up to the hospital's iron gates. He watches her hurry off to work, her heels crunching gravel.

Details of his work, of where his own bus journey takes him, are unimportant. He's probably doing poorly, at work, owing to his preoccupations. He suspects he is imminently to be fired, and he's probably right.

One cold night on the bus back from work he sees a man with a long smoke-stained beard get on board. He carries a new shovel, paintwork still fresh on its unused blade, little red price tag dangling from its handle. The man rings the bell to stop at the hospital, and heaves his rickety old man bones up and off the bus. Our hero, our protagonist, has a flash of inspiration, or mania, and leaps out too just as the doors are closing.

Excuse me, says he. Is this the way to the hospital? Yes, says the old man. In fact I am the gardener there, at the hospital. (Our hero had already guessed as much.) He asks if he can see the man's new shovel: a handsome implement, he says. The proud gardener obliges, and there on the unlit gravel road, with the bus's rear lights a flicker in the distant dark, and no one else around, our hero swings the shovel down onto the old gardener's skull. Gong-like sound. He crumples. Drags him by the ankles out to a raggedy copse, and there uses the shovel to bury the man in the autumn earth, after taking the man's wallet from his bloodied overcoat.

>>20968942
(2/5)

The next morning the hospital administrator, a dried-out reptile-like man, allows our hero into his office. At the side of the administrator is the head doctor, a tall Celtic witch of a woman with strands of red hair falling about her rigid, aristocratic face. The administrator takes the typewritten letter of introduction from the younger man's hand: 'I most humbly apologise but I have had to leave suddenly due to a grave and private and urgent matter. The young man before you is a man I trust unreservedly and a gardener of unmatched proficiency. None better could be found to occupy my now vacant position. Yours sincerely' -- and then follows the name and signature of the murdered old man, copied from the documents in his wallet.

So begins our hero's new life as official hospital gardener. He lives in a bunk in the same shed wherein is stored the tools and the germinating seedlings and the plastic bags of manure. His predecessor had taped up a faded but still garish centrefold of an African lady holding towards the camera her bare breasts, her long sharp tongue protruding and dangling down almost to the nipples. He rips the image from the wall because he resents that it is not his love, the nurse.

He has the problem of not knowing the slightest thing about the maintenance of a sprawling institutional garden. But he muddles through. While he makes a pretense of trowling the earth or fertilising the beds he peeks up at the nurses scurrying to and fro, and his dark little heart throbs and races when he identifies the white-stockinged legs of his beloved. He looks down at the cool black mulch and contemplates his next move.

The nurses, of course, all ignore him. Down there in the beds he seems more mud than man, no more a sentient thing than is a mossy stone or a tuber.

And he notices a strange pattern: all the patients, when they appear, in their wheelchairs or on crutches, are wrapped from head to foot in bandages, and many have one or even two eyepatches, making featureless white lumps of their heads. The administrator explains to the new gardener: the head doctor has a personal theory that all contact with the outside world -- to sound and light and germ-filled air -- is detrimental to convalescence. Seal them up, is her motto. Then the administrator adds that they will be having their annual staff party -- a modest affair, he says, but one that seems to please the girls -- and they'll need some flowers for decoration. Sure thing, boss.

>>20968950
(3/5)

The party, in a streamer-hung basement, is dour. The gardener has been invited, although in his mud-crusted clothes he feels out of place among all the pink and spotless and perfumed nurse-flesh. Alcohol is strictly forbidden, and all must drink from the vast bowl of alcohol-free punch, slowly swirling with its red and sickly hue. Thankfully the gardener brought his hipflask, and he notices one of the nurses busying herself in a corner with one of the miniature rum bottles she had secreted in her handbag. What a lot of nurse, he thinks, has been squeezed into that uniform. He watches her grow red and unbalanced throughout the evening, becoming less and less discreet as she rummages through her supply of clinking, miniature bottles. Fat-thighed and curly-haired and outrageously freckled -- what a contrast to his slender, waifish love. Where is she?

One of the nurses performs a Schubert liede while another accompanies on an out-of-tune piano disinterred from an old store room. Then awards are presented. The gardener is topping up his plastic cup with another splash of whiskey when he sees the recipient of the Most Fastidious Nurse certificate take to the stage: it his beloved, with her big shy sheepish eyes, and her oversized front teeth biting down in nervous gratitude on her carefully painted bottom lip. Her name, he learns, is Gladys. She surrenders her hand to the powerful grip of the head doctor, and a photo is taken of the moment. The gardener slinks out of the room and returns to his shed under a dismal cloud of alcohol and frustrated lust.

Next morning he stumbles out hungover to attend to his duties. Sees a pair of rosy ankles sticking out of the compost heap. There, snoozing in the slimy matter, is the fat little rum-fiend from the night before, who clearly wasn't able to totter her way back to the bus stop. He hauls her out and puts her over his shoulder like a bag of potting soil. Lays her out on his bed in the shed and puts on a fresh pot of coffee. The room steams up with cheap coffee fog, she wakes up: awful embarrassment, but she sees the funny side -- she's right as rain after a big mug of the acrid coffee.

She becomes a regular visitor to the hut, once her rounds are done, and it's grown dark enough that no one will see her knocking on the door. Her name, she tells him, is Polly. They share mugfuls of whiskey and listen to the radio. She lets him pinch a portion of thigh; she wipes mud from his cheek and lands a smooch. Then one night, all serious and solemn, hands behind his back and looking out of the single, fogged-up window, he decides the time is right to reveal to her his true purpose at the hospital, and the woman who is sole sovereign of his heart. Polly doesn't mind a jot: she's thrilled by the dark drama of his vague scheme, like something from a novel about the masked villains of the underworld. They share the bond of co-conspirators.

>>20968957
(4/5)

But how can he approach Gladys? What could possibly induce a girl as pristine and unblemished as his love, the Most Fastidious Nurse, into his wretched shed, let alone onto his bed with its broken springs and vile stains? Many nights pass in this unbearable stasis.

Then one frosty night Polly raps in furious glee on his door. Her eyes are wide and wild with secret delight. It takes half a mug to calm her down to the point of coherency. For she has seen something unimaginable: she has seen the dark side of Gladys. Polly tells him what she has peeped.

While she made up a bed in a top-floor ward, she heard heels on tile. All was dark, except for moonlight from the tall windows. A curtain around the bed hid her from the entrant, who wheeled a trolley towards the immobile patient in the bed on the other side of the curtain. It's feeding time, said the soft voice, which she instantly recognised as belonging to Gladys. The ward was empty but for Gladys, the patient, and unseen Polly. The patient moaned in distress. Shush now, said Gladys, or do you want to starve? Polly heard a metal tray being placed down on the tile. Then she heard a rustle of cloth, of nylon. Then she heard something trickle, then spray, then stream. She barely dared to put her eye to the gap in the curtain, but she had to confirm what seemed too wild to be true. Gladys was squatting over the tray, and the flashing stream of urine from between her legs was turning the mashed potatoes yellow and watery. Now, open up wide, said Gladys, readjusting her uniform and lifting the tray to the patient's bedside. She raised a spoonful to the mouth, which relented and opened and became a black hole in the white featureless bandages as it accepted its fate.

He listens to Polly, and the scene she evokes is as vivid as a gorgeous nightmare: he can almost hear the hot gush, almost see it sparkling in the shaft of moonlight, and he feels in a state of rapture. Here, of course, is the leverage he had sought, the beautiful raw material from which to concoct a blackmail plot. But even more rapturous is the image of the sublime evil that Gladys has kept hidden within her, like a sacred passion that she obeys with the same rigour she devotes to her other duties. What a girl, what a creature.

>>20968942
This is retarded shit. The best way to end it is by you killing yourself.

>>20968962
(5/5)

So the first time he ever speaks to her it is to reveal what he now knows, and to put the plot into action. They're standing beneath the hospital gates, where he has been waiting for her, behind a gargoyle-topped pillar. Her small polite smile fades. She looks at him with a blank and weary face, like someone woken from a dream, and after he tells her when to arrive at his shed (if she doesn't want her secret to become a public scandal), she simply nods, and writes the time in her nurse's notebook.

She is punctual. It is night. They stand opposite each other in the shed, a dark gulf of silent antagonism stretching between them even though the room is crowded and cramped, and he can hear his rough heavy breaths. So what do you want me to do, she says.

From planks scavenged from aborted garden projects, he has made two benches, which he now drags into the centre of the small room. They resemble, she realises, two bus seats. The skeletons of bus seats. One is in front of the other, and it is the front one that he directs her to sit in. She is wearing her fur-trimmed coat, as he had asked. He takes the seat behind.

Half an hour later, she leaves the shed. She walks to the bus stop, and the real bus arrives like an awful punchline. She boards, and chooses to stand, even though all the seats are empty.

[And at this point I get stuck. I think the ending should involve some kind of revenge by Gladys. Or maybe his murder of the previous gardener should be revealed, or at least the authorities should start snooping around and stressing him out. Or maybe Polly grows jealous of Gladys now usurping her nightly place in the shed. Or maybe some combination of these three.]

To all queefing crybabies who wanted critique - most likely your premise was boring and writing subpar (I just don't read/review poetry though).

I've given the same level 1 advice 100 times over the months, and 99% of the time the person either tells me I'm wrong or never ever posts again. I'm just tired of typing up the same unheeded advice

>>20968942
Stop, please post via single link in future.
>outline
SRRT

>>20968984
Write a generalized version of the advice so it can be thrown into the OP.

>>20968920
*No one reads

>>20968920
No one *reads

So given I am the worst writer here, what to do?

Working full time has made me realise how much of an oasis writing is for me. I write a lot at my job, but writing fiction is like taking a warm bath after a long day.

>>20969137
Enough!
Watch this >https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=jpWKp-fnZuU
Read this
>https://archive.org/details/how-to-write-pulp
Then watch this for a practical example
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=kfKdZJmafT0
That’s is. Done. That’s all you’ll ever need. Now go away.

What do you guys think of this piece?

>>20968070
Yes, why?
>>20969192
The Big Sleep? Of course, after my suicide.
Nothing, nada. Everlasting peace.

Human life is the only art medium which really matters. I've been forced from birth into a nihilist performance.
A human life is art, ritualistic art same as african dance, meant only to last for a moment and then, it's out of mind. Improvised jazz.

Elevates our fleeting nature instead of avoiding. No art that can last beyond it's lifetime has ever been human born. There is one true artist, Yukio Mishima.

