/lit/ - Literature

>>22758334
But if you wanted the sentence to represent the second picture, YOU WOULD NOT PLACE A COMMA AFTER STRIPPERS. Whoever made that image knows nothing about grammar or commas.

how 2 write story that is good without a plot twist
pls send help all I can write are plot twists

>>22758509
My stories are more focused on the characters than anything. Maybe try that?

>>22758509
Twists are good. But make sure you frame them correctly - whatever that means. Please provide me an example of your twists.

>>22758460
Non-restrictive clauses use a comma.

Has anyone written a full length novel?

writing groups
are you in one? irl or online?
are they worth it? any red flags I should avoid?
tell me about it

>>22759052
I've written 17.

>>22759135
I signed up for a local writing group a few months ago. I only realized after that it was all old women. I appreciate the elderly, but I'd rather take advice from old men. Am I sexist? Yeah. Have I been proven wrong in the past? Yeah. Some of my favorite authors are women. But still. I feel like generally men either have no hobbies or are into them to the point of obsession. I would rather interact with those obsessed few than the moderate rest that I imagine those elderly women to be.
So I never went. Also because I'm reclusive.
I do have a girl friend that is an editor though. Her prose is better than mine.

>>22759182
>I do have a girl friend that is an editor though.
I'm very jealous. This would eliminate the need for a writers group.
Why is it so difficult to find male writing friends?

>>22759188
Sure is a big help. It was only by chance though. I was friends with her through elementary school, then we lost contact between 6-11th grade. Then I joined an old mmo and saw her online. Turned out we were both into writing. Also she's apparentely super smart? I never really asked for details, but the year after I graduated high school she was already looking for a grad school.

The other writer friend I have started writing along with me. In middle school I suggested we write the worst fanfic possible, and our love for writing both stemmed from that. Ridiculous. He was admitted to the psychiatric ward last year for trying to kill himself though. Haven't talked to him much since then. I wonder if he's still writing. His last message was "I've had a breakthrough" or something alike.

Another friend I made through language exchange. He's not really a "writer" but in spirit he is. He's a mangaka.

I'm a pretty lucky guy, thinking about it.

>>22759208
>Sure is a big help. It was only by chance though. I was friends with her through elementary school, then we lost contact between 6-11th grade. Then I joined an old mmo and saw her online. Turned out we were both into writing. Also she's apparentely super smart? I never really asked for details, but the year after I graduated high school she was already looking for a grad school.
cute, you are definitely lucky. is there any competitiveness between your writing lol

>>22759228
We write comedically opposing types of content, making competition difficult.
She got her degree in psychology, and having been impacted by her questionable past, she mostly writes erotica with even more questionable things presented in them. I can't say I'm into it, but I'd be lying if I said she didn't establish tone and atmosphere extremely well. She says she writes these questionable things as a way of homing in on the fucked up people that need the message the most.

If it came down to it though, I feel like I craft better stories in terms of plot. Of course, it's subjective.... and prose has a bigger effect on the reader experience than plot, so I guess I lose.

>>22759244
You have the GOAT relationship. Two writers in completely different genres and styles. Bah. Maybe one of the old ladies will be divorced...

>>22759258
>Maybe one of the old ladies will be divorced...
Maybe I'm stupid, but I don't understand this part of your response. My apologies, but could you elaborate on this? Do you intend to marry any writer regardless of skill in reference to my original response?

>>22759274
It was a joke about being jealous of your relationship with a self-degrading addendum that works as a double callback to me wanting to find a writers group and you telling me that they only consist of old women.
>Do you intend to marry any writer regardless of skill in reference to my original response?
pretty much yep

>>22759280
Haha.
Well, I'm quite tired. I haven't been making any progress in my writing lately, so I've asked her to give me a daily quota. I haven't met it yesterday or today, and at this point it's 5:11 AM. Surely tomorrow, though... I've already passed the hard part after all.

I'd like to ask you about your pursuit of writing friends, though. If you leave a response I'll read it when I wake up. Goodnight!

>>22759295
sending you writing energy so you can hit your quota tomorrow.
>I'd like to ask you about your pursuit of writing friends, though. If you leave a response I'll read it when I wake up. Goodnight!
I'll drop a little diarypost for you to read in the morning.
I have always been writing and reading books but recently realized that it is difficult without people around to give me feedback. Unfortunately I have no idea where to find people that would be interesting in reading my work, and posting it online isn't private enough for me. Even most online spaces for writing, twitter, reddit, tumblr whatever all feel wrong. I've tried joining discords I've seen around the board and they're either shitposting servers or impenetrably pretentious. I'm aware that most of this is my personal perception and I may get something out of it, but /wg/ is the only place that has a nice balance so I thought it'd be the best place to ask about writing groups.

>>22759052
Several of us have. Did you look at the OP author pastebin?

Guys i wrote a book and published it on amazon but 0 buy and 0 views on kindle.

Also it doesn't show up in the categories in the store.

I am fucked?

why do I feel like a complete fucking dork loser when I write fantasy and how do I overcome this?

>>22759208
Reach out to your friend you piece of shit.

>>22760124
Stop writing fantasy?

>>22760157
Why? I like it. I'm just embarrassed to like it

>>22760124
Try writing romance and you'll feel something far worse. Then just go back and it will be a comfortable misery you rest in.

Who Here Has Actually Published?
How many books have you published?
How long was your first published book?
What have you learned from actually publishing that no one told you?

>>22758460
Self owned.

>>22760246
>>22760058
i did but fucked up

>>22758334
>Writing dialog for characters whose dialect deviates from standard English
>Get the blue squiggly line under many of my sentences
IT'S NOT A GRAMMAR ERROR! THAT CHARACTER'S JUST SOUTHERN!

>>22759244
Checked.
Your life sounds like a romcom manga.

>>22760280
How did you fuck up?
What did you do?
What is it called?

>>22758759
>>22760278
idiots

How do I get started? I have a few vague ideas but can't seem to develop them into something coherent and meaningful to me. Trying to write from this vague melange doesn't make anything or lead anywhere for me.

>>22760925
>I have a few vague ideas
Try again when they're less vague.

>>22760682
idk just amazon is shadow ban it

>>22760957
I guess I'm asking how to iterate and shape up an idea into something you can write from. I was never much for brainstorming and don't really know how "creative" writing works.

>>22760977
No, that’s not how amazon works. Amazon makes more money when they sell you book too. They sell mein kampf for Christ’s sake.
Okay enough, share with the class. What did you do?

>>22760978
>I was never much for brainstorming
Literally just think about your ideas and what would be cool stemming from them, or what would make a good story or character. Connect these bits together in a manner that's acceptably schizophreniac.

>>22760977
Bro Amazon doesnt shadow ban books
Post book so we can tell you what you did

>>22760978
>>22761044
Have we really reached the point where we're telling people how to THINK? These threads somehow lure in mouthbreathers who shouldn't even be able to connect to the internet

>>22761034
>>22761057
Can't you already tell? Anon can't even put one coherent sentence together, imagine what his "book" is like

Thanks, I was already depressed from the holidays and wanted some escapism but now I guess I'll just write about offing myself.

>>22761058
I think it's the problem of people who don't have an internal voice. They have no storyteller.

>>22761071
>I guess I'll just write about offing myself.
Hey, I'm writing a novel about this.

>>22759319
>posting it online isn't private enough for me.
Why do you want your writing to be private? I think it'd be best to release it to gauge public reaction and use those reactions as a pattern recognition system to see what you do best and what you do worst. That of course requires a sizable audience, though. May be hard to get.... But regardless, posting online is good for confidence, even if you don't get a favorable reaction. I had severe social anxiety at one point, not that people scared me, but public places in general. I got over it by joining a chorus group and singing in public. I was the only bass. And I sucked. But I can speak in public ezpz now.
Discord does seem like a horrible place for writing related groups... and I do agree that this place is only good enough. A writing group may not be a bad idea, though. Closer connections are needed to have reliable input.

>>22760599
No romantics involved at all. Complicated situation on her part. And even when I become friends with a woman who checks all the boxes -- smart, easy to talk to, funny, ambitious, artistic, and attractive -- I still couldn't fall in love with her. A point of anxiety for me since I want a wife and kids in the future....

>>22760137
I did! He's always slow to respond, if he ever does. I even send him letters. Those emo girls are a bad influence on him.... Well, our discussions were about philosophy and often ended up on topics of dread and hopelessness, so maybe I wasn't the best influence either....

>>22761084
>I still couldn't fall in love with her
I believe you're a robot operating on pure logic like me and your only hope is to operate on logical steps.

What I'm saying is, if the glove fits, you must fuck it.

>>22761095
I admit that I rely on logic too much. In recognition of this, the subtheme of my current story is reason vs feeling with the framework of purpose and kindness. (Two things that I believe go hand-in-hand - basically one.)

But I don't want to date some stranger girl! Relationships are a very precious thing to me. I may be a gambling addict, but I don't want to desecrate the sanctity of a relationship by pulling 100 gacha women for the 1% that I may love.
When my friends try to set me up, I turn them down. Before I can love, I want to first be friends. But then at the same time, I won't be able to develop romantic feelings... too many contradictions. Might just end up alone forever at this point.

