/lit/ - Literature

You did write your 2000 daily words today, right /wg/?

reposting for new thread:
https://pastebin.com/raw/b0DZa4nR
please critique

>>21920125
No, because I have a career and a life.
Not everyone here is a NEET shut-in.
Your gatekeeping is rude and pointless.

>>21919585
>You literally don't understand what happened.
Yeah, you're right. I don't understand what happened, and that's why I can't trust any of you autists. I'm not asking you to disavow as you dip from the group and go solo, I'm asking for an explanation of what happened.
The only thing I know for sure is that the interim &amp editor had his face and full name paraded around by hosts/editors from the Unreal Press and that another guy had his workplace and full name posted for seemingly no apparent reason. Who did it and why? Who disavowed it? Who do I need to stay clear of? Give me some reason to separate you from the shits you're disavowing.
Also, I don't buy this whole "public information from google" thing. It's not about where you got the information. It's the intent behind posting it. These were both clearly done out of spite. The guys workplace image that was attached to his partial dox was even titled something like "BE QUIET".

When do I know my work is good enough for Royal Road?

>>21920302
What is royal road?

>>21920302
When you put it up on Royal Road.

>>21920125
HAH. No. Don't think I've ever written that much in one day, except for maybe when I was starting out as a teenager jotting my work down in notebooks. My idea of an excellent writing day is about 1000 words, though lately I've been focused on cutting them down as I edit instead.

>>21920282
>I didn't do it
>THAT'S NOT A GOOD ENOUGH REASON
Fuck off Ari

>>21920426
>Ari
I'm going to assume that's the name of one of the guys you doxed. I don't don't which of the Unreal mudbloods you are, but I won't be subscribing/contributing to your new start up. You've not done a good job convincing me.

>>21920361
>HAH. No. Don't think I've ever written that much in one day, except for maybe when I was starting out as a teenager jotting my work down in notebooks. My idea of an excellent writing day is about 1000 words, though lately I've been focused on cutting them down as I edit instead.
This is something people just vary wildly on. I have had long stretches of being pretty consistent, but I have had a single day I wrote over 3000 words of prose in a single day, which is when I was just figuring out a new story and being manic. My usual rule is that so long as I clear 500, I don't have to be mad at myself, even if I am not happy, and anything over 1,000 is good. Word counts are good for motivating yourself to write, but it's hard to connect it to productivity beyond the mere fact of you working. Writers who have a really set understanding of their story going in get more out of daily counts than ones who make it up as they go and need several drafts.

When he found her, she was praying with the other women.

He hesitated for a few minutes on the door of the temple. Being as he was, he wasn't sure whether he would even be allowed in. Those folks really cared about class. Not everyone was allowed into the same public places.

He had heard a man once got beheaded for entering a temple for the noble caste.

But he was not in their land, and the laws didn't apply to Mages anyway. It took him a while, but he stepped in and to the altar.

He saw her in the middle of the room, along with the wives and mothers of the colony. She was barefoot, clad in the heavy gray flax garment they wore for sacred ceremonies. The ice cold room didn't seem to bother any of these women as they chanted sibilant hymns and walked circles around the sacred fires, naked feet stamping the floor in a regular rhythm that sounded vaguely like a parade at slow motion.

Half an hour later, it was over. Her aunt let out a harsh staccato of a verse, and all the women ate something from the prayer plate. Then they dispersed as one, the common order all but forgotten as they hurried to get home in time to make dinner.

Erica's eyes widened as she saw him there.
"What are you doing here?" She hissed. She grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the altar and then the temple. "This is a woman's altar. You're not allowed in!"

"Well, this is important business. I think I found another of those creatures. It's in Asranya."

Her anger evaporated.

"How do you know this?" She asked sharply, running the numbers quickly. He knew what she was thinking. Assaulting that location would be out of the question with just the two of them. And telling the government could backfire.

"The god of the local shrine has not been taking prayers for a while." He said grimly. "The priests got the cops involved, but they can't find anything."

She sighed. This day just kept getting better.
_________

>>21920125
I wrote 5000, though how much was before or after midnight I can't really say.
Now I need to head into the editing mines since my scheduled uploads are finishing today.

>Want to write more
>Tips of my fingies hurt when I put pressure on them

>>21920021
>If a story is good

If it takes you 400k words to say what you wanted to say, it's very likely not good.

>>21920478

>>21920640
>>21920478
Wrong pic. Meant to give you this. Wish you luck on improving.

>>21920523
There are plenty of novels that length, asshole gatekeeper.
https://www.listchallenges.com/130-of-the-worlds-longest-novels

>>21918936
>https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/67087/avatar-of-reincarnation
I give this not so sage critique as a frequent RR autist, but also because you asked. It is just an opinion, don't let it stop you writing:
>Your opening paragraph while technically correct has this weird issue of separate sentence word repetition; Off, off and down, down
>"He walked through the orchard back to his house. Ït smelled like a mixture of earth, apples, and moisture, since it was a little bit muddy in places."
Would do better as something like 'The muddy ground squelched beneath his feet as he inhaled the familiar fragrance of apples and peat."
>"He set the last basket of apples on the table, and grabbed his bucket. He walked outside, and went to his well behind the house. He lowered the bucket into the well, filled it with water, and pulled it back up with the rope. He used the water to fill his tub, which he had set outside."
Too much doing.
>"The Demon Lord"
Any mention of this 16 year old villain shit straight up makes me run for the hills.
>Paragraphs start to get too long and blocky.

I'll read some more chapters later to give it the old 5 chapter try.
Please don't take the advice personally and start screeching about gatekeeping crustaceans

>>21920694

In my defense, the demon lord is really just the emperor of the demon race in a feudalistic sense, not le big bad evil guy

>>21920691
Did I say nobody has ever written a fucking doorstopper before? retard

Hey guys! I'm writing a part where a character dies. I write the line "He knew at once the dagger was stabbed deep into his head" twice and I'm hoping doing so sort of gives it like an impact. What do you think? Am I going to come off as a dummy who wrote the same line twice without knowing?

Also the dog line isn't without context. I mentioned earlier the character is an asshole and abused a dog so I figured that was a cool tie in to shut him down.

>>21920832
it works

>>21920832
I think a way of not only adding a bit of much needed material to this seemingly important moment is to describe the battle and his death through metaphor and abstraction as a means of being able to properly place ourselves within the doubtlessly stressful situation this lad appears to be in. Just to give an example, we could have the battle leading up to it be a blur of many colors, arrows whistling like songbirds. The stabbing of the head could be done in any number of ways, I really like what you were doing with the dog taking bites out the the head, but I think we could provide our own twist on what we see right before we die. Perhaps, with our brain being so messed up, his neurons get all mixed up and we see a mixture of all of his previous memories, all at once. Again, these are but a few examples of any number of ways you could add a bit of color to the prose. You’ve clearly got some real good stuff, so I’m sure you’ll come up with something REALLY good.

>>21920742
You said novels that long are "very likely not good", without elaboration or evidence.
This brings up the very real possibility that you're a seething demotivational failed-crab pseud.
What's wrong? Is your horribly racist brain-dropping not selling like you'd hoped?

>>21920895
This is the beginning of an epic I am currently writing that is meant to be a love story between the two character presented. The meter is composed in iambs, mostly in heptameter, though Finnabair’s curse is given a few qualitative liberties.

>>21920509
buy a mechanical keyboard with the light keypress switches, worked wonders for my productivity

>>21920130
>Unintentional rhyme in the first sentence

>>21920691
There's not a single novel on this list that wouldn't be improved by shortening it significantly.

>>21921269
Just your seething opinion.

>>21921273
It's my opinion having actually read many of the novels on that list. You haven't read even one. Indulging in graphomania does not a good novel make.

>>21921289
As if. You're a gigantic phony.
What's it like, having to pretend to be someone you're not?

>>21920895
I mean, it's not a really important character dying here. In fact it's a literal bar fight over stolen boots. I pulled an ear muscle recently and that was the inspiration of oh holy shit it hurts to have pain in the ear! When that kind of pain happens you really have to throw yourself to the ground, it's bad. Also I'm guessing if you get a object shoved into your brain your vision would probably blur but I ain't figuring that one out for myself. Thank you for the feedback I will continue to try and improve.

>>21920691
most of those were during the period writers got paid by the word, and had incentive to pad it out as long as possible. in modern times it's disrespectful to the reader and obnoxiously self-important.

>>21920509
>want to write
>can barely see because my eye is twitching like a crackfiend going on 2 fucking weeks now
>not even jabbed up
i have no depth perception

>be undersocialized autist
>struggle to write non-stilted, non-retarded dialogue
>I know, I'll just listen to the people around me talk!
Now I'm in a moral dilemma of whether to quote my own mother in my erotica.