>>20969225
The actor is the coward's terrorist. Overtaken by a mask, his body goes without him. The terrorist who died in his "folly" has ended not only himself but another abstract though invading the material world. All other ventures are temporary for this creature, if a human vessel dies it will go on to impregnate another, influence, muses, so they said.
The terrorist forces time on this creature.

>>20969198
Absolutely moving, unironically.

>>20969198
Not going to read it.
Why should I?

>>20968911
miniMAG Issue 10

weekly magazine for short stories/poetry/art/ whatever

rolling submissions at
minimagsubmissions@gmail.com

>>20969319
past issues at
minimag.space

>>20969321

>>20969325

Friendly reminder that every second sitting here browsing this board is another second that your manuscript can indict you for not spending enough time getting to know it.

>>20969331
>>20969198
poor zareth

>>20969339

>>20969345

>>20969353

>>20968911
How do you write 2000+ words in a day without cocaine?

>>20969319
>>20969198
Oh boy, do you need a specific file type? I'll just submit this piece!

>>20969319
>>20969325
>>20969339
Who's the artist? I'll love to see how much he charges for book covers

>>20969358
>>20969198
you did sense of smell in a very good way

it's something that everyone can relate to (if you can't relate to this.... you might be Zareth)

there are some minor issues: a weird "He saw him..." near the climax. the second half of the first paragraph doesn't flow. minor stuff, easily sorted.

>>20969419
>>20969376
xincy_chen on insta. not sure what her commission price is

>>20969368
.rtf .doc .odt all ok

>>20969430
minimagsubmissions@gmail.com

site: minimag.space

I wrote a story to be published in &amp. I started months ago and it's based on one of the "Steal these Stories" prompts.
It's very rough and I have an a small idea that the structure does not exactly fit the literary aesthetic &amp likely goes for. At some point, I even thought it was a bit too childish, so I addes some curse words to it.
Can someone judge this please?
https://files.catbox.moe/llbmi0.pdf

Branches twist and engulf the path: I stumbled,
wood humbled me: it hit me by a bundle.
Slashes across my arm.
A lot of harm for the charm,
of seeing gaia world, and not my concrete jungle

>>20969419
Thanks! I'll edit it again before I submit the piece

>>20969448
are tapirs a metaphor for tranny cock?

>>20969522
Nope. It's an actual tapir. I did some research on them and on druids and Malaysia. The research was actually super fun.

>>20969198
Reading your short pieces as you were writing was hilarious, but this? The longer it goes, the less I can tolerate it. This is tedious and arouses disgust not at poor Zareth, but at you and the other characters for being such little bitches. Poor Zareth may smell like walking physical trash, but you and the other characters are abhorrent spiritual trash.
It would be better if you wrote it as short entries on a diary, passing thoughts and feelings from every time you met him.

>>20968737
Verily, sir. You spaketh truthen.
People here are obviously not master writers, so their advice and critique are helpful only if you are an absolute beginner or when you write something you seriously would not want attached to you.

>>20968984
What >>20969002 says.

>>20969225
>>20969137
WRONG!

We went through this already. Remember, my writing was way worse than your writing? DID YOU FORGET?

>>20968911
I want to improve my grammar specifically. The use of commas, dashes, etc. How should I go about this? I'm willing to read a grammar book, but I also want to practice. I'm an interpreter and I type transcripts for a living.

>>20969198
Really enjoyable piece, good work man.

>>20969559
>Reading your short pieces as you were writing was hilarious, but this? The longer it goes, the less I can tolerate it. This is tedious and arouses disgust not at poor Zareth, but at you and the other characters for being such little bitches.
I agree, that's why I had to end it.

Going to go and watch a life in four chapters, again. A good movie unlike your fucking books.
>>20969574
Fuck off, I don't feel like joking around.

>>20969198
satisfying.

The inferior medium, even a pop song is able to say more than writing.
https://youtu.be/9hhVnRTNVmM
Writing, words, language, I shit on it.

I hope you are not one of those 'authors' who rubbishes others work, only to then steal their ideas .

Do you guys review smut?

>>20967282
First, let me apologize because I will not be reading 27 pages.
Second, your very first sentence is cacophonic:
>Gently sloped cliffs of sharp stone and a pebble-strewn shoreline slowly crept from the thick fog hanging low over the Morimar that morning.
The constant R seriously was hurting my mind's ear. As someone who is into and wants to write poetry, of course I like alliteration, but yours here is displeasant.
Normally the constant repetition of these is displeasure: k, g, t, d, p, b, sh, s, ch, j.
The sentence is also too long for an opener: make it shorter since it is the very first one.
>and a moment of which a teenage boy had been dreaming of for as long as he could remember.
This sentence makes no sense to me. Maybe you wanted to say "at a time / in an era where a teenage boy..."? Work on your grammar: you should have placed a comma between this sentence and "Just beyond the grey crop...".
Sentence length variety is important. You have like 10 sentences longer than 15 words in a row: this makes the reader tired and unfocused.
You should also work on your paragraphing.
And I will not read further. Have you read any books on writing? You should not believe that, because people have complimented you before and you have some experience, then there is not much you can learn from some of those books.
Once again, good luck, bro. Do not feel discouraged by criticism; fix the flaws and think for yourself.

>>20969683
Who are you talking to? And who says you cannot take another's idea and make it even better?

>>20969717
Now he comes in with the "crit"
Classic

>>20968911
Blease stop gatekeeping me!

>https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/57441/the-elevation-chronicles-grimdanklit-rpgfeels

Let me join my fellow retards in the annuls of digitized history!

>>20969754
I also forgot to add to add me to pastebin!

>>20969728
>comes in
I do not come in, I come inside. And I am actually thinking of leaving: see >>20969559

>>20969769
How hopeless am I? Should I just hire a writer, point out who the characters are and let him work?

>>20969798
Fuck off janny

>>20969754
>>20969767
Can't. Pastebin guy is dead and left because he couldn't take the Gardner, janny fag, and Boswell spam anymore

>>20969198
You might like to read some of Jurgen, as it is written in a similar sort of style, the faux-medieval quest style done absurdly.

I think the ending of your bit is rushed, or, anti-climactic. I know that anti-climaxes can be funny too, but I'm not sure it quite landed for me that way. I'm not sure. If I imagine it as a scene in a show the humour is more apparent in having this big build up that ends quite mattery-of-factly with no big emotional drama or consequence. I'm just not quite sure it works as a written piece so well, because it doesn't have that same immediacy as it would if it were acted onscreen.

>>20969769
You had a chance to make me leave by helping me, you didn't do it so I'm going to stay here, every thread now.

>write story
>First female character
>Red hair, and green eyes
>Every single fucking time
How do I stop this fetish?

>>20968911
Hero with a thousand faces is the worst book ever written take it off there. It will help nobody write ever nobody never has ever improved their writing reading that garbage

Lajos Egri’s book on the other hand is a masterpiece required reading

Normally I end up deleting these posts before posting them as I come to better judgement, but two have just slipped past me. I wonder if I am going mad or not, and how far gone I might really be. The questions I asked are truly sincere, they are topics of concern of which I am quite serious about, though it's also true that I indulged my fancy when I wrote them and let myself go a little and then became a little delirious laughing at them as I read them back to myself, which I wonder isn't also a sign of how far gone I might be. It is troubling, to be perfectly honest, this business of living and how to go about it, and how skewed a man's vision might really be. I have seen that slight changes in an angle, when these angles are pursued at length, can generate enormous deviations in their final destination (a fact I picked up from aeronautics, I think). Anyway, I've written these two posts, and I would like them to be read if possible and for the questions to be considered as seriously as they may be considered, assuming there is any rational sense in them, and for maybe a little appreciation to be given for the imagery if it pleases, but if you must insult the work please go gently, if possible, because I have realised that I am incredibly sensitive lately and am no longer quite sure where the borders of anything are.

>>20969984
>>20970063

>>20970108
JFC Joyce was a brapfag

>>20969002
>>20969559
>Write with concrete language (see pyramid of abstraction) and use highly specific words over abstract ones (see Specificity)
>break up paragraphs and dialogue like a sane person - no walls of text
>don't "write like a movie" i.e. describe the main character like a camera follows him, be exclusively oriented around visual details and immediate "on screen" details

I can give links for resources if wanted, but this is why I drop pieces 1 paragraph in 90% of the time.

>>20969769
>>20970213
Answer me now fucker

>>20970213
I'll add this too:
>first line describes the sky or waking up in bed

More situational as it can be done well, but it's a huge red flag and 99% shows they don't have the control over language/story to focus on what's actually important

>>20970272
>>20970213
Answer me now fucker or else
My wish is your command

I am the great OAN, you WILL answer me.

>>20969960
We tried to help.
You're beyond help.
You're fscking schizo and manic-depressive.
Stay on-topic or you can be reported/banned for any number of reasons.

Stop using singular 'they'. I implore you...

>>20969225
>>20969728
>>20970285
why do you keep posting fully-clothed photos of your mom

>>20970314
LOOKING BACK IS NOT A REMEDY
NOT LIKE LOOKING FOR SOME ACTION

BEYOND HELP? WHY? A LACK OF GENETIC TALENT, NO PROMISE WHATSOEVER? THAT'S IT RIGHT!
NOT LIKE KURVITZ, ARTIST GENETICS. I'LL BLOW HIS BRAINS OUT, GO AHEAD PISS ME OFF

>>20968911
I made it and so can you.
Everyone in this thread is going to make it.
One day we'll all be at the Booker awards after party and we'll say "remember those threads we used to make in /lit/?"
Keep striving, tomorrow belongs to the dreamers.

>>20970314
Stay on topic or I'll ban you? You tried to help me? You did jackshit and don't you fucking dare imply otherwise. Ohh I should be on my knees for your fucking trencher.

Ever since my first post, never happy, laughing at me, no one ever helped me at all. Worse you lied to me

>>20970376
Not that anon, but I never lied.to you. We both reached an agreement that you were the better writer than I ever could be.

Remember the Meredith and Thiago assassin twink story? It was universally agreed that you were the better story teller!

>>20970367
What's your writing routine like? I'm curious. I will share what I do.

>at night I place my laptop on the desk in the corner of my room where I stand to work, and I only use that desk for writing, and never go to that corner of the room for anything else
>I wake up, brush teeth, make cup of tea, take amphetamines
>open laptop, open journal, create new entry and write the date, write down any dreams if I remember them
>open current project in word processor and write
>usually feel myself pulling away from the work after one hour and then I journal or make more tea and do my best to return to focus
>sometimes I sit down away from the desk because I can stand and write for hours and maybe my back aches, so I sit down a bit and drink some tea and talk to myself about something which may or may not be my writing
>I try to not to read back over my work because if I do I get distracted and hate the whole thing and can't do anything more
>I will read the last paragraph, remember where the character is, and type whatever comes to mind
>no plotting, no prior planning, no hard goals for plot points though maybe loose things in mind

>>20970314
You know I'm right. Put the schizo cone on me, parade me around the city. I've just got the taste of my first blacklist.
None of you would ever piss on me if your life depended on it, what? Too good for Oan? You're nothing and you're never going anywhere.