>>22761060
Cope
I am a ESL so don't except me to write perfect english on smartphone.
>>22761034
I try to search it on Kindle Unlimited and in Amazon Story.

Is not on the list i need to search it, so no reader can find it

>>22761236
>don't except me to write perfect english on smartphone.
I expect you to not phonepost nigger faggot.

>>22761236
>I try to search it on Kindle Unlimited and in Amazon Story.
>Is not on the list i need to search it, so no reader can find it
Post title I bet I can find it easily. Also you have to join kindle unlimited, it’s not something merely granted to you.

>>22761274
>Title
Sorry too timid
>join
I put my book aviable for Kindle Unlikited.
Still not even a fucking bot open my book

>>22761320
Sell us on your book.

>>22761320
Yeah, amazon didn’t do anything wrong, you did something wrong and I’m trying to help you but you think getting zero readers is somehow better than one who can help you.
One more chance. I’m curious, and this could be fun to hep, but I’m not begging. I bet you fucked up something super simple.

>>22761340
As i already said, i am too timid to dox myself here.

But is a short fantasy, 60k characters in total, sadly if i search fantasy book on amazon and unlimited, it doesn't show up

I have set a life goal to get at least one story published in the New Yorker. With enough trial and error, imitation, and analysis of what they publish, I believe I could do it.

>>22758460
Tosser

>>22761351
Except for the 0 visibility there is no other problem.

Is search with the name?
Ok
I search fantasy book?
Zapping 100 pages of amazon and no trace of it.

>>22758334
>day 57567565 of not writung a single word of fiction.

>>22761369
Are you the anon that posted this on the last thread?
How many rejections has the New Yorker given you?

>>22761380
No one cares, yawn. You fucked up, not Amazon. You could change but you won’t. Fuck off into obscurity.

>>22761414
RIP.

Still thanks for your time anon.

>>22759135
>>22759182
>>22759208

Genuinely afraid if I join such a group, people would steal my SF/Anthology idea.
I know how this sounds, but my idea is REALLY good, like you will watch a Netflix Series about it in the years to come based on it.

But maybe if they are all old I could try it ?

I actually joined one before, more like a paid class over a few weeks that kickstarted my writing habit.

Out of all the 6-7 people we were only two guys, and the other was much older than me. The women were all writing a mix of autobiographical stories and/or novels. Weirdly, only one went fantasy with an interesting gimmick. I was the only one focused on SF.

Ah, just writing it gives me back the feeling of having fellow wannabe-authors reading me and giving me feedback. This felt good. Imma join another one.

>>22759208
I would read a romanced story about you and your friends.

>>22761431
Execution of an idea is far removed from the notion you have of it in your head. I hardly believe anyone could steal an idea and make it work. The passion wouldn't be there.

>>22761431
>people would steal my SF/Anthology idea.
I am just going to say that you're not as unique as you think and scifi shit is dime a dozen.

And even if you are, you can take the best idea in the world and hopelessly fuck it to death. Just imagine what Star Wars would be if George Lucas didn't have his team of tard wranglers.

Seeking any and all criticism of this opening passage.
In particular: how do you feel about the "fantasy"/fictional word names? Vercii, Allendia, nepja, and such?

>>22761519
>Vercii, Allendia
Sounds vaguely Italian and fine.
>nepja
Sounds retarded and only fine for a geographical feature.

>>22761530
What is "retarded" about it, if you could be a bit more specific?

>>22761519
I don't care but stop it with the fucking comma's.

>>22761514
>>22761517

You're right, and I know it. Just trying to make excuses to avoid accountability.

Thanks for the sanity check tho !

>>22761540
Please fix a sentence.

>>22761547
Post a pastebin and I will.

>>22761514
Ain't that the truth. Some hack could steal a good premise but great ideas take work and something personal to make them into something more than cheap erotica or a current year TV script. Most are too conceited and absorbed in their own ideas to take it and the few that would aren't absorbed enough in their own ideas to do anything meaningful with it.

>>22761440
Write about it if you'd like. I find it a bit strange though.

>>22761534
Very, very random phonetics. Base your names of shit on language phonetics, even if they're made up they'll sound good.

Basically the first two seem to follow latin/italian phonetics, the second seems to follow none.

>>22761549
https://pastebin.com/4HRGvuRX
>>22761562
I'm not a linguist, etymologist, whatever. Do you have any Phonetics for Dummies-esque material you'd recommend on the subject?
I chose nepja because a cursory googling for "Norse word bitter" brought up https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nepja and I'm an Amerifat, speaking nothing but English. Having it sound foreign, compared to the more Italian-sounding things you correctly deduced, was deliberate on my part, but I can see how the pronunciation might be a bit ugly, if the story were read aloud, and the vowel-consonant-consonant-vowel might look a bit "off".
That sentence has too many commas, I'm sure.

>>22761408
Three so far (they don’t give personal rejections, you just know because they don’t email you back) And yes, I am.

>>22761604
>She stands at the edge of a forest, gazing into the clearing ahead. There is a castle, the white stone of its construction suffused with moonlight, with high walls and intermittent parapets scored by crenellations, between which the distant gleam of guardsmen helms flicker forth as they surveil the area, ever vigilant for Imperial incursions. Banners, depicting a yellow cornucopia against a green backdrop, sway in a night breeze from safe perches atop the parapets. The banners are illuminated from beneath by blazing braziers to inform any nocturnal ne'er-do-wells: this castle is under the protection of house Vercii.

She stands at the edge of a forest, gazing into the clearing ahead. There is a castle of white stone suffused with moonlight. On its high crenelated walls are intermittent parapets, from which the flicker of guardsmen's helms can be seen as they surveil the area, ever vigilant for Imperial incursions. Banners depicting a yellow cornucopia against a green backdrop sway in a night breeze from safe perches above. The sigil send a clear message to any ne'er-do-wells: 'This castle is under the protection of House Vercii.'

Just... I tried making it flow better because you don't want to go back and forth to understand the depiction.

And on the names:
It seems haphazard. They seem to come from no unified cultural source.

>>22761519
AI-written GPTshit

>>22761519
The anon who fucked over his book here.

I recommend giving meaning to the names.

The family is called X because an animal called Y performed Z in front of the founder of the dynasty. By combining Y and you, you get X.

This also helps readers remember the name.

>>22758334
How do I stop hating myself long enough to write

>>22761709
Self-insert as the villain

>>22761709
I usually get slightly drunk.

>>22761709
Go outside. After 5 months of holing up, my friend had a birthday party on his boat. For the next two days I felt super mellow and could only think good thoughts. I couldn't even write the bad things in my story. "Sun-kissed" is very accurate in describing how it feels.

>>22761723
sun-kissed means tanned you fucking fairy

>>22761727
Well I was tanned, but it also describes the feeling.

>>22761352
You search for your own book by "fantasy"? There's no way Amazon is going to put your book near the top of the list. Search for it by title.

>>22761393
You're 157,611 years old?!?!

>>22761517
Or what Star Wars would be if Lucas didn't steal large portions of the plot from "The Hidden Fortress" by Kurosawa.

>>22761694
Are you Dog Fucker anon?

>>22761751
Nice idea for a name.

Justin the Dogfucker Canuck

>>22758334
This image is not about the Oxford comma as much as it's covertly visually historical political propaganda because the positions of the outfits of the strippers are chiasmized towards Stalin wearing the pink ones and Kennedy wearing the black one, signalizing a femininity from Stalin that Kennedy does not have, while someone with broader cultural knowledge might recognize the Yin in Kennedy's outfit as being the feminine one, and the Yang in the lack of Stalin's stripper outfit as being the masculine one, proving that the effectiveness of propaganda based on historical politics when posted on an anonymous literature forum is in the eye of the beholder, and that the transparency in being open about what you see is in the hands of the Anon, who does not always communicate effectively going off on what I read when lurking, but is apt to get baited by images such as these, and react to them on a primary level, proving that cultivation of such instincts are neccesary, with reading literature helping with that, albeit this being possible to be my own power-trip, in which case a parallel with Kennedy and Stalin is humorous and easily made, especially because of the stripper outfits, since me stripping and deconstructing this Opening Post image is just like stripping down with clothes, but then done with words and sentences, and that's what the text in the image is about, but the problem with positing such grammarian rules is that it is prescribing, and nobody likes having a prescription - it is usually more effective and humorous to read sentences in the second instance as-is, and try to figure out how it could be made to fit in context pragmatically, because the idea of having strippers, JFK, and Stalin at your party makes it seem like it's one of those Berlusconi bunga-bunga parties, whereas if the strippers are JFK and Stalin it can turn into a party for female political literature readers with an interest in Western and European-Asiatic political interest and the power struggle versus the perversity of power who don't seem to party much with their own kind, but instead choose to stay in and write or read or process literature, since that is their vocation, and who could do with some partying, even if it is only to see the effects of their interest, and sparking heated debate about concepts such as 'Lust for Power' or 'The Reversal of the Stripper Ideal in Contemporary Gender Politics' which is hotter than watching JFK and Stalin strip their clothes off, because the brain is the biggest erogenous zone.

