/lit/ - Literature

1st for obsessed and mentally ill.

second for carefree and zen

third for an arse freshly kissed this beautiful arvo

I finally stopped worrying and cut my prologue into a third of what it was. I hope this makes my story more fun to read...

>>22985764
Post Malone?

I had no idea what I was doing with this guess I just tried to make the imagery as weird as possible. No clue what it would potentially fall under, I guess surreal, or fantasy poem maybe.

>>22986038
More like Pre Malone, am I right?

LITRPG FOR ROYALE ROAD
Hello, everyone! Some time ago, I posted my story, and now I've fixed it with the advice you sent me. If you've read the first version, please share your opinions and let me know if I have improved.

PDF and EPUB
https://filebin.net/lw7qd3vtju8siju1

>Github
"Sorry, I found a cool way to create the status window and it requires a file.

>>22986717
I'm using Quoll for now, it looks like the site is broken but I could pull windows and mac links if you're remotely interested. It has a pretty good customizable dark mode and does most things well enough, I don't know, I don't use outlining bullshit or idea boards or any of that, not on the computer at least.

>>22986982
I would rather work a full shift at mcdonalds than read some litrpg turd let alone critique it

>>22986982
An exposition dump disguised as dialogue is still an exposition dump

>>22987000
It's more of a fantasy with magic used to emulate an RPG system.

>>22987031
I refer to my original comment.

>>22987029
As a good exposition dump should be, just digest it and move on.

>>22987039
Delete this sagging bag of sloppy writing and go find a new hobby. I hear baseball's back in style.

>>22987064
>Every fantasy writer can info-dumping as much as he wants
good.
>I do it
bad

>>22987081
yes to the second, no to the first
if you really want to write like Sanderson be my guest
but you ought to know how Sanderson really writes--he's not a writer, he fields his writing by committee in a not-so-secret writers group and has everyone fix his mistakes. He's a glorified outliner really.

>>22987086
soulless.

>>22987086
>if you really want to write like Sanderson be my guest
Even Sanderson warns against 'Maid and Butler' dialogue in his online lectures.

>>22986631
More like Malone Dies

>>22986982
I wish I had taken anon's advice and gone for that shift at mcdonalds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knaHcY2QY3E

>>22987520
>You story is cringe
Too kino for you?

>>22987530
>file name: kino.pdf
>title: FFF-Class Unlucky Antagonist (the cringe started here, my head went bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)
>opening: exposition (skipped this to preserve mental faculties)
>dialog: exposition (read HRE unironically being used and as a map painter enjoyer I had to stop in order to preserve the Empire's glory)
1/10 sloppa.

>>22987552
Finish the first chapter.
>but
Only half of it is exposition.

>HRE
Kino
>Map Painter Enjoyer
Chad

>>22987565
Fine, you're lucky that mcdonalds is closed.

John reclined in his chair and listened to jazz on the radio. Suddenly static entered—his eyes widened, shocked.
"Attention, nuclear warhead heading southeast; this is not a drill." The announcer vocalized.
Rushing to his basement, he trotted down the stairs. He dove and covered. Boom! There was a long silence.

Finding solace in jazz, John's peaceful moment was shattered by a jarring interruption. Static filled the air, his eyes widened in alarm.

With urgency in the announcer's voice, a chilling message echoed through the radio waves: 'Attention! Nuclear warhead approaching from the southeast. This is not a drill.'

In a swift motion, John bolted out of his house, racing towards his bunker. Heart pounding, he entered, crouched down, and sought cover.

And then, in an instant, a deafening boom shattered the silence.

>>22987632
>vocalized
dont do this
>static entered
static doesnt enter
>his eyes widened in alarm
no need for 'in alarm'

you guys should stop reading trash YA, I don't know where you pick up bad habits like these because no real fiction does it

>>22987565
You're wasting your serviceable enough writing on memes and tropes over being too lazy to take the time to flesh out an actual story.
Your dialog feels unnatural, you use way too much exposition because it's easier to tell than to show, your pacing is basically just you shoving the character from happening to happening and overall you're just writing a 5-6/10 seasonal magic academy anime but with memes.
If you really want to understand what you're doing wrong then just delete all the exposition in Chapter 1 (including dialog exposition) and read what you have, it's barely even a story. I could give you pointers for 50 billion things but my only recommendation is that you read a well written RR LitRPG sloppa story and compare your writing to theirs in regards to the things I mentioned. This isn't to say that your narration doesn't have problems but I don't expect RR LitRPG sloppa to get that right anyway.
Read Mother of All Learning or his newest work since most of everything else has exposition dumps.
I have nothing against others writing memeshit, but do it properly.

>>22987791
>It needs a story.
Chapter one is better for foreshadowing things than happening dumps.
>Dialog feels unnatural.
This is interesting. I tried to create all dialogues according to character personalities.
>Is it easier?
Are you sure? You want me to make a 10k words chapter?
I just cut waste of reader's time

>>22987827
>happening dumps
holy shit I wish you fuckers would all collectively suicide en masse

>>22987836
Just take your time bro.

The first chapter doesn't need to be a pilot for a TV show. Judge it as part of a bigger story.

>I will NOT take the bait
>I will NOT take the bait
>I will NOT take the bait

>>22987851
YOU WILL

>>22987836
I don't get shameless race to the bottom and how they think anyone here gives a shit. If it were genreshit with something going on of merit, it would be okay, but there's nothing of value in this shit and I don't think it's literature or adjacent. It needs the /trash/ treatment VNs get.

>>22987857
>hates /Lit/RPG
Is just modern fantasy

>>22987868
Modern fantasy, even at its most barebones and stripped down, still retains the elements of fiction.
This dogshit that clogs the royalroad servers by the exabyte is not writing, is not anything. It's just a bunch of acne riddled video game addicts monkey typing thousands of cliches strung together with with no rhythm, reason, or coherence and all for a cheap, false sense of accomplishment.
Frauds deserve the guillotine, it's the only work of theirs that stands to draw a crowd. I know I'd be first in line.

>>22987890
>Your story is bad.
>Why?
>Others of your genre are bad.
This is literally racism.

Also my story is original.

>>22987902
I didn't read yours so I can only critique in general terms
but from what the other anon said and your reaction to it, there's nothing convincing me that yours is any different

>>22987909
He is just mad about the tropes that I use. LitRPG is a genre based on clichés and mechanics already set up. I just abuse them for profit.

Wagecucking has been kicking my ass but I'm almost done with my second to last draft. I do a little bit of writing every night, no matter how tired I am. Woo.

Wagecucking kissed my arse but I'm almost done drinking my second to last VBitters. I miss my wife every night, no matter how many other of yous she fucks. Ooh hoo hoo. And I mean it.

I’ve noticed that as I write, my effective vocabulary is nowhere near as rich and deep as my reading vocabulary is. For instance, I recognize the meaning (proper context, synonyms, usage, etc.) of a vast breadth of words, to the point that I can read Clark Ashton Smith’s works seamlessly, or Moby Dick, all without using a dictionary for reference.

Now, if I happen to write, at best, I seem to only be able to recall a hundredth of the many words I know. I am vexed by my inability to come up with the words that are a part of my reading vocabulary off the top of my head, so I’ve come here asking for advice as to how I’d go about expanding my writing vocabulary?

>>22988053
write more

>>22988053
Use a synonym dictionary while you write more. Be careful though, don't overwrite and remember who you're writing for.

>>22988053
>why can't I do a 1080 flip when i can recognize when Tony Hawk does a 1080 flip?
vocabulary is a false concept. your problem goes beyond writing and it's that you haven't read the greeks.

>tfw research is eating up your writing time
Oh well, it's already paying off.

>>22988053
Don't worry about it too much. Unless your audience is English Lit snobs, no one really cares that you know a lot of big words. People read to be entertained, primarily. There's an issue if you're repeating words too often, but that's more likely to be an issue with your prose than anything else. If you're consistently moving through new ideas you should be forced to use different words to describe what's happening.

>>22988053

Trying to use big words if it doesn't come naturally is just cringey and instantly detectable.

slop is at least honest fiction, unlike the pseudointellectual garbage posted here that is purely self fellating (and often just as badly written as the slop posts)

>>22988271
There is something beneath slop, for slop is food.

>>22988288
I call it sloppa because it's no longer food at that point.

"The young mistress was employed as a governess. She had little to say about her new life with Mr. Jacque, howbeit this strange transfer disrupted basic civility. She had no way to escape his company. Jacque, a round and pleasant man, took the poor oak as his assistant. He had no reason for this and would not be tried for any wrongdoing; after all, she could leave whenever she wanted. The man surrounded himself with a good company that knew nothing of the terrible acts he committed in his inherited mansion. "

How bad is it?

>>22987081
The way one presents information is almost as important as the information itself.
I haven't read your story, but infodumping is generally called out when it feels inorganic.
I read one story, Supreme Magus, and if I see that they are going into some long drawn out explanation of magical technique my eyes glaze over.
Now, that story has more problems than just infodumps, but it's just an example.

>>22988522
Info dumping is a big word. Imagine two people in a bar discussing politics. I used the first dialogue to present a little bit of worldbuilding from the point of view of two characters and highlight their differences in opinion to showcase their personalities and provide a hint of foreshadowing.

The second infodump was necessary to set up the scene that follows; the reader needs to know why the new characters were special.

>Magic
There are three infodumps about it, focusing more on how it works in fights than technical details.