>>20970314
I read your posts, I might be the worst one off here, no, I am, but same as a quadriplegic on the NFL, there's peace, prepackaged peace that comes in with the pipe dream. I don't have to worry.

All of you? You're never ever ever going to make it, good, rot and die.

>>20970314
I've seen it before, you and the other twink faggot, you're better than me but never forget that it's over and you sre simply not going to make it. Enjoy your death media, that's right. Go on do it keep at it its a solved game.

>>20970435
dead media fuck my phone and fuck your whore mother
I wipe my ass with your novels
>>20970314

>>20970406
I work in a menial day job. It's a seafood processing factory, no brains really required just go through the motions all day.
I use that time to think of stories.
I get one that sticks, meaning it continues to bubble away in my head all week.
I wait until Sunday afternoon.
Sit down in front of laptop, coffee and biscuits (always Kooka's choc and rasberry)
Music, always jangly indie stuff like The Smiths or The Sundays.
Punch it out over an hour or two.
Some times when things are flowing well i can get a new story every week using this method.

>>20970314
Oh big bad boy sith the report button.
Woah, go easy on me g-g-g-go easy on me
Go on do it report me I say the when and how
We are going to on in circles forever until you say it
Say it
>>20970367
>>20970442
Stop scribbling over the retirement pamphlets

I'll be reading about lewis woolston in a writing class. One of the classics of the future, a violent shock to the paradigm.
Woolstonian!

>>20970314
You think Im afraid or killing myself you think I am afraid to do it?
Its horrible to think about but Im just getting ready

The trouble with mental illness is that their behaviour is often so repellent that it disturbs any natural sympathy a person may have for them. By definition their behaviour is abnormal and while they may have no malice in their actions (or they may have malice, but they are unable to know how wrong that is, or to stop themselves from acting that way) it does not make their bad behaviour any more sympathetic to the ordinary person confronted with them. It is tragic, in the true sense, because these are people without a home, it might even be said that these are people without a people of their own, as what makes them them is so different to an ordinary person as to almost render them a separate species. It is as though a man walked into the store where you were standing in line and his tongue kept detaching itself from his mouth and running all over the shop, licking all the products on the shelves, jumping into customer's baskets and spoiling the things they were about to pay for, and even jumping onto customers themselves and licking them all over. The man himself can hardly be to blame for his tongue running off like that, and he can't even apologise for it in the moment as his tongue would be busy somewhere else, but regardless of how sad it may be that this man has no control over his tongue and it is ruining his life in quiet but disruptive ways, the man who has his microwave meal and packet of biscuits that he wants to purchase licked by an out of control tongue, and then even has it jump on his shoulder and work its way down the neck of his shirt where it leaves wet trails on his skin as he shimmies in panic in the queue for the till, will have no sympathy for this man who has ruined his dinner and publicly humiliated him and possibly even introduced him to some new disease. The tragedy of the mentally ill is a concept at once understood by everyone with a heart, but in the practical matters of the day, the abnormal will always make the normal uneasy and disturbed, and both parties would perhaps be better off alone, if only they could stop meeting at the same store where they buy their microwave meals and biscuits.

>>20970314
You wanted them to say.
Well, here I am
wheres rhe advice though?

>>20970468
Imagine when he's accepted as part of the canon

>>20970486
I am sorry Lewis, I dont knwo you but youre not involved in this, Im so sorry im sorry

>>20970314
HAHAHAHAHHA I GOT YOU INSPIRED WOAH
BOTH A DRY AND A "QUIRKY" READ

IT BREAKS MY HEART TO SEE YOU SEETHING LIKE THIS IT REALLY DOES

God Almighty.

>>20970314
TheRES a Man LoCKEd IN His HOuSE wiThOut A GUn And No ONE is LOoKiNG at HIm
You didnt think I would remember that huh? Like im some flesh punchline you raise and throw into the world
I seriously wish I would kill Kurvitz maybe they will take me seriously then

@20970314
It makes me
You have no idea
I hate him and you I really do
It pains me that I just cant do it I cant kill him no matter how hard I want I simply cant

LOOKING BACK IS NOT A REMEDY
NOT LIKE LOOKING FOR SOME ACTION

BEYOND HELP? WHY? A LACK OF GENETIC TALENT, NO PROMISE WHATSOEVER? THAT'S IT RIGHT!
NOT LIKE KURVITZ, ARTIST GENETICS. I'LL BLOW HIS BRAINS OUT, GO AHEAD PISS ME OFF

>Stay on topic or I'll ban you? You tried to help me? You did jackshit and don't you fucking dare imply otherwise. Ohh I should be on my knees for your fucking trencher.
>Ever since my first post, never happy, laughing at me, no one ever helped me at all. Worse you lied to me

You know I'm right. Put the schizo cone on me, parade me around the city. I've just got the taste of my first blacklist.
None of you would ever piss on me if your life depended on it, what? Too good for Oan? You're nothing and you're never going anywhere.

>>20970046
what did you learn from egri?

>>20970486
Hahaha the canon?
Society is going to collapse within 50 years and youre thinking about the canon?

A person with any sympathy would have helped me. I'm a good person, I wouldn't have sperged out if someone, just one person had been kind to me.

>>20970508
Better get used to it, Im not leaving.

What the fuck is happening here?

Im spent energy completely spent from my hatred and guess what it feels great
ill pass out and it will be just like dying
Good!
Noww I understand mishjma

>>20970567
You are witnessing a real life schizo meltdown.
Screencap this, he's going to kill himself and his mother will blame 4chan, we'll be on the news

>>20970548
No one really knows how to help anyone, not even themselves. You also can't count on people to be there in the place you need them to be when you need them to be. Some people here come here for no other reason than to be casually cruel, for whatever reason. For all we know their dog just died, or their girlfriend had just finished beating them again, and now they use this place to apply some cruelty and gain some control over their lives. If help does ever arrive, it might just even be coincidence, and that you just happened to be there at the time, and all they were really doing was helping themselves. If you really need some sort of help, then you should have asked for it in an appropriate place. To ask for it here is really a form of self-sabotage, unless of course you find comfort somehow in simply venting here.

>For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.

>>20970548
Goto reddit. Nobody will be mean to you there. Only fair.

there's really only two things that will help
1. reading a lot. study the writing
2. writing a lot, exercise step 1.
it's a very lonely hobby

Is there any video lectures on creative writing or writing in general that are good and available online?

>>20970659
literally in the op

Can I get feedback on a chapter in my book? The book is called "The Dream Wizard." It's about an antivaxxer soldier who learns the art of lucid dreaming. He uses his dreams to change his reality. What are your thoughts?

>>20970761
I like the present tense approach. I would cut back a little on the questions you pose while narrating. The dialogue started good but fell off once I could tell you were using it to infodump. I might recommend a little review of how you use dialogue in your story. If you're on chapter 74 you're doing awesome so far. Lucid dreaming is a very cool skill and fun to explore with; I had a story somewhat like that too. What do you plan to do with the story when it's done?

>>20970824

Thank you for the advice. The book is done and up on Kindle. I think I screwed up my release. I made some money in the early days of Kindle and built up an audience for my first series, but now the ebook market is so saturated, it's much harder to get noticed. I work for a living so I'm not one of those writers that can put out a book every month to keep up with the Kindle churn. I appreciate your feedback. I may pull the book and rework it if the readers don't return.

Writing general guys, I made a major mistake with my fic and haven't come up with a way to fix it.
> anachronistic fantasy setting where technology is all over the place depending on where you are
> protagonist travels to a war-torn country in its industrial revolution to investigate a murder
> his allies here have their own problem with a giant army coming towards their fortress
> he agrees to join their army when they move out, they send their artillery ahead to take position first (yes, it's retarded, but it is for a reason)
> he visits the ammo factory where the bullet used for the murder was produced
> they ask the supervisor to assemble a list of all their local customers, which will take a while
> protagonist waits a little over a week for the artillery division to get a head start, then joins the main army
> separate civil war plot ensues that protagonist doesn't come back from until almost a year later
> visiting the ammo factory again to collect the list involves an encounter with the actual murderers that shouldn't happen until after the civil war plot is over
> but protagonist hanging around for over a week and not collecting that list before the army moves out makes zero sense

>>20970903
Have them send the list to him through the mail once he's at the front, rather than have him wait around for it. Perhaps it gets lost in the mail or needs to bounce around several different places that he may be until it comes back to him, reigniting the main plot which was left to languish as he went on his army side quest.

How do you feel about videos and other assorted works of informative literature that try to teach writers how to do literary concepts like worldbuilding, power systems, and dialog? Do you think there's value to this or do you think it's silly to apply some kind of scientific process to writing fiction?

>>20971110
Like many things , it's pointless until you actually use it. So

>figure out a cool ending
>figure out what sort of characters are necessary to orchestrate it
>use their states at that ending as the outcomes of their arcs
>use the opposite as the start of their arcs
>add quirks to offset them being unlikable
>lead them through a soft recreation of the ending several times to showcase where they are in their arc at that moment

It's that easy

Just finished the last sentence to my penultimate chapter of my second book. Feels good to have the end in reach.

>>20971214
so are you going to post it? or are you going to shrink away like a faggot back to r-dit because you don't want to be "associated" with 4chan?

>>20971233
They couldn’t have known about what that couple had done in that basement, or how they made all those students disappear without drawing attention.

>>20971245
what?

I feel like I approach storytelling too mechanically. I see pieces and parts that need to fit into certain slots when I write.

Is this bad or is it just something that everyone goes through when they've read/written enough to kind of know where things should happen?

>>20971274
It means you're gonna be a great genre writer someday.

Advice says to remember how you felt and such when writing. Can a sociopath be a good writer? I think I have a strong case for being one.
>>20971269
It's the line, imbecile. He's posting it.
This is my jury?

>>20971274
I haven't read your work or fully understood your process to judge. My instinct is that if you are using words like mechanical then you might be dissatisfied with your own work, which is probably all you need to know.

>>20971305
>which is probably all you need to know.
Doesn't every writer dislike some parts of their work? Or are you the sociopath guy a few posts above?

Neurologically, neurotically, I am a woman.