>>22761774
Analyze that, Universal Grammarians!

>>22761774
Are you too-many-commas anon i.e. >>22761519?

>>22760246
I took publishing as a term with a broader interpretation than the classic 'editor-printing-press-bookstore'-signification and just put my unedited manuscripts in the local community bookcase. I've done that at least 5 times. The first two books were 235 pages on A4+ size. I learned that 'It is on'

>>22761790
No, I am not. Everything that has 'too' before it is not good, but when read in context I think that it is just a matter of style.

Can anyone give me some help regarding the usage of object pronouns in linked verb sentences?

For instance, if I were to say “These things had shaped the person who she’d become,” should “who” really be “whom” since the verb “become” is acting on it as an object? I’ve read that for linking (complementary) verbs such as “be” or “become” that you shouldn’t necessarily use “whom,” but the usage dictionary I use (Burchfield’s revision of Fowler) doesn’t seem to address this specific type of usage. (I understand that in my example sentence “who/who” could be removed entirely, but let’s assume it is not removable.) Any opinions?

>>22760246
I have published one story so far.

>>22761800
I'm not qualified to answer this, and in an attempt to attain the qualification, I will try to let the questions answer themselves and pose as a metaphor for your place in the time-life matrix via deconstruction


These things
had shaped the person
who
she'd become


These things
had shaped
the person
whom
she'd become

>>22761844
Consider that I'm European.

>>22761393
>schizo-anon is back!

The main character is good in a fight but awkward/shy around women. Is the stutter too much? I thought it was okay since he's caught off guard.

I'm not sure if I"m writing erotic gay fiction or gothic horror but it's going along smoothly for now.

No idea how long it has been since I slept properly. Now I just kind blink and then wake up a couple of hours later. I drink about 3 or 4 energy drinks a day to keep me up. Shakespeare withholds his secrets from me still.

>>22761893
Thanks. I vomited now and my stomach feels better.

Took me two years to write a book.
I’ll answer any question you ask besides title of book, pseudonym, etc.

>>22761893
>the unnamed woman

maybe my writing isn’t that bad, because I would never write a sentence like this

>>22761912
How much was preliminary work and how much was in writing and editing drafts? In what ways did it evolve as you had words on the page?

>>22761912
What’s the opening line?

>>22761912
how many words?
what's the best line/paragraph?
how did you feel after finishing it?

>>22761926
>how many words?

125,000 or so.

>best line/paragraph

“Victoria Wittgenstein was a very beautiful woman, and nothing was a more delectable feature than her body. Her breasts were round like oranges, and her soft, supple backside was shaped like an hourglass. When she walked into a room, every man suddenly sprang an erection. And for good reason. But she had one fatal flaw: her mind. You see, ass and tits can only go so far.”

>how did you feel after finishing it?

Accomplished.

>>22761912
Help me>>22761380

>>22761916
Edits and drafts took way less time than the preliminary work. I struggled to write anything for a long time. Started with short stories, then novelettes. Just finished my first novela to publish.
>>22761919
Nice try.
>>22761926
Between 15,000-20,000 words. Best paragraph is an emotional high about 80% the way through between two friends.
Feels like it’s long overdue.
>>22761937
This was not me btw.

>>22761948
Faggot, what the fuck are you doing trying to impersonate me?

>>22761938
I bet you messed up something very simple. If you can find it via name, you’re fine. You’re not going to find a no download book even in the top 1,000 pages of amazon search by category. There’s millions of books on amazon.

>>22761948
Well that was boring, if you won't even post the best part.

>>22761926
Neither of these people are me.
>>22761948
>>22761937


To answer your questions:

1. The novel is about 40,000 words.

2. The best paragraph: I’d rather not post it exactly. It’s a confrontation between the protagonist and his estranged father, in which they physically fight and end up killing each other. It’s intense.

3. As for how I felt, I just felt kind of weird. Because I’d dedicated so much time to writing this and then it was finally really finished.

>>22761957
I searched by date, but nothing.

>>22761916
The preliminary work was not much, but I tend to be a pantser, if you know that term. The plot changed several times through the writing process, which made editing pretty lengthy.

>>22761970
No one will “find” your “unfindable” book if you don’t drop the title.

>>22761919
Here’s the opening paragraph.

“The crackle of lightning was deafening as Peter Bismuth sat in his apartment, tapping the keyboard to write some emails. These emails had bugged him for some time, but tonight was a good night to complete them. In fact, the lightning added somewhat to the ambiance as he feverishly pecked at the keys and pressed submit each time. When it was over, he reached over and took another swig of whiskey. Jack daniels, of course. That’s what his estranged father always drank, so he ripped the labels off of the bottles always.”

>>22761983
Just ask
Alternative to amazon that not require but an ISBN?

>>22761800
>Any opinions?
If this isn't formal writing, just use who. Even if it's technically wrong, 99.9% of people won't notice.

>>22761983
Just asking
An alternative to Amazon that doesn't require to buy an ISBN?

I was going to sign a contract with a major publisher (you’d know its name). But they wanted my manuscript to be read by a “sensitivity reader” so I bailed. Principles matter.

>>22762009
No one wants to be trad published anymore, lmao. You’re lucky if even 10% of the sales net revenue comes your way after the publisher takes home 90%.

Is the anon who wrote this still around or posted any other things?

Summer, Year Two

Each day she wore a different flower on her ear; Marigold, lavender, rose- they would always accent her clothes and compliment her perfume, though, they could never distract from her lips, which spoke soft and felt softer and tasted of blueberry and peach. She parted them to eat and to kiss but rarely to talk. Everything she had to say she said with her eyes; They were vibrant and wide and clear as a cloudless sky; She could set you free with a glance and imprison you with a stare. Sunlight would melt into her golden hair as if it could find no better home. It seemed to remain with her, nested between her locks, even after the twilight fell. Even when she let her hair loose to be blown by the wind, like a feild of wheat or rye, the light held to every perfect strand; Just as she refused to let go of my hand or lift her head off my chest. Ants had pilfered our picnic. Songbirds had gone to sleep. The ground was getting colder and harder with each passing minute- Yet, she was every summer night's bonfire. She was the kind of heat that warms you from the inside out. I am Prometheus and she is the flame; Though, I will not share her the world. Never.

>>22762051
That’s cope.

>>22761744
I'm counting past lives.
>>22761867
No.

>>22762058
We're anon, and even though I sympathize with the text and parallelize the text to my youth, it would be hard to find an anon like this. Do you know when this was posted?

>>22762108
>Do you know when this was posted?
Within the past week give or take a day
.

>>22762104
How do you keep count of those?

>>22762058
This reads a lot like a guy who posts on the WWoyM thread.
You'll probably find him there.

>>22762116
Then it's not me as an individual anon, and unless we transfer memories via the web and time is metaphysically not the blur it seems and I typed it but transferred the memory of having typed it into somebody else by means of kinetic electronical data transer so I don't remember typing it, I didn't type it.

I went back to a script before the invention of the void space before words.

>>22762087
Okay, how are you going to get more than 10% of sales revenue as a trad author.
I’ll wait retard.

>>22762131
No but you wrote all that shit because...?

>write about a person of color
>refer to them as a colored person to save ink
>get a talking-to
fuck semantics

>>22762241
>not just calling them a person
Not even memeing: why bring up their skeen cola? You post here, so you know it's just a minefield.
inb4 "colorblindness would also get me a talking-to"

>>22762051
picrel
>>22762104
>past lives
>not schizo
anon, i...

>>22762252
>90% of writers are retards
is that all? so if i sold more than two thousand, im automatically in the top ten percent of writers?

Writing whole books is tryhard. Short stories are for chads.

>>22762262
Yep. But it's harder than it sounds. And buying copies of your own books doesn't count.

>>22762275
it kinda counts

>>22762252
I'm not the specific schizo you were talking about, at least.

>>22762252
I can believe those numbers. I went to a barnes this weekend and stared at the fuck-huge aisle of cookbooks and food bullshit. they're like forty pages long and with big pictures. i don't understand why anyone would bother with printing that shit.

>>22762009

Nothing wrong with letting them read it. It doesn't mean you have to accept their changes.

>>22761969
>1. The novel is about 40,000 word

That's more like a novella

thoughts on a "concerning hobbits" style prologue to just info dump all the world building BS? There's just a lot of context that I refuse to introduce via the narrative.

>>22762366
you could just imitate that lemon snicket fellow

>>22762366
Y'know, I want it but I also don't. It's kinda funny when Sci Fi does it.

Any suggestions for achieving my end goal of getting one story published in the New Yorker? I’m formulating some ideas.

>>22762389
>minority penname
>minimal prose
>story asks a question, doesn't go anywhere with it
>????
>Profit

When reading a book what would indicate how intelligent the author is?

>>22762389
become a lesbian inuit baker who is coming to terms with having an abortion. or save oprah's life

>>22762399
When someone tells a grotesque, basic-bitch fart joke and the punchline is something new that makes you legit laugh, that's intelligence.