"Before the day ended, it was quite obvious that the house had belonged to a personage whose propriety was rather questionable. In having invited a man like Jacque inside, they had rather betrayed their lapse of judgment to their guests. His back had been turned around several times to a wall that echoed the chambermaids’ faults upon being repudiated once again. Their fault was simply mistaken for a rather unnecessary thing to him, when, having out-looked his promise, this ambassador simply fainted. Having been allowed to come freely in terms with being knocked out, by a puerile thing, a dispute between him and the other person, who had been his brother, time and time again, after catching up and again, the notion of time had somehow crossed him as being somewhat innate to him, he was found lying in his bed exhausted with a bottle of cherry, and mignon, and a pinch of biscuit dust. It was unnerving how pointless this whole debacle had been.

When allowed rumination, a man is often enough found at fault for many things he himself is unable to explain the reason behind, and would most likely not even come as cross as one would expect him to.

As for the utter incompetence of Palette, Jacque’s brother, he had returned one night, against the best wished of some servants, to finish what he had started, in order to put him out of commission. It was not, despite one’s expectations, a gentlemen’s duel, yet, as erroneous and incompetent as one might be, to recall what happened that night would be an act short of the will of god. For his righteousness alone guided the hand that stroke him down. The same hand which now and only now decided what fate would’ve come to trifle with if that were the case.

As for victor, whose spoils were spilled on the floor, as servants would attest, as an act in self-defense, the man could be crowned as none other than Jacque, whose reminded of his father now lay wasted in a pool of his own blood, carried by unworthy veins, spilled unevenly, despite having been elevated to those of a saint, as he would come to find out in the span of a few days. Since, to his knowledge there was nothing short of an infamy that through which his name was bedraggled.

By whose hand was it written? One might ask himself, but more than often, such questions end up showing up with no real answers, or some which would very much prove to be unsatisfactory to those degrading themselves with such little things of no consequence. While one might try proving the contrary, it’s rather obvious that there is some regret. A lot of it, not remorse, for the act that was carried off ruthlessly, if one might add, but because of some prior events that only now came to haunt him."

How bad is it?

>>22988501
>>22988501
It's fine, anon. I have to say that it's hard to judge something from just a paragraph.
To nitpick: if you're deliberately going for an archiac kind of feeling, it's not quite coming across for me. Howbeit feels out of place in particular. I'd say either drop it or double down; you might read something from the time period you're wanting to emulate before writing for a better feel.
I also think that the way you're connecting ideas within sentences isn't flowing as well as it could. For example:
>He had no reason for this and would not be tried for any wrongdoing
The connection between these two things doesn't seem exactly clear to me. Just because someone doesn't have a reason to do something doesn't mean that what they're doing isn't wrong. Also, everyone always has a reason for doing something, and you foreshadow what his is in the next sentence.
That being said, you shouldn't really be as neurotic about your writing as I am being here. You'll never get anywhere. It's serviceable for now, at least.

>>22988576
Sorry, I deleted that and replaced it with something else because I was unsure whether or not it was good enough for /lit/'s standards. But the excerpt I replaced it with is much worse, now that I think of it. Thanks for the feedback.

>>22988576
>It's fine, anon. I have to say that it's hard to judge something from just a paragraph.
I have more but they're in dire need of rewriting because I'm a dumb ESL and haven't read enough yet to be capable of properly writing something even remotely coherent.
>To nitpick: if you're deliberately going for an archiac kind of feeling, it's not quite coming across for me.
That isn't my intention, it's mainly because I recently started reading older authors.
>The connection between these two things doesn't seem exactly clear to me. Just because someone doesn't have a reason to do something doesn't mean that what they're doing isn't wrong. Also, everyone always has a reason for doing something, and you foreshadow what his is in the next sentence.
That's just me being a dumbass and not being able to think or express myself properly in english.
>That being said, you shouldn't really be as neurotic about your writing as I am being here. You'll never get anywhere. It's serviceable for now, at least.
Thank you, anon. I'll try reading and writing more until I write something that's at least decent. I have a good reason to be neurotic, because, as I mentioned before, I'm and ESL and I want to improve.

>>22988597
Sure. Personally, I think that elitism is stupid and that any real writer should acknowledge that no one is born good at the craft. It's a skill that has to be continually developed, and this thread is ostensibly for the purpose of that development. No one should have to fear the wrath of anonymous assholes on the internet when earnestly seeking honest thoughts on their work.
That being said, there's an art to taking criticism. I used the word "should" deliberately. "Should" is not reality. Reality is that people are assholes - reality is, furthermore, that just because someone is an asshole doesn't mean they don't have a point. Even the most base, meaningless of criticisms - "this sux kill urself," for example - tells you something. That person really didn't like what you wrote. That's valuable information. It's better if you know why, because it might give you an idea of what to change, but even by itself you know more than you did before. If you ever find that you feel hurt from what someone has said to you, do your best to not. If their criticism is completely invalid, why would that hurt you? They're obviously stupid, or misunderstanding you completely, and you shouldn't care about what they say. If they have a point - good! You can set your blasted booty aside and make the necessary changes.
In other words, don't be afraid to show your work to anyone. Words can only hurt you as much as you let them.

>>22988612
I'm going to bed, but I'll read the rest of you wrote within the next couple of days and say something about it. Good luck to you. Your English is much better than my whatever-you-speak-primarily is.

>>22988624
>>22988623
Thank you, anon!

Just submitted to a flash fiction contest tonight, Anons. Wish me luck.

>What /lit/ needs is a critique the critics thread
Every one of these is filled with autisimos screeching at metaphors that they don't understand from mediocre writers that are just starting out. Without fail, when prompted to post their own schlock stories, they post some boring goulash that might as well be written in machine language. These critics are trash. These writers are trash.
>the secret is that 99% of human endeavor is garbage (and that includes your own writing)
>just write what you like, self-publish it, and learn from the experience
>critics can choke on a barbed chimp penis, it wouldn't be the first time

>>22985764
>Wizard teaches new pupil
>Pupil unknowingly draws upon his anger and darker emotions for his magic, creating never before seen effects
>Wizard tells pupil he is a rare and one of a kind student that the wizard is extremely honored to teach due to his special magic
>Wizard however realizes the danger of this sort of source of power, and decides to teach the pupil in a way to try and limit him so he does not lose control
>He writes a book on this to his fellow teachers, noting the power his pupil uses is dangerous
>Pupil discovers the book after a time and feels betrayed by his master, teacher, and father figure
I'm wondering in what ways a teacher would teach someone who draws upon darker emotions to limit them. I wanted the wizard's methodology to be understandable to outsiders, but for the pupil to see it as a betrayal.

>>22988681
>Pupil unknowingly draws upon his anger and darker emotions for his magic, creating never before seen effects
You mean to say doing this never ever occurred to any wizard that ever lived?

>>22988737
Wizards in my setting study and learn, and typically only can do what they study, willpower has little effect.

The "being able to draw power from anger" has been seen before a few times, but only from previous big bad evil dudes, and never before in a person with magical ability (previous big bad evil dudes didn't study the wizard's magic and did their own shit)

>>22988053
start with the greeks next time, kid

>>22988681
your idea seems more interesting if its a story solely written as the book your saying the pupil discovers

>>22988906
Like he reads the book and realizes his teacher is doing the exact same shit to him?

>>22988906
>>22988907
Fuck I'm rarted

I get what you're saying- a story told through the lens of the teacher's book

>>22988789
Poor explanation. Willpower doing nothing makes no sense when you wouldn't do magic at all unless you had the will to. And wizards all over the world would try to recreate the big bads' powers if they had any clue where to even start. If you want to make your protagonist a special snowflake, you should put a bit more effort into explaining what makes him one.

>>22988789
What deeper purpose does this serve, as a narrative device? What kind of meaning are you trying to express with this? Magic for the sake of it is seldom very engaging.

1. What exactly constitutes genre?
2. What's the basic atomic element of a story?
3. What's the difference between showing and telling? Why is one more prevalent than the other?
4. What does it mean for a work to be "good" or "perfect"?

>>22989194
1. A family of conventional tropes that apply to a significant number of stories.

2. Conflict.

3. Showing = Action. Telling = Exposition.

4. Depends on the story. Good slop is different from good lit for example.

>>22986177
>they seeketh
Holy shit man just give up. This weird faggy pseudo-intellectual dreamlike writing style absolutely cannot work if you don't know how to conjugate verbs or work with tenses (if it can work at all).

>>22988970
>Poor explanation. Willpower doing nothing makes no sense when you wouldn't do magic at all unless you had the will to.
In the setting magic is a skill like playing an instrument. Getting angrier wouldn't typically make someone play the saxophone or piano better for example.

>And wizards all over the world would try to recreate the big bads' powers if they had any clue where to even start.
Magic is heavily restricted and controlled via different colleges/schools. While there are rogue mages doing crazy shit they are pretty rare.

> If you want to make your protagonist a special snowflake, you should put a bit more effort into explaining what makes him one.
It's actually a villainous backstory, not a protagonist at all but the antagonist

>>22989040
I think magic is cool. That is why.

Is there any way to use this line without it eliciting memories of Skyrim?

>>22989621
Don't post a picture of Skyrim next to it and you should be fine.

But for me personally, waking up and amnesia are some of the most tiring tropes out there

>>22989607
I think it's cool too, which is why I'm applying an occult grammatology of traces and themes of existential witchcraft to my story.

Since the thread's theme is slop, the /wg/ anathema is about to finish its second volume.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/76148/revenge-of-the-slop-king-litrpg-cheat-power-harem

Factory recipe: no magic academies. Warning: May contain magic academies.