>>20969225

With all the posts you’ve written here you would have your game done twice over.

Can’t say your decent into madness isn’t fun to watch.

I'm exactly like the stereotype of a woman, mentally speaking. Not all women are like this, I'm merely a simulation of the worst aspects.
I'm one note, vapid and insincere rxcept when I go into random tangets.

The personality of a bimbo running on the hardware of a pseud. I justify my existence with ever decreasing success, it's a good thing I'm a talentless failure. I get off on being mad at it.
>>20971324
No, I couldn't do that. It either has good dialogue or there is no game.

I'm the anon who was asking for writing literature the other thread. I'm just going to jump into it and write my first short story. I'll write whatever you guys suggest no matter how retarded (although it would be nice if it's a serious suggestion). Might even post it if I feel good enough about it.

>>20971315
I haven't posted anything crazy for a while, so it's probably not me. And I do not know what every writer feels about their work. I personally like to trust my instincts. To ask the question you did shows you have your doubts. So do the opposite for a bit. I don't think work should feel 'rote', unless you are a genre writer. If you are aspiring to art then you should be aspiring to originality, and whilst an analytical process will be at work on some level for any writer--either explicitly involved in the work process or pushed further to the background while the unconscious plays--I don't think any writer that was extending themselves to their own satisfaction would that word 'mechanical' to describe their process. The analytical mind will be at work on some level for any sort of writer, but I don't think things should just 'slot' into place really. If it is obvious for you, then how obvious would it be for the reader?

>>20971345
Get/download a book called 3AM Epiphany. It is a book of writing exercises. Here is a good exercise from it that was adapted from an exercise in Gardner's Art of Fiction:

Describe briefly a lake or a backcountry mountain trail (in other words, a beautiful natural setting) as seen by a person who has just lost a parent in a sudden, unexpected death. The last time this narrator saw the parent, they argued violently. In your narrative do not mention the death, the parent, or the argument. Do not tell a story. Simply show us what the lake or forest or street looks like to someone under these circumstances. 500 words

There's my intellectual submisiveness, my artisic personality could very well be named "O".
I don't dare to even make one line without being reassured, permission.

And, do you like my owl mask?

No one ever told me to read 3AM Epiphany. Instead I was left to wander alone, the preferal treatment. What could be the cause?

Literature is inferior, to write like this would be perfect.
https://www.markertext.com/sans_soleil.htm

>>20971383
Thank you, I'll get started on it tomorrow afternoon.

>>20971428
I always forget this one word from French. No matter how many times I make the same typo and create the same word, it never sticks.
Preferential. Treatment.

Robert Kurvitz spoke on this one interview about his writing process for Disco Elysium. It took him 6 months to write, edit/refine the autopsy scene.

On the back of the Whirling-In-Rags, a distinct place, expertly framed. The key to the scene comes in the way time stops and both detective and player hyperfixate. Genius.
I can't do it justice.

>>20971383
>To ask the question you did shows you have your doubts.
Well no shit, that's why I asked. Thanks anyway.

Maybe I'm a philosopher. My own branch of nihilism-antihumanism-materialism-utilitarianism-platonism

What if I write and format my game like THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA?

Is the anon who posted the evil novella outline in the last thread still around?

>>20971569
shut up and do it already. stop using 4chan. commit to something like you commit all your time to wexler

>>20971601
People demand dialogue, emotional moments, plot.
They're not arthouse.

Need I repeat myself on how Koyaanisqatsi is the peak of art?
In the perfect system, humans from either the lower class, the mid section and their branches, the elite and even the machine overseers would have no access to degenerate abstract art.
I didn't understand Plato at first when I was younger but now I agree and say, let's do more.

Bros, I hate normies (in writing groups) so fucking much it's unreal.
>No, you can't post that here, that falls under that discord channel's purpose, not this one
>You need to have trigger warnings
>You're not allowed to disparage anyone else's writing
>The absolute fucking shit tier responses you get

>>20971641
>>20971601
Climate change and resource wars within 50 years will bring about a version of my system, an inevitable development.
I want to explain Koyaanisqatsi to you, how bureaucracy is the final lifeform but I won't.

>>20971642
We are the only group you need.
Post your work.

>>20971670
On the off chance someone from normie-ville (whose mods need to be slapped in the face) is also here, I'll refrain for a day or so.

>>20971642
Tbh you ought to avoid anything that is run by a group of people online or in person. What I started doing, after enduring those things and lurking in those communities, is reaching out to people individually for peer to peer beta reading and discussion. Turns out a lot of posturing about tags and too much criticality falls away when you keep the conversation focused on just writing.

>>20971676
Dumbest shit I've read all day

>>20971680
The problem is sometimes you just need to field a question because you know the answer is simple if you can just get told what the answer is. A big group of randos is good for that, unlike specific partners.

>>20969583
Punctuation is orthography, not grammar.
Use this.
https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html

>>20969683
Ideas can't be owned.

>>20971274
Vladimir Nabokov and other writers are the same: they see writing as problems, puzzles, etc. So it is not wrong, as long as it works for you.

Is it pointless to insist in "show, not tell" if a crucial point of my story is the introspection of the main character?
I need to explain how he's feeling, and just describing what he's physically doing if far from enough.
Is it ok to switch between showing and telling? Are there other authors that do this?

>>20971783
>Is it ok to switch between showing and telling? Are there other authors that do this?
All authors, all the time. Read any published work with an eye for telling and watch them shift between the two.

Fuck I never finished my blog to answer this shit without reiterating myself

>>20971592
Lol do you mean the nurse piss kink story? That was based

>>20971642
>writing groups
Literally what did you expect? Writing groups tend to be communes of failed writers looking for a hugbox to make them feel self important as they gas up other people's writing in order to get encouragement themselves. They are places where masochists gather to gab about their "work in progress" that is never ever going to be finished because they get such satisfaction out of telling people "I'm writing a novel" they have no motivation to ever finish doing so.

>>20971878
This. Just look at Reddit's "self-promotion thread". There's 30 submissions with 1.4 million subscribers. Everyone is full of shit.

It's a miracle that /wg/ had 5 completed books total. Then again, they're also probably reddit too

I must admit to being a cuckold, certainly a woman like Kim Wexler (the character, not the actress) is prime hotwife material.

>>20971663
>I didn't understand Plato at first when I was younger but now I agree and say, let's do more.
How do you interpret him now?

>>20971994
meant for >>20971641

>>20971994
Imagine requesting an answer from someone only to have that person ignore you. That's what this thread did to me when I aksed how to get good dialogue for my game, begone.

>>20972000
why are you still here?

>>20971663
>climate change

It's already retarded, scrap it and start over.

Someone staying over.
Word count down.
Creativity up.
Go figure.

>>20970761
I like this a lot. Reads a bit strange because I'm so used to past tense, but it's very interesting.

How can I write my game?
Not leaving till someone tells me how

>>20972245
MS Word

I'm trying to write a character who is a very over-the-top knight who loves himself and speaks in a pretty exaggerated way. I've found that when I'm writing his dialogue I'm using a lot of exclamation points, I think it's too much, but ending some of his sentences with a full stop doesn't seem to deliver the cartoonish picture I want. Does anyone have any suggestions?

>>20972637
Why are you afraid of exclamation marks?

>>20972245
By yourself.

>>20972648
I'm not. I think overuse might diminish the effect I want to draw from them and was looking for some variety.

>>20971569
>nihilism-antihumanism-materialism-utilitarianism-platonism
it's like you're trying to annoy me

What should the first sentence of your story be?

I usually start with the weather and time if it takes place outside.

>>20972785
I hear it and I have to write it. Sometimes I hear something near it, and I cycle through the conversation until something about it sounds right. I can speak at length about what I love in first sentences, but I won't, because when I am thinking of the actual sentence I try to pay no attention to the part of my mind where that sort of structural knowledge might emerge (though I acknowledge it is still there quietly informing me in the background).

First sentences are a wonderful thing. I do believe that the first sentence holds the germ of the whole work, and I know I'm not alone in that feeling and that it is a popular one. Salman Rushdie comes to mind, and he speaks about that in his Master Class (I did not watch it all). This video of Colm Tóibín comes to mind too, and whilst the one book of his I have read I found to be incredibly boring, I find listening to him speak about writing in this interview to be entirely compelling, even though I do not agree with him on everything he says. His emphasis on work, however, is a vital thing, one of those banalities that go without saying but can be completely missed by a person, dismissed off-hand, as though they had been told to breathe and they had scoffed at it until they wondered why they kept on passing out, and then they gasp for air and suddenly they understand. Which is to say, I suppose, that the advice itself is useless, because a man that refuses to breathe will only breathe when he breathes, no matter how many times he is told how important it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsY1viY4NUI

>>20972637
Same. This is the first part >>20968070. In this second part Verum makes me cringe. Also, I haven't any idea what to name X; any suggestions?

X:”Like what?”, asked X; dusting himself off.
V:”That I’m afraid I can’t answer. I don’t know exactly what follows, but I am sure it is something akin to heightening.”

At this, both Jakob and X tilted their heads and stared abstractly into the air.
J:”I’m... not sure I follow. May you explain?”
V:”Of course! But first let me soothe this leg of mine that’s been so badly abused by a someone—I am not sure who—somewhere here”, and he gestured towards X while giving him an assuring nod. “How strange pain and pleasure are! It seems one always follows the other like night and day. A long hike leads to sore feet leads to rest leads to the most soothing feeling ever. Truly, how divine must he who steps on others be! Rather than curse him, I should bless him and parade him round the city for all to see! By the Gods I should! At last, that one is lost to me... never to be seen again. Oh X! Didn’t see you there! Say, what make you of my argument?”
X smiled at Verum in endearment, and gazed off into the distance for quite a while before turning back.
X:”I think that if you mean to say

>>20972822
The way to write is a chore to read.

How do you call the 'holes' on metal platforms like these that are not solid?
They don't have to have that exact shape.

>>20972887
grating

>>20972887
Probably just perforated steel X or something.

>>20972906
Yes, that's the word I was looking for.

>>20972887
Actually, just looked it up, this exact style is referred to in general by the trademarked term "traction tread".

>>20971783
The old adage of show, don't tell can be counterproductive sometimes imo. Telling can be essential to showing other more important things.

>>20970761
are you esl? a lot of awkward tenses and basic grammatical errors.

>>20972887
Yes, grating. I think one word for that sort of raised platform is a gangway, too, if you didn't know.