>>22762389
Write a story worthy of being published?

>>22762392
Any themes I should definitely hit on? And it’s probably best to write it with a navel gazing, sarcastic/irony poisoned narration, right? The “I don’t even care about this story at all because I’m so cool and disconnected” tone.

>>22762412
Getting into an elite publication is not about that in 2023. It’s about catering to the identities their readers and editors have contrived for themselves.

>>22762381
what does he do

>>22762419
it's not about that in 2024 either
2020-2022 were peak idpol—you're behind if you're still catering to identity politics
maybe it will swing back again if trump gets reelected though

>>22762452
You’re right in a sense. It’s not about catering to racial, ethnic, sexual identities. That’s becoming passe now. Rather, it’s about catering to the identity adopted by many a New Yorker reader/editor (irony poisoned aesthete and likely trust fund kid who abhors sincerity above all else).

>>22762315
Seems like the only hope in making money off of writing is for someone to buy the TV/movie rights. It sure worked for Andy Weir.

Why do authors like incest in their stories?

>>22762537
Its a jewish thing. You wouldnt understand

I have:
>a plot
>a world
>an antagonist, with motivations that tie directly to the plot
>a cast of supporting characters, each with their own motivations and drives and wants
Now how do I come up with a concept for a protagonist that fits directly into the narrative, is at odds with the antagonist? I feel like I am hamstrung by forcing my main character into the plot, rather than building a plot around him, and for some reason have a mental block in brainstorming ideas at all. Everything I have grew fairly organically, so I do not have a process or developmental theory to fall back on. Could any of you suggest one?

>>22762589
The way I got around this issue was by making one of the supporting characters the protagonist instead, that way I didn't feel obligated to make a boring "blank slate" like everyone says you have to.

>>22762589
Don't. There's nothing wrong with having multiple POV characters/protagonists. Your "supporting cast" are those people.

>>22762608
I'd been set on writing in first person since the outset, hence why I wanted to stick to a singular protagonist. Without an interesting enough perspective to justify it, though, perhaps a switch to third with multiple povs would work better. It would also serve my story much better anyways. I just have an autistic and stubborn itch to write in first, perhaps an extreme type of anchoring bias, but I'm suddenly realizing that would probably be doing a disservice to my book.

Critique my (very) short story.


The weather was hot and humid, and many flying insects hung in the air. Irving sat on the grass, his gaze fixed on the placid lake surface. Every so often, somebody else would toss a stone; and it would ripple on the water. Irving adjusted his straw hat, turning his eyes to the sky briefly. “This is a terrible day to be outside,” he said. Nobody spoke. He did not dare to repeat it again.

>>22761519
I find it overly descriptive and bogged down in mundane detail. There is no strong underpinning theme within all that physical description. The character wants this castle and is going to take it, right? What she feels about it and why should permeate how it is described. Is it something she has specifically coveted? Is it how a castle symbolises status and power? Is it incidental to a greater ambition? I couldn't really tell. Figuring out how you want to represent the character's desire to the reader will allow you to make the description vivid and interesting. Flowery and poetic if she has some romantic view of the place like reclaiming a birthright, steeped in images of glory and power if it's about status, or taciturn and practical if it's just a stepping stone.
I will say that I like some of your imagery, especially when things are happening, but it needs direction to be worthwhile. A bunch of actors on a set aren't going to produce a good scene if the director doesn't know what to tell them.

Lastly, a nitpick. The background on a flag is called the field. This is the kind of thing you will catch in editing, though. Don't let it derail you while you still have a story to write.

>>22762685
Why are you reposting this?
>no, it was about a picnic last time!
It's still a repost.

>>22762262
World's tallest midget fallacy, writers are miserable failures

>>22762731
I have never posted anything about this story besides an early draft of the first opening line, when I was trying to figure out what I would do with it. Stay mad and go write some hairy plopper fanfiction.

>>22762608
How to Write a Failure, by Anon

>>22762701
>I find it overly descriptive and bogged down in mundane detail.
>There is no strong underpinning theme within all that physical description. The character wants this castle and is going to take it, right? What she feels about it and why should permeate how it is described.
No argument from me. I was trying to walk the tightrope between providing some early exposition, and having things actually happen. I have answers to the "why" she'll seize power, but I was struggling with how to get that in without slowing things down even more. Should I pare down some of the descriptions, to replace them with more elaboration on her intentions? To be honest, I was concerned I might have been too explicit already, describing anyone in camp as "anxious", but I have my outline in front of me and you just have the garbage I wrote, so you'd have a better read on how subtle/pretentiously evasive it is.
But, nothing happens in this passage, so....
>A bunch of actors on a set
Stylistic choice. I like to spend the first few paragraphs of a "scene" describing the characters and setting. This chapter, a prologue, continues to provide early clues on how the deuteragonist will pull her coup, and why it will ultimately fail.
>Lastly, a nitpick. The background on a flag is called the field.
Appreciate the correction. I'm a historylet, livery and heraldry and such are Greek to me.

I am going to write a non linear epistolary story. There will be no central narrator and nobody telling the reader what to think about the events of the story. Instead, there will simply be a series of fictional documents for the reader to consider. They will range from newspaper articles to clinical interviews, personal diaries and more. There will be a central mystery which they concern and the reader must figure out, for themselves, what is going on. No handholding. The documents will be written in an extremely realistic way. Has anybody done this before?

>>22758334
how 2 get into writing should I write a short story?? a VN??? a text game??? an entire book?!!?

>>22762830
all

Part of a short story from the POV of a robot. 3rd rewrite of this to get in all the points I wanted, but something feels off. He's currently waiting outside a greenhouse while his creator helps an old man plant some stuff. He wasn't explicitly asked to help, so he would rather do nothing. It will be a point in the next scene. Other than that, I must mention 'absurd' things have been happening before this.


Nothing to do but wait….
Though, I’m certain that old man will die before his plants bear fruit. Surely, he must know this. But regardless….
Midday passed. It is cold. Though it is not something I feel, it is something I know.
The sun passes behind clouds, casting an array of shadows over the land, and in those shadows trees shiver by wind, and in wind the air twists and slows. In motionless suspense, the forest becomes quiet. I see these things with more and wonder….
Winter. It is the unkind season. Life is suffocated, cries are absorbed, everything is isolated. Cruel. Indifferent. But that is how it’s supposed to be – time obeys a hallowed scale of hospitality to harm -- and yet, when men tremble with worry, they let their fantasies fly. They turn into things like this greenhouse. A delusion.
It was once a wish that crops would grow in winter, now the impossibility of growth has become possible in that isolated world. Where warmth is preserved and the temperature is always kind, there absurdities are born.
It is the imagined world where reason becomes most twisted, no longer obeying the seasons. Stagnation. Frozen time. It’s strange. I wonder if this perfect world truly exists….
What about that soldier? Was he worried? Thinking back to his face, it was calm, or maybe even happy. He said he was scared, though. Shouldn’t he have thought up some delusional struggle to save himself? Even if It seemed like he just accepted it…. Oh well.

It's over guys, Amazon fucked me in the ass.

Are there alternative ways, or do I need to prostitute myself to an editor?

>>22763113
How did they fuck you? I can't help with your problem; I assume this is a publishing issue. I'm just curious.

>>22763156
Invisible on tag searching as i already explain.

Without the name is impossible to find it on amazon.

I will try to public it in differenr platforms to see if it's only my problem or amazon problem.

>>22762834
>but something feels off
Attempting to write a robot while writing in distinctly human expressions and thoughts.
>temperature is always kind
Easiest example. Kind? Would a robot really use a word like this? Do they know what kindness is? Can they make a distinction?

>>22759135
I've had a couple. They were all online on voice chat. With the right people they're good fun. They all fizzle out after a few months though as people burn out (usually since we need a schedule, since we all have jobs irl). But I'm still good friends with everyone and we meet up once in a while and go on tangents.

If you can find a group of mature and intelligent people they'll be good for you not just in your writing.

If you only mix with people hell bent on 'improving their craft' or 'getting published' and so on (not that these are not worthwhile goals), that's the only input you'll have, and eventually you'll find yourself circulating in the same 8-10 talking points ad nauseum. That has been my experience, at least. So try to find interesting people who do all sorts of things completely unrelated to writing.

How do you come up with names for your characters? I hate placeholders, they throw me off when writing. I suck at coming up with names so it's a constant pain for me. Is there a cheat code to naming people?

>>22763217
>>22761694
Give meaning to your names.

which is grammatically correct?

>The sky was filled with clouds that took on many forms, but the sun poked through the gaps and provided intermittent rays of light.

>The sky was filled with clouds that took on many forms but the sun poked through the gaps and provided intermittent rays of light.

The second one looks correct on the page but the first one reads better imo.

>>22763246
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/comma-before-but/
tl;dr the former

>>22763269
>Before but: when but is used as a coordinating conjunction to connect independent clauses
Thanks anon!

>another new story idea
>I already have 4 other novel drafts underway
help

>>22763294
Write it down, then go back to working on one (1) of the other novel drafts.

