/lit/ - Literature

>>21039136
Sneed

I feel stupid reading books on writing.

"Is this the sort of branch,” asked the small boy to the large one.
He came out of the trees, dragging it like a tail behind him. The grass crunched with frost.
“No, too big.”
The small boy huffed, his breath visible. “We could break it up.”
“No.”
“Why not.”
“Why not. Because.” The large boy was twisting a sapling at its base, a mash of wet fibers. “Hand me that hatchet now.”
The small boy sat down ignoring him, felt the dampness of the ground.
“Hey,” said the large boy.
“Hey,” said the small one.
In silence, they surveyed their handwork: a crude wetu or domed hut, made of arched sticks and poles. The Wampanoag had built wetu for shelter and for ceremony, impermanent structures of great significance.
***
Far off across the long low field, smoke rose from the chimneys of the new houses.
There would be more houses in the field soon, parceled out in grids. Slabs and materials. Hammers clattering off flat surface out into open space.
“Hey,” said the small boy pointing.
A figure was making its uneven way through the grass toward them, disrupting birds.
The large boy squinted, went severely back to work.
He had seen a sketch of the wetu in a book. It seemed achievable. It was something to make, something to get up early for on a Saturday morning. Simple tools would suffice: a hatchet and some twine. This was how the Indians had probably done it, probably in this spot or general area.
There were footsteps approaching. It was a girl, bundled-up and sniffling.
“Get lost” scowled the large boy. The small boy echoed him, quietly: “get lost.”
She stopped and stared. “Why.”
“Get lost, that’s why.”
“What is it” she asked.
“What’s what."
She stared vacantly, wiped her raw, dripping nose.
“What’s what” he repeated.
She nodded at the structure.
“We’re trying to build,” the large boy explained.
“I can help you build.”
“We don’t want you to.”
“I can bring blankets for the inside. For warmth.”
“We don’t want that.”
They looked at each other, the boy and the girl.
Far off, a truck in reverse. The builders had arrived at the site, with supplies and cigarettes behind their ears. They would be climbing up ladders and nailing down boards.
The large boy tugged suddenly, savagely at the sapling, lost his balance. The girl laughed.
“Get lost, get lost,” he shouted.
The girl backed away, dodging a clod of dirt. She laughed again. “I’m going to get blankets for you.”
“Fuck you” said the large boy, looking around for something else to throw. “Hand me that hatchet.”
The small boy sat there mute, transfixed, watching the girl recede. The rising sun was a disc around her head.
“Fuck you.” muttered the large boy. He kicked the small boy hard in the stomach, watched him gasp on the sharp wet earth.

>>21039154
Which books are you reading? I found two extremely good ones that are not in the pastebin.

>>21039172
Didn't finish any of them but I read through a few very shitty ones. Story by Robert Mckee. On Writing by Stephen King. Invisible Ink. Can't remember anything else. On Writing did, surprisingly, have some genuinely good stuff in it but Stephen King is a completely insufferable person and all the good bits are buried beneath a bunch of bullshit and him retelling his awful boomer life story.

Ursula K. Le Guin's book seems good, I'm gonna go back to reading that and try out the John Gardner book anon linked last thread. What are the two extremely good ones you found?

>>21039161
Started off great imo, and got worse as it went. Some of the stylistic choices are overused (e.g omitting the conjunction between clauses, omitting question marks) but otherwise it feels carefully written. I would try to come up with a better ending something that isn't the mere escalation or literal fulfillment of what is setup in the beginning.

>>21039204
Showing and Telling by Laurie Alberts and The Art and Craft of Fiction by Micheal Kardos. Both dispense with the usual personal history, artistic navel gazing, and pep talk bullshit and cut straight to mechanics and technique.

>>21039223
I'll download them now, thanks for the recommendation.

>>21039136
please link the previous thread >>21029887

>>21039154
Guy who gave you the John Gardner link here. I found it really useful. It's very clear that it was written in a pre-internet age and some of his ideas feel either a little dated or subjectivity disguised as objectivity–mainly in his idea that the authorial-omniscient point of view is the best POV and is used by those who have accepted god into their hearts–but those aside, it is great. It really helped put into words many of the things I already knew intuitively while throwing in enough new to keep me reading until the end. It also has a few really good exercises at the end of the book that are worth taking a look at, even if you're just going to skim through them.
The pompous snark makes it a fun read as well.

Is it okay for a dumb person to write a story? I want to write about what's on my mind but my thoughts are kindergarten stuff with very little depth. I have some ideas but I'm afraid to out myself as the room temperature IQ retard that I am.
How to keep readers interested when you lack knowledge about the world?

>>21039285
Thanks. I'm gonna start with Ursula K. Le Guin's book right now but I'm not gonna do a deep reading, I have a very specific issue I need help with and its easy to get distracted.

>>21039296
Everyone has a right to write, to create.

>>21039204
Did LeGuin write it when she was still good? I regret reading past the original trilogy of Earthsea.

>>21039454
I haven't actually read any of her work but the first chapter of Steering the Craft really resonated with me. I have the 1998 version but there's a 2015 version too.

>>21039345
Speaking of autism, I amended an article I wrote explaining "poetry after Auschwitz"

https://adolfstalin.substack.com/p/why-we-gentiles-need-poetry-after

Okay, so I wrote a companion piece for my previous article since some of the point may have been obscured. I intended to write a straight up clear explanatory-elaborative-extension piece but instead went full schizo. It's more fun this way.
Think of it like additional context, or an additional tree that makes up the forest.

https://froggum.substack.com/p/beauty-in-blood

>>21039487
Well written. I enjoyed this one.
Few little editing tweaks I'd recommend:
>as being as mass crucifixion
should be a instead of as
>was crucified in the Roman Empire of spreading heresy
was crucified of doesn't work. It sounds like you're missing the word 'accused' in there somewhere. You could either replace of with for or work in 'accused of'. That would require an overhaul of the sentence.
>in which was culminated
should be 'this culminated'

>>21039296
>Is it okay for a dumb person to write a story?
>How to keep readers interested when you lack knowledge about the world?
These two dipshits do it >>21039488 >>21039487 so why can't you?

>>21039525
I don't write stories, retard

>>21039525
>>21039296
Yeah, do it, faget.

>>21039296
I know you want to share, but don't put yourself through that, fren.

>authors pastebin
>13/19 royal road shit
>Remaining 6
>1 is a children's book
>1 is a 50page erotica
>1 is vella pay per chapter bullshit
>1 is gardner
>2 actual books

The fuck?

I wrote again today.
I'll write again tomorrow.
Considering using a smurf account to return the low stars I've gotten.
>>21039631
welcome to the new generation of 'literature'.

>>21039631
I don't see you contributing fag. Read some shit or quit being a bitch.

>>21039631
That's an excellent resume, I doubt if anyone here would be even close to that level of success.

>>21039136
miniMAG issue12

always accepting submissions

minimagsubmissions@gmail.com

past issues @ mimimag.space

>>21039912

>>21039914
all art from this issue was done by AI

>>21039915

>>21039916

>>21039918

>>21039919

>>21039921
>>21039161
this works

"severely" and "savagely" don't add anything to their respective sentences. both of those adverbs come through without being explicitly said

other than that, this accomplishes a lot in a very small amount of space. well done

>>21039929

>>21039932

>>21039933
submissions:
minimagsubmissions@gmail.com

website:
minimag.space

go check out grozny's music. it's good

>>21039296
Yes

>>21039136
Don't give up anons
I made it and so can you!

>>21039136
/wg/ doesn’t read. What’s the point of critiquing their onanistic hogwash?

>>21039978
>onanistic hogwash
One of us, one of us!

>>21039631
The keeper of the pastebin never got around to adding my amazon books for some reason, but he did add my twitter account.

>>21039990
We accept her, we accept her!

>>21039990
>>21040000
I’ve got alcohol withdrawals and this reminds me of being stuck in a Lynch movie.

Realistically, how many miles can a horse drawn carriage travel a day?

>>21040026
10-30 miles depending on terrain and load

>>21039136
Only this /wg/ writes
>>>/tg/86120422

>>21040075
>tripfag op
nope

>Write 10k word short story
>Realize it is very cringe and delete
The world dodged a bullet yesterday.

>>21039978
So they get better?

>>21039488
Redpill me on substack. I made one last night and have no idea what to populate it with considering most of my work goes up for free on my website. What do I paywall?

>>21039969
Real shit Lewis if this is you, how have you handled linking your public image to 4chan?

>>21040455
It's something like you so 50/50 paywall vs free, and you paywall things that are very interesting, controversial, esoteric in order to get the people who are really into your work to pay money. You can even make everything free but substack requires commenting to be paywalled.

>“But I do nothing that I don’t like, such as “inventing” up to the arty or “down” to the corny. I happen to relish a certain type of corn. What I think is the really dangerous approach is the “let’s be artistic” attitude. I know that artistry just happens.”
I have a lot of neurosis in terms of making art I've realized. I suppose have a lot of neurosis in general but I mean, I worry about making bad art. I'm a very critical person. I engage in critique because I thought it'd help me but instead I've seemed to develop this fear that I'll write something so awful -- produce something so maligned, that people will be able to see through it, and me. It kind of comes up with the territory. I say really terrible things about people, I become mean and bitter in my critique hurling out assumptions, reading the author through their work. But I don't want to be read that way. I don't want people to be mean to me, cackling as they revel in their perceived moral and aesthetic superiority. Because they've "cracked the code". They've got one over on me, reducing me to my base elements. I want a fair chance in life and art. I don't want to be reduced, and picked apart by vultures. Is making art nothing but setting yourself up as a lamb to the slaughter? The scourge of shame is killing me. I don't want to be ashamed of who I am, whoever he may be. But I don't want to be the bad guy either.

my brain has been fucked up for a month and I can't read or write for more than 20 minutes before having to stop

Soobstoock anon here. I see many of you made soobstoocks since last night.

>>21039631
>>21039631
This would probably be a pretty accurate representation of the book market if you added about thirty romance novels.

>>21040460
You think this is making it?

>>21040623
your sentences aren't very good, read more books
more practically, never start this zoomed out, it turns people off immediately. Start zoomed in on some small detail or action.

I asked in the other thread if anyone's interested helping with my visual novel but someone got scared of my art

if anyone wants to proofread or tell my how much it sucks let me know

Help me /wg/. When I write I fall into this trance like state where I cant think about anything else but the story. It feels like worst infatuation almost fever like. I cant even eat, let alone do anything else, all I do is think about that damn story.

I really dislike this feeling and it fucks me up. Do you feel anything similar? How do you deal with it?

>>21040709
shit shower and shave

>>21039991
Which amazon books?