And I'll now recommend the Oxford-Duden pictorial dictionary

>>20972887
You can also try onelook.com/thesaurus

>>20969965
I have a thing for girls with brown hair and blue eyes. You don't stop it, just embrace it

>>20971783
>Is it pointless to insist in "show, not tell" if a crucial point of my story is the introspection of the main character?
No. It should make you rethink having that as a crucial point of the main character.

>>20969965
>>20973126
Plebs. Brown eyes and brown hair is the true feminine ideal.

>>20973185
Black hair green eyes or bust.

>>20969198
It might be a funny bit dispersed within some other work. But the joke runs out of steam fast on its own.

>>20973185
>looks like my favorite porn actress
Well, off to fap again. And after that I'll probably do some writing. Anyone else seem to get a lot of work done post-fap?

>>20973214
What's her name? I've been looking for a porn actress that looks like her. Personally, I've found it to be just the opposite. I get more done when I haven't beat it in a while. Back when I used to box, I noticed that whenever I didn't find time to jerk off in the preceding days I had an easier time focusing in the ring. Something about being worked up and frustrated really gets the gears in motion for me. I enjoy jerking off too much to quit though.

>>20970761

Here is Chapter 75. This is the chapter in which the protagonist has learned to lucid dream at will. I switch from past tense to present in the book. Past tense is reality whereas present tense is used when he is dreaming. I did this because people who keep dream journals are often told to write their dreams in the present tense. Please tell me what you think.

>>20972887
i wouldn't worry about being so specific. i would call it a "metal catwalk" and let the reader fill in the gaps.

Spelling out the number for a chapter > Roman numerals > foreign language> Arabic numerals > name for a chapter

>>20973382
Space out the paragraphs.

I tried to “live life” before writing. I now have AIDS and can’t get a job because of drug charges. I wish I was dead.

>>20973464
Better write your magnum opus now

>>20973298
If you don't have a urolagnia fetish I'd disregard, but if you do, you can check out Patches Place and search for Brie. A few of her clips are available for free or torrent if you can find a host.
Sometimes it feels like I have a clearer head post fap and I'm definitely more in touch with my softer emotions. Other times it makes me want to laze around and play video games instead. What I've found is that if my libido is to the point where I'm not beating it as often, I get a lot of work done in a short amount of time. Often a lot of it is high quality as well.

When Billy shoved his penis into his mother’s vagina he had the sensation of trying to wear a sweater two sizes too big. His looked up and saw her mother staring at him with that same incredulous expression, eyebrows raised and lips pursed, like when she thought he was lying to her.
“What,” she asked him.
“Mom, are you what kids call a ‘slut?’”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m fucking my twelve year old son. What do you think the answer to that question is? Now get to work!”
Thrust after thrust, Billy slipped in and out without drawing even a moan from his mother. She looked around before reaching for her phone on the night stand.
“Mom?” The boy froze. His mouth hung open.
“Keep going. I’m just ordering the groceries. We’re having salmon tonight. I’ve read it’s good for the libido. I think you’ll need it, you little faggot.”

>>20973675
I'd be interested to see you rewrite that without the humorous tone, as though it were being narrated by someone very serious watching a serious thing. The description of the mother's expression is cartoonish in its unoriginality, by the way, maybe try and envision something unexpected there, whatever it might be, but add something unique in places where you are falling to banality. Perhaps, for instance, she only has one eyebrow, which might make her features more original, and the examination of them more interesting and unique. The whole scene is also quite rushed as though it were a series of puns building on each other with shock. I would like to see that pace slowed considerably. I would also lose all of the dialogue and stick to dry reportage. I offer this merely as an exercise you might like to play with, and not really as any critique of your work, beyond the originality of the mother's expression, which for all of its unoriginality might be the tone that you actually desire, though I personally think it is a poor choice. To make light of the very dark in that curt off-handed manner is itself quite unoriginal. Something further must be done to make it feel new and intriguing, I think.

How's my opening?

>>20973422
> mayan numerals > hexadecimal > binary > brail

>>20973777
Waste of trips/10

>>20969198
Fantastic

Should I change projects?

Poetry is harder than it looks bros.

>>20973810
do a litRPG

>>20973864
That's a genre I'll never get.

>>20973864
It's a curious phenomenon from what I've read so far. It's the fat just stripped away and instead the dopamine conditioning left there on the page, a button for the mind.

The modern human is the saddest creature I've ever met.

>>20973464
Wash dishes.

>>20972694
I believe you've answered your own question. Next time, don't ask.

>>20973883
>>20973901
it is exactly this. it is for the dopamine addicted nerd. i want someone who isn't ESL to trick retards into enjoying some lit.

>>20973883
Gamers like games. litRPGs offer hard magic systems that mimic a set of game rules. In that aspect, you can think of it as another part of worldbuilding. Just like interesting locations or races can bring a world to life, so can good systems.

The litRPG power fantasy is not just about a strong character, but a character that cleverly decodes and exploits the rules. Usually, the protagonist has one unique loophole that lets them break the game.

I am of the opinion that any genre can be good if well done. Just because most are crap does not mean they have to be crap. The same applies to superheros, Westerns, romances, or any other genre fiction.

>>20973937
Anon, I'm ESL, third language even.
I'm not saying that I believe myself to be above litRPG, on the contrary it's far beyond me. But I have no interest and people would get no joy out of it, my personal beliefs influence both ends of my art process, I can only be interested in miserable stuff.

>>20973901
Sometimes you just don't want to go through a battle in a JRPG. So reading about it is much easier

/wg/, there's this movie you need to see, Trial on the road - aleksei german.
>>20973970
I dislike that, "one unique loophole". As if. No, I prefer harsh reality, true hard science fiction for example.

It doesn't sound like I could do this genre, I might like systems but this?

>Dopamine
Litrpgs are some of the most borinb books out there. I get not dopamine hit despite enjoying gaming. I'd rather read 300 dry pages from a tranny's diary than a litrpg.

Another chapter down - pure kino all the way through in my humble opinion. Will do an edit pass before movong on to 17, but added to my chapters by word count tracker

I miss the infinite ambition I had when I was younger; the limitless intellectual drive that seems universally present in young people; I guess it weakens with age and completely runs dry during early adulthood. It pains me now to recall that grand and intoxicating vigor once invested by my innocence, by all the former axioms of my young soul, which now seem irretrievable to my soul at present—such axioms as:
>"For me, there isn't a hill too high in the world."

This youthful ambition has since mutated into this strange, bittersweet sense of admiration; it's a frightful reverence for the greatest of those authors I've since become acquainted with. I'm twenty-eight now. I'm resting stagnant atop some figurative hill—that is, the plateau of neuroplasticity—and this may be the last hill I ever scaled with my brazen, youthful fervor intact. In its place I now feel deep regret; I now resent my adamantine bondage to my newer, more earthly and more fixed axioms:
>'There's no way I can compare to a poet like Keats (who penned his entire oeuvre by age twenty-five), let alone Shakespeare...'
>'Melville's vocabulary at age thirty dwarfs mine tenfold, despite our similar ages; I can't comprehend how he achieved that lexicon—and all without using the Internet! I have easy-access to a near-infinite repository of information, yet I still can't compete.'

To the rare, perhaps imaginary reader who's read this far without getting bored, allow me just one paragraph more: I dare claim to've predicted your harsh thoughts. Yes, you're thinking, 'you first pretend to have grown beyond your old, "childish" axioms, yet you then compare yourself—with the sound of defeat whirring in your voice—to artists of only the highest-known caliber; to Shakespeare! Well, is that not a blatant contradiction? Are you not still possessed by childish axioms? The answer to that is, I would have to say, yes. And I'll offer no rebuttal to you, you that attentive and scrupulous reader; I can only tell you that I am already aware of this irony, and I find it humorous, though also irritating.

Instead, I'll offer one more self-same contradiction, this one my conclusion: consider, if you will, the harrowing fact that Herman Melville completed Moby-Dick during his early thirties. How old are you now, reader? How does your writing compare to his? Does this not inspire dread in you, also?

>>20974502
>It pains me now to recall that grand and intoxicating vigor once invested by my innocence,
Relax bud your writing is garbage you weren't going to do anything worthwhile anyway

>>20974523
It was a reference to Morrowind

Any of you writing a collection of short poems?

>>20974562
yeah. very slowly

This may be a trivial question, but do you organise your files in a certain way? Is there a good way to do so?

I have one folder called Writing and inside that another folder for Poetry (which isn't my focus but I play with it a little). When I get an idea, I write down a paragraph or as much as I feel and save it there to be examined later on and extended or whatever. I imagine I should have a Finished folder, though I do struggle to imagine ever finishing anything, or knowing what a finished piece might be.

Can that filing system be improved?

>>20974575
i keep mine all over my desktop

>>20974575
i use a wiki

>>20974575
How do you see people even function in the world when you have to ask the most basic of questions. Do you seriously need someone to hold your hand for each sentence?

>>20974612
not him but organizing files can be a pain. it's a fine question

>>20974047
>I dislike that, "one unique loophole".
It's not always there, but it's common.

>>20974623
No it isn't. This isn't the 1950's with the Dewey decimal system. You right click "create a folder" name it writing then dump your shit.

With the search function it's even easier. Only problem is tagging files so you can search by keywords. But even I think that's coming soon.

>>20969353
I would buy an end of year paperback with all the issues combined into one volume. Will you do that?

this frothy beer, my sipper's treat
that foams with the enigmatic sweetness
of our most bitter labours,

oh my tribe of haughty meadowmen,
we are done treading among pottery jags,
shattered relics of our summer civilization.

sip, sip! sip deep! hark to the horn:
the tusks of poetry glimmer anew;
the gongs of the false law fall dead.

gather, ye treaders, in the darkening glades
and crack open the silvery seals,
and froth forth, oh foam -- most ancient element!

Just finished revising chapter 34. This is actually the ending in the first draft, plus a 1,500 word epilogue. That last page feels a little on-the-nose, though.

>>20974863
Shit. Forgot the link.
https://pastebin.com/q3M8PH9D

>>20970325
The use of he as a pronoun for nouns embracing both genders is a simple, practical convention rooted in the beginnings of the English language.
Currently, however, many people find the use of the generic he or his to rename indefinite antecedents limiting or offensive.

I humbly suggest that, when reading a book you enjoy, you should try reading it with the same kind of attention you use when re-reading your own drafts for the seventeenth time. You think way more about the specific choices the author made, the way they achieve their effects. I think my writing has improved recently because of this.