>>22763166
They probably have a sanity check for filtering out ESL drivel.

>>22763294
finish your projects, don't be me

>writing erotic fiction for patreon bucks
>the thought that I am a fraud overwhelms my senses and I fall into a pit of self-loathing and procrastination
its so fucking over

>>22762773
>Should I pare down some of the descriptions, to replace them with more elaboration on her intentions?
No. I think you missed what I was getting at. The description doesn't need to be replaced but does need to be more interesting. You make it interesting by colouring the descriptive prose with characterisation and the emotional significance in the story of whatever is being described.
If I were about to an attack a castle, I would probably be preoccupied with how formidable its defences were. I'd be talking about its strong walls and commanding views over every approach. I might be nervous, resolved, or spurred on by the challenge. I might look for vulnerabilities. I might be impressed with how mighty the castle is or think it looks run down and weak. You get the idea. What a character thinks when they're looking at a castle depends on 1) who they are and 2) why they're looking at it. The description you give, which is obviously necessary for the audience to understand what's going on, should convey those two things fractally.

Try an exercise. Write three versions of a paragraph with the same subject matter of a character looking at a castle they are going to attack.

Character 1 is a disowned lord reclaiming his ancestral lands from a usurper.

Character 2 is a desperate rebel seizing a stronghold before the imperial army arrives from the capital to put an end to his uprising.

Character 3 is a young conqueror bent on taking the throne for himself.

Try to keep the paragraphs of similar length and focus only on the description of the castle. The difference in what you write will reflect the different emotions the castle and the forthcoming battle elicit in the characters, and the differences in the characters' personalities. Don't feel compelled to post it here but you can if you'd like any critique on it.

The actors thing was an analogy. As an author, you have to grasp the emotional impact of the scene you're writing just like a director needs to have the completed movie scene in his head as he creates it so he can tell the actors what they need to convey in their performance. Your "actors" are your characters, places, events, etc. As the director, you are making sure that the effect on the reader is produced. It may have been a poor analogy.

As for heraldry, you don't necessarily need to have a working knowledge of the real thing but the principle of symbolically representing the faction has a lot of literary merit.

>>22763354
Why would you be overwhelmed by basic facts? Isn't it obvious?

>>22763303
>Write it down

I'm trying, I'm trying

>>22763354
is it even possible to be a fraud in erotica? If you write smut and people pay for it then you've done your job. Unless you were looking to disrupt the erotica scene with your book?

>>22762366
its boring unless your setting is VERY unique

>>22763341
No error from amazon checker cope

>>22762448
The author writes as if he exists in the same universe as the story. This includes exposition about characters and settings in a memoir like style as asides like he's a biographer of the actual main characters within the world with his own character and motivations for doing so that are never really elaborated on. It's a pretty fun gimmick.

>>22763294
what makes you think its a good idea? are you willing to share?

>>22762366
attempt to introduce via narrative, but dont sweat it. if you finish the story and failed to do so, and dont really care, then do you your dump.

>>22763113
I can fix your manuscript after I finish the novel I'm editing. Let me know if you're interested

https://www.fiverr.com/matthewg42

>>22763530
An idea is good if I have fun planning and writing it. If I just summarized the premise, you'd probably say it's a bad idea, because the picture you get when you think about it is completely different from the picture that's in my head.

>>22763693
>An idea is good if I have fun planning and writing it.
that's more or less all i was asking; though, i was hoping you could give more insight.
recently, what i like about my ideas has been shifting, and i'm wondering what's motivating others to move on an idea.
AND i'd like to know your idea, but whatever

>>22761893
>salve with beeswax details
Unnecessary. A salve is a salve. The amount of interest salve has ever received in the history of the world fits in a thimble, if interest were a liquid.
>than I, I mean, Not me
Fumbling grammar instead of vocabulary or non-verbal actions is a bit boring, but okay, I can accept it as a workhorse tool to initiate the character.
>Instead of composing herself
Re-evaluate if it's really that important to highlight what the standard action would have been that she didn't do, because right after you describe her unexpected action.
>surprisingly tight hug
Very sad missed chance to have him "be" or "get" surprised, or not even use that descriptor at all to paint the scene.
>The temperate day became kiln
I would nearly never use a metaphor in a situation that is supposed to have a kinetic element, either literally, or figuratively i.e. on the mind (this situation is both). Metaphors are for humorous, contemplative, etc. situations, or such without a person.
>unnamed
No woman is unnamed. Being 'unnamed' is a much stronger proposition than merely 'nameless', the latter of which refers to either a lack of a name, or a lack of available information, rather than a standard action (being given a name) in everyone's life never having been performed.
But I would just use "the woman whose name he didn't know" if it's important. But that they have just met is quite obvious.
>Christopher
Impossible. I don't believe someone can flub up his name in anything but pronounciaton -- but not mistakently ejaculate a completely different one. Unless the character has early-stage dementia, this is quite bad.
>da-yes
Use better punctuation to highlight this.
You are totally allowed to use 'uh...' etc., and a few more (over the lifetime of the character, not this short excerpt) "[Letter]-[Letter]" stutterings. You've had that ghost exorcised from you in novice writing forums, and I am not letting it repossess you. These stutterings feel the least writery and the most organic.
>your medical skills
All of your characters are very, very chatty and verbose. In real life, she would have just held up the hand. In interesting fiction as well.

Relative to the rest of excerpts I read here this was a solid 8.5/10 or 9/10.

>>22763729
NTA, I like it when a set of ideas start working off each other and grow into new territory that I like. I feel like sticking to a script doesn't yield results that interest me as much. Write a good character and they'll carry things in their own direction, stuff like that.

is it really worth writing if i'm kinda retarded?

>>22763840
>Write a good character and they'll carry things in their own direction
that's sort of what i'm doing now actually. light worldbuilding into motivations, or something like that. i haven't entirely figured it out yet, but my old ideas seem cringe as a result

>>22763871
being retarded is a writer's boon

How do you actually write? Is it a matter of sitting down for a specific amount of time and writting down everything that comes to mind or is it an idea thing where you come up with stuff by thinking about your story during your everyday life?
I'd like to write my first story for a game. I created a word document, put down every idea I had so far and made a readable block of text out of it.

I have like a solid base for the setting and general plot but since I did that, I couldn't think of a new single stuff to add and it's been months. I don't know how to tackle this at all. I've been thinking of taking a notepad, a pen, sit down somewhere with no distraction for a few hours and juste write. Would you advise it?
I'm in need of general tips tbqh.

>>22763876
Yeah that seems to work best for me. Getting one character figured out to the point where I know what he will do, then making a situation on the fringes, where he is most conflicted and unpredictable. I write down some themes I want to hit but let it build organically. I will say that half the time it's like two strangers talking on the Internet where the conversation peters out in minutes, that's how you know you have something good. It keeps going and goes somewhere new.

>>22763886
You're asking a very general question but the short answer is that everyone has a different process. What works for nearly everyone is finding somewhere distraction free and focusing on just writing. Eventually something will come out. If you're really struggling focus on the character and what makes them worth following then build out from there.

>>22763627
>Edit
Lol my book is perfect
Also
>300 bucks
A chinese do it for 5

It's difficult to write because anytime I get criticism I immediately want to delete it all and kill myself

>>22763910
5, seriously? you think they're using claude or gpt with a massive token limit?

>>22763914
there is a very easy solution to this: don't release your work ever again.
If this doesn't seem easy to you then you're going to have to learn to get over that.

>>22763919
I want it to be as good as possible for my audience of 1/2 people. I just wish people didn't have to be so fucking nasty about it. Oh well.

>>22763914
>>22763922
when people share here, it's to be abused. or to see if they can get the rare comment.
if you post some RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW, i will give you editor-like, constructive feedback.

>>22763922
How nasty are we talking here?

>>22763917
sure at 100% but the idea of book editing is just cringe.

your soul get edit out by a zoomer and you pay for it.
Also my problem is just visibility so is better advertising.

>>22763898
Ok thanks. I know it's a very broad question but writing isn't my hobby to begin with. Gamedev is and I want to start a project with a story for once.
I've been thinking about going to this coffee bar where artist are going to do their shit. Since I never focus on writing only, I'm thinking it's maybe going to help me to be in this environement.

>>22763938
>I've been thinking about going to this coffee bar where artist are going to do their shit. Since I never focus on writing only, I'm thinking it's maybe going to help me to be in this environement.
This is where it's personal for you. Some people would find that distracting but others would find it invigorating.
Gamedev is beyond my scope, sorry.

>>22763886
Keep throwing ideas down and seeing where they go, while also reducing things to their essence and seeing what kind of scope you want and need. This can take a while or go nowhere, but you usually end up with something you truly like in a very different place from where you started.

>>22763929
I'm just not strong enough. I've been reading and writing for years and my work still sucks. I'm not looking for sympathy I'm just a mentally weak loser and getting torn apart is too much to deal with.