>>21921585
Why not? It wasn't an exact quote but one of the villain's lines was a spiritually very faithful line of dialogue my mother said to me.

>>21920706
Then give him a name e.g; Kaz'Gul The Wrathful, The Fifth Demon Emperor in name yet first and foremost in his thirst for blood and cruelty.
>chapter two
Over explained one event fizzle that is another warning sign (for me) that the story is going to be a ''slow burn'' nothing burger.
>Chapter three
Law/magic dump of an MC went to the pub. At this point its pretty clear your not a trash writer or anything but your explanations are certainly fluff for word count.
>Chapter four
MC faces an over explained non choice with military/political info dump.
>Chapter five
Mc joins conscript convoy with yet more magic system/military/political info dumps

The info dumps are not in and of them selves bad things, but (for me at least) they are too long and destroy immersion instead of keeping the reader focused on the most important thing; the fucking story.

If i wasn't giving pointers i would have dropped it at about chapter 3 even if you had characterized the leader of the big bads. Keep in mind it is still better then most of the sites usual fare and maybe i am not its target audience, which is also ok. Though maybe i am because i read quite a lot of fictions there?

Regardless Don't let my jaded autism stop you from writing further.

>>21921261
shiiiit

>>21921261
I fixed it and added more
https://pastebin.com/raw/2r1cdhAN

>>21921531
Well, when you can demonstrate you've written something that's as successful and popular as, say, "Re: Trailer Trash", which is modern yet has a very high word count, then come back and express your opinion.
Because, until they, you're just a jealous seether with nothing worthwhile to say.

>>21921781
>how dare you criticize my cooking? come back when you are a chef with more michelin stars than me!
No. Deal with it.

>>21921531
retarded

There seems, at least to me, to be a phenomenon where short story magazines(particularly the competitive ones) have stories that have relatively simple prose and stories where you see them—and you think you can do better. But whenever you do submit a story, more often than not, you’ll end up getting rejected while San Francisco Creative Writing Workshop alumn woman whose story is 22% by volume the word “fuck” and sounds like a complaint you might hear from her while she’s drunk gets published.

>>21921781
Bro just don't make a novel longer than 120k words it's really not that fucking hard

>>21920117
How do you come up with interesting magic systems that make sense? What are some common mistakes that a lot of people make with their first magic systems?

>>21922263
The only way to make an interesting magic system is to not it a make a system at all. Ordered magic systems are a game thing, because games need concrete rules so that actions aren't arbitrary. Stories, however, can and should be arbitrary.

>>21922263
Mine is just super saiyans. Fuck all the rules and shit. The entire point is just to separate a bunch of super warriors from the rest of the citizenry.

>>21922263
Exposition sucks and your story constantly needs new elements being added to it to remain interesting. There is literally nothing wrong with making shit up as you go along.

>>21922263
as the other anon said, magic and systems are conceptually opposed. The whole point of magic is that it's spontaneous.

How is everyone's WIP coming along? I just hit Chapter 5. Trying to wrap it up but pulling nails to do so. Anyone else at a brick wall?

>>21922458
Nice!
I'm currently editing 2 chapters of third book a day. Fuck editing!

I am currently writing a short story that I will post here im /wg/. I promised it to be posted ere the end of last October, and at the end of the November before. Currently trying to wrangle my attention deficit brain to write.

>>21922458
I've been editing three paragraphs for 30 mins.

>>21922468
I keep telling myself that I'll finish my first draft and feel super accomplished, and I'm sure that's true if I do, but I cannot imagine the mountain before me in editing. I have a tough enough time trying not to peel back over chapters and fix them. I wish you well.

>>21922473
I had a day like that last week and I thought about quitting altogether. You'll hit that stride, anon. If anything, come back to it later. I know it's frustrating, but it did work for me.

>>21920648
>active verb
>active
People are still peddling this bullshit?

>>21921915
Fine. Keep telegraphing your jealousy.
Because there’s something about knowing you’re useless that eats away at the human spirit.
>>21922207
Why? Other than your own personal tastes?

>>21922473
It's okay. I've been editing my first page for 2 weeks. Posted it on /wg/, get it shat on, redo it, get it shat on again, redo it, and get it shat on again.

Now I'm on my 1000000th edit/rewrite. I don't want to bother /wg/ again after my last defeat.

>>21922510
Do it again, pussy

>>21922517
https://pasteio.com/xFutfPz3uroF

If you insist. Now you can copy/paste and shit on it easier.

>>21922484
>>21922510
Thanks anons. I'm intending to submit this piece for publication and perfectionism is starting to paralyze me. I don't know how to get the stick out of my ass

Yay! I earned $5!!!

>>21922522

I'll start with things I liked.
I think the first sentence is good. It grabs you. I know who the story is about, what the story is about, and what the conflict seems to be. I also think your voice is improving, I lurked the first few drafts of it. Your descriptions, long-winded in certain sections, do conjure up some decent imagery. I like your usage of words.

Now I will get to the things I would personally improve and share some advice. You can take it or leave it because I am a stranger to you.

First, you call attention to Adah's eye color.
There is a time and place for describing character appearance, and I know you're eager to introduce the hero to our dear reader, but putting description, even light description, changes the perception of the character entirely. Where I had been imagining a hard-working knight who was drowning beneath a current of paperwork, I was ripped out by the green eyes bit, personally. It's a striking feature, one that is out of place with the bleakness in the rest of your scene. I'm not saying she can't have green eyes, I'm just saying it's not important right at that moment if I were writing it. The same issue happens toward the end. You jump into a description of Cassandra right after you just divulged a bunch of information on the job titles, the other characters, and the region itself. I feel as though there is so much information here presented at once. It may be better to pad it out and release tidbits of information here and there over the course of your draft.

Take it, leave it, it's your draft. I hope something I said resonates or helps at all.

>>21922603
Thanks anon. I do appreciate it. I can shove her green eyes later in the chapter.

To be honest, this chapter wasn't the first chapter originally. The first chapter was originally the second chapter, but people complained they didn't know about the other characters before they died.

I didn't think their backstory or description was all that important before I offed them. But some earlier readers felt they wanted and needed to care for the other 4 members of the D-2 team before they died. All the reader needed to know Adah was left alone in the middle of the forest with 4 missing people, but the earlier readers insisted on more world building.

This balance is really making me scratch my noggin.

>>21922713
The simple answer is that different people have different preferences, and you're never going to satisfy everyone.

>>21922537
Congrats, anon

>>21922473
>>21922484
lol I'm in the same spot
I knocked out my rewrites of my Prologue and Chapter 1 in one week and now Chapter 2 refuses to budge

>>21921668

A fair criticism in some ways. Firstly, I want to say I am absolutely not fluffing for word count. I don't care for the word count at all, I'm writing what I want to write and what I think needs to be said.

Secondly, for your consideration, the info dumps are serving dual purposes in these early chapters. Firstly, they help to fill the space in what would otherwise just be "MC went to the pub" or "MC sat his ass in a wagon". He isn't strong yet, so the chapters can't be filled with fight scenes or anything. So it helps to fill space early where there is little other that realistically CAN be said in the first place while also doubling as world building.

I think you're right about giving the demon lord a name, though. I might back-edit that in.

>Keep in mind it is still better then most of the sites usual fare
Thank you!

>>21922522
I've seen your stuff for a while now. You're definitely getting better. Just keep writing and never give up.

We're all gonna make it bros

The dopamine numbers, they just keep going up

>>21923017
I got the achievement for 50k views today and my ape brain made the happy energy.

>>21923030

>50k views
>Still only 13 ratings

Do people just not do ratings frequently or what?

>>21922458
Im at a brick wall. Feels like im waddling through mud. My destination is over there so i have to force myself through it

>>21923036
I recall a statistic that only about 5% of people who play a game on steam leave reviews, and only 10% of people who use twitter make up over 90% of all posts. Reading is active, but going to actually leave a review or a rating takes the slightest bit of time and people don't bother. I imagine part of it is also because you would just go to your follow list and then right into the next chapter instead of needing to look at the main page. I think that 83 followers with 13 ratings isn't terrible, but I don't know the stats of other stories.

>>21923038
I've definitely had chapters like that. Most chapters I can start at word one and then make my way to the end. Sometimes fighting every sentence, sometimes smooth as butter. Every now and then I get a chapter where it will just not come out, so I write the scene in the chapter I'm trying to get to and then work backwards writing the scenes that would get there and then I create little bridges connecting them all together. Maybe try that, if you can.