>>21040897
The pastebin needs a link to Faceless, or Ship of Fuls, or just my website for simplicity

First update in days is yet another rewrite of my prolog.
>https://pastebin.com/DDGYTC7N

Today I daydreamed of selling out by giving up all literary pretentions and just writing nordic noir where a troubled, alcoholic detective hunts a serial killer in a city in the grip of winter.
In my daydream I've been a published author for a while but have not found financial success, selling out being a desperate attempt to make ends meet and buy time to write a Great Work.
But I don't write a Great Work, instead becoming trapped in the success of selling out and writing sequels to the detective story. Dead inside, I just make whatever my editors tell the focus groups want.
Wouldn't it be sweet to get to a point in your career where selling out is even an option?

>I only write well when I'm sexually frustrated
>write terribly for days after me and my gf have sex
>I have 3 years of workshopping to prove this
has this phenomena been observed anywhere?

>>21040927
You're over describing. The dark roads, the pale man, the thin man, a huge man, lips, hands, shoulders, hair, skin, etc. Here's a tip. In 99% of cases, you should never start out your story with just over describing an environment, where the winds blow high and the storm brews, and the etc etc. Just know that you don't have to add something to everything. Adding shit to simple lines don't make the many better.

>>21041129
This is already the cut-down version, Anon-kun. In the previous one, I spent five pages describing the weather and scenery. It's the action scenes that I dread.

Wow, I can hire a Nigerian guy to read 10,000 words of my story and get detailed feedback for 5 dollars on Fiverr when no one here will read my story!

>shit chapter
>rewrite it 3 times already
>still shit
>have no idea how to improve it
>fuck it. It's going in and not worry about it

>>21041285
>implying they'll actually read it.
This happened to me. I paid a guy on fivver with tons of 5* reviews, came back 2 months later, and said it was good with a majority of changes in the first 2 pages. The other 210? I believe he didn't even touch it. I found tons of mistakes on my own.

We're back into the 1800s boys. Where writers do everything themselves and publish themselves.

>>21041285
Be careful. It's not unlikely that they'll just toss your shit up on an Indie self publishing site and take the 1 dollar monthly royalties for your work using their own name.

>>21041313
For $5 dollars, I think I can risk that. It's only 10,000 words anyways

>>21041341
I doubt he'd make money publishing my first 3 chapters of an unfinished manuscript

>read anthony c yu's Journey to the West
>the prose and writings are very banal
Think I can make money rewriting Journey to the West using modern language?

>>21040897
You can get started with these.

>>21041419
Has anyone read Xenos Depths?

>>21041419
I haven't seen Boswell in months. I'm kind of worried. If anyone here was going to kill themselves it would be him.

>write something I'm actually proud of for once
>thought creeping from the back of my head starts saying "maybe it's TOO good???"
shut the fuck up. this fucking brain man. let me have this moment for just once.

>>21041510
Post it.

>>21041447
There's a fascinating relationship between the level of malicious intent and level of thread disruption by all the spamming retard eras we've experienced.

Boswell, by all accounts most pure hearted of our weirdos, would just post incessantly but only avatarfag with his autistically numbered pipes. I caught him once being behind 40% of all the thread posts once I learned to spot his strange stilted phrasing. All his posts were upbeat, painfully generic advice and reddit-tier encouragement - but they made the thread The Boswell Show.

Gardner-spammer was intermediate. Put some actual effort into his shitposting so it was at least kind of funny and could be immediately spotted/filtered by the name. Also was confirmed to be a mod.

Kimmy-fag lies at the opposite end of the spectrum. Literally just wants to fling poop and get any scrap of attention it can by being abrasive, but is also the easiest to spot and cluster posts.

I feel like we had another weirdo between Boswell and gardener-spammer but I can't even remember now.

>>21041419
>All these one book wonders

>>21041510
As a writer you need to embrace the mad contradiction of: 'What I've written is the best every created in the English language (I'm a genius)' AND 'What I've written it utter trash that needs to be burned. Not even my worst enemy can hurt me more than this shit I've produced.'

Just be careful to not let the 2nd come out during the writing phase! That you must save for when you're editing (which obviously should be on another day than when you're writing).

Got to reprogram that brain.

>>21041698
This. Annie Dillard put it best:
>There is neither a proportional relationship, nor an inverse one, between a writer’s estimation of a work in progress & its actual quality. The feeling that the work is magnificent, & the feeling that it is abominable, are both mosquitoes to be repelled, ignored, or killed, but not indulged.

>>21040460
You'd be suprised how few people in the outside world have even heard of 4chan

>>21040499
> produce something so maligned, that people will be able to see through it, and me.

Man, I feel you, I have the same problem. Have you received harsh criticisms on your work recently? I had someone give me some pretty damning feedback a few weeks ago, and now I feel like I’m too self-conscious and ashamed to write freely.

I guess I’ve been trying to think about whether the critique was fair. I find that things that cut deep often sting because they contain a grain of truth, and in my case, I was bothered because I knew that the judgement of my work and of my character was at least somewhat correct. Do you think that may be true for you as well, or do you see negative feedback as merely malicious?

>>21041758
Where are you guys getting feedback outside of here? Is it a live writing group?

>>21041758
If you get soul-shattering critique on your character included when you ask for judgment on your work, then I would recommend you stopping to rely on this critic.

>>21038572
I signed with Aethon. It seems to be doing okay since release, I don't think anyone expected it to do spectacular since I stipulated that it not go KU

>>21039073
Lmao, that one's mine. It's no less cringe than anything else you'll find on RR

>>21039082
Damn, I may have in the past and forgotten about it. I mostly just update people about my game in /aco/'s weg2d thread every once in a while and shitpost in /tv/

>>21040927
Is there a reason you don't name the characters?
Reading 'the huge man' and 'the pale man' over and over is really annoying.

>>21041447
I've been here the whole time.
Apparently you're not as good at spotting me as you think.
And your theories on suicide are inane.
>>21041574
>strange stilted phrasing
You mean proper English?
Yeah...that sticks out here like a sore thumb.

>>21040623
Remove the first two paragraphs along with the final one.

>>21040499
That’s why you don’t share your art with just anybody. You have to be selective. And unless you’re a good artist nobody will ever know of your art anyway. If you are good though then the price is worth paying

>>21041030
Too much ego. You don't need writing advice, you need a Zen priest.

>>21041780
>Re Trailer Trash
I don't regret stumbling across it. I'm still slowly plucking away at it. Sometimes I want to strangle Tabby but she's aight.

>>21039487
As someone who is slightly autistic, looking up writers who also are on the spectrum has shed a light to one of the most depressing aspects of this disease. Something i hope to never seep in to my writing or i'll just fucking kill myself.

The "aspect" that i'm talking about is fictional (fantasy) books written by autists with autistic main characters. Like, that is the last thing i hope to do. There are too many of them. I want to write a good story, and not put the disease at the front of it like a pathetic looser starving for attention and acceptence. I want to write something relatable. And not just
>Wow look at me i'm so special and unique and this story is about a retard who saves the world in his/her own quirky way
FUCK THAT

>>21041990
Gemmell is pretty based though. I don't remember any of his characters being autistic. Autistic writers do have a tendency to unconsciously write autistic characters.

>>21041990
>Spergs can only get into the head of another sperg
I don't think that's voluntary

How has using the same image for the general worked out? The /tg/ story thread did something similar.
>>21040096
Only in that thread.
>>21041374
Absolutely.

>>21041780
I found this one by accident because of how much it stuck out in comparison to everything else on there. I like it. Good work.

>>21042113
It has successfully prevented people from killing the thread by using off topic images or nuking the OP for no reason.

>>21042008
Indeed he is. I have read the book pictured and really loved it. Plan on reading more of his work, definitely.

I posted it because of all the fantasy books i have ever read this has been the most inspiring for my own writing. I've read a lot during this year, many (fantasy) books that are big and heavy on the descriptions. And they have been kinda daunting in a way. So far from how i personally write. Then i read this Gemmells book and it really got me thinking about everything a lot differently. His book had much less descriptions and the pace was faster, but it still all worked really well. I took that, and implemented it into my own way of writing. Basically just really started to think more about how much description really is necessary in a scene? I also become more aware of this while i'm reading something. Taking scenes apart more and thinking about the stuff the writer is telling and why.

Before it seemed like i had to climb a mountain to get where i want, now it seems more like a hill. Now, my writing is still somewhat more descriptive, as that is something that i feel is more of my style, but now i think more about how i actually describe things.

>>21039161
>In silence, they surveyed their handwork: a crude wetu or domed hut, made of arched sticks and poles.
Might just be me, but I would retool this a bit:
>In silence they surveyed their handiwork—a crude wetu: a domed hut made of arched sticks and poles.
Have an em dash separate the narrative bits and have a colon introduce the explanation from the narrator.

>>21040709
Fucking write it down. Get it as perfect as you can and never think about it again. If you come up with more story after, pull from what you wrote instead of from your head again. I write to crack my head open and leak the story out. And all is well until I come up with more.

>>21041747
Not in my experience

>>21041990
Well I'm 40, the worst of its over

>>21042150
You should check out George Saunder's substack on the short story Cat in the Rain. It offers a useful perspective on the role of description.

>Prose and plot is shit, but genuinely enjoy doing it so I don't care.
I'm at 17000 words bros, and I actually do have a question. If you're going to be referencing in-universe writing or text, do you actually quote the relevant parts or just give the points in the narration itself?

>>21042326
I write the entire novel before I reference it.

>>21042286
Thanks. I'll check it out

Agents in their profile be like,
>here is my entire life story!
>oh, what genres I represent? tee hee I'm not going to talk about that; you'll have to guess!

>>21042326
It depends for me. In one story I have there are a good number of in-world historical and saintly figures that have written works relevant to the characters. If a character is reading a specific work alone, then the narration goes over a relevant summary. But if it's dialogue between characters, I try to work in quotes from the text I have prepared, as if they have good recall of what they read.

>Jerome poured over his old master's notes again, trying to excise meaning from decades of scribbles. The majority were addendums to Barlow's 'On The Materials,' a treatise on the four created essences of the world and their interactions. Jerome saw the mess made of the margins of all the copied pages, listing additional intersections and mechanisms of synergy—just as the sweat of his hands synergized with the old ink and older vellum.
As compared to:
>Thomes took extra care sweeping the floors in this wing of the monastery, and scheduled his labor here extra deliberately. As he got closer, the lessons in the classrooms hit his ears with more clarity.
>"...and here," the instructor continued, "in plates one through three we see in the text that Air and Water were mixed. So mixed that where the sky is there was ocean, and where ocean is there was sky. What happened next?"
>"The horizon was made," a pupil answered.
>"Yes! 'Let there be a firmament to separate Air from Water.' So with great strength the winds and waves of chaos were restrained. That strength created the horizon we see when we look out over the ocean."

I don't try to generate need to reference in-world works from the narration itself. I try to keep knowledge of those works tied to characters and what they would know. Let's say there is a piece of landscape that's beautiful and drives people in the world to write about it. You have a poem about a supernaturally beautiful grove written. Two characters wander into the grove, one knows about the poem and its writer and the other doesn't. This difference allows for a characerizing scene because the knowledge is tied to the characters and is affected by their differences. You could recite the poem within the narration separate from the characters, and its good that you gave that place history but you miss the opportunity to tie in-world history to the written present.

