/lit/ - Literature

>>22324926
https://youtu.be/vtIzMaLkCaM
This is amazing

I think I'm gonna write the Wheel of Time but not gay

Does buying 4chan ads work? Seems like nobody bought incel

>>22325033
They generally don't as some people from here said. But I would buy a couple of books from them if I had time to read and money, and I would never buy a fucking book called "Incel". No, thanks, take it to reddit

I wrote about 2k words over the weekend. I'm nearing the finish line after so many years. Maybe I'll put it on Royal Road and let you guys have a look at it.

>>22324941
Congratulations, you're like 80% of "writers" in this general

How's the edge? Someone said I should just accept it. I guess I'll revel in it, smear it on my face and put it in my mouth.

"This angered the undead knight. He slashed the closest soldier to his right arm. The blade chopped through cloth, skin, flesh and bone all the same. More blood splattered across the floor with every strike of the greatsword, and more lives were taken each time. The swiftly pulled out sabres shattered trying to stop the onslaught and were broken in pieces just like their wielders. There was not a single guard left after Arxus finished. The corpses seemed less like slain men and more like a single pile of gore surrounding the knight."

>>22325053
>The swiftly pulled out sabres
Kind of clunky phrasing. I'd reword it to something drawn in haste or something.

Also that's not very edgy. Pretty run of the mill. My short story has a pretty edgy ending.

>>22325053
Not that edgy at all.

>>22325033
Anyone with half a brain uses ad-blocking software.

>planned to use my vacation to get some writing done
>day 2 and I'm completely fucking dry

Anyone else start their story in 3rd person omniscient by necessity because of all the exposition, and then switch to the (more desirable) 3rd person limited in subsequent chapters after all the characters have been introduced?

>>22325122
No because that's boring and shit.

>>22325122
That sounds bad. The third limited is an ugly trend.

>>22324926
Thoughts on the prose?

>>22325122
Just do less exposition

>>22325427
Looks good to me, gives insight into the character's mental state, it's visceral and evocative. I wouldn't want to read a whole novel like that though.

I open in first person past, then switch to present, which I then alternate between at the start of every chapter, along with dips into occasional third limited mid-chapter in between scene breaks.

Out of the blue I'm getting commenters who expect something bad to happen next chapter. Not anything specific, they're just acting ominous. And I had other plans so I've been wondering about that all day.
But they're right, they're completely right. I put my characters in a precarious situation and sustained it for a full chapter without anything bad happening. I've been building tension all this time without thinking about it. Of course they're waiting for the other shoe to drop. Now I have to come up with some suitable release. I think I can make it work.
My readers are better at plotting than I am. I really need to work on that.

>>22325632
Why are you writing a single chapter at a time with no plan? You need an outline and a buffer of several chapters.

Already wrote more than 1k words today. That's pretty great. You know what I realized? I wrote outlines in very different ways, but I just wrote a draft of an epic poem and it really worked well as an outline for a prose piece. I'm actually pretty impressed how well the parts that I haven't deleted yet pass as actual excerpts from a possible poem. I guess that's a way to preserve inspiration even if it's harder to write.

>>22325746
It's what keeps me going for this project. My motivation is all over the place.
It's not very big, I just entered novella length with not much longer to go, but it's already the longest thing I've written by some margin. The next-longest I planned and wrote and edited and partially rewrote before posting any of it and structurally it was still a wet rag.
I do plan ahead some but I think the real-time feedback has made it much better than it would be otherwise given my skill level and familiarity with the genre. When it's done I'm going to let it rest for a few weeks and then read it back and really try to get a feeling for how my own story behaves, the way I already have a feeling for prose.
Then for the next story I'll do a scene-by-scene outline, maybe even draw some graphs, think deeply about what the reader should anticipate from moment to moment. And if I post it serially there will be a buffer.

Tell me about what you are writing about and why youre writing about it

>>22325944
My theme is ancient myths still being alive in the readers subconscious and the importance of appreciating them as if they are still living. It's pretty hidden though.

Maybe I should expand more on how the film affects my narrator psychological since they are the type to get obsessive and lost in things as they explore down the rabbit hole more on subjects

what's your book about bros?

>>22325973
Ive read this passage pretty much every time its been posted. The prose is ok and has improved since the first time, but the way everything is delivered is just bland. It feels like the exposition is the same as the active paragraphs. Theres also just nothing immediately interesting about reading about an obviously fake director and a character who is obsessed with this director while at the same time tells me nothing about this director, or really the character for that matter. Its 7 paragraphs of "Its spooky guys, trust me".

Is it bad to describe the surroundings of my characters in detail?
I usually use 2-3 paragraphs at the start of each scene change for description and then just under 1 paragraph each to describe all my characters (outfits, demeanor, etc).

>>22325944
>>22325986
An Indian man who is created in the middle of the desert and must then walk across it. From there he takes over Asia.

>>22326005
Yes. Unless it's really interesting or the description is plot relevant, nobody cares. Take American Psycho for example. Each character was described by the brands of clothes they wore, and since it was from the perspective of Patrick Bateman, it told us something about the character while remaining interesting because we got to see his thoughts about everyone. If you are just describing peoples clothes and demeanor because you think its cool or relevant for some reason then you should learn to draw and make comic books.

>>22325986
Its a Screenplay about corporate death squads and gay sex

>>22326005
That's not too much. It's goodto have atmosphere and images in the mind while reading.

>>22325986
Doesn't matter what it is about, anon, it has a dragon in it. So you have to read it after I finish anyways.

>>22325058
>>22325053
just remove the word 'out' and it sounds great
>The swiftly pulled sabres

>>22325944
>>22325986
a fantasy war/revenge novel that explores trauma, to what extent people can change or be changed, and whether its possible to restore one's humanity after losing it

>>22326005
I'm more likely to do the opposite, explain little about them so that I can drop bombs later and also let the character's actions be enigmatic and cool as you try to figure them out. I probably should reel it in a little.

>>22325986
It's a puzzle about Revelation

>>22326005
It depends on how much you do it and how well you do it. Too much description of the same thing will cause peoples eyes to glaze over and start skipping prose, especially if its just stuff like landscape details. I really enjoy describing environments but got a lot of feedback from people that (obviously) it gets boring reading a bunch of paragraphs about a forest all in a row.

I have found for my own writing that establishing a new environment vividly should not take more than one paragraph, or two if I'm also interspersing other information alongside it. After that, I keep it to a minimum, but I will throw small/short mentions of the terrain every once in a while to remind the reader and keep the imagery in their head and prevent "white room syndrome."

>1 paragraph each to describe all my characters (outfits, demeanor, etc)
This sounds excessive to me. Their demeanors should speak for itself through their dialogue and actions. Outfits you can hint at throughout the scene, or as characters are introduced if it's really important. I personally think it's a little dry to just dump a bunch of hard information about what everyone is wearing and doing right up front. But maybe that's not what you're doing, I don't have much context.

>>22326117
>that explores trauma,
Please don't. We don't need any more of those.

>>22326158
it's not for (You), it's for (Me)

i also disagree, i never get tired of reading about those types of characters as long as they're done well. to me suffering is a core facet of the human condition, and seeing the different ways in which it manifests in people, how they cope with it, and how they heal from it or fail to heal from it is all interesting to me. as long as it's not just a convenient backstory for an edgy action hero.

>>22324926

>>22325991

How do I make my stlye more interesting without it sounding too much like genre bestseller shit?

>>22325986

Guy becomes obsessed with a mysterious director after seeing his only film then spirals into a rabbit hole of madnes as they try and learn more about him

>>22326169
Why combine that with fantasy of all genres?