>>21923054
I think im just a bit burned out from writing so much and forcing my ideas out of my head. Sometimes i feel pressured to finish everything at once because im paranoid i might die in a random car accident or something

>>21920125
I write at least 2500 words a day, but IMO that's just stupid. Mostly because you are pushing the ideas out at that point. I wrote 8 pages today and hate every single one of them because I felt forced to write them just so I can move the story along. It's mediocre and shit. And the people who champion this notion of 2k words per day tend to be mediocre and shitty writers, their prolific nature doesn't improve your writing. That idea of spending 10,000 hours on a skill to make you a professional only squares if you are learning and improving all the while. Do those guys who have 1 million word long stories on AO3 actually write well? No, of course not. A guy like King (who really pushes this idea) only became famous because he writes edgy things and was very good at marketing himself. Asimov (another guy who wrote something around 3,500 words per day for 30 years) was the very definition of an Ideal Guy but he was writing during a time when publishers were hungry for Science Fiction, and consequently he was extremely successful. But I really do think you just need to look at all the shit writers like myself who can easily hit that mark to know it's a bogus standard.

>>21923144
I agree, the idea that you need to write X number of words in a day doesn't mean much.
I edited a chapter of my story and took it down by 400 words. I wrote roughly 4000 words last night, and already that is 10% of my output that ultimately isn't going to see the light of day, I might scrap more before I am done.

do you guys ever workshop queries or should I start a separate thread for that? I've been writing and rewriting my query pitch and it sounds so fucking corny.

I just want people to have enjoyed their time spent reading what I wrote.

>>21923262
I've never seen it, but then again I don't look at this thread every day. I'm also not going down the route of trying to locate a publisher. The way the book I am writing is constructed sort of puts it outside of what I think any large publisher would touch due to the very high production costs. Consequently, I am going to crowdfund it and spend a disgusting amount of money on promotion to capture the money I need to actually bring it to market. Afterward, presuming I can successfully raise the money, I am going to see about distribution (other than direct market) but that feels like a bit of a meme now that I've seen the stats on sales.

Writing as an ESL is a nightmare.
I have to constantly doubt myself and the way I form sentences always seems off to me.
But writing in English is really my only option.
Over the years of speaking, listening, reading and consuming content all in English, it became more refined than my birth languange, as I didn't have many opportunities to engage with it. Writing in my language also seems cringe (for some reason) and extremely unproductive to me.
I'm stuck in a language limbo.

I notice I use a lot of "as"-s when describing what is happening in a story...
Is that a sign of bad writing?

>>21923443
I hate it

>>21923036
You'd think people love rating stuff, but clearly not.

>>21923330
>I have to constantly doubt myself and the way I form sentences always seems off to me.

Then you have what it takes to learn and improve.

>>21923535

Impressive numbers anon

>>21923262
>genre
NGMI

>>21922458
I keep saying it's done and working on it and lying to myself about how much I've finished. Poor discipline in writing manuscripts but have stacks of incredibly detailed essays and outlines.
I am editing chapter 3 particularly this half of the week. I think one problem is my mind has already shifted to another story. I need to stay focused on what I find compelling with the WIP.

>>21923882
Overcome the shiny new object syndrome, anon. You can do it.

Can anyone recommend me a list or compendium of short story competitions or magazines or whatever which might actually be worth submitting to?

Feel like the process of being forced to submit stuff would be good for my.

Should I make a whole post for this?

>>21923030
what platform is this?

>Character is supposed to be going to a fucked up party
>I'm very plain and don't know what a fucked up party looks like

>>21924035
Time for some hands-on research.

>>21922537
BASED

>>21922537
>Yay! I earned $5!!!

>>21922537
Congrats!

>dealing with discrimination and racism
too bad, I thought you were based.

>>21924008
Royal Road.

>>21924147
It's a story about a Chinaman going to America in the 1800's. And it's not some nonsense about needing to beat the white man. And there are chapters where it's the white man gets discriminated. It's really a more traditional take on the subject matter instead of this woke nonsense we read in stories today.

I also wanted to try to traditionally publish, and leaned on stuff they wanted, and still failed. So who knows what agents want

>>21924332
NTA, I remember you now. I was in these threads about 10 months ago give or take. Congrats on finally finishing the story.

>>21924332
Alright that *does* sound good.
But currently I don't have 10 bucks to spare on bread and wine, much less a book, so maybe I'll read it some other time.

>>21924336
Thanks
>>21924363
I'll put it on Royal road or Wattpad. May as well, not getting readers just throwing it into the void. And if you want a physical copy you can always buy it later.

One thing I don't like about RR is the ability for people to copy and paste my work.

>>21924332
What was your attempt at tradpublishing like? How many queries did you send out and did you receive any personalized rejections? It sounds exactly like what they want these days and interesting to boot (maybe it's because the characters are male and not female kek)

I've edited a female protagonist so that she has a secret crush on a fellow student, but is too shy to tell him. Which is contrasted with her generally formidable, no-nonsense outside persona.

I based the character off Fiona Frost from SpyxFamily.

>>21924375
Don't.
Do one of those, first 1-2 chapters free, membership/one-time purchase later.

>>21924398
120 or so. I got about 10 of them past the initial stage but ultimately passed. I just chalked it up to my writing not being good enough and no romance.

>>21924477
I read the first chapter on kindle and it reads fine. It's the agents and editors job at the houses to edit it to market. And they still won't do it.

>writing a short story set in a fictional Caribbean banana republic
>the semi-autocratic president has a double
>the double is having an affair with a sexy Russian femdom mommy
>the Americans want to install a new president who is named after the parrot from Three Caballeros
>a famous poet is running for president as well
I'm having fun. Are you having fun?

>>21924535
lost me after the first three lines.
>dropped.

>>21924547
Oh snab :D
You better keep reading or else

>>21924535
Most of my writing is only sorta fun. But one day out of the week I work on my doorstopper which hopefully will have lots of esoteric references and experimental writing style by the time it's done.

>>21924562
>Trying to threaten me to care about a stale rehashment of political intrigue.
You'll go far in this world my crustacean friend.

>>21924582
>rehashment of political intrigue
It's just classic cold war era spy fiction like James Bond of Pynchon's V.
Or Red Alert

>>21924590
>its this thing that's been done to death.
>that's right its this thing that's been done to death!
anon i...

How do you not fuck up a narrator who's directly telling his story to the reader as if he is in the same room/in his mind/in a letter?

what are some stories that do this? The only one I know of is Good Old Neon by DFW

>>21924605
I'll do you to death
*unzips knife*

>>21924636
>P-p-please stop and just l-listen to me anon...I-I'M TRYING TO HELP YOU!

>>21924605
I thought you were just upset because I mentioned Russia but you were just some dummy who can't appreciate sexy KGB women

>>21924630
what do you mean fuck up? if you want to do a story like that make the guy telling the story some guy talking to his court mandated shrink or his lawyer or his confessor. an excellent example of this I mentioned a few threads back is The Usual Suspects, where the guy telling the story is giving his statement to a police detective. alternately, if it's in written form, make it a manifesto.
I still don't know what you mean by fuck up tho

>>21924653
>I was into cat-suited Russians sloots before you were in yer diapers Johnny!

>>21924630
The Turn of the Screw
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Frankenstein
Dracula
The Moonstone (<- great, several entertaining examples of the epistolary narrator)
just to name a few off the top of my head. 18th and 19th-century lit has a wealth of this kind of format, as it was insanely popular at the time. If you want modern examples, maybe someone else can help you.

>>21924674
God he's based.

>>21924659
yeah idk what I was thinking. I think the term is "frame narrative."
The story I'm thinking of writing involves the narrator talking to some spirit or presence in his mind which I was thinking of having be the reader but I don't think it'll work since the reader is ultimately reading it and not listening, so maybe it should just be some stand-in. Once the narrator stops telling his story I was also thinking of switching it to 3rd person for the final chapter to tie everything up but I don't know if that's a good idea.

>>21924590
Red Alert isn't a great book. It's not like Kubrick is choosing books on how good or famous they are, because he's looking for books that his movie can overshadow.

>>21924701
>book
Anon...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_U59u69tys

>>21920117
Literally just fed every line of a chapter into CHATGPT and it wrote it so much better than I did. I give up, writing is dead.

>>21924710
Only in paragraph form. If you put it into a long form it reads like an academic essay . It uses very little literary techniques to make the reading less dull

>>21924477
Jesus that's bleak. You passed? Just tired of playing the game?

>>21924710
>did the same thing.
>mine is better

>>21924719
You're right, I'm just anxious about the amount of times a sentence stumped me today and just putting it into this fucking robot just instantly solved the problem. I know I would have gotten there naturally, but this method just allows me move on and get my pages out.

Feels bad, man.

>>21924736
Why does it feel bad to use a tool which improves your process and craft?

>>21924722
Just got tired of writing queries every night. And the more I did it the more I realized it's not worth the trouble. The biggest names and books today have publishers seek out the author and not the other way around. I hitching my horse on this business model.