>>22763969
>wanting it to be easy

>>22763948
> Gamedev is beyond my scope, sorry
You know, it's still about writing down words. But yeah I got what you meant earlier. Yeah I think I'm going to spend a few hours per weeks going there and see how it works. Thanks
>>22763967
Ok I'll follow your advices, thanks. Is it a thing to post long ass stories here to get critiques? I want to come back later and post what I'll have by then.

>>22763969
At least with smut, your test readers are reading for content more than style.

>>22763729
It's pretty hard to give a precise, useful answer. Of course what seems interesting changes all the time. And what drives me is usually only the vague urge that "I want to read a story like this". But I can't find anything exactly like it, so I start writing it myself.

In the latest case, I was reading a manwha where fantasy dungeons appeared in the real world. And I thought, what if the dungeons weren't just a tool to turn a loser MC into a demigod but were uniquely structured locations with history and meaning of their own. How would people realistically explore such places? What would motivate people to risk their lives? What kind of equipment would they bring, how would they live days or even weeks in alien environment? How would they use the foreign materials and knowledge they find in dungeons and so on. Following that line, I ended up with a rough skeleton of a story that I wanted to explore deeper. That's how it happens.

Maybe I'll eventually find it was a dead end and didn't result in anything fun, but you shouldn't let that stop you from trying. Keep the bar for experimentation low.

in the context of a couple kids arguing, whats the correct phrase to use?
>can-to!
>can, too!
like when kids argue "you are", "are not", "are to!"

Using Stable Diffusion as a writing prompt. I'll start, you continue. Present tense, narrator perspective.

Wind sweeps down the lane betwixt two warm family houses. It's supper time, and the windows are cracking open. Warm, fragrant steam billows into the lane. Scents of caramelizing carrot, onion, mushroom, and chicken hits her nose first. Next, the delicate thyme, and parsley. The smell of a late autumn home mixes with the fresh rainfall. This lane is the only way to the haunted house: Marlow's Mansion.

Leslie is a traveller purposefully lost, wandering with her feet and mind. The sun sets behind the tall mansion. Her footsteps splash and click. She stops. Wind blows between her legs, and lifts the hat off her head. The delicate straw dances down the lane on its brim, farther towards the mansion, twirling with the fragrant autumn air. Her steps accelerate, the skin of her heels dig into the plastic heel cap, and draws a little blood. She kneels slowly, one knee scraping the pavement under a cold shallow puddle, and the mansion door opens.

>>22764239
>betwixt
making me hungry

Why make it present tense you half-baked contrarian? Why every time this board comes up with something it has to try to be special?

>>22764249
>why present tense
Constrained writing helps you write better. Its like painting with only a couple of colours.

>>22764247
My nigga

>>22764259
This is pretty stupid. Moreover, present tense narrative works best when most of the narrative is a character's voice and in the first person. Not some disembodied narrator.

>>22764294
It's not a disembodied narrator. It's Morgan Freeman. Stop being a grouchy faggot

>>22764294
Oh and to add to that, if you do want to write in this particular PoV and tense, you should write your story like an actual story in the oral tradition and not in this purple descriptive style used in the example.
>>22764301
I'm not grouchy, I just wonder why this board constantly sets itself up for failure.

>>22764306
>T. Professor Grouchy Faggot
Shut up, nerd. Loosen up. This is 4chan, not the classroom. Its a writing prompt for fun, not a serious story.

I am going to write a non linear epistolary story. There will be no central narrator and nobody telling the reader what to think about the events of the story. Instead, there will simply be a series of fictional documents for the reader to consider. They will range from newspaper articles to clinical interviews, personal diaries and more. There will be a central mystery which they concern and the reader must figure out, for themselves, what is going on. No handholding. The documents will be written in an extremely realistic way. Has anybody done this before?

Im writing a fantasy story (like Avatar the last airbender, but edgy and not mary sue)

I have all the main characters a moral conflict but I cant figure out what to do with the last one

>Air monk
prefers peaceful solutions, but encounters many folk who cant be reasoned with
>Assassin
believes in honorable fighting, but as an assassin he has to rely on dirty methods to accomplish his goals
>Saboteur
has no issue indirectly killing hundreds with poisons, but refuses to harm animals
>Doctor
despite helping many people, does not actually care about anyone but himself
>femme fatal "enforcer/assassin"
cant think of a moral conflict for her. She relies on her beauty and charisma to accomplish her goals.

In fact, all the characters are easy to write for and I dare I say even entertaining to read about their escapades, except the last one. She just ends up being bland and non distinct

>>22763772
Thanks. Did you really enjoy it despite the issues?

>>22764341
Professor Grouchy might make fun of your idea. Be careful!

>>22764350
Is she important? Just cut her out.

>47 chapters posted over 4 months on royalroad
>only 69 followers
Is this a failure? Should I just give in and start over with a litrp, selling my soul in the process?

>>22764385
she is, she also plays the role of the "dumb" person who asks the questions and doesnt understand the world they inhabit so I have a natural reason to explain concepts the reader wouldnt understand that are normal in their world.

I think perhaps she is a racist or something but Ive done that before with a posh beautiful girl so Id just be doing the same thing again

>>22764398
I learned in school that literature is basically dead. It sounds like youre doing good despite that. People only like shitty authors from yesteryear because they feel like it makes them seem smart when they talk about them. Although, modern authors are just sludge slingers. If youre not publishing IDF approved topics then youre not going to "make it."

>>22764403
Just give her some sort of relationship impairment. She could have had a really abusive relationship earlier in her life and now she hates men, mostly out of fear and distrust, and ends up taking out her prior trauma on all of her male targets, resulting in overkill. Then, as she learns to love and trust again, or even just come to respect and place her faith in one of your male main characters, she becomes more hesitant and restraint in her work.

>>22764444
>quatro quads
okay, cant argue with that. Thanks anon

>>22764418
The ten thousands of people who read the top novels on that site disagree. Shit taste or not, people still read

>>22764454
>basically dead
*basically.* There are still readers but most people buying books, or reading in general are women. The biggest crowd of people consuming entertainment are dedicated to television, film, or short burst videos. We all should make it a side project to dismantle audiovisual media. Tens of thousands of people can't support tens of thousands of authors. The best we can get are writing grants, or jobs.

>>22764350
>Doctor
>despite helping many people, does not actually care about anyone but himself
You sure you're writing a fantasy story?

>>22764403
Your slutty girl actually wants to find a good man to settle with and be his baby factory, but she has to act like a whore for her job.

There's your shitty conflict, pay me 5 bux.

>>22763190
I take the liberty to let robots have feeligs, only that they are so banished from thought because of their obsession with their purpose. I suppose you are right in a sense, though. He is not indifferent enough, and it makes him sound very salty. He should be confused at best.

>Everything I write WILL suck for a few YEARS
>I may die before I ever write anything good
>I will most certainly die in obscurity

>>22764493
maybe 200 years from now someone influential discovers your work, likes it, promotes it and says you were "ahead of your time" and makes a fortune of it

>>22764493
On the bright side, some cute nerd might pick up your dusty book in a library somewhere and finger herself to the thought of meeting you a 100 years back and telling you how much she liked your story.

How do you learn to write plots like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbzWYjVrvpI

>>22764398
I also want to know what is the aveage number. I remember someone said the unique follower count is normally a quarter of the average views

anyone ever work with an illustrator on a project? i just have two main questions:
>Is there any sort of standard agreement on net sales percentages? is it just 50/50, or do illustrated book profits lean more towards writers or illustrators?
>do trad publishers have in-house illustrators who tidy-up / edit submitted drawings?

>>22764468
I'm doing surprisingly well with mostly unerotic gay fiction but I have a captive audience who doesn't know what they're really into and write outside that box. It's a good time for niche microgenres. The written word still has power, just not in any field or genre it used to.

>>22764558
My illustrator is my gf and she barely draws and the thing I'm making is free so there's no splitting of anything.

If I ever got anything I'd probably give most of it to her, honestly.

I think you'd have to agree with an illustrator on your individual deal. It really depends on the type of workload. If you're the one writing most of the shit and people are reading your thing for YOUR writing, it would make no sense for the illustrator to get the bulk of the shekels. 50+ for the writer is what makes sense to me.

How do you guys go about making your story sound unique and interesting. I'm working on a horror script with what I believe is an intriguing plot, setting, and characters. Despite falling into the horror genre, the story revolves around a ship's AI attempting to eliminate the special forces sent to investigate a missing crew.

>Why do I think it's unique
I believe the sequences and scenes are well-crafted, establishing a strong foundation for a compelling horror narrative. Despite the potential cliché associated with a killer AI, I've introduced a unique element. The AI has lured the soldiers on board by displaying images of the crew deceased, aiming to replicate their bodies and seize control of their command ship. The previous crew sabotaged the engines, leaving it isolated. With the ability to transform into humans and exert control over the entire ship, it poses a formidable and intimidating threat. In my opinion, this adds depth to the story as the AI emerges as a cosmic threat to humanity, and these individuals find themselves powerless to halt its advance.

It's essentially aliens mixed with the thing and Terminator but those movies are good so I don't see the issue with being similar to them.

>>22764567
Please don't write degeneracy. It's not becoming and it's not art.