>>22326253
why not? i don't believe fantasy or science fiction is any less compelling of a setting to explore those things in than a contemporary setting would be. it's not like all fantasy is serialized D&D shlock. regardless of what your opinions on GRRM may be, I think his ASOIAF series inarguably proved that a second world fantasy setting is just as capable of portraying deeply human struggles and suffering in a mature and grounded, realistic manner. creating your own setting also allows you to craft the world and its historical events and conflicts in such a way that they can more effectively interweave with whatever character struggles and plotlines that you want to explore.

>>22325986
After a routine monster hunt goes awry, Adah undertakes a mission to seek out her team's disappearance. With each clue in her possession, Adah comes closer to finding the whereabouts of her comrades but becomes entangled in a web of mysteries where she confronts men transforming into beasts, old friends becoming new enemies, and a mysterious merchant seemingly in control of it all.

Step by step, riddle after riddle, the puzzle pieces come together. As the threads unravel, Adah uncovers a greater conspiracy threatening the world she swore to protect.

>>22325986
Guy gets groomed by his gold-digging peasant mother into thinking he's a disposed king's son and leads a jolly band of nostalgic retards all clad in rose-tinted glasses, when his dumb-but-well-meaning qt tsundere gf dumps the truth on him (and tries to reveal it to his followers) he kills her, pins the blame on somebody else, continues to larp as if nothing happened. He slowly loses his mind over the incident as the campaign sinks into ever deepening shit.
In his final moments he fully realizes he killed the only person who ever cared about who he actually was and not the image of who he was, and his refusal to accept reality had turned him into a heinous murderer. A jester thrown on the stage in king's clothes.

>>22326253
Fantasy can be everything and anything. You don't need orcs and elves and shit. My fantasy novel has swords, cars, refrigerators, cruiser boats, trains, horses, etc

>>22326015
>>22326039
I just want the readers to have a picture of the characters in their minds

>>22325986
A husband and wife's relationship gets disrupted after the wife sells her own soul.

>>22325986
Teenage romance between (loosely speaking) a neurotic and a schizoid

>>22326304
This sounds great. How far along are you?

>>22326271
>regardless of what your opinions on GRRM may be, I think his ASOIAF series inarguably proved that a second world fantasy setting is just as capable of portraying deeply human struggles and suffering in a mature and grounded, realistic manner.
It's not inarguable. I would argue he's a misanthrope churning out misery porn. There's nothing particularly deep or mature about it.
>creating your own setting also allows you to craft the world and its historical events and conflicts in such a way that they can more effectively interweave with whatever character struggles and plotlines that you want to explore.
Yeah. I agree with that. I just don't get the trend to mix these two things. Dragons and trauma.
>>22326313
>Fantasy can be everything and anything. You don't need orcs and elves and shit. My fantasy novel has swords, cars, refrigerators, cruiser boats, trains, horses, etc
Sure. But what's with the urge to 'explore trauma' in a genre that was previously about escapism and high adventure? Therapy and dragons do not seem like a good mix to me.

>>22326575
I think it's extremely reductionist to assume that all fantasy should be nothing but heroic wish fulfillment. It's just a setting like any other. Any setting can be about escapism and high adventure and any setting can be used to explore darker or more serious literary themes as well.

I am worried I won't find a publisher for my new book Negropolis

>>22326590
>to assume that all fantasy should be nothing but heroic wish fulfillment.

I didn't assume that and I didn't say that. I'm trying to say that fantasy has a history of being adventurous. So why would an author do the opposite? In a lot of cases, I think it's a cheap trick. It's a 'deconstruction' or a 'subversion'. But in the process, it ruins everything good about the genre in the first place.

I'm thinking of Lev Grossman's the Magicians. He decided to rewrite Harry Potter but make the school totally boring and the students insufferable assholes. It was awful. Grossman didn't want to write fantasy; he wanted to shit all over a genre.

>>22326590
>It's just a setting like any other.
NTA, but I disagree. It's a setting that's so unique and stylised that it needs to be centre stage in the story, I think. Otherwise it becomes mere set-dressing that undermines the ostensibly more valuable and realistic story.

If you're making a story about goblins, make it about the night-world and black hearts and the thrill of going a-sneaking. If you make it about a goblin struggling with dating in hi 30s, then you (1) squander all the potential of writing about goblins and (2) trivialise the dating story by making it seem like a free-floating template of emotional tropes, with no specific connection to a unique individual and their context.

But in relation to the specific question of trauma and fantasy, I think it could definitely work if you make the trauma carry all the mythic weight that the fantasy setting can offer it. Something like a Sophocles play, or the Berserk manga.

How do I write a charismatic military commander when I am not charismatic, in the military, or have led much more than a group of workers to quit our job because the boss was that incompetent?

>>22326670
I don't know why they do that when classical greek plays have tons of tragic heroes in very mythic and fantastical settings.

On the Asian side, Wuxia is chock full of sad moments, and not every MC makes it to the end.

>>22326670
That type of "deconstruction" just feels spiteful. Like they're actively deriving pleasure out of ruining it.

>>22325986
Guy wakes up in front of an elevator.
The only thing he remembers is his wife and daughter watching him die. each one of the floors from the evaluator opens to another plain of reality, each floor has a single person on it, they slowly reveals to him who he is and why he's here.

Think silent hill 2 mixed with a Philip k dicks novel.

>>22326931
>Grossman
Gee, you don't say! Him and (((Harold Bloom))). I wonder why they would dislike it...

>>22326896
Study charismatic military commanders?
Patton, MacArthur, and Eisenhower come to mind.

>>22324926
How do you properly format ellipses? Whenever I use Google Docs it naturally formats into one word with no spaces, but do I put spaces between the ellipses and surrounding words or not? Every website and video I watch gives me a different answer. Which of the following is correct?
>Well... I don't know
>Well ... I don't know
>Well...I don't know

>>22327459
Well... I don't know

Anyone here have experience with technical writing?

>>22327653
Sure, plenty...over several decades.

>>22327668
How is it as a career? Is it easy to get into?

>>22327653
I have had to prepare patents at work but lawyers help me with the prose to make it read like a patent. I still feel bad at it honestly.

>>22327696
It's not my career...it's something I do in addition to programming.

>>22326896
I'm writing a thing about a war veteran that did war crimes and he regrets it all and lives with guilt. Do you think I'm a war veteran or did war crimes?

You people need to stop confusing realism with being convincing. It doesn't matter if something is not fully realistic as long as you can convince people to believe what you wrote is realistic.

>>22327459
Either way is fine but the first one is best.

>>22327870
You people need to stop confusing real life imitation with realism; the latter term referred to the average person's portrayal in art as opposed to aristocracy.

range ban test

>you can't use the exclamation mark
Where does this meme come from?

>>22325986
May I share my idea, despite not writing anything? I have a sci-fi-fantasy series in which conventional action heroes become a pantheon in reverse. With each sequel or appearance they become more inhuman, until their physical presence could be implied by describing a force of nature or tapping into a particular thematic symbology.
I have small outlines for an exploration/early conflict saga that includes:
An illusionist whose power becomes so convincing that he bears the same burden and responsibilities as much more "godlike" characters.
A man cursed to travel alone in a neglected and barren land. Attempting themes of perception, communication, and the creation of fire. The dichotomy between comforting warmth and destructive power.
A daredevil turned revolutionary in a "vertical city". Afflicted with failing vision, he can temporarily regain his sight by reaching certain "speeds". He is guided by a muse, a blind prophetic painter who paints with dyes that connect them back to their native land.
Side story detailing exploration, colonization, and conflict through the eyes of an anachronistic businesswoman.

The major themes are distance, connections, perception, and (for this saga) sight. May I ask advice on how to create fantasy that is "about something" rather than just the raw events of the plot? What is recommended to maintain consistent themes and symbology?

>>22325986
oh it's uh....it's about uh.....it's supposed to talk about uh.....

>>22327870
I am writing the same exact thing and it seems someone else earlier in the thread is too. Odd.