Look at Coleen Hoover, Erin Mortensen and Andy Weir. Even Delia Owens. She just wrote crawdads for fun. With YouTube and social media, the author becomes a business themselves. Publishers are now forced to go out and find books.

>>21924743

>>21924659
also, doesn't it get kinda ridiculous when you have a narrator telling a story to his lawyer or whatever that takes 7 hours to read? I guess you'd have to work in some breaks between. How would that work? I can only see that working if the primary narrator is the guy who the secondary narrator is talking to.

either way, I was thinking more about the narrator addressing the reader directly or at least some stand-in for the reader who doesn't talk as if they were in his mind or something.

What do I do with the ~180,000 word sword and sorcery short story collection I wrote? Trad publishing is out because there's no market for short story collections right? Do I split up each story and try to sell them to fantasy magazines or do I self publish?

>>21923535
Beyond the content and quality of the story, is getting a lot of views just really based on the quantity you put out for an individual story? I have seven chapters posted at about 17k words and I’ve only gotten 160 views.

>>21924796
>How would that work?
you have 2 plots going at once. the present day one, very limited in scope, and the longer story your narrator tells. then both stories intersect at the end. so for the guy talking to his public defender you start the story in present tense in the present, he's in jail and they get acquainted. then his story starts. the breaks that occur you have the lawyer give the guy a brief update on his case and then he asks for more clarifying details about something he read in the file. the whole story can physically take place in an interrogation room, it just may take multiple days of time to do so. which isn't a big deal.

> I was thinking more about the narrator addressing the reader directly or at least some stand-in for the reader who doesn't talk as if they were in his mind or something.
a confessor would be an appropriate means of doing this. he can ask the guy to come back at later dates. of course in these stories the mc character would probably be the lawyer/confessor

>>21924803
how many stories?
honestly I'd release them on royal road or scribblehub, use that as an opportunity to get readers and feedback, and then you should release them on kindle afterwards

>>21922537
I'm liking it anon but haven't finished it yet. When the fuck am I getting my copy of The Emily Project?

>>21924749
I see... Waldun and Daniel Greene made tons of money off their platforms instead of getting a publisher.

>>21924859
9, one is novella length and the rest are short stories.

>>21924833
I think that a more important stat is the average views. He has 270k views with an average of nearly 1500. I've got 50k views with 350 average. His story is twice as long as mine, but his average is 5x mine.

>>21924759
Delete this

I've always wondered if contemporary literature sucks because we're only publishing "marginalized" ""voices"" without an iota of real talent, with nothing to say, with little practice, who refuse to engage with the great works of the artform.
And then I read /wg/, a general filled with white male writers, and realize that I was wrong. There's just no talent anymore.

>>21924847
I'm not thinking about a confessor as a real physical person. The narrator is not exactly in the real world when telling the story. I want the confessor to be a silent listener or presence which the reader can easily put himself into, or maybe the presence itself is the reader(that detail is not really important).
To illustrate: It would look like to an outsider that the narrator is talking to himself, but there is actually something listening to him in his mind, not that anyone would see him since the narrator is, again, outside reality at the moment (ok, he's in a dream reliving memories), and he wouldn't even have to speak out loud since the listener can hear his thoughts. I'm just unsure about this formula, that it might rely too much on suspension of disbelief.

>>21924902
did you write anything?

>>21924902
I'll admit, that was a funny bit of crabbery.

>>21924902

Well lets see your work if you're so great.

Request source for this quote. I thought it might be Henry James, but don’t believe so now
It goes something like…

“Life is a slow advance into enemy territory”

>>21924749
Thanks for answering. I don't want to become a brand, bros. Is there any hope?
https://www.authormedia.com/2022-social-media-marketing-guide-for-authors/
> Trolls are using Goodreads to extort money from authors. The threat goes something like this: “Pay me $100, or my army of bots will give you 100 1-star reviews saying you are a racist.”
kek. it's so fucking over

>>21924865
Thanks anon! You should probably buy the newer version

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BFTWLL86

>>21924833
I have no idea. When you look at RR's front page, there are stories that are barely two weeks old, have only a handful of chapters posted, yet already have 3000+ followers and hundreds of thousands of pageviews. They might not even have very good ratings. And then there are others that are entirely ignored. Even though both might be in the same genre and just as shit.

I guess the popular guys just have more friends outside RR.

>>21924939
Lol that's just sad..

>>21924939
And I thought we crabbed each other

>>21924939
How is that even a threat? You just report it to GR with evidence it was blackmail and they get banned, and should remove reviews with a certain timeframe if not all of them. As long as you are getting people talking about the book the real reviews should keep coming in, if not do a book giveaway or the standard things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4waw6W7V_cA

I'm only going to share my novel with one internet friend but I've been procrastinating for months because I'm terrified of putting myself out there. It's ended in disaster so many times that writing becomes emotionally draining.

>>21924907
okay. but the question is: why do you want to do it like that? how does doing it that way add value to the story?

>>21925137
what do you mean by value?
because it removes unnecessary secondary narrators? Because it puts the reader in the story? Because that is the story? His story is not something a confessor(he's not Christian nor European), or a lawyer, or a detective, has any interest in hearing. It's just him speaking to the audience.

>>21925095
You really should share it anonymously here. Especially if you've written a book before. The anonymity helps get more honest opinions based on the work alone and your new works won't get compared to your older ones.

>>21925192
>It's just him speaking to the audience.
okay. but what does the reader gain from having the story told that way as opposed to 3rd person? if he was in prison and narrating his autobiography to himself and then at the end of the book he escapes, that would be a valuable use of having a narrator like that. if he's simply sitting in a formless void and he's rambling on and then the story ends, there's no value gained from telling the story like that. it's kind of a letdown because the reader will be expecting some sort of development that never comes.

im gonna die in irrelevancy arent i?

>>21925214
In these cases it's usually some combination of bad cover, bad description, bad tags, slow initial updates, or bad first chapter.

>>21925214
if you go running for the razors right now, yes. but don't dump your chapters. get a schedule and stick to it

>>21925203
That is a good idea but people on here have torn my writing to shreds and only deepened my fears.

>>21925238
have you tried being less of a fag?

>>21925238
share it anyway. get hit and get back up. im >>21925214 and theres nothing worse than getting no feedback at all

>>21925238
How can you get better if you don't know where you're going wrong?

>>21925238
Good. People tore my writing to shreads too, but look at the new comments:

>>21922603
>>21922855
Praises anon. Praises! Keep going. I even think one of us is a legit published author or editor trying to score the next big book. No way publishers are trowing around here and reddit to get the jump on the "next big thing." All the movie deals, rights, toys and whatnot are too big of a temptation to pass up.

>>21925214
since you didn't even link to it, yes

>>21925205
>but what does the reader gain from having the story told that way as opposed to 3rd person?
that's obvious. It allows the story to be told from his perspective, which is unreliable. If he's writing an autobiography, he can edit out his mistakes and contradictions.

>if he's simply sitting in a formless void and he's rambling on and then the story ends, there's no value gained from telling the story like that. it's kind of a letdown because the reader will be expecting some sort of development that never comes.
I think you are assuming things that you have no context for now. Did I tell you that there wouldn't be any sort of development? and a dream is not simply a formless void, the man is literally walking down memory lane. he's not rambling, he's telling a story whilst intermittently commenting on it.

>>21925242
>>21925251
>>21925245
>>21925251
The trouble is most people on here just say my stuff is cringeworthy shit and it makes me seem like I'm a pussyless faggot which, however true, only brings me down.

>>21925253
you want me to shill? okay
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/66296/himemonogatari

>>21925279
>Life sucked and it wasn't getting any better for anyone. People lived in a grey world and reveled in their sorrow. Though they could move their hands they never sought to change their circumstance around. Made worse was underlying shadows creeping under the world's feet. If no one was going to act then the Protagonist would as a protagonist should. Taking the role as the world's savior, a hero of light, the protagonist would be followed by a party of like minded individuals rejected by society for choosing to paint the world in color rather than grey. Kindness and compassion was the solution, or so it should be. This was not only their new beginnings but also their new ends.
Protagonist? Seriously? Did chatgpt write this absolute generic as generic gets slop? Be honest.

>>21925279
Anon, your description/summary is way too generic and could be applied to almost anyone or anything. Why should we, the potential readers, care about your protagonist in particular? There must be some reason, otherwise you wouldn't bother writing your story, right? Name the protag in your synopsis. Talk about the traits that make him stand out and the aspects of your story that make it unique among millions of others.
Also, the title is not doing it any favors in terms of standing out. I guarantee that these two factors are contributing to your low views.

>>21925308
>>21925325
filtered....