>>22989644
Read my slop bro
>>22986982

>>22988652
a woman will win

>>22988656
fuck off retard, you dont know anything
this thread has already contained several golden nuggets
youre just so bad that you dont even recognize them
go project your inadequacies elsewhere

>>22985764
hes disgusting wtf hes so fucking ugly

>>22986982
these files were blocked as unsafe

>>22989638
I think the theme of magic in my story is that it is powerful, and useful, but it also bred arrogance and self righteousness that created its own problems like many of it's offended former members doing shit, or not asking for help when it is truly needed

I'm not sure if there's a term for that.

>>22989754
Pdf and epub
I promise to you: no virus. Probably just an unknown source triggering some dumb antivirus.

>>22987827
>>22987924
>Chapter one
Is where you're supposed to sell your story, wasting it on infodumps and one minor instance of foreshadowing isn't going to get anyone to keep reading it.
>according to character personalities
Sure, but the issue is that you're too concerned with giving exposition through dialogue. Even if I were to ignore the tropes it's extremely unnatural for to explain facts that everyone knows or common sense to each other.
>10K words chapter
>cut waste of reader's time
>happening dumps
To give you an idea your 1st chapter has a similar word count to my rough draft of the beginning of my story yet it's comparable to the events of your first three chapters combined. Am I "happening dumping"? No. I simply know how to write a story without exposition dumps and thus massively increase the efficiency of my writing. Instead of wasting time explaining the lore I simply show it, the readers don't need to know everything, they can piece it together from what I show them and they will find out more as the story progresses.
Having read your first 3 chapters you're nonetheless wasting your 1st chapter and your infodumping just holds you back from being able to tell an actual story on the first two chapters.

This has nothing to do with tropes. Your reliance on infodumping and the fragmented nature of your writing produces disjointed scenes that do not lend themselves to a wider narrative. Chapter 1 had one plot thread that's relevant, Chapter 2 is really only there to say that the protagonist has a shit class and Chapter 3 is where something of relevance actually starts to happen in regards to who the protag's teammates and classmates will be.

>>Is it easier?
>Are you sure?
Yes.
Describing someone as beautiful is not showing they're beautiful, you do not actually need to grasp what makes someone beautiful besides a general feeling of aesthetics and thus you do not actually portray them as beautiful. Incidentally, there's nine instances of women being beautiful and even if you do describe them to varying degrees you inevitably spoil their beauty by saying what ought to have been obvious had the reader thought about their descriptions.
It's also much easier to diarrhea lore onto a page, especially when it's disembodied like some of your dumps, than to give the readers bits and pieces here or there and to show them the practical consequences of the magical system via praxis rather than irrelevant conceptualizations that don't actually matter at all.
>casts explosion spell on an enemy
>fails
>blows himself up
>reader is free to come up with theories about this as the story goes on
VS
>casts explosion spell on an enemy
>fails
>blows himself up
>see, if you fail magic you actually receive whatever effect you were trying to produce as karmic repentance according to the silver rule that the gods imposed on their creations and...
>wow, that's too much garbage I'll skip it, magic is karmic, noted

>>22989841
>Thanks for your opinion. The point is, the uncle will not show up for a long time, but his influence on the MC must be clear to the reader. I wished his info dump could be seen as a boomer-like show of pride, but it seems I failed.

>Having read your first 3 chapters you're nonetheless wasting your 1st chapter and your infodumping just holds you back from being able to tell an actual story on the first two chapters.
I can unite the first two chapters, but I wanted to conclude with MC and Chad dialogues for a simple reason that can be found in the title of my story.

>Describing someone as beautiful is not showing they're beautiful,
It's difficult because what is beautiful for one person may not be for another, and I will cringe hard at describing in detail """why""" women are beautiful.
>Her hips were huge
Cmon, tell me a solution

>>22989881
>tell me a solution
>Her muscular body and wild red hair, contrasting with her elegant clothes, created a peculiar mix best described as a bourgeois barbarian. She was undoubtedly a beautiful lady
>but nothing compared to the victim of his mistake. Her short blond hair was the only difference from the face on the stained glass—even her skin reflected light, but more like crystal than glass. However, his good deed was met with a slap on his face and the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. Her eyes weren’t white but the color of the night sky, except for the pupil, which shone like a star. This unique spectacle lasted for less than an instant—after that, her eyes returned to a ’normal’ golden color
You're already doing it, you are simply spoiling all your efforts by stating that they are beautiful. If it's factual that they're beautiful then you have no incentive whatsoever to show this, it's a given, why would you repeat yourself? But if you show that to be the case it's a purposeful addition that builds upon the abstract beauty that you're trying to portray to the readers. Not to mention that it can also be used as a reflection for how the main character feels about them, if he had a crush he would certainly notice much more about someone with each meeting. As for side characters that are beautiful you're just stating factoids that don't matter, you do this with some of the professors who get cheered by students of the opposite sex, yet the woman is factually a beauty and the man isn't because you're straight.

>>22990051
Thanks anon great advice!

>>22989881
>It's difficult because what is beautiful for one person may not be for another, and I will cringe hard at describing in detail """why""" women are beautiful.
NTA but maybe use metaphors and similes

>Her smile was as bright as the day
>Her doe soft eyes
>Long locks of gold
>her body was curved like a vase

>>22990064
> Metaphors
Using them feels like cheating, but this Anon gets it. >>22990051

>>22988652
Good luck.
Whatever the outcome, submitting is a process you have to learn like any other writing skill. You're well on your way

>>22988652
I just did. Good luck, pal.
I'm going to start querying agents for my first book this Summer. I still don't have a list of over 50 agents yet, but I'm over halfway there. Takes a long time to weed out the agents only looking for pandering stories.

just give up guys seriously

>>22987000
Then go work at McDonald’s, pretentious queer.

>>22990440
why? I already made it

>>22985764
edgy slop thread?

I'm having a dilemma where I'm writing a book that's basically only going to appeal to me and me only, but still wish I could get advice on how to improve my writing, which I can't get because I know no one would find the story I'm writing appealing except for me

>>22989761
I think that's a good device to work with and how to frame it. I don't think it has to be allegorical and personally think it shouldn't be, but if you make some parallels with other ways knowledge and power is used and abused, you may end up with what you're trying to figure out.

>I'm not sure if there's a term for that.
Hubris, big dick egos are a result of and common downfall of occult practice. You have some classic tragic themes to work with there. Magic is, in one sense, power itself, and how it is expressed through statecraft and diplomacy or flashier means is always a catchy story.

>>22990569
What makes you unique?

>>22990567
not bad but the prose is rather wooden

>>22990447
nah, I think I'll just order some fries instead from a guy like you who can't write :-)

I am currently writing a novel that is a blatant unapologetic ripoff of Twin Peaks. If anyone calls me out I will call it an homage.

>>22990567
this is a good start, but please vary your sentence structure. your shortest sentence is 14 words, and yet there's almost no punctuation to be found, resulting in clunky, hard-to-read prose. try shortening some sentences and adding semicolons, colons, em dashes, etc. where effective to help your writing flow.

>what appeared to be, evidently (x2)
kill the filler words. we get it, you're writing third person limited. only use these phrases if you're describing something that is not what it seems. otherwise, they're just redundant, which seems to be an issue in your writing on the whole. read your work aloud; it will help you pick out redundant phrasing.

speaking of phrasing - tighten it up.
>the man thought about the people he worked with in the office building where he was employed
could be "the man thought of his coworkers." you used 17 words where you needed 6. this kind of juvenile phrasing feels like you're trying to meet the word count on a school paper. besides, when you trim off the excess, you have more words to spend on imagery. for example:
"the man thought of his coworkers: kindred strangers, all sentenced to his same cubicle-bound monotony. furlough, granted daily at five, allowed fleeting reprieve; his fellow inmates must have returned home by now, soothing their innate despair with short-lived domestic bliss. bliss which..." but it's your story, not mine.

be precise with your vocabulary, and think about the imagery evoked by your word choice. case in point:
>writhe warmly in their version of bliss
writhe's connotation is usually either negative or sexual, and brings to mind pain and anguish, or the movement of snakes or worms. if the man hates his coworkers and sees them as inconsequential worms, perhaps this could work, but the reader is given so little insight into the man's thought process that this description just feels out of place and jarring (what does it mean to writhe warmly?). word choice is vital to invoke the intended feeling in your reader.

lastly, you need to run this through a grammar checker. multiple sentences are straight up incomprehensible. the lack of commas is particularly egregious.

>>22990850
It's overdue. You'll fail at whatever some contingent wants from it but have fun and cater to your own tastes.

I dunno I tend to writhe in a warm, sticky sweat whenever litrpgs or royalroad is brought up.

>>22990946
Thank you for your feedback, I did exactly the opposite of what OP advised and posted completely unedited, unrevised work. You're advice about tightening up is helpful.

For "writhe warmly" is certainly was intended to be a negative vaguely sexual connotation, but what you said about insight into the thought processes I see your point. I could come up for a justification for leaving the reader's impression open to interpretation but I'll say you have a point and leave it there.

>>22989741
No, it is you who should fuck off. Go write. These people here won't spend a single penny on your work. You should be taking advice from people who invest themselves in what you write, enough to actually pay for it.

>>22991110
bla bla bla
Nobody cares about your black pills and general moaning.
There are people giving solid advice whether your tiny maggot's brain perceives it or not. You don't exist on an equal footing with me and never will kek, so save your orders for someone of your same phylum.

>>22990577
Hmm i wonder though what methods the Wizard teacher would limit his pupil with

>Encourage him to develop non combat focused abilities
>Teach him only to use a certain spell defensively
>Tell him he's not ready for something that he is able to do, but which the teacher believes would make him too dangerous

>>22991148
IRL magic and adjacent things you're probably more familiar with are closer to local politicking, business management and marketing, and silver gelatin wet darkroom photography. Blacksmithing if you're actually useful and one of the main saviors of secrets of the craft as we know it. All those teach you the offensive arts first and foremost so you don't yeet yourself using them wrongly and then beat you over the head with sane and safe jiggery pokery once you know how not to burn yourself.