>writing stimulates thought
>thought stimulates philosophy
>philosophizing gives me an existential crisis
>start to feel physically ill and my mental state goes off the rails, sometimes for days
In moments like these I wonder if I should just stick to writing light-hearted adventureslop and keep my brain off instead of trying to explore the thoughts I struggle with.

On some level I do consider it a responsibility to myself to work through these things but it feels like it has become some sick sort of emotional masochism to even think sometimes. Do any of you also struggle with something like this when writing?

By the way my name is Brandon McNulty, I'm the author of Bad Parts, and also the author of Entry Wounds, and this is writing advice.

>>22328323
Existential crysis is a pussy thing. It's a lot better than not having it and getting self hatred as a result. Just think that you got a purposr in doing your best as writer.

>>22328360
I slso like to procrastinate and watch shitty advice videos.

>>22326502
thanks, I'm about 1\3rd the way through

>>22326670
Grossman wanted to write about self-destructive miserable human beings and a lot of people like reading about self-destructive miserable human beings.
On the whole I didn't like The Magicians very much but it did try to inspire wonder, often not even directly derivative of Harry Potter or Narnia. To me it felt pessimistic in general but not like an attack on the genre. There's pathos in contrast, you know?
If you went in thinking "wee-hoo time for some uplifting fantasy" then something somewhere went wrong, sure.

I need advice. I can't get past writing a short story and even when I write a short story, it's a big struggle for me. With each writing session, I have trouble writing in synchronization with what i've written previously, so a lot of what I've written needs to be edited heavily because there's a mismatch through out the first draft. I've tried planning but can't really make it work.

>>22325986
A group of teenagers traveling through time / alternate worlds and piloting giant mechs, also there is a cute robot

>>22325986
An autist joined a motorcycle club to find his mom

>>22325427
Is the complete lack of punctuation intentional?40DADX

>>22328815
Tfw you write the captcha in the message :(AWDXM

I got no idea. I can't invent a scene to fill the necessary space to make some important plot point. Two characters, basically travelling in the middle of nowhere in a fantasy setting. I need something where they can sort of get more familiar with each other. Any ideas?

>>22328670
Are you writing 13 sentinels?

>>22328226
Does he also have a cute girl in tow?

So, what's the difference between real drama and melodrama? Can someone give me an example?

>>22328878
Melodrama is just drama, but exaggerated.

It's the difference between a guy finding out his kid has cancer and a guy getting dumped by his girlfriend, getting robbed, finding out he has cancer and then getting kicked in the dick by his girlfriend's new boyfriend.

Thoughts on this thing I wrote?
https://carmagnola.substack.com/p/pink-treachery
Does it keep your interest?

>>22328893
Not quite. Melodrama is about a story making the characters act overly dramatic. Your example is more like misery porn.
A better example would be something like The Room or the stereotypical soap opera.
>You're tearing me apart, Lisa!
>Do you understand life?! Do you?!
>Why, Lisa, why? Please talk to me! Pleeease! You are part of my life! You are everything! I cannot go on without you, Lisa!
>Everybody betray me! I fed up with this world!

>>22328981
>Melodrama is about a story making the characters act overly dramatic. Your example is more like misery porn.
It's both, really. I just exaggerated but that's the idea.

>>22328893
>>22328981
Okay, so if my characters get into exaggerated shouting matches, it becomes melodrama? Even if the situation calls for intense feelings and such?

>>22329076
Keyword is exaggerated. If a reasonable person in reasonable circumstances could reasonably shout at the time, it's not melodrama.

Exaggerating reactions, actions and situations is melodrama.

What font is the beat choice to enable me to actually write my novel?

>>22329278
Comic sans.

>>22329278
If I had to choose, Palatino Roman. But I prefer Garamond.

>>22329087
So in a thriller type of story, where characters are under constant pressure, it's okay for them to be dramatic?

>>22328855
...yes.

>>22329278
>What font is the beat choice to enable me to actually write my novel?
Whichever you notice the least. Times New Roman. Stop worrying about stupid shit and write.

>>22329278
Garamond

>>22329278
Wingdings. Don't look back.

>>22325986
A victorian era adventure novel about a upper class Englishwoman with little self preservation or common sense, and her Scottish body guard. Most of the story takes place in Africa as the duo stumble into one dangerous situation after another

>>22325986
Five young adults decide to pull a heist, so they have enough money to start their lives. The heist goes horribly wrong, and things go from bad to worse, and tensions rise between best friends, as tough decisions have to be made.

>>22325986
utopia

>>22329903
Based

>>22329322
Does she want to kill him?

>>22328124
This all sounds very interesting but high concepts are are nothing without execution. As for themes, I suggest you watch videos or read essays examining the themes in a work you personally enjoy. After that you should try writing a short story

>>22326272
Nice to know you're still at it

I had a dream last night where it was valentine's day and I confessed my love to a character in my story and we banged. I'm so lonely

>>22329278
I remember asking F Gardner what font he writes in. He said he didn’t know. I asked him how he couldn’t know and he basically just said “They’re just words bro.”
To this day I’m not sure if that’s based, retarded or both.

>>22330682
Gardner doesn’t even seem human. The guy seems supernatural at this point.

>>22330682
Fuck off with your LARP. No one here actually knows F Gardner.

>>22328878
Melodrama is where the characters are extreme examples of their type, i.e. the hero is all good and the villain is all bad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodrama

>>22330682
>>22330694
>>22330710
Fuck off, Frank.
So have you decided who wrote a biting parody of your work, and are writing a parody of that writer's work?

>>22330762
Does this man’s entire life revolve around seething at mentions of F Gardner? Lmao.

Got a generic, impersonal rejection today. At least I'm not in purgatory waiting to hear back anymore

>>22330789
>deflection
pathetic
so where's your counter-parody?
ICYMI: Call Of United Airlines (free e-book): https://files.catbox.moe/aw9gz2.pdf

>>22330269
Not at first.

>>22330967
Great, it seems we are writing the same thing.
My only saving throw here is that the reason is directly related to what the MC did during the war.

>>22329076
>if my characters get into exaggerated shouting matches

In real life, these things are rare so they come off as melodrama when seen in fiction. Human conflict is typically communicated below the surface. If your characters are having repeated shouting matches, then more likey than not you are writing it wrong.

>>22331060
Mine is too, though indirectly rather than directly. Great minds think alike, I guess?
GL with your story anon. It sounds very interesting, but I'm obviously biased.

>>22330694
I’ve read around half of Horror’s Call. They’re pretty kino. They remind me of Silent Hill or David Lynch.

I want to get really experimental and for me plot is just an excuse. Yet I feel kind of insecure about the only set up that excuses all the elements I've gathered together is very generic.
What to do?

>>22331144
shut the fuck up and write it.

A must read

What's the poetry book publishing world like? Is there a real reason to not independently publish (and just acknowledge the previously published work in the cover page)?

>>22330694
I was talking about Horror’s Call earlier. I’m about halfway through the series. It’s very dream like. Alot like Silent Hill or David Lynch movies. He excels at building a creepy atmospheric setting. It’s no wonder F Gardner’s been a source of inspiration for writers here. He really knows how to write his genre well.

>>22331353
Gardner wrote the first ever antisemetic horror novel. For that alone he has my respect. That motherfucker is fearless.