>>21925354
given the number of views we're in good company
fix that shit, retard

>>21923262
i can't for the life of me come up with comp titles, especially ones under 2 years old. fuck agents who demand that.

whatever summary i come up with never encapsulates the entire work, at best i get a small piece of it, and it never seems good enough and always feels like a bit of a lie. plus whenver i write, the first couple chapters are always somewhat uninteresting compared to the rest of the book, because i have nothing to work with yet because i haven't set up anything. (i am NOT talking about info dumping or "world building"). they dont know who these characters are or what is going on, and if there's a complicated situation that unfolds over the course of events that isn't going to be apparent in the first page or two, which is all agents bother to read, if anything. i can have nice writing, i can throw in some kind of hook, but it all feels cheap. there's nothign to be done about it but it's so god damned frustrating

not that i would ever get published anyway because i'm not a brown faggot with an mfa living in brooklyn

>>21925354
>filtered
>posts picture of Seudeo Hackjima.
I'll get back to this when I read your story, but your post makes you look like a huge faggot.

Is everyone here literally just writing great big bloated 100,000 word le fantasy epics talking about fetching water from the well and magic swords and characters like Glythwnediel and Brømbolom etc?
Is anyone here writing short stories? Taut prose?

>>21925483
join me in the effort to expel /sffg/ manchildren from /wg/

>>21920832
if you got stabbed in the head you wouldn't be thinking about anything. You'd lose consciousness almost instantly.

>>21925483
I'm writing short stories inspired by the Gothic tradition as well as some mystery novels, but I know how well those are received on /lit/ so I just give feedback and advice and never share anything.

>>21925483
Wing wrote a historical fiction and 2 people bought it.

>>21925510
>Wing wrote
Tf is wing?

>>21925483
I would write something else, but fantasy romance is by far and large the genre that gets the readers. Why write a war story if nobody wants to read it?

>>21925517
KK Wing
aka
Ku Klux Wing
the slant eyed slope slaughtering king

>>21925521
Because it matters to you and for the love of craft

>>21925517
This guy
>>21922537

>>21925525
writing a fantasy war is less politically charged because you can't glorify any modern conflict because they've all been in proxy wars in shithole countries over communism, oil or israeli interests. modern audiences don't have a respect for kino wars like crimea or the 1st world war and the 2nd world war is just evil europe white people bad. so I'll write a war story but it's going to involve fantasy because it'll help prevent me from getting cancelled and because modern war has no glory whatsoever

>>21925483
I'm not like those other fantasy writers I hope

>>21925549
nlogging sffg

>>21925582
I don't have a high enough power level to know what this means

>>21925483
I am writing a Gothic short story, though I think it’ll need much editing before I post it here for criticism.

>>21925668
I'm >>21925503 and looking forward to your story anon

>>21925483
I like to write fantasy and science fiction short stories, but I usually try to make them feel more grounded rather than your usual fantasy fare.
I only have one setting that I'd actually call high fantasy, and I just use that to tell adventure stories about navy captains and colonial wars (basically hornblower in a fantasy setting). The rest are usually just reality or an alternate history plus a couple fantastic elements.
I also try to stick to normal names, for example the main character of my fantasy stories is named Felix.

>>21925548
basically every war in history has been about money or property in some way or form. Even the absolute kino of the 19th century was all about rubber, wood, slaves. molasses, and occasionally land.

>>21920125
I have been trying to hit 2000 words every day. It makes a novel go by pretty quick. About to finish my third novel and start my fourth. Instead of writing, I ate some popcorn and came here.

>>21925214
Publishing on RR, yes. Absolutely.

>>21925684
names can be tough. the protagonist characters I have use british names (england, ireland, scotland) but for the others I'm thinking more eastern european and persian. so the royal family's name I think is Teres, from the greek - or at least one of the more important noble character's surname is Teres. the vampire girl's first name is going to be Talia, because vampires are, of course, jewish and homosexual

>>21925279
I'll be real fampai. First two lines didn't hook me and that was enough to look away and resume my shitposting.

>>21925723
What a coincidence, I had a vampire in one of my stories. I gave him more of a Transylvanian sounding name. I never ended up using him though, and now I can't remember what it was. I did the race of bat people who all had Hungarian or Romanian sounding names.
Place names are the really hard part. I always struggle coming up with place names that fit the mood and don't sound like made up bullshit.

>>21925761
For the city I'm calling it Ziena, after pic related. pic related is also related to the mc's internal conflict, as wel, her name's Katel. its a hugely important trade city they thought they were just going to be passing through on the way to their final destination, but due to inclement weather (heavy snowfall) and the fact that the city has been hit with plague it's currently under quarantine and they find they can't leave like they thought then could. when she sees the city in the distance it's got clouds of smoke above it because they're burning corpses, not just because it's winter.

>>21925787
*Kate, not Katel. katel isn't a very english name I don't think

How's this for an opening to a short story?


“Jesus, look at that thing.” Jeff said, peering through the view port. It sat on the ground in the corner of the cell. It was shaped roughly like a person, but it obviously wasn't human. Pale white skin stretched over a narrow, sinewy frame. Boney fingers, ended with sharp, knife-like, claws, hung from long, slender arms. The legs were slim, muscular, and like the arms, disproportionately long. Its head slouched forward between its knees. The face, obscured by long masses of frayed white hair, which fell to its shoulders, down its back, and over its chest. Though Jeff wasn't sure how much of that was hair. It had rough white fur running from its shoulders down its arms and chest.

“Oh, you don't know the half of it.” Mike replied, taking a sip of his coffee.

Jeff kept his eyes fixed on the creature, “What do you mean?”

Mike took another sip of his coffee, then stepped behind Jeff to get a better view, “That's subject 14, came in about six months ago. Its sent four people to ER since then.”

“Really?” Jeff said.

“Yeah, its got a nasty bite. If it bites you-” Mike pauses to take a bite of his doughnut. “you'll have to get stuck with three different anti-venoms, and a load of antibiotics.”

“Shit.” Jeff responded.

Mike finished his doughnut, then took another swig off coffee, “That's not even the worst part, damn thing's smart too. Breached containment three separate times. Now we can't even feed it without two armed guards present.”

“I'm really starting to regret taking this job.” Jeff said, turning back to the view port. He shuddered when he saw it, looking right at him. Its eyes shined white as it stared at him. Its jaws, canine in shape, were strong and thick. As he stared, its lips peeled back to reveal rows of jagged yellow teeth that twisted into a crooked smile.

He jolted back as the view port slammed shut. Mike took his hand from the view port control panel “You'll be fine as long, as you follow the safety protocols.”

>>21925888
>Though Jeff wasn't sure how much of that was hair.
I'd drop the 'though' at the start, just sounds better to me.
>It had rough white fur running from its shoulders down its arms and chest.
I think that talking about its hair and then the fur reads oddly to me, like you wrote the first part and then tacked on the part about the fur. I don't have an exact way to make it read better, and it might not bother other people.
>“Yeah, its got a nasty bite. If it bites you-” Mike pauses to take a bite of his doughnut. “you'll have to get stuck with three different anti-venoms, and a load of antibiotics.”
I'd drop either the 'nasty bite' or 'if it bites you'. Having both back to back is repetitive.
Also, too many spaces between lines, makes the whole thing disconnected even though this is more or less a single conversation broken up only by the description.

>>21925948
The line spaces are there because 4chan fucks up indentation. They're just to make it easier to tell when the paragraphs end. They aren't present in the actual work itself.

>>21925888
>"Really?" Jeff said
cut Jeff said
>"Shit." Jeff responded
cut Jeff respnded
I think you have the dialogue punctuation backwards, commas where periods should go and then periods where commas should be
>"Jesus, look at that thing," Jeff said, peering through the view port
>Jeff kept his eyes fixed on the creature. "What do you mean?"

>>21922537
You know what. I'm buying your book. Better be good, fucker.

>>21925437
>comp titles

>>21925888
Are you aware of SCP?
https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/

>>21926299
Its more of an umbrella corporation type thing going on than an scp foundation.

>>21926307
You say potato, I say potato...

>>21925888
Why do people keep mixing up tenses? Like don't they read what they write?

>>21926321
Well one's collecting supernatural horrors, the other's creating unnatural horrors.