Anyway, I'm going to post the subtitles from the intro to a schlocky French horror film (The Demoniacs) that I spent the last five minutes transcribing, so I don't feel like I wasted my time. I like the idea of starting a story with this kind of ultra-direct simplicity; it feels like both a lurid attention-grabbing device and a kind of mythical invocation. Way better than the usual show-don't-tell meandering that's become a habit for me. (Like I would default to this kind of execrable and cliched realist mode: 'Claire sighed, her greying locks fluttering in the wind. She was weary after another long day of mussel picking. Suddenly a distant sail on the horizon caught her attention. Could it be the wreckers the villagers were talking about?'. I'm kind of sick of that style.)

>At the end of the last century, on northern Europe's coasts, lived men who feared neither God nor the law. They lured ships towards the rocks, where they were smashed to pieces. These men then plundered the wrecks. They were called wreckers.

>The captain is their leader. He is a brute. His strength gives him power over his henchmen. He has committed so many crimes that he's become almost mad. Villagers say he is haunted by the ghosts of his victims. His madness makes him dangerous and unpredictable.

>Le Bosco, cursed by all navies, the bad seed of any crew. He landed there dead-drunk from a foreign ship one night with his bag on his shoulder. He follows the captain, but this sailor, never without his knife, dislikes taking order. He bides his time like a vulture. He is false and crafty.

>Paul. He, too, is a former sailor. He suffers the captain's orders, but grovels to Le Bosco. He will be on the winner's side. He is cruel and cowardly and has a worse temper than the others. He is the strongest, because each of the three thinks he is on his side.

>Tina, the wrecker. The angel of the accursed. Wild and perverted. This cruel animal is always ready to snap up the innocents who come too close to her she-wolf jaws. She will show no pity. It's a game for her to plunder wrecks and kill survivors. More than one dead man, his throat cut, takes with him the image of her magnificently shameless naked body.

>>20974529
>muh vidya
I don't care it was trash

>>20974958
Hmm well that's not nice

>When I found myself awoken in front of a cow I was fully prepared to shear my spinal cord in two through sheer will alone—though it, and I, were lucky at just how slow I was to deliver, for at second glance, it had done exactly as I asked. This was no cow standing before me, but the most picturesque piebald pony that even I, with my extensive research, could have imagined. A miniature American Paint Horse adorned in its own distinct brand of black and white marbling. Black mane. Black tail. Its hooves hidden by albino feathering, feathering that looked as though it was made with the hair of beautiful aryan women; the type of women that you’d see jaunting through wheat fields in some white supremacist propaganda piece. Most striking of all though, were those haunches. Haunches that would have put a ‘68 Mustang to shame—and while this may seem a bit of an obvious reference, I can assure you with complete confidence, Henry Ford’s creation was no recreation. It had to have been coincidence for if that old codger knew what I knew of these majestic beasts, there would be no room in his decrepit heart for even an drop of hate (let alone the near-bottomless well of antisemitism he seemed to have held onto so dearly).

> There were just two irksome issues with this presented prize. The first I solved with a conveniently placed step stool; the second issue I could not so easily overcome. That thing dangling between its legs. Even now I struggle to refer to it as anything else. It was a thing, an intimating and all-encompassing thing. Nothing in my intellectual repertoire had prepared me for this, not the trawling through Wikipedia, not the medical journals on the inner workings of the horse, not the hours upon hours of bestiality porn I had consumed, and certainly not the two-hundred dollar superchat sent to Adam of YourMovieSucks fame. At the time, it seemed like a genius idea. I knew he was a furry, and while I was most certainly not, we did share a similar horse fixation. Thus, I figured he may have had some pertinent knowledge to share. Instead, he recommended I watch a movie titled “The Death of Dick Long” (I gave it 45 minutes. White people shit. No horses. Charged back the money). There was only one thing that gave me the slightest comfort in this moment. Out of pure curiosity, I assure you, I downloaded two episodes of My Little Pony. It provided me no practical knowledge, but recalling those colourful cartoon horses did wonders to calm me—though, upon further recollection, it became clear that these couple episodes were an apparent fan edit, a fan edit that someone had painstakingly edited to include a set of genitals on each horse through each and every frame, thus, even this did little to steel my nerves.

Long overdue update on horsefucker story. Attempting Kaufman's joke-a-second style prose that was so prevalent throughout Antkind. R8 and bully.

>>20975022
to be honest, this completely fell apart the minute you started introducing crap from the internet and beastiality porn.

i'll say wikipedia was the point. That said, what's t he point of this? Where's the conflict? If he wants to fuck the horse, make it more obvious instead of ranting about white people shit and my little pony.

>>20975046
The protagonist is a terminally online black Jew hybrid. Crap from the Internet and ranting about white people is about as core to his character as it gets.
Keep in mind this passage is about 6k words into the story so core conflicts aren't guaranteed to shine through in a couple paragraphs—especially when you consider that the core conflict is him combating his attraction to white men.

>Jim Justice is the perfect name for a 40s pulp detective
>can't use it because of a damn politician

>>20975022
I don't understand why he is so desperate to get away from cows. If that was alluded to previously then fine, I guess. It reads like an extract and not the beginning of something. I've not read Antkind, so I don't know what you were attempting. I feel like the aryan hair and the Henry Ford segue came out of nowhere and I do not understand how that all relates to anything. Whatever this voice is that you are running with though, that seems fairly consistent, though codger stood out as an odd word for that voice. I'm not sure I like him addressing the reader. I wondered while reading if it wouldn't be better in third person.

>>20974566
What style are you writing in and how many poems have you completed thus far?

How do I make my rom-com male lead more proactive when he's not supposed to be the one to initiate romance? Right now he's just reacting to the female leads' actions. The solutions I thought of:
>giving a goal outside of romance
But that just creates a parallel storyline.
>make him be the one to pursue romance.
There are multiple possible LI's, so that'd make him look sleazy.

What do, /lit/?

>>20975092

>>20975167
embrace his passiveness like all the harem MCs from all the anime you watch

>>20975167
proactive in what? pursuing her? but you just said that's not what you want him to do . . .

If he is the object of pursuit, then his life should progress along a path that is isolated from her own, and she needs to seek ways into that life to force a romantic meeting of some sort. He plays a baseball game for charity, for instance, and she tells him she used to play baseball in college, and he enthusiastically puts her on the team only for her to turn up on the day and realise that he wasn't playing baseball, but organising it, and the teams are all retarded children, and now she has to play baseball with them, and she faces a number of humourous moral problems as she tries to understand how to pitch or bat against a retarded child. She is of course shamed repeatedly by the retarded children, and the people in the stands and her own love interest begin to wonder why a professional 30 something woman is playing baseball with retarded children and taking it all so seriously.

And so on. He mentions he does something; she attempts to insert herself into it and fails hilariously. Do that a few times until one of them learns something. Maybe she ends up dating one of the retarded children instead. Try watching Adam Sandler for research.

In these things the humour and conflict comes from the desired party being stolid, secure in themselves, certain on their path, and the pursuer from being desperate, needy, deceptive, and inauthentic to themselves until some sudden realisation is reached "You did all that for me? But I don't even like retarded kids, I only did it for the Instagram credit . . . I've always loved you just the way you are."

>nouns doing things
Jesus anon.

>>20975343
My existence is verbing. Nouns are illusory.

I feel that my writing is weird. Like how I structure my sentences.

William’s knees buckled. He clawed the stone to his side, propping himself up. His stepmother made it difficult for him to stand, for her tantalising tongue sent shivers down his spine, and goosebumps all over his skin as though she was the black plague. He kissed her cheek repeatedly, slowly descending down her soft white skin to her neck, wherein he prolonged his wet kisses because he knew, although he was a virgin, somehow that this would make Natalia begin to drip heavily.
“You’re so good at this,” she breathed into his ear.
“You’re so hot, stepmother.”
“I don’t believe you.”
William kissed faster. He spanked her bottom right cheek.
“Oh!” Natalia cried. “Did mommy make a mistake?”
The young man did not know why, but he felt like he was doing something wrong. He pulled away.

>>20975494
Critique

Natalia started to breathe more heavily into her stepson’s face, as her asshole began to tingle with excitement with each passing stroke. It was a sweet spot for her. She caressed her bony fingers across his horse-like back, and squeezed his small buttocks, which sat neatly in her palms like dinner plates. Natalia jerked suddenly at the tender trace of his fingertip upon the outskirts of her small, pulsating hole. She dug deeper into him, nibbling the soft lobe that hung from the smallest of ears, and inserting her tongue deeply into its crevice.
William’s knees buckled. He clawed the stone to his side, propping himself up. His stepmother made it difficult for him to stand, for her tantalising tongue sent shivers down his spine, and goosebumps all over his skin as though she was the black plague. He kissed her cheek repeatedly, slowly descending down her soft white skin to her neck, wherein he prolonged his wet kisses because he knew, although he was a virgin, somehow that this would make Natalia begin to drip heavily.
“You’re so good at this,” she breathed into his ear.
“You’re so hot, stepmother.”
“I don’t believe you.”
William kissed faster. He spanked her bottom right cheek.
“Oh!” Natalia cried. “Did mommy make a mistake?” She laughed, and groped his big crotch.
When she touched his bounded cock, the young man felt within him an urge to retreat, for a sickening sensation arose inside his stomach, as though he was about to commit an atrocity towards his father. He let go of his stepmother’s hourglass figure, and stepped backwards. His feet crunched the loose scrap cardboard on the ground.

Changed my game concept but im still struggling

>>20975022
>>20975092
>>20975107
>>20975173
https://files.catbox.moe/vg750s.pdf
You guys are correct. Missing context does rob these bits of any impact they might have had. Here's what I have written so far.

>>20974502
>muh neuroplasticity
stop falling for memes you whiny fag
and if you want one of the myriad counterexamples: McCarthy was 53 when he wrote Blood Meridian

>>20968911
I'm struggling to find the motivation to plot out my boys middle grade fantasy book series. I'm planning on each book being about 20k-25k (so a Goosebumps book more or less) with each one being focused on teaching traditionally masculine traits (honesty, integrity, courage, etc) through the protagonist's actions and adventures.

>>20975599
I would bump up the word count, lots of schools do this thing where they have reading tests on library books and students compete to read the highest number of words

If agents don't accept unsolicited material, then how do you get solicited from them?

>>20975628
meet them in NYC at a starbucks.

Why is it so hard to write transition scenes/chapters?