How’s this? Context is that our protagonist is having a frustrated moment with a guy he’s sparring with because he’s poorly using his skills and doesn’t grasp them. Neither of them are humans, they’re elemental beings, just to clarify

I dug my face out of the dirt only to see him looming over me, his combative crackling fading to a faint buzzing. None of this made sense to me.
>“You know, I have a lot to criticize about your technique. I’ve been at this for a long time now, and I’ve never seen someone this unable to wrap his head around the nature of his own body.”
He sat down upon a nearby stone and, setting down his weapon on his right, placed his hand on his left and patted.
>“Sit down and I’ll explain what I’m seeing.”
Begrudgingly, I walked over and firmly planted myself next to him, yet facing away, as I didn’t want to look my humiliator in the face. He sighed and spoke
>“You know, you’ve actually gotten a good handle on how to use your traits so far. But you don’t grasp their actual workings. Sure, you know how to do something but you don’t know how that something functions.”
He placed his hand upon my shoulder
>“Do what you do upon speeding up, but don’t move. Let me show you something”
I did what I was told to, but I felt something weird where he placed his hand. I turned to see his hand slowly passing through my body, like one would stir a spoon through pudding. I jolted away in shock, not understanding what I had just seen
>“You’re a light-kind. As such you can move at light speed. But you’re also normally in a hard light state. Light with mass. The closer you get to light speed, the more energy you need to move. But you don’t have that energy, so in order to move faster, you go the other way and need to shed more and more of your mass and solid form. So the faster you go…”
>“The less power behind my strikes. So that’s why you were actually blocking and dodging my attacks before I shifted…”
>“Exactly. You picked up on that quick didn’t you?”

I know this kinda stuff is looked down upon

>>22324926
Is it bad that the main cast in my book is all white?

So my story revolves around six friends whose city had been plugged into a purge like state due to a war of the gods. And I’m dyslexic and a amateur who just writes for mainly so I sent my draft to a friend to proof read and she said I should really think on changing a few of the MCs non-white and then sent me a bunch of edits of my characters with darker skin tones and said something along the lines of ”look how cute they look now” and I told her i didn’t ask her to do that I wasn’t comfortable with doing bc I’ve had these characters for a long time and I already had a bunch of other PoC characters not only in this story but in others as well , She told me I really needed to make one of the MCs a PoC and at that point I had other things going on so I just told her I wasnt going to do that, then she started criticizing my book and calling my MC a pick me bc the other MCs where all male. Should I have changed them?

you guys describe your characters races?

>>22331510
No. I only write white people. No gays or unfeminine women either. Can't be bothered.

>>22331398
I can’t tell if this post is genuinely pro-F Gardner or if that’s a subtle jab to defame him and you just being hellbent on destroying his reputation. The obsession with F Gardner on /lit/ is confounding. Imagine being obsessed with the writer of Call of the Crocodile of all things. Does not compute with me. But the proof is in the pudding I suppose. Gardnerposting has been genuinely insane on here for the past couple of months now. I don’t know why but the arguments I see are clearly just making him even more of a celebrity. Literally every single person on /lit/ knows who he is now. He is arguably one of the most famous writers in terms of discussion here. If you like him? Fine. But if you don’t? Please shut up. It has been years now and if you truly hate Gardner then stop making him even more popular. It is maddening to see the constant posts and shitposts when some people are just trying to write. It has flooded this board.

>>22331527
10/10 copypasta material.

>>22331398
God this book is a ticking time bomb. If /pol/ discovers it then it’ll only be a matter of time till Kanye West or another alt right figure is openly shilling F Gardner.

https://pastebin.com/10ZLS1vL
Does this strike the tone I'm going for, that of being the silly political grumblings of an overeducated loser, or does it just seem like I'm fellating myself with big words and weird syntax? Because I kind of feel like its the latter. I don't want to come off as a pretentious douchebag, but there's something I really like about Georgian/ Colonial Era political speak, which is why I'm trying to incorporate it into my gay fantasy novel.

>>22331588
Don’t give anyone any fucking ideas. This board would never be the same and /wg/ would forever be associated with that retarded fucking book.

>>22331588
>>22331596
/pol/ already knows, and /wg/ is already associated with Gardner

>>22331588
Sounds based. Gardener going mask off and revealing himself to be an unironic nazi was one of my favorite story arcs of the year. He was already outspoken for being a flatearther, not believing in gorillas and other baffling beliefs. But then it turned out he was actually hiding his true power level and is into all that nazi magic shit like Evola. He has the most kino backstory out of all the writers from here.

>>22331641
It is not “based.” Anyone can plainly see he has schizophrenia.

>>22331659
Then it means his writing isn’t bad and is what it looks like to read a schizo series by a schizo. It means it naturally has schizo writing.

>>22325122
>Has definitely taken personality tests for their character
What is this slander

Do you guys read and/or write fanfiction? I've become addicted to it, just reading random shit for works I know, and even sometimes things I've never touched in my life. What are your opinions on it?

>>22331708
They're talking about me. That's a shit way to solve characterization even when using sertified psychology tests though. Never worked.

"To everyone around me, every friend I make, I eventually die. No more responses, no more calls or texts. I am somewhere else, somewhere new. It is as though I have died and disappeared from their lives, into a new town.
I was in a CSU, a nuthouse for the suicidal. I flirted with the mentally ill because i could. and I wouldve fucked them if I could.
I was in a homeless shelter, I ate canned food i stole from others. I was in a hotel, my neighbor to my right was a smoker, and to my left a new face every day.
I was on the street. I hung out behind a walmart and couldnt sleep for 3 days. I went back home, ran away from home, a four hour walk out of the woods until i could call an uber. I took a bus from mass to florida. A young girl slept on my shoulder, exhausted. We never spoke. I don't know her name. I wish her well, but she will never know. I am going to die again soon. and I don't know where that will take me."

>>22331596
Brb gonna make a YouTube video about Kabbalah of the Crocodile and make myself famous.

>>22331717
Hell no nigga, most fanfiction is garbage and I don't want to poison my mind reading that awful shit

how many pages do you guys write per day?
i hadn't written for a few days due to writer's block which then turned into habitual procrastination, but I just managed to sit down and write about 4 pages which I'm pretty happy about.

>>22331780
1-2, sometimes when I know what to write on weekends I can do 3. It's the lowest of the low bars, I know.

Where do you upload your work for people to read for free online? Almost like a Wattpad but not trashy?

>>22331785
royal road/scribble hub

>>22331780
>>22331784
MS word pages or novel length pages?

>>22331866
I (>>22331784) googled "how many words on one page". It said 500 with normal formatting.

>>22331893
Novel pages are more like 250-300 words.

>my short flashback sequence has by now pretty much morphed into an entire prequel novel.

Whoops. Well, I'll get to tell the story I really want to eventually. It will be good practice this way, at least.

>>22327653
I have published several peer-reviewed scientific studies in Nature/Frontiers. While it's one of the more lucrative writing careers, I think you are better off becoming a professional who also possesses strong writing skills. Writing would mean nothing to me if I was only ever writing what I was told to by a higher up lawyer or scientist.

>>22331717
I write fan fiction but don't read a lot of it. I'm easily distracted by inconsequential flaws and finding the good stuff is hard.

>>22331467
>"I've got a lot to criticize. I’ve never seen someone this unable to wrap his head around the nature of his own body."
I find I generally like less words, but that's a matter of characterisation.
>He sat down upon a nearby stone and, setting down his weapon on his right, placed his hand on his left and patted.
I'm not fond of this sentence. "sat down", "setting down", "his", "his", "his", "his", "and", "and". I think it could be chopped up into two, or maybe a "on the right"/ "on the left", or both.

>>22331735
>but she will never know
I liked it all except for this.
Maybe because the rest felt ethereal and free, but that bit felt petty and arrogant (because he's better than her because she will never know). It seemed like the opposite of the Id driven earlier parts. Or maybe it's something else I can't identify.

>>22331590
The joke hasn't gone over my head, if that's what you're asking. I think it feels like both, and it's still a lot of work to read regardless of if it's intentional or not. It and your explanation reminded me a bit of the opening to Confederacy of Dunces.
I wonder if there's room to put some lines in about how Cesare is spilling crumbs from his mouth, or falling over his desk while trying to vomit his diatribe at some other character, or while he's mumbling it under his breath. To far more bluntly get across the loser idea.

>>22331353
>>22331398
>>22331527
>>22331603
>>22331641
This is a writing thread, not a shill-spamming thread.
No one here wants to talk about you, Frank.