Does anyone have an awkward time with describing people's appearances, especially their clothing? It's important and I always feel like I'm glossing over it with "He wore a grey coat"
Especially when I'm talking about nameless background citizens and the like

>>21926414
my big problem with character descriptions is that when a character enters dramatically, it reads bad to stop the action to spend a paragraph describing them

>>21926419
Kek I'm dealing with this exact issue as we speak and came to /wg/ to procrastinate.
>>21926414
if they're a nameless citizen, do they need any description?

i'm going to do it. I'm recording an audiobook of my own novel. i did the first section and it is passable, and i'll get better with practice. i garble my words sometimes but retakes on lines are easy if i do them immediately. and audacity is easy enough to use for something this basic.

downside, turns out the sound of swiping the laptop touchpad to scroll down is audible in the recording so i have to read off my phone

>>21926414
>It's important
no, it really isn't, not unless it's distinct and out of the ordinary. like a sailor on ship, there's no reason to describe his clothes, if you say scraggly beard that's more than enough your reader already has an image in their mind's eye

>>21924736
I don't undersyand, do people have trouble forming sentences? My only issue is precise word choice or specific structure for the sake of subtlety or greater allusion, which I can't imagine a chat AI could help with at all because what I'm trying to do is use language to match an extremely autistic vision/feeling in my head.

Like a chatbot can communicate an idea in words, but it can't communicate ten different contradictory senses in words at the same time.

If anything I think AI art is much better at this because it's innate incompetence due to flaws in the process allows the viewer to project more onto the composition, which is much simpler in a visual medium than in writing.

Decided to start writing a novel I had an idea for recently, here's the opening paragraph, any advice anons, its got problems, but I think it has potential.
>Dawn lay just over an hour or so away he presumed, based off of the growing chatter as >the robins and cardinals arose from their sleep and called out into the early morning >gloom which was patchily broken by the neatly spaced street light shortly protruding >from their worn wooden pillars. He should go to sleep he thought to himself, soon the sun >would be up, and so would his parents, and the clamour and light surely would interrupt >any attempts to fall asleep, but he had all but any chance of falling asleep at this time had >all but been put to rest when he took that Adderall at half past one.

What 5 "classes" goes against these 5?

Paladin
Priestess
Fairy Elementalist
Barbarian
Rogue

I'm writing a silly fantasy story in which the Dark Lord needs to gather 4 other companions to do battle against those 5, but can't think of any classes to fight against the 5 typical hero classes.

>>21926821
Fuck just realized I fucked up formatting, plus made error in the last sentence.

>>21926821
>The robins and cardinals arose from their sleep and called out into the early morning gloom which was patchily broken by the neatly spaced street light shortly protruding from their worn wooden pillars.
This doesn't even make sense.
>He should go to sleep he thought to himself, soon the sun would be up, and so would his parents, and the clamour and light surely would interrupt any attempts to fall asleep, but he had all but any chance of falling asleep at this time had all but been put to rest when he took that Adderall at half past one.
Nor does this.

Just write
>Any attempts to fall asleep would fail because he took Adderall at 1:30.

>>21926822
>Paladin
Deathknight or another Paladin i.e a zealot for a god considered evil by your hero paladin, might not even need to make him directly evil.
>Priestess
Poisoner/Hexer whose attacks actively fight against miracles.
>Fairy Elementalist
I don't really know what that means. So I'm going to assume it has something to do with fairy tricks. If that is the case then some kind of anti-magic class who dispels illusions.
>Barbarian
Archer/Ranger who fights from a distance. Bonus points if some kind of ratman who can slip around in places that the barbarian is too physically large to chase him through.
>Rogue
Perhaps druid or blood mage who uses transformation magic to give themselves more heads/more/better eyes to negate their attempts at sealth.

>>21926835
thanks!

>>21926828
I'll just add semi-colons and conjunctions to the first sentence, I fucked up the second part though I do realize.

>3rd day of editing
>Where does 'and' go?
>Where does 'as' belong?
>WHAT EVEN IS 'WHILE'?!?!?!?

Does anyone know how a Baron would address an Earl? Because I sure as shit don't.

>>21927587
>Hey Earl
>Hey Crabman

>>21926419
You finish the action then describe. If I come in to your home and start banging your wife in front of you, you may notice how big my cock is, or what color my skin is, or hair color, but you’re going to be more focused on getting me to stop fucking her and will only notice sharper details later once you got my meat club out of her. Or one hopes, anyway.

>>21925483
I write literary fiction and have a few short stories under my belt
>taut prose
Do I look like I have talent?

>>21927587
I am pretty sure it would be "my Lord" or "your Lordship". I have no idea how it would work the other way around.

>>21927642

I could accept "Your Lordship", but I don't think "My Lord" would be appropriate? The Baron I'm referring to doesn't serve under the Earl in question, they're from across the country, doesn't "My Lord" imply the Baron would be serving under him?

>>21927587
Both would use Lord to the other when speaking.

>>21920125
4800 words instead
Get on my level. In fact, some of you 4chan niggaz ain’t even Ridahz!!! Ahhhh!!!

>>21927587
Both would use Lord or your Lordship to the other when speaking.

>>21927664

Got it, thank you.

>>21925483
My story is a European travel romp about a man being chased down by a psychopathic boy and having lots of sex with locals/expats and doing drugs.

>>21925483
Why the false dichotomy between fantasy fiction and short stories?

>>21920706
That makes it sound even more like cringy anime bullshit, frankly.

>>21920832
The repeated line sounds more than a little off, and the content makes no sense. A person stabbed in the head cannot perceive anything because they’re dead, unless of course this is a work of fiction in which someone can survive a fatal wound to the brain and I’m just missing the context.

I know my idea is good goddamn it

>>21920952
Sounds pretty good, but I hope that you’re just writing this for fun. No publisher in their right mind will pick up your manuscript, and even if you self publish, I doubt that anyone would buy a copy. When there are dozens of other epics, romantic or otherwise, how can your work hope to compete with the old greats?

That said, don’t give up on my account, and feel free to ignore my warnings. If you write with passion and believe in your work, you should keep at it regardless of what people say.

>>21927929
Ideas are cheap. A good idea is worthless without a proper execution. A bad idea well done can still work. Get to work!

>>21922263
The biggest mistake of magic systems is focusing on them too much. On general principle, your story should come first, and while there should be some consistency to maintain the reader’s suspension of disbelief, spending too much time on developing your exposition before the actual writing will kill the spontaneity and discovery of your writing - for both the reader and yourself.

Work on the characters and the thematics of the magic as it relates to the to plot, then remember to maintain a little consistency. Then you’re golden.

>>21927911

Just admit you hate high fantasy, anon.

>>21926088
I hope you do anon!

>>21927931

I think the real big issue is... very few people read in the first place, statistically speaking.

How many people do you think really crack open a book for entertainment? Even something /wg/ likes to shit on like litrpg, which is supposed to be muh mass anime appeal?

>>21927941
>Get to work!
I'M GONNA FUCKING WOOOOOOOORK

>>21927992
I will get it too but I got behead all satans and chicken world recently too. Need to get Oggie's recent novel too.
One of these days I will have a bookcase that is all /lit/.

>>21928041
Based patron of the arts

I used to have story ideas and didn't know how to build the scenes to make the story
now I have scene ideas and don't know how to make a story out of them

>>21928090
Yeah, same. I have both, I just can't, or rather, I'm not sure how to put them together.
Like trying puzzle pieces out. Keep at it.

>>21928090
Brainstorm about the scenes and find a common theme. Some scenes and sometimes were meant for other stories, but sometimes you can make it work.

>>21927922
I’ll retune it and I’ll have it so he knew at once he was dead by seeing the blade coming for him instead of feeling it in his head. Guy will die instantly and I’ll switch character perspectives there. But now I gotta find a way to keep the dog biting his head sensation line because I don’t want to lose it.

How do I write in a way that engages an audience and keeps them wanting to turn the page?

I like writing slow paced stories with tons of attention to detail, but I’m unsure whether or not I’d bore my audience with my tendency to go for long periods without any action happening.

>>21928212
write a mystery. use your focus on detail as a way of keeping the reader searching for potential clues.

>>21928212
Create "conflict," not necessarily drama or fighting but a kind of tension. You are trying to put ideas in the reader's head so he will anticipate what happens next. Then the reader has to turn the page to confirm what he suspects.
It could be things like
>why did that character look away
>does it have anything to do with that other character?
>why was this description so abnormal, this character seems like he's thinking about something else
>when are those two going to see eachother again?
>is this plan gonna work?
>what will they do if it doesnt?
>wait, was that character actually present at that e ent, how did he know that?
>that idea is pretty big, what does it mean for all these characters?
>i remember that gun now, it'd be really bad if that one character had it

Trying to write a short children's fantasy story/fairy tale. I planned on the girl having a 'curse' put on her by the fairy as a price for guiding her back home, and then she has to enlist the help of a hermit/sorcerer and under go a spiritual tribulation in the form of some sort of inner, hallucinatory journey Carlos Castaneda/Don Juan style but that might be a bit much for a children's tale.
Alternatively she can get fully spirited away and then the rest of the story would take place in this non-physical fairy realm, and I could do a little Alice in Wonderland surreal type of thing, but I'm not sure.