>>22991148
In short, the best defense is a good offense and letting the opponent fuck up his. Lao Tzu is ever useful, Miyamoto Musashi if you like it both ways.

>20
>I'll write a book one day
>30
>I'll write a book one day
>39

Can I get some inspirational quotes or some writers that made it when they got older?

Do we have a Discord?
Can we have a Discord?

Also, has any famous writer EVER spent time reading on ''how to write''?

>>22991370
Do we need a trooncord?

>>22991366
Thomas Mann got a nobel prize for Buddenbrooks which he published when he was 26

>>22991370
The only assholes and/or faggots I'd talk to on here are the southern gothic anons I promised to connect with at some point a few month from now when all our work will be more ostensibly finished given winter time.

>>22991375
>>22991377

Actually, never mind, we don't need a Discord.
I forgot everyone on /lit/ is a moron or troll. Imagine having to talk to these people in real time, and then the christcucks join in.

I'm good.

No wonder all the shitters think they're total schizo faggots. That lip is a goddamn razor. No wonder. No wonder if you know.

Welp, time to make my faggy ortho mech keyboard work on a mac and not give me tranny wrist, cutter wrist, suicide risk, numpad withdrawal or foreskin loss.

>>22991405
meds. now.

>>22991407
The opposite, my good friend. That was from a few minutes typing on a new computer. I simply saw why people seek meds. It was awful and left a brief mark upon my golden form. I can only imagine how much worse povertypony shit is, having used it in the past though no choice of my own.

>>22991414
i would be driven to medication too if i were forced to use one of those microsized keyboards
I hate how theyve become a trend now

>>22991435
You got my allusion, kinda, that's a healthy sign for this board. It's not the keyboard itself, that's just as fucked as a selectric which ain't bad, it's the wrist angles.

>>22991442
The goldenbeef.

>Join /lit/ and find writing general
>Get excited to talk about writing with people
>It's all neckbearded dorks using words like ''seeketh'' unironically and delusional morons that thing their fingers shit gold literature with a couple of complete mentally ill man-children who still live with their parents or caretakers.

Fuckin' YIKES.

Jesus Christ.

>>22985764
How do I open a scene?
I want to write a plump girl waking up and have it be relatively sensual but I cant figure out how to stretch the thing to a few pages.

>>22991528
How could you possibly have expected anything else?

>>22991528
I am basically the opposite of that. Please stay!

>>22991175
>>22991167
Hmm so it seems like it'd be hard to the wizard to limit his pupil.

Perhaps he teaches him only to use offensive magic in a very narrow scope?

>>22989841
>Instead of wasting time explaining the lore I simply show it, the readers don't need to know everything, they can piece it together from what I show them and they will find out more as the story progresses.
Whoa now, that might be a bit too advanced for the RR audience he's writing for.
I know I've had comments complain about my doing that.

I recently started rewatching Overlord and felt like writing a bit of fanfiction. Would you like to read it? It's only 600 words, right before a player gets transported to the New World.

Sometime soon, one of my stories will be published for the first time. Not getting paid but it is a legit mag. Still don't regard myself as a writer, but progress is progress. Hopefully, I won't get dragged to hell and back, the readership of this mag seems prickly.

>>22991937
post your slop NOW. i will read it

>>22991528
every writing forum I've found online (Reddit, StackExchange, etc.) is exactly like this one.
>what do you think of my writing
>it's amateur pretentions slop
>NOOOOO it's the crown of creation why can't you see that you're just an asshole

>>22992006
Here it is! Sorry for the wait!
https://rentry.org/p3tga8o4

>>22991937
>>22992006
>>22992030
What do you think, btw?

>>22992063
>No Sun in the sky
Freeze to death

>>22992000
Congrats! It's always fun knowing your words will be seen by a wider audience. Would you consider posting it here for the rest of us?

>>22992063
Pretty fun read, and that's coming from someone who doesn't know Overlord.
I liked the descriptions (especially 'luscious lips' at the end of the image), and I liked that I'd don't dwell. I didn't like the ending, losing unconscious felt like it robbed me of my building heartache. Was kinda hoping your last sentence would rip me apart in grief, but in the end, it petered out into nothingness.
Pretty solid all in all

>>22986038
sure thing anon

>>22989747
I look like that but underweight and short

>>22991528
My experience has been that you can get some good feedback, but it is more than usual bound to be negative. Like, if I get some good advice, the person didn't comment about what I did right, but what I did wrong/didn't do. But that is also good and it is needed. Because that will spur you into advancing further in writing. But yeah, it is probably because of the website that we are on, that the nature of comments is such.

This being said, I am writing a story (probably novel-length), with myself as the protagonist. I did change my name though. I probably won't post it, because of how personal the happenings are. But my question is this, is it a good idea to have a third-person narrator and tell about your life? I've seen this before in a book by Jan Guillou, a swedish author, who wrote a partly self-biographic book called "evil".

How do you write dialogue of German people speaking English? (Bonus points for French people too).
So far I just have really obvious swaps; Zis instead of That, mein instead of mine, ist instead of is, that sorta stuff but it feels artificial as fuck plus it's a bitch to read.

>>22992341
keep talking about scat all the time and be fixated on shit, also be anal about everything and humorless and officious Denigrate your own race and culture a bout ten times a paragraph.

How do I get my manuscript edited? I'm worried about my work being stolen to just give it to anyone.

>>22992675
hire an editor

>>22992675
Go to a writing collaboration site that has standards to vet their editors against. If the editors can sign up without a process, they might not be up to industry standard. There are generally three types of edits: developmental editing, copy editing, and proof reading. Those are in decreasing order of cost, each about half the price of the other.
>dev edit: fixes your structure
>copy edit: fixes your style
>proof read: fixes the clarity, removes basic errors
Not all editors have the same definition for what work this entails. Be very clear in a request what you are asking for.
Also if you are afraid of someone stealing your work, you still have protection technically if you wrote it first.

>>22992217
Thank you!
>I liked the descriptions (especially 'luscious lips' at the end of the image), and I liked that I'd don't dwell.
Glad you liked it. The words came to me suddenly, so I decided to write them before I forgot them. I really don't write fanfiction or anything.
>I didn't like the ending, losing unconscious felt like it robbed me of my building heartache. Was kinda hoping your last sentence would rip me apart in grief, but in the end, it petered out into nothingness.
Well yes, our player probably did as well, but then he wakes up in the New World, signifying not only the End of Yggdrasil and his life in the Real World, but also the Beginning.
>Pretty fun read, and that's coming from someone who doesn't know Overlord.
I wrote it in a way that was self-explanatory in case you weren't familiar with the series, but in case you'd like to know: Yggdrasil was one of the most popular "Dive" MMO-RPG, a hyper-reality game in the year 1238, in a dystopic world where megacorporations completely ruled the world and the corpses of dead children littered the streets in certain cities. Naturally many people felt a strong desire to escape reality through games.
Artifacts are items with special abilities stronger than Divine-class Items (which were extremely powerful to begin with and only very few players could obtain). World Items are even stronger and easily considered balance-breakers, there being only 200 of them in Yggdrasil; some World Items can even change the rules of the game itself by making a request to the management. That the player in the story could get them by himself despite normally requiring 36 max-level players and a lot of grind shows how powerful he is and how much of a threat he could pose to Ainz in the New World. That's why I wrote it like this.
Overlord is one of my favorite series. I highly recommend it. You can try watching the anime adaptation if you don't feel like reading it, too.
>Pretty solid all in all
Once again, thank you. <3

>>22992162
Well, our characters are immune to powerful ice attacks due to either racial traits or strong items. That's why they're unaffected. Not to mention this is a game, and the 9 worlds in it are so huge they might as well have multiple suns. You could also say this is how Niflheim (a world of ice) was created.
The reason I wrote it like this, besides showing the great power and skill of the player, is to explain his NPC's admiration of him. In the Overlord series, Ainz's NPCs consider him and his fellow players Gods who could create life, go against death, construct marvellous buildings, and so on. Likewise, the NPC Elisa in this fanfic will secretly regard the Player a God that can transform and destroy entire worlds, despite his actions having been part of a virtual reality (it was all real to her).

>>22992860
Speaking of fanfiction, I'm writing Warcraft fanfiction

However I am not certain whether I should sacrifice character personality for the themes I wanted or keep them to the theme even if they deviate.

>>22992328
You might be thinking that because you had a first person view on the events of the story and given how personal it is that first-person would give you the most leverage but that's not necessarily the case. Self Inserts are frowned upon just by themselves, but the real reason is that often less experienced writers use this technique, whether consciously or not, to make up for their deficiencies is making original characters and original stories. If you were to write an semi-biography that deals with important topics, such as Jan Guillou's work, I feel like it would undermine your work and even cause you quite a lot of mental distress. I'm not saying you can't do it but it doesn't lend itself to a careful re-examination of past events and their portrayal in a way that gets everyone's involvement across other than your narrow perspective at that time. Either way you can do whatever, you should just be aware of the things you'll have to tackle in order for your work to not just be a lazy self-insert.

>>22993105
Well, the keyword here "at this point in time". If you could stretch it a bit more, adding situations and circumstances that push her into the direction you want, then her autonomy shouldn't be a problem, I think.

>>22993198
That's a good idea.

I was going to have it her friend is 4 years younger. So he's behind her on the maturity scale.