Of course this depends on perspective. I don't have any real rules about this kind of stuff. I just try to keep a certain flow within the scene, and I think that's most important.

I've finally realized I just don't have enough hate and resentment in me to write that kind of fiction. Who are the baseline optimism authors?

https://twitter.com/JoyceCarolOates/status/1551210510389022723

>>21042605
>I just don't have enough hate and resentment in me
You’ll get there.

>>21042628
She defended Mike Tyson when he was falsely accused of rape. Of course she’s based.

>>21042190
that's good feedback thanks
>>21039929
appreciate it. I tend to overrely on adverbs in flash fiction.. probably stems from a lack of faith in readers' ability to fill in the blanks. glad the intent comes thru tho
>>21039210
fair point re: the stylistics...I'll see if I can dial it back. I'm pretty happy with the ending, but might rethink the mode of escalation. thanks for reading

>>21042628
seriously
>born the wrong year to ever own a house
>born the wrong race/year to ever publish a book
even worse because i was never historically considered white but now i am just in time to be discriminated against. my fucking god what a life.

>>21040455
I'm just using it as a place to post my work and potentially grow an audience. I'm not even thinking about monetization for the moment since only you guys even know about my work.
I really don't know how to market and based on the top "philosophy" substacks on the discover page - substack might not be the place for my work, but, then again, I could be filling a niche no one else is and I don't even know where else to put it.

>>21042727
Not bashing the style btw, just saying to tone it down so it doesn't draw too much attention to itself. Also, if you want to keep the ending, maybe just think about playing around with the beginning. As it is, we expect something bad to happen between the two boys and when that expectation is so literally fulfilled, it's a bit disappointing. So you have to set up slightly different expectations. You might also play around with pov.

>>21042628
>>21042758
most traditionally published books don't sell anyway, become a self-published CHAD

>>21042874
>self-published
doesn't sell either
look to a different medium if ypu're in it for the money

>>21042758
>born the wrong race/year to ever publish a book
no one would publish your book even if you were a black tranny

>>21042880
>Of authors who have published their first book in the last 10 years:
>1,200 traditionally published authors have earned $25,000+ a year
>1,600 self-published authors have earned $25,000+ a year
blocks youre path

/wg/, how do I get my spirit as a writer back? A sequence of personal struggles wore my down and shattered my confidence and I haven't been able to write or edit for roughly a year now

>>21041419
Added the missing /wg/ authors on this list into the pastebin and split the amazon published books from the RR published books. I also added a social media section and put the unreal press podcast there since they cover some /wg/ authors. I hope that is fine with you guys.

>>21043103
Start collecting a book of good prose and read through it when you feel dispirited.

>>21042901
Keep your demotivational failed-crab nonsense to yourself. It has no place here.

>>21040701
I'll read it maybe. But you can assume it sucks by default.

>>21043116
Unreal will be releasing a vid on Egregore soon, so yeah that's cool.

Sent 6 queries today.
please notice me senpai

>>21042913
These numbers are truly abominable. Surely that's a 1% "success" rate or less.

>>21041809
In a previous post, an anon said I shouldn’t name one off characters so I tried it out. I’m not a fan either.

>just finished 21k of my 60k novella

Should I expand the 21k into 60k by adding more detail to the scenes and release it as book 1 or write more scenes until i reach the ending i plotted before i started writing?

>>21042913
now normalize that by the number of people competing. only 1600 people making over 25k? when there's literally a million new books uploaded every year, 7500 per day? that means it's not a viable way to make a living for 99.99% of the people trying. statistically NOBODY from this thread will make it on self-pub.

>>21043214
lol more like 0.01% for kindle

>>21043217
The “one-offness” has got to be pretty short or not as significant, at least the extent to which you refer to the character within narration. There’s also developing them so that there are other ways to refer to them, or giving them a descriptive nickname.

>>21043168
anon, I was replying to one of the crabs in the bucket

>>21043279
to be fair 95% of the submissions are barely literate, let alone good.

>>21042913
numerical values mean nothing. Show me proportions or go away

>>21043289
so about the same as this thread?

>>21043288
No, you were replying to >>21042758, i.e. someone that felt down about themselves, not others.

>>21043291
https://wordsrated.com/self-published-book-sales-statistics/

>The average self-published book sells 250 copies
>The average self-published author makes $1,000 per year from their books
>33% of self-published authors make less than $500 per year
>90% of self-published books sell less than 100 copies

Not sure how reliable the source is, but I imagine they just pulled the data from elsewhere.

>>21043301
>someone that felt down about themselves
being born in the "wrong race/time" isn't an individual thing. He's here to make people feel like shit because he thinks it's funny

>>21043307
>I have to focus on writing things I want to write and not muh numbers maxxing
black pilled again.............

>>21043307
>>21042913
>>21042880
>>21042874
>>21042758
The reality is simply that very, very few people make a significant amount of money doing traditional literary writing, and as such it is perfectly reasonable to say that if you're in it for money, you are wasting your time and should look to another creative medium.

Literature has always been a niche pastime but in today's world where visual entertainment is so much more popular and where it is so widely available, it doesn't make sense to pursue literature as a means of making money. Add to that simply how much competition there is in the space and the prejudices that exist within the publishing industry and the picture is even more bleak.

Write because you enjoy writing and/or because you feel it is a positive outlet of self-expression, but it won't make you money.

>>21039154
I love them. I've read 24 books on writing and creativity so far and I'm reading another right now. There is no substitute for doing, of course, but I do find insight in some of them.

Art of Fiction (Gardner), From Where You Dream (Robert Olen Butler), A Swim in the Pond in the Rain (Geoge Saunders): these are my favourites, I think. I am interested in reading The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri in the near future, when the winds take me.

Lately my favourite book on writing is Journal to the Self by Kathleen Adams. This is not fiction advice, but it is more about how to use your journal for greater insight into yourself. I do think this has an immense benefit for writers, however, and the techniques are creative, such as dialogues, where you converse with a person/thing/feeling e.g. a conversation with my creative life, with my mother, with my shadow, with my childhood, with my fear of spiders etc. you can also use perspectives e.g. conversation with my creative life from the perspective of my mother, or my shadow, or my fear of spiders etc.

>>21041758
>Have you received harsh criticisms on your work recently?
Not recently and not on my writing, but I've received a lot of harsh criticism in general on my creative output. And I'm just not a very confident person.
>I find that things that cut deep often sting because they contain a grain of truth,
>and in my case, I was bothered because I knew that the judgement of my work and of my character was at least somewhat correct.
I've experienced a lot of pile on criticism. And people making fun of me rather than trying to help. Sometimes criticism stings because its true and sometimes it stings just because its bad, I'm not talking about personal criticism here, but I can have trouble differentiating between the two. I have the issue where, for the most part, I usually try to consider every and all opinions. The negative feedback I've received in the past has felt merely malicious.

>>21041832
That's interesting. Is the work you create very niche? Would only very specific people see it and seek it out? I guess most artists aren't famous and most people's work will never be popular enough to even receive a lot of heavy criticism. Anything is possible but that is a bit of a comforting thought.

>>21043307
>>90% of self-published books sell less than 100 copies
Woo Hoo! I have 41 copies! I'm halfway there! Here's to another 20 years to see if my book sells more than average!

>>21040499
Funny. I ate myself up not long ago with this same question. I wrote a half-crazed few posts about it here:

>>/lit/thread/20969984

A week or so later I read a review for a book by Gerald Murnane where the reviewer actually confirmed my worst fears, almost, and questioned whether or not what he was reading or art, or just some sort of sickness, an automatic compulsion, without intent or art.

Here is the review for the curious. It contains spoilers for a beautiful short story by Murnane.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3714998467?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

Intent . . . this is a maddening topic. It goes in all directions and touches on every part of being.

At the moment I am reading The Courage to Create by Rollo May. It seems appropriate to our situation! Your vulture metaphor is good too, as I not long ago read the same metaphor used to describe the creative process in this book:

>Zeus was outraged. He decreed that Prometheus he punished by being bound to Mount Caucasus, where a vulture was to come each morning and eat away his liver which would grow again at night. This element in the myth, incidentally, is a vivid symbol of the creative process. All artists have at some time had the experience at the end of the day of feeling tired, spent, and so certain they can never express their vision that they vow to forget it and start all over again on something else the next morning. But during the night their ‘liver grows back again.” They arise full of energy and go back with renewed hope to their task, again to strive in the smithy of their soul.

I like this bit too:

>Degas once wrote, “A painter paints a picture with the same feeling as that with which a criminal commits a crime.”

From another book on Zen koans I read earlier (I made a thread for it >>21041671), I liked this:

>In a book of Gestalt therapy, psychiatrist Fritz Perls wrote a poem that read more or less like this:

>I am not in the world to meet your expectations,
>And you are not in the world to meet mine.
>If by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.
>If not, it can’t be helped.

Why do you write? I write because I am looking for my soul. Or maybe I am trying to create my soul. By finding something eternal in myself. It is hard to ignore the world and the chatter. But I know my soul is not there. I have to go inside myself. So what does it matter if they say 'he wrote about fucking his mother, and putting eggs on the genitals of all the animals at the zoo, he is sick!'? They don't have what I need. Another quote, same book:

>“As long as I’m warm, let them laugh.” Why would I care if people laugh at me if I’m warm and cozy? I have a ridiculous coat but it keeps me warm, so why would it matter what people say about me? We feel responsible. We want to be accepted by others. We live for them, perpetually changing ourselves, but in fact if we feel good with ourselves, everything works.

>>21043458
you people are so pretentious when you write. I write to ensure I'm not shittier than the other guy.

>>21043458
I think that reviewer was wrong about Murnane. Murnane is the utmost artist. He created himself, and he brought back a piece to the world, and polished it with the craft of his writing. It is borne of mental illness, yes, but so much art is, because to create something new is to venture beyond the ordinary, and that is the land of sickness to society. To create is to rebel, against society, against God, against yourself. Every waking moment you have to refuse to sleep into your animal-mind and return to being human. You need courage to create, and you need to create in order to be, because we do make our own souls, either by chipping away the filth that hides them, or from transmuting our gross nigredo into something more. And we have to risk everything each time. But the alternative is living death.

>>21043491

>>21043458
>>21043491
why does a tree grow or a bird fly? because it's a tree, it's a bird. that's reason enough. the writer writes because he must, his nature compels him to

>>21043491
I write to share my stories. If I have no one to show them too, I'm content with how they exist in my head.

>>21043529
>In human beings courage is necessary to make being and becoming possible. An assertion of the self, a commitment, is essential if the self is to have any reality. This is the distinction between human beings and the rest of nature. The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them. People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage. This is why Paul Tillich speaks of courage as ontological—it is essential to our being.