>>22328839
Yes, you actually got me. It's heavily inspired by 13 Sentinels, Persona and similar stuff.

>>22330789
Does your life revolve around shill-spamming and a complete lack of self-awareness, Frank?
It's been years since anyone listened to you.

I wanted to put some of my "author copies" into those free "little libraries", but didn't know how to find them.
Then I ran across this:
https://littlefreelibrary.org/map/
I know what I'm doing this weekend!

>>22324926
I'm currently writing a small book of prayers for my local scout group and I just realized I'm too influenzed by Hildegard von Bingen's writings

Blackpill incoming, bros. This was written by a random GPT model. I literally just asked it to give me a simple idea. Not only it didn't give me any ideas, it also mogged my writing in 5 seconds.
https://pastebin.com/AZ6aTa7y

I keep writing singular paragraphs and then never going back to the story. Story openings keep popping into my head so I keep writing them down but I have no idea where to go from there, I've got a bunch saved that I might never do anything with.

>>22332131
>To far more bluntly get across the loser idea.
I appreciate the advice. Right now, this is just a speech I have written, and I'm not sure how I'm going to cut it up in the story. Interspersing some comedic moments seems like a really good idea to "cut it" somewhat.
I'll also add that well before you get to this speech, you'll be well aware that he's a fat, hypocritical, fifty year old drunk who's most major contribution to the story at this point will have been poorly attempting to play at heroics and then needing saving from the MC. So I was hoping that this would help to disarm his future speech.

>>22332534
Share some of it

>>22332571
Sure, here's on I wrote not too long ago, I posted it here but never got any responses.

When I was a young boy, around five years old, my father gave me a tin of boiled barley sugar lollies, I savoured them, making sure to only eat one a day, they were delicious. My father was an absent man so receiving anything from him was a blessing, despite never being around during the hours that I was awake he was always there in the form of the house that I lived in with my mother, the house embodied him so much that it may as well have been a part of him that was ripped off of his body for us to live in, I dared not do anything that he wouldn’t approve of while I was at home in fear that the walls would start telling me off, seriously, the front door was like his mouth and the inside of the house was like his brain. He chose the materials that the house was made of, he drew up the design for it, he paid for it all out of his own pocket and he even helped the contractors build part of it, he was a hard-working man. Despite what I’ve told you so far and despite how it’s come across, my father loved his family, he did everything he did and he worked as much as he did for us, he would rather die than see us go without, that type of mindset is from the generation he was raised in, a very family oriented generation that saw the men as the only bread-winner, the one who made sure everything ran smooth.

>>22332578
>here's on
Maybe it's good that I don't go any further with these things, fuck, I'm retarded.

>>22332521
Gpt does a lot of tell.

>>22332578
You should split that first sentence into two, right after "sugar lollies".
You keep doing this thing where you describe something, then plainly restate it, and it feels excessive. In general, you keep restating the same point too many times. It's tiresome to read.
That ", seriously," shifts the feeling of the narration.

>>22332613
>That ", seriously," shifts the feeling of the narration.
Yeah, I was iffy about that and wasn't sure if I should keep it.

>You keep doing this thing where you describe something, then plainly restate it, and it feels excessive. In general, you keep restating the same point too many times. It's tiresome to read.
Could you give me an example?

Do dialogue tags get tiresome to read or are they the only way to properly get a conversation across? I don't want my story to just consist of a lot of "He said, and then she said, and then he said, and then she said"

>>22328715
Incredible premise, I would read your entire novel based on this sentence.

>>22332625
The most blatant examples are these two, but it runs through the whole piece.
>, they were delicious.
>, he was a hard-working man.

Your metaphor about the house is too simple. You have to match the level of a metaphor with the level of the narration, otherwise it's jarring, unless it's done with intent, for instance, a smart narrator using a dumb metaphor for humor. I don't think a simple or plain narrator would try a metaphor about the house being so literally a part of his father, and I don't think a smart narrator would use one that simple in this case.

In the last line, you have plural "men" and singular "bread-winner". I would switch men to the singular man.
>that saw the man as the sole bread-winner

>>22332689
>In the last line, you have plural "men" and singular "bread-winner". I would switch men to the singular man.
Yeah, I noticed that after I posted it, I haven't read through it since I wrote it.

>>22332637
Then don't use it. You just need he said/she said in the first two dialogues then indent to indicate a new speaker. That said speed readers aka royal road fucks still get confused

>>22332689
>they were delicious.
>he was a hard-working man.
Am I not meant to point out that they were delicious or that he was a hard-working man? I don't see how these are excessive or how I'm plainly restating them.

>study history and myth
>the bright ideas that tie up the plot and make it interesting just come to mind
>finally can write and have an entire base for future writing when previously couldn't even skip that part
I'm going to make it. But why does this happen?

>>22332521
It's fucking terrible.

>>22332578
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma_splice

>>22332534
I have the exact same problem.

>>22332578
End your sentences dude

>>22332521
If this mogged your writing, you're NGMI.

How does this one look, /lit/? An Iraqi trip report.

>https://goodperson.substack.com/p/notes-on-my-travels-in-iraq

>>22332521
>https://pastebin.com/AZ6aTa7y

It's sound and classical writing but replete with cliches and sluggish pacing. It's neither original nor clever—it's just a bunch of words we've heard before, rearranged.

>>22333181
It has the prose, man, the prose flows so good.

>>22333186
What is your writing like that this impresses you?

>>22332131
You read all of that as free? huh. I might have to reevaluate what i'm writing

>>22325986
Boys yearning for fathers, men and their roles as fathers, both literal and figurative.

>>22325986

A bike trip me and my buddy did across Canada in 2019, camping along the road, drinking beers, shooting the shit before we got older, got married, and the world went in unexpected directions. The themes include mental health, and modern alienation among men.

>>22325986
A warlord's commander struggling with whether or not to abandon him now that their campaign is doomed.

>I am no stranger to the deaths of planets. Cyrene was my home. Yet when the need was made evident, I did not hesitate to contact the inquisition. By my hand, Cyrene burned. Cyrene's secrets now live solely with me, and so shall they die with me. Whether I am victorious or slain, my sins will know retribution.

how do i write kino war monologues like this?

Is it weird if I barely describe my characters' appearances and leave it up to the reader's imagination? I will usually only mention physical characteristics if it is something particularly striking or relatively unique, like a disfigurement or a notable scar. And sometimes general build and height.

>>22333441
Whose point of view is the story from? It's not that weird at all.

>>22333463
So far, singular first person PoV. I guess it makes sense that he wouldn't be narrating the appearance of people he's already familiar with. To be honest the main reason I do it is because it's significantly easier to write that way. It feels awful every time I have to stop and describe an outfit or a person in detail.

How should I incorporate brand name products in my fiction? Avoid them, use similar sounding names, or use the names as-is?

>>22333489
You can use names as-is if you want. There's nothing wrong with that.
It does have an effect on your reader like everything else. These three choices read differently.

Do you guys know of any exercises to improve your "word recollection"? I think my prose has a nice flow to it, but I have a very selective memory and have trouble picking new and evocative words out of my head. My reading vocabulary is quite large, there are very few words I don't understand, but my writing vocabulary feels infinitesimally small in comparison. I think it may be a symptom of my brainrot but it feels like a severe handicap and it bothers me a lot when I'm writing.

>>22333551
Just keep a list of fun words and review it from time to time.

Is it foolish to dream about, plan, and write genre fiction with GPT-4 now?

If you start a novel in media res and then backtrack in the timeline, how do you handle it when you get back to that scene in the timeline?

>>22333783
Its attention span is short and RLHF screwed up its prose style and it just isn't that good yet. Don't let it write for you.
But it might be useful as a conversation partner or a proofreader or something like that.

>>22333797
Yeah, that's what I figured. I took one look at it and walked away disappointed. I guess if you're not a writer it looks a lot more impressive than it actually is.