He declares his affection for 3 years. I also had the idea of him waking her in the middle of the night to try and give her something, causing her to lose sleep and be extremely tired the next day. Then her bully and rival makes a bet that her friend causes her to lose by interrupting her focus, which pushes her over the edge.

I'm also wondering if having the OC not really fit in with others and be a sort of person who makes Jaina less popular by association would be another good factor- teenagers do care about inane shit like fitting in and all.

>>22989301
>2. Conflict
very western of you

>>22993406
Eastern storytelling uses conflict too. Kishotenketsu structure just does not use a *central* conflict. Conflict shifts over the course of the story based on events and character actions.

Has Kazakhstan been too gutted by Borat to use in an American story?

To any anons who have done the bradbury trio, what has it done for your writing?

>>22993476
Yeah. The girls there are cute too, shame about the MY WIFE meme.
>>22993481
I did that for a year straight and I made a lot more reading progress. More complex well of ideas to choose from when I think about things. As for my writing, I am still limited by time. But writers' block doesn't exist for me anymore.

>>22986038
More like Post-OP Malone lmaooo amirite?

Would normalfags crucify me if my story heavily promotes authoritarianism?

In oppido Infinitus, ego et canem meum celer circum ambulamus oppidum dum ego aire olfacio.

"Murphy," ego dico, "hodie, ierimus necare vir homosexualis."

"βαά!"

>>22993717
Not necessarily. It's easier to convince readers to believe something in the constraints of a fictional setting. With the right logos and pathos, I'm sure some readers would understand.
You also don't have to tell readers how you feel about it. You can provide conflicting opinions on the matter. Mostly you should say "look at this" and over time you have exposed the reader to ideas. They may begin to take it to heart depending on how well you present it.

>>22993789
>You can provide conflicting opinions on the matter.
That's where it gets complicated. The setting I'm using is very objective and the only way for a character to achieve their goal is to go full 1984. It eventually turns out he was completely in the right later on, but I don't want readers to go ballistics on me for promoting it by stripping all context.

Do you think it’s acceptable to write about lived experiences which aren’t your own?

>>22993717
I'm writing a novel that's basically a thinly veiled series of essays arguing how living under dictatorship is the proper, natural state of man. Let's see if I can fool anybody into publishing it.

>>22994029
If it weren't acceptable, literature would be reduced by +90%, methinks.
But if you mean about writing others' biographies or personal circumstances in detail, make sure to preserve their anonymity/privacy by changing identifiable information.

What are some edgelord authors that have been published in the last five or ten years? Like psychological thrillers or horrors. I need to find agents to throw letters and samplers at.

It's weird, this book I read tells me to be extra fruitcake nice to everyone in the industry but my book is unhinged and angry.

>>22994175
Normalfags are pussies incapable of autonomy. Anything that deviates even slightly from others is edgy horror to them that must be eradicated. They have a pathological compulsion to imitate others and become furious when anyone doesn't suffer from their same mental illness.

>>22985764
I've got a 500 page story ready to publish but it will probably have typos and weird engrish expressions everywhere. Should I try to contact publishers right away or should I get an editor first?

>>22994189
Yeah that's basically what my book is about.
So where do I look? Just run numbers and send out 100 queries to anyone who says "horror" or "thriller"?

>submit the first ten pages
The big word document pages? Do they mean double spaced or no? Like twenty pages after you double space it or five pages with double spacing? Last time I split the difference and sent seven pages.

>>22994424
You send ten pages

>>22992063
i got distracted, ill read it after i eat

>>22993198
Actually I came up with a hybrid route

>Her friends tell OC to fuck off
>Jaina is steaming but silent, just wishes OC would leave
>He presses further and asks if she really agrees with them
>She gets fed up after years of his denseness and lack of social skills, goes on an angry rant
I think that would be a bit of both. She gets autonomy in having the final word, while at the same time she only goes on that rant because she was emboldened by her friends. I think for a sympathetic angle her own insults would not be as harsh as her friends.

>>22994522
>>22992063
that's cool, and the first fanfic i have ever read. but you should just... de-fanfic it, and make it your own. i believe in you

Have you ever used someone else's OC in your work?

Like all the pics and stories of Angelise Reiter getting fucked by a horse or dragon or futa centaur

Has anyone tried screenwriting?

this thread started promising and quickly fell into a quagmire of royalroad MC WIPping

>>22994689
Pyw

>>22994683
I did. Didn't work out for me.

My friend sent me a screenplay and I have yet to finish it. I got around 30 pages in. It's not great. I'm late on getting back to him about it but there's still 100 pages left. Should I bother? I don't want to let him down but I feel like killing myself reading this

>>22994840
Friends exist for this reason.

Ask him more time.

>>22994840
it shouldnt be more than 90 pages for starters.
who is this guy, sergio leone?

>>22994853
Honestly I could be exaggerating. It's not that the quality is consistently bad it's just that the subject matter is trash and since I know the author, I can see where he's projecting his own life/viewpoints onto the characters.

>>22992210
I already had once; got one kudo. It is a flash fiction: https://pastebin.com/dq88QadY

>>22993717
I'm setting up my MC as emphasizing the phrase "The best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship."
Right now he's the emperor of an expanding nation conquering outside threats, but he's also being diplomatic to some nations who are willing to surrender by giving them a charter under threat of death.
Right now I've already laid the groundwork for him to start transitioning to a surveillance state because now he has some internal threats to handle and these nations that accepted his charter purely to avoid being conquered can't be trusted.
The important part here is that my MC doesn't want to do this, he loves the idea of free will, but hates what people do with it, hence why he's conquering others anyway. His plan is to force compliance for long enough (He's immortal but not yet old) that eventually it becomes the more natural state of the world and the moral baseline is closer to his.
He'll fall farther and farther into controlling his nation since he's paranoid and terrified of losing his friends and family.
This will contrast with the secondary character, who when he had a child decided to be a better man, but the MC is going to become more and more 'evil' in a sense.

>>22993717
My protagonist outright promotes fascism.
He's not subtle about it.
Nobody found out or cares yet. Honestly, I have no clue what it'll take for someone to get offended.

>>22993717
Just don't call it authoritarianism. Call it "making the world a better place for the less fortunate".

>>22994853
Depends...is this guy's screenplay ripping off Kurosawa movies? Then yes, he is Sergio Leone.

hey /lit/fags, can someone convince me to work on my WIP? it’s making me want to die

>>22995326
no, I'd rather convince you to die and stop wasting everyone's time when it's clear this isn't your calling

>>22984739
Alright, yesterday was a throwaway day. What, 200 words? Sad! That was a busy day though, and locked me in to actually getting a day job. That *does* mean that I'll have to get faster with writing, and with my daily workout, but that's doable. $23 an hour starting is $23 an hour.
As an aside, I've found I'm being very dialogue-heavy throughout all this (Not in an exposition sense, just that back-and-forth exchanges go on for long stretches). I'm not too sure how to feel about that.

>>22988053
Just have a thesaurus website open at all times. That's how I've been handling it.

>>22987081
You have to be very careful with exposition, lest it become an info-dump. In general you want the reader to gather the facts as they need to know them, not in one big drop at a given point in the story. Drip-feed, y'know?

>>22989621
Change it a little bit. "Well, look who's finally awake."

>>22990963
This is just conjecture, but I feel like the whole LitRPG genre stems from wanting to make a video game, but realizing that solo game development is even harder than story-writing.

>>22991366
George R.R. Martin? I can't name others of the top of my head, but I know your pain, sort of. 20 turning 21 this year, and I went through that cycle for eight years. I could have had something like 16 books to my name today...

>>22992341
I've found having the narrator describe that they have an accent, and then just writing normally, is easier to read, and you can imagine the accent for yourself.

>>22988053
Edit what you write and search for more apt words. Do not try to forcefully look for big and fancy words like a retard. "Strong" and "powerful" can be used as synonyms, and alternate to avoid repetitions. Would you really use "vociferous" instead?

>>22985764
Does this have good writing?

>>22995578
lol, no

Does this feel triumphant enough? Just for context
>Martial arts protagonist, after a severe injury 2 years ago that cost him his left forearm, lost a ton of his fighting spirit
>As the story goes on, slowly regains his warrior's spirit and will to fight
>He's against the guy who did that to him
>He fully gets his desire to FIGHT

>BOOM
>Lape's foot stamped against the mat as he rose
>The sound echoed throughout the entire stadium and silencing the crowd.
>How could a man get back up after being humiliated like that?
>Lape took a stance.
>Kelly, ever observant, was the first one that noticed it.
>Z noticed it as well. She had never seen Lape like this, so it stood out even more to her.
>The stance had changed.
>Normally, the young man's Muay Thai stance was a lot shakier than it had been before the incident. He was constantly hopping around like he was trying to ease his nerves, his remaining, overly clenched fist almost glued to his head. His eyes were always dead focused on his enemy to the point of overstraining themselves.
>But this time, it was different.
>Lape's fist wasn't touching his forehead, nor was it unhealthily clenched.
>His breathing was deep and plentiful
>His right leg stood firm against the floor, his left raised by his toes
>He wasn't shaking. He wasn't tensed up. He wasn't hesitant. And most of all, Lape was NOT afraid.
>Kelly smiled as a tear ran down his cheek
>The Legendary Animal had come back

>>22995728
What's so bad about it

>>22995578
Since the other Anon failed to give anything specific.
>blazing winter night
I've heard blistering winter weather, but blazing is odd. I'm guessing the reasoning is because of the bombings? But as a first line it loses me because I have to think about if it is a mistake by the author or not.