--Courage to Create - Rollo May

>>21042628
this is so funny

Is it more important to be an extremely talented writer with a shit work ethic or an average talented writer with a unrelenting work ethic

>>21043627
>"Talent is a question of quantity. Talent does not write one page: it writes three hundred. No novel exists which an ordinary intelligence could not conceive; there is no sentence, no matter how lovely, that a beginner could not construct. What remains is to pick up the pen, to rule the paper, patiently to fill it up. The strong do not hesitate. They settle down, they sweat, they go on to the end. They exhaust the ink, they use up the paper. This is the only difference between men of talent and cowards who will never make a start. In literature, there are only oxen. The biggest ones are the geniuses—the ones who toll eighteen hours a day without tiring. Fame is a constant effort."
--The Journal of Jules Renard

>>21043193
I know it does, I want it to suck less and be more entertaining in the next episode
https://tlomdev.itch.io/attention-hero

>had put off starting new novel for a while now because busy, though I knew the general structure and story i wanted
>huge amount of research necessary (historical) which i'm only shallowly acquainted with
>finally started writing tonight
>wrote out scenario for first scene
>set the tone perfectly
very nice

I need help improving this. Context is that a character is talking to a character who's like Ultraman (IE turns into a giant warrior and shit)
>"I noticed you never seem to have any hang-ups or issues over what you do. You're really young, is there anything that scares you about this?"
>"You should have seen me when I started doing this around half a year ago. It initially just happened when there was a monster, so I was a complete wreck because if a monster showed up I'd destroy entire buildings from within and endanger. But I eventually realized that I could actually do a lot of good by fighting those monsters, a lot of that fear went away. I calmed down and started focusing on finding a way to control it rather than just live in constant paranoia. Figure out what really triggered it, see if I could accommodate it, the whole package."
In case you're wondering, we, the reader, have already experienced most of this

>>21043331
>The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri in the near future, when the winds take me.
I got a few pages into that one before I quit. No matter how good these books start they almost always devolve into formulas.
>Lately my favourite book on writing is Journal to the Self by Kathleen Adams.
>dialogues, where you converse with a person/thing/feeling e.g. a conversation with my creative life, with my mother, with my shadow, with my childhood, with my fear of spiders etc.
Sounds interesting, but I'm not sure I'd understand or be able to do that. Finally getting back to Ursula K. Le Guin's book (I wasn't able to last night), and so far this is exactly what I was looking for.

>>21043857
This sounds like a really boring USA Today interview. Not a real conversation. Ultraman also sounds completely detached from what he's saying. If he's telling the story of his first time fighting a giant monster he can probably be a little more dramatic about it. He sounds like that black guy from Star Wars begrudgingly talking about the lastest Disney turd.

>>21043857
It's genuinely amazing how consistently bad you are kaiju-anon.

>>21040499
>>21043458
>>21043547
Still thinking about this.

>When you have the potentialities for tremendous mass communication, you inevitably tend to communicate on the level of the half-million people who are listening. What you say must have some place in their world, must at least be partly known to them. Inevitably, then, originality, the breaking of frontiers, the radical newness of ideas and images are at best dubious and at worst totally unacceptable. Mass communication—wonder as it may be technologically and something to be appreciated and valued—presents us with a serious danger, the danger of conformism, due to the fact that we all view the same things at the same time in all the cities of the country. This very fact throws considerable weight on the side of regularity and uniformity and against originality and freer creativity.

--Courage to Create - Rollo May

Also this small bit about freedom in the age of technology by Ellul

https://youtu.be/BOCtu-rXfPk?t=334

I know I am going against the grain of these threads here by saying this, but I don't think anyone should come here for critique. Look at my quote in this post. When you speak to a mass of people you speak to a reduction of humanity, the lowest element. Also ask yourself, who is qualified to critique your work? Whose critique do you accept? Not just anyone's, surely? That's what you get here, or in places like this. Even in university creative writing classes you shouldn't listen to your peers, and you should evaluate your professor for their suitability to judge you (something George Saunders wisely speaks on in A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. Critique from the wrong person can be damaging if the artist is not strong enough to resist conforming to the critique, or is naive enough to believe what they present is somehow objective). After all, if someone here is reading sci-fi all day and you are inspired by medieval romances, he will be judging you harshly and falsely because his lens will be crooked to yours. To encounter something meaningfully we need to resonate with it emotionally, and we don't all resonate with the same things as we are each different. In this sense our encounters with each other's work is completely dead and hollow unless we fall upon chance and have the same taste in art, the same creative goals, similar experiences and skills. The dull mass of humanity is what an artist wants to transcend, not kneel to or ask for permission.

One caveat: if you aren't trying to make art then you're just a piece of technology yourself, and in that case being critiqued by the masses won't change a thing other than your pride.

I come to these threads myself to speak about processes when I am procrastinating or I have ideas that are gestating. Never for critique. I want my work to be to my taste, and mine alone. No one can do that work for me, nor for you. The tools and techniques are impersonal, and you can find them in books and use them how you please.

>>21043904
Good clip. That part about the guy who was only concerned with his ovens is something that bothers me about the current attitude in science, and the collective attitude of humanity as a whole. It seems that people are only concerned with the 'how' but no one asks 'why' anymore.
I was extremely glad when I stumbled upon Jaron lanier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGqiswuJuQI
At least there's one 'insider' who is concerned with these questions, though I fear his concerns are falling on deaf ears.

>>21043904
It is fortuitous to this topic, I think, that Ellul goes on to speak (right after the short bit about cars and holidays I timestamped) about responsibility and how it fractures through technology/technique as projects grow more complex and tasks become isolated and abstracted from the whole. In this way a man can shovel dead bodies into a furnace and only be concerned with his quota and how long it is until he can take a break; he is abstracted from the horror of what he does. This is another way to interpret the mode of critique that anon on the web might speak from. An artist should absolutely only take advice from people who can take responsibility for it, and that means in terms of their experience, tastes and goals and ability to perceive and empathise with what the artist is trying to do.

>>21043870
The dialogue technique seems powerful. I haven't used it in an emotional moment but I imagine if I lose my shit, if I have the time and lucidity to start a dialogue it could give me that distance to reason and defuse myself e.g. dialogue with my anger, or dialogue with the person that pissed me off. So far I am treating the dialogues as invocations to magical entities and treating them very respectfully with greetings and thank yous etc. I think it sets the tone of my intent. And it frightens me a little, just enough perhaps for me to have that extra edge into losing myself when I speak with them.

Your image and topic remind me of this essay:

https://meanjin.com.au/essays/in-praise-of-the-long-sentence/

>>21043924
Yes it is a scary mode of being we have today. Thanks for the video.

Do people hate Female MCs that are kick ass?

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/59078/acolyte-a-witch-hunter-tale
Started posting my historical fiction on Royalroad after it's been languishing on my hard drive for 7 years. Add to OP please.

>>21043924
>concerned with the 'how' but no one asks 'why' anymore.

This is another thing that I am marginally obsessed with too ever since learning about all the awful shit with Teflon, Dark Waters, microplastics, C8 etc. a very small minority have been able to wreak havoc with far reaching consequences.

I can't remember if it was Ellul that said this, but it is on topic, but at the moment mankind's ability to destroy has extended their capability to comprehend that destruction. How does one comprehend a country attacked with a nuclear bomb? The horror is too vast and wide-reaching. Likewise, with the Teflon cunts, did they see those little carbon chains they were so pleased with infected the blood of every newborn baby on Earth or being found in the fish in distant seas, or the blood of chimpanzees in the jungle, or how those little immortal carbon chains can pass through our organs, through our brain, and change us in God-knows-what ways? People do not understand the damage they are capable of, and it is a nightmare world of vast power in the hands of small people with no responsibility or imagination for the hell they are capable of. I think of Teflon and microplastics as some dumb selfish bastard unleashing demons onto the world like Pandora's Box.

I thought it was funny you were writing about the oven-worker at the same time I was.

>>21043889
What the fuck do you want me to do?

>>21043879
It’s a she, first. And if she recounted it dramatically you’d call it anime.

>>21043965
Anime writing is fun though.

Okay, I'm stuck. I have said character, Adah now facing off against two monsters. What's the best way to get her out of this predicament?

1. She fights and wins. - But this makes her a bigger mary sue than she already is.
2. Someone saves her.
3. She loses and gets raped, but lives like every hentai heroine.

>>21043928
>The dialogue technique seems powerful
>but I imagine if I lose my shit, if I have the time and lucidity to start a dialogue it could give me that distance to reason and defuse myself
>dialogue with my anger, or dialogue with the person that pissed me off.
I think I get it now.
>https://meanjin.com.au/essays/in-praise-of-the-long-sentence/
Thank you. Going to keep reading now though, before I respond to anything else. I find it funny that out of all the creative generals on this website its been these /lit/ threads that are the most helpful and understanding. I haven't wanted to be a "proper" writer since I was a little kid.

>if you're not me then you cannot critique me
The words of every failed creative. From the line cook turned Joe Rogan impersonator to the welfare recipient who excuses every failure to connect with egotistical musings around their future success as an outsider artist, you are all the same.
Three million Parisians do not go to the Mediterranean each year because they are soulless insects controlled by their vehicles, they go there because it's a nice place to be. There is logic and thought put into each action a human takes–their complete rejection of your work included.

>>21043987
But that’s fucking stupid. She’s just casually recounting how she feels

>>21044039
okay okay i'll delete those 3 sentences.

>>21039296
Read more. It's the literary equivalent of lurk moar.

>>21043990
>t. mediocre incrementalist whose work is technically proficient and nothing more

>>21044090
Of course, only a soulless mannequin would ever dare to critique your world views that were totally not born of a desperate clinging to a mostly shredded ego.
Don’t worry anon. I’m sure that in time you’ll find that mirrored soul who tells you only what you want to hear. Try not to kill yourself before that day.

>>21044102
You do realize that you've been arguing against a strawman of your own creation this entire time and that's not what that anon said, right?
Typical of you academic types to get filtered by anything that isn't black and white.

>>21044073
You don't need to. According to Brandon Sanderson, play to a books strength during action sequences. Provide feelings and use more taste, smell and touch during fights. So recalling flashbacks work out. Besides anime does it all the time.why? Because it works.

>>21043870
>No matter how good these books start they almost always devolve into formulas.
I've noticed that more hack writers favor formulas. And I don't mean hack as an insult. Anyone who has to write according to a schedule is a hack, a workhorse. That includes screenwriters, genre novelists, playwrights. They need to rely on formulas to keep up their output.

There's nothing wrong with formulas. The problem is that authors of advice books seem to think that what works for them is key to all writing, and that it will work for everyone no matter what their temperament or goals.

Can someone critique my prose, please? I worked hard on it, its the opening chapter of my book I hope to publish soon.