>>22333551
Anki

>>22333814
>>22333186

>>22331780
>how many pages do you guys write per day?

You should be counting words not pages

>>22331504
You should listen to your friend. Have some diversity and try to have your characters roughly 50/50 male and female

>>22332637
>Do dialogue tags get tiresome to read

You should avoid using them. Most of the time they are not necessary.

>>22331504
Call your friend a nigger and block it.

Guess what book

>>22331504
You just need to rape your friend, duh

I am hitting my stride with the novel editing. Then I remembered I have not written even one short story this month.

How do I stop myself from feature creep and imagining what an epic story would look like multiple volumes in the future instead of enjoying volume 1?

>>22334673
Write with only the ending of your first book in mind
Alternatively stop watching anime

>>22334565
Saving this for a future general.

>>22334679
>Alternatively stop watching anime
Anime's always stuck on the first volume though, moron
You would know this if you actually watched anime and read the LNs it adapts

>>22334683
Cool, I don't care

>>22334685
You cared enough to reply twice, first for worthless fucking retarded "advice" that doesn't fit with serial novels, and then acting defensive when you get called out on being an ignoramus about anime on an anime website.

Kill yourself.

>>22334688
Don't think I will but thanks for the reply bud
Still don't care btw

>>22334673
You don't. You never stop thinking about anything and everything, then you wring your brain out. Try to separate the good ideas from the bad. This can change from day to day. That's okay though. If an idea really appeals for multiple consecutively, its probably actually a good one and not just a product of whimsy from watching some movie or video game. Its okay to have a bunch of disorganized ideas you aren't sure about yet.

>>22334688
NTA. Well, no advice for you, bitter retard.

>>22334565
I hate that I know what this is. Reminder that F Gardner is a right-wing schizo who thinks the jews control the planet.

>>22334694
> If an idea really appeals for multiple consecutively
What if it appeals for multiple years?

>>22334700
We know. He is a fucking Chad

>>22334704
Then it must be a very deeply ingrained part of you. Something you would write about for your own pleasure.

>>22334679
>Alternatively stop watching anime
this and vidya, both are brain rot

>>22334688
>You cared enough to reply!
Please recognize this doesn't actually mean anything in reality and just makes you look like a pissy child that's trying to get the last word.

>>22334711
The problem is that it's more like a collection of scenes I revisit again and again, lesso a coherent narrative.

>>22334740
>>22334746
I love it when someone late to the conversation pipes up.

>>22334748
Have you already made use of them in some way?

Is "She complained of the numbers" correct? (using "of" instead of "about")
Excuse me for asking this here, but I used two grammar checkers online and got different answers.

>>22334768
No, I'm paranoid about "ruining" them so I went full schizoid.

>>22334774
The only way to be free of it is to use it. You're brain constipated.

>>22334700
Why are you so desperate to make F Gardner look bad? He’s a really nice guy.

>>22334700
>who thinks the jews control the planet.
Well he's not that far off. Not ENTIRE planet.

>>22334769
"complained of" sounds legal/ medical. Like she's orally describing an issue that was reduced to a document beforehand. Just stick with about.

>>22334805
No, he's a seething schizo samefagging shill-spamming pseud that's been shitting up /lit/ and /wg/ for years, and doesn't have the self-awareness to realize everyone is really sick of him & tuned him out a long time ago.

lmao at all the samefagged deleted posts of gardener talking about himself in third person

>>22334886
I haven't read a single F Gardner book. But I've seen a lot of his videos from youtube. There's a very straightforward answer for F Gardner's popularity. He is one of the most interesting modern writers. There just isn’t anyone else like him. I can list just a few things about him. Many of them are even contradictory.

>Believes in wacky conspiracy theories. Denies the holocaust and science. Sincerely thinks there are Jewish elites manipulating governments.
>Very cultured and educated. Traveled seemingly everywhere, speaks japanese, goes to operas, well versed in classical literature, studied to be a Christian priest before becoming Buddhist and he once ran for mayor of Chicago.
>Can talk for hours without interruption about anything ranging from Sonic the Hedgehog to why he thinks monkeys and Kim Jong Un are fake.

As I said, I've not read his books but he’s a really unique person. If I knew someone like this in real life I would go out of my way to study them.

Combine this with the fact he was the first known writer to advertise his book series on 4chan and it's obvious why he still gets so much attention. He also doesn't use a pseudonym (The F literally just stands for Frank) so he's always been a very public figure. Plus he’s constantly releasing new books.

Is there a term for when a galloping horse or a sprinting person slowly "runs off their speed" and slow down to a jog and then to a walk and then stops?

>>22325944
>>22325986
I'm going to start writing a coming of age road trip romance. I'll figure the rest out as I go.

How did he do it?

>>22335077
kino

>>22332578
So what I gathered from the responses to this is that I should give up on writing because I'm clearly shit and don't know what I'm doing, got it.

>>22335108
Not saying this to pick on you, but you should really consider not trying to write if mostly neutral responses are enough to put you in the gutter, because it will get far, far worse if you continue

>>22334769

>>22335116
I was mostly joking when I said that, but it does sting a little seeing the shit that I thought was good get shot down in more ways than one.

>>22335108
It just takes practice like anything else in life. The passage is perfectly fine other than the comma splicing and runons.

>>22335124
>comma splicing
What can I do to avoid this? I don't want a bunch of ten-word sentences throughout my paragraph, I feel like it would make the writing look and read really clunky, but I guess that's how it already looks and reads.

>>22335132
Don't be afraid to end your sentences. Don't be afraid to have short sentences. I promise you it will read better. If you want it to have a nice flow, your sentences should be of varied length and style so that reading it doesn't become repetitive. That's what leads to that "clunky" feeling. Keep in mind that sentences being short can also draw more attention to them, highlighting a simple thought and elevating it in importance.

>When I was a young boy, around five years old, my father gave me a tin of boiled barley sugar lollies. I savoured them, making sure to only eat one a day. They were delicious.

>He chose the materials that the house was made of. He drew up the design for it, paid for it all out of his own pocket, and even helped the contractors build part of it. He was a hard-working man.

>>22335159
>When I was a young boy, around five years old, my father gave me a tin of boiled barley sugar lollies. I savoured them, making sure to only eat one a day. They were delicious.
>He chose the materials that the house was made of. He drew up the design for it, paid for it all out of his own pocket, and even helped the contractors build part of it. He was a hard-working man.
These are some helpful examples, thank you, anon.

>>22335162
How will I know when to end my sentences though? Is it just something that I pick up over time or is there a formula to it? I'm not an ESL but if I never mentioned that then I doubt anyone would think otherwise, I sound like someone that's new to the language.

>>22335165
You just develop a feeling for it over time. Read a lot and see how other writers do it. Think about what sounds good and what sounds bad to you as you read. Writing isn't math, there's no real formula to it.

>>22335186
Maybe this is a sign that I should switch from audiobooks to physical or at least PDFs.

how to come up with fake swear word alternatives that don't sound retarded? i really like "feth" and "fething" from some 40k novels i read, but it would be too shameless to steal that right?

>>22335277
Lore specific innuendo in the english language is one of the more crude ways to do it, but feels significantly less cringe than calling someone a "Mother Flaxor!" An example is say there's a rumor about an old king named Bob who fucked his male servants, so people in this universe call fags something like "Bob's workman," or something more basic like just "peasant" or "man-servant."