In general I think that the opening seems off to me, but I'll try to put it into words.
I think that saying the city was quiet should be the opening instead, with the only sounds being the heavy tanks moving through.
The part about the crushed body I feel could be mixed with the part about the bombardments, something along the lines of
>The tanks passed by a corpse half crushed by the debris from the bombing.
I think that adding bloody is not needed since we already know that it got crushed by a building and it more quickly establishes that there was a bombing.

>loomed over them dreadly
This is another odd phrasing that makes me stop.
Dreadfully loomed makes sense to me, but dreadly isn't a word I've heard before; I looked it up and it is real.

>a bottle fell from the window
This implies that it just fell, but we know that it was thrown by the woman.

>a bullet pierced her skull
It sounds like only one person shot at her, but I would expect that more would've opened fire since the word Krushenkas to me implies Slavic soldiers or a Slavic group is being invaded.
Though you also mention a sniper in the next section so perhaps that is the answer?

>Blood sprayed on top of the tank and the woman fell down
You are repeating what you've just written moments before this. I think this entire part can be erased since you could just start that they kept moving without remorse, once more repeating what just came before.

>the person was shot down
Get rid of the but at the start of the sentence, it adds nothing.
Try something along the lines of
>when one of the snipers was surveying from the open hatch of the tank he was shot dead.

>yelled a person from the street
Unless the person in question both isn't male and doesn't have a pistol there is no reason to separate them from the other two men with pistols.

I hope this helps.
>inb4 reddit spacing
When I'm breaking down a post like this it reads better to have it in sections rather than a wall of text.

>>22995578
>Blazing winter night

Welp, you failed.

>>22995202

>>22985764

I honestly thought that that was Weev for a second, until I remembered just how much of a manlet he is.

>>22992341
>So far I just have really obvious swaps; Zis instead of That, mein instead of mine, ist instead of is, that sorta stuff
PLEASE don't do this. It's so fucking cringe. Even if you're doing it as a parody at least keep it tasteful. Obviously the main question is how well are these character supposed to be able to speak English? If their English is very basic, then they can only speak very simply and are reliant on a lot of pre-packaged phrases that native speakers or adept second language speakers could express with more originality.
A lot of poor English speakers will translate some thought from their head rote from German to English, resulting in weirdly stilted phrasing like "at what time is the movie?". If you understand German, this is very easy to simulate. If you don't, use a translator to change your dialogue to German and then rote translate what it gives you back into English.

>>22996083
zo what you are zaying is... nein, he shouldn't be doing zis

>>22992341
Just write the accent, like Ian Fleming did in "Live Or Let Die".

>>22989747
did you expect creepy stalkers to be handsome?
https://thenationalpulse.com/2024/01/26/taylor-swifts-stalker-keeps-getting-out-of-jail-because-of-the-democrat-policies-swift-herself-supports/

>>22996682
this is terrible to read

I'm pretty bummed out bros. I didn't expect my story to be a best read or constant trender but I thought I'd get more then 2 followers after 108,000 words.
I think it might be because my work isn't like the other stuff on royal road. Not saying the other stuff is bad just different from mine.
Maybe a lack of advertisement too but I don't want to be that guy buying 4chan ads and spamming my links everywhere I possibly can. But maybe that's the only way to succeed.

>>22996785
>royal road
kys
you aren't serious about writing and doesnt matter if its 100k words or a million if they all suck ass

>>22996791
Where else would I upload it?

>>22996806
the garbage where it belongs

>>22996811
Okay

>>22996791
fuck off
>>22996785
post here anon
also check mine
>>22986982

>>22996852
fuck off back to royal road, dilettantes

>>22996743
And yet Ian Fleming was an incredibly successful writer.

>>22995578
in the cold flames of the freezing summer, the tank walked dreadly down the road

>>22996857
>dilettantes
finish UNI homosexual

>>22996785
How successful you are on RR depends a lot on genres, tags, release schedule, forum posts...
Sure, you can buy ads there or on here but that only takes people to your fiction's page, it doesn't mean they'll read or follow it.

>>22996941
lmao
>completely leaves out the coordinated scam where all the top """"writers"""" link to each other
you guys are climbing a mountain of turd only to complain that it stinks

>>22996949
>forum posts...
I don't believe I did.

>>22996955
potato pohato, dogturd mountain
the 'royal road' is a road lined in razor blades and you're forced to crawl up it naked

>>22996852
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/77558/project-17-sen-no-fukai

> His eyes were a Deep purple like that of a swirling abyss found in depths of one's soul.
>He Rested his chin in his hand which he also used to cover his mouth as he silently peered out the purple stained glass window.

Wow, it's not just bad writing, it's barely even legible English. I love how I'm always vindicated above and beyond my worst expectations.

>>22997001
Cool cover but RR demands AI garbage.

>>22997012
My biggest issue is my grammar and spelling, I think I have some mild dyslexia in that regard because sometimes I skip words completely even though In my head I wrote them down.

>>22996965
>crawling over razor blades
As if tradpubbing, or even self-pubbing, is any different.

>>22997027
Thank you, I hope to in the future redo it once I'm a better artist.

>>22996868
E L James was a successful writer

>>22997001
2 prologues? fuck off. no wonder. seriously though you have no ratings or reviews. so review swap on their forums, dumbass. there's guidelines to it preventing simple youtube like sub4subbing, but youve got to put some actual work into each one, meaning theyve to be advanced reviews and must also be written after reading at least 40 pages of their shit. that said your shit kinda sucks and you should expect others to not hold back and tell you the same. my recommendation is you either go back and revise the hell out of this and your structure or just write a new book and do less badly

that all said i really do like the cover, i think that kind of design is smart and will help you stand out once it's actually attached to something worth reading. cheers

>>22997232
Could you tell me what the issues are directly please?
I'd like to know what I need to fix.

>>22995728
>>22995336
>>22994689
>>22996791
>>22996743
>>22995801
>>22996965
>>22996857
>>22996811
>>22997012

>>22997293
I look like that and they're all me

>>22997317
then pyw, arrogant know-it-all

>>22995578
No, something like this would:

"Take that you filthy Krushenkas"

Glass shattered and flames engulfed a solitary tank orbiting the decrepit buildings like an enraged sun, breaking the veil of the relentless winter.


A shot echoed through the streets in response. From above, the corpse of an elderly woman fell upon the recon team into the flames. She lay over the tank, bloodied and malformed, with a foreign calm over her weathered face. The tank continued, flaming, over the street decorated by their strange harvest. In the distance, frantic footsteps could be heard getting away.

>>22997461
my remarks hold true regardless of what I post
take your fallacies and shove them

>>22997568
no they don't. you're just a hopelessly average troll. nothing special about you at all.
"Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at a very small expence. The power of invention has been conferred by nature upon few, and the labour of learning those sciences which may by mere labour be obtained is too great to be willingly endured; but every man can exert such judgement as he has upon the works of others; and he whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a Critick." -Samuel Johnson, "The Idler"

take the L litlte bro, it's over

Been away from /wg/ for a few months, sad to see it's still just litrpg and a one sad troll begging for (You)s

I don't even hate litrpgs, just not interested and wish there was more diversity

>>22997659
There aren't even that many actual litRPGs. It's mostly generic fantasy.

>>22997659
try mine is not generic

Positive encouragement is all well and good but to my eye this troll is the only one demonstrating real insight into what works and doesn't in writing. Maybe he's not teaching it in the most polite manner but if you can't get past your own pride then maybe you don't deserve to get better.

>>22997827
no, he's just serving up mean-spirited conclusions. he doesn't explain, he just berates. he has no insights. he's literally useless, to himself and to others.

>>22997284
all of it and im not even trying to be mean. its just an awkward read. you need more good lit in your life. try kokoro

>>22997722
Link it bro, I'll check it

>>22997852
No, you have failed to understand and this is why you will not improve.

>>22997865
you're probably just frank, seething because you're not welcome here

>>22997859
>>22986982
still in alpha.
So be ready! Too much infodumb

>>22997891
it is quite bad

>>22997920
Go on anon. One chapter isn't enough to judge

>>22997865
>>22997886
yep, thought so. frank is really easy to spot when you know the signs. and can you believe this pile of crap? https://files.catbox.moe/d9sukc.zip

>>22998102
I sense deep jealousy coming from you.
I guess some of us are forced to live in crack dens.

>>22998138
and some of us are forced to live in hideously-decorated 540 sq. ft. studio apartments in a 60-year-old building in a run-down part of chicago. and i accept your confession of mean-spirited trolling, frank. such banality

>>22997853
I mainly read Light Novels and manga so I can see that.
I'm not very well at expressing things in a novel like format.

>>22998159
some lovely prose here
trite, poorly worded, and wooden all in one go

>>22998232
more importantly, it's all true

rate this writing
>When Zalazar saw the lenticular cloud decapitate the mountain, he knew that the old magic in the world was not yet dead. The conviction struck him all in an instant, and with overwhelming force, even as the cloud itself had struck the rock. Dazed by the psychic impact, he turned round shakily on the steep hillside to gaze at the countenance of the youth who was standing beside him. For a long moment then, even as the shockwave of the crash came through the earth beneath their feet and then blasted the air about their ears, Zalazar seemed truly stunned. His old eyes and mind were vacant alike, as if he might never before have seen this young man's face.

>>22998285
stilted and uses 20c words like lenticular instead of something that would be more descriptive like 'oval'. use more descriptive words and less fancy ones like 'countenance'. I'd say lose the gay high fantasy voice too, but thats up to you

>>22998285
Good, no issues here. I'd suggest adding other descriptive elements just so that you're not reliant on people knowing or looking up what lenticular is (in the context of clouds). A latter passage referring to the cloud as a disk or a spinning top would suffice, so long as it evokes the shape you're going for.
>>22998295
Lenticular is literally the name of the clouds, it's not merely being used as an adjective for the sake of being fancy.