>Protag just beat a boss
>now seeking out a seer
>need to write the traveling scene to said seer
>IMPOSSIBLE to write without boring everyone to death

>>20975679
idk i might be weird cus i enjoy reading travelogues and travel scenes. i have a tendency [maybe a bad habit] to write them in every project i do and it was news to me that people don't like them (i watched some youtube video about top 10 mistakes amateur writers make and they said "don't write travel scenes")

but a good example i can think of is Paul Theroux's Great Railway Bazaar. he writes a lot of travelogues but i think what he does / you could do to make it interesting is to describe the setting in a way that's informed by the character's perspective or the tone you're trying to set. like if you want a menacing tone say the mountains look like teeth (or something less cliche lol). and focus on what the mode of transport is too. are they riding horses? are their asses sore? could some of the horses be disobedient and buck someone off? if they're on a train, are there annoying passengers, etc. do they set up camp at night and talk about their pasts and futures around a campfire? another great example of a travelogue is the hobbit. lots of good stuff in there

>>20975679
>>20975736
Depends on your book. If the journey/adventure is part of the story then yeah you write them.

>youtube writing top 10's
Most youtube "writing channels" are faild writers trying to strike it out on youtube giving advice or they're literally just pumping out mindless youtube content to promote their own books.

>>20975679
Asshole response:
Because you have weak themes/characters. Watch any high-grade film and you'll see lots of character development done into between major plot moments

>>20975494
>...knees buckled...shivers down his spine, and goosebumps all over his skin
cliches
> as though she was the black plague.
wtf? that's an unsexy image. Have you seen blackplague goosebumps?

Sentence structure is fine. Starting too many sentences with the same subject, 'he', can feel repetitive. Try changing 'he kissed' to 'his kisses' or something similar for variety.

>>20975599
Sounds dangerously preachy.

>>20975679
Funny enough I read this earlier today. If you don't have anything interesting to put in a scene just don't write it.

>>20975779
>>20975752
>>20975736
The only way I can make them somewhat interesting is use them as world building paragraphs. I'm basically copying Tolkien when I write them. Just write about some stupid tidbit here or there.

>>20975679
Just cut out unnecessary transitions and have your character show up at the place.

Sounds like you're writing fantasy. Unfortunately main stream fantasy inherited the 'road trip model' from LotR, which means lots of bullshit traveling scenes.

>>20975814
It can also be good to have the character go on a little tangent or write a small scene that says something thematic. Gene Wolfe is really good at that.

>>20975829
Exhibit A

Does anyone here actually post something other than Fantasy, Erotica, Dystopian, or some pseudo "intellectualism"?

Does anyone actually write a character story here?

>>20976011
I wrote a neo noir script about a nihilistic detective overcoming his pessimism. Not sure if that's good enough for you

Rate or hate (it's a rewrite): https://pastebin.com/47XcmRy0

>>20976011
I write character fantasy.

>>20976011
I think most here are attempting some form of literary fiction. The only real genre writers we have here are Krake and JK-same.

>>20976011
I'm writing an Xenofiction story

>>20976011
I'm writing a crime thriller

Finally making it, bros. My RR story gets steady views throughout the week. Haven't had a dead day in weeks now.

>>20976049
I appreciate the recognition. Eventually I'll write something literary. I'm booked solid for the next few months though.

You'll read my comedy, right anon?

>>20976030
Way too melodramatic way too fast. Two characters we don't know and don't care about having a sort of bitchy conversation. You could cut out that whole beginning segment.

It would be better if you didn't explicitly state what the guy's job is so soon.

>>20976270
link, NOW.

>>20976581
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/49395/the-undying-emperor-grand-conquest-fantasy
It's in the pastebin.

Or actually, maybe the pastebin needs to be updated since I added SEO to the title

>>20976597
SEO? And yeah I'll update the link. Is there anyone else that wants to be added in the author pastebin?

>>20976652
Search engine optimization. I added [Grand Conquest Fantasy] to the title to help lure new readers and it seems to have worked.

>>20976011
I only write schizocore.

>>20976011
im learning to write, and i was thinking i'd try to tackle 'character story' first. i don't want to lean on worldbuilding/systems.
my issue is that ive basically trained myself to ignore people(and their problems), now i have to unlearn that.

>>20976809
It's sounds like a meme but write profiles for every significant character. Including their background, and family history. It helps you get in their head more.

Why are new fantasy stories mostly some random Chinese shit that uses European terms and elements? Also a poorly tacked on 5 element chinese magic system?

There's no Confucian or Daoist philosophies in the stories either. You would think an Eastern Fantasy would delve into these systems more so than just going with a European style story with Chinese paint over it.

More Monkey King and less Lord of the Rings.

I want to write a horror game now, hopefully good horror.
What should I do? Pretend Kim Wexler is here btw.

>>20976956
Slenderman is unironically the scariest game I've played. I'd learn from that and try to write something that fucks with the players head

>>20976956
i would at least start by reading the horror classics (call of the crocodile)

Has anyone been following the Penguin merger?

Some interesting shit coming out of it, one thing being just how terrified all these dinosaur publishers are of self-publishing completely rekting their bottom lines.

>>20976956
Thinking about the topic the little, I think the scariest thing you can have a player do is explore a terrifying place. Like they have to go into a building full of lunatics to get a radio. That way they have to force themselves forward

>>20976311
Of course. I’m also writing a comedy with my horsefucker story so I look forward to seeing how you handle it. I’ve always felt that comedy was the most difficult “genre” to get right. It requires genuine charisma in what almost feels like an entirely different way to normal writing and it’s so brutally obvious when you’ve missed your mark, obvious to everyone except yourself.
It’s also so difficult to get real feedback on. There’s only so many ways to be told that it wasn’t funny. The vast majority of the time you end up flying blind, entirely off intuition and your own sense of humour.
I do genuinely look forward to your interpretation of comedy though. Your writing is good and, at least from your Unreal Press appearances, you seem to be charismatic enough to tell the occasional joke without making me recoil in second hand embarrassment. Though please, for the love of god, shoot LA if he tries to set up another MTG episode. Those are genuinely unwatchable.

Kaiju stuff. They caught our main monster and are holding him captive. I’m not a good writer
>Out of morbid curiosity, how much do you use?
>Use what?
>Tranquilizer. He’s 10 stories tall and weighs a good 10,000 tons, so how much do you need to use to keep him asleep?
>Carfentanil. 1 gallon of it per hour.
>Jesus, are you sure he can handle that much?
>We’re talking about a creature who’s able to withstand being force-fed boletanium toxin, it’s a miracle this is even working to begin with. Any other questions?
>What other things have you discovered about his body? Organs, biology, genetics, the whole package.
>Glad you asked. His biology is, obviously, similar to that of a frog, and his DNA incorporates multiple aspects of other frog species. The horizontal gene transfer that spawned him manifests in a plethora of strange abilities and traits. He’s highly resistant to poison and toxic material due to amplified poison dart frog genes, for example.
>Is there anything you consider very strange?
>Yes, actually, I was just about to get to that. We ran tests on his cells and found that they’re able to slowly adjust themselves over time to a limited extent. Think of it as self-mutation.
>So he’s able to adapt to his surroundings? Doesn’t this mean he’ll overcome the drugs eventually?
>That’s the key word. Eventually. His cells adjust very very slowly, and it would at least take another 3 years before he’d be able to start fighting back against the drugs we’re putting him under. The fact that he can do this to begin with is impressive in of itself, honestly.

>>20977027
You should write infomercials for senile old ladies. (That's not a compliment)

>Choosing to write a "brainless romance" story because they are so fucking dumb it feels like it's easy
>It isn't
Some people is digging it, but I always feel I'm about to lose my audience.
If I just write masturbatory romance, it's boring. If I take too long to get to masturbatory romance, it's boring. If I don't give enough personality to my characters it gets boring, If I write too much about my characters it gets boring.
But somehow, some people just eat it up.

>>20976987
I am. This is what they get for their outdated model. Amazon didn't give a flying fuck and just published anything. Amazing how Amazon used the 1800's model of "you write it, you edit it, and I'll just print it" to beat these guys.

>>20977027
I hope this is the worst thing you’ve written.

>>20977130
>>20977040
Say what's wrong with instead of acting like catty little bitches.

>>20977141
You don’t get to advocate for me

WRITING PROMPT PLEASE

>>20977027
I like it. It feels a bit info dumpy, but it gets the point across. There are some grammar issues as well.

>>20977163
The bull lost the cage key.

>>20977027
i don't know if this is a kaiju thing, but it feels like trying to explain these things is not doing you any favors.

>>20977163
3rd person narrative fantasy about the monkey king meeting Saber from Fate/Stay Night, written in Epic Poetry format.

How do I write after a beloved pet has died? Can I simply go through the motions and hope my mood picks up or I gain the skill to lie?

>>20971783
"Show don't tell" was a quip Alfred Hitchcock made when talking about silent movies and the text that was used for exposition in them, it has nothing at all to do with regular writing so stop worrying over it.

So what's wrong with my writing on all the stuff I've posted here? Can I get it in bullet points?
>>20977192
Focus on the feeling, every single detail, every single thing to explore and then cut it off, be done with it. You must grow past caring.

>>20977194
Don't be a dipshit. Regardless of the source, it's long been adapted to writing and is irrefutably good advice.. and advice any good author might give if you're failing to do so. No one is suggesting it is a law that can't be broken.

>>20977141
It's bad.

>>20977220
>retards blindly parrot the same thing over and over, therefore you're a disphit if you call them out on it
Ah yes and we also only use 10% of our brains, since so many people say that we do.

>>20977203
i've only seen like 2 excerpts, and it was fine. so you can now move forward and try to practice/demonstrate literally any and every other aspect of the art. if all you want is instant gratification make tiktoks. 1k+ words a day, or you're pretending.

>>20977231
>a literal retard told me to wipe my bum bum after i poo poo, but i'm too smart to listen to them
good point, because someone parroted good advice from someone else, i guess you should just tell not show.

>write fantasy story
>some reason my scene ended up as a slice of life dialogue about relationships
Oh well, i'm going to leave it in there because I find it funny.

>>20977251
They don't call it storyTELLING for nothing.

>>20977254
it's sort of common in fantasy, but (ideally) in a way that doesn't remind you of some basic bitch advice.

>>20977260
>the virgin storytelling
>the chad storyshowing

>>20977273
It was about two old women telling the MC to stop being so picky and find a guy already.

>>20977194
>Show, don’t tell
>Hitchcock
You could at least wikipedia it first, before spouting bullshit.

>>20977240
I write 500 words a day max.

Is ‘have’ always in present tense or can it be a mix of present and past? I always get confused around is, have, and other words of the same type.

>>20977429
>ESL
Stick to your mother tongue.

>>20977532
How about I stick my tongue in your mom, faggot.

>>20968920
Sad but true.

>>20973913
You believe wrong. I'm asking what others suggest using for variety. Next time, don't answer.