So I wrote a dialogue heavy chapter where two characters just hang out. It's intended to be a breather with some funny (at least I think they're funny) moments to take the edge off shit that's about to happen and also happened previously. Now the problem is that I'm about to do another chapter similar to this except I don't think I mentally can. Where that chapter was fun and a little nonsensical, every time I try to write for this next one it comes across as very opinionated. I recognize one of the characters is a shameless self insert to just make that character easier to write but everything I jot down is just my own moral-ground bullshit opinions about politics, how people act, consumerism, etc. It's fucking awful and I'm only just waking up to the idea that I find myself unbearable. So how can I essentially kill my ego? I heard LSD gives you something called Ego Death but I know 2 people who are now lifelong mentally fucked because they took a bad batch. What do?

>>21928367
>I'm about to do another chapter similar to this
then don't. as for the rest of it you may be a basic bitch political junkie - why though, all that shit is a distraction, at best - but normal people are not. unless your characters are actively involved in politics please don't bore your reader by having them yammer on about something like that. if you want to show it by having things happen, that's fine, that's visual, that at least allows for a little more ambiguity than having your self insert monologue at the reader.
but you already wrote chapter of pure bullshit, don't subject your reader to another one. as the author you may feel you need a break from the story, but I'd imagine your potential readers would disagree

>>21928367
Have you read Steinbeck? He does this, and yes he comes off as opinionated but if you work your way to it and have same space inbetween the scenes where the bros just sit down and talk, it should be fine.

How the hell do you introduce a great villain that isn't particularly powerful or strong but still intimidating? Every piece of advice is like "Shoe dere powea!" But that's useless if it's not that kind of book, he only kills one person throughout the book so it'd be silly to have him appear caked in blood. I really want to get it right

>>21928421
describe the villain's character and we'll have a better shot at helping you. like, what actually makes him a villain? a great villain, nonetheless

>>21928421
stop anime writing

>>21928421
Here is the thing, you cant be intimidating without power. Why fear someone who is weak? That being said, power comes in many forms. Judging from the post, I will assume you me someone who isn't physically strong, isn't physically intimidating. If you are writing a 5' 3" fucking nerd to be intimidating, you can have him ruin some actual dude for some sort of slight. The dude could be actively antagonizing him (though some buff bullying some nerd is a bit cliche), or some perceived slight. Maybe the dude didn't say hi to him, or accidentally said something he took umbrage with, something completely innocuous. He writes something down, or sends a text or some shit, later on he is stuffed in a suitcase, or the bank forecloses on his house. And the nerd guy is behind it all along. Some shit like that off the top of my head. It really depends on what kind of character you are going for. Pretty much, you need them to be able to do something, otherwise no one is going to care.

>he hangs out on discord rather than writing

>>21928421
Power can be done through presence. Go watch A Serious Man. There is a fantastic villain in the film who is extremely scummy and overpowering despite the fact that he never physically assaults anyone, kills anyone, nor makes verbal threats. On top of avoiding all the typical paths you would expect to show off "power" he's an ugly, fat, balding Jew.

Substack or Wordpress? I need something that won’t fucking hassle people wanting to read my stuff, for free.

>>21928437
I only posted griff because the villain is supposed to be effeminate. Books basically about a guy chased across Europe by a maniacal twink

>>21928429
>a great villain, nonetheless
Good point that did sound awful self confident.

I'm trying to explain him but he's supposed to be ambiguous, he has an advantage over the protag because he's (The protag) Is just a normal everyman whereas he is sadistic and doesn't care for the laws right? That sounded cringe but my meaning is just that he doesn't worry about making a scene, the thought of murder doesn't phase him like it does a normal person so he has the upper hand. I certainly wouldn't kill somebody at the drop of a hat at least. He's clever but mainly his strength just comes from the protags weakness. He cuts him off from his friends and tricks him into losing his money etcetc then he's isolated abroad it's weird. I just want it to be right

>>21928502
Yeah it's not confirmed but the dude may or may not have done some reprehensible shit to the guy so he's not bent of ruining his life basically.

>>21928552
Sounds good I'll give it a watch. Thanks aynon.

>>21920134
its okay, women aren't good writers anyway, you're saving yourself a lot of wasted time and needless heartache

>>21928610
he sounds like mafia. give him a smoking habit, give him a distinctive pair of gloves or alligator boots or something that shows he has money. give him a pair of hulking bodyguards, or a whole crew, he casually orders around and they snap to attention and say, yes Mr. so-and-so. even if in his opening scene you don't see him do anything evil, per se, the way others treat him will help cement his status in the mind of your reader

>>21928610
Honestly I am remembering Lin from Eggplant, which was from /lit/ of course.
Lin doesnt seem so bad at first but when you see the people around him, he begins to become far more creepy because you question how much of a friend he is.
I dont know the background of your villain but one good way to show he is bad is who he is surrounded by or juxtaposed with. Consider giving him a foil or two to highlight what characterstic you want readers to notice about him. Sometimes rumors or odd behavior, like Svidrigailov in Crime and Punishment makes him terrifying even though you dont see him do anything for a long time besides walk around.

I can't focus on my duties at work because it's a waste of my finite time on this earth. I only want to write. I'm the only one who can write my ideas and I am terrified of dying with my stories left unfinished.

>>21928610
>by a maniacal twink
stop anime writing
i didn't say you were anime writing because of the anime picture, dumb fuck. your brain is fundamentally thinking in anime tropes. in visual art they call it symbol drawing. in /lit/ we call it anime writing. your ideas are shit because your brain is fed a diet of garbage and cliches.

>>21928692
i dont have this issue because i can only write well in the evenings, after natural work hours. however, if i have an in office job i come home too exhausted to write (introvert problems). meanwhile the same exact job, just wfh? i can suddenly write just fine after work! with no interruption to my writing habit.

offices are designed to kill the human soul

>>21928610
>Books basically about a guy chased across Europe by a maniacal twink
is he scary because he has aids?

>>21928755
The pathetic thing is that I work from home, but my role is extremely demanding so I just feel drained and borderline suicidal at the end of each day.

>>21928790
that's because you're a victim of labor abuse. your employer should have 2 people or more doing your job, but they cut their positions and demanded more out of new hires, to the point you are at the brink of stress death for it.

take a brick to your employer's head

Alright lit, do your worst. I despise second person voice normally, but it felt right here.
https://pastebin.com/cRrNd0FG

>>21928958
Extremely strong start, but drops off at the end. I kind of rolled my eyes at the domestic abuse angle because of how played out it is. I like the overall framing though. The first paragraph or so would make a really solid intro to a novel.

>>21928302
I like it. First time I've read to the end of a /wg/ excerpt in ages. Maybe that means I have a child's attention span. As for inner journey vs non-physical realm, I think fairy tales are essentially about inner fears and desires materialising and taking on a life of their own as grotesque and fascinating creatures and scenes, so it would be truer to the spirit of the form to make her visit an actual world instead of experiencing a mere hallucination. But also, for a fairy tale, what's the real difference between a hallucinatory journey and a real one? The effect seems to be the same.

I made a list of copy-editing corrections because this beer hasn't yet hit and I'm still in work mode. Please see attached. You will receive an invoice shortly.

>>21929034
Thanks for the concrete feedback, anon. I'll work to tighten up the ending and revise for clarity and originality - it's not really supposed to be about DV, per se, which means I missed hugely in that regard.

>>21929081
Damn bro, this is insanely helpful. I now understand why people by editors the big bucks, much appreciated.

As for the 'hallucination' angle, I read 'The Teachings of Don Juan' by Carlos Castaneda some time ago, in which he purportedly has all these magical experiences induced by various hallucinogenic plants which seem real to him, but he's not entirely sure to what extent they're actually happening. Repeatedly throughout the book his magical mentor, Don Juan, tells him that at some point in his development he will acquire the ability to fly or to turn into animals through the use of these plants and Castaneda keeps asking him 'but will other people see me fly/turn into an animal' (i.e. is it "really" happening) and Don Juan constantly reprimands him, telling Castaneda that he still doesn't understand. The implication being reality isn't as simple as 'real existence' and 'fake hallucination' -it's neither this nor that. The academic consensus is of course that Castaneda made all of this shit up and none of it happened in the slightest, but it's still neat to think about.
Having written all of that out, I think I'll explore that a bit more in some other story, because that could be it's own thing and doesn't warrant the introduction of fairy, and all that.
Either way, big ups for the editorial notes, extremely helpful.

>>21928421
>How the hell do you introduce a great villain that isn't particularly powerful or strong but still intimidating?
I would show their resolve. Make it clear that the villain absolutely will use any advantage they have to hurt the hero, even if they don't have any cards at the moment.

Is every writing forum online absolutely useless?
As far as I can see they’re a mixture of fetishising being a writer and autistic world building.