>Safe from the blue from the irr. And this truck went in it. Safe. Something of red in it back to the blue to the red. This truck and something extra. Listen. The nearby something extras in front of the truck. The man in front of the truck trampled from front to back safe from the blue. And all this while the man scooped shovels of dirt and trampled from front to back. The other and the clay sighed for something of red. The irritant lay in something of red and laughed.

>>21044116
This is so incoherent I don't believe you're a real person.

>>21044116
I honestly have no idea what you're writing.

>>21043904
>but I don't think anyone should come here for critique. Look at my quote in this post. When you speak to a mass of people you speak to a reduction of humanity, the lowest element.
I strongly disagree that what is common to all humans is necessarily the lowest element.

>Also ask yourself, who is qualified to critique your work? Whose critique do you accept? Not just anyone's, surely? That's what you get here, or in places like this.
Why does a person have to be qualified or even correct? Critique helps to see things from another persons point of view and maybe to think about things in a new way. You don't have to accept it like a legal judgment.

>After all, if someone here is reading sci-fi all day and you are inspired by medieval romances, he will be judging you harshly and falsely because his lens will be crooked to yours.
So? then you learn how scifi nerds react to your story. You can show it to some medieval history buffs too.

>The dull mass of humanity is what an artist wants to transcend, not kneel to or ask for permission.
I don't write to become inhuman. If that's your goal, good luck, but I have doubts about your chances.

>>21043928
>An artist should absolutely only take advice from people who can take responsibility for it, and that means in terms of their experience, tastes and goals and ability to perceive and empathise with what the artist is trying to do.
Echo chambers are only good for protecting your own ego. I don't want critiques from people like me. I already have myself, and I'm fucking sick of me.

>>21043935
Only if kicking ass is their whole personality.

>>21044109
>I don't think anyone should come here for critique
>When you speak to a mass of people you speak to a reduction of humanity, the lowest element
>Also ask yourself, who is qualified to critique your work?
>Whose critique do you accept?
>Even in university creative writing classes you shouldn't listen to your peers
>you should evaluate your professor for their suitability to judge you
>if someone here is reading sci-fi all day and you are inspired by medieval romances, he will be judging you harshly and falsely because his lens will be crooked to yours
>encounters with each other's work is completely dead and hollow unless we fall upon chance and have the same taste in art, the same creative goals, similar experiences and skills
I think I understood him just fine. Not 100% sure how you came to the conclusion that I was strawmanning, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. "you just didn't get it" is the always the first ego save attempted by your type.

In earnest reading philosophy and coming to 4chan made me greedy. I wanted to be in eternity to transcend my day to day, but in this moment I feel an opening up, that all that exists is in front of me now. It’s a funny thing I used to want to fill my inside up but now it’s more clear that all that exists is right now. I know there’s some of you who would say I’m an idiot or send me negativity. But for the first time in a long time I feel a stillness. An opening up to right now. Among my friends and family they fill me agitation and I’ve been agitating them back. It’s really clear now that all that matters is right now hearing the sounds feeling what I touch it’s really a good feeling, not talking to myself just translating words into text.

>>21044116
i fucking love this so much dude. it has a bizarre hypnotic effect.. rhymthic , dissociative, suspended between mundane lunacy and archetype.. if Joyce and Hemingway fucked

>>21044114
>And I don't mean hack as an insult.
>There's nothing wrong with formulas.
Just got to this page where Ursula K. Le Guin says almost exactly that, and its how I feel too. There's probably a lot of formulaic work I really enjoy but I know I prefer art that's "formless", or appears to be, and its the kind of art I want to make.

>>21044319

>>21044313
Thank you, I'm glad at least someone understands my work.

>>21044137
>>21044143
I'm sorry that it was too difficult for you.

>>21044116

>>21044313
Here is some more.

>The workers whistled, averting eyes. Laboring in avoidance of blue. Filling the truck. Filling it. Oh god, the irritant. GOD the irritant. God help us all, one cried. Throwing down the shovel as eyes gazed. Extraordinary. Extra ordinary. There was nothing ordinary in this man. The irritant, laying in red, laughs and laughs. The blue, he can not avoid the blue. ARE YOU MAD!?

let me know if you're interested and I can post more.

>>21044442

>>21044455
What did you think?
Sorry, I never shared my work before so I'm nervous.

>Chapter 2
>Days since last accident: 0
>Mumbles about a good man, but nobody lasts forever. The truck is filled, they rearrange, refill the hole that had become just slightly shallower that day. Yellow passes through.

Chapter 3: Green passes through

>So, look here, I said listen. Right here's the best money guys like us can make, right? So yeah, it's rough work, but what you going to do?
>What you going to fuckin' do?
>It's like, how many though? Not everyone can take it, you know? Digging holes? It's more than that tho ain't it?
>Don't make sense.
>I know it.
>So look, all I'm saying, ALL I'm saying. What are the chances of being THE ONE. You know? It's like, day by day, it's less then one percent. 250 days since the last accident? There be like... you know, a lot of us? So day by day, all I'm saying, it'l like 1 in 10,000 or something. Something like that.
>"Who's paying us?" one clear voice spoke out. "What are we accomplishing digging these dame holes? We dig all fucking year until one of us spazzes out and dies, and then we bury the fucker and start over. What the fuck is that about?"
>Good money, man, though, telling you. BEST guys like us can ever do so it don't matter if one of us gets cau
>Mumbles about a good man
> “Every job I ever worked, there’s a reason for it. Making pizza, or flipping burgers, answering phones, or shit, even digging holes if there is a reason for it. And I’ll tell you this, not once did I ever get paid from someone and not know who the fuck is paying me.”
>Let it go man, just let it go.
>”Fuck this, I quit.” He threw down his gloves. “You sheeple want to keep risking your lives every day, that’s on you.” The door slammed, gazing eyes searched around. Someone should speak now.

I'm really nervous

>>21039136
I’m trans. Can I post here?

>>21044522
>right
yes
>left
no

>>21044528
I think I'm going to go fap to Jessy Dubai again...

>>21044442
>>21044116
More like a prose poem than anything that could constitute a novel.

>>21039285
Finally starting the John Gardner book. Very good so far.

>>21044531
same

It's been a while since I last poked my head in here. Surprised I'm listed in the OP pastebin, but happy all the same. I wanted to get a feel for how best to deal with two separate time frames in terms of writing. In short, I have a character that is both in the present and the past, with the latter taking precedence until the main story meets them proper. Where I'm stuck is how to signal to the reader that a time shift to the past has taken place without reminding them every chapter. Doing a cliche "X years ago" in the first flashback chapter feels weird but I'm drawing a blank for how to navigate otherwise. Thoughts?

>>21043990
>if you're not me then you cannot critique me

That's not precisely what I said, and so you've put a crooked lens on me to stand against. Critique is valuable when it is good. My point was that a writer (especially a young and inexperienced writer) should be careful about whose critique they take. My point is not an uncommon one. Google the dangers of writing groups and you'll see plenty of in-depth arguments and personal stories. It's not an absolute invective against criticism, which is truly valuable when done properly from a good source. My main point is that this place and others like it are not good sources for critique, and that bad critique is harmful to some artists. Very young (you are all mostly 20 years old) struggling writers gather to tell other struggling writers how not to struggle: it's a faulty proposition. Add in anonymity, the lack of responsibility, the desire for distraction being the primary goal here, and the fun of being malicious, and it just gets even worse.

>There is logic and thought put into each action a human takes
I very much disagree. I am not sure if most people could even be said to be human most of the time. It's more of an aspirational title than a continuous state, I think.

>>21044205
>I strongly disagree that what is common to all humans is necessarily the lowest element.
That's a beautiful point and I agree.

>>21044568
I think my favourite part is when he says that if a student asks too many questions when given the assignments in William W. Watt’s American Rhetoric then he will never be a writer. In a slightly related note, I would also recommend that. Haven’t reached the assignments mentioned yet but he does have a fun writing style (only about 50 pages in so far)

>>21044599
Learning to parse critique is a skill. It should not be one that you cheat by only keeping around those who you know everything about. Not only is it the recipe for a hugbox but it keeps out those with a fresh set of eyes.
I once saw an interview with renowned film maker Len Kabasinski. In this interview he said something that, at at the time, I thought was the most arrogant thing I had ever heard from a creator, that being “I don’t give a fuck if my actors have different shoes on between takes. Who the fuck cares. Why are you telling me this?”. Arrogant right? Of course you should care about such a thing. Consistency between scenes is practically a requirement for storytelling and such mistakes are shoddy at best.
The thing is though, who would actually notice a mistake like that? Not someone watching his film to actually enjoy it. When was the last time you watched a film just to make sure that each character had the same shoes on between cuts? It’s a spiteful critique born out of a spiteful viewing, but does that mean the critique is worthless? The movie would be objectively better without that mistake and Len is likely far more careful about footwear in his later movies because of it.

>>21044553
It's a novel. I currently have 253 chapters written. I can share more if you like.


>>21044517
>>21044479
>>21044442
>>21044219
These are all me

>>21044644
I just closed the tab actually, anon. Sorry about that. There was some good stuff but the further I got the less and less I liked it. Couldn't get into John Gardner's drawn on rambling writing style either. I fell asleep. Like, he makes some interesting points and says some stuff I've thought of in the past (pic related) but I started to check out mentally around the point he mentioned a very popular and critically lauded book as a famous example "failed" literature.

>>21044649
Not that long one, that was a mistake.

I never shared my work so I'm nervous and making mistakes

Here's more.
It's actually chapter 165ish, but chapter numbering isn't consistent throughout.

>Chapter 648373
>It drips inside, red from rust, turns yellow purple green. Drip drop drip. The irritant laughs. Red the red again, he sticks his tongue to the rusty water, it tastes like pennies. Lick lick. Lips cracking, body weak, he keeps his head down. I exist to obey. Drip, lick, drip, lick.

>>21044655
>Couldn't get into John Gardner's drawn on rambling writing style either. I fell asleep.
Probably a good place to stop then. That gets much worse as it goes on. There are about 10-15 full pages dedicated to him reconstructing the Trojan Horse story at one point.
>he mentioned a very popular and critically lauded book as a famous example "failed" literature.
If I remember correctly he was talking about Steinbeck and his black and white portrayal in The Grapes of Wrath.
Reminds me of this https://youtu.be/BjM6X58Fg0o

Chapter 1#+@&@
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA," he screamed.

>>21044690
Critique please.
And yes I'm being seriouse.

>>21044703
>Critique please
You're seething about something but can't confront it head on so you're shitposting to cope.