>>22335120
No offense but your writing needs work. But believe me, I understand how discouraging it can be. I've personally written on and off for about 9 years, starting when I was like 14. I have literally never finished a work, save for some screenplay I had to write for an elective I took in university. The simple reason is that I keep giving up. I write some portion of a story, post feedback, revise, edit, and then eventually decide my work isn't good enough and start on something new (or take a 6 month break where I never even think about writing). This process isn't the worst, as I think I've gotten pretty good at writing. I posted feedback for a short story here recently and got fairly positive comments, and now I can feel that this is the time I'm going to finish it. Almost halfway done with it, which is more than I've ever done. But it took me 9 years of intermittent effort, starting out with "absolutely god awful" and the current result of "fairly good".
My point is that it may take a decade for you to begin seeing results, and you may decide to totally drop writing as a hobby for months at a time. Or maybe you'll decide to give up forever. But that's something you have to figure out - determine what writing is to you, and be at peace with whatever decision you decide to make.

something about the way brandon mcnulty talks and waves his hands around really bothers me

>>22333551
You honestly don't need that big of a vocabulary when writing. In fact, using obscure big ass words is generally pretty ugly in my opinion. Here's some random line I pulled from Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut:

>And the most striking thing about the cave was that there were pictures painted on the walls, painted with kindergarten boldness, painted with the flat clay, earth, and charcoal colors of very early man. I did not have to ask Frank how old the cave paintings were. I was able to date them by their subject. The paintings were not of mammoths or saber-toothed tigers or ithyphallic cave bears. The paintings treated endlessly the aspects of Mona Aamons Monzano as a little girl.

Vonnegut's style might seem extremely basic at a glance (he basically just gives you a boatload of "this was that" statements), but it flows very well and the way he uses phrases like "kindergarten boldness" express so much despite being simple.
Not to say he doesn't use ANY fancy words of course (i.e. ithyphallic), but literally just read some books and you can begin to develop a vocabulary sense for what big words sound good instead of tryhardish.

>>22332172
Gardner is still around? Jesus christ this is honestly comedic in how god awful it is.

>>22335335
>No offense but your writing needs work.
I believe you, I've only been writing on and off for about a month or two so I don't expect to be the next Koontz, King or Hemingway. I wonder what I need to do to improve my writing though. I have a few things in mind that I should do (Read books about writing, watch video lectures and series, simply write and read more etc.) but I don't know which ones I should tackle first and what other things I should be focusing on. I listened to On Writing by Stephen King and that gave me some good shit in terms of adverbs and passive voice and I feel like there's a lot more shit that I should've taken away from it so maybe I'll give it a re-listen soon.

>>22335388
Just read desu. Studying books "about writing" and listening to lectures will teach you theory but they won't develop a sense of prose or style. Both are important but just reading books is the most important to start developing your intuition.

>>22335388
I also get confused cause I've had multiple people on /adv/ for example tell me that I'm a great writer whenever I've talked about my childhood and how I feel like I'm a retard but when I post shit on here that I tried to put effort into I get shot down, I guess I should take shit from here more seriously though considering this is a thread specifically about how to write good.

>>22335393
>reading books is the most important to start developing your intuition.
So I've heard. Do you think you can pull some of the same benefits from listening to an audiobook or do you think it has to be physical reading? I've asked this question here before and some guy said no but when I asked him why, his response was basically "Just because"

>>22335397
I think no matter what you do you will be able to learn something, but reading is definitely more helpful than listening because you can actually see the structure and skeleton of sentences.

Listening only to audiobooks is how you end up with stuff like >>22332578
For the most part the word choice isn't bad and if someone read it to you aloud it would probably sound good, but it's a nightmare to read and super awkward.

>>22335388
As a first tip of advice, try to step back and feel whether your writing flows or not. Just to take your first few sentence:
>When I was a young boy, around five years old, my father gave me a tin of boiled barley sugar lollies, I savoured them, making sure to only eat one a day, they were delicious.
These commas do not flow well at all, not to mention they're grammatically incorrect. Your next sentence is just as bad comma wise, and there are bits where you include "seriously" in your comma pile and it just makes me cringe.

>>22335395
Well yeah, people who read a lot more are going to have higher standards than random tiktok users who appreciate sentences that don't have "yum yum ice cream so good fr fr on god" in them.

>>22335401
>but it's a nightmare to read and super awkward.
Is it because of what >>22332613 and >>22332689 said?

>>22335405
>they're grammatically incorrect.
Really? I must be more retarded than I thought.

>and there are bits where you include "seriously" in your comma pile and it just makes me cringe.
Yeah, I don't know why I put that in there.

>>22335277
>need to come up with an alternative for hell/jesus/jesus christ/god damnit
>don't want to waste my time worldbuilding religion right now or ever

Anyways. I stopped trying to replace things like "fuck" and "shit" with anything else. Every time I see people try to replace it, it comes off as trying too hard and just being awkward. Unless it's a YA censorship thing, in which case I guess that's fair.

Some people won't like it. Some people also won't like you trying to replace them. You can't please everyone. Just write what feels natural to you. Art is not a democracy and you are not writing for your audience.

>>22335478
Do you want or need anything remotely original or are you content with just ripping of something else?
If the second case i true, how far away does he religion have to be?
From the Abraham next door to some extremely obscure Papuan mystery cult only 7 people are aware of and only one of those can speak English in distance.

I wish I was a better writer, There's many things I want to express in my current work but I find it hard to do so fluently.

>>22335777
Post an excerpt here and you'll get all the criticism you need.

Are you writing good boy progressive stories?

I've been writing things down ever since I was a teenager in the hopes of improving my ability to express myself and expand my vocabulary, it progressed well and I now have somewhat of an easy time trying to convey certain ideas. I've gone from conversational vocabulary to a slightly more advanced one, where I lie within levels of English I am not completely sure of and honestly I don't care that much. I am currently in a situation where I have lots of free time so I've picked up reading with the intention of trying to re-create or get some type of concept of how books are composed, I've never been much of a person who reads books although I've managed to reach my current level of fluency through a combination of exposure to different words, and overall putting it in practice through the use of internet. I've reached a point where, while being able to convey my thoughts and it does feel somewhat natural, it can feel as if I am not being as concise as I intend on being. Ideas and creativity aside, I am considering going beyond the basis of my English abilities which were focused mainly on conversational abilities, and attempting to infuse some type of literary influence into it. Writing a book regardless of how good or bad it might be, could potentially provide a good challenge in trying to go beyond the current level that I am in. This is my reasoning behind considering it, not because I feel like I might be good at it or similar, but experimentation through my own means, which is what I have done prior and it resulted in a good and reliable progression, I am hoping that my track record so far could be recreated in a more advanced phase that might require more than before.

>>22326117
Hey, I have some of those same themes, though I wouldn't call mine a war story as it is presently in a cold state and not the main focus yet.

>>22324926
Is it bad that I'm breaking the 'show don't tell' convention because I want to get a general background of the main character out of the way?

So he wants to join the navy against his mother's wishes. I don't really want him to agonize about it too long because it's more of a lighthearted fantasy airship swashbuckling story and I also need to explain to the reader roughly what prize-taking meant in the late 18th-early 19th century naval warfare.

And yes, I know my dialogue needs work.

>>22331510
I only draw attention to it when needed.
The main character is abnormally pale, this makes him distinct from others.
The baseline is that everyone is white, and I make special mention that one race of people comes in more than one color.

>>22331510
Just way what they are if it's In the real world and if it's on a fictional setting describe unique features to signify there race.
>XXX was tan from constant exposure to the hot sun. He had thick eye brows over monoliths black eyes.
Or
>YYY was a Black man of average height with loose curely hair loosely flying in each direction with no sense of intended style.

>>22335987
>Monolid
Sorry I'm on the toilet

Is the first sentence telling, not showing?
https://pastebin.com/Bx72Kk9N
Will I ever learn to write? Or draw?

>>22335994
>Will I ever learn to write? Or draw?
Yes, just keep at it and look shit up when you have questions about the process.

>>22335841
No.