Why do I only come up with one part of a story and struggle to come up with the rest of the plot to go with it?
If I come up with a strong start, I can't think of a middle and end. If I come up with a strong end, I can't think of a start and middle. If I come up with a strong middle, I can't think of a start and end. It's been 3 years and this happens to me consistently.

What's a good way to describe eyes like this?

Is writing short stories more difficult than novels due the number limit of words?

>>22998506
Grey blue with pinhead pupils.
My eyes aren't quite so pale as her's, but all of my siblings have blue eyes that range in how gray they are depending on the day.
It's something that I get complimented on sometimes, with one woman referring them to them as wolf eyes.

>>22998167
you'll get there. it's mileage at the end of the day

>>22998506
metallic?
>>22998521
i've written well over 100 short stories, and only a handful of novels, so i'd say no

>>22986177
Truly dreadful (and not in the way thou intendeth)

>general thoughts? it's supposed to replicate stream-of-consciousness
I've been having strange dreams as of late.
Visions, almost.
I spend most of my days sleeping, now; that's just what you do when you're a depressed fuck like me.
I just have the strangest feeling that eventually these dreams are going to come true.
I think I'm seeing the future.
Stealing someone's else's sight of their own present.
it feels as though years pass by while I'm sleeping.
The visions are always first-person. Yet they feel real; they are real to me, in a way.
I feel like the person I am in the dreams, they have become more and more an intrinsic part of me.
My room reeks of piss. I'm too tired now to get up to piss, so I usually just wake up and urinate on the cheap shitty carpet ride beside my bed. All I want to do is sleep. And all I want to do is have these dreams...
It's not as though it's some kind of addiction or some shit like that though. Before, as you know, I had fuck all to live for. I cared for nothing. I felt nothing. I was nothing.
But now at least I have a reason to remain alive.
I'm afraid people won't believe me. It's unfortunate; most supernatural shit nowadays is believed in by weird hippy crystal healing cunts and raving lunatic fascists.
I suppose I just want the world to be a bit less boring.
In the visions, I am an explorer, or a wanderer.
I'm really not quite sure.
I'm on Earth, but it isn't OUR earth, the one you and me know.
Though I do believe it could eventually be the earth.
it's covered in rancid oceans and microplastic mountains.
The entirety of the north of France is a fucking gaping faeces-filled lake.
I'm never human in the visions.
I don't quite know what I am.
In real life as well.
I'm lithe, for certain; like an anorexic Lolita.
my tits are little more than topographical pepperoni slices.
my skin is the texture of cooked ground beef and tumor. it's so fucking calloused and covered in sores and polyps it's ridiculous.
there's also a cavernous depression why my womb otherwise would have been.

LitRPG just seems like a cope for people who want to be game devs but can't be bothered to learn to code

>>22996811
Seriously though, where else other than Royal Road and AO3 can you post original stories?

>>22998621
what do you mean post you bellend?
no one on royal road is reading the shit are they?
so what the fuck is the point, you may as well start an email circle
if you want meaningless view counts then this isnt the right game for you
get your priorities straight man

>>22998521
In some ways, it can be. Everyone thinks they have a good one; they don't.

>>22998627
The fuck are you getting so schizoid about? I'm not after fame or views, I'm just clueless on where you actually publish shit so it's public and not private anymore.

>>22998641
and I'm saying that your objective in doing so matters, comprende?
'so its public and not private anymore'
that literally tells me nothing

>>22998658
Yeah, I wasn't as specific as I thought. If Royal Road is perceived as unprofessional and full of garbage, what is a respectable place I can post my stories to?

>>22998662
a real magazine that takes submissions. check out the submissions grinder, or failing that grindr because youre gay

>>22998621
WattPad, ScribbleHub, and Reddit have been used for those purposes. Reddit has a lot of fiction-oriented subs. Start with https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/wiki/similarsubreddits

>>22998606
ick. this is gross and schizo. what's your intended audience?

>>22998731
Note with reddit, they hate people shilling work and you will get banned on most subs unless you're sucking tranny mod dick. You can do it, but only on dumpster main subs with dead moderation from the API Crappening.

>>22998753
based they shot themselves in the foot with that one huh?
now all we need is discord to kick the bucket.
death swallows all. chaos reigns.

>>22998521

No, novels are far more complex. It's like asking if it's harder to write a song than to write an opera.

>>22998606
>my skin is the texture of cooked ground beef and tumor. it's so fucking calloused and covered in sores and polyps it's ridiculous.
gross as fuck, but a good description

>Context: The character here is a Syrian refugee in Europe who works as a programmer

He shuts down his computer and gazes at the black screen in front of him. Not long ago, it was filled with symbols and writings resembling a language that only his computer can comprehend. Now, the screen is quiet, devoid of everything except his reflection. The neon lights around him cast threads of light on his tired, brown face, which diverts them away towards that black screen. The lights bounce off it to reach his eyes, as if everything around him couldn't bear to hold his image even for a second, passing it on one after another until it returned to him.

He stood up from his chair and walked towards the door; the office around him was empty, and silence has prevailed. He was the last to leave on this day. He hesitated for a moment in front of the door, the chilly breezes crept through the door challenging him to step outside and face them, for the biting cold of Europe does not wait for you to leave to remind you that you're on a land that isn't yours. And as for its winter night's darkness, you will see it in every corner where cement doesn't stand.

He advanced like a knight challenging who dared to challenge him, stepping towards his car, leaving traces of his shoes in the snow. A step, after a step, after a step... A step followed by a gust of wind in the opposite direction, a step accompanied by a cold that seeps into his bones, a step after the other he moved until he finished the never ending battle with the dragons of the land that cursed him. He finally reached his iron steed.

"Finally, the day is over," he said to himself, recalling the victory, ignoring the tiredness, and forgetting the battle's daily renewal.

>>22997937
one chapter IS enough to judge, are you fucking kidding me? imagine telling a story and it holds nobodies attention then blaming the people who gave it a shot saying it wasnt fair. your shit sucks. simply do better.

>>22998980
But it's good if you know the rest of the story.
>but muh
Foreshadowing wins in the long run.

You are a good reader. Ask yourself why certain events are happening. Reflect on why something might feel forced.

Do I need to ruin this kino setup for Zoomer attention spawn?? Cmon.

>>22998980
This is the Royal Road mentality where they punch in garbage every day, hit save, never go back to edit, then pretend like they've published a real book
The whole thing is an exercise in wasted time. All it does is build bad habits in people.
Not a single person on Royal Road is a real writer. Not one.

>>22999005
"I went back and edited my story many times. Why do you lie?"

>>22998753
But >>22998621 asked about posting original stories, not shilling. Who said anything about shilling? It's almost like you're Frank.

>>22998774
I don't know the lay of the land over there but it wasn't healthy the last time I had to find something. Where there used to be a bizarro 4chan kind of "nice but not nice" culture, now it seems like the same kind of slopfest that's infecting this thread with all the litrpgs that would have been laughed off the board a few years ago. I'm bummed because it existing and being such a massive sink kept their kind off of other sites.

>>22999038
Posting original stories outside of specific critique or OC boards will be considered shilling and you will be banned from those boards. It's a very common mistake if you don't know how posting content works on reddit. They're extremely autistic about following sub rules to the letter and it's something to take serious note of.

>>22998295
well guess what crab? that was the opening paragraph from "earthshade" by fred saberhagen, who was a far more successful writer than your crabby judgmental ass will ever be.
>>22998331
you, anon, have class.

>>22999048
Ugh...which is why i specifically linked to a list of fiction-oriented subs. Reread >>22998731. You really are a moron.

>>22999064
And I wanted to make it clear that posting outside of those without knowing which ones accept submissions is a bad idea.

>>22999055
good to know I'm a far better writer than someone who has had success
thanks for the confidence boost and validation :)

>>22999071
Thank you, Captain Obvious. Why not also tell us that water is wet and that cancer is bad for you.

>>22999003
bro, ur writing isnt entertaining. i dont care about what twist or revelation you might have in your made up bullshit because its not interesting to begin with. writing poorly is not excused by being clever with said poor writing. cut the bullshit and get to the point. stop wasting the readers time.

>>22985764
Is there a resource somewhere that has a checklist for common writing improvements like "not using the passive voice when writing"? I want to make sure I have all these sorts of items checked off when revising my writing. Apologies in advance if there's something exactly like that in the sticky that I missed.

Why does my writing always trend towards the comic or satirical? I swear, I always try to write horror only to somehow realize halfway through that I’ve made it a farce. I always do this. I tried to write smut and instead of writing something sexy for myself, I ended up writing an extended sexual joke.

>want to get into writing nonfiction as a hobby because I'm now crippled
>have fucking nothing worthy to write about
FUCK.

>>22999210
The mystery I am presenting to you must be entertaining, also the prologo is 10 chapters and 50k words.