>

>>21929589
dont forget the noob questions that should have been a google search or a course in remedial high school english

yes, it's all idiots. they make /wg/ look skillful

>be me
>write 20 words
>spend three hours looking at my shit draft and hating myself for how much is sucks
Feels bad. I left some of the important parts for last and now the pressure to make them not shit is so much I can't even begin to write them.

>>21928421
There's more than one type of villain. Generally you may be better off humanizing the villain and making the reader understand, without telling them outright, the villain's intentions and why they are what they are.

I highly recommend to anons here that struggle with actually starting a project and staying with it to write something on royalroad. It doesn't matter if you think it's trash, but it can be great practice and let you understand what you're doing wrong and let you apply these lessons to more serious works later on.

>>21929589
Yes. I joined "writing" groups and they just sit around rehashing the same dogshit and never making any progress. Their projects are meandering nonsense with no hook or characters. The only place I've seen people actually working on anything are fan fiction groups (which ironically have people in them making original content and actually making progress on it, probably because they write unlike "worldbuilding" tards).

>>21929899
I’m not surprised. Fan fiction writers know that their work isn’t going to be published or make them money so it doesn’t feed into the being an author fetish and their stories are inherently character driven (no matter how ridiculous) and no world building nonsense (“oh what do I name my race of elves and what kind of magic do they use”).

Also none of the “I am stuck starring at a blank page unable to start the great American novel” crap because they’re actually excited about writing something they would enjoy to read and are part of a community that constantly churns this stuff out and provides lots of constructive criticism.

No wonder we’re seeing a number of actual successful and professional authors who started out this way. Fuck.

>>21929899
it's kind of astounding how many people start a writing project and can't finish it. meanwhile other than /wg/ i dont post anywhere and i already have several completed (unpublished) novels. they should sit their ass down and put their fingers to the keyboard more often than they spend discussing what they would like to write someday. i've also met normies who endlessly talk about what they would LIKE to write, and most of the time they don't even have more than one page of summary, let alone anything actually written, but they'll go on for YEARS about it, trying to act like they're already an author and deserve respect. even a third world pajeet in a mud hut can complete a novel, even if it might be total shit. people in writing groups are pathetic. they're trying to take credit for things they've not even done yet. this one guy, middle aged man, tells me he's going to write a book that will change the whole world. the lazy fucker was a C student in high school, hadn't read a book in 20 years, his own life was a total shitshow of failure and bad choices, and didn't have more than five pages drafted in a 5 year period of him "working" on this world-changing book. but he would prattle on and on about it like he was zarathustra. (he doesn't even know who that is, btw. completely uneducated and not at all intelligent. but ego for miles.) dunning kruger.
>>21929932
fanfiction writers will unironically put out 400,000 words of story in a 2 year timespan. i'm scared of them. they might be crazy but they have the work ethic for it.

>>21928041
I hope you write reviews for all those /lit/ works.
Lord knows we need them.

>>21929932
Trying to branch off from being a fanfic writer is pretty brutal and unrewarding because you're used to engaging feedback and then you start working on original stuff and it's like screaming into the void.

>>21929999
nice numbers, and probably, but agents do read fanfiction. most of them are wine aunts in the making and into non-serious writing like fanfiction and YA. it's probably possible for a really talented fanfiction writer to be noticed. however, most of them aren't writing in a professional format (novel structure, and the level of editing necessary to make a query-ready manuscript). but i wouldn't be surprised if some of the popular writers get approached by agents.

>>21930026
Pretty sure 50 Shades was originally fanfic, among others. I don't think talent has much to do with it here.

Does anyone else think that the majority of their own work sucks?

Over the years I’ve written several short stories, some poetry and haikus, and a single play.

Rereading some of them, I think most of them suck despite getting positive feedback for most of them. The only ones I pretty strongly like are my more recent poems and haikus.

I tried reading the short stories I wrote when I was a teenager and I honestly hate them now, despite them being liked by others at time. I genuinely cringe at my old writing style. Even my more recent short stories feel “meh” to me, like they’re missing something.

>>21930125
No, I love everything I write.
And it pains me that so few share my opinion of my work.

>>21930125
I suffer from that more often than not. As you improve, it's natural to look at your older work and dislike it, since you know better. I would just accept that it is work from the past and focus on what you do now.

>>21929081
Are you the guy from /trash/? I suspect you're the fellow from there.

>>21930125
>Does anyone else think that the majority of their own work sucks?
Yes. This is very common. Successful authors can still feel this way, while the others set it aside because their success allows them to look past their own natural fatalism ("I write like shit." "I wish I could write as well as X." "Only imbeciles waste their time reading my trash." "Please don't compliment my writing, I'm going to be sick.") Others just end up killing themselves because they can never get beyond their overwhelming impostor syndrome. This obviously isn't everyone, though.

GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY
HERE IT COMES
FUUUUUUCK I'M WRIIIIIITIIINNNGGGG
HNNGGGGNNNGGNNGGNNGHHNNNNGHNNHH

>>21930541
y-you too,,,

Lets say you're a white straight male
You have a moderate writing talent
You write a novella and some short stories and sent them in
What is likely to happen?
If you get rejected and self-publish on Amazon, is there any hope of 'success'? I mean does viral marketing work?
I am not an author, I am just interested

I really want to get at least one book traditionally published, if only for my closest people to recognize I'm a legitimate writer, and not just wasting my time playing for fun. The odds of getting published abroad as esl are probably bad, but writing in my native language is also incredibly slow and painful.

Many words are stupidly long, syntax heavy and awkward. I did a comparison out of curiosity and a text body of 250,000 characters converts to about 50,000 words in English, but only to about 30,000 words in my language. This makes it really difficult to estimate if I have enough material for a novel, or if scenes are too short or too long, when I'm more used to writing in English. Goddamn. Maybe I just don't have what it takes.

>>21930686

Send it in under a pen name that implies you're a genderqueer black female, make bank.

Can someone help guide me to maybe a book or website (not a thesaurus) for writers who need a resource with lists of more evocative words? I want to strengthen my word choices idk

>https://synonym.wordhippo.com/
Two fucking seconds you lazy esl wigglet.

>>21930686
>Lets say you're a white straight male
>You have a moderate writing talent
>You write a novella and some short stories and sent them in
>What is likely to happen?
it's likely that you get rejected, unless you're writing within very specific genres that publishers/agents are actually interested in (YA/romance/other stuff targeted towards women)

>>21930686
>does viral marketing work?
https://www.authormedia.com/2022-social-media-marketing-guide-for-authors/

>>21930686
I am a conservative straight white male and am traditionally published. Decent literary journals have paid for my writing. Some are bad culprits for positive discrimination, but really the problem isn't as bad as people on here make out. If you look at recent book releases on any given month you'll find plenty of white writers.

Better yet, actually go to the bookstore and read a few random pages of new releases. You'll find the prose isn't actually that great. It's a really strange, liberating feeling when you do that. On /lit/ people are so used to the greatest prose artists of all time like Joyce, Proust, Shakespeare, etc that we forget what run-of-the-mill writing looks like.

Publishing houses want to make money. If you present them with an excellently written novel with a good plot then it is in their best interest to publish it. The real issue is that many mediocre writers have huge egos, and on getting knocked back prefer to rage and blame the world and the industry rather than accept criticism and work to improve.

t. gonna see my first novel in bookstores this winter

>>21930946
If you get rejected, it's because what you wrote is terrible shit, not because you're a white male.

>>21930961
>If you get rejected, it's because what you wrote is terrible shit, not because you're a white male.
The most common by far reason for rejection is that you're writing outside of the genres that actually sell - publishers have no issue with publishing terrible prose.

>>21930963
people in the industry are chomping at the bit for decent literary fiction. Outside of Stella Maris and Cleopatra & Frankenstein (which is really a by-the-numbers romance which they try to push as literary) there has been very little this year. I was in Hatchard's London the other day and they've completely restructured the ground floor to try draw attention to literary works, to the point where they're dragging out Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh, straight white Catholic conservatives

>Wrote a chapter where I had a feudal nobleman give a long-winded defense of slavery

This definitely won't end in negative reviews and comments even though it very obviously fits in to the setting and the story

>>21930990
On RR, I lost a bunch of readers for including slavery even in passing. One friendly long-time reader and eager reviewer burned all bridges immediately, unfollowed me on all accounts and omitted me from recommendations, which kinda hurt. Slavery didn't play any major role in the story and I didn't portray what little was there in favorable light at all.

Even years later, I still get complaints that the story was great, BUT I glossed over some "questionable topics" (slavery). I wouldn't recommend touching that powder keg at all.

>>21931049

Well I'm fucked then. The MC is moving in to join the family who has a monopoly on the slave trade in the kingdom.

New thread >>21931132