>>22335077
>book has sex in the first chapter
>book has sex that isn't the payoff to a romantic plot
>book has more than one or two sex scenes
dropped

>>22335964
Show don't tell isn't a convention, it's at most a writing style or a piece of advice which is only valid in specific contexts. Showing and telling are both useful tools and a writer will use both when aappropriate. The first chapter of The Brothers Karamazov, for instance, is mostly just Dostoyevsky outright *telling* you a bunch of stuff about his characters, and it's great because he's a great author.
>Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a land owner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place. For the present I will only say that this “landowner”—for so we used to call him, although he hardly spent a day of his life on his own estate—was a strange type, yet one pretty frequently to be met with, a type abject and vicious and at the same time senseless. But he was one of those senseless persons who are very well capable of looking after their worldly affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else. Fyodor Pavlovitch, for instance, began with next to nothing; his estate was of the smallest; he ran to dine at other men’s tables, and fastened on them as a toady, yet at his death it appeared that he had a hundred thousand roubles in hard cash. At the same time, he was all his life one of the most senseless, fantastical fellows in the whole district. I repeat, it was not stupidity—the majority of these fantastical fellows are shrewd and intelligent enough—but just senselessness, and a peculiar national form of it.

>>22335077
Is he better than Gardner?

Anyone here got experience with writing screenplays?

I'd ask /tv/ but those guys are retarded

>>22335994
>Is the first sentence telling, not showing?
See my other reply >>22336127
Get the "show, don't tell" meme out of your head.

>>22336143
No, but if you're looking to read some books on it you could start with John Truby's books, he's been an overseer on over 1000 scripts that have gone on to be successful movies, he knows his shit. There's also a bunch of interviews with him on YouTube if you wanna look it up.

>>22336157
Not the guy you're replying to but why do you think it's a meme?

>>22336162
He already explained himself.

>>22336176
Oh shit, you're right.

>>22336158
I've never bothered with reading of the technical stuff. Knee deep in my own thing, mostly reading scripts from movies/directors I like to see what they did

>>22336225
How do you expect to ever write something worth adapting if you don't get into the technical stuff?

>>22336158
NTA, but I've read his 22 steps book and I don't really get the hype. It's very unorganized and filled with contradictions. McKee's book is much better and there are lesser known books that are even better than his (Gulino's books for one).

>>22335165
>or is there a formula to it?
An independent clause (subject+predicate) needs a full stop or a semicolon. That's it.

>>22336249
I'm not saying he's the best, I was just pointing out that he has shit out there that the guy can read if he wants to, it's good that you pointed out other books, I'll definitely have a look into those.

God it's so fucking hard to sleep lately, I just want to write.

>>22335411
>>they're grammatically incorrect.
>Really? I must be more retarded than I thought.
Punctuation isn't really grammar. They're just little pointers to mark pauses or to help show grammatical relationships between words. People used to write without any punctuation or spaces at all, and we wouldn't call ancient writing ungrammatical because of it.

Don't worry so much. You're original example would sound fine out loud. Learning the arbitrary rules of orthography will not make you a good writer, and not knowing them won't really make you a bad one.

Learning to avoid comma splices will be the easiest hurdle you'll have to jump.

>>22336298
Then write?

>>22336318
Cool, thanks for the advice, I'll have to take what the other anon said into account and learn to not be so afraid of short sentences.

>>22336318
It is a revelation. Read any journal from someone who is either semi-literate or literate from before the 18th century and you shall witness VGH tiers of writing.

>>22331504
Call your friend a nigger.

>>22336318
>Punctuation isn't really grammar. They're just little pointers to mark pauses or to help show grammatical relationships between words. People used to write without any punctuation or spaces at all, and we wouldn't call ancient writing ungrammatical because of it.
That's the most retarded thing I've ever heard in my entire life, and it was on /lit/ of all boards

>>22326474
YA trash?

>>22325122
>tfw chaotic pantser

>>22325122
wtf is the flashlight method?

>>22335994
Considering how shit you are at both, probably not.

>>22336518
Grammar is the rules of language. It does not cover the conventions of written scripts, spelling, or punctuation. That's orthography.

>>22336613
Because these two things are completely separate and not intertwined in anyway whatsoever.
Got it.

>>22336623
Lots of things fall into two separate categories while being closely related.

>>22336127
As a general rule of thumb, every sentence is "telling". I can say "He was sad", or I could say "He had tears in his eyes". Both told you something, but the latter would be considered showing since it lets you "infer" things.
The question is how much you want the reader to infer, and that very much depends on experience and your writing style. Too much inference is difficult to read, too little is boring.

>>22336642
You're not making any sense here, in any other context there might have been a possibility for someone to either focus on one or the other, making the separation of the two logical. Grammar and orthography are both requirements and are taught together, you can't achieve fluency without one or the other. They can't even be said to be closely related, they actually consist of eachother. You're making zero sense.

>>22336653
A child learns grammar long before they learn to write. Many languages don't have written forms at all. At one point in history, or prehistory, no languages had written forms. Language had rules when cavemen spoke to each other. That's grammar.That's what linguists study.

>>22335994
Your drawing looks pretty good anon, keep it up.

>>22333172
looks like america, not iraq

>>22336652
Yes, "show don't tell" makes more sense when dealing with a visual medium like film, animation, or comics where you can actually show something to the audience, as opposed to literature where you're by definition always telling.

>>22336551
Video game fan fiction. Unsure how genre-typical I'm making it, I'm a little out of my depth (but having fun)

>>22336858
Brainlet answer.

>start writing
>suddenly a bunch of questions related to my initial premise pop up
T-this is normal, right?

>>22337272
Yes, especially as a beginner.

>>22337281
>especially as a beginner
haha...
I've been writing for decades.

>>22337272
You didn’t figure out the tax policy, did you?

>>22337287
>>22337281
Actually, thinking back on it, I actually used to ask less questions as a beginner, simply for not knowing that I should have been asking any. I just found an idea that kinda worked and bullshitted my way through it. You only start asking questions when you figure out that you can't just put together any random string of events if you actually want to write a good story.

>>22335841
Why is this world ran by satanic pedos and the majority of the profane are bleeding vaginas?

>>22335841
Why are you using chatgpt to write your novel?

>>22335841
I am. Every character is a person of color and/or on the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

>>22337671
Same.
White is a color, and Straight is part of the spectrum.

>>22335841
I have some outsider perspectives from some foreign characters and some are inclusive, but in general I write in time periods where progressives don't exist or in places that no one cares about what they think.

>>22337676
As long as you don’t combine those. Unless it’s for a villain.

>>22337689
Oh, no, the villain is the only homosexual. It's a trans BIPOC blasian who had a crush on a White girl but her White brother raped him as a joke, and now he's angry he'll never get that dick again so he's going to kill all women.

>>22337693
MODS! Ban this sick homophobic racist transphobic filth! It has no place in polite society, which includes this Himalayan basket weaving board.

>>22336249
What books would you say are better than McKee's?

How the FUCK do I write a large scale battle scene? Any examples I can learn from?

what are some really obvious examples of novelists copying a previous novel but just doing it a lot better

>>22337839
Have you read Blood Meridian? The battle and slaughter scenes in it are incredibly vivid. There is this impression of lots of movement and many things happening together.

>>22325122
I do first person narration and am debating if I should switch up the narrators between books like they did in Animorphs

>>22334906
Such a fine day today.

I pledge defiance to the Frank
And the shill-spamming pseud that is Gardner
And to that reprobate, whom we can't stand
A new thread >>22338041, under anons
Unsamefaggable
With politeness and good frens for all.

>>22337896
Thanks buddy. I will check it out.

How do I get my muse back after I'm coomed multiple times?

How do I get my muse back after I've coomed multiple times and feel so disoriented I fuck up basic grammar?

>>22338150
Um...stop cooming?
Did you really need to be told that?

>>22329278
Beat choice? Typo?
I found a nice, readable Gothic font in a book called "100 Twisted Little Tales Of Torment".
An online font ID service said it was "ITC Stone Informal Pro Medium".

>>22338174
That's about prevention, not recovery.