>>21044685
>There are about 10-15 full pages dedicated to him reconstructing the Trojan Horse story at one point.
Jesus.
>If I remember correctly he was talking about Steinbeck and his black and white portrayal in The Grapes of Wrath.
Yup. I'm no Steinback fan (I've only read The Pearl -- twice, in school, and couldn't stand it) but to cite The Grapes of Wrath as a well-known example of failed novel is just making shit up. And so what if the portrayals aren't accurate or nuanced? It's just such a silly thing to complain about after he goes on a long diatribe about how there are no rules in art and that writers need not bother with trivialities, or what they consider to be trivialities.
>Reminds me of this https://youtu.be/BjM6X58Fg0o
Thanks, that was pretty good.

>>21044644
>Learning to parse critique is a skill.
Yes, that seems true. Like life really. Where does my focus go? What do I intend to do? What serves me? Filtering and understanding the words of other people . . . good. Not an easy thing though, I think. Miscommunication is so easy, misunderstanding is so easy. It is almost continuous, the missteps, the blindness.

>It should not be one that you cheat by only keeping around those who you know everything about. Not only is it the recipe for a hugbox but it keeps out those with a fresh set of eyes.

Well, we can't know everything about anyone, least of all ourselves sometimes. Perhaps I am being petty or intentionally drifting from you by pointing that out. I am not sure. I don't always know what I do. Considering that, another set of eyes does sound wonderful. If only I could have your eyes! Sadly, if I were to take them, I am afraid they would lose their shine, and merely become my own eyes once more. Maybe it is better you keep them, so that I don't lose them, or mistreat them. I stand here now and I wonder how many people have died in this spot over time. Everywhere is sacred, and I profane it all with every footstep. Life is clumsy.

jus a slight rant but why are there so many romances featuring a mysterious, brooding, cold and somewhat arrogant character and he and the fmc reluctantly fall for each other
does it feel overdone to anyone else or do ppl still eat that up

>>21044644
>>21044736
>It’s a spiteful critique born out of a spiteful viewing, but does that mean the critique is worthless?

Good question. Worthless . . . there's probably some insight to be had in each moment. The trick is seeing it of course. I did mention this problem earlier, that of seeing. I've been reading about insight recently, aha! moments, you know, and it is an interesting topic. The trick of it seems to be that emotion and feeling plays a much, much bigger role than certain types of logic or common beliefs might believe. I was reading something on it yesterday and it mentioned how people do better cognitively when they are emotionally engaged. This was a digression on the topic of ecstasy, I believe, that joy that is almost mystical, and seems to open up awareness. When people have insight they report the world being much more vivid for a while afterwards; the trees are more green, I hear the birds now, I can pick out all the separate cars in the distant traffic, I notice that the carpet I am standing on has been under my feet since I was a very young man etc. the memory of the event is also more vivid, and it can be stepped into as though it were still ongoing. I think it was Jules Henri Poincaré who was used as an example of this as he described how he could remember the detail of the step his foot was on as he paused at his encounter with his insight into a mathematical problem he had struggled with for some time. I lost myself a bit there, as though digressing . . . is a critique worthless because it is spiteful, even if it has some real truth and valuable insight behind the cruelty? If the one who receives that critique is so blinded by the insult that he is unable to see the valuable part, then yes it is worthless to him. You might say he should learn to parse the critique and extract the value without falling into the emotional element of the critique that wounds his ego. I think that is a very hard thing to do. Much more efficient to give your work to someone you trust instead.

>>21044746
>>21044736
I genuinely regret effort-posting towards you.

>>21044752
Well, this is what we deal with here. We send it out and we don't know where. Best to always keep in mind you are only ever really speaking to yourself. If you still feel like you regret speaking with that in mind, that is a much bigger problem than the content of what was said.

>>21043989
I had a dialogue this morning with Encounter. Towards the end I was very emotional. I came to the dialogue because I wanted an encounter that took me so deep that I forgot who I was as I only focused on the encounter, on the process of creating. Sometimes this is not an easy mode to find. When I got to the end of the dialogue and I realised that after all that struggle, I was there without even realising it, as though by magic, I felt genuinely overwhelmed.

It is a good technique, I think, to dialogue with these strange bits of yourself. Powerful. There are many parts of myself I do not look at, and I think this technique can give me the intent, the proper focus, to look and see something I would ordinarily avoid.

It should go without saying that this was therapeutic writing, and not artistic. The journey happened off the page, and I made no attempt to signpost it with conscious effort. I share it to show you a form and a possibility of what you might talk to, and how a dialogue might go, what your intent might be in beginning, and how that might develop as you write.

https://pastebin.com/NQx8YFK4

>>21044720
What?
No.
It's a part of a larger work. Scroll up and read the rest you worthless shit.
I knew I should t have shared my work here. Nobody understands it.

Shit, I'm hyperventilating

>>21043987
>Okay, I'm stuck. I have said character, Adah now facing off against two monsters. What's the best way to get her out of this predicament?
>1. She fights and wins. - But this makes her a bigger mary sue than she already is.
>2. Someone saves her.
>3. She loses and gets raped, but lives like every hentai heroine.
Oh hey, I thought you had given up your story. It's nice to see you back. The most realistic situation is if she's outmatched she either knows it and bails, or tries to fight and dies/is raped. If you've foreshadowed someone being in the area, maybe they come to her rescue right at the tipping point of being killed/raped, or she runs into them while running away and they fight the pursuing monsters together (and presumably win).

>>21044783
>It is a pleasant and beautiful thought... I facilitate love. I am the ferryman of your heart. I love to carry you, and feel you as you grope through me to another. This is my love. To be the membrane of your existence, and live through you as you live through me. I love you like the birds and the trees love you... you can listen to the wind in the branches. You can listen to the song in the bush with the birds. They do not need to love you for you to love them...
>...I am small... You saw the narrow place in me that opened up to something . . . vast... To feel that space . . . to have that open land . . . to be small and big at the same time . . . . to touch that light inside, that forever . . .
I took some samples but nice prose and imagery.

It feels surrealto stumble upon this email you sent me, 4 years after you sent it.. I am almost speechless. Maybe I'm being dramatic (I likely am) but I wonder if life would have been different if I would have seen this when you sent it. I don't know if I ever told you this, but I've run through so many scenarios in my head trying to think of how things would have been, if I had done things the right way. From when I drove to your house to break up with you, to when I first saw you again in the pearl district and we walked to get ice cream (I think I had just cameback from REDACTED? maybe we didn't even get ice cream, but I remember us walking past the benand jerry's), stumbling upon that same street we had walked, years later, only to remember that time and of you... I am constantlyreminded of you in my life, you gave me so much, and I wish I could have been a better person, to give you twice as much as you gave me. To the time you were at my studio apartment in goose hollow, the time that you called me, when we hadn't been talking, during the holidays in myapartment in REDACTED and you had told me about how you missed my family, to the time that you wanted me to stop playing video games at my moms house soI could spend more time with you. The time that we went to sauvie island, I took a wrong turn and came across a turtle crossing the road. I took a picture of you on my phone, of you squatting next to the turtle as you crossed the road. It might have been one of the happiestmoments of my life. Everything seemed so simple then, we were just experiencing the beauty of life together, even if it was that simple. There's even the timewhen you were texting me,and I was driving my accord to Portland tobuy drugs,and I lied to you aboutwhat I was doing. At that point I think I had consciouslydoubled down on the path of self destruction and I regret it so much. Or the time that I was crying in my car nearyourhouse trying to get you back, and you had exhausted everyfacet of patienceand forgiveness that you could, but I had just made too many mistakes.


I've runall of these scenarios through my head thinking about how I could have maybe justdoneone different thing,to change thedirection of our relationship,to make things better, but I didn't,I just kept making the wrong choices.
It's almost like the universe is laughing at me, because what are the chances? Just the othernight, before I opened this email, I turned on my laptop that my mom gave me when I graduated high school, a relic of the past that I haven't seen foryears, and one of the first things I found was when we spent a night together on your birthday in 2018(?).

>>21044975

I have all of these pictures of you.. you're smiling and being happy, walking through pioneer square late at night. We took the metro there, from the societyhotel. There were flowers all over the square, on the steps, and I have a photo of you in the middle of them. I think I had just started doing photography, or shortly after, and you were my biggest inspiration in pursuing it. Maybe because I wanted to be able to relate to you more, and I always loved how artistic you were. Anyways, when I saw these photos of you, I was blown away... it almost feels like a different reality. The city, the mood, all the feelings that night, and our relationship was so completely different from what it is now. It blew me away, and was honestly a shock, but after going through all of the photos, I was just happy to see that we had a good time together. After everything we've gone through, after everything I've experienced in my life, it made me so happy that I still had this good memory saved in time, where we genuinelyseemed happy.


I am so fucking sad bros, will we all make it? :(

>>21040127
Cringe is a spook, and you my friend, are a chump. You played yourself.
>>21041107
Sexual energy is just another mode of broader creative/generative energy. Maybe you're particularly sensitive to shifts in your energy so losing generative energy through sex lowers your creative output?
>t. new age retard

>>21043458
>Or maybe I am trying to create my soul.
>By finding something eternal in myself.
>It is hard to ignore the world and the chatter.
>But I know my soul is not there.
Oh man. Okay, so a few thoughts. You raised a lot of interesting points in that thread you made. Points that led me to conclude that the distinction of art is ordained by the viewer. Whether the madman's diary is art or not depends on if readers find value in it. Seems like a shit metric, but I think its really simple as that. I remember reading an interview from right after Evangelion ended and while most of the discussion was celebratory, Anno was a lot less enthused and kept talking about ashamed he felt that the series wound up being so "selfish" in the end, he was apologizing and regretful for having put so much of himself in it. In fact I think PART of the reason Rebuild even exists is because he was attempting to "fix" Eva by putting less of himself in it, to the point he barely even directed them. But all that "self" that was originally put into Eva is why its still discussed over 25 years later, resonates with people across the globe, and is one of the biggest most influential franchises ever.

I think, honestly, its a gamble. And if you want to create its just a risk you're forced to take. You will be under the scrutiny of others. And environmental factors play into it as well. Time, place, the state of the world -- all these things matter. Tarantino thrived because of when he made his movies. It was the right work at the right time. I think he's a disgusting freak and a hack, I'm sure MANY other people feel that way too, but to the general populace he's a genius. Because he got in at the right time. Robert Crumb drew racial caricatures, incestuous smut comics, and had at least two popular series with rapist main characters. In one comic, one of the aforementioned rapist characters turns his girlfriend into a living sex doll, and then gives her to his friend to let him rape her. That rapist character made a cameo appearance in a kid's movie earlier this year and Crumb is often hailed as a feminist.

>>21041107
>>21045042
Hah! that is funny. I was reading that book yesterday Courage to Create, which is by a psychotherapist and explores the creative process, and he wrote about a patient he had that wanted to write but never did. He had wonderful ideas, he said, and would plot them intricately in his head, but then he would never write them down or carry them further. It was sometime later that the patient had a breakthrough and realised that each time he had a creative impulse that he explored in his mind, he had a sexual feeling in his genitals. It was all something to do with wanting to please his mother (of course) and once he had that tingle in his penis he had achieved what he desired, which was her approval. I will post the extract from the book later when I can, or download it and see it yourself, it was in the second chapter I think.