Does anyone write love stories anymore, or does 4chan have no love?

>>20977757
What do you think?

>>20977757
I write so much furry smut you don't even know.

>>20977808
Your disgusting carnal desires for men in fursuits isn't love you fucking cretin.

>>20977822
>fursuits
Ummm, they're aliens in a far away galaxy, sweetie.

>>20977757
I'm actually writing one right now. It's an anime fanfiction though, more of an exercise in storytelling than a "serious" project.

I wrote this >>20975323 last night and felt very pleased with myself and the punchline, but it seems I killed the thread, which is something I tend to do. Maybe it's not as funny as I thought. Does it matter though, if it made me laugh?

>>20974675
not ruling anything out. let's see where miniMAG's at at that point. wouldn't want to start profiting off it without being able to compensate writers and artists in some way first

>>20977757
I have stories about love and attempts at it. Just not romance.

>>20977020
Unfortunately, I gotta take the bullet on the MTG episodes, because they were my idea for more content on the channel.

Getting subscribers is hard to do.

>>20978397
I was going to tell you what a terrible idea splitting your content focus is, but now that I look, your MTG videos are getting like triple the views of your actual /lit/ content.
/lit/ creations truly are cursed.

>>20978440
The way it should work is like a snowball. Small podcast brings on small author, gets some subs and they get some sales. Bring on another author, they bring more subs and get some sales as well. Repeat weekly until you get monetized.

The obvious issue is that doesn't work if the small author's fanbase is /wg/.

The MTG episodes and the VN stuff is low effort variety content. We don't have to do research to sit for an hour talking about the state of the game. More content = more subs = more good

>>20978456
It's not a bad strategy but, at least from what I know on the matter, the algorithm will fuck you into the dirt if you split focus. One of the biggest factors in the algorithm is video to video retention rate. A slow climb is way better than the peaks and valleys you are seeing now.
My advice would be to keep the low quality shitpost episodes while making sure they stay /lit/ focused. I'd love to see you guys grab random excerpt posted here and discuss why they do or do not work. You should be able to fill a 10 minute segment up by ripping apart something like >>20977027.

>>20978491
I think it's the excerpts plucked from the interviews that are notably bad. The full interviews aren't too different from the MTG episodes. I suppose that's why other channels make a secondary channel explicitly for clips.

I'll talk to LA about the critique episodes though.

Hey I wrote something for &amp that I don't feel has the right mood. Can someone take a glance and tell me if it's "&amp" enough and if you generally like the story?
https://files.catbox.moe/llbmi0.pdf

>>20977020
Newfag here.

What's MTG and LA?

>>20978531
LA is the host of the Unreal Press Podcast, who notably interviewed F Gardner, discussed Behead All Satans, and interviewed most of the other authros from the /lit/erally who list. Some stranger interviews too, like a catgirl cryogenics cultist and a Ukranian mercenary.

MTG is Magic the Gathering, the best card game available despite being utter shit, and something LA and Krake have been uploading episodes talking about for more content.

>>20978531
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV1OUMkKZILFtYcAskcaxdg
/lit/ podcast run by one our authors L.A. Labuschagne. They started doing episodes discuss Magic the Gathering while they're between authors.

>>20978531
I'm the unreal press podcast host. I also wrote a few books

>>20968911
How do you turn a story idea into a story? Do you start with deciding a theme? Deciding the ending?

I've been thinking of a story lately. It's real trashy murder mystery shit, but here goes: Wanting to forget a bad breakup with an ex, you accidentally stumble into a town where the residents worship Suzuha Ninomiya, a person where they don't exist. A red-eyed girl your age finds you collapsed on the riverbank. She offers a room for you to stay in. There's also another roughhouse character (gender not yet decided), who's basically your second love interest. You get along with this person because everyone else beside you, him, the red-eyed girl, is either too young to relate to, or too old and superstitious. Someone from your college class washes up in the riverbank too.

When is it best to actually put pen on paper? When you finally decide on the ending? When you've decided on the theme? When you've settled on a message you want to convey?

>>20978561
I forgot to mention about the Feast. All you need to know is that people start dying, victims of the rumoured Rakshasa. People start killing eachother as they suspect that one of them is actually a Rakshasa disguising as an already dead person

>>20978561
your story is always going to change as you write it anon. I guess write a basic plot structure, sure, maybe plan a few good scenes, but also feel free to just write what you have and see where it goes.

Also, is this supposed to be 2nd person?

>>20978491
fuck that's actually a good idea

>>20978511
Based &amptard. The part that says "run like the wind" has a bit too many commas unless you wanted it to sound like he's out of breath, then maybe I'd use ellipsis.
>regular suburban American dad
>his job? Druid.
I am so confused and I almost thought it was an inside joke until he started doing druid things in Thailand and then I started laughing. Where are you going with this?
I'm the anon that made you read about Bojangles yesterday. Issue 015 SOON.

>>20978566
furfag. isntantly dropped

>>20978567
Yeah. I guess I'll put down some scenes I can already imagine vividly in my head. From there, I'll put it down in chronological order, and use them as some sort of milestone or landmark. I just want to finish a stort from start to end for once.

Also, yeah. The twist is that the protagonist is Suzuha Ninomiya (or at least the voice in her head is. The first person voice that talks to the second person. I'm planning on breaking off into normal first person to signify the protagonist freeing themselves from Suzuha Ninomiya ) this voice is the reason for their psychotic tendencies, and in fact, the reason why they ran into the countryside isn't because of a breakup, it's because the voice told them to kill their girlfriend/boyfriend. The red-eyed girl wants to kill the protagonist, and the other character is a devout believer in Suzuha Ninomiya that wants the protagonist to assume their true form. Though I can't help but feel like this is corny as all hell.

>>20978572
I'm debating on whether them playing Werewolf is even integral to the plot or not. Now I'm thinking of just letting my schizo characters do schizo shit on their own accord, without a death game

>>20978579
Yeah, this has intense LN energy. Not a problem and the twist is pretty funny, but it also looks so contrived that you'd either need to acknowledge the absurdity or make Suzuha Ninomiya into a fuck off eldritch threat imo.

>>20977808
Post it or gtfo

>>20978561
Think of the best scenes in your story, doesn't matter if it's halfway through or at the very end, and write them down, get as many of these key points as possible and then fill in the gaps between them.
I did that but on a smaller scale, focusing only on the key points of the first parts of the story, that's how I got the first chapter down.
>When you finally decide on the ending?
I recommend "considering" an ending, but not setting it in stone. If you actually begin writing your story, you'll probably come up with new plot elements and possible endings, so I recommend not marrying to an ending from the get go.
>When you've decided on the theme? When you've settled on a message you want to convey?
Neither of these will matter if your story sucks ass. I would rather focus on creating an interesting story and compelling characters first.

Was just looking back through my old writing portfolio. I used to be so creative. I feel like a dumbass now.

>>20978597
Almost all my short stories are literary realism, I save the insane stuff for novels. If I would just finish a novel first! I really need this year to be over already.

>>20978608
How insane are we talking here

Captcha: agp2r

>>20978611
Some of my short stories are about milkshakes on sale, or a quarter mile raceway event, or kids going fishing. My novels are about post-singularity civilization, or a mentally ill love triangle, the third involves the cult popularity of a gacha with BDSM elements and a schizoposter who refuses for his waifu's popularity to be supplanted by a new character.

>>20978620
> a schizoposter who refuses for his waifu's popularity to be supplanted by a new character.
I KNEEL

ESL here, if I say "I'm about to get off", the context being that I'm on a train, does it sound funny or is it correct?
I know "get off" also means cooming/deriving pleasure from something.

So how do I get on the podcast

>>20978651
No. There are people that say it that way. Someone that is more self conscious might say it a different way though, such as "this is my stop." There are some unfortunate sayings that can be take as erotic such as "It's really hard" instead of "It's really difficult." For example I had heard someone in a meeting say we needed to "suck off" a material by vacuum stripping which is the lay term at the production plant but someone that isn't used to it might take it as sexual. I've also heard the term "gaylord" used straight faced as a large box that raw materials are transported on over a wooden pallet.

>>20978654
Tell them how smart you are for inventing Blitzball.

>>20978654
Who are you and what did you write

>>20977808
I write incest smut. Is furry smut a profitable niche?

>>20978674
I don't have a big thumb on the furry fiction space like I do the art space.

>>20978686
you said you write furry smut tho

>>20978561
you take your idea and extrapolate.
for example, you'll need a character or two. what is their normal, day to day life like? That's where you start.
then you'll need an event that pulls the character out of their everyday world into the exciting story world.
in the original star wars the event was r2d2 and c3po showing up at luke's farm.
https://philipp.truebiger.com/three-act-structure/

Intro to my furry smut

It came to pass that only one Predator nation remained - conquered by the Prey-forged sword, subjugated by their coin, or overthrown by rebellion, the myriad other Predator nations had not seen the dawn of the newest century. And, with it’s sisters and brothers consigned to the long night of history, the Kingdom of Hounds began to smell the musk of the Prey armies upon their own alpine borders. Thousands of Hounds fled the comi by massacre, and dozens of thousands more took up arms in defence of the final carnivore holdout. If the omnivorous legions would see their folk chained and chattled, then those Goats, Swine, and Raccoons would have to wade through countless bloody passes. The Hounds would see their mountain home crumble to gravel before their once Prey hoisted over those daring peaks their flag of conquest - and, indeed, many believed they would.

But yes, thousands fled. The airs of domestication and surrender would forever appetise a select few Predators, regardless of their species or breed. No furred folk would unanimous resist the cages of empire, nor the leashes of its citizenry. Indeed, such a bargain had swayed many Canines before, and the further the omnivore armies marched, the more packs submitted unto imperial rule. For them, a diet of synthetic kibble tasted far sweeter than a musket’s lead, particularly so when sweetened by the hope that the Canines, indeed, all Predators, would rise again - until, of course, there was only one nation left. And that Hound Kingdom lost ground by the day.

Any success stories from writing? I am 22 and I have just started writing regularly, self publishing smut so i dont kill myself.

>>20978654
https://discord.com/invite/mQrs2Zcvut

>>20978746
Post your work.

New Bread: >>20978728
New Bread: >>20978728
New Bread: >>20978728

>>20969754
I'm too lazy and I'm not Pastebin guy. If you make a new /wg/ authors pastebin with yourself (and others who are new) added then I'll use that instead.

Why is it wrong to have a character in a fantasy setting say “okay”? It’s not like they’d be speaking English, anyway, so why would it matter if I throw in some modern sayings to a story already using modern English?