>>22764558
I recommend using stable diffusion for poverty reasons. That, or take your own photographs and use software to make them look good

>>22764569
Yeah, kinda mulling over that idea the past couple weeks. I really gave it my best, trying to professionally doodle in a manner children would find interesting. i just cant do it. and i fuckin hate how every kids book is just this bland watercolor bullshit.

gun to my head, i was thinking 70-30 in favor of me, the writer, with the plan to negotiate upwards of 60-40. particularly so since i have the vision of a sequel, and id like to use the same illustrator with no hard feelings.

>>22764582
You can just pay an agreed fee upfront for each illustration and their commercial rights. I don't think illustrators would just spend their time drawing for some unknown author who would probably only sell a dozen copies at most

>>22764612
That's a good deal if you ever take off. Sapkowski was paid by CDPR in cash, CDPR was literally explaining to him that he should take royalty payments instead, but he insistent on lump sum.

Needless to say, he shit himself when Witcher got 3 extremely popular games and actually sued CDPR for more money. Somehow he fucking won.

>i enrolled my book in KDP Select and now i can't publish it elsewhere for 30 days
AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

IT'S OVER GUYS

>>22764644
It's over how? If nobody reads your shit just republish it elsewhere in a month, retard.

Welcome to the cutthroat world of self-publishing flooded by browns like you.

>>22764644
Stop supporting amazon wtf is wrong with you

>>22764652
90 DAYS

>brown
mad?

>>22764612
you know what, why am i complicating things? this might just be the best method since i should focus on the present

>>22764665
I thought it was a way to advertise myself. People on Kindle read my book for free and then spread it.

>>22764666
>mad?
About what? I don't self-publish specifically because I don't want to have to compete with 100k Sanjars and Pajeets and then 50k flips and malaysians, then a few tens of thousands of mexican "intellectuals" rewriting DBZ with a latrino twist and a self insert main character for exposure.

I'll just write my thing and publish it somewhere. Maybe I'll make it, maybe not. But the way things are going, you're not going to make it.

I'm gonna use chiller font for one section and it's a deal-breaker if the publisher demands change

>>22764689
send name of your editor then

>>22764709
Sorry not gonna dox my gf.

>>22764750
this is truly unprofessional

Don't worry tonight i will ask your mom for her name.

>>22764750
Are you the same retard who shared his web novel earlier in these threads bragging about his editor girlfriend? And even after this pro editor gf had supposedly worked her magic on his chapters, the result was still an incomprehensible mess and anon never finished his story either. Or does everyone here have an imaginary girlfriend who is also a hotshot editor?

>>22764777
LOL ahahhaahahhahaa

>>22764777
>doesnt understand art
Go back to loveshit or Krapka you pseud

>>22764787
send your book anon,
i want to see if you have the right to insult me

Who says /wg/ can't make up stories?
These tales of having a gf are riveting.

>>22764795
Post degree(s) first. Maybe youre just a larger.

>>22764901
Larper

>>22764777
Couldn't be me.

Also it's more like I'm an amateur writer and she's an amateur editor.

>>22764901
>>22764906
>Degree for a webnovel
I am a computer scientist, i can't write a book for you?

>>22764493
You write for yourself or for no one at all. Once you liberate yourself from the fear of obscurity, you can work wonders. Example:

She groaned from both ends as air pockets caught between the turds and her rectum wall released with a bassy roll of wet pops. From where he leaned over her, he could see the ring of light brown wrinkles spread open, and the dark face of the first serpent peek into creation. The body that followed was so much larger than it's nose made it seem. Her circlet clung to it as it passed, desperate to apprehend the newborn before it could escape, and a projecting sphincter interrupted the once smooth valley between the oracle's butt cheeks. She gasped and shuddered against the young man's legs. Though at first the procession was snailish, the ropey length gathered speed until its tail finally threw itself onto the grass behind her, tangling into the rest of its coiled body. Her anus began settling back into place, as dough might, but stopped to shudder at a machine gun burst of flatulence, whose depressive pitch made it sound embarrassed to be there. Without delay, another girthy line of brown paste followed like custard from a machine. Somewhere along it's middle, she contracted her nethers, severing the soft turd in half and squeezing feces into the cleft of her bottom. What had already escaped fell limp beside it's older kin, and in a moment it was joined by the rest of itself with a moist thud. Bitter steam billowed from her leavings. The young man crinkled his nose, while she began catching her breath.
"Are you finished?" the young man said.
"Yes," she said, in her low, scratchy voice.
"Then face the tree."
Still squatting, she rotated until she could rest her cuffed hands against the birch. The young man, kneeling now, found himself staring into the dilations of a reeking black star. He ripped off a sheet of toilet paper, bunched it between his fingers and drew it across the filthy corona, stretching her sphincter and gathering brown sludge beneath the tissue. Thoroughly used, the paper was thrown in with the rest of the refuse and another, clean piece was torn from the roll.
She looked over her shoulder at him, grinning, "have you ever wondered how it tastes?"
"Be quiet," he said, and began wiping again.
"You could just lean in and have a lick and no one would know. I certainly wouldn't tell anybody."
"I said shut up."
"Look, here," she said, "I'll make you something fresh."
She tensed up and groaned. He was wiping the inside of her butt cheeks when he saw her rim bunch and erupt with one small, dark turd, right next to his foreknuckles. It slid out, barely missing the young man who had kicked himself up and away from the squatting priestess and now watched as her gift slapped against the ground where he had just been kneeling.
"You're disgusting!"
She laughed and raised her swaying hindquarters at him.
"What are you waiting for imperial?" she called to him, "clean it up!"

>/pol/ found out about Kabbalah of the Crocodile

The /lit/ plot twist of the year was Gardner turning out to be a raging antisemite.

>>22765043
I await the spiritual sequel where he denies both the holocaust and holodomor.

>>22765043
based scholar

when doing period pieces, like say, mid-1700s pirates, do you guys get your dialect/slang/prose style from physical books you found, or just internet searches?

>>22764573
I'm not calling it highbrow, but it ain't porn.

>>22765092
Letters are good, but colloquial speech is probably best preserved in plays. Anyone who could write was a florid bastard using a distinctly epistolary style. Some disparity between prose and dialogue would be expected if you tried to capture the realities of both. I also believe that natural speech has degraded and the rococo turnings you find in manuscripts is more reflective of what once was than many would believe.

>>22765130
>rococo
neat, thats a new one. ive never heard my local classical music station use that term, they just say baroque. yeah, good idea with looking up some old theater productions. brb, gonna watch pirates of penzance

>>22765142
Rococo is more like a visual design and a narrow slice, baroque is a general style.

>>22762685
I liked it. The last sentence feels like a satisfying 'punchline', for lack of a better word, in the sense that it manages to put everything you've read until then in a different light. There's also something satisfying in the fact that his comment's breaking of the thick silence is in some way parallel to tossing a stone into a still lake surface, but in other ways fatally different - Irving the outsider. George Saunders talks about writing stories by setting up a pattern and then seeing what happens when you alter it, and I like that you've fitted that structure into such a micro form. (Pedantic copy-edits: semicolon is unnecessary and awkward after 'a stone'; 'to repeat' is probably more idiomatic as just 'repeat'; 'again' should arguably be deleted, because he wouldn't be repeating it again, but for the first time.)

>>22761893
Maybe other people could find some grammatical errors or something but I think the awkward dialogue is pretty funny. I don't think I've ever read more realistic "I misspoke and now I have to apologize for misspeaking" dialogue before.

>>22764216
The latter. I don't understand your reasoning for the former being an option. Poor enunciation, due to the speaker being a child?

>>22765349
This but I don't think the comma is necessary, there isn't a pause typically and both words are part of the same clause.

>>22765349
bit of a tongue twister im adding in, has to be "can too!". it made me realize i have never read kids arguing like that. made me stop and think for a moment. not a huge deal, as im sure someone would simply make a correction if i was incorrect

>>22761893
The exposition contains the problems. Like that other anon said, ax the "Instead of...." portion. Like that other other anon said, ax the "unnamed" adjective, unless your intention is to clarify that the POV character really, REALLY wants to know her name. That might be the case, given the flirty exchange, but it needs workshopping, if that's what you were going for.
I like the dialogue, but I do have one quibble: Jamie's last line. "most da-yes" seems like a pretty hard cut. Is this meant to imply that he is lying, because he wants her to look for him? Is it because he's so awkward, he's fumbling his schedule? Is it because he realized partway that a rambling answer would just make him look sillier, so he course-corrects by oversimplifying? That last option is how I interpreted it, but some clarity is warranted. You could keep the break, but split the dialogue entirely: "most da-", I said, trailing off, thinking X before continuing: "Yes."
On the whole, I like it. Just needs some editing.

>>22765060
Famous antisemite F. Gardner is indeed a holocaust denier.

What's proper workshop etiquette when you reeealy don't give a shit about what someone wrote and have nothing of value to say?

>>22765543
a pat on the bum followed by "good game"

>>22765515
I feel like /wg/ memed this into reality. I saved this Gardner pic years before he became the unhinged schizo he became.