>>22999237
That's your voice apparently. You can try to temper it, but it might take reworking your attitude.
I think in terms of avoiding satire, trying writing the POV of a character you are satirizing. You might be able to take him more seriously as you begin to appreciate his motives, even if they lead to poor decisions.

well since I see a lot of seething above let me just throw my opinion into the ring: writing to market gave me a full time fiction writing job and pursuing RR and web fiction was one of my better decisions in life. love just having to write a few sloppy fun chapters a week and raking in a living wage off it. no hate to the lit bros but desu I like having readers and a monthly check

keep it up slop lords. you're gonna make it

>>22999328
Based

His dear daughter, Emily found herself unable to convey what happened during that night when Jonathan Abbott came back home from work. She assured me that nothing out of the ordinary occurred but I remained unconvinced. Being an Abbott meant something back then. Now it was shameful. But what was there to be done about the coyness she showed? He hated it because she showed some weakness. And because of that feeling they were somewhat estranged. After their initial argument they parted ways and decided that they should avoid one another indefinitely.
Carl suffered a lot lately because of it and refused to address the strange situation he was in, with some exceptions, one being his wife. The man was blinded by his own ego and didn’t even know what to do any longer, being not only at fault but standing a threshold that would eventually lead to his demise, losing both his daughter and his lovely half.
It was then that she decided she’d take matters in her own hands, thoroughly.

>>22996785
Wrote anything but a litRPG huh?

>>22999244
Write fiction and insert your experiences and shit you wished you'd know before instead.

I'm trying to nail down the tone of "Is this retard fucking real?"
Our MC is just listening to a guy ramble about shit with a dumbfounded look on his face, just for context
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag1o3koTLWM
Music to set the tone
>He didn't know what to say. He really didn't. Lape just sat there, hands on his knees, with an expression that was a fusion of confusion, concern, and a little bit of outright fear. All while a Chinaman rambled about the superiority of Chinese martial arts while also showing off completely impractical "Feats" of physical capability. Like hanging from the celling by his toes or doing a spin kick with more spinning than there was actual kicking.
>Then again, he'd have plenty of time to formulate a response, because this lunatic had been blabbering about the superiority physical and mental superiority for the last 10 minutes, and didn't show any sign of stopping
>Lape wasn't the most versed in history, but there were still more than a few things he knew about the origins and evolution of different combat arts. He had to be, it came with his lifestyle. This guy was getting every 9th fact completely wrong. No, Kung Fu was not older than boxing and no, it's students did not beat up and assimilate Greeco-Roman martial arts. Part of it was probably weird nationalism, but a sizable part of Lape wondered if it was genuine delusions of grandeur. Sure, this man was probably a very good fighter, he'd have to be given he was a participant in this tournament, but Lape legitimately wondered if this man had somehow sacrificed his common sense for martial capabilities.
>Lape slowly reached over to Z and dragged her closer to him. Almost as if he instinctually wanted to protect her from this creep. But it was more as if he was hanging onto a teddy bear to ease his fears. Not in the sense of "This man is a threat to me" but more in the sense of "This man is clearly a nutcase and I don't want to hang around to see what kind of shit he says or does next."
>He turned to the child, prompting her to look at him. With her attention, Lape swirled his finger around his temple. The message was obvious, this man had a few screws loose.

>>22996791
shut up nigger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4OzEkipWRs

What's a good way to describe a singing voice like the deep parts of this guy singing? Not the higher part at the very end, just the deep notes.

>>22999920
Why don't you look up opera voice tones nigger.

>>22999927
Any other terms? I feel like bass or baritone would get kind of old after a while

>>22999633
he's right

>>22998980
>>22998735
>>22998627
>>22999210
>>22999927
>>22999005
Is this today's LARP? Just pure hostility?

>>23000123
kiss my arse, my wife loves my hostility and I miss her. ooh hoo hoo....

>>23000123
LARP? No, I think that Anon is just a very angry person projecting his failures onto others.

>>23000139
more than one person thinks you suck shit

>>23000156
I didn't write anything you replied to.
But you are overly aggressive while offering no real advice, so you lack persuasion and can be easily written off as just an angry person.

>>23000162
you dont get to tell me how aggressive I should or shouldnt be when this total fucking dogshit "writing" is put on display here with no qualms whatsoever
it's a goddamn embarrassment and you should be embarrassed for defending it
none of this crap would even pass a high school English class let alone stand up to the scrunity of a real writer

>>23000165
That's fine if you just want to write angry replies to people on the internet. But, if you want to actually change anything, this clearly isn't working. You are only making that Anon more defensive of his work with your extreme reactions to it.
Attach your anger with more than broad criticisms and you might actually get that Anon to change how he writes.
This will be my last reply, since I can't tell if you are passionate about writing or if you are just trolling for replies.

I dont give a shit, shut the fuck up
you and your ilk will never improve
your opinion is worthless

>>23000026
No because en*lish is dogshit. Just call it deep.

>>23000165
>none of this crap would even pass a high school English class
Tons of niggers do by axing the right questchins so I doubt the veracity of that statement.

>>23000250
well exactly, the bar has been lowered to the point that you get these royal road simpletons thinking they have mastered the language

>>23000165
holy projection

>>23000384
Learn to write

>>23000386
define write
>INB4 gay shit
cope

>>23000395
writing is not royal road

>>23000403
Funny story vs. depressing pseudo-intellectualism.

Royale road is way better anon

>>22999234
I've always found this to be a comprehensive checklist for what keeps readers glued to the page.

>>22999005
>real book
>real writer
Strawman argument much? There are people on RR making far more money than most (if not all) of the "real writers" here. Picrel describes many ways for a writer to make money outside of writing a "real book". Your vision is unworkably narrow. No wonder you're so bitter.

>>22999234
I've always found this to be a comprehensive checklist for what keeps readers glued to the page.

>>23000796
You keep shilling it, I'd like an overview before I pirate it. Those books are always padded to hell and back and an outline is as good as the 'content'.

>>22999569
> litRPG
I'm not too good at what this term means exactly but isn't it more old medieval fantasy?
I was trying to go for a more
>What would middle earth look like in the 20th century

>>23000790
there is no argument. This trash is not writing, period.

>>23000809
>I'm not too good at what this term means exactly
It means exactly the opposite of what you have in mind, which is why you haven't gained any popularity among the retards on RR who will not even touch your shit if it doesn't feature a stat screen within the first 3 chapters.

>>23000816
>>23000816
>>23000816
hopefully with less petty, small-minded, mean-spirited, bitter trolling.
offtopic: >>23000000

total spineless sellouts above me who literally refuse to attempt producing something holding significance and value excluding the monetary sense. you are hacks who will not achieve anything worthwhile sentimentally. soulless

>>23000810
pyw, so we may all bask in the wondrous glory that is you. until then, you may as well be f gardner on a booze bender.

>>23000827
thanks for proving you can't write for shit

>>23000841
>mindless deflection
another infamous frank trait. what, are you going nuts in your hideously-decorated studio apartment that mommy and daddy bought to get rid of you? can't cope with having literally no reason to live? the solution is right outside your window, after a 38-story drop. either do it or shut up.

>>23000827

>>22998570
Mileage is a term from fine arts (specifically from the consumerist forms of concept art and animation). I don't believe it actually applies to writing for the following reason: it is very easy to tell when something looks "off" in a drawing. The human visual apparatus is far older than our language centers and can spot even slight errors with extreme accuracy. Mileage applies in this context because if you just draw and draw while trying to make things look "right", you will eventually get very good.

In writing, I find that people will get stuck in local optima where they can no longer tell what is wrong with their own writing. It's not as obvious that a piece of writing is bad in the same way as a drawing. It in large part depends on the corpus that you've consumed, whereas with a drawing, you can just tell in an instant, without any reference, that something is off.

There's this myth that webnovel writers "don't edit" and if they actually put in the effort to edit, their work would be substantially better. It's simply not true. No amount of editing, no amount of mileage, would improve their work because they are stuck in their own version of Plato's cave. Their writing is a regression to the mean of the kind of work they consume (other webnovels, anime, video games, board games) and mere editing cannot grant them the escape velocity necessary to overcome their defects. This kind of inbreeding is beginning encroach even in traditional genre fiction. Sanderson, for example, doesn't read anything but fantasy and sci-fi--this is fine because his readers are exactly the same. Compare that to the fantasy and sci-fi writers (and readers) of the previous generations, who read widely and voraciously.

Mileage doesn't really work for writing. What works is "travel": sampling a variety of work-- fiction, non-fiction, different genres, different forms, different authors, even different languages--and then editing your stuff using the best parts of those works as a basis or model, whether consciously or unconsciously. Of course, for highly stylized visual art (as in animation), the recommendation is the same.

>>22999234
>no overuse of adjectives or adverbs, careful usage of double adjectives
>doesn't repeat words, uses synonyms
>correct usage of pronouns, uses other ways to refer to the characters (e.g.: metonymy)
>doesn't start his sentences the same way/with the same (type of) word(s), uses varied sentence structures to achieve this
>verb tenses are correctly employed
>uses active voice throughout and knows when to use passive voice
>employs commas, knows how to use short and long sentences
>follows a style convention that makes sense, no ambiguities in style employed
>no infodumping, no maid and butler dialogue, shows instead of telling
>no self-inserts unless work justifies it as opposed to the author's incompetence
>employs figures of speech
>indirect characterization is used throughout the work, direct characterizations show instead of telling
>complex descriptions have some redundancy sprinkled in so they can carry across better, uses synonyms or other ways of expressing the same concept
>avoids explicitly using cliches or tropes, subverts, spins or adds novelty to them
>register is appropriate for audience and nature of the work
Other people can throw more meme arrows at you if they can think of more.
>

>>22999234
Writing isn't like starting an airplane. There isn't a checklist of knobs and switches you can flick that will make your work good. Rather, there's a set of concentric global constraints within which you have to operate, starting from grammar, the conventions of your genre, and then to the constraints created by the work itself (e.g Chekov's gun, unity of opposites, etc.). The closest you can get to something akin to a checklist is to study a work which is similar to what you're trying to write, to see how the author handled its constraints (presumably the same ones you'll have to deal with).

>>23000805
>too apathetic to even download a book
wow