It reminds me of a story of a famous writer who liked to lay in the grass in the afternoon after writing, and for a period of time he was joined by a friend, and he would tell them all about the stories he was currently writing. Doing this he lost all desire to continue writing them, because in a way he already had what he wanted, he had told the story on the grass to his friend and received the satisfaction of telling it.

>>21044945
Thank you

>>21045067
Yeah I don't really buy that psychoanalysis shit. As I said, I am more on the new age schizo retard side of things rather than psychoanalyst schizo retard side. I've definitely had the experience of creating a very detailed story and exhausting my interest in it through simple acts of imagination. I have maybe 50-100 stories that I have not put to paper at all, and which I probably never will. Once the story is "completed" in my mind, I just don't see a point in writing it - that's just extra work for no reward. IMO that's owed to other reasons, though - I think people like myself are just not writers by vocation. Rather, we tend to be oral storytellers and actors by nature. The appeal is the imaginative and narrative aspect, not the art of writing itself. This type of people also tend to be better at dialogue, personality, and dramatic flair. The skill of natural writers, on the other hand, revolves in a balanced economy of writing and a sense for structure at every level that produces a cohesive art work from start to end.

>Try using foam earplugs while working/writing
>Can now write in nature productively without getting distracted or bothered by sounds
Why was I never given these as a kid? The meds never worked as well as these do. I think I cured my autism.

>>21044576
First person narrative present, third person past.

Is copywork effective?

>>21044116
>>21044442
>maldoror if he owned a truck

>>21044740
That trope is popular because women can self-insert and tell themselves "I could fix him"

>>21044790
Have you found a place where people DO understand it?

>>21045212
Has it occurred to you that women feel the need to pick men out of the trash and "fix" them up because all men are incompetent toddlers who never fix their problems on their own, and women are left between dumpster diving for dates and staying single forever?

You say that like it's a burn on women. No my dude, women by and large feel the need to fix men because men are by and large incapable of fixing themselves up into functioning adults. The own was on you.

>>21040701
>pic
So, they dress similarly, so what? Each human is a unique and highly complex individual. Looking down on unfamiliar to you people as if they are shallow and primitive NPCs is dehumanizing solipsism. There's no such thing as "an NPC" or "simpleton".

>>21045226
>>21045256
shut your hole cunt

>>21045263
I'm a man
Get your head out of your ass, you narcissistic shit-eater

>>21045256
>Each human is a unique and highly complex individual
Jesus fucking Christ. Who let the bumper sticker spewing midwit in?

>>21045273
You’re wasting your time here bro. This site is 99% people that think of themselves as anime protagonists to cope with the fact that they weren’t popular in high school

>>21045279
It's true though.
You can't read faces, you can't empathize, so you assume other people are automatons who don't think, and you're the only conscious human in a world of "NPCs". Very narcissistic.

>>21043458
>>21043904
>>21045063
That's all to say, putting ourselves out there is the only thing we can do. If we're lucky enough to amass an audience or have anybody view our work, whether we're overwhelmingly hailed as a genius or an abusive disgusting creepy sex freak is ultimately determined by forces far beyond our control. There are things we can do lessen the blow, if we're self-aware, we can sanitize ourselves and our output. We can pay close attention to see what general audiences are receptive to and willing to accept at a current period of time. Like using the Game of Thrones shows as a metric. I'm not watching the new one but let's say there's incest in it, I wouldn't know. Maybe in 2011 audiences could accept a bit of rape and incest. Maybe in 2022 audiences are willing to accept a little incest but rape is completely off the table. So self-censorship it is then, if we want to appease, if we don't want to broadcast ourselves outwardly to the world as misogynistic perverts for the rest of our lives. It's kind of a moral issue. We're on 4chan so its safe to assume you're a horrible person, right? Or at least not socially acceptable. But are you evil by your own standards? Do you care what people think about you when you're no longer anonymous? The panel I'm posting right now is cropped from an /ss/ doujin. Shotacon isn't even allowed to be posted on 4chan, you think I want the whole world to know I get off to older women raping little boys? I'm so enormously thankful for the people who draw it but I could never bring myself to draw it myself.

I got massively off-topic there. I'm not advocating self-censorship, I'm just saying its an option. And that the fear of being deeply and personally criticized may be a moral one. There's also the fact we live in a post-lolcow society. That anon in the thread you made brought up Joyce, Dostoevsky, Daniel Johnston, Tarantino, and John Lennon as evidence to the contrary in regards to making personal and weird art. They then contradict their argument by dismissing Neil Breen and Chris-Chan. James Healy also comes to mind. You can put your art out there, as an amateur, and be mocked, harassed, and derided for it just because. The internet can be pretty cruel and uncaring.

I never read that Murnane short you mentioned and I'm never going to but that guy's review reminded of a pretty shitty comic I read called "My Inner Bimbo". I even story-timed it on /co/ a few months ago. It's unofficially semi-autobiographical but gets so intimate and up its own ass the initial concept stop being fun or interesting by the middle of issue 2. After that, the concept is all but abandoned and its just the author working out his issues. Still, that's not to say admonished should be admonished because people regard that comic has merit too. It's just always a risk. Entertainment, self-expression, and the combination of the two. I'm so tired. Goodnight.

>>21045279
He’s right, and now post your IQ

>>21045288
>>21045290
It's an empty platitude and a conversation killer.
It's the moral/philosophical equivalent of
>the science is settled!
Either actually engage with the idea and present something original or shut the fuck up. No one cares about how morally superior you present yourself to be and no one cares about your vapid platitudes. It's 4chan.
>You can't read faces, you can't empathize
>This site is 99% people that think of themselves as anime protagonists to cope with the fact that they weren’t popular in high school >>21045288
Ironic how you immediately put me in a box after talking about how we're all special snowflakes.
Curious! Almost as if you're full of shit.

>>21045302
Notice how he didn’t post his IQ

>>21045306
>deflecting
I accept your concession. You little bitch.

>>21044900
Thanks! I did give up a bit, but after my now gf encouraged me to continue, (I showed her on a date just to continue conversation) I reread what I wrote and still felt there's something there. It'll need to be rewritten to be more consistent.

I wish I was an anime protagonist. I want to be a hentai heroine. Get raped, harassed and fucked silly by tentacles and still have the mental fortitude to save the world!

>>21045263
t. REEEEEEEEEE
Good job forming an argument, mantoddler. When is the last time you brushed your teeth or changed your bedsheets?

>>21045309
I don’t have to engage with the arguments made by lesser men

>>21043987
She's also an 8th grader. And before you say anything, her giant form intentionally looks fucking weird.

Who are we being invaded by this time? Is pseudo Kim wexler?

>>21045406
Don't know, but they clearly aren't sending their best.

i wish i liked writing romance
like 70% of agents want to buy romance, it seems

>>21045447
because old spinster boomers will consoom 100000 romance paperbacks over and over. you can take the same story and swap the names and location, and they'll buy it again.
i wish agents could put their big brain hat on and start looking at what novels would sell to the 70% of people who don't currently read regularly, thus tapping into a fresh market, rather than keep draining the current 2% dry with low effort schlock. if these stupid fucks had been to marketing school they'd know how to save their dying industry, but they're too arrogant to consider that their approach is the problem.

Morality was in short supply those days; I’d recently ended my affair with old-time religion and the resulting running jump off the deep end landed me in several different kinds of legal trouble, a few near death experiences, and balls deep in some very, very questionable paramours.

Meet Arjuna Keaton. Legal trouble, sure, depending on your definition of rape via deception, anyway, tangentially related nearly overdosing on cocaine, very much a paramour. You know, nice legs, some ass, I quote self-proclaimed “jailbait tits”, free weed and tolerable personality. In short, very much a questionable paramour. My first question was how long it’d last. Second was how much I cared to keep the pronouns consistent.

I’d met him like I meet most of my women - during the day. I’d seduced him like I fuck most of my women, later, that night, once the alcoholic river ran and certain legs loosened. Not that I can’t be charismatic sober - I’m no vampire here - but open mic nights are a real different kind of charismatic to pretending you’re a trans ally and - by good hope - you hadn’t realised she was, you know, a he until he told you as such. In verse, of course. It was that kind of open mic night. Good hope, it was that kind of bar.

Any vow to start frequenting better places would be quickly broken by a combination of gauging Uber fares and the bullshit gas price. There were probably better shebeens and better ladyboys in Sandton or Menlyn side, sure, but I couldn’t be bothered to dress up for Sandton and the endured associated cognac binges. Unlike my - and I hate to say it - alcoholic contemporaries, I’d kicked my cognac habit by the time I’d flunked out of high school. And, unfortunately, they’d passed. With their non-rental sports cars and bespoke suits, they were the real deal. Ain’t no man able to impersonate that every day, every night. No matter how good the ladyboys were. Or the cognac.

Anyway, I’m a journalist, if you hadn’t figured - and if you’re a woman under thirty, I’m two years older than you and better paid. If you’re not, I’m the Ben Ten burst of youthful energy you need in your life. And if you’re some guy, ayo, howzit, good to find a brother in this dump… wherever this is… drinking whatever it is… that you’re drinking. I’m not picky. When it comes to that, I am not picky. And yeah, call me Saul. Pen names and phone numbers come later.

Approximately this combination of lies led to me picking up Keaton. After, of course, luck had it he’d wander into the Chinese restaurant I was hunkered down in, recovering from an evening of bad poetry and worse standup. There over Tsingtao lager, manipulating an acquaintance out of a dim sum meal. The other guy at the table knew Keaton, invited him over like you do when you think his poetry’s pretty bad but, hell, he’s running your next D&D game so you better be polite.

>>21045476
that 70% doesn't read because they're too busy playing video games or watching tv

>>21045226
There's no reason to fix me.
I'm a productive citizen, I earn my own way through the world, and I have no criminal record.
My big "problem" is not being a fashion plate.
Women are shallow and superficial, and first look for a "hot guy", then try to "fix" him.
The idea of giving a nerdy guy a makeover somehow never occurs to them.
And so they continue to be the agents of their own torment.
And now I'm too old to care either way.

>>21045514
*sound of 10,000 women laughing*
get a therapist and stop posting

How do I properly flesh out my characters? I don't feel like anything I write down for that is useful.

>>21045638
Make each character a variation of the theme/moral argument. Make them all resemble a familiar archetype (such as mother, father, sage, trickster). Make sure you know what function the character has in narrative (ally? opponent of hero?)

Function. Archetype. Thematic individualization.

>>21045531
I think you spend too much time here. It's often the man who is picking the woman out of the trash. I dated a borderline-schizo throughout high school and she ended up institutionalized a few years ago. It's not just men who need to be fixed or who sometimes feel the need to fix someone concomitant with their romantic relationship.