>>22765543
Say the second thing you just said, if you are specifically asked, otherwise remain mum.

>>22765543
I would've thought that people don't give a shit about most workshop stories they read, but they just get over themselves and get into the spirit of workshopping anyway. That is, they figure out what the person's story is trying to do and judge it according to those criteria. Surely the piece can't be so dire or vacuous that you can't make a distinction between which parts that work better than others and why.

>>22765495
Thanks anon. You were right about what I was going for. I was going for him stumbling over his words out of general anxiety rather than having a huge crush on her. I'll keep at it.

>still 0 Sales and 0 pages read
I will never be able to cope

>>22765579
I don't know how serious they are on participation but that's usually the way I'd handle it. It's been a while.

>>22765611
>I would've thought that people don't give a shit about most workshop stories they read, but they just get over themselves and get into the spirit of workshopping anyway
You would be mistaken. most spaces with critique worth at least half its weight in shit are full of writers who are entertaining about 60% of the time. Even their bad, obvious failures that aren't worth fixing are engaging. It's when you get a new guy with no filter or someone is tying to do a Thing that you run into the dire and vacuous. Half vignette, half essay; full bore. Or worse.

Usually, and this is probably more what others run into---it's pure navel gazing mixed with some fart huffing because it's trying to capture some kind of fantasy instead of how fucking retarded the whole premise is in the first place. Dumb, contrived bullshit trying to push a message; think that stereotypical intersectional f*moid shit anons rag on, but her dick sucking skills aren't good enough to get a publisher and a decent editor. At least the outright whores are pretty down to earth when they write. No, this is always a dude into history but not art or something that looks like one of those enby things you hear about where you can't tell what it is. It's also how the work reads.

The kind of work that's not even worth engaging with because it's foundational and outside the scope of what places that don't want chairs thrown allow as critique. Yeah, you read some bad stories from time to time and push through it, but some shit is masturbatory blogposting with zero self awareness and no chance of recovery unless you turn it into a satire. You ask
>what are you trying to say here, with this whole thing?
and they just look at you, blankly. Like you're retarded.

I didn't quite have to read something like that, but it brought back the memories.

Write me a 3-5 word short story. Right now. If you can't do this then you're a failure. Here's mine.

Handsome man kills ugly woman.

>>22765746
I saw something strange...but i have no eyes!

>>22765753
Too many words, nigger.

>>22761519
I recall that when Pynchon first started writing, he said he misused words because he only cared about how they sounded.

What are you prioritising due to preference that's hurting your prose? You need to answer that for yourself.

2 things I like:
- Language is diverse and words shouldn't be noticeably repeated - 10/10
- Alliteration - a lost art - the great ones practice the basics, keep it up with other techniques too

2 things I don't like:
- There are problems with structure - it's overly descriptive and you can improve it by being more clinical in what you choose to describe. If you world-build economically, you can drive the plot forward AND impress with description. Loquacious description can make prose seem emotionally aloof (by way of example...), and people read for a variety of reasons that you need to satisfy - I don't just want beautiful art, it has to move me too. IMO, Ian M Banks is often excellent at this, mostly good, and sometimes bad - give him a read to see the full show.
- Personal preference here, I've never ever cared to know what a character's eye colour is, and never will. I don't even recognise them in real life.

>>22765763
shel silverstein also purposely misused words just to keep the rhythm in a poem. i'm a fan of its proper usage. probably easy to fuck up and sound retarded though

>>22761937

lmao, this is excellent. 10/10 please keep sprinkling these in.

"she had one fatal flaw: her mind. You see, ass and tits can only go so far" - in a 125,000 word book. I know this is only a troll, but if this book exists, please send a link, I want to read it

>>22765746
Help the killer is behind

>>22765771
Haha - that's a great bit of lore.

And I agree - I certainly sound like a fuckwit when I don't care about what words mean. If only I had an ounce of talent!

>>22765763
>Ian M Banks
I'll take a look.
>I've never ever cared to know what a character's eye colour is
Understandable. The character is a bastard claimant, and it's supposed to indicate she really is a daughter of the last king, but I can probably find a better way to work that in.

>>22765802
give tom waits a bit of a listen. for like maybe fifteen minutes, nothing much. he is an expert at making ridiculous phrases that 100% explicitly detail the scenario he has in mind. it'll get your mind joggin' with what can be done when dabbling in the absurd.

id recommend "the piano has been drinking" because everyone needs to see it in order to understand waits, and the entire "closing time" album. if youre into him, "nighthawks at the diner". nighthawks has a song where he describes sitting at a diner counter and the food is messing with him.

he has a line where he describes walking drunk down a sidewalk and using parking meters as walking sticks, and its pretty good.

>>22765763
>I've never ever cared to know what a character's eye colour is
>mfw I just wrote an entire paragraph describing how fucking foreign a character looks including eye color

Guys what you think about my fantasy world map?

>>22765828
Chad forger of worlds tier. I hope it has The Empire.

>>22765832
it has
The capital is in inside the lake you see in the northen continent.

>>22765822
My go-to fun reading is jack reacher. Lee child spent three entire pages in one of his books describing how a one-armed man dresses himself in the morning. It's ridiculously detailed, as if he videotaped a real one-armed man. Just make sure to always go full-ass, never half-ass.
>and it was entertaining to read

>>22765828
Based. FUCK Italy, and FUCK central-north Africa.

>>22765812
My main problem with eye colour is that it almost never works to forward the plot - so make me eat my hat, I'd love to see it used to prove me wrong, and it seems like you have a particularly material way of doing it. Any opinion can be made wrong by the right hands.

>>22765822
As above - don't be disheartened by one anon (who hasn't written anything today). Your vision is more important than a generic comment shouted over a messageboard. Post your paragraph too - it'd be great to read your work

>>22765836
>I don't know why I pulled over. Maybe it was the rain coming down in sheets and the bands of sleet piling up on the windshield in serpentine waves. No, that was every bit as bitter and cold as my mood and I'm no humanitarian. One would think otherwise and one would be an easy mark. I'm not one for sentiment and few times in my life approach the sentimental, those least of all. The iniquities of man cut deep and his river runs dark and crooked, shelter not his valley nor in it lie. Maybe Granny's death and this whole shitfiddle of a year had caught up with me.
>It could have been the rumors around town and curiosity got the better of me. Those hicks were never my people and I just had to shake hands with who or whatever put enough fear into those inbred miscarriages to inspire that kind of hate. If I weren't yellow as a sunflower, I'd almost believe that one. The heater weighing down my coat pocket certainly helped, this was rough country.
>That's all bullshit. I was lonely and more afraid of being cooped up with my thoughts any longer. Come what may. I turned on the hazard flashers and watched him approach, a bulky silouette trundling awkwardly against the gale in this godforsaken torrent.

Is this sufficiently southern gothic without being too quaint or forced?

>>22765821
My dad has been on to me to listen to TW (and also Nick Cave) for a very long time - you're making a convincing case for him...

It sounds like beautiful imagery - it's strange how those absurd elements map so well to the utterly mundane - trying to eat dinner, but it's eating you.

Did you ever read / see any Theatre of the Absurd? If you ever get the chance to see any Ionesco, jump at it - PInter is also excellent for narrative monologue wrapping round to the mental antipodes

>>22765822
I can only imagine not caring to know a character's eye color is a sign of autism.
Autists commonly avoid eye contact.

>>22765880
idk

>>22765746
>She lied, thus I died.
Too vague?

>>22765931
nah, it's pretty succinct. that's how hilldawg gets ya

>>22765024
>This is better than anything I've written

>>22765746
And so it ends.

>>22765984
heh, you guys ever browse through archived funny greentext shitposts and use them as inspiration for either ideas or writing styles? haha yeah no me neither...

>>22765990
No. Now it begins.

>>22765746
The banker gets a haircut.

>>22764529
ANSWER ME YOU FUCKING FAGGOTS. I WAS OUT ALL DAY AND NOT ONE REPLY! REEEEEEEE!

>>22766110
By huffing your own farts. Figuratively, of course. Ask Michael Kirkbride, he loves attention.

>>22766110
You vill read ze books.

>>22766122
>Bethesda

He better at least have worked on New Vegas or so help me God!

>>22766126
Which ones? I've never read books with such sophisticated surreal realism. I tend to go for weird postmodern stuff albeit

>>22766110
not watching a youtube video
fuck off

>>22766154
What is your point posting this? I saw the movie and grabbed the clip for reference. I don't just mindlessly watch endless hours of youtube or something. You fuck off!

>>22758334
>the moratorium on the Oxford comma led to troonism

>>22766458
>>22766458
>>22766458

>>22763113
Dumbass...it's not going to show up in non-title searches unless it's selling or people are posting reviews. Until then, you have to drive traffic to your book directly, e.g. have some sort of social media presence.

>>22763396
>>22763341
>>22762757
>>22762732
>>22762567
seethe

>>22763932
You seem like an asshole.

>>22766466
You have absolite right.

STILL i theorized about 3 dudes discover it on amazon unlimited.
Not even them