>>21045042
I only invested like 12 hours of actual work into the story. If this had been a more substantial project, I definitely would have tried to rework it rather than abandon the entire project. I don't agree that cringe is a spook though; sometimes cringe is a good indicator that you need to fix your shit.

>>21045638
>>21045644
I've said this in other threads, but as a fairly weak writer, I like to shoehorn in "action"/adversity so characters are forced adapt. Harder to fuck things up that way.

Yet another wasted day. Why can't I just type the words and worry about editing later? Is there an app that will auto hide all previous sentences till you reach your writing goal?
>https://pastebin.com/ed9DSdR9

>>21045891
>Is there an app that will auto hide all previous sentences till you reach your writing goal?

Stop looking at the screen. My monitor is off when I write. I write. I edit mistakes afterwards.

>>21045256
it's just a picture I put to get attention with my post, I personally believe all the npc talk benefits actual malicious people more than helping people who believe in them, weather actual npcs exist or not

Why doesn't anyone want my Chinaman book guys? Another 10 rejections from various agents

>>21045199
Thank you, Maldoror is one of my greatest influences so I can only take this as a compliment. You don't know how much it means to me.

Would you like to see more?

>>21045659
The mentality ill struggle with long term relationship, so are therefore available.
It is probably not a desire to fix as much as a lack of other options.

Morrowind guy here. Another chapter down and I'm now officially into the third act, crazy to think I'll likely be finishing my draft in early November.

>>21045932
Did you end up keeping the dialect heavy dialogue?

>>21045965
Yep.

>>21045957
Sure

>>21045290
Hope you didn't get that from an online test anon. That'd be kind of embarrassing.
>>21045668
Cringe can be useful by prompting you to correct something which is wrong, but cringe in itself does not actually tell you what is wrong and what isn't. Hence why everyone has a different sense for cringe and identifies different things as cringe. It's a completely bankrupt concept for oversocialised people who always need to be "safe" and in with the crowd in terms of having "correct" opinions, style, etc. Break the chains and liberate yourself anon. Cringe is a spook. Absolutely.
Also, there's no point in deleting writing lol. There's obviously some kind of irrational compulsion at play here. It's unlikely that your file was even a megabyte large so it's not like you need the space - the only reason you'd go as far as deleting a piece of writing is some kind of insecurity. Besides, I should tell you that one man's trash is another man's treasure. I've seen the most awful garbage you can imagine make tons of money and have many thousands of readers. And I've also seen great writers who were afraid to share their writing out of fear of cringe or it being bad or whatever. Who cares? It's the 21st century. Genuine hacks often make a living with their writing - God only knows how or why. Why should you be ashamed of your skill then?

How's Kindle Vella? I'm reading a lot of comments and people are peeved they have to keep paying for more chapters. I think I'll try it with my Adah book

What are the benefits of writing, if you never get published?

Are there mental or other benefits from the act of fiction writing?

>>21046299
It's a compulsion.

even as shitty as /wg/ can be, it's still leagues better than /r/writing.

>>21046332
Do tell what horrors you've unearthed.

>>21046299
It's fun and relaxing.

I genuinely just like doing it . My job is low effort and pays the bills well so thinking of story ideas and outlines for plots passes the time there and it's a good way to zone out when I want to meditate at home.

I do know some people who use fiction writing to work through some issues they have, but they also just enjoy it as well.

>>21046333
i don't browse there often since i usually become disgusted to my breaking point within a minute or two. it's mostly just thousands of threads that should have been a google search, extremely entry level questions that a 10 year old might ask, or things like "i know [x] is a crutch and everyone says not to do it, but is it okay to do it anyway, because i need a crutch a bloo bloo". you would actually lose IQ points reading there. i suppose these are the 99% of writers who submit absolute trash and flood out agents' inboxes with barely literate 6th grade level writing.

>>21046363
>barely literate 6th grade level writing
My work has been likened to that of an autistic 8th grader so this clearly shows the difference in our respective skill levels.

>>21046363
I haven't found any good writing subs there but I do enjoy /r/truelit every other month to see what's there. It's literary and there are interesting articles posted there sometimes, and because of the lack of anon and the lack of time limits, conversations can extend pleasantly and at length as long as you steer clear of the usual forbidden topics of our age and society. Most of the bookish places on that site are mass-market, plebeian, but that is life. You look for the cracks in a society where the culture grows.

>>21046363
I use adverbs and I think people who don't are weird.

>>21046416
They're perfectly acceptable when used moderately.

>>21046419
Not the response I was expecting, but I agree. Unfortunately, I can't come up with any other hot take that would start an internet fight right now.

>>21046494
We could talk about em dashes again

I'm not gonna make it bros. At least not right now. I've practiced, I've read books on how to improve, I even watched Sandersoy's lectures on youtube and took notes like I was actually in his class. But there is still no appreciable difference. I still want to write but I am now too disillusioned to be effective. I give up before I make any progress. I need to actually be successful in creating something before I try. I think I'm going to take a few years off and try indulging some of my other creative interests. just so I can get back into a state where trying to be creative feels good again.

>>21046530
just give up, thanks :-)

>>21046509
Is that controversial? I use these a ton in my essays and non-fiction writing. They're awesome. Rare to find a use for them in fiction though.
>>21046530
Literally just write and think lol. You don't need Sandersoy or a gorillion self-help books written by retarded hacks. Literally just write. I started writing as a braindead 16 year old and I am actually pretty decent now. How? I wrote millions of words, and I experimented with different techniques, analysed my own writing, read the writing of other people of various skill levels through an analytical lens to sort out what works from what doesn't, etc. It's fucking simple. Just practice and you get better. Fuck, now that I am writing this post I feel dumb for not applying this methodology to the other areas of my life.
>I need to actually be successful in creating something before I try.
This is literally putting the cart before the horse, it's a subzero IQ strategy. Here are the facts - you will write a ton of stuff, and you will improve. As you improve, you will start to see your old writing as garbage. Repeat ad infinitum. Other people of course will not see it that way, especially if they have no taste, as most readers are.
>I think I'm going to take a few years off and try indulging some of my other creative interests. just so I can get back into a state where trying to be creative feels good again.
Take the time if you really need it for emotional reasons, but if you're deciding this rationally, then it's a dumb choice. Practice makes you better. If you are procrastinating practice because you think you suck, you'll never get better and you'll feel even worse as time goes on. No one is born good at something - if you want to learn how to write, or do anything really, you have to be willing to be a retard who gets everything wrong, at least for a while. Only then can you improve. Even talent doesn't help this. All talent does is shorten the time you spend as a retard. But you still have to be a retard.
Be the retard, anon.

>>21046373
What does writing grade level even mean exactly? Ive heard some say lower is better, some say it's worse. I don't get it.

>>21044576
Don't state it. You'll just have to make sure the circumstances are different enough that it becomes immediately clear. Different setting. Different characters present. Different tone.

>>21046565
"Grade" as in school grade, anon. As in writing at the level of a middle schooler or high schooler, aka a dumb kid.

>>21046530
>I'm not gonna make it bros.
Don't give up.
You will be a writer.
You will make it.

>>21044599
>so you've put a crooked lens on me to stand against. Critique is valuable when it is good
>you've put a crooked lens on me to stand against.
Work on your metaphors.

>>21043879
This better?
>I had a lot of hang ups a couple months ago because well, there were a million things I needed to worry about and I wasn’t ready to handle even one of them

>>21046580
he was weighted against the speed of a crooked lens and came up a dollar short

>>21044740
Hard-to-get love interests are automatically seen as more valuable. Stories need conflict.

>>21046572
Well that much is clear, but does writing at a certain grade level a red flag? Say I wanted to publish litfic. Is someone like and editor, agent or critic run it through a machine and say "yep...that's a middlegrade writer"? I dont know if it's something that actually matters or if it's just some shit test to filter applications.

>>21046621
Anon, what the fuck are you talking about? There's no formal classification system that people use to put specific writers into specific school grade categories. It's just a figure of speech. If you do write at 8th grade level though, no publisher will give you the time of day, because people who write like children lack the skill to produce a readable book.

>>21046646
>t. lowgrade writer

What city do I pick for my novel? Fictional or real, it's such a minuscule thing to e but the setting can fit on both

>>21046646
Flesch Kincaid readability . You want that sweet 6-8th grade for maximum readership

>Went to a website and I'm grade 4.
Oh that hurts.

>>21045932
Post first chapter and we’ll crotique

Thoughts on Notion for writing?
I want something that's fully crossplatform, has autosave, and most importantly, something that won't scan my work and banhammer for using the occasional black fragility word. Seems like Notion fits that so far.

How to develop a more aesthetic writing?

>>21047105
Don't use comic sans

>>21047105
Read stylists who focused on using language as a primary means of storytelling. Nabokov and Joyce immediately come to mind.

>>21047105
Proust said style is a manner of seeing. So, how you look at things will inform your style. If you want a style that you don't have now, you need to think about the sort of writer you want to be, and how that writer might see the world, and how that might be expressed through the way they/you use language. That would be the top-down approach. Spending a lifetime reading books would also help.

Short piece I'm working on going with some sort of ambiguity on whether the narrator is really part of an alien race or if he's just a schizoid nutcase

>>21047176
>You might think I'm a human

>>21047252

Nice Ayn Rand reference.

>>21039136
https://youcanforgetthewords.com/
Been putting in more work messing w an odd style of writing, lmk what you anons think. The actual short stories are on the Further Reading page.

>>21047027
Here's Chapter 1
https://litter.catbox.moe/qq929c.pdf

>>21046416
What the fuck is an adverb.

>>21047484
Anon asked, askedly.

>>21040701
Heyyy, I'm working on an erotic text RPG. Would love to review each over's work and encourage you, anon! Stonetear#2225

>>21047605
>>21047605

New

>>21047372
It's not bad, I like the attention to detail and the dialogue is very good but it's not exactly something interesting. It's very well written though I'll give you that but it's just.... Boring.

>>21041574
>avatarfag with his autistically numbered pipes
I assume you meant "pepes" instead of "pipes".
As I have REPEATEDLY said, the filename format came from the web site I downloaded them from.
See for yourself at https://web.archive.org/web/20220328200145/https://rare-pepe.com/ .
>40%
Not even close. I might have gotten to 4% once.
Anything above that is just your schizo talking.
>painfully generic advice
You apparently missed all the detailed critiques.
Useful stuff, too, not just "waah waah you missed a comma" or "stopped reading right there".
>Gardner
He's hardly innocent or forgivable.
And it's not just the constant public self-stroking shill-spamming.
He's literally the seething schizo samefagging pseud that's been shitting up this thread for who knows how long.
You can see this for yourself in the Great Schizo Freakout:
>>/lit/thread/S20710136
>>/lit/thread/S20714307
>confirmed to be a mod
Yeah, I figured that out after getting banned for incredibly weakly-supported reasons.
Gardner's only saving grace is that he's too dumb to get away